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Favorite Poems/Classic Stories


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Post Wed Dec 22, 2010 7:39 am

Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

Just thought that there are a lot of people who have some great recommendations for classic poems, books, short stories etc:

Post them here!
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Post Wed Dec 22, 2010 7:39 am

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

"Sea-Fever"

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

By John Masefield (1878-1967).
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Post Wed Dec 22, 2010 7:41 am

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

"We are Seven" - Wordsworth
A Simple Child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?

I met a little cottage Girl:
She was eight years old, she said;
Her hair was thick with many a curl
That clustered round her head.

She had a rustic, woodland air,
And she was wildly clad:
Her eyes were fair, and very fair;
├óÔé¼ÔÇØHer beauty made me glad.

├óÔé¼╦£Sisters and brothers, little Maid,
How many may you be?├óÔé¼Ôäó
├óÔé¼╦£How many? Seven in all,├óÔé¼Ôäó she said,
And wondering looked at me.

├óÔé¼╦£And where are they? I pray you tell.├óÔé¼Ôäó
She answered, ├óÔé¼╦£Seven are we;
And two of us at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea.

├óÔé¼╦£Two of us in the church-yard lie,
My sister and my brother;
And, in the church-yard cottage, I
Dwell near them with my mother.├óÔé¼Ôäó

├óÔé¼╦£You say that two at Conway dwell,
And two are gone to sea,
Yet ye are seven!├óÔé¼ÔÇØI pray you tell,
Sweet Maid, how this may be.├óÔé¼Ôäó

Then did the little Maid reply,
├óÔé¼╦£Seven boys and girls are we;
Two of us in the church-yard lie,
Beneath the church-yard tree.├óÔé¼Ôäó

├óÔé¼╦£You run above, my little Maid,
Your limbs they are alive;
If two are in the church-yard laid,
Then ye are only five.├óÔé¼Ôäó

├óÔé¼╦£Their graves are green, they may be seen,├óÔé¼Ôäó
The little Maid replied,
├óÔé¼╦£Twelve steps or more from my mother├óÔé¼Ôäós door,
And they are side by side.

├óÔé¼╦£My stockings there I often knit,
My kerchief there I hem;
And there upon the ground I sit,
And sing a song to them.

├óÔé¼╦£And often after sun-set, Sir,
When it is light and fair,
I take my little porringer,
And eat my supper there.

├óÔé¼╦£The first that died was sister Jane;
In bed she moaning lay,
Till God released her of her pain;
And then she went away.

├óÔé¼╦£So in the church-yard she was laid;
And, when the grass was dry,
Together round her grave we played,
My brother John and I

├óÔé¼╦£And when the ground was white with snow,
And I could run and slide,
My brother John was forced to go,
And he lies by her side.├óÔé¼Ôäó

├óÔé¼╦£How many are you, then,├óÔé¼Ôäó said I,
├óÔé¼╦£If they two are in heaven?├óÔé¼Ôäó
Quick was the little Maid├óÔé¼Ôäós reply,
├óÔé¼╦£O Master! we are seven.├óÔé¼Ôäó

├óÔé¼╦£But they are dead; those two are dead!
Their spirits are in heaven!├óÔé¼Ôäó
├óÔé¼ÔäóTwas throwing words away; for still
The little Maid would have her will,
And said, ├óÔé¼╦£Nay, we are seven!├óÔé¼Ôäó
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Post Wed Dec 22, 2010 7:43 am

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

"I have a Rendezvous with death" - Seegar

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air├óÔé¼ÔÇØ
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath├óÔé¼ÔÇØ
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.
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Post Wed Dec 22, 2010 7:43 am

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

Camouflaging the Chimera by Yusef Komunyakaa

We tied branches to our helmets.
We painted our faces & rifles
with mud from a riverbank,

blades of grass hung from the pockets
of our tiger suits. We wove
ourselves into the terrain,
content to be a hummingbird's target.

We hugged bamboo & leaned
against a breeze off the river,
slow-dragging with ghosts

from Saigon to Bangkok,
with women left in doorways
reaching in from America.
We aimed at dark-hearted songbirds.

In our way station of shadows
rock apes tried to blow our cover
throwing stones at the sunset. Chameleons

crawled our spines, changing from day
to night: green to gold,
gold to black. But we waited
till the moon touched metal,

till something almost broke
inside us. VC struggled
with the hillside, like black silk

wrestling iron through grass.
We weren't there. The river ran
through our bones. Small animals took refuge
against our bodies; we held our breath,

ready to spring the L-shaped
ambush, as a world revolved
under each man's eyelid.

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Post Wed Dec 22, 2010 7:51 am

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

"Personal Helicon" by Seamus Heaney


As a child, they could not keep me from wells
And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.
I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells
Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.


One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.
I savoured the rich crash when a bucket
Plummeted down at the end of a rope.
So deep you saw no reflection in it.


A shallow one under a dry stone ditch
Fructified like any aquarium.
When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch
A white face hovered over the bottom.


Others had echoes, gave back your own call
With a clean new music in it. And one
Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall
Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.


Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme
To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.

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Post Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:21 am

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

, Samuel T. Coleridge

Tyger
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?


William Blake, 1794

Alone
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Edgar Allen Poe, 1809├óÔé¼ÔÇØ1849

We Wear the Mask
WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,├óÔé¼ÔÇØ
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
To thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!


Paul Laurence Dunbar, 1872-1906
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Post Wed Dec 22, 2010 8:33 am

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

There once was a man from Nantucket,
Whose cock was so long he could suck it.
He said with a grin
As he wiped off his chin,
"If my ear were a spaceport I would kriff it!"

There was a fat lady of China
Who'd a really enormous vagina,
And when she was dead
They painted it red,
And used it for docking a liner.

The tune that she played was just fair
But with legs sticking up in the air,
The harmonica's stuck
In the place made to kriff,
And entangled in long pubic hair.

A pious old women named Tweak
Had taught her vagina to speak.
It was frequently liable
To quote from the Bible,
But when kriff - not even a squeak!

There once was a man from Old Mass,
Whose balls were made out of brass.
When they clanged together
They played "Stormy Weather,"
And lightning shot out of his choobies.

http://www.poetry-nut.com/genitals.htm
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Post Wed Dec 22, 2010 2:04 pm

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me, with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me, on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me, my treason engendered by traitors beyond me, my life when they murder by means of my hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white waves call me to folly and the desert calls me to doom and the beggar refuses my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton, would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with one face, a thing, and against all those who would dissipate my entirety, would blow me like thistledown hither and thither or hither and thither like water held in the hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.


Louis Macneice
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Post Wed Dec 22, 2010 3:30 pm

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

"Anna, Luoja, suo, Jumala, anna onni ollaksemme,
hyvin ain' eleäksemme, kunnialla kuollaksemme
suloisessa Suomenmaassa, kaunihissa Karjalassa!

Varjele, vakainen Luoja, kaitse, kaunoinen Jumala,
miesten mielijuohtehista, akkojen ajatuksista!
Kaa'a maalliset katehet, ve'elliset velhot voita!
Ole puolla poikiesi, aina lastesi apuna,
aina y├â┬Âllisn├â┬ñ tukena, p├â┬ñiv├â┬ñllisn├â┬ñ vartijana,
vihoin päivän paistamatta, vihoin kuun kumottamatta,
vihoin tuulen tuulematta, vihoin saamatta satehen,
pakkasen palelematta, kovan ilman koskematta!
Aita rautainen rakenna, kivilinna liitättele
ympäri minun eloni, kahen puolen kansoani,
maasta saaen taivosehen, taivosesta maahan asti,
asukseni, ainokseni, tuekseni, turvakseni,
jottei liika liioin s├â┬Âisi, vastus viljalta vitaisi
sinä ilmoisna ikänä, kuuna kullan valkeana!"

"Grant, O Ukko, our Creator,
Grant to us, thy needful children,
Peace, and happiness, and plenty,
That our lives may be successful,
That our days may end in honor,
On the vales and hills of Suomi,
On the prairies of Wainola,
In the homes of Kalevala!

"Ukko, wise and good Creator,
Ukko, God of love and mercy,
Shelter and protect thy people
From the evil-minded heroes,
From the wiles of wicked women,
That our country's plagues may leave us,
That thy faithful tribes may prosper.
Be our friend and strong protector,
Be the helper of thy children,
In the night a roof above them,
In the day a shield around them,
That the sunshine may not vanish,
That the moonlight may not lessen,
That the killing frosts may leave them,
And destructive hail pass over.
Build a metal wall around us,
From the valleys to the heavens;
Build of stone a mighty fortress
On the borders of Wainola,
Where thy people live and labor,
As their dwelling-place forever,
Sure protection to thy people,
Where the wicked may not enter,
Nor the thieves break through and pilfer,
Never while the moonlight glistens,
And the Sun brings golden blessings
To the plains of Kalevala."


- The Kalevala

Post Wed Dec 22, 2010 11:55 pm

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!├óÔé¼ÔÇØAn ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime...
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,├óÔé¼ÔÇØ
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

-Wilfred Owen
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Post Thu Dec 23, 2010 12:01 am

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

Alfred Noyes' "The Highwayman"

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Post Thu Dec 23, 2010 12:09 am

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories



(By Janna Dougherty)
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Post Thu Dec 23, 2010 3:42 am

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

Boom, Boom; Boom, Boom;
Boom, Boom, Boom,
Boom, Boom; Boom, Boom;
Boom, Boom, Boom

- The German Guns By Baldrick.

Hear the words I sing,
War's a horrid thing,
So I sing sing sing...
...ding-a-ling-a-ling.

- Unnamed by Baldrick
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Post Thu Dec 23, 2010 6:03 am

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

I recommend the short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne: "The Minister's Black Veil". It's a really great read.
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Post Thu Dec 23, 2010 1:28 pm

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind,
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment,
Little souls who thirst for fight,
These men were born to drill and die.
The unexplained glory flies above them.
Great is the battle-god, great, and his kingdom--
A field where a thousand corpses lie.

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because your father tumbles in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Swift blazing flag of the regiment,
Eagle with crest of red and gold,
These men were born to drill and die.
Point for them the virtue of slaughter,
Make plain to them the excellence of killing
And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

Mother whose heart hung humble as a button
On the bright splendid shroud of your son,
Do not weep.
War is kind!


- Stephen Crane, "War is Kind". 1899
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Post Fri Dec 24, 2010 12:39 pm

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

- When I Have Fears That I May Cease to Be by John Keats
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Post Fri Dec 24, 2010 10:47 pm

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

I have remembered beauty in the night,
Against black silences I waked to see
A shower of sunlight over Italy
And green Ravello dreaming on her height;
I have remembered music in the dark,
The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach's,
And running water singing on the rocks
When once in English woods I heard a lark.
But all remembered beauty is no more
Than a vague prelude to the thought of you --
You are the rarest soul I ever knew,
Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;
My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,
And when I think of you, I am at rest.

Love Songs by Sara Teasdale
Last edited by Kaan on Fri Dec 24, 2010 10:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Fri Dec 24, 2010 10:48 pm

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

"The leaves were long, the grass was green,
The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,
And in the glade a light was seen
Of stars in shadow shimmering.
Tinuviel was dancing there
To music of a pipe unseen,
And light of stars was in her hair,
And in her raiment glimmering.

There Beren came from mountains cold.
And lost he wandered under leaves,
And where the Elven-river rolled
He walked alone and sorrowing.
He peered between the hemlock-leaves
And saw in wonder flowers of gold
Upon her mantle and her sleeves,
And her hair like shadow following.

Enchantment healed his weary feet
That over hills were doomed to roam;
And forth he hastened, strong and fleet,
And grasped at moonbeams glistening.
Through woven woods in Elvenhome
She lightly fled on dancing feet,
And left him lonely still to roam
In the silent forest listening.

He heard there oft the flying sound
Of feet as light as linden-leaves,
Or music welling underground,
In hidden hollows quavering.
Now withered lay the hemlock-sheaves,
And one by one with sighing sound
Whispering fell the beachen leaves
In wintry woodland wavering.

He sought her ever, wandering far
Where leaves of years were thickly strewn,
By light of moon and ray of star
In frosty heavens shivering.
Her mantle glinted in the moon,
As on a hill-top high and far
She danced, and at her feet was strewn
A mist of silver quivering.

When winter passed, she came again,
And her song released the sudden spring,
Like rising lark, and falling rain,
And melting water bubbling.
He saw the elven-flowers spring
About her feet, and healed again
He longed by her to dance and sing
Upon the grass untroubling.

Again she fled, but swift he came,
Tinuviel! Tinuviel!
He called her by her elvish name;
And there she halted listening.
One moment stood she, and a spell
His voice laid on her: Beren came,
And doom fell on Tinuviel
That in his arms lay glistening.

As Beren looked into her eyes
Within the shadows of her hair,
The trembling starlight of the skies
He saw there mirrored shimmering.
Tinuviel the elven-fair,
Immortal maiden elven-wise,
About him cast her shadowy hair
And arms like silver glimmering.

Long was the way that fate them bore,
O'er stony mountains cold and grey,
Through halls of iron and darkling door,
And woods of nightshade morrowless.
The Sundering Seas between them lay,
And yet at last they met once more,
And long ago they passed away
In the forest singing sorrowless."

Luthian Tinuviel, by J.R.R. Tolkien
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Post Fri Dec 24, 2010 10:52 pm

Re: Favorite Poems/Classic Stories

I also love the Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, but that's a little too long to post here. lol
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