Poetry that doesn't suck
 

I'm very picky about the poetry I like. I find most of it to be either boring or obtuse. I was recently reminded of a particularly good piece of verse that I feel like sharing. For various reasons that I am sure most of you are not interested in, these lines mean a lot to me. If you have a poem, verse or rhyme that has some personal meaning for you and you'd like to share it, please post it here along with any story you might want to tell about it. I respectfully request that you not post popular song lyrics, though.


This is "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley:

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.


SpaceAce

Nice :thumbsup

Thanks, I think there are probably a lot of people here on GFY who will understand that poem very well.

SpaceAce

Didn't Tim McVeigh read that poem shortly before his execution?

Still falls the rain,
the veils of darkness shroud the blackened trees,
which contorted by some unseen violence,
shed their tired leaves,
and bend their boughs towards a grey earth of severed bird wings.

Among the grasses,
poppies bleed before a gesticulating death,
and young rabbits, born dead in traps,
stand motionless, as though guarding the silence that surrounds and threatens to engulf all those that would listen.

Mute birds, tired of repeating yesterdays terrors,
huddle together in the recesses of dark corners,
heads turned from the dead, black swan that floats upturned in a small pool in the hollow.

There emerges from this pool a faint sensual mist,
that traces its way upwards to caress the chipped feet of the headless martyr's statue,
whose only achievement was to die to soon,
and who couldn't wait to lose.

The cataract of darkness form fully,
the long black night begins, yet still,
by the lake a young girl waits,
unseeing she believes herself unseen,
she smiles, faintly at the distant tolling bell,
and the still falling rain.

Now that you mention it, I believe he did. Oh, well, I like it for the personal meaning it has to me.

SpaceAce

Isn't that from Black Sabbath? I guess it isn't technically a song, though.

I can't believe this thread got so few replies. I was expecting to see more good verse.

SpaceAce

Yes and no. It was printed somewhere on the first album (back cover?) but it didn't come from the band. Some marketing genius at the record company deserves the credit, I suppose.