Whats your favorite poem?
1
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with
a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the
coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message
He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday
rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would
last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and
dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing
now can ever come to any good.
2
O the valley in the summer where I and my John
Beside the deep river would
walk on and on
While the flowers at our feet and the birds up above
Argued
so sweetly on reciprocal love,
And I leaned on his shoulder; 'O Johnny, let's
play':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.
O that Friday near Christmas as I well recall
When we went to the Charity
Matinee Ball,
The floor was so smooth and the band was so loud
And Johnny
so handsome I felt so proud;
'Squeeze me tighter, dear Johnny, let's dance
till it's day':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.
Shall I ever forget at the Grand Opera
When music poured out of each
wonderful star?
Diamonds and pearls they hung dazzling down
Over each
silver and golden silk gown;
'O John I'm in heaven,' I whispered to
say:
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.
O but he was fair as a garden in flower,
As slender and tall as the great
Eiffel Tower,
When the waltz throbbed out on the long promenade
O his eyes
and his smile they went straight to my heart;
'O marry me, Johnny, I'll love
and obey':
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.
O last night I dreamed of you, Johnny, my lover,
You'd the sun on one arm
and the moon on the other,
The sea it was blue and the grass it was
green,
Every star rattled a round tambourine;
Ten thousand miles deep in a
pit there I lay:
But you frowned like thunder and you went away.
I'll tell you a tale I know nothing about;
The Admission is free, so pay at the door,
Now pull up a chair and sit on the floor.
One fine day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight;
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other.
A blind man came to watch fair play,
A mute man came to shout "Hooray!"
A deaf policeman heard the noise and
Came to stop those two dead boys.
He lived on the corner in the middle of the block,
In a two-story house on a vacant lot;
A man with no legs came walking by,
and kicked the lawman in his thigh.
He crashed through a wall without making a sound,
into a dry creek bed and suddenly drowned;
The long black hearse came to cart him away,
But he ran for his life and is still gone today.
I watched from the corner of the big round table,
The only eyewitness to facts of my fable;
But if you doubt my lies are true,
Just ask the blind man, he saw it too.
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
ventured bravely forth
in the thunder god's din:
bold-hearted Thorolf fell.
The ground will grow over
my great brother near Wen;
deep as my sorrow is
I must keep it to myself.
I piled body mounds, west of where
the poles marked the battlefield.
With black Adder I smote Adils
in a shower of heavy blows.
The young Olaf made
thunder of steel with the English;
Hring entered the weapon-fray
and the ravens did not starve.