Favorite poems

This page will feature some of my favorite poems.

"The Aim Was Song", By Robert Frost

Before man came to blow it right
     The wind once blew itself untaught,
And did its loudest day and night
     In any rough place where it caught.
 
Man came to tell it what was wrong:
     It hadn’t found the place to blow;
It blew too hard—the aim was song.
     And listen—how it ought to go!
 
He took a little in his mouth,
     And held it long enough for north
To be converted into south,
     And then by measure blew it forth.
 
By measure. It was word and note,
     The wind the wind had meant to be—
A little through the lips and throat.
     The aim was song—the wind could see.

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"Redemption", a poem by George Herbert

Having been tenant long to a rich lord,

    Not thriving, I resolvèd to be bold,

    And make a suit unto him, to afford

A new small-rented lease, and cancel th’ old.

In heaven at his manor I him sought;

    They told me there that he was lately gone

    About some land, which he had dearly bought

Long since on earth, to take possession.

I straight returned, and knowing his great birth,

    Sought him accordingly in great resorts;

    In cities, theaters, gardens, parks, and courts;

At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth

         

    Of thieves and murderers, there I him espied,

    Who straight, Your suit is granted, said, and died.

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"The Rock" by T. S. Eliot (1934) 

O perpetual revolution of configured stars, 

O perpetual recurrence of determined seasons, 

O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying! 

The endless cycle of idea and action, 

Endless invention, endless experiment, 

Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness; 

Knowledge of speech, but not of silence; 

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of The Word. 

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance, 

All our ignorance brings us nearer to death, 

But nearness to death, no nearer to God. 

Where is the Life we have lost in living? 

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? 

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? 

The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries 

Brings us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.

... 

The Church must be forever building, for it is forever decaying

within and attacked from without;

For this is the law of life; and you must remember that while

there is time of prosperity

The people will neglect the Temple, and in time of adversity

they will decry it.

What life have you if you have not life together?

There is no life that is not in community,

And no community not lived in praise of God.

Even the anchorite who meditates alone,

For whom the days and nights repeat the praise of God,

Prays for the Church, the Body of Christ incarnate.

And now you live dispersed on ribbon roads.

And no man knows or cares who is his neighbour

Unless his neighbour makes too much disturbance,

But all dash to and fro in motor cars,

Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere.

Nor does the family even move about together.

But every son would have his motorcycle,

And daughters ride away on casual pillions.

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"Church Monuments", by George Herbert

(Reflections upon walking through a church graveyard.)

While that my soul repairs to her devotion,

Here I intomb my flesh, that it betimes

May take acquaintance of this heap of dust;

To which the blast of death's incessant motion,

Fed with the exhalation of our crimes,

Drives all at last. Therefore I gladly trust

My body to this school, that it may learn

To spell his elements, and find his birth

Written in dusty heraldry and lines ;

Which dissolution sure doth best discern,

Comparing dust with dust, and earth with earth.

These laugh at jet, and marble put for signs,

To sever the good fellowship of dust,

And spoil the meeting. What shall point out them,

When they shall bow, and kneel, and fall down flat

To kiss those heaps, which now they have in trust?

Dear flesh, while I do pray, learn here thy stem

And true descent: that when thou shalt grow fat,

And wanton in thy cravings, thou mayst know,

That flesh is but the glass, which holds the dust

That measures all our time; which also shall

Be crumbled into dust. Mark, here below,

How tame these ashes are, how free from lust,

That thou mayst fit thyself against thy fall.

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"I Am a Little World Made Cunningly"

by John Donne (1572-1631)

I am a little world made cunningly
Of elements and an angelic sprite, 
But black sin hath betray’d to endless night 
My world’s both parts, and oh both parts must die. 
You which beyond that heaven which was most high 
Have found new spheres, and of new lands can write, 
Pour new seas in mine eyes, that so I might 
Drown my world with my weeping earnestly,
Or wash it, if it must be drown’d no more.
But oh it must be burnt; alas the fire
Of lust and envy have burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler; let their flames retire,
And burn me O Lord, with a fiery zeal
Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heal.

 

"This Is My Play's Last Scene"

(Holy Sonnet 6) by John Donne  

 

This is my play's last scene; here heavens appoint

My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race

Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace;

My span's last inch, my minute's latest point;

And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint

My body and soul, and I shall sleep a space;

But my ever-waking part shall see that face,

Whose fear already shakes my every joint.

Then, as my soul to heaven her first seat takes flight,

And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,

So fall my sins, that all may have their right,

To where they're bred and would press me to hell.

Impute me righteous, thus purged of evil,

For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.