Poetry

[Einherjar86]

Feel free to share some of your favorite poems and discover new ones as well. I'm a fan of all eras of literature, and it's impossible for me to pinpoint a favorite poet; but to start, I'd like to share this amazing poem from Lord Byron. It was written to his wife Annabella Milbanke, whom he married and had a child with. They separated a year later, and Byron never saw his wife and child again, but he composed this poem and enclosed it in a letter he wrote to her. I believe it shows Byron in a slightly more compassionate light than most people are used to.

FARE thee well! and if for ever,
Still for ever, fare thee well:
Even though unforgiving, never
’Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.

Would that breast were bared before thee 5
Where thy head so oft hath lain,
While that placid sleep came o’er thee
Which thou ne’er canst know again:

Would that breast, by thee glanced over,
Every inmost thought could show! 10
Then thou wouldst at last discover
’Twas not well to spurn it so.

Though the world for this commend thee—
Though it smile upon the blow,
Even its praises must offend thee, 15
Founded on another’s woe:

Though my many faults defaced me,
Could no other arm be found,
Than the one which once embraced me,
To inflict a cureless wound? 20

Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not;
Love may sink by slow decay,
But by sudden wrench, believe not
Hearts can thus be torn away:

Still thine own its life retaineth, 25
Still must mine, though bleeding, beat;
And the undying thought which paineth
Is—that we no more may meet.

These are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead; 30
Both shall live, but every morrow
Wake us from a widow’d bed.

And when thou wouldst solace gather,
When our child’s first accents flow,
Wilt thou teach her to say ‘Father!’ 35
Though his care she must forego?

When her little hands shall press thee,
When her lip to thine is press’d,
Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee,
Think of him thy love had bless’d! 40

Should her lineaments resemble
Those thou never more may’st see,
Then thy heart will softly tremble
With a pulse yet true to me.

All my faults perchance thou knowest, 45
All my madness none can know;
All my hopes, where’er thou goest,
Wither, yet with thee they go.

Every feeling hath been shaken;
Pride, which not a world could bow, 50
Bows to thee—by thee forsaken,
Even my soul forsakes me now:

But ’tis done—all words are idle—
Words from me are vainer still;
But the thoughts we cannot bridle 55
Force their way without the will.

Fare thee well! thus disunited,
Torn from every nearer tie,
Sear’d in heart, and lone, and blighted,
More than this I scarce can die. 60


And lastly, here's one more poem by William Ernest Henley. Some of you may know of him as the writer of the stoic piece "Invictus," famous for it's final lines: "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." Henley was actually a prolific writer of many short verses. Despite his In Hospital poems, which depict a very drab, sickly vision of Victorian England, he also composed many pieces that display a kind of fantastical wonder of the world. These were often referred to as his counter-decadence pieces. The following is such a piece, most commonly called "Over the Hills and Far Away."

WHERE forlorn sunsets flare and fade
On desolate sea and lonely sand,
Out of the silence and the shade
What is the voice of strange command
Calling you still, as friend calls friend
With love that cannot brook delay,
To rise and follow the ways that wend
Over the hills and far away?

Hark in the city, street on street
A roaring reach of death and life,
Of vortices that clash and fleet
And ruin in appointed strife,
Hark to it calling, calling clear,
Calling until you cannot stay
From dearer things than your own most dear
Over the hills and far away.

Out of the sound of the ebb-and-flow,
Out of the sight of lamp and star,
It calls you where the good winds blow,
And the unchanging meadows are;
From faded hopes and hopes agleam,
It calls you, calls you night and day
Beyond the dark into the dream
Over the hills and far away.

 

[Lonely Rainbow]

Pablo Neruda-Water...

...Everything on the earth bristled, the bramble
pricked and the green thread
nibbled away, the petal fell, falling
until the only flower was the falling itself.
Water is another matter,
has no direction but its own bright grace,
runs through all imaginable colors,
takes limpid lessons
from stone,
and in those functionings plays out
the unrealized ambitions of the foam...

 

[XxSNAPxX]

This is one of my own works.

Fondness for Winter

Way beyond what’s known,
Where the pines stop to grow,
There’s a little well, with a spring,
Drink the water and feel like a king.

Ride high upon esteem as it takes you there.
Give up life, and all at once your cares.

Once through the spring, a wind did blow,
Freezing it over, taking a toll,
I grew a fondness for winter and knew,
I could be much more sure about all I’ve been through.

 

[w0es]

One of my favorites in music and poem is Empyrium.This is the "The Shepherd And The Maiden Ghost"
poem (Nice music too) :

It was an eve in late summer, autumn was nigh
Still a warm sun did colour the sky,
The meadows did shine in a strange golden light
And vales did set forth the soft haze of night
When through the air a voice did resound
Beckoning the shepherd to rise from the ground

[The Shepherd]
"What sweet voice does sing in such a woebegone tone?
What maiden does wander the heather alone?"

Bewitched by its tone, he followed her song,
Whilst the sun did descend and the shadows grew long
In the dim light of dusk, near the sparkling cascade
On a moss covered stone sat a crying young maid

[The Shepherd]
"Why art thou dreary? What happened to thee?
What song didst thou sing so woefully?"

[The Maiden]
"Go whither, O shepherd! Don't sadden thine heart
Thou canst not help me - not thou who thou art!
An old man who's been born in a cradle of wood
Of a tree that at least a hundred years stood,
Cut by a boy who at heart was still pure,
Might be my redeemer if he knew that he could"