A poem, a poem!

[packbat]

If you see this, post a favourite poem.

My favourite poem, as I have mentioned, is modern and under copyright - it is called "The Voice You Hear When You Read Silently" by Thomas Lux. In lieu of that, I would have posted another favorite - "The Tree", by Ezra Pound - but that, although less recent, is still modern and under copyright. Therefore I will offer this, which is modern but not under copyright:

         Sara Teasdale
 Interlude: Songs out of Sorrow

   II. Mastery

I would not have a god come in
To shield me suddenly from sin,
And set my house of life to rights;
Nor angels with bright burning wings
Ordering my earthly thoughts and things:
Rather my own frail guttering lights
Wind blown and nearly beaten out:
Rather the terror of the nights
And long, sick groping after doubt;
Rather be lost than let my soul
Slip vaguely from my own control
Of my own spirit let me be
In sole though feeble mastery.

- from "Love Songs", 1917.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

a fine poem indeed --- but don't you like some things by Gerard Manly Hopkins a bit better? --- setting aside his explicit Christianity (which was his life) there's amazingly great imagery to be found there (cf. Pied Beauty, The Windhover, etc.) ... ^z

[packbat.livejournal.com]

I admire Gerald Manly Hopkins, but I usually like the more straightforward stuff better. Actually, I probably should have quoted a different poem - to wit, John Donne:

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

- from his Holy Sonnets, c. 1609.