What are the best ever lines in poetry?

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And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

-- The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde

Reply 41

Elenathion

My favourite poem - The Sick Rose, William Blake.

O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

Reply 42

MrFlash1994

Original post by EffDee

Your opinions?

Naturally, it's difficult to pick...it's almost as bad as "what's your favourite novel?"
However, just any lines that grab you or move you- I'm also aware this is subject to mood, age, time etc and it might just be your favourite at this very moment.

Currently mine are:

'Call her one, me another fly,
We are tapers too, and at our own cost die.'

From 'The Canonization' by John Donne. In case it's not clear (as they're out of context) it means that basically he and his lover are both moths to the flame (i.e. they are in danger of dying from the intensity of their love) and that they are also the flame (taper=candle) itself- and bring about their own downfall.

EDIT: and please, if you know it, can you state who the poem was written by and what it was called. Feel free to add a bit of 'autobiog why you like it' spiel if you want.

"I wandered lonely as a daffodil, and then I saw a cloud" - William Wordsworth by Garth Marenghi

Reply 43

ArcadiaHouse

Original post by EffDee

Ah I love Plath! She was the main incentive in choosing the college I applied to at Cambridge. Have you read The Bell Jar? And how do you think it compares to her poetry?

I love Plath too, after studying her at school last year. I never really 'got' poetry until I experienced her black rage and powerful imagery. There were poems I'd loved, but never poets. I have indeed read The Bell Jar; I read it in one sitting last summer.

I loved the first half of the book, when she was in New York, but the second is a bit bleak and slow, but it's still beautifully written. It's an amazing book about a mental breakdown, but the way Plath can conjure such amazing images like in 'Medusa' in so few words and write so beautifully about her children with such simple language is just something else. My favourite is actually 'Wuthering Heights' because of the atmosphere it creates. What's your favourite Plath poem? Well done on getting into Cambridge btw :awesome:

I also love 'Mad Girl's Love Song':

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

Have you read her letters/journals? I like how in so many pictures of her, even when was 14, she's still wearing her bright red lipstick.

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 44

lolawonder

'When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I need with my good looks?'

Taken from Allen Ginsberg's 'America' <3

Reply 45

pianofluteftw

Got to love the e.e cummings one, and also 'Falling Stars' by Rainer Maria Rilke which I think is beautiful.

Do you remember still the falling stars
that like swift horses through the heavens raced
and suddenly leaped across the hurdles
of our wishes--do you recall? And we
did make so many! For there were countless numbers
of stars: each time we looked above we were
astounded by the swiftness of their daring play,
while in our hearts we felt safe and secure
watching these brilliant bodies disintegrate,
knowing somehow we had survived their fall.

And just for fun I do love Roald Dahl poetry (to remind me of childhood) particularly the genius of 'Little Red Riding Hood' and 'The Three Little Pigs'

:smile:

Reply 46

Scribblet

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy. A few random stanza:

Not a Red Rose or a Satin Heart

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

Amazing poem.

And Ode to a Nightingale, John Keats:

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

Edit: Why the Neg? o_O

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 47

miss_sporty

Petals

Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our heart;
The end lost in dream,
They float past our view,
We only watch their glad, early start.
i read this poem somewhere and loved it i though it was really sweet :biggrin:

Freighted with hope,
Crimsoned with joy,
We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;
Their widening scope,
Their distant employ,
We never shall know. And the stream as it flows
Sweeps them away,
Each one is gone
Ever beyond into infinite ways.
We alone stay
While years hurry on,
The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.
Amy Lowell

Reply 48

EffDee

Original post by MrFlash1994

"I wandered lonely as a daffodil, and then I saw a cloud" - William Wordsworth by Garth Marenghi

Haha I love this one- haven't heard it before!

Reply 49

Profesh

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

- John Betjeman

Reply 50

Scribblet

Original post by ArcadiaHouse

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

-- Daddy, Sylvia Plath.

It's at times like this I would I could write poetry, but I can just make silly rhymes as opposed to works of genius. :moon:

Sylvia Plath was an amazing poet.

I completely agree I wish I was able to write such powerful stuff, but all I'm capable of is Haikus.

Reply 51

Profesh

Original post by Planar

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table.
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The sawdust restaurants with oyster shell,
And stay a night in a cheap hotel,
To lead you to a tedious argument of insidious intent.
Oh, do not ask what is it,
Let us go and make our visit.

The beginning of Eliot's "Prufrock" from memory(I know it's a bit muddled).

edit: Oh and for one line alone

"I have measured out my life with coffeespoons"

My favourite line in all the literature I have ever come across, same poem.

Also, this.

Reply 52

EffDee

Nell
Fell
When Charles the Second
Beckoned

Reply 53

Cybele

My care is like my shadow in the sun,
follows me flying;
flies when I pursue it.

:h:

Reply 54

BorisMalden

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more.

Pos rep to anyone who gets the poem without Google (or any other search engine for that matter)

Reply 55

cema1

All I have is a voice
To do the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the state
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizens or the police;
We must love one another or die.

WH Auden, 1st September 1939

Reply 56

EffDee

Original post by cema1

WH Auden, 1st September 1939

I love Auden....

Funeral Blues should probably get a mention here too- can't decide on a favourite line form it though...although maybe it's a bit cliche now?

Reply 57

Deadlifts

Mine

'Spit four-thousand bullets a minute
Victor Charlie, hit trigger, hit it
I'm in it to win it, get it
The lieutenant hinted the villain, I've ended up killing
I did it, cripple, did it, pictures I painted is vivid, live it'

Uncommon Valor: A Vietnam Story by Jedi Mind Tricks and R.A.

Reply 58

Great Lord Xenu

They **** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were ****ed up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.