# Time For Culture? Poems



## ericp (Feb 23, 2003)

I have always loved poetry....

Take it or Leave it, but I have decided to share with you some of the words that I have found to be inspirational.......

Ode to a Nightingale

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thine happiness,--

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and ProvenÃ§al song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain--

To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music:--Do I wake or sleep?


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## peter (Feb 23, 2003)

Sorry Eric, I have never like the Georgians and the Romantics.

How about Owen( the most powerful poet of ANY generation) Sassoon, Kipling(post the death of his son), generally most of the War Poets Larkin, Gavin Ewart?

Peter


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## Mrcrowley (Apr 23, 2003)

Wilfred Owen was a great poet. I studied him at school.

Shame I can only remember the odd line from a few poems


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## traveller (Feb 27, 2003)

I found a website some time ago with all Wilfred Owen's poetry, wonderful. I just searched for "Wilfred Owen" and it was one of the sites that came up. I think it was the Wilfred Owen Society.


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## Griff (Feb 23, 2003)

One bright Septembers morning

In April last July

The moon lay thick upon the ground

And snow shone in the sky

The flowers were sweetly singing

The birds were full in bloom

As I went to the basement

To clean the upstairs room

The time was Tuesday morning

At Wednesday just at night

I saw ten thousand miles away

A house just out of sight

The doors projected backwards

The front was at the back

It stood alone between two more

And was white washed black


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## traveller (Feb 27, 2003)

Tennyson?


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## Griff (Feb 23, 2003)

What else!!!


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## Fred (Feb 23, 2003)

The late P,L. John Betjeman, does it for me, fred.


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## Guest (Aug 12, 2003)

I'm afraid my years at grammar school having poetry, classical music and other worthy stuff crammed down my throat had the reverse effect on me and far from giving me a love of it made me dislike it.

This was in the 60's and compared to contemporary art and music the classical poets and composers seemed like so many old fogeys.

When I want poetry I do what I did then and listen to Bob Dylan.

Cheers,

Neil.


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## peter (Feb 23, 2003)

Okay, just for the romantics among you,

"The life that I have is all that I have

And the life that I have is yours

The love that I have

Of the life that I have

Is yours and yours and yours

A sleep I shall have, a rest I shall have

Yet death will be but pause

For the peace of my years in the long green grass

Will be yours and yours and yours"

If I recollect correctly this was a poem or more correctly a code, written during the last war by the handler of the spy, Violet Czezbo whom I think, survived the war( not sure if that's the correct spelling).

If you do a search you will probably find the origination.

Peter.


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## peter (Feb 23, 2003)

Eric, I expect your favourite will be,

"Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of earth................."

by John McGee circa 1941

Peter


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## traveller (Feb 27, 2003)

This, the first verse from Wilfred Owen's "Anthem for a Doomed Youth"

What passing - bells for those 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.


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