How many poets have you named on a thread?

[herr_oberst]

I think I mentioned Ezra Pound once, because he's from Idaho and so am I.
And there was a whole thread once on Bukowski, but I don't remember who started that one.

I like Walt Whitman but ee cummings leaves me cold.

[Baz]

I've been collecting certain poems as I hear them referenced in pop culture.

Last night watching "Donovan's Reef" the doctor (played by Jack Warden) said a line from one by Lewis Carroll.....

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things......."

[tabs]

If you can figure out my allusions you will know when I am being sarcastic...It is kinda like if you can hear a dog whistle kinda thing..

[flatbutt]

I've quoted Shakespeare many times, how many others IDK.

[Baz]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

I've quoted Shakespeare many times, how many others IDK.

"Cry havoc....and let slip the dogs of war!"

~Julius Ceaser

[fintstone]

Several...Longfellow, Poe, Shakespeare, Sir Walter Scott, and Dr. Seuss...but we were discussing authors.

I did write and post poetry here once or twice...but that was before OT became a "cesspool."

[Racerbvd]

Lord Byron, but I was named after him...
My favorite quote of his

[craigster59]

Friend is a word that I don’t throw around

Though it’s used and abused, I still like the sound.

I save if for people who’ve done right by me

And I know I can count on if ever need be.

Some of my friends drive big limousines

Own ranches and banks and visit with queens.

And some of my friends are up to their necks

In overdue notes and can’t write a check!

They’re singers or ropers or writers of prose

And others, God bless ‘em, can’t blow their own nose!

I guess bein’ friends don’t have nothin’ to do

With talent or money or knowin’ who’s who.

It’s a comf’terbul feelin’ when you don’t have to care

‘Bout choosin’ your words or bein’ quite fair

‘Cause friends’ll just listen and let go on by

Those words you don’t mean and not bat an eye.

It makes a friend happy to see your success.

They’re proud of yer good side and forgive all the rest.

And that ain’t so easy, all of the time

Sometimes I get crazy and seem to go blind!

Yer friend just might take you on home

Or remind you sometime that you’re not alone.

Or ever so gently pull you back to the ground

When you think you can fly with no one around.

A hug or a shake, whichever seems right

Is the high point of givin’, I’ll tell ya tonight,

All worldly riches and tributes of men

Can’t hold a candle to the worth of a friend.

- Baxter Black

[Danimal16]

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie—
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.

When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet’s unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find—it’s your own affair—
But… you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!).
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone—wherever it goes—for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

We’ve sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we’ve kept ’em, the more do we grieve:
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long—
So why in—Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

The Power of a Dog
Rudyard Kipling

[fintstone]

One fish
two fish
red fish
blue fish

[Baz]

When are you gonna come down?
When are you going to land?
I should have stayed on the farm
I should have listened to my old man
You know you can't hold me forever
I didn't sign up with you
I'm not a present for your friends to open
This boy's too young to be singing, the blues
So goodbye yellow brick road
Where the dogs of society howl
You can't plant me in your penthouse
I'm going back to my plough
Back to the howling old owl in the woods
Hunting the horny back toad
Oh I've finally decided my future lies
Beyond the yellow brick road

~ Bernie Taupin

[Danimal16]

I walk through the evening of my life,
With all the memories, it is you I remember most,
All of you.
Wet noses and hair and happiness,
All of you
Missed
Painfully and yet gratefully,
Having been your friend: companion,
I love you all,
I see you in my dreams and in the early morning,
As if our walk will happen,
And I miss you all,
Once again,
You ghost dogs of my life.

[billybek]

One of my dad's favorites. Think I have quoted it more than a couple of times here.
BY ROBERT W. SERVICE
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

Now Sam McGee was from Tennessee, where the cotton blooms and blows.
Why he left his home in the South to roam 'round the Pole, God only knows.
He was always cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell;
Though he'd often say in his homely way that "he'd sooner live in hell."

On a Christmas Day we were mushing our way over the Dawson trail.
Talk of your cold! through the parka's fold it stabbed like a driven nail.
If our eyes we'd close, then the lashes froze till sometimes we couldn't see;
It wasn't much fun, but the only one to whimper was Sam McGee.

And that very night, as we lay packed tight in our robes beneath the snow,
And the dogs were fed, and the stars o'erhead were dancing heel and toe,
He turned to me, and "Cap," says he, "I'll cash in this trip, I guess;
And if I do, I'm asking that you won't refuse my last request."

Well, he seemed so low that I couldn't say no; then he says with a sort of moan:
"It's the cursèd cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'tain't being dead—it's my awful dread of the icy grave that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair, you'll cremate my last remains."

A pal's last need is a thing to heed, so I swore I would not fail;
And we started on at the streak of dawn; but God! he looked ghastly pale.
He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee;
And before nightfall a corpse was all that was left of Sam McGee.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death, and I hurried, horror-driven,
With a corpse half hid that I couldn't get rid, because of a promise given;
It was lashed to the sleigh, and it seemed to say: "You may tax your brawn and brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you to cremate those last remains."

Now a promise made is a debt unpaid, and the trail has its own stern code.
In the days to come, though my lips were dumb, in my heart how I cursed that load.
In the long, long night, by the lone firelight, while the huskies, round in a ring,
Howled out their woes to the homeless snows— O God! how I loathed the thing.

And every day that quiet clay seemed to heavy and heavier grow;
And on I went, though the dogs were spent and the grub was getting low;
The trail was bad, and I felt half mad, but I swore I would not give in;
And I'd often sing to the hateful thing, and it hearkened with a grin.

Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay;
It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May."
And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum;
Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."

Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.

Then I made a hike, for I didn't like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don't know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.

I do not know how long in the snow I wrestled with grisly fear;
But the stars came out and they danced about ere again I ventured near;
I was sick with dread, but I bravely said: "I'll just take a peep inside.
I guess he's cooked, and it's time I looked"; ... then the door I opened wide.

And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: "Please close that door.
It's fine in here, but I greatly fear you'll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it's the first time I've been warm."

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

[Tishabet]

Originally Posted by billybek

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;

To quote myself from another thread from 2007:

Originally Posted by Tishabet

That's the only poem I can recite from beginning to end

Robert Service is awesome.

[billybek]

Originally Posted by Tishabet

To quote myself from another thread from 2007:


Robert Service is awesome.

If I haven't tried to recite that poem in a while I have trouble keeping the verses straight. I can usually pull off a close facsimile of the original.
My dad could do this from memory when he was in his early 80s. One of my faves.

[GH85Carrera]

I have mentioned Sidney Lanier.

Only because I graduated from Sidney Lanier high school in Montgomery, AL. Our school mascot was the "Poets". No really, look it up.

I have never been a big fan of poetry. Just not my thing.