Put Your favourite poem here

[spruce goose]

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 a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours


                Leo Marks

[The Sweeney]

Kipling and Yeats.

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!



HE WISHES FOR THE CLOTHS OF HEAVEN

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

[Robert HM]

I missed this thread first time around, as I was catching up I thought I must post my favorite poem at the end.  A poem that one can lead your life by, one that warns, comforts and encourages you all at the same time. A poem I copied out whilst at school and kept in my wallet for donkeys' years. Beaten by one post!

Perhaps we ought to post this as a sticky on the PHA to reduce the bad beat stories:

And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

[The_nun]

WISH i COULD robert but tonight was the end of a bad run.

[Eyeofsauron]

This one always gets to me, especially when you realise the chap who wrote it died three months after he had wrote it, when his Spitfire collided with another aircraft during the second world war.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

— John Gillespie Magee, Jr

[The_duke]

A POEM FOR THOSE OLD ENOUGH TO REMEMBER

A computer was something on TV
From a science fiction show of note
A window was something you hated to clean
And ram was the cousin of a goat.

Meg was the name of my girlfriend
And gig was a job for the nights
Now they all mean different things
And that really mega bites.

An application was for employment
A program was a TV show
A curser used profanity
A keyboard was a piano.

Memory was something that you lost with age
A CD was a bank account
And if you had a 3 inch floppy
You hoped nobody found out.

Compress was something you did to the garbage
Not something you did to a file.
And if you unzipped anything in public
You'd be in jail for awhile.

Log on was adding wood to the fire
Hard drive was a long trip on the road
A mouse pad was where a mouse lived
And a back up happened to your commode.

Cut you did with a pocket knife.
Paste you did with glue
A web was a spider's home
And a virus was the flu.

I guess I'll stick to my pad and paper
And the memory in my head
I hear nobody's been killed in a computer crash
But when it happens, they'll wish they were dead.

[The_duke]

Abort, Retry, Ignore



Once upon a midnight dreary,
Fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bedsheets,
Still I sat here doing spreadsheets:
Having reached the bottom line, I took a floppy from the drawer.

Typing with a steady hand,
I then invoked the "save" command
But got instead a reprimand: it read, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
Was this some occult illusion?
Some manacal type intrusion?
These were choices Solomon himself had never faced before.

Carefully I weighed my options...
These three seemed to be the top ones.
Clearly I must now adopt one; choose: Abort, Retry, Ignore?
With my fingers pale and trembling
Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored

Praying for some guarantee,
Finally I pressed a key.
But what on the screen did I see? Again "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
I tried to catch the chips off guard -
I pressed again, but twice as hard,
But luck was just not on the cards, I saw what I had seen before.

Now I typed in desperation
Trying random combinations.
Still there came the incantation "Abort, Retry, Ignore."
There I sat, distraught, exhausted,
By my own machine accosted
getting up, I turned away and paced across the office floor.

And then I saw an awful sight
A bold and blinding flash of light
A lightening bolt that cut the night, and shook me to my very core.
The PC screen collapsed and died.
"OH NO! MY DATABASE!" I cried.
I heard a distant voice reply, "You'll see your spreadsheets...nevermore!"

To this day I do not know
The place to which our data goes.
perhaps it goes to heaven, where the angels have it stored.
But as for Productivity, well,
I fear this has gone straight to Hell.
And that's the tale I have to tell - your choice: Abort, Retry, Ignore.

[Robert HM]

WISH i COULD robert but tonight was the end of a bad run.

Awww it wasn't aimed at you, as if it ever would. I haven't go to that board yet.

[bolt pp]

Is that one of your poem's bolt?  Very good indeed.

 

[AndrewT]

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss

Rudyard Kipling - great at writing poems, bad at bankroll management.

[Digger]

An English Love Poem
(Who said British men aren't  romantic?)


Of course I love ya darling
You're a bloody top Notch bird
And when I say you're gorgeous
I mean every single word ,
So ya bum is on the big side
I  don't mind a bit of flab
It means that when I'm ready
There's somethin' there to grab,
So your belly isn't flat no more
I tell ya, I don't care
So long as when I cuddle ya
I can Get my arms round there,
No woman who is your age
Has nice round perky breasts
They just gave in to gravity
But I know  ya did ya best ,
I'm tellin ya the truth now
I  never tell ya lies
I think its very sexy
That you've got dimples  on ya thighs ,
I swear on me grannies grave now
The moment that we met
I thought you was as good as
I was ever gonna get ,
No matter wot you look like
I'll always love ya dear
Now shut up while the footballs's on
And fetch another beer

[Simon Galloway]

A poem by Ram (I think) when asked by a previous to write her some poetry...

On the moors there's heather and bramble,
But all I want to do is gamble.

Perfect, although rumoured not to have been to her taste...

[K9sixtwo]

Nancy Hanks

Nancy Hanks was the mother of Abraham Lincoln. She died in 1818 her last home was a hut with only three sides and her family was brought up in hardships we cant imagine..Lincolns father was Tom a grifter and drifter.. a truely emotional poem.. a mothers thoughts for a child she would never have seen to become one of the great men in the history of the world ..

If Nancy Hanks
came back as a ghost
seeking news
of what she loved most
she'd ask first
"where's my son?
what happened to Abe?
Whats he done?"

Poor little Abe
left all alone
except for  Tom
Who's a rolling stone
he was only nine
the year i died
i remember still how hard he cried"

scraping along
in a little shack
with hardly a shirt
to cover his back
and a prairie wind
to blow him down
or pinching times
if he went to town"

"You wouldnt know
about my son?
Did he grow tall?
Did he have fun?
Did he learn to read?
Did he get to town?
Do you know his name?
Did he get on?"
                                                   Rosemary Benet

[K9sixtwo]

Not really a poem ...but for inspiration it can't be beaten ..
England in the Summer of 1588. England awaits the arrival of the Spanish armada...Queen Elizabeth is at Tilbury to await the arrival of the Spanish.. numerically they are superiour.. better equipped, better trained, better paid, English troops were ill paid and under resourced what they did have was a true leader in the form of Elizabeth the first. There were rumours of assasination plots and the queen had been urged to flee.. Fleeing never entered onto Elizabeths agenda her whole life and she walked amongst her troops and delivered one of the finest speeches ever to her army to lift there morale and to show her desire to die amongst her loyal subjects.. she goes onto the field preceeded by the sword of state and flanked only by Lords Essex and Leicester, dressed in a breastplate... True greatness has been rare through history Elizabeth the firsts had that greatness and single minded devotion to her subjects and her country...
As you may have gathered I'm a fan!


My loving people,

         We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear, I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust. I know I have the body but of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, for your forwardness you have deserved rewards and crowns; and We do assure you in the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean time, my lieutenant general2 shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble or worthy subject; not doubting but by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and your valour in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over those enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.

Late in the day news came through of the defeat of the Armada by Drake

 

[Robert HM]

Shakespeare's version of a rousing speech:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'