Another one by Tolkien, manly tears were shed.

Sam's Song in the Tower of Cirith Ungol

from The Return of the King

In western lands beneath the Sun
the flowers may rise in Spring,
the trees may bud, the waters run,
the merry finches sing.
Or there maybe 'tis cloudless night
and swaying beeches bear
the Elven-stars as jewels white
amid their branching hair.

Though here at journey's end I lie
in darkness buried deep,
beyond all towers strong and high,
beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows rides the Sun
and Stars forever dwell:
I will not say the Day is done,
nor bid the Stars farewell.

No great insights into the meaning of life or investigations of man's inhumanity to man, here; it just paints an idyllic picture for me. I like it! Maybe you will also!

The Eagle Alfred, Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

On a lighter mood, this little song has me rolling on the floor the first time i heard it:


Beer, Beer, Beer, tiddly beer, beer, beer

A long time ago way back in history
When all there was to drink, was nothing but cups of tea.
Along came a man by the name of Charlie Mopps,
And he invented a wonderful drink and he made it out of hops.

Hey!

He must have been an admiral, a sultan, or a king.
And to his praises we shall always sing.
Look at what he's done for us, he's filled us up with cheer.
Lord Bless Charlies Mopps the man who invented
Beer, Beer, Beer, tiddly beer, beer, beer

The Drunken Rat, the Aiken Drum, the Trowles Pub as well,
One thing you can be sure of, it's Charlies' beer they sell
So all ye lads and lasses at eleven o'clock ye stop.
For five short seconds, remember Charlies Mopps.

One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five...

Hey!

He must have been an admiral, a sultan, or a king.
And to his praises we shall always sing.
Look at what he's done for us, he's filled us up with cheer.
Lord Bless Charlies Mopps the man who invented
Beer, Beer, Beer, tiddly beer, beer, beer

A barrel of malt, a bushel of hops, you stir it around with a stick.
The kind of lubrication to make your engines tick.
forty pints of wallop a day will keep away the quacks.
Its only eight pence hapenny, and one and six in tax.

One,
Two,
Three,
Four,
Five...

Hey!

He must have been an admiral, a sultan, or a king.
And to his praises we shall always sing.
Look at what he's done for us, he's filled us up with cheer.
Lord Bless Charlies Mopps the man who invented
Beer, Beer, Beer, tiddly beer, beer, beer, tiddly beer, beer, beer.

The Lord bless Charlie Mopps.

http://youtu.be/s9Erdh3XFJ8
http://youtu.be/KoVnWUQ9CR8

Not the best recitation of the poem, but it's an effort, I suppose.

Thanks for linking the videos, though :)

Slyvester Calzone-

My mouth is literally full of marbles,

Me-

Don't let your balls drop off.

Slyvester Calzone-

I guess I'll go back to making pornos.

Me-This makes no fucking sense.

From Emily Dickinson:

"To foe of His - I'm deadly foe -
None stir the second time -
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -
Or an emphatic Thumb -

Though I than He - may longer live
He longer must - than I -
For I have but the power to kill,
Without--the power to die--"

old emily - she's a gem:
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.

The Almond Tree by Jon Stallworthy is my favourite poem. Terribly sad but, thankfully, uplifting too by the end.

All the way to the hospital
The lights were green as peppermints.
Trees of black iron broke into leaf
ahead of me, as if
I were the lucky prince
in an enchanted wood
summoning summer with my whistle,
banishing winter with a nod.

Swung by the road from bend to bend,
I was aware that blood was running
down through the delta of my wrist
and under arches
of bright bone. Centuries,
continents it had crossed;
from an undisclosed beginning
spiralling to an unmapped end.


II

Crossing (at sixty) Magdalen Bridge
Let it be a son, a son, said
the man in the driving mirror,
Let it be a son. The tower
held up its hand: the college
bells shook their blessings on his head.


III

I parked in an almond's
shadow blossom, for the tree
was waving, waving at me
upstairs with a child's hands.


IV

Up
the spinal stair
and at the top
along
a bone-white corridor
the blood tide swung
me swung me to a room
whose walls shuddered
with the shuddering womb.
Under the sheet
wave after wave, wave
after wave beat
on the bone coast,
bringing ashore - whom?
New-
minted, my bright farthing!
Coined by our love, stamped
With our images, how you
Enrich us! Both
you make one. Welcome
to your white sheet,
my best poem.


V

At seven-thirty
the visitors' bell
scissored the calm
of the corridors.
The doctor walked with
to the slicing doors.
His hand is upon my arm,
his voice - I have to tell
you - set another bell
beating in my head:
your son is a mongol
the doctor said.


VI

How easily the word went in -
clean as a bullet
leaving no mark on the skin,
stopping the heart within it.

This was my first death.
The 'I ' ascending on a slow
Last thermal breath
studied the man below

as a pilot treading air might
the buckled shell of his plane -
boot, glove and helmet
feeling no pain

from the snapped wires' radiant ends.
Looking down from a thousand feet
I held four walls in the lens
of an eye; wall, window, the street

a torrent of windscreens, my own
car under its almond tree,
and the almond waving me down.
I wrestled against gravity,

but light was melting and the gulf
cracked open. Unfamiliar
the body of my late self
I carried to the car.


VII

The hospital - its heavy freight
lashed down ship-shape ward over ward -
steamed into night with some on board
soon to be lost if the desperate

charts were known. Others would come
altered to land or find the land
altered. At their voyage's end
some would be added to, some

diminished. In a numbered cot
my son sailed from me; never to come
ashore into my kingdom
speaking my language. Better not

look that way. The almond tree
was beautiful in labour. Blood-
dark, quickening, bud after bud
split, flower after flower shook free.

On the darkening wind a pale
face floated. Out of reach. Only when
the buds, all the buds were broken
would the tree be in full sail.

In labour the tree was becoming
itself. I, too, rooted in earth
and ringed by darkness, from the death
of myself saw myself blossoming,

wrenched from the caul of my thirty
years' growing, fathered by my son,
unkindly in a kind season
by love shattered and set free.

I know who Yeats is, but geeks who quote this particular poem usually got it from Equilibrium.

That's one of my favs. I also like this one by Gwendolyn B. Bennett:

He came in silvern armour, trimmed with black
A lover come from legends long ago
With silver spurs and silken plumes a-blow,
And flashing sword caught fast and buckled back
In a carven sheath of Tamarack.
He came with footsteps beautifully slow,
And spoke in voice meticulously low.
He came and Romance followed in his track . .
I did not ask his name--I thought him Love;
I did not care to see his hidden face.
All life seemed born in my intaken breath;
All thought seemed flown like some forgotten dove.
He bent to kiss and raised his visor's lace . . .
All eager-lipped I kissed the mouth of Death.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Ah, OK, I see what you mean now, thanks for the clarification :)


Wait...you just called me a geek???? wtf?? :(

:P

The bard innit? Sonnet 29 or summat? am i wrong? could be
just checked it was of course no 18. But 29 ain't half bad either