My favorite is "Disobiedience" by A.A. Milne:

James James
Morrison Morrison
Weatherby George Dupree
Took great
Care of his Mother,
Though he was only three.
James James Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he;
"You must never go down
to the end of the town,
if you don't go down with me."

James James
Morrison's Mother
Put on a golden gown.
James James Morrison's Mother
Drove to the end of the town.
James James Morrison's Mother
Said to herself, said she:
"I can get right down
to the end of the town
and be back in time for tea."

King John
Put up a notice,
"LOST or STOLEN or STRAYED!
JAMES JAMES MORRISON'S MOTHER
SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN MISLAID.
LAST SEEN
WANDERING VAGUELY:
QUITE OF HER OWN ACCORD,
SHE TRIED TO GET DOWN
TO THE END OF THE TOWN -
FORTY SHILLINGS REWARD!"
James James
Morrison Morrison
(Commonly known as Jim)
Told his
Other relations
Not to go blaming him.
James James
Said to his Mother,
"Mother," he said, said he:
"You must never go down to the end of the town
without consulting me."

James James
Morrison's mother
Hasn't been heard of since.
King John said he was sorry,
So did the Queen and Prince.
King John
(Somebody told me)
Said to a man he knew:
If people go down to the end of the town, well,
what can anyone do?"

(Now then, very softly)
J.J.
M.M.
W.G.Du P.
Took great
C/0 his M*****
Though he was only 3.
J.J. said to his M*****
"M*****," he said, said he:
"You-must-never-go-down-to-the-end-of-the-town-
if-you-don't-go-down-with-ME!"

Mine is short.

Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor
Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief.

Annabelle Lee, by Poe.

The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll.

"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each."

Anything Emiliy Dickinson

(yeah I said it)

She was like a witty yet melancholy rapper in the 20's...

Yet another reason to love you, Joe Famous.

Sea Fever by John Masefield.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

Seconding "The Walrus and the Carpenter" -- which, weirdly, works perfectly well when sung to the tune of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen."

You are sweeter than a smoothie, Iconomy!

Thank you.

12. The Windhover

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding

Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding

High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,

As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding

Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding

Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here

Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion

Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,

Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins

Love is not All

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink
Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;
Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink
And rise and sink and rise and sink again;
Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,
Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;
Yet many a man is making friends with death
Even as I speak, for lack of love alone.
It well may be that in a difficult hour,
Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,
Or nagged by want past resolution's power,
I might be driven to sell your love for peace,
Or trade the memory of this night for food.
It well may be. I do not think I would.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Recuerdo

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night upon the ferry.
It was bare and bright, and smelled like a stable--
But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table,
We lay on the hill-top underneath the moon;
And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon.

We were very tired, we were very merry--
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;
And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,
From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;
And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,
And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.

We were very tired, we were very merry,
We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry.
We hailed, "Good morrow, mother!" to a shawl-covered head,
And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read;
And she wept, "God bless you!" for the apples and the pears,
And we gave her all our money but our subway fares.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," by T.S. Eliot. One of my all-time favorites. I had most of it memorized at one point. Here are just the opening stanzas (it's long -- please google for full text; I must learn how to put in links).

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreat
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
 
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

which, weirdly, works perfectly well when sung to the tune of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen."

Any Emily Dickinson poem can be sung to the tune of The Yellow Rose Of Texas. (Thank you, Babylon 5).

One Art

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

(Elizabeth Bishop)


Bishop at her best -- heavily enjambed rhymes that are heard rather than seen (consider 'fluster', 'last or', and 'gesture'). Then at the end, the villanelle repetition schema kicks you in the balls.


Pips, I have Prufrock memorized, but only ever recite it while drunk.

Hey Miko, I wrote a pastiche of The Windhover for the Metachat Book (an idea I fear has been lost forever); if I find out the book won't be published, or that I can submit something else, I'll post it here. Otherwise, it'll have to wait for the sake of surprise.

HIAWATHA!

I wrote a pastiche of The Windhover for the Metachat Book

That can only be a gem. Hope to see it one day.

Edward Lear.

There once was a man named Sprockett
Who walked with his hand in his pocket
He was able to hide
What he was doing inside
Till he shot off like a Fourth of July rocket.

This one has an odd rhythm, but it's like slightly hypnotic speech, to me. (It's also one of my favorite poems):

Riding the Elevator Into the Sky
by Anne Sexton (1975)


As the fireman said:
Don't book a room over the fifth floor
in any hotel in New York.
They have ladders that will reach further
but no one will climb them.
As the New York Times said:
The elevator always seeks out
the floor of the fire
and automatically opens
and won't shut.
These are the warnings
that you must forget
if you're climbing out of yourself.
If you're going to smash into the sky.

Many times I've gone past
the fifth floor,
cranking toward,
but only once
have I gone all the way up.
Sixtieth floor: small plants and swans bending
into their grave.
Floor two hundred:
mountains with the patience of a cat,
silence wearing its sneakers.
Floor five hundred:
messages and letters centuries old,
birds to drink,
a kitchen of clouds.
Floor six thousand:
the stars,
skeletons on fire,
their arms singing.
And a key,
a very large key,
that opens something–
some useful door–
somewhere–
up there.

--------------------------------------
For rhyme schemes, I've always loved the sound of Poe's "The Raven."

Ha! How many of us have "Prufrock" memorized??? That's gonna become the next meet-up trick, I see.

This thread has inspired me to look at a bunch of Paul Eluard's poems. I'm always unsure how good the translations are, but I love the play of words-running-together and then harsh pauses I always hear in my head when I read him.

Since it must be

In the full bed your body turns simple
Liquid sex universe of liquid
Linking the waters so many bodies
Whole entire from nape to ankle
Skinless mound maternal mound in travail
Servile mound agleam with blood
Between breasts thighs and buttocks
Controlling the shade extracting warmth
Lip stretched to the bed's horizon
Lacking a sponge to absorb the night
Lacking all sleep to look like death.

Ah, what the heck. If the book ever resuscitates I'll submit something else.

THE LAWNMOWER

I caught this summer summer's servant, court
Of the heat wave's peon, red rotor-rowed mower, in his roving
Of the rolling meadow underneath him hardened earth, and moving
Fast there, how he tore upon the tip of the grass to short
In his labouring! Then back, and back and forth
As a doldrum-dumb dog on a long leash; the sameness proving
My veldt was drawn. My heart could be loafing
Not straining now, – the chore was too long, for life, too short!

Hard iron and plastic and steel, oh toil, strive, strain, here
Tangle! And the perspiration from thee then, many more
Times told headier, more offensive, O my power-shear!

I wonder of it: shéer vain makes man strive unto gore
Himself, and fire-flash pain, do you hear,
Reap'd and skiven cutted sward, but what a chore!

yeah, I have (or had, I'd be unable to do more than half now, probably) Prufrock memorised too. Also, I got the first line engraved on my husband's wedding ring.

It's absolutely one of my favorites, but as for cadence - I like the poems that roll out of your mouth better.

My favorite poem to recite is

Sumer is y-cumen in
Lude singe, cuckoo!
Groweth sed and bloweth med,
And sprungth the wude nu...

that, and Poe's "Eldorado."

DaShiv, occhiblu, Gaspode... and all fellow Prufrock devotees...

Dare to disturb the universe!

Süvölt a zivatar
A felhős ég alatt
A tél iker fia
Eső és hó szakad.

Ha! How many of us have "Prufrock" memorized???

Well, of course! Now who else can recite the prologue to the Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English?

Dern, Babelfish doesn't do Hungarian.

Another Prufrock devotee.

Well, of course! Now who else can recite the prologue to the Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English?

*sheepishly raises hand*

Well, only from Whan that aprill... to That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke about halfway through the prologue. My prof for my required pre-1700 survey course made the whole class memorize that part of the Prologue and recite it back to our TAs as our very first assignment. My pronounciation was (and still is) atrocious, but it's still stuck with me even now.

It's a hilarious nut to bust out with the classmates who survived the class with me when we go get sloshed together.

I had a TA who made us memorize some part (I can't remember which) of "Paradise Lost" for the first exam. Then he continued to quiz us on it every week until the entire class wrote it down correctly. I promptly blocked it from my memory after that point.

I used to have many French poems memorized, because I took a pronunciation course in which the teacher had us recite something every week. Actually, one of those fits the topic, at least when recited out loud:

Pour toi mon amour
Je suis allé au marché aux oiseaux
Et j'ai acheté des oiseaux
Pour toi
mon amour
Je suis allé au marché des fleurs
Et j'ai acheté des fleurs
Pour toi
mon amour
Je suis allé au marché à la ferraille
Et j'ai acheté des chaînes
De lourdes chaînes
Pour toi
mon amour
Et puis je suis allé au marché aux esclaves
Et je t'ai cherchée
Mais je ne t'ai pas trouvée
mon amour.

--Jacques Prévert

Poe, Sexton, Dickinson... all great suggestions.

I cannot be original here, I'd say Tyndale and Shakespeare, nothing in the English language sounds like that to my ears.

re: non-English language works: I'm biased toward Dante, of course, the superhuman beauty of his terza rima still breaks my heart and I hope it always will. I also have a weakness, strangely, for Rostand: read it aloud, and his Alexandrine verse really sings.

if you want contemporary poets, I love this poem -- a prayer, really -- by Franz Wright, "Cloudless Snowfall":

Great big flakes like white ashes
at nightfall descending
abruptly everywhere
and vanishing
in this hand like the host
on somebody's put-out tongue, she
turns the crucifix over
to me, still warm
from her touch two years later
and thank you,
I say all alone—
vast whisp-whisp of wingbeats
awakens me and I look up
at a minute-long string of black geese
following low past the moon the white
course of the snow-covered river and
by the way thank You for
keeping Your face hidden, I
can hardly bear the beauty of this world.

I guess it's that last enjambment that does it for me

The Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert Service:

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

I can't post the whole thing, it's too damn long. I have a lovely book I got as a child that has gorgeous illustrations to accompany the poem.

Also, The Jabberwocky, from Alice in Wonderland:
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Brigit Pegeen Kelly, 'Song'

Listen: there was a goat's head hanging by ropes in a tree.
All night it hung there and sang. And those who heard it
Felt a hurt in their hearts and thought they were hearing
The song of a night bird. They sat up in their beds, and then
They lay back down again. In the night wind, the goat's head
Swayed back and forth, and from far off it shone faintly
The way the moonlight shone on the train track miles away
Beside which the goat's headless body lay. Some boys
Had hacked its head off. It was harder work than they had imagined.
The goat cried like a man and struggled hard. But they
Finished the job. They hung the bleeding head by the school
And then ran off into the darkness that seems to hide everything.
The head hung in the tree. The body lay by the tracks.
The head called to the body. The body to the head.
They missed each other. The missing grew large between them,
Until it pulled the heart right out of the body, until
The drawn heart flew toward the head, flew as a bird flies
Back to its cage and the familiar perch from which it trills.
Then the heart sang in the head, softly at first and then louder,
Sang long and low until the morning light came up over
The school and over the tree, and then the singing stopped....
The goat had belonged to a small girl. She named
The goat Broken Thorn Sweet Blackberry, named it after
The night's bush of stars, because the goat's silky hair
Was dark as well water, because it had eyes like wild fruit.
The girl lived near a high railroad track. At night
She heard the trains passing, the sweet sound of the train's horn
Pouring softly over her bed, and each morning she woke
To give the bleating goat his pail of warm milk. She sang
Him songs about girls with ropes and cooks in boats.
She brushed him with a stiff brush. She dreamed daily
That he grew bigger, and he did. She thought her dreaming
Made it so. But one night the girl didn't hear the train's horn,
And the next morning she woke to an empty yard. The goat
Was gone. Everything looked strange. It was as if a storm
Had passed through while she slept, wind and stones, rain
Stripping the branches of fruit. She knew that someone
Had stolen the goat and that he had come to harm. She called
To him. All morning and into the afternoon, she called
And called. She walked and walked. In her chest a bad feeling
Like the feeling of the stones gouging the soft undersides
Of her bare feet. Then somebody found the goat's body
By the high tracks, the flies already filling their soft bottles
At the goat's torn neck. Then somebody found the head
Hanging in a tree by the school. They hurried to take
These things away so that the girl would not see them.
They hurried to raise money to buy the girl another goat.
They hurried to find the boys who had done this, to hear
Them say it was a joke, a joke, it was nothing but a joke....
But listen: here is the point. The boys thought to have
Their fun and be done with it. It was harder work than they
Had imagined, this silly sacrifice, but they finished the job,
Whistling as they washed their large hands in the dark.
What they didn't know was that the goat's head was already
Singing behind them in the tree. What they didn't know
Was that the goat's head would go on singing, just for them,
Long after the ropes were down, and that they would learn to listen,
Pail after pail, stroke after patient stroke. They would
Wake in the night thinking they heard the wind in the trees
Or a night bird, but their hearts beating harder. There
Would be a whistle, a hum, a high murmur, and, at last, a song,
The low song a lost boy sings remembering his mother's call.
Not a cruel song, no, no, not cruel at all. This song
Is sweet. It is sweet. The heart dies of this sweetness.

Heh--I memorized both 'Disobedience' and 'The Walrus and the Carpenter for school years ago (thus sealing my reputation as a geek weirdo for the rest of time), and still run them through my head for a giggle. I never tire of them.

For cadence and use of sound, I love Lewis Carroll's 'Jabberwocky'--it's hard to beat:

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead and with its head
He went galumphing back

(I've also been known to yell, "O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" when particularly pleased with something)

This thread also inspired me to dig out Wallace Stevens' 'The Emperor of Ice Cream':

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

On preview: SassHat, get out of my head!

It's gotta be Poe. Auden hasn't been mentioned, he does that well in a different way of course.

Also, thanks for starting this thread, Specklet. I've really enjoyed reading all of the comments, and box's almost made me cry. And Hugh--thanks for including your piece. I enjoyed it immensely.

Yeah, thank you all. This has been lovely.

I know poetry does not translate well. But this is how surrealism sounds and looks in Greek: Augmentation by Andreas Embiricos and Bolivar by Nikos Engonopoulos.

Read it out loud, slowly. Let each word possess its own space in the silence around you. Can you feel the letters? Can you see the images? That's what I mean.

And then there's this one framed poem in my office, for my two most favorite Marina's in the world.

Hugh! Holy cow. A spot-on, very well done parody.

Recitation: I'm thankful I had teachers that made us recite. An excellent meetup party trick: everyone recite something. I can do a lot of Prufrock, used to know the whole Jabberwocky, of course the Chaucer, several Shakespeare sonnects (When in Disgrace being my favorite), some Yeats (Innisfree), some Wordsworth, etc. Memorization and recitation should never die out; poetry is largely meant to be spoken.

The long, narrative story-poems are excellent. In my life around campfires, I've met occasional people who could recite "Sam McGee," which is a wonderful thing. I wish more people could do things like that. A sea-music friend does a great job reciting "The Yarn of the Nancy Bell." Read it aloud -- it's clever. The closest I can come to this is performing the full Alice's Restaurant Massacree, though it's been years since I did it.

Hugh! Holy cow. A spot-on, very well done parody.

Recitation: I'm thankful I had teachers that made us recite. An excellent meetup party trick: everyone recite something. I can do a lot of Prufrock, used to know the whole Jabberwocky, of course the Chaucer, several Shakespeare sonnects (When in Disgrace being my favorite), some Yeats (Innisfree), some Wordsworth, etc. Memorization and recitation should never die out; poetry is largely meant to be spoken.

The long, narrative story-poems are excellent. In my life around campfires, I've met occasional people who could recite "Sam McGee," which is a wonderful thing. I wish more people could do things like that. A sea-music friend does a great job reciting "The Yarn of the Nancy Bell." Read it aloud -- it's clever. The closest I can come to this is performing the full Alice's Restaurant Massacree, though it's been years since I did it.

What? No Ogden Nash?

The Guppy
Whales have calves,
Cats have kittens,
Bears have cubs,
Bats have bittens,
Swans have cygnets,
Seals have puppies,
But guppies just have little guppies.

The Termite
Some primal termite knocked on wood
And tasted it, and found it good!
And that is why your Cousin May
Fell through the parlor floor today.

The Cow
The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other, milk.

The Purist
I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."

Two of my faves...

LOVESONGS
(Sullivan/Heaton) 1986

Under darkening thundering towering skies
We live through these painful days
Walking like strangers in streets of damnation
Under the enemy's gaze
Well we all create monsters, come back for their masters
The prices the Devil reclaims
It's funny I never thought I'd be the one who would change

Now above and beyond the roofs of our city
The sunset spreads silent and gold
And we passing the time not thinking about you
Lost in our own little world
Well the other night we put the radio on
When we ran out of things we could say
But it always play lovesongs when you're far away
Forget all the lies, forget all the trouble
Forget all the things that I've done
And please believe like I still believe
The best is yet to come, the truth is yet to come

So damn all the world, damn their demands
And all the things that they say
'Cause they always play lovesongs
When you're far away


ALL OF THIS
(Sullivan/Heaton) 1986

There's a sentry in a uniform to watch the VIPs along the hall
Strategical discussions taking place behind the steel plated wall
The agents issue the statements to the waiting press who circulate the words
Justification, propaganda, Western foreign policy across the world
In the name of the people
All of this is done in the name of the people

They read their books and study hard, cigarettes lit in the claustrophobic gloom
West of the University Road, the world outside is ghost-like in the room
Frustrated and impatient and intelligence sharp and twisted like a child
Death is an aphrodisiac now, the fuses on the table slowly wired
In the name of the people
All of this is done in the name of the people

Hold me tight, hold me fast
Standing here on the wrong side
Of this bullet-proof glass
There are no questions left for us to ask

It's soldiers night at the discotheque, pick up a girl and drink to home afar
Spending money like water on the watered drinks available at the bar
The ones who never were given much, never asked much of anything in recall
But there's a black bag in the corner and it doesn't belong to anyone here at all
In the name of the people
All of this is done in the name of the people

For me, at least, among the most satisfying rhyme schemes is the sestina. Here's one of the more famous ones, by Elizabeth Bishop, plus one by Donald Hall. And, last, not one of my favorite poems, but an immensely satisfying meter:

Elizabeth Bishop, 'Sestina'

September rain falls on the house.
In the failing light, the old grandmother
sits in the kitchen with the child
beside the Little Marvel Stove,
reading the jokes from the almanac,
laughing and talking to hide her tears.

She thinks that her equinoctial tears
and the rain that beats on the roof of the house
were both foretold by the almanac,
but only known to a grandmother.
The iron kettle sings on the stove.
She cuts some bread and says to the child,

It's time for tea now; but the child
is watching the teakettle's small hard tears
dance like mad on the hot black stove,
the way the rain must dance on the house.
Tidying up, the old grandmother
hangs up the clever almanac

on its string. Birdlike, the almanac
hovers half open above the child,
hovers above the old grandmother
and her teacup full of dark brown tears.
She shivers and says she thinks the house
feels chilly, and puts more wood in the stove.

It was to be, says the Marvel Stove.
I know what I know, says the almanac.
With crayons the child draws a rigid house
and a winding pathway. Then the child
puts in a man with buttons like tears
and shows it proudly to the grandmother.

But secretly, while the grandmother
busies herself about the stove,
the little moons fall down like tears
from between the pages of the almanac
into the flower bed the child
has carefully placed in the front of the house.

Time to plant tears, says the almanac.
The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove
and the child draws another inscrutable house.


Donald Justice, 'Sestina: Here in Katmandu'

We have climbed the mountain.
There's nothing more to do.
It is terrible to come down
To the valley
Where, amidst many flowers,
One thinks of snow,

As formerly, amidst snow,
Climbing the mountain,
One thought of flowers,
Tremulous, ruddy with dew,
In the valley.
One caught their scent coming down.

It is difficult to adjust, once down,
To the absense of snow.
Clear days, from the valley,
One looks up at the mountain.
What else is there to do?
Prayer wheels, flowers!

Let the flowers
Fade, the prayer wheels run down.
What have they to do
With us who have stood atop the snow
Atop the mountain,
Flags seen from the valley?

It might be possible to live in the valley,
To bury oneself among flowers,
If one could forget the mountain,
How, never once looking down,
Stiff, blinded with snow,
One knew what to do.

Meanwhile it is not easy here in Katmandu,
Especially when to the valley
That wind which means snow
Elsewhere, but here means flowers,
Comes down,
As soon it must, from the mountain.


Theodore Roethke, 'My Papa's Waltz'

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

One more:

Bob Dylan, 'Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie'

When yer head gets twisted and yer mind grows numb
When you think you're too old, too young, too smart or too dumb
When yer laggin' behind an' losin' yer pace
In a slow-motion crawl of life's busy race
No matter what yer doing if you start givin' up
If the wine don't come to the top of yer cup
If the wind's got you sideways with with one hand holdin' on
And the other starts slipping and the feeling is gone
And yer train engine fire needs a new spark to catch it
And the wood's easy findin' but yer lazy to fetch it
And yer sidewalk starts curlin' and the street gets too long
And you start walkin' backwards though you know its wrong
And lonesome comes up as down goes the day
And tomorrow's mornin' seems so far away
And you feel the reins from yer pony are slippin'
And yer rope is a-slidin' 'cause yer hands are a-drippin'
And yer sun-decked desert and evergreen valleys
Turn to broken down slums and trash-can alleys
And yer sky cries water and yer drain pipe's a-pourin'
And the lightnin's a-flashing and the thunder's a-crashin'
And the windows are rattlin' and breakin' and the roof tops a-shakin'
And yer whole world's a-slammin' and bangin'
And yer minutes of sun turn to hours of storm
And to yourself you sometimes say
"I never knew it was gonna be this way
Why didn't they tell me the day I was born"
And you start gettin' chills and yer jumping from sweat
And you're lookin' for somethin' you ain't quite found yet
And yer knee-deep in the dark water with yer hands in the air
And the whole world's a-watchin' with a window peek stare
And yer good gal leaves and she's long gone a-flying
And yer heart feels sick like fish when they're fryin'
And yer jackhammer falls from yer hand to yer feet
And you need it badly but it lays on the street
And yer bell's bangin' loudly but you can't hear its beat
And you think yer ears might a been hurt
Or yer eyes've turned filthy from the sight-blindin' dirt
And you figured you failed in yesterdays rush
When you were faked out an' fooled white facing a four flush
And all the time you were holdin' three queens
And it's makin you mad, it's makin' you mean
Like in the middle of Life magazine
Bouncin' around a pinball machine
And there's something on yer mind you wanna be saying
That somebody someplace oughta be hearin'
But it's trapped on yer tongue and sealed in yer head
And it bothers you badly when your layin' in bed
And no matter how you try you just can't say it
And yer scared to yer soul you just might forget it
And yer eyes get swimmy from the tears in yer head
And yer pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead
And the lion's mouth opens and yer staring at his teeth
And his jaws start closin with you underneath
And yer flat on your belly with yer hands tied behind
And you wish you'd never taken that last detour sign
And you say to yourself just what am I doin'
On this road I'm walkin', on this trail I'm turnin'
On this curve I'm hanging
On this pathway I'm strolling, in the space I'm taking
In this air I'm inhaling
Am I mixed up too much, am I mixed up too hard
Why am I walking, where am I running
What am I saying, what am I knowing
On this guitar I'm playing, on this banjo I'm frailin'
On this mandolin I'm strummin', in the song I'm singin'
In the tune I'm hummin', in the words I'm writin'
In the words that I'm thinkin'
In this ocean of hours I'm all the time drinkin'
Who am I helping, what am I breaking
What am I giving, what am I taking
But you try with your whole soul best
Never to think these thoughts and never to let
Them kind of thoughts gain ground
Or make yer heart pound
But then again you know why they're around
Just waiting for a chance to slip and drop down
"Cause sometimes you hear'em when the night times comes creeping
And you fear that they might catch you a-sleeping
And you jump from yer bed, from yer last chapter of dreamin'
And you can't remember for the best of yer thinking
If that was you in the dream that was screaming
And you know that it's something special you're needin'
And you know that there's no drug that'll do for the healin'
And no liquor in the land to stop yer brain from bleeding
And you need something special
Yeah, you need something special all right
You need a fast flyin' train on a tornado track
To shoot you someplace and shoot you back
You need a cyclone wind on a stream engine howler
That's been banging and booming and blowing forever
That knows yer troubles a hundred times over
You need a Greyhound bus that don't bar no race
That won't laugh at yer looks
Your voice or your face
And by any number of bets in the book
Will be rollin' long after the bubblegum craze
You need something to open up a new door
To show you something you seen before
But overlooked a hundred times or more
You need something to open your eyes
You need something to make it known
That it's you and no one else that owns
That spot that yer standing, that space that you're sitting
That the world ain't got you beat
That it ain't got you licked
It can't get you crazy no matter how many
Times you might get kicked
You need something special all right
You need something special to give you hope
But hope's just a word
That maybe you said or maybe you heard
On some windy corner 'round a wide-angled curve

But that's what you need man, and you need it bad
And yer trouble is you know it too good
"Cause you look an' you start getting the chills

"Cause you can't find it on a dollar bill
And it ain't on Macy's window sill
And it ain't on no rich kid's road map
And it ain't in no fat kid's fraternity house
And it ain't made in no Hollywood wheat germ
And it ain't on that dimlit stage
With that half-wit comedian on it
Ranting and raving and taking yer money
And you thinks it's funny
No you can't find it in no night club or no yacht club
And it ain't in the seats of a supper club
And sure as hell you're bound to tell
That no matter how hard you rub
You just ain't a-gonna find it on yer ticket stub
No, and it ain't in the rumors people're tellin' you
And it ain't in the pimple-lotion people are sellin' you
And it ain't in no cardboard-box house
Or down any movie star's blouse
And you can't find it on the golf course
And Uncle Remus can't tell you and neither can Santa Claus
And it ain't in the cream puff hair-do or cotton candy clothes
And it ain't in the dime store dummies or bubblegum goons
And it ain't in the marshmallow noises of the chocolate cake voices
That come knockin' and tappin' in Christmas wrappin'
Sayin' ain't I pretty and ain't I cute and look at my skin
Look at my skin shine, look at my skin glow
Look at my skin laugh, look at my skin cry
When you can't even sense if they got any insides
These people so pretty in their ribbons and bows
No you'll not now or no other day
Find it on the doorsteps made out-a paper mache´
And inside it the people made of molasses
That every other day buy a new pair of sunglasses
And it ain't in the fifty-star generals and flipped-out phonies
Who'd turn yuh in for a tenth of a penny
Who breathe and burp and bend and crack
And before you can count from one to ten
Do it all over again but this time behind yer back
My friend
The ones that wheel and deal and whirl and twirl
And play games with each other in their sand-box world
And you can't find it either in the no-talent fools
That run around gallant
And make all rules for the ones that got talent
And it ain't in the ones that ain't got any talent but think they do
And think they're foolin' you
The ones who jump on the wagon
Just for a while 'cause they know it's in style
To get their kicks, get out of it quick
And make all kinds of money and chicks
And you yell to yourself and you throw down yer hat
Sayin', "Christ do I gotta be like that
Ain't there no one here that knows where I'm at
Ain't there no one here that knows how I feel
Good God Almighty
THAT STUFF AIN'T REAL"

No but that ain't yer game, it ain't even yer race
You can't hear yer name, you can't see yer face
You gotta look some other place
And where do you look for this hope that yer seekin'
Where do you look for this lamp that's a-burnin'
Where do you look for this oil well gushin'
Where do you look for this candle that's glowin'
Where do you look for this hope that you know is there
And out there somewhere
And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads
Your eyes can only look through two kinds of windows
Your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways
You can touch and twist
And turn two kinds of doorknobs
You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to Brooklyn State Hospital
You'll find God in the church of your choice
You'll find Woody Guthrie in Brooklyn State Hospital

And though it's only my opinion
I may be right or wrong
You'll find them both
In the Grand Canyon
At sundown

DONAL OG (Young Donald)
Gaelic Traditional - there are many variations, here's one I like.

If you should go across the water,
Take me with you to be your partner.
At fair or market you'll be well looked after,
And you will sleep with the Greek King's daughter.

I saw you first on a Sunday evening
About the Easter when I was kneeling.
'Twas about Christ's passion the priest was reading,
But my eyes were on you, and my sad heart pleading.

Oh Donal Og, you'll not find me lazy,
Not like some highborn, expensive lady,
I'll milk your cow and I'll nurse your baby,
And if you were set on, I would back you bravely

You said you'd meet me, but you were lying.
Down at the sheepfold, as day was dying,
I whistled first,then I started hailing
But all I could hear was the young lambs wailing

And you said you would give me, but you talk lightly
Fish skin gloves that would fit me tightly
And bird skin shoes when I would go out walking
And a silken dress that would set Ireland talking

Oh my mother she said we should not be meeting
That I should pass you by and not give you greeting
T'was a good time surely she chose for cheating
With the stable bare and the horse retreating

Oh black as the sloe is the heart inside me
Black as the coal is the grief that drives me
Black as a boot print on shining hallways
And t'was you that blackened it, forever and always

You took what's before and what's behind me,
The east and west, when you wouldn't mind me.
Sun, moon and stars from my sky you've taken,
And God as well, or I'm much mistaken.

Zack -- wow, that's excellent. So it read in such a modern manner to me that I went in search of antecedents, and found many. All heartbreakingly human and beautiful. What a great find.

Yes, I find I like the version I posted rather than some of the others. Compare the last three stanzas with this variation, and you may find as I do that it doesn't have quite the same *punch*.

My mother said to me not to be talking with you today,
or tomorrow, or on the Sunday;
it was a bad time she took for telling me that;
it was shutting the door after the house was robbed.

My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe,
or as the black coal that is on the smith's forge;
or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls;
it was you that put that darkness over my life.

You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me;
you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;
you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me;
and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!

Oh, yeah, and I was going to mention that the two that I quote previously are by New Model Army. I can chuck the songs up on yousendit if anyone wants a listen.

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

R. Frost

You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me;
you have taken what is before me and what is behind me;
you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me;
and my fear is great that you have taken God from me!


Ah, nobody does the melodrama like my People of the Potato.