Poems - Your favs or your own

[Ringtone]

A Dirge for J. Alfred Prufrock: The Last Hurrah
By Michael Rawlings (a.k.a., Ringtone)
With hat in hand and at the feet of T. S. Eliot

​

Let us go then, you and me,
And stroll beneath a cloudy sea
As evening spreads across its face like a toothless grin.
Let us go a-meandering down narrow-minded suburban lanes,
Silky slick with sullen rains
And hemmed in by redundant four-bedroom stalls and grated sewage drains;
Past the immaculate parks and the quaint, steepled churches,

the lofty perches,​

Where the vagabond Riffraff lurches in the pristine shadows:
A restless Crowd that chases dreams of easy grace and meadows,
And sings a melancholy hymn, a petulant brew, that lingers at your nervebone.

A chorus of crickets roll their eyes,
And dance beneath the cloudy skies.

The Air is still tonight—drenched with slumber.
A withered leaf dodders on spindly legs across Its gnarled spine.

And above the tiny rustlings, above the glistening lanes,
Above the languid shadows that creep and close

on the mournful strains—​

The Stars draw back the shroud and peep,
Shake their bearded chins, cast their pearly eyes away and weep.
And below, crookbacked lampposts unfurl their hazy-white plumes and glare
At the four-footed heaps, at the white picket fences,
At the cracks in the sidewalks, at the manicured grasses,
As the musty night seeps through our senses.
And through the parlor windows we may see, you and I,
The flickering glow of that babbling flow on the walls:
The Soma of the enervated masses.
Morpheus has alighted on his throne at the commencement
of another dreary evening. . . .

And there will be other nights and other days too!
There will be seconds to spin and minutes to spill,
Hours to wend down a winding rill,
Moments for me and moments for you. . . .

There will be sacks full of question marks to sow
In furrowed brows replete with sad, fetid lies and concessions.
There will be secrets to air and rumors to grow,
Indiscretions to breed and issues to hoe
During the endless rounds of therapeutic confessions.
And if someone should say,
“Do you know?” and “Do you know?”
To whom shall I turn for the answer?

And there will be time for the time of the pitch and the shoeshine.
There will be time to bend our resolutions, to brood with callow men;
Time to follow the errant line of ink to its conclusion—
bleeding from a boosted pen.
There will be time for hope and time for hope to crash . . .
Time to reach for desperate dreams or drive them toward a sudden stop.

And the world’s amusements, its diversions, abound!
Sought by pale hands, chased by wooden feet:
Candy-coated rainbows that calm and feed the head
Or illicit, well-used harpies that slip into your bed . . .
Charms that lift you or drop you into a cold sweat.

A chorus of crickets roll their eyes
And dance beneath the cloudy skies.

I have cravenly suffered the sentimental drivel of the career politician—
The pandering fop, the trailer-trash clone,
The glib picaro who would do anything at all to be somebody,
Except be somebody who would do anything useful.
I have felt his pudgy fingers foraging in my pockets—
The easy smile, the evasive speech, the beguiling eyes

that woo the timid sheep . . .​

The stuff and the skinny of Orwellian nightmares.

And I have seen the feverish glint
That lights the eyes of the campus policemen
(The goose bumps on their hairy arms!),
Who train our sensitivities, arrest our moral zeal.
I Have heard the awkward silence of hounded thoughts and speeches;
Have seen the spittle that files off the rhetoric of the mindless Jacobins . . .
The unwashed, slogan-spouting cutouts reared by academic leeches.
And moreover, I have choked on the gall and the licentious,

toe-jam-funk-smellin’ rot of pretentious celluloid gods.​

And the nanny state, the meddler, bewitches so easily!
Conceived by venal men, contrived by ruthless means . . .
That ancient human misery loosed again on you and me,
Watching, prying . . . or it smothers,
The self-anointed class, the deified regime.

My carcass—scourged by jagged teeth—was spewed out

onto a distant Eastern shore.​

Oh, let’s do lunch and explore the boundless profundities

of our pregnant self-esteem,​

As we boldly proclaim our tolerance for everything that’s grown,
Lest something sacred, something precious rise above the common drone.
Let us smirk, let us squawk, let us blather till we mock
Every triumph, every blunder that has ever inspired wonder,
Every wisdom, every dream that has ever caused a scream,

till all music and all poetry are dead.​

A chorus of crickets roll their eyes
And dance beneath the cloudy skies.

I have stood naked, caught inside a crystal jar—
Trapped inside the frozen moment, trapped inside the silent pause,
Surrounded by a lethal ring of faces;
Have stood mute in bewildered indecision—the simmering flush

of sudden, unshed tears behind the stupid smile.​

When I’m standing inches tall and shrinking,
When my throat is clogged with cobwebs,
When my sluggish steps turn into miles and miles—
What shall I say to the man, with the withering sneer, standing by the open door?

And I have listlessly shuffled through the tedious echoes

of endless, wayward discussions—​

Strung out from the feet of my feet to the feet at your doorstep,

past the bathroom and down the hall.​

I have flirted with fancies and consorted with the shadows on the wall
(Attired in a three-piece suit and matching tie!)
And I have littered my life with wasted days beneath the dismal pall.

The wisdom of this world is a chatty girl with brazen eyes and big teeth.

I have seen the painted lips that frame the smiles

across the smoke-filled room;​

Have heard the music—the laughter!—that mingles

with the cloying scent of cheap perfume.​

I have romanced the evening’s glow and sated its spineless flowers;
Have stumbled from dark and sordid keeps—
A beer in one hand, a pretty fräulein in the other.
Soft, ripe breasts can swell my lust or soothe my rest . . .
Thighs that sway ‘neath a breathless wisp of silk or spread on satin sheets.

And I have known the scorn of Woman, the sting of unrequited love;
Have watched her smiling eyes sink into pools of contempt.
I have cursed the passing of those quintessential moments

when a word or touch was lost,​

And my keening heart—wounded by a thousand shards of glass—
Has stumbled through the daze of days and the wane

of bitter, sleepless nights.​

And after all the medicinal blather, the commiserations;
After all the drunken sleeps;
After the blood that flows from Private altars, the tearstains;
After all the moral leaps;
After all the feigned disclosures . . . the crickets, the withered leaves;
After all the tedious echoes, the teaspoons, the broken jars;
After all the banalities . . . that flow from the lips flickering on the parlor walls:
What shall I say to the woman with the lustrous shrug and the censorious eyes?

Shall I say, after a snort or two, that I have wrestled

with demons in squalid hotel rooms? . . .​

The paint that peels from walls,
The lone, naked light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

When Evening spreads His toothless grin across the face of Day,
When Dusk grovels at His feet as She scorns Her fallen Star—
Shall I wallow in the moonlight,
Bring the lesser stars to tears
With another tale of love’s discarded toys?

A chorus of crickets roll their eyes
And dance beneath the cloudy skies.

The many voices that saturate the airwaves,
The talking heads that float atop the breeze
Crawl inside my weary head and eviscerate my dreams. . . .

And again, after all the crowded halls, the Dread;
After all the passion and the romance and the mighty deeds are dead;
After the tantrums, the trials, the outstretched hands;
After all the woe that staggers stunned and broken hearts . . .

the girl with the big teeth;​

After the ashtrays, the crumbs, the bloodshot eyes . . .
After all the sweet and tender mercies in this world are scattered,

left to rot beneath the pall:​

What shall I do about the missing button on my vest?

I have communed with fragile ghosts and willows—bent and lashed by storms.

. . . .​

Shall I say that I have rummaged through the scuttled relics

inside the bowels of a Leviathan?​

Have gathered their bones around me?
Have counted and named them all?
I have counted and named them all!
And I have teetered on the very edge of madness;
Rather, I have dangled inches above its gaping maw—
My wriggling feet, my white-knuckled grip . . . straining sweat and slipping,

wrapped around the final rung.​

And I have looked into the eyes—the amused, malignant ulcers—

of a creature beyond redemption;​

Have smelled its yellow breath,
Felt its vile touch slither up my spine like the wet lick of a wounded dog . . .
The crystalline moment of recognition, the puddle of urine on the floor.

When I have squandered every last square inch of the soul that's in me,
When I have spent it all—who shall turn my reeling head toward home?

. . . .

​

Shall I dream the dreams of angels?
Roust the harpies from my bed?
In the morning, with my coffee,
I can smooth my rumpled head.

Shall I press the monumental question?
Smartly reinforce the crease?
I shall cast my lot with heaven . . .
The moldy mysterious on my fleece!
Should I butter my toast?
Insist on rye or wheat?
Let us dance a torrid tango
And display our nimble feet!

When the Soma oozes from our waxy ears
And mingles with the silvery tears

of those ancient Fellows loitering behind the clouds;​

When it’s time to shoo the Riffraff,
When it’s time to chase my feet,
When the relentless siege of the daze of days
And the fog of sleepless nights have razed
And burned and trampled and buried my hapless brain:
Shall I walk or ride the bus?
Ride the bus or take a walk?

A host of insidious insinuations
Prance about my contemplations
And wrap their velvet paws around my throat.

A chorus of crickets roll their eyes
And dance beneath the cloudy skies.

. . .​

Shall I offer my head on a platter,
A mere chit of a chat amidst the clatter,
For one last persuasive dance before his sire’s throne?

No!

I’m not a martyr!
I’ve no great calling to obey.
I’ve no olive branch to offer.
Let his conscience rot away!
I’m a pauper with high notions,
A poet with some flair.
I plot stories full of riches,
But have no coat or hope to spare.

When the sky sobs and the wind wails,
When the Earth shakes the dust off Her face—
I discretely take my leave and fade into the gray.

My sodden flesh—bleached and rancid, trampled by gleeful feet—lay wasted,
stretched out on hot sands.

. . . .​

We have come to the end of a certain class of human folly—
Raised up and spread abroad by brutal hands,
Passed through many sewers . . . beneath the glistening lanes,
Incessantly chanted by clueless brats
And shrugged off by indifferent, universal imperatives.
Yet we still hear, you and I, that vicious chorus of whores,

with curled lips,​

Sniveling behind the final curtain.
Oh, aren’t they finished?
Exposed and known?
Are you certain?

When we are laid out on stainless steel beneath florescent lights,
When our sightless eyes are closed by busy fingers,
When they have numbered and tagged our toes—
Numbered and tagged them all!—
Who shall pluck out the tufts of hair sprouting from our fleshy ears?

. . . .​

We have aimlessly wandered down tedious streets beneath a grieving sky—
Without hope, without respite, without another single sign

of life appearing anywhere in sight,​

Except a gang of looney crickets dancing jigs throughout the night.

Oh, I wish the mermaids would sing to me.
I wish the mermaids would sing. . . .

 

[Ringtone]

A huge fav of mine. . . .


Dover Beach
BY MATTHEW ARNOLD

The sea is calm tonight.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Ægean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

 

[Likkmee]

Mine is short, simple and jingly
"Got my dick caught in my zipper...... and I dunno what to do....It hurt like a motha...I hope it happens to you !
That's all I got folks.

WAIT ! One more.
Corn bread N Muffins... got drunk and fucked my cousin.....(you finish it)
PM Me and we'll together create the greatest country songs ever wroted !!!

 

[toobfreak]

No more my heart shall sob or grieve.
My days and nights dissolve in God's own Light.
Above the toil of life my soul
Is a Bird of Fire winging the Infinite.


I have known the One and His secret Play,
And passed beyond the sea of Ignorance Dream.
In tune with Him, I sport and sing;
I own the golden Eye of the Supreme.


Drunk deep of Immortality,
I am the root and boughs of a teeming vast.
My Form I have known and realised.
The Supreme and I are one; all we outlast.

 

[lg325]

No more my heart shall sob or grieve.
My days and nights dissolve in God's own Light.
Above the toil of life my soul
Is a Bird of Fire winging the Infinite.


I have known the One and His secret Play,
And passed beyond the sea of Ignorance Dream.
In tune with Him, I sport and sing;
I own the golden Eye of the Supreme.


Drunk deep of Immortality,
I am the root and boughs of a teeming vast.
My Form I have known and realised.
The Supreme and I are one; all we outlast.

Theresa poets corner over on the writing thread. Maybe move it there.

 

[toobfreak]

Within, without the cosmos wide am I;
In joyful sweep I loose forth and draw back all.
A birthless deathless Spirit that moves and is still
Ever abides within to hear my call.


I who create on earth my joys and doles
To fulfil my matchless quest in all my play,
I veil my face of truth with golden hues
And see the serpent night and python day.


A Consciousness Bliss I feel in each breath;
I am the self amorous child of the Sun.
At will I break and build my symbol sheath
And freely enjoy the world's unshadowed fun.

 

[toobfreak]

No mind, no form, I only exist;
Now ceased all will and thought;
The final end of Nature's dance,
I am it whom I have sought.


A realm of Bliss bare, ultimate;
Beyond both knower and known;
A rest immense I enjoy at last;
I face the One alone.


I have crossed the secret ways of life,
I have become the Goal.
The Truth immutable is revealed;
I am the way, the God Soul.


My spirit aware of all the heights,
I am mute in the core of the Sun.
I barter nothing with time and deeds;
My cosmic play is done.

 

[EvilCat Breath]

When I was very young we were on the road a lot. To my parents it was a glorious time of freedom. To me it was painfully miserable. I was often sick, always hungry, mostly cold. My mother would recite this poem. Joyce Kilmer was her favorite poet. She memorized many of his poems. This one always made me feel better. Somewhere there was a house that wanted me.

The House with Nobody In It
by  Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)
Whenever I walk to Suffern along the Erie track
I go by a poor old farmhouse with its shingles broken and black.
I suppose I’ve passed it a hundred times, but I always stop for a minute
And look at the house, the tragic house, the house with nobody in it.

I never have seen a haunted house, but I hear there are such things;
That they hold the talk of spirits, their mirth and sorrowings.
I know this house isn’t haunted, and I wish it were, I do;
For it wouldn’t be so lonely if it had a ghost or two.

This house on the road to Suffern needs a dozen panes of glass,
And somebody ought to weed the walk and take a scythe to the grass.
It needs new paint and shingles, and the vines should be trimmed and tied;
But what it needs the most of all is some people living inside.

If I had a lot of money and all my debts were paid
I’d put a gang of men to work with brush and saw and spade.
I’d buy that place and fix it up the way it used to be
And I’d find some people who wanted a home and give it to them free.

Now, a new house standing empty, with staring window and door,
Looks idle, perhaps, and foolish, like a hat on its block in the store.
But there’s nothing mournful about it; it cannot be sad and lone
For the lack of something within it that it has never known.

But a house that has done what a house should do, a house that has sheltered life,
That has put its loving wooden arms around a man and his wife,
A house that has echoed a baby’s laugh and held up his stumbling feet,
Is the saddest sight, when it’s left alone, that ever your eyes could meet.

So whenever I go to Suffern along the Erie track
I never go by the empty house without stopping and looking back,
Yet it hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can’t help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.

 

[toobfreak]

No more am I the foolish customer
of a dry, sterile, intellectual breeze.
I shall buy only
the weaving visions of the emerald Beyond.

My heart-tapestry
shall capture the Himalayan Smiles
of my Pilot Supreme.

In the burial of my sunken mind
is the revival of my climbing heart.
In the burial of my deceased mind
is the festival of my all-embracing life

 

[Concerned American]

There was a young couple from St. Claire
Who became amorous out on the stair
The banister broke, He quickened his stroke
And finished her off in the air.

When I was young and dumb and had no sense
I stuck my dick in an electric fence
It curled my hair and stung my balls
And made me shit my overalls

When the weather is hot and sticky
Thats no time to dip your dicky
When the frost is on the pumpkin
Thats the time for dicky dunkin'

Being red on the head
like a dick on a dog
Is better than being brown all around
like a prick on a hound
And an ass on a donkey.

 

[Concerned American]

My favorite poem is The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service
The Cremation of Sam McGee

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 cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'taint 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.

 

[HenryBHough]

First read this one painted on wall in the stairway of a "Service 36" bus out of Harrogate (North Yorkshire):

The Rolling English Road

By G. K. Chesterton

Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,
The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,
And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;
A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did tread
The night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.

I knew no harm of Bonaparte and plenty of the Squire,
And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire;
But I did bash their baggonets because they came arrayed
To straighten out the crooked road an English drunkard made,
Where you and I went down the lane with ale-mugs in our hands,
The night we went to Glastonbury by way of Goodwin Sands.

His sins they were forgiven him; or why do flowers run
Behind him; and the hedges all strengthening in the sun?
The wild thing went from left to right and knew not which was which,
But the wild rose was above him when they found him in the ditch.
God pardon us, nor harden us; we did not see so clear
The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier.

My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage,
Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age,
But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth,
And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death;
For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen,
Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.



Loved the payoff line once I discovered the meaning of "Kensal Green":

Kensal Green Cemetery - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It's where Freddie Mercury is taking his dirt nap.

 

[Ringtone]

No more my heart shall sob or grieve.
My days and nights dissolve in God's own Light.
Above the toil of life my soul
Is a Bird of Fire winging the Infinite.


I have known the One and His secret Play,
And passed beyond the sea of Ignorance Dream.
In tune with Him, I sport and sing;
I own the golden Eye of the Supreme.


Drunk deep of Immortality,
I am the root and boughs of a teeming vast.
My Form I have known and realised.
The Supreme and I are one; all we outlast.

Wow!

 

[Ringtone]

No more my heart shall sob or grieve.
My days and nights dissolve in God's own Light.
Above the toil of life my soul
Is a Bird of Fire winging the Infinite.


I have known the One and His secret Play,
And passed beyond the sea of Ignorance Dream.
In tune with Him, I sport and sing;
I own the golden Eye of the Supreme.


Drunk deep of Immortality,
I am the root and boughs of a teeming vast.
My Form I have known and realised.
The Supreme and I are one; all we outlast.

Theresa poets corner over on the writing thread. Maybe move it there.

Oh, I didn't know that.

 

[Ringtone]

By the way, just noticed that one of the lines in my poem reads:

And the fog of sleepless nights have razed​

That should be has razed.

 

[BULLDOG]

Solitary Observation Brought Back from a Brief Sojourn Into Hell
By Louise Bogan

At midnight tears
Run in your ears.

 

[Ringtone]

My favorite poem is The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service
The Cremation of Sam McGee

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 cursed cold, and it's got right hold till I'm chilled clean through to the bone.
Yet 'taint 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.

Reminds me of Housman's "Terrence This Is Stupid Stuff". Another fav.


'Terence, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.'

Why, if 'tis dancing you would be,
There's brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world's not.
And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past:
The mischief is that 'twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.

Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul's stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.

There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all the springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.

I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

I certainly hope only chicks and liberal males have a favorite poem or God forbid write their own poetry.

 

[lg325]

Go check poets corner you may be surprised

 

[Hossfly]

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear.
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
So Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy was he?