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[JLT]

The Raven is the most popular American poem ever written. It was written 180 years ago. It is also, third most popular English poem of all time after Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? by William Shakespeare, 1609 and Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1818

Your source for that, please?

"The Raven" may well have the record for longevity, but I think that more people are acquainted with Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Of course, "The Star Spangled Banner" beats them both, if only because somebody found that you could sing it to the tune of a popular drinking song of the day, and turned it into a a national anthem.

As for English poems, I think that Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" would be most popular. I came across that one long before "Ozymandias," probably because it was the sort of poem one would encounter in grade school.

 

[murff]

Your source for that, please?

"The Raven" may well have the record for longevity, but I think that more people are acquainted with Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Of course, "The Star Spangled Banner" beats them both, if only because somebody found that you could sing it to the tune of a popular drinking song of the day, and turned it into a a national anthem.

As for English poems, I think that Joyce Kilmer's "Trees" would be most popular. I came across that one long before "Ozymandias," probably because it was the sort of poem one would encounter in grade school.

Some algorithm, I guess. I googled it. So who knows? The two poems you mention were # 2 & #3. I consider the "Star Spangled Banner" a song.

 

[Louanne Learning]

There’s two kind of ancient poetry I like to read – Chinese and Celtic. I love connecting with long-gone peoples and their sensibilities, and do get romantic about it. It all seems so foundational to the human spirit.

For the roleplay I’m involved in, I have gotten familiar with the Tao Teh King, by Lao-Tse (written around the 4th century BCE).
It’s got several poetic passages:

Always without desire we must be found,
If its deep mystery we would sound;
But if desire always within us be,
Its outer fringe is all that we shall see.

The work is done, but how no one can see;
'Tis this that makes the power not cease to be.

Tis emptied, yet it loses not its power;
'Tis moved again, and sends forth air the more.
Much speech to swift exhaustion lead we see;
Your inner being guard, and keep it free.

The valley spirit dies not, aye the same;
The female mystery thus do we name.
Its gate, from which at first they issued forth,
Is called the root from which grew heaven and earth.
Long and unbroken does its power remain,
Used gently, and without the touch of pain.

***

During the Iron Age in ancient Ireland, bards were revered. At that time, about 150 kings ruled there, and they were always a-conquering one another. And should one king conquer another kingdom, legend has it that his order would be, “Kill them all, except the music.”

The poem below has roots in the oral tradition:

DEIRDRE'S LAMENT

And Deirdre dishevelled her hair and began kissing Noisi and drinking his blood, and the colour of embers came into her cheeks, and she uttered this lay.

Long is the day without Usnagh's Children;
It was never mournful to be in their company.
A king's sons, by whom exiles were rewarded,
Three lions from the Hill of the Cave.

Three dragons of Dun Monidh,
The three champions from the Red Branch:
After them I shall not live—
Three that used to break every onrush.

Three darlings of the women of Britain,
Three hawks of Slieve Gullion,
Sons of a king whom valour served,
To whom soldiers would pay homage.

Three heroes who were not good at homage,
Their fall is cause of sorrow—
Three sons of Cathba's daughter,
Three props of the battle-host of Coolney.

Three vigorous bears,
Three lions out of Liss Una,
Three lions who loved their praise,
Three pet sons of Ulster.

That I should remain after Noisi
Let no one in the world suppose!
After Ardan and Ainnle
My time would not be long.

Ulster's high-king, my first husband,
I forsook for Noisi's love:
Short my life after them,
I will perform their funeral game.

After them I will not be alive—
Three that would go into every conflict,
Three who liked to endure hardships,
Three heroes who never refused combat.

O man that diggest the tomb,
And that puttest my darling from me,
Make not the grave too narrow,
I shall be beside the noble ones.

 

[GrahamLewis]

I SAW IN LOUSIANA A LIVE OAK GROWING
Walt Whitman

I saw in Louisiana a live oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wonder'd how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone
there without its friend near, for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig, with a certain number of leaves upon it,
and twined around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight in my room.
It is not intended to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them.)
Yet it remains in me a curious token, it makes me think of
manly love,
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in
Louisiana, solitary in a wide flat space,
Uttering leaves all its life without a friend or lover near,
I know very well I could not.

 

[GrahamLewis]

This is the Whitman poem I was originally searching for when I serendipitously stumbled across the Louisiana poem (another old favorite and just as valued):

Long enough have you dreamed contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and
of every moment of your life. Long have you timidly waded, holding a plank by the shore,
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea, and rise again and
nod to me and shout, and laughingly dash with your
hair.

–Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, no. 46

That's one of the fascinating things about Whitman, he was so prolific and gems are scattered throughout his oeuvre.

 

[GrahamLewis]

[This would fit equally well in @Louanne Learning's philosophy and science threads. It summarizes, with a sad sigh, my feelings now about both of those disciplines.]

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer Speak
Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn'd astronomer speak,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

 

[JLT]

[This would fit equally well in @Louanne Learning's philosophy and science threads. It summarizes, with a sad sigh, my feelings now about both of those disciplines.]

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer Speak
Walt Whitman

But I disagree with Walt, in that beauty shows up in several ways, and to be blind to any of them shows a deficit in appreciation. The astronomer finds beauty in the clockwork precision of a planet's orbit. The fact that the perturbations of that planet's orbit seemed ugly and messy at first, but revealed the existence of a previously unknown planet, and how the math suddenly made sense... I can see how the astronomer might find that astonishingly right and beautiful.

Can you find beauty in the fact that those stars you regard in perfect silence sent out those rays of light millions of years ago, or that the moon sends the oceans back and forth in ceaseless waves?

We must be open to beauty in all its forms if we claim to be appreciators of beauty. That isn't to say that we must find beauty in all things, but we cannot overlook beauty that isn't in plain view.

 

[GrahamLewis]

But I disagree with Walt, in that beauty shows up in several ways, and to be blind to any of them shows a deficit in appreciation. The astronomer finds beauty in the clockwork precision of a planet's orbit. The fact that the perturbations of that planet's orbit seemed ugly and messy at first, but revealed the existence of a previously unknown planet, and how the math suddenly made sense... I can see how the astronomer might find that astonishingly right and beautiful.

Can you find beauty in the fact that those stars you regard in perfect silence sent out those rays of light millions of years ago, or that the moon sends the oceans back and forth in ceaseless waves?

We must be open to beauty in all its forms if we claim to be appreciators of beauty. That isn't to say that we must find beauty in all things, but we cannot overlook beauty that isn't in plain view.

All you say makes sense, but sometimes I think one must simply experience what is there without running it through an intellectual blender. I understand the beauty in mathematical calculations and all the related physics and all, and I'm not denigrating them in any way. But there is something about simple unmeasured existence. IMHO.

 

[JLT]

All you say makes sense,

Stop the presses! "JLT Makes Sense!" Next thing you read will be "Sun Rises in West!"

but sometimes I think one must simply experience what is there without running it through an intellectual blender.

Nothing says you can't. At times, you have to just see the thing for what it is. If you're shown "beauty" in some form you don't identify as beautiful, that's cool. A lot of people, for instance, don't find beauty in Jackson Pollock's paintings or in John Cage's music, especially if their concepts of beauty are rooted in classical, conventional forms of those arts. I understand that. But it reminds me of what an artist told me: "When I hear people say 'I don't know much about art, but I know what I like,' they're really saying, 'I don't know much about art, but I like what I know.'"

I'm glad that Walt spent some time listening to those astronomers. At least he exposed himself to another form of beauty, even if it didn't take.

 

[GrahamLewis]

[since feeling is first]​

E. E. Cummings
1894 –1962

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don’t cry
—the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids’ flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

 

[Luxuria]

Mine's too long. But The Divine Comedy. Allow me to leave you with Dante's opening words as translated by Longfellow:

"MIDWAY upon the journey of our life 1
I found myself within a forest dark, 2
For the straightforward pathway had been lost."
http://chrome-extension://efaidnbmn...c.edu/wp-content/uploads/dante-01-inferno.pdf
(Source)

 

[JLT]

Mine's too long. But The Divine Comedy. Allow me to leave you with Dante's opening words as translated by Longfellow:

"MIDWAY upon the journey of our life 1
I found myself within a forest dark, 2
For the straightforward pathway had been lost."
http://chrome-extension//efaidnbmnn...c.edu/wp-content/uploads/dante-01-inferno.pdf
(Source)

If you like the Divine Comedy, please check out John Ciardi's translation. Not only was he a respected poet in his own right, but his attention to the rhyme scheme put his work a notch above the other translations. He did have to make one concession: instead of having all three lines in the triplet rhyme, he rhymed only the first and third. As he explained, it's not too far from the truth to say that in Italian, everything rhymes with everything else.

 

[Luxuria]

If you like the Divine Comedy, please check out John Ciardi's translation. Not only was he a respected poet in his own right, but his attention to the rhyme scheme put his work a notch above the other translations. He did have to make one concession: instead of having all three lines in the triplet rhyme, he rhymed only the first and third. As he explained, it's not too far from the truth to say that in Italian, everything rhymes with everything else.

That sounds like a fun read. I have Cardi on my shelf. I will take a look. The Tresa Rima (?) rhyming scheme is really cool. I wish it worked well in English, but it doesn't.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

I always enjoyed Inferno, but I feel Dante was doing a "Take That" at some of the political figures of this day, so I remember having to pause every so often to think "Wait, who the heck is that?" and then going off to consult google, wikipedia, and other (more reliable) sources.

So it took me forever to finish reading Inferno, just 'cos I'm had to understand everything.

 

[JLT]

I always enjoyed Inferno, but I feel Dante was doing a "Take That" at some of the political figures of this day, so I remember having to pause every so often to think "Wait, who the heck is that?" and then going off to consult google, wikipedia, and other (more reliable) sources.

So it took me forever to finish reading Inferno, just 'cos I'm had to understand everything.

It's amazing how much literature is based on political commentary of the time. Many of the "Mother Goose" poems are derived from the issues and people of the day. And Isaac Asimov, in his books on the Bible, point out some of the historical sources of the various stories and how some of them became distorted over time. He saved me much of the work of scrambling to sources that explained who these various characters were and where they might have fitted into the story.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

It's amazing how much literature is based on political commentary of the time. Many of the "Mother Goose" poems are derived from the issues and people of the day. And Isaac Asimov, in his books on the Bible, point out some of the historical sources of the various stories and how some of them became distorted over time. He saved me much of the work of scrambling to sources that explained who these various characters were and where they might have fitted into the story.

True. I hadn't read Asimov's books on the Bible, but I read his critique of "Gulliver's Travels", which amazed me because I hadn't heard of the political issues of the time and always thought it was a simple fiction. Now I can see that the story of the Lilliputians deciding which way to crack an egg was a satire of the religious and political conflicts of Swift's time, and an illustration of how trivialities can escalate into horrifying conflicts.