Poetry

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anonymous
  • Start date Start date
This is one of my favourite poems, but as it's too long to post in its entirety I shall just post the start. [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":)\" border=\"0\" alt=\"smile.gif\" /]

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
T.S. Eliot

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out aganst the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow lke a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?'
Let us go and make out visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from the chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
 
My favourite poem, by 19th century French poet Charles Baudelaire

L'Homme et la mer

Homme libre, toujours tu chériras la mer!
La mer est ton miroir; tu contemples ton âme
Dans le déroulement infini de sa lame,
Et ton esprit n'est pas un gouffre moins amer.

Tu te plais à plonger au sein de ton image;
Tu l'embrasses des yeux et des bras, et ton coeur
Se distrait quelquefois de sa propre rumeur
Au bruit de cette plainte indomptable et sauvage.

Vous êtes tous les deux ténébreux et discrets:
Homme, nul n'a sondé le fond de tes abîmes;
Ô mer, nul ne connaît tes richesses intimes,
Tant vous êtes jaloux de garder vos secrets!

Et cependant voilà des siècles innombrables
Que vous vous combattez sans pitié ni remords,
Tellement vous aimez le carnage et la mort,
Ô lutteurs éternels, ô frères implacables!


Man and the Sea

love Ocean always, Man: ye both are free!
the Sea, thy mirror: thou canst find thy soul
in the unfurling billows' surging roll,
they mind's abyss is bitter as the sea.

thou doest rejoice thy mirrored face to pierce,
plunging, and clasp with eyes and arms; thy heart
at its own mutter oft forgets to start,
lulled by that plaint indomitably fierce.

discreet ye both are; both are taciturn:
Man, none has measured all thy dark abyss,
none, Sea, knows where thy hoarded treasure is,
so jealously your secrets ye inurn!

and yet for countless ages, trucelessly,
— o ruthless warriors! — ye have fought and striven:
brothers by lust for death and carnage driven,
twin wrestlers, gripped for all eternity!
 
A little complaint about modern society, or any society, by William Shakespeare. (One of my favourite sonnets, in fact...)

LXVI.
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And guilded honour shamefully misplaced,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled,
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly doctor-like controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall'd simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.
 
Ah, the inertia of modern life. Everything's orderly, yet so bland...

The Times Are Tidy by Sylvia Plath

Unlucky the hero born
In this province of the stuck record
Where the most watchful cooks go jobless
And the mayor's rôtisserie turns
Round of its own accord.

There's no career in the venture
Of riding against the lizard,
Himself withered these latter-days
To leaf-size from lack of action:
History's beaten the hazard.

The last crone got burnt up
More than eight decades back
With the love-hot herb, the talking cat,
But the children are better for it,
The cow milks cream an inch thick.


Yes, I know what you're going to say about Plath. [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/wink.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\";)\" border=\"0\" alt=\"wink.gif\" /]
 
A little more Latin should be enough to bump this thread...
This is the first part of the so called Easter Sunday Sequence, sung in Roman Catholic churches on this day. The Gregorian chant tune is beautiful. It took me a while to find a good English translation.

Victimae Paschali Laudes

Victimae paschali laudes
immolent Christiani.

Agnus redemit oves:
Christus innocens Patri
reconciliavit peccatores.

Mors et vita duello
conflixere mirando:
dux vitae mortuus,
regnat vivus.

Dic nobis Maria,
quid vidisti in via?
Sepulcrum Christi viventis,
et gloriam vidi resurgentis:
Angelicos testes,
sudarium, et vestes.

Surrexit Christus spes mea:
praecedet suos in Galilaeam.
Scimus Christum surrexisse
a mortuis vere:
tu nobis, victor Rex,
miserere.



Praise the Paschal Victim

To the Paschal Victim
let Christians offer songs of praise.

The Lamb has redeemed the sheep:
Sinless Christ has reconciled
sinners to the Father.

Death and life have engaged
in miraculous combat.
The leader of life is slain,
yet living he reigns.

Tell us, Mary, what you saw on the way?
I sat the sepulchre of the living Christ
and the glory of His rising:
The angelic witnesses,
the shroud and vesture.

Christ my hope is risen:
He will go before his own into Galilee.
We know that Christ has truly risen
from the dead:
Thou conqueror and king,
have mercy on us.
 
[!--quoteo(post=134980:date=Apr 16 2006, 07:41 PM:name=SilentLucidity)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(SilentLucidity @ Apr 16 2006, 07:41 PM) [snapback]134980[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--]
A little more Latin should be enough to bump this thread...
[/quote]

Well I beat you to it. [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/tongue.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":P\" border=\"0\" alt=\"tongue.gif\" /] One must give credit where it's due. [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/happy.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\"^_^\" border=\"0\" alt=\"happy.gif\" /]
 
[!--quoteo(post=134981:date=Apr 16 2006, 08:44 PM:name=Black Dragon)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Black Dragon @ Apr 16 2006, 08:44 PM) [snapback]134981[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--]Well I beat you to it. [/quote]How nice that both of us felt like a bit of poetry tonight... [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/smile.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":)\" border=\"0\" alt=\"smile.gif\" /]
 
*sigh*
Speaking of romance and of Sylvia Plath, here is a beautiful poem by American poetess Anne Sexton:


When Man Enters Woman

When man,
enters woman,
like the surf biting the shore,
again and again,
and the woman opens her mouth with pleasure
and her teeth gleam
like the alphabet,
Logos appears milking a star,
and the man
inside of woman
ties a knot
so that they will
never again be separate
and the woman
climbs into a flower
and swallows its stem
and Logos appears
and unleashes their rivers.

This man,
this woman
with their double hunger,
have tried to reach through
the curtain of God
and briefly they have,
though God
in His perversity
unties the knot.
 
[!--quoteo(post=134978:date=Apr 16 2006, 07:30 PM:name=Black Dragon)--][div class=\'quotetop\']QUOTE(Black Dragon @ Apr 16 2006, 07:30 PM) [snapback]134978[/snapback][/div][div class=\'quotemain\'][!--quotec--]

Yes, I know what you're going to say about Plath. [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/wink.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\";)\" border=\"0\" alt=\"wink.gif\" /]
[/quote]

What, that she's one of the most depressive poets of the twentieth century? [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/tongue.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\":P\" border=\"0\" alt=\"tongue.gif\" /]
I would love to post Dante's Inferno, but it's a bit too long, and I'm too tired to extract bits from it [img src=\"style_emoticons/[#EMO_DIR#]/dry.gif\" style=\"vertical-align:middle\" emoid=\"<_<\" border=\"0\" alt=\"dry.gif\" /]

So, since Charge of the Light Brigade has already been posted, here's one of my favourite pieces of WWI-era poetry

Anthem For Doomed Youth
By Wilfred Owen
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Many of you will recognise this as the intro from Paschendale on the Death on the Road tour, and it was well chosen. It perfectly emphasises the almost religious offering of the young men to the horrible war, as does the song. I think it's a great and yet somber poem.
 
Right. Time to revive this dying thread. :huh:

Here is an untitled short poem by Attila József, a Hungarian genius poet. He was born in 1905 in a poor working-class family. He grew up without a father who left the family when Attila was 3, and lost his mother at the age of 14. As a youngster, he started writing bold modernist poetry. Soon, he embraced the then illegal communist movement, only to be misunderstood by his comrades. His works create an intimate portrait of his unhappy love life and intellectual tribulations, poverty and thoughts of death. He killed himself at the age of 32, by throwing himself under a train.

Lassú álmodozásaiból amint
fölemeli fejét a gyermek,
bólint az angyal, ki a kínnal fölötte ing
s porba ejtik fejüket a kígyók,
akik feléje mérgeket lövellnek.

When a child raises his head
from a slow dream
the angel nods, hovering above him along with pain,
and the serpents who shot venom at him
drop their heads in the dust.
 
I was hoping to be the person who introduced Blake to this thread, but alas, I was beaten to it.
Here is a poem that many of you might recognize, especially if you like the Chemical Wedding:

The New Jerusalem

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I shall not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green and pleasant Land.
 
I noticed someone posted a Wilfred Owen poem and I thought I would too, because I think he was a great poet and I think this poem, "Dulce et Decorum est" is really poignant and blunt.

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 disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering 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,--
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.

(It's a pretty famous poem, but in case anyone doesn't know what "Dulce et Decorum est pro patria mori" means, it roughly translates to 'It is good and honourable to die for your country')
 
                                  OMAR AL KHAYYAM

some Rubaiyat from the very beloved Omar al Khayyam  (following the famus 'faithless' translation of Fitzgerald)......I prefered this translation than the French, because more people will understand, and secondly because this particular translation made known Khayyam to the western world

                            I
        AWAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
        Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
        And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
        The Sultan's Turret in a Noose of Light.
                            II
    Dreaming when Dawn's Left Hand was in the Sky
        I heard a voice within the Tavern cry,
        "Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
        Before Life's Liquor in its Cup be dry."
                          XXXIX.
        Ah, fill the Cup: -- what boots it to repeat
        How Time is slipping underneath our Feet:
        Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday,
        Why fret about them if To-day be sweet!
                            XLVI.
        Why, be this Juice the growth of God, who dare
        Blaspheme the twisted tendril as Snare?
        A Blessing, we should use it, should we not?
        And if a Curse -- why, then, Who set it there?
                              LIII.
        I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
        Some letter of that After-life to spell:
        And after many days my Soul return'd
        And said, "Behold, Myself am Heav'n and Hell."
                            LXXIV.
        And, strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot
        Some could articulate, while others not:
        And suddenly one more impatient cried --
        "Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?"
                          LXXXIII.
        Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
        Have done my Credit in Men's Eye much wrong:
        Have drown'd my Honour in a shallow Cup,
        And sold my Reputation for a Song.


Omar al Khayyam : Persian Mathematician, Astronomer and Poet of 11e century

Related songs : Iron Maiden : the assassin, brighter than a thousand suns Hawkwind : Hassan I Sabbah

Related books : le théorème du perroquet (Denis Guedj), Samarkand & The Crusades through Arab eyes (Amin Maalouf)

the Mathematician

As a mathematician, is well known for inventing the method of solving cubic equations by intersecting a parabola with a circle. Khayyám provided a generalization extending it to all cubics. In addition he discovered the binomial expansion, and authored criticisms of Euclid's theories of parallels which made their way to Europe, where they contributed to the eventual development of non-Euclidean geometry.

(non-Euclidean geometry : geometry that doesn’t accept the 5th theorem of Euclides, so two parallels they do intersect !!!  E=mc^2, is based in one non-Euclidean geometry this of Riemann)

he classified equations according to their degree, and gave rules for solving quadratic equations, which are very similar to the ones we use today, and a geometric method for solving cubic equations with real roots.

the Astronomer
Khayyám very accurately (correct to six decimal places) measured the length of the year as 365.24219858156 days. This calendar measurement has only a 1 day error in every 5,000 years, whereas the Gregorian Calendar used today, has a 1 day error in every 3,330 years.
He also calculated how to correct the Persian calendar. On March 15, 1079, Sultan Jalal al-Din Malekshah Saljuqi (1072-92) put Omar's corrected calendar into effect
 
Black Stone Lying On A White Stone
by César Vallejo 
Translated by Robert Bly

I will die in Paris, on a rainy day, 
on some day I can already remember. 
I will die in Paris--and I don't step aside-- 
perhaps on a Thursday, as today is Thursday, in autumn.     

It will be a Thursday, because today, Thursday, setting down 
these lines, I have put my upper arm bones on 
wrong, and never so much as today have I found myself 
with all the road ahead of me, alone.   

César Vallejo is dead.  Everyone beat him 
although he never does anything to them; 
they beat him hard with a stick and hard also     

with a rope.  These are the witnesses: 
the Thursdays, and the bones of my arms, 
the solitude, and the rain, and the roads. . .
 
after Omar al Khayam, and his Rubbayiat, it's time to pass to Nostradamus, that like Khayamm he was writting in    quatrains (Rubbayiat means quatrain in persian lanquage)

it's very interesting that all the secret writings in all religions etc are written in rimes.....same thing for the prophesies 

            quatrains de Nostradamus

                    141
De retour d'Ambassade, don de Roy mis au lieu
Plus n'en fera : sera allé à Dieu
Parans plus proches, amis, frères du sang,
Trouvé tout mort près du lict et du banc

                    I, 60
Un Empereur naistra près d'Italie
Qui à l'empire sera vendu bien cher
Diront avec quels gens il se ralie
Qu'on trouvera moins Prince que boucher

                    IV, 2
Par mort la France prendra voyage à faire,
Classe par mer, marcher monts Pyrénées,
Espagne en trouble, marcher gent militaire :
De plus grand Dames en France emmenées

                    X,24
Le Captif Prince aux Itales vaincu
Passera Gennes par mer jusqu'à Marseille,
Par grand effort des forens survaincu,
Sauf coup de feu, barril liqueur d'abeille

                    IV, 75
Prest à combattre fera défection,
Chef adversaire obtiendra la victoire :
L'arrière -garde fera défension,
Les défaillants mort au blanc territoire

                      I, 98
Le chef qu'aura conduict peuple infiny
Loing de son Ciel, de meurs et langue estrange,
Cinq mil en Crète, et Tessalie finy,
Le chef fuyant sauvé en la marine grande

                      I, 54
Deux rélolts faits du malin falcigère
De règne et siècles fait permutation
Le mobil signe à son endroit s'ingère
Aux deux esgaux et d'inclination

                      I,47
Du lac Leman les sermons fascheront,
Des jours seront reduicts par des semaines
Puis mois, puis an, puis tous défailleront
Les Magistrats damneront leurs lois vaines

                      III, 35
Du plus profond de l'Occident d'Europe
De pauvres gens un jeune enfant naistra,
Qui par sa langue séduira grande trouppe,
Son bruit au règne d'Orient plus croistra

                      IX, 76
Avec le noir Rapax et sanguinaire
Issu du peautre de l'inhumain Néron :
Emmy deux fleuves main gauche militaire,
Sera meurtry par joyne chaulveron

                  Sixain 21
L'autheur des maux commencera régner
En l'an six cents et sept sans espargner
Tous les subjects qui sont à la sangsue
Et puis après s'en viendra peu à peu
Au franc pays rallumer son feu
S'en retournant d'où elle est issue

                    II, 19
Nouveaux venus lieu basty sans défence,
Occuper la place par lors inhabitable,
Prez, maisons, champs, villes, prendre à plaisance
Faim, peste, guerre, arpen, long labourable

                      X, 21
Par le despit du Roy soustenant moindre ;
Sera meurdy lui présentant les bagues :
Le père au fils voulant noblesse poindre,
Fait comme a Perse jadis feirent les Magues

                    VII, 22
Les Cityens de Mésopotamie
Irez encontre amis de Tarragone :
Jeux, ritz, banquets, toute gent endormie,
Vicaire au Rosne, prins cité, ceux d'Ausone

                      VI, 6
Apparoistra vers le Septentrion
Non loing de Cancer l'estoille chevelüe :
Suse, Sienne, Boëce, Eretrion,
Moura de Rome grand, la nuit disparuë

                      II, 7
Entre plusieurs aux isles desportez,
L'un estre nay a deux dents en la gorge :
Mourront de faim les arbres esbrotez,
Pour eux neuf Roy, nouvel edict leur forge

                      X, 66
Le chef de Londres par regne l'Americh,
L'isle d'Escosse t'empiera par gelée :
Roy Reb auront un si faux Antechrist,
Que les mettra trestous dans la meslée

                      X, 72
L'an mil neuf cent nonante neuf sept mois,
Du ciel viendra un grand Roy d'effrayeur
Ressusciter le grand Roy d'Angoulmois,
Avant après Mars regner par bonheur
 
Two things number.not a free man : give the name of the author and please try to find a translation in English as most people here don't understand French
 
A little lesson on morals, as well as some brilliant rhyming, by Robert Frost:

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if I had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say thay for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
 
this is a poem of mine that I wrote in 23-05-1995, translated to English (poorly I'm afraid) from my awesome mother language

there are some hours : Sandman don't come to take you in his boat
and all things inside your room getting bigger
winking to you privily

the next morning no-one will know how far or how close you were from be

there are some hours that if you don't spill to others
you will enter the house of Absurd
and you'll see your enemies harmless
from above
 
____no5 said:
this is a poem of mine that I wrote in 23-05-1995, translated to English (poorly I'm afraid) from my awesome mother language
Click to expand...
Have a praise for posting your own stuff, and I'd like to read that in your awesome mother language... :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top