/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19867215]

What is the most elegant and well-written poem you've ever read?

[Anonymous No.19867681]

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

[Anonymous No.19867759]

>>19867215
It's probably as basic bitch as it gets, but I've always absolutely loved Prufrock since high school. I usually read it aloud to myself too, for no reason in particular.

[Anonymous No.19867816]

Über allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh',
In allen Wipfeln
Spürest Du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vögelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur! Balde
Ruhest du auch.

(ﾉ´ з `)ノ

[Anonymous No.19868814]

>>19867759
It may be basic, but that doesn't mean it's not absolutely brilliant.

[Anonymous No.19868852]

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -
In Corners - till a Day
The Owner passed - identified -
And carried Me away -

And now We roam in Sovreign Woods -
And now We hunt the Doe -
And every time I speak for Him
The Mountains straight reply -

And do I smile, such cordial light
Opon the Valley glow -
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let it’s pleasure through -

And when at Night - Our good Day done -
I guard My Master’s Head -
’Tis better than the Eider Duck’s
Deep Pillow - to have shared -

To foe of His - I’m deadly foe -
None stir the second time -
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -
Or an emphatic Thumb -

Though I than He - may longer live
He longer must - than I -
For I have but the power to kill,
Without - the power to die -

[Anonymous No.19868859]

Who will go drive with Fergus now,
And pierce the deep wood's woven shade,
And dance upon the level shore?
Young man, lift up your russet brow,
And lift your tender eyelids, maid,
And brood on hopes and fear no more.

And no more turn aside and brood
Upon love's bitter mystery;
For Fergus rules the brazen cars,
And rules the shadows of the wood,
And the white breast of the dim sea
And all dishevelled wandering stars.

[Anonymous No.19868870]

[Anonymous No.19868877]

[Anonymous No.19868884]

[Anonymous No.19868894]

Very comfy and romantic

[Anonymous No.19868898]

Adam
Had 'em

[Anonymous No.19868902]

>>19867215
Nothing, thou elder brother even to Shade:
That hadst a being ere the world was made,
And well fixed, art alone of ending not afraid.

Ere Time and Place were, Time and Place were not,
When primitive Nothing Something straight begot;
Then all proceeded from the great united What.

Something, the general attribute of all,
Severed from thee, its sole original,
Into thy boundless self must undistinguished fall;

Yet Something did thy mighty power command,
And from fruitful Emptiness’s hand
Snatched men, beasts, birds, fire, air, and land.

Matter the wicked’st offspring of thy race,
By Form assisted, flew from thy embrace,
And rebel Light obscured thy reverend dusky face.

With Form and Matter, Time and Place did join;
Body, thy foe, with these did leagues combine
To spoil thy peaceful realm, and ruin all thy line;

But turncoat Time assists the foe in vain,
And bribed by thee, destroys their short-lived reign,
And to thy hungry womb drives back thy slaves again.

Though mysteries are barred from laic eyes,
And the divine alone with warrant pries
Into thy bosom, where truth in private lies,

Yet this of thee the wise may truly say,
Thou from the virtuous nothing dost delay,
And to be part with thee the wicked wisely pray.

Great Negative, how vainly would the wise
Inquire, define, distinguish, teach, devise,
Didst thou not stand to point their blind philosophies!

Is, or Is Not, the two great ends of Fate,
And True or False, the subject of debate,
That perfect or destroy the vast designs of state—

When they have racked the politician’s breast,
Within thy Bosom most securely rest,
And when reduced to thee, are least unsafe and best.

But Nothing, why does Something still permit
That sacred monarchs should at council sit
With persons highly thought at best for nothing fit,

While weighty Something modestly abstains
From princes’ coffers, and from statemen’s brains,
And Nothing there like stately Nothing reigns?

Nothing! who dwell’st with fools in grave disguise
For whom they reverend shapes and forms devise,
Lawn sleeves, and furs, and gowns, when they like thee look wise:

French truth, Dutch prowess, British policy,
Hibernian learning, Scotch civility,
Spaniards’ dispatch, Danes’ wit are mainly seen in thee.

The great man’s gratitude to his best friend,
Kings’ promises, whores’ vows—towards thee may bend,
Flow swiftly into thee, and in thee ever end.

[Anonymous No.19868953]

>>19867215

[Anonymous No.19869006]

[Anonymous No.19869026]

>>19868953
I know nothing about this guy but this screams that sort of corporate/globohomo political enfranchisement of punk culture of Britain in the 80s (i.e. Thatcher's Britain), not really too far off Ainsley Harriot thought obviously "more snotty"TM. It's embarassing on every level, of course, but I suppose that's the point of your post. (I understand humour, as you can see.)

[Anonymous No.19869210]

>>19867215
I think a lot of Mary Oliver's poems are elegant

[Anonymous No.19869221]

wow these poems are garbage

[Anonymous No.19869223]

>>19867681
midwit trash

[Anonymous No.19869225]

Tears on my sleeves
are more trustworthy than you are,
for they appear
whenever I am sad.

[Anonymous No.19869237]

>>19869221
Most poetry is.

[Anonymous No.19869249]

[Anonymous No.19869714]

Down the isle, Having a blast
For one final time, bride remembers the past
Before this whole wedding, she opened up wide
When first lover ever shot jizz deep inside
It would be a bother if groom knew this fact
That hymen thief other in her vaginal tract
The past is a ghost, slips the fingers like sand
What hurts you the most is she wanted that man
Pushing it in as it cut like a knife
Forever defiling a man's future wife
That nasty old memory rotting your mind
She lost her virginity all loving and kind
The first to undress her, the panties and brah
Who gently caressed her, moaning ah-ah-ah-AAAAAH!

[Anonymous No.19869809]

>>19867215
It's hard to say, there are so many good ones.
The Raven has got to be up there, the way the patterns of sound fit together, all the assonance and alliteration and rhythm.
Parts of La Infana Raso are pretty powerful, I wonder whether the feeling I get from it as a secular humanist (-ish, it's complicated) is the same feeling that religious people get from their respective scriptures sometimes.
Sekretaj Sonetoj is simultaneously beautiful aesthetically and genuinely erotic.
江城子 by 蘇軾 is honestly heartbreaking. (And no, you haven't read it if you've only read it in translation, form is an essential part of poetry.)

[Anonymous No.19869817]

>>19868870
How do you even read this fucking font? Are Germans retarded?

[Anonymous No.19869843]

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

[Anonymous No.19869864]

>>19869817
Since I can do what you cannot, I'm superior.

[Anonymous No.19869896]

>>19869817
I think it's just a matter of what you're used to. For me it's a little tricky to read German in it, but a language I'm fluent in is no great difficulty; if I read a whole book in it I'd probably come out the other side reading it much more easily.

[Anonymous No.19869899]

>>19869817
No, but clearly you are.

[Anonymous No.19870655]

O sweet and bitter monuments of pain,
Bitter to Christ who all the pain endured,
But sweet to me whose death my life procured,
How shall I full express such loss, such gain?
My tongue shall be my pen, mine eyes shall rain
Tears for my ink, the place where I was cured
Shall be my book, where, having all abjured,
And calling heavens to record in that plain,
Thus plainly will I write: no sin like mine.
When I have done, do thou, Jesu divine,
Take up the tart sponge of thy Passion
And blot it forth; then be thy spirit the quill,
Thy blood the ink, and with compassion
Write thus upon my soul: thy Jesu still.

[Anonymous No.19870890]

>>19869026
you're an idiot, anon.

[Anonymous No.19871155]

[Anonymous No.19871162]

>>19867215
I've always found Kipling's Tomlinson very remarkable and completely without 'fat'.

>Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost at his house in Berkeley Square,
>And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair—
>A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away,
>Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way:
>Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease,
>And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys.

[Anonymous No.19871306]