• EndOfLine@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Invictus by William Ernst Henley

    When I was younger I clung to it’s message of perseverance. It ended up being the first poem that I ever memorized.

    Out of the night that covers me
    Black as the pit from pole to pole,
    I thank whatever gods may be
    For my unconquerable soul.
    
    In the fell clutch of circumstance,
    I have not winced nor cried aloud.
    Under the bludgeonings of chance
    My head is bloody, but unbowed.
    
    Beyond this place of wrath and tears
    Looms but the Horror of the shade,
    And yet the menace of the years
    Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
    
    It matters not how strait the gate,
    How charged with punishments the scroll,
    I am the master of my fate
    I am the captain of my soul.
    
    • young_broccoli@fedia.io
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      5 months ago

      I really like all of Wlfred Owen’s work. So fucking sad. And I dont mean just the poetry but his life. When I found about him I read his biography and it made me cry a little. You probably already know this but not only did he fought and wrote his poetry in the first WW but he also died there with only 25 years. Just writing this Im starting to tear up, trully heartbreaking.

  • khannie@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Subh Milis (Sweet jam). It’s a short and powerful Irish poem reminding parents to be kind to their kids.

    English translation below. Can’t seem to get the formatting correct on mobile…

    Bhí subh milis ar bháscrann an doras

    ach mhúch mé an corraí

    ionaim a d’éirigh

    mar smaoinigh mé ar an lá

    a bheadh an bháscrann glan

    agus an lámh beag – ar iarraidh…”

    There was jam on the door handle

    But I quelled the anger

    That rose inside me

    Because I thought of the day

    That the handle would be clean

    And the little hand - longed for

  • SanguinePar@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I really like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge. I first encountered it as a result of reading Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently novels, but one day I saw the original in the library and just read it from start to finish. It’s fantastic, so weird, so compelling.

    I also like his Kubla Khan, the imagery of the “caverns measureless to man” and the “sunless sea” have always stuck with me.

  • toothpaste_sandwich@feddit.nl
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    5 months ago

    I’m partial to To make a prairie by Emily Dickinson:

    To make a prairie it takes a clover 
          and one bee,
    One clover, and a bee.
    And revery.
    The revery alone will do,
    If bees are few.
    

    I enjoy the simplicity. Also, there’s a great choir setting by Rudolf Escher which I really enjoy.

  • robolemmy@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    This Bread I Break by Dylan Thomas

    It’s a short, beautiful poem that laments man’s destructive relationship with nature.

  • Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works
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    5 months ago

    “The View From Halfway Down” by Alison Tifel has always resonated with me:

    The weak breeze whispers nothing
    The water screams sublime
    His feet shift, teeter-totter
    Deep breath, stand back, it’s time

    Toes untouch the overpass
    Soon he’s water bound
    Eyes locked shut but peek to see
    The view from halfway down

    A little wind, a summer sun
    A river rich and regal
    A flood of fond endorphins
    Brings a calm that knows no equal

    You’re flying now
    You see things much more clear than from the ground
    It’s all okay, it would be
    Were you not now halfway down

    Thrash to break from gravity
    What now could slow the drop
    All I’d give for toes to touch
    The safety back at top

    But this is it, the deed is done
    Silence drowns the sound
    Before I leaped I should’ve seen
    The view from halfway down

    I really should’ve thought about
    The view from halfway down
    I wish I could’ve known about
    The view from halfway down

  • MMNT@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Mark Strand - Keeping things whole. It helps me deal with depression. I find it very soothing when I’m feeling down. It’s one of the few I know by heart.