I have always enjoyed poetry read aloud in particular. And one of my favorite poems you can’t help but read aloud. I picked this one up in early elementary school and have loved it ever since. It requires a table format to read, and as that is not supported here, you’ll have to go here to read said poem.

A tie for first is The Highway Man by Alfred Noyes, which many may recall from the musical version Loreena McKennitt did a couple of years back.

Liljen og Dugdraaben by A.W. Schack von Staffeldt.

The following is my attempt at an English translation. I’m sure it could be done better, but here goes:

The Lilly and the Dewdrop

From a farewell smile outshun the Sun
A falling drop into the lilly’s bosom
As if by yearning angels wept;
Then the flower abruptly shut,
And the drop, forsaken and forgot
Found itself in eartly prison kept.

»Welcome! O greeted be!
Now, dear, you must stay with me
The lilly, so eager to console!
And I promise to forever love you,
If you say that you will love me too,
Like the senses love the soul.« —

»No! I cannot stay! Oh nay!
Among the clouds I only find my way,
Hesitant I do expand:
Mirror lofty skies I must do,
Emerse myself in ether blue,
Far out above Earth’s hilly land.« —

»O fair son of purest Heaven, thee!
Please heed a blameless lilly’s plea;
Be the affected one’s felicity!
O Pearl of the sea, vaulted thus
Became transparent all around us,
Be innocence’s most brilliant jewelry!« —

»Stop tempting me, I say, be still!
Your nocturnal dome it will
Soon in the Sun again unfold;
A morning ray shall then descend
And me to Heaven’s splendor send
From mortal petals cold.«

The Sun came back. With infant’s haste
When long missed father’s smile is faced,
Flees the drop to its throne.
A moment stands the lilly ere it tires,
A sigh it heaves and then expires
Dissolved and monochrome.

But to rainy color wreath of height,
To Moon-veil’s silver sheen at night
The drop was gloriously sworn;
Still soon in angel’s cup it ran
From sight devout in temple’s span,
And was to Heaven borne.

Ha! That is a silly poeem ;)

And I remember The Highway Man from Anne of Green Gables...well, the quite decent movie they made of it, anyway. :) I think it was another poem she elocuted in the book on that occasion… Loreena and Anne often have similar taste in poetry!

Wow…that translation must have taken you a while! And, whilst of course I can’t know anything about the original, it certainly comes across very well.

Interesting. I generally associate the personification of animals, plants and elements with fables and moralizing poems; but if there’s a moral there, it’s a bit obscure, and not trumpeted in couplet form as a fable would do.

I believe it was meant to illustrate the conflict between mortal flesh and an eternal soul – the duality of our being in the traditional Christian belief system, which the author was obviously emersed in.

If there is a morale, it must be the transient nature of “the matter that binds us to this Earth” and an offering of consolation in the concept that a part of us is, after all, eternal and carries on its being elsewhere.

The religious message is not the reason I like it, though. Rather, I’m intrigued by the vivid beauty of the imagery evoked by the author.

I actually am most familiar with The Highway Man because my sixth grade teacher was fond of reading it to the class, along with other quality poetry that I paid less attention too.

Dude! I read Book Lice with my girlfriend during her Childern’s Literature class last semester. It rocks! That’s how you do repetition in a poem.

Does it make anyone else automatically think of Philip Glass buying a loaf of bread?

Stupid broken computers. So, I’m an attention whore who thinks he knows something about a subject he sorta majored in, even if he hasn’t written any decent poetry in like 4 years! But I digress. Here’s a little something of my own, then I’m going to find you some really good stuff by a really good poet.

Of Hand by EMeta

I want to poesize her
fingers in intricate daydreams.
 I imagine cherry blossoms on
ivory shadow camouflage,
 picturesque science center
films on web-spinning, lightning
rods.

 The Aztecs developed numbers about
twenties, rarely eclipsing feet.
 Shooting scars demonstrate

possible fissures of stars with
       life,
a blanket-wrapped story from
 sand, plants, snow.

 Her palm a peasant girl costume,
the prosaic beauty:
 accidental patches,
       Braid.
 I imagine frozen gracility,
crystalline bark-bound fringes.

 I try to versify her hands in
images and similes like
aesthetics of blizzards and
       light,
 never grazing of hand,
as fingers were forged from
       touch.

I think this remains my all time favourite poem, past a few other classes on poetry. This is from his 1973 book, Field Guide, which remains one of my favourite books of poetry, despite many wordy attempted coups by Michael Ondaatje and Mary Jo Bang.

Concerning the Afterlife, the Indians of Central California Had Only the Dimmest of Notions
Robert Hass

It is morning becasuse the sun has risen.

I wake slowly in the early heat,
   pick berries from the thorny vines.
   They are deep red,
   sugar-heavy, fuzzed with dust.
The eucalyptus casts a feathered shadow
on the house which gradually withdraws.

   After breakfast
you will swim and I am going to read
that hard man Thomas Hobbes
on the causes of the English civil wars.
There are no women in his world,
Hobbes, brothers fighting brothers
over goods.
                 I see you in the later afternoon
your hair dry-yellow, plaited
from the waves, a faint salt sheen
across your belly and along your arms.
The kids bring from the sea
   intricate calcium gifts—
   black turbans, angular green whelks,
   the whorled opalescant unicorn.

We may or may not
feel some irritation at the dinner hour.
The first starts, and after dark
Vega hangs in the lyre,
the Dipper tilts above the hill.
                              Traveling
in Europe Hobbes was haunted by motion.
Sailing or riding, he was suddenly aware
that all thinks move.
                   We will lie down,
finally, in our heaviness
   and touch and drift toward morning.