Greatest Poets ever - Post 'em here

[Knight of Cydonia]

let me start this thread with a poet by Percy Shelley


The Masque of Anarchy




As I lay asleep in Italy
There came a voice from over the Sea,
And with great power it forth led me
To walk in the visions of Poesy.



I met Murder on the way -
He had a mask like Castlereagh (http://www.historyhome.co.uk/c-eight/people/castlerea.htm) -
Very smooth he looked, yet grim;
Seven blood-hounds followed him:



All were fat; and well they might
Be in admirable plight,
For one by one, and two by two,
He tossed them human hearts to chew
Which from his wide cloak he drew.



Next cam Fraud, and he had on,
Like Eldon (http://www.historyhome.co.uk/c-eight/l-pool/assessel.htm), an ermined gown;
His big tears, for he wept well (http://www.historyhome.co.uk/peel/people/eldon.htm),
Turned to mill-stones as they fell.



And the little children, who
Round his feet played to and fro,
Thinking every tear a gem,
Had their brains knocked out by them.



Clothed with the Bible, as with light,
And the shadows of the night,
Like Sidmouth (http://www.historyhome.co.uk/pms/addingto.htm), next, Hypocrisy
On a crocodile rode by.



And many more Destructions played
In this ghastly masquerade,
All disguised, even to the eyes,
Like Bishops, lawyers, peers, or spies.



Last came Anarchy: he rode
On a white horse, splashed with blood;
He was pale even to the lips,
Like Death in the Apocalypse.



And he wore a kingly crown;
And in his grasp a sceptre shone;
On his brow this mark I saw -
'I AM GOD, AND KING, AND LAW!"



With a pace stately and fast,
Over English land he passed,
Trampling to a mire of blood
The adoring multitude.



And a mighty troop around,
With their trampling shook the ground,
Waving each a bloody sword,
For the service of their Lord.



And with glorious triumph, they
Rode through England proud and gay,
Drunk as with intoxication
Of the wine of desolation.



O'er fields and towns, from sea to sea,
Passed the Pageant swift and free,
Tearing up, and trampling down;
Till they came to London town.



And each dweller, panic-stricken,
Felt his heart with terror sicken
Hearing the tempestuous cry
Of the triumph of Anarchy.



For with pomp to meet him came,
Clothed in arms like blood and flame,
The hired murderers, who did sing
'Thou are God, and Law, and King.'



We have waited, weak and lone
For thy coming, Mighty One!
Our purses are empty, our swords are cold.
Give us glory, and blood, and gold.'



Lawyers and priests, a motley crowd,
To the earth their pale brows bowed,
Like a bad prayer not over loud,
Whispering - 'Thou art Law and God.' -



Then all cried with one accord,
'Thou art King, and God, and Lord;
Anarchy, to thee we bow,
Be thy name made holy now!'



And Anarchy, the skeleton,
Bowed and grinned to every one,
As well as if his education
Had cost ten millions to the nation.



For he knew the Palaces
Of our Kings were rightly his;
His the sceptre, crown, and globe,
And the gold-inwoven in robe.



So he sent his slaves before
To seize upon the Bank with Tower,
And was proceeding with intent
To meet his pensioned Parliament



When one fled past, a manic maid,
And her name was Hope, she said:
But she looked more like Despair,
And she cried out in the air:



'My father Time is weak and gray
With waiting for a better day;
See how idiot-like he stands,
Fumbling with his palsied hands!'



'He has had child after child,
And the dust of death is piled
Over every one but me -
Misery, oh, Misery!'



Then she lay down in the street,
Right before the horses' feet,
Expecting, with a patient eye,
Murder, Fraud, and Anarchy



When between her and her foes
A mist, a light, and image rose,
Small at first, and weak, and frail
Like the vapour of a vale:



Till as clouds grow on the blast,
Like tower-crowned giants striding fast,
And glare with lightnings as they fly,
And speak in thunder to the sky,



It grew - a Shape arrayed in mail
Brighter than the viper's scale,
And upborne on wings whose grain
Was the light of sunny rain.



On its helm, seen far away,
A planet, like the Morning's, lay;
And those plumes its light rained through
Like a shower of crimson dew



With a step as soft as wind it passed
O'er the heads of men - so fast
That they knew the presence there,
And looked, - but all was empty air.



As flowers beneath May's footstep waken,
As stars from Night's loose hair are shaken,
As waves arise when loud winds call,
Thoughts sprung where'er that step did fall.



And the prostrate multitude
Looked - and ankle-deep in blood,
Hope, that maiden most serene,
Was walking with a quiet mien:



And Anarchy, the ghastly birth,
Lay dead earth upon the earth;
The Horse of Death tameless as wind
Fled, and with his hoofs did grind
To dust the murderers thronged behind.



A rushing light of clouds and splendour,
A sense awakening and yet tender
Was heard and felt - and at its close
These words of joy and fear arose



As if their own indignant Earth
Which gave the sons of England birth
Had felt their blood upon her brow,
And shuddering with a mother's throe



Had turned every drop of blood
By which her face had been bedewed
To and accent unwithstood, -
As if her heart had cried aloud:



'Men of England, heirs of Glory,
Heroes of unwritten story,
Nurslings of one mighty Mother,
Hopes of her, and one another;'



'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many - they are few.'



'What is Freedom? - ye can tell
That which is slavery is, too well -
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.'



''Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants' use to dwell,'



'So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.'



''Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak, -
They are dying whilst I speak.'



''Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;'



''Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More than e'er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.'



'Paper coin - that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something of the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.'



''Tis to be slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.'



'And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
'Tis to see the Tyrant's crew
Rise over your wives and you -
Blood is on the grass like dew.'



'Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood - and wrong for wrong -
Do thus when ye are strong.'



'Birds find rest, in narrow nest
When weary of their winged quest;
Bets find fare, in woody lair
When storm and snow are in the air.'



'Asses, swine, have litter spread
And with fitting food are fed;
All things have a home but one -
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!'



'This is Slavery - savage men,
Or wild beasts within a den
Would endure not as ye do -
But such ills have never knew.'



'What are thou Freedom? O! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand - tyrants would flee
Like a dream's dim imagery:'



'Thou art not, as imposters say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.'



'For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.'



'Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude -
No - in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.'



'To rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victum, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.'



'Thou are Justice - ne-er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England - thou
Sheld'st alike the high and low.'



'Thou art Wisdom - Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.'



'Thou art Peace - never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.'



'What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood?
It availed, Oh, Liberty,
To dim, but not extinguish thee.'



'Thou art Love - the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,'



'Or turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy beloved sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud - whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.'



'Science, Poetry, and Thought
Are thy lamps; they make the lot
Of the dwellers in a cot
So serene, they curse it not.'



'Spirit, Patience, Gentleness,
All that can adorn and bless
Art thou - let deeds, not words, express
Thine exeeding loveliness.'



'Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of Engligh ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.'



'Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.'



'From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan
For others' misery or their own,'



'From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old
Groan for pain, and weep for cold -



'From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares -'



'Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around'



'Those prison halls of wealth and fashion,
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail
As must make their brethren pale -'



'Ye who suffer woes untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold -'



'Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free -'



'Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targets let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.'



'Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.'



'Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses' heels.'



'Let the fixed bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.'



'Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.'



Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,



'And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armed steeds
Pass a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.'



'Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute,'



'On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Slash the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.'



'And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, -
What they like, that let them do.'



'With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.'



'Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.'



'Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.'



'And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.'



'And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.'



'And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -'



'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'

[Mujer Libre]

Great idea- I was just thinking about getting hold of some Shelley.

Here is some Robert Browning, about the hypocrisy of the church.


Vanity, saith the preacher, vanity!
Draw round my bed: is Anselm keeping back?
Nephews -- sons mine -- ah God, I know not! Well --
She, men would have to be your mother once,
Old Gandolf envied me, so fair she was!
What's done is done, and she is dead beside,
Dead long ago, and I am Bishop since,
And as she died so must we die ourselves,
And thence ye may perceive the world's a dream.
Life, how and what is it? As here I lie
In this state-chamber, dying by degrees,
Hours and long hours in the dead night, I ask
"Do I live, am I dead?" Peace, peace seems all.
Saint Praxed's ever was the church for peace;
And so, about this tomb of mine. I fought
With tooth and nail to save my niche, ye know:
-- Old Gandolf cozened me, despite my care;
Shrewd was that snatch from out the corner South
He graced his carrion with, God curse the same!
Yet still my niche is not so cramped but thence
One sees the pulpit o' the epistle-side,
And somewhat of the choir, those silent seats,
And up into the very dome where live
The angels, and a sunbeam's sure to lurk:
And I shall fill my slab of basalt there,
And 'neath my tabernacle take my rest,
With those nine columns round me, two and two,
The odd one at my feet where Anselm stands:
Peach-blossom marble all, the rare, the ripe
As fresh poured red wine of a mighty pulse
-- Old Gandolf with his paltry onion-stone,
Put me where I may look at him! True peach,
Rosy and flawless: how I earned the prize!
Draw close: that conflagration of my church
-- What then? So much was saved if aught were missed!
My sons, ye would not be my death? Go dig
The white-grape vineyard where the oil-press stood,
Drop water gently till the surface sink,
And if ye find -- Ah God, I know not, I! --
Bedded in store of rotten fig-leaves soft,
And corded up in a tight olive-frail,
Some lump, ah God, of lapis lazuli,
Big as a Jew's head cut off at the nape,
Blue as a vein o'er the Madonna's breast
Sons, all have I bequeathed you, villas, all,
That brave Frascati villa with its bath,
So, let the blue lump poise between my knees,
Like God the Father's globe on both his hands
Ye worship in the Jesu Church so gay,
For Gandolf shall not choose but see and burst!
Swift as a weaver's shuttle fleet our years:
Man goeth to the grave, and where is he?
Did I say basalt for my slab, sons? Black --
'Twas ever antique-black I meant! How else
Shall ye contrast my frieze to come beneath?
The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me.
Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance
Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,
The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,
Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan
Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,
And Moses with the tables -- but I know
Ye mark me not! What do they whisper thee,
Child of my bowels, Anselm? Ah, ye hope
To revel down my villas while I gasp
Bricked o'er with beggar's mouldy travertine
Which Gandolf from his tomb-top chuckles at!
Nay, boys, ye love me -- all of jasper, then!
'Tis jasper ye stand pledged to, lest I grieve.
My bath must needs be left behind, alas!
One block, pure green as a pistachio-nut,
There's plenty jasper somewhere in the world --
And have I not Saint Praxed's ear to pray
Horses for ye, and brown Greek manuscripts,
And mistresses with great smooth marbly limbs?
-- That's if ye carve my epitaph aright,
Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,
No gaudy ware like Gandolf's second line --
Tully, my masters? Ulpian serves his need!
And then how I shall lie through centuries,
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long,
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good strong thick stupefying incense-smoke!
For as I lie here, hours of the dead night,
Dying in state and by such slow degrees,
I fold my arms as if they clasped a crook,
And stretch my feet forth straight as stone can point,
And let the bedclothes, for a mortcloth, drop
Into great laps and folds of sculptor's work:
And as yon tapers dwindle, and strange thoughts
Grow, with a certain humming in my ears,
About the life before I lived this life,
And this life too, popes, cardinals and priests,
Saint Praxed at his sermon on the mount,
Your tall pale mother with her talking eyes,
And new-found agate urns as fresh as day,
And marble's language, Latin pure, discreet,
-- Aha, ELUCESCEBAT quoth our friend?
No Tully, said I, Ulpian at the best!
Evil and brief hath been my pilgrimage.
All lapis, all, sons! Else I give the Pope
My villas! Will ye ever eat my heart?
Ever your eyes were as a lizard's quick,
They glitter like your mother's for my soul,
Or ye would heighten my impoverished frieze,
Piece out its starved design, and fill my vase
With grapes, and add a visor and a Term,
And to the tripod ye would tie a lynx
That in his struggle throws the thyrsus down,
To comfort me on my entablature
Whereon I am to lie till I must ask
"Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there!
For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude
To death -- ye wish it -- God, ye wish it! Stone --
Gritstone, a crumble! Clammy squares which sweat
As if the corpse they keep were oozing through --
And no more lapis to delight the world!
Well, go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there,
But in a row: and, going, turn your backs
-- Ay, like departing altar-ministrants,
And leave me in my church, the church for peace,
That I may watch at leisure if he leers --
Old Gandolf -- at me, from his onion-stone,
As still he envied me, so fair she was!

[Knight of Cydonia]

another brilliant work of Percy Shelley




Mutability




We are the clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!--yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost forever:




Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.




We rest.--A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise.--One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond foe, or cast our cares away:




It is the same!--For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.

[Angry Young Man]

OMFG KoC I think I am in fact in love with you!!! Shelley is the undeniable mutt's ! I did my coursework on this poem.
One of my faves is "A Sonnet: England in 1819". The opening lines are

"An old, mad, blind, despised and dying king,
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who neither see,
Nor feel, nor know"

I loves Shelley.
I wager a large amount of these will be from the romantic era.

[RedAnarchist]

Shelley's works are brilliant. Its a shame that he died so young - who knows what poems he could have written if he had lived longer?

[Knight of Cydonia]

please,post a poet or poem everyone:crying:

[OrientalHado]

The Schoolboy- William Blake.

I love to rise in a summer morn
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the skylark sings with me.
Oh, what sweet company!

But to go to school in a summer morn,
Oh! it drives all joy away;
Under a cruel eye outworn
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.

Ah! then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour;
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learning's bower,
Worn through with the dreary shower.

How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring?

O, father and mother, if buds are nipped
And blossoms blown away,
And if the tender plants are stripped
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care's dismay,

How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear? I love to rise in a summer morn
When the birds sing on every tree;
The distant huntsman winds his horn,
And the skylark sings with me.
Oh, what sweet company!

But to go to school in a summer morn,
Oh! it drives all joy away;
Under a cruel eye outworn
The little ones spend the day
In sighing and dismay.

Ah! then at times I drooping sit,
And spend many an anxious hour;
Nor in my book can I take delight,
Nor sit in learning's bower,
Worn through with the dreary shower.

How can the bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?
How can a child, when fears annoy,
But droop his tender wing,
And forget his youthful spring?

O, father and mother, if buds are nipped
And blossoms blown away,
And if the tender plants are stripped
Of their joy in the springing day,
By sorrow and care's dismay,

How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?
Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear?

[Hit The North]

From one of the 20th century's greatest poets:

I'll Explain some Things


You’ll ask, Where are the lilacs?
And the philosophy dreamy with poppies?
And the rain which kept beating out
Your words, filling them
With water-specks and birds?


I’m going to tell you everything that happened to me.
I lived in a neighborhood
In Madrid with church bells
And clock towers and trees.


From there you could see
The dry face of Castille
Like a sea of leather
My house was called
“The house with the flowers” because around it
Geraniums exploded. It was
A beautiful house
With dogs and kids.


Raúl, do you remember?
Frederico, do you still remember
Under the ground?
Do you remember my house with the balconies
Where the June light soaked your mouth with
The taste of flowers?
Brother! Brother!
The market place of Arguelles, my neighborhood
With its statue like a pale inkwell among
The fish stalls.
It was all
Loud voices, salty commerce,
A deep rumble
Of feet and hands filled the streets,
Meters and liters,
The sharp essence of life,
Fish stacked up,
The texture of roofs in the cold sun in which
The weather-vane grows tired.
Fine, crazily carved ivory of potatoes
Lines of tomatoes to the sea.


Then one morning flames
Came out of the ground
Devouring human beings.
From then on fire,
Gunpowder from then on,
From then on blood.
Bandits with airplanes and Moorish troops
Bandits with gold rings and duchesses
Bandits with black monks giving their blessing
Came across the sky to kill children
And through the streets, the blood of children
Ran simply, like children’s blood does.


Jackals that a jackal would reject
Stones that a dry thistle would bite and spit out
Vipers that vipers would hate!


I have seen the blood
Of Spain rise up against you
To drown you in a single wave
Of pride and knives!


Generals
Traitors
Look at my dead home
Look at broken Spain –
But from each dead house
Burning metal shoots out
Instead of flowers.
From every shell-hole in Spain
Spain will rise.
From every dead child a rifle with
Eyes will rise.
From every crime bullets will be born
Which will one day find a place
In your hearts.


You ask “Why doesn’t your poetry
Speak to us of dreams and leaves
Of the great volcanoes of your native land?”


Come
See the blood along the streets
Come see
The blood along the streets
Come see the blood
Along the Streets!



- Pablo Neruda

[Random Precision]

Excellent choice, Citizen Zero. Neruda's Spanish Civil War poems are among his best. Here's something from his fellow Latino poet, Cesar Vallejo, on the same conflict:

Spain, Take this Cup from Me

III

He used to write with his big finger in the air:
"Long live all combanions! Pedro Rojas,"
from Miranda de Ebro, father and man
husband and man, railroad-worker and man,
father and more man, Pedro and his two deaths.

Wind paper, he was killed: pass on!
Flesh pen, he was killed: pass on!
Advise all combanions quick!

Stick on which they have hanged his log,
he was killed;
he was killed at the base of his big finger!
They have killed, in one blow, Pedro, Rojas!

Long live all all combanions
written at the head of his air!
Let them live with this buzzard b in Pedro's
and in Rojas's
and in the hero and in the martyr's guts!

Searching him, dead, they surprised
in his body a great body, for
the soul of the world,
and in his jacket a dead spoon.

Pedro too used to eat
among the creatures of his flesh, to clean up, to paint
the table and live sweetly
as a representative of everyone.
And this spoon was in his jacket
awake or else when he slept, always
dead alive spoon, this one and its symbols.
Advise all combanions quick!
Long live all combanions at the base of this spoon forever!

He was killed, they forced him to die,
Pedro, Rojas, the worker, the man, the one
who was born a wee baby, looking at the sky,
and who afterward grew up, blushed
and fought with his cells, his nos, his yets, his hungers, his pieces.

He was killed softly
in his wife's hair, Juana Vasquez by name
at the hour of fire, in the year of the gunshot,
and when he was already close to everything.

Pedro Rojas thus, after being dead,
got up, kissed his blood-smeared casket,
wept for Spain
and again wrote with his finger in the air:
"Long live all combanions! Pedro Rojas."
His corpse was full of world.

[Random Precision]

And some William Blake, attacking both capitalism and religion:

The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Innocence

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry ‘ 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!’
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curl'd like a lamb’s back, was shav'd: so I said
‘Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.’

And so he was quiet, and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!—
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them lock'd up in coffins of black.

And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open'd the coffins & set them all free;
Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run
And wash in a river, and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind;
And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,
He’d have God for his father, & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.


The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Experience

A little black thing among the snow:
Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe!
Where are thy father & mother? say?
They are both gone up to the church to pray.

Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smil'd among the winters snow:
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

And because I am happy & dance & sing,
They think they have done me no injury:
And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King,
Who make up a heaven of our misery.

[Led Zeppelin]

I had not heard of Shelley before, however I came accross a quote by him in the book The Prophet Unarmed (a biography of Trotsky) which is beautiful!

Here it is:

The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains
Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man
Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless,
Exempt from awe, worship, degree, the king
Over himself; just, gentle, wise; but man
Passionless? - no, yet free from guilt or pain.

[Marsella]

The Dragon. Abdul-Wahab al-Bayyati

A dictator, hiding behind a nihilist's mask,
has killed and killed and killed,
pillaged and wasted,
but is afraid, he claims,
to kill a sparrow.
His smiling picture is everywhere:
in the coffeehouse, in the brothel,
in the nightclub, and the marketplace.
Satan used to be an original,
now he is just the dictator's shadow.
The dictator has banned the solar calendar,
abolished Neruda, Marquez, and Amado,
abolished the Constitution;
he's given his name to all the squares, the open spaces,
the rivers,
and all the jails in his blighted homeland.
He's burned the last soothsayer
who failed to kneel before the idol.
He's doled out death as a gift or a pledge.
His watchdogs have corrupted the land,
stolen the people's food,
raped the Muses,
raped the widows of the men who died under torture,
raped the daughters and widows of his soldiers
who lost the war,
from which, like rabbits in clover fields,
they had run away,
leaving behind corpses of workers and peasants,
writers and artists,
twenty-year-old children,
carpenters and ironsmiths,
hungry and burned under the autumn sky,
all forcibly led to slaughter,
killed by invaders, alien and homegrown.
The dictator hides his disgraced face in the mud.
Now he is having a taste of his own medicine,
and the pillars of deception have collapsed,
his picture is now underfoot,
trampled by history's worn shoes.
The deposed dictator is executed in exile,
another monster is crowned in the hapless homeland.
The hourglass restarts,
counting the breaths of the new dictator,
lurking everywhere,
in the coffeehouse, the brothel,
in the nightclub, and the marketplace.

From the Caribbean to China's Great Wall,
the dictator-dragon is being cloned.
When will you do it, St George?

[EwokUtopia]

Jalal ud-Din Rumi:

This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness
Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence:
This place made from our love for that emptiness!
Yet somehow comes emptiness,
this existence goes.
Praise to that happening, over and over!
For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.
Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,
that work is over.
Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope,
free of mountainous wanting.
The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw
blown off into emptiness.
These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning:
Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:
Words and what they try to say swept
out the window, down the slant of the roof.

[Sanjee]

Despite the fact that Rumi's poems lose most of their glance and glittering when they're translated into another language, somehow they still seem to manage to maintain some of it's beauty and magic. But of course only a person who can read his poems in persian, can fully experience the beauty of it.

[Devrim]

Turkish Stalinist poetry, not bad;

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
Comrades, if I don't live to see the day
- I mean,if I die before freedom comes -
take me away
and bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia.
The worker Osman whom Hassan Bey ordered shot
can lie on one side of me, and on the other side
the martyr Aysha, who gave birth in the rye
and died inside of forty days.
Tractors and songs can pass below the cemetery -
in the dawn light, new people, the smell of burnt gasoline,
fields held in common, water in canals,
no drought or fear of the police.
Of course, we won't hear those songs:
the dead lie stretched out underground
and rot like black branches,
deaf, dumb, and blind under the earth.
But, I sang those songs
before they were written,
I smelled the burnt gasoline
before the blueprints for the tractors were drawn.
As for my neighbors,
the worker Osman and the martyr Aysha,
they felt the great longing while alive,
maybe without even knowing it.
Comrades, if I die before that day, I mean
- and it's looking more and more likely -
bury me in a village cemetery in Anatolia,
and if there's one handy,
a plane tree could stand at my head,
I wouldn't need a stone or anything.
Nazim Hikmet, 27 April 1953
Moscow, Barviha Hospital

[Vanguard1917]

Turkish Stalinist poetry

Lol I'm not sure if 'Stalinist poetry' is a good way to describe his work. Anyway, here's another one by Nazim:


Optimistic Man

as a child he never plucked the wings off flies
he didn't tie tin cans to cats' tails
or lock beetles in matchboxes
or stomp anthills
he grew up
and all those things were done to him
I was at his bedside when he died
he said read me a poem
about the sun and the sea
about nuclear reactors and satellites
about the greatness of humanity

[Devrim]

Lol I'm not sure if 'Stalinist poetry' is a good way to describe his work.
Maybe that was phrased badly, and by a Turkish Stalinist would have been better.
I only posted it to contrast it with that mystical Rumi stuff. I hate all of that sort of religious nonsense.
Devrim

[Leo]

Nazım Hikmet has some good poems, but his style is more or less a Mayakovsky imitation, although a good one and after all he was a Stalinist, although he denounced Stalin during Khrushchev's destalinization period... There are more succesful Turkish poets than he is I think. Anyway, here's two of his not well known poems:


Stalin

From rock, bronze, plaster and paper, from two centimeters to seven meters
His pictures from rock, bronze, plaster and paper; in every square of the city
His shadow from rock, bronze, plaster and paper; on our trees in every park
His moustache from rock, bronze, plaster and paper; in our soup
We were in front of his eyes from rock, bronze, plaster and paper; in our own beds
He vanished one morning
His boots vanished from the squares,
his shadow from our trees
his moustache from our soup
his eyes from our beds
And all the oppression caused by rock, bronze, plaster and paper vanished from our chests.
On a Journey

We open the doors,
we close the doors,
we go through the doors,
and at the end of the dear journey
no city,
no harbor,
the train goes of the rails,
the ship sinks,
the plane falls
on unrelenting ice.
If it was in my hands to
take this journey once more or not
I would take it again

[Angry Young Man]

Why does everyone cut and paste the whole poem? Why not just link it, with the actual URL. There's literature network, which is pretty expansive, and there are fan sites. So I'll be controversial: recommend poems and if you like, find it. I hate reading poetry off a screen. Hurty eyes.
El Pueblo/The People by Pablo Neruda
The Morning Song by Sylvia Plath (actually, get the whole Ariel collection)
A Sonnet: England in 1819 by P.B. Shelley
Anthem for Doomed Youth Wilfred Owen
The General Siegfried Sassoon

Also if somebody can find me a Civil War song about a soldier along the lines of "He has no insignia, but on his cap and breast he has a crossed Hammer and a Sickle"

[Jack Ruby]

Lord Byron
November, 1820



When a man hath no freedom to fight for at home,
Let him combat for that of his neighbours;
Let him think of the glories of Greece and of Rome,
And get knock'd on the head for his labours,

To do good to mankind is the chivalrous plan,
And is always as nobly requited;
Then battle for freedom wherever you can, And, if not shot or hang'd, you'll get knighted.

[Leo]

Why does everyone cut and paste the whole poem?

I actually translated the ones I posted.

[Knight of Cydonia]

i got some of Pablo Neruda here:


Drunk as Drunk

Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.EDIT : anyway everyone...i've found some missing stanza from Percy Shelley's The Masquerade of Anarchy :

From the cities where from caves,
Like the dead from putrid graves,
Troops of starvelings gliding come,
Living Tenants of a tomb.

[Miss Mindfuck.]

Mad Girl's Love Song

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Possibly my favorite Sylvia Plath poem.

[Vanguard1917]

Maybe that was phrased badly, and by a Turkish Stalinist would have been better.


Yeah, i know what you mean; he was a supporter of Stalin. But i think calling his work, which is pretty good, 'Stalinist poetry' is a bit unfair - though i know that's not what you meant.

I hear that he's being praised in Turkey nowadays as some kind of 'great patriotic poet'. Apparently, there's even talk of bringing his bones over from Moscow to re-bury them Turkey. This is the man which the Turkish ruling class once denounced as a traitor, imprisoned and exiled. Strange how things turn out...