Favorite Poems To Recite?

[TeresaBenedicta]

List them here!

[faithcecelia]

[b] The Listeners[/b]



[b] [url="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177007#"]The Listeners[/url][/b]

By [url="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/walter-de-la-mare"]Walter De La Mare[/url] 1873–1956 Walter De La Mare


‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

[GeorgiiMichael]

The Pslams [trollface.jpg]

[Starets]

The Hollow Men, by T S Eliot. Too long to quote in full.

[Aya Sophia]

One of many:

[b]"Dover Beach" [/b]by Matthew Arnold

The sea is calm tonight,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!

Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

[faithcecelia]

[b] On the Ning Nang Nong[/b]

On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!
[b]Spike Milligan[/b]

[faithcecelia]

'Twas midnight in the schoolroom
And every desk was shut
When suddenly from the alphabet
Was heard a loud "Tut-Tut!"

Said A to B, "I don't like C;
His manners are a lack.
For all I ever see of C
Is a semi-circular back!"

"I disagree," said D to B,
"I've never found C so.
From where I stand he seems to be
An uncompleted O."

C was vexed, "I'm much perplexed,
You criticise my shape.
I'm made like that, to help spell Cat
And Cow and razzle dazzle and Cape."

"He's right" said E; said F, "Whoopee!"
Said G, "'Ip, 'Ip, 'ooray!"
"You're dropping me," roared H to G.
"Don't do it please I pray."

"Out of my way," LL said to K.
"I'll make poor I look ILL."
To stop this stunt J stood in front,
And presto! ILL was JILL.

"U know," said V, "that W
Is twice the age of me.
For as a Roman V is five
I'm half as young as he."

X and Y yawned sleepily,
"Look at the time!" they said.
"Let's all get off to beddy byes."
They did, then "Z-z-z." (Eng - zed!)

- Spike Milligan

Edited September 27, 2011 by faithcecelia

[Proud2BCatholic139]

I like to recite Nursery Rhymes to the children I babysit. Their favorite is Humpty Dumpty.

[LaPetiteSoeur]

Oooo. I loved reciting The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe in middle school! I also love The Highwayman!

[bernadette d]

[b]ADLESTROP[/b]
Yes, I remember Adlestrop --
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop -- only the name
And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.
[i]Edward Thomas[/i]

I love this poem, it always reminds me of coming home for the holidays to Lincolnshire from school in Surrey

[bernadette d]

[quote name='LaPetiteSoeur' timestamp='1317146811' post='2311084']
Oooo. I loved reciting The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe in middle school! I also love The Highwayman!
[/quote]

I like the Highwayman too

[paradox]

"Pied Beauty" and "God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins

[Lil Red]

Thank Heaven! the crisis --
The danger, is past,
And the lingering illness,
Is over at last --
And the fever called "Living"
Is conquered at last.
-E.A.P.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old time is still a flying:
And this same flower that smiles today,
Tomorrow will be dying.
-Robert Herrick

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal:
D.ust thou art, to d.ust returneth,
Was not spoken of the soul.
-Henry W. Longfellow

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
-Yeats

[Tab'le De'Bah-Rye]

HaHa pax domine bretheran and others, my poems are like primary school compared to those but here goes...

How many cans can a cannibal nibble if a cannibal can nibble cans? As many cans as a cannibal can nibble if a cannibal can nibble cans. Can he?

and

If 1 1 was a race horse and 2 2 was 1 2, if 1 1 1 1 race than 2 2 1 1 2

and

The night was dark and stormy, the dunny light was dim, i heard a crash and than a splash,by gosh he's fallen in.

and

Haten hasten get the basin, kerplop get tha mop....

rofl

aight far out brussel sprout, god bless you all

Edited September 27, 2011 by Tab'le Du'Bah-Rye

[MissyP89]

In 8th grade, we had to recite poems from memory each week, beginning with 8 lines and increasing over time. It was a lot of fun, and many of those have stuck with me today.

Ode to a Toad

By Anne-Marie W.

I was out one day for my usual jog,
(I go kinda easy, rarely full-hog)
When I happened to see, right there on the road
The squishy remains of a little green toad.

I thought to myself, where is his home?
Down yonder green valley, how far did he roam?
From out on the pond I heard sorrowful croaks,
Could that be the wailing of some of his folks?

I felt for the toad and his pitiful state,
But the day was now fading, and such was his fate.
In the grand scheme of things, now I confess,
What's one little froggie, more or less?