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Invictus by William Ernst Henley
When I was younger I clung to it’s message of perseverance. It ended up being the first poem that I ever memorized.
Out of the night that covers me Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance, I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate I am the captain of my soul.I was just trying to remember this today, thank you!
Dolce et Decorum est - Wilfred Owen. A grim, anti-war masterpiece written by a soldier fighting in the trenches in WW1
Ozymandias - Percy Shelley. A reminder of human transience and hubris
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night - Dylan Thomas. Helps me to endure when things seem bleak or hopeless.
Subh Milis (Sweet jam). It’s a short and powerful Irish poem reminding parents to be kind to their kids.
English translation below. Can’t seem to get the formatting correct on mobile…
Bhí subh milis ar bháscrann an doras
ach mhúch mé an corraí
ionaim a d’éirigh
mar smaoinigh mé ar an lá
a bheadh an bháscrann glan
agus an lámh beag – ar iarraidh…”
There was jam on the door handle
But I quelled the anger
That rose inside me
Because I thought of the day
That the handle would be clean
And the little hand - longed for
It’s not DNS,
There’s no way it’s DNS,
It was DNSThis hurts to read :-(.
I really like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge. I first encountered it as a result of reading Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently novels, but one day I saw the original in the library and just read it from start to finish. It’s fantastic, so weird, so compelling.
I also like his Kubla Khan, the imagery of the “caverns measureless to man” and the “sunless sea” have always stuck with me.
This Bread I Break by Dylan Thomas
It’s a short, beautiful poem that laments man’s destructive relationship with nature.
The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost
That’s the first one that popped into my mind upon reading the question.
Then there’s this bad boy:
Mark Strand - Keeping things whole. It helps me deal with depression. I find it very soothing when I’m feeling down. It’s one of the few I know by heart.
Teeny tiny axolotl
There is really not a lotl
Of you. Not a jot or tittle
So I’ll call you axolitl
— anon
A Supermarket in California by Ginsberg. Idk why it just always has stuck with me
Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It always struck me as both humble and proud and it only becomes more meaningful as I age.
Li Bai - Quiet Night Thought
床前明月光
疑是地上霜
举头望明月
低头思故乡Before my bed bright moonlight pools
Almost like frost on the ground
Raising my head I see the shining moon
Bowing my head I think of homeOh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturitions are to me,
As plurdled gabbleblotchits,
On a lurgid bee,That mordiously hath blurted out,
Its earted jurtles,
Into a rancid festering confectious organ squealer. [drowned out by moaning and screaming]Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles,
Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts,
And living glupules frart and slipulate,
Like jowling meated liverslime,Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turling dromes,
And hooptiously drangle me,
With crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,See if I don’t.
– Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz
I can’t remember the number but it’s a sonnet by (of course) Shakespeare but it’s the one where he’s ruminating about how he’s eventually going to die.
It starts off by comparing the fleeting short existence of a person to the summer season.
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (18)
Richard Cory
A surprising poem on a dark subject matter. Perhaps one of the best poems that demonstrate how mysterious other people are and how hard it is to truly connect with strangers.
