Awwwww

*gulp*

Worst.. poem... ever...

(but you have to admire the thinking behind it. The rate of replication must be impressive, to judge by common reactions)

It sort of reminded me a lot of the improving verses in Victorian England...

The pain has left me mother dear,
But, oh, I am so dry.
So moisten Jimmy's lips once more,
And mother, do not cry.

Kind of thing...

Although I am an aetheist I do find Christian sentiment moving on occasion, for example the footprints in the sand story.

Without going into a lengthy critique, I didn't like this one much to be honest.

Again, from an aetheist perspective, this is one of my favourite religious poems:

The Cross In My Pocket

I carry a cross in my pocket
A simple reminder to me
Of the fact that I am a Christian
No matter where I may be.

This little Cross is not Magic
Nor is it a good luck charm
It isn't meant to protect me
From every physical harm.

It's not for identification
For all the world to see
It's simply an understanding
Between my Saviour and Me.

When I put my hand in my pocket
To Bring out a coin or a key
The Cross is there to remind me
Of the price he paid for me

It reminds me, to be Thankful
For Blessings day by day
And to strive to Serve him better
In all that I do and say.

It's also a daily reminder
Of the Peace and Comfort I share
With all who know my master
and give themselves to his care.

So, I carry a Cross in my pocket
Reminding no one but me,
That Jesus Christ is Lord of my Life
If only I'll let Him be.

I think the thing with poems etc are that they are meant to be taken for what they mean to an individual, either you like them or hate them. We would all be pretty boring if we liked the same thing

I'm not sure that encouraging children to go to church unaccompanied is *exactly* the best idea in the world right now...

Hey, how about:

I

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
Other echoes
Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow?
Quick, said the bird, find them, find them,
Round the corner. Through the first gate,
Into our first world, shall we follow
The deception of the thrush? Into our first world.
There they were, dignified, invisible,
Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves,
In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air,
And the bird called, in response to
The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery,
And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses
Had the look of flowers that are looked at.
There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting.
So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern,
Along the empty alley, into the box circle,
To look down into the drained pool.
Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged,
And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight,
And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly,
The surface glittered out of heart of light,
And they were behind us, reflected in the pool.
Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty.
Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.



II

Garlic and sapphires in the mud
Clot the bedded axle-tree.
The trilling wire in the blood
Sings below inveterate scars
Appeasing long forgotten wars.
The dance along the artery
The circulation of the lymph
Are figured in the drift of stars
Ascend to summer in the tree
We move above the moving tree
In light upon the figured leaf
And hear upon the sodden floor
Below, the boarhound and the boar
Pursue their pattern as before
But reconciled among the stars.

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.
And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.
The inner freedom from the practical desire,
The release from action and suffering, release from the inner
And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded
By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving,
Erhebung without motion, concentration
Without elimination, both a new world
And the old made explicit, understood
In the completion of its partial ecstasy,
The resolution of its partial horror.
Yet the enchainment of past and future
Woven in the weakness of the changing body,
Protects mankind from heaven and damnation
Which flesh cannot endure.
Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered.



III

Here is a place of disaffection
Time before and time after
In a dim light: neither daylight
Investing form with lucid stillness
Turning shadow into transient beauty
With slow rotation suggesting permanence
Nor darkness to purify the soul
Emptying the sensual with deprivation
Cleansing affection from the temporal.
Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker
Over the strained time-ridden faces
Distracted from distraction by distraction
Filled with fancies and empty of meaning
Tumid apathy with no concentration
Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind
That blows before and after time,
Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs
Time before and time after.
Eructation of unhealthy souls
Into the faded air, the torpid
Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London,
Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney,
Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here
Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

Descend lower, descend only
Into the world of perpetual solitude,
World not world, but that which is not world,
Internal darkness, deprivation
And destitution of all property,
Desiccation of the world of sense,
Evacuation of the world of fancy,
Inoperancy of the world of spirit;
This is the one way, and the other
Is the same, not in movement
But abstention from movement; while the world moves
In appetency, on its metalled ways
Of time past and time future.



IV

Time and the bell have buried the day,
The black cloud carries the sun away.
Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis
Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray
Clutch and cling?

Chill
Fingers of yew be curled
Down on us? After the kingfisher's wing
Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still
At the still point of the turning world.



V

Words move, music moves
Only in time; but that which is only living
Can only die. Words, after speech, reach
Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern,
Can words or music reach
The stillness, as a Chinese jar still
Moves perpetually in its stillness.
Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts,
Not that only, but the co-existence,
Or say that the end precedes the beginning,
And the end and the beginning were always there
Before the beginning and after the end.
And all is always now. Words strain,
Crack and sometimes break, under the burden,
Under the tension, slip, slide, perish,
Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place,
Will not stay still. Shrieking voices
Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering,
Always assail them. The Word in the desert
Is most attacked by voices of temptation,
The crying shadow in the funeral dance,
The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera.

The detail of the pattern is movement,
As in the figure of the ten stairs.
Desire itself is movement
Not in itself desirable;
Love is itself unmoving,
Only the cause and end of movement,
Timeless, and undesiring
Except in the aspect of time
Caught in the form of limitation
Between un-being and being.
Sudden in a shaft of sunlight
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.


Which I think is my favourite religious poem.

I think a little Shel Silverstein is called for. Apologies if I don't remember it word for word.


Someone ate the baby,
It's very sad to say.
Someone ate the baby,
so she won't be out to play.
We'll never hear her whiney cry,
or have to check if she is dry,
because someone ate the baby...
Was it (burp) you?


Hey, you never know. This is probably a religious poem for somebody!

---

by Diandra


Hey, you never know. This is probably a religious poem for somebody!

---

Cannibals

Awwww, what lovely poetry

If anyone wants to read my favourite religious poem you can find it here: http://www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/dover.html

I'm not religious but I do think that there is a lot of stunning religious poetry. John Donne is another example that springs to mind. I'm another who's not so keen on the poem at the start of this thread though.

Tannhauser: Much as I love Eliot I would never have described the Four Quartets as religious; spiritual might be nearer my feelings there. (Although I seem to recall that Eliot was Catholic - not that that means anything).

that first one is sad

---

by White Hart


Tannhauser: Much as I love Eliot I would never have described the Four Quartets as religious; spiritual might be nearer my feelings there. (Although I seem to recall that Eliot was Catholic - not that that means anything).

---

And I was sitting here reading Tannhauser's post thinking: "hmmm, this poem reminds me of 'The Wasteland'..." D'oh. I'm fantastically ill-read for an English student.

*Demona then runs screaming from the poetry of Matthew Arnold and his teaming hordes...*


(Edited by Demona 10/04/2002 00:01)

This was written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and it never fails to prick my eyes (oops, did it again...):


THE MAY QUEEN


You must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;
To-morrow Â’ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year;
Of all the glad New-year, mother, the maddest merriest day,
For IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May, mother, IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May.
ThereÂ’s many a black, black eye, they say, but none so bright as mine;
ThereÂ’s Margaret and Mary, thereÂ’s Kate and Caroline;
But none so fair as little Alice in all the land they say,
So IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May, mother, IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May.

I sleep so sound all night, mother, that I shall never wake,
If you do not call me loud when the day begins to break;
But I must gather knots of flowers, and buds and garlands gay,
For IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May, mother, IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May.

As I came up the valley whom think ye should I see
But Robin leaning on the bridge beneath the hazel-tree?
He thought of that sharp look, mother, I gave him yesterday,
But IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May, mother, IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May.

He thought I was a ghost, mother, for I was all in white,
And I ran by him without speaking, like a flash of light.
They call me cruel-hearted, but I care not what they say,
For IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May, mother, IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May.

They say heÂ’s dying all for love, but that can never be;
They say his heart is breaking, mother–what is that to me?
ThereÂ’s many a bolder lad Â’ill woo me any summer day,
And IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May, mother, IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May.

Little Effie shall go with me to-morrow to the green,
And youÂ’ll be there, too, mother, to see me made the Queen;
For the shepherd lads on every side Â’ill come from far away,
And IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May, mother, IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May.

The honeysuckle round the porch has woven its wavy bowers,
And by the meadow-trenches blow the faint sweet cuckoo-flowers;
And the wild marsh-marigold shines like fire in swamps and hollows gray,
And IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May, mother, IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May.

The night-winds come and go, mother, upon the meadow-grass,
And the happy stars above them seem to brighten as they pass;
There will not be a drop of rain the whole of the livelong day,
And IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May, mother, IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May.

All the valley, mother, Â’ill be fresh and green and still,
And the cowslip and the crowfoot are over all the hill,
And the rivulet in the flowery dale Â’ill merrily glance and play,
For IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May, mother, IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May.

So you must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear,
To-morrow Â’ill be the happiest time of all the glad New-year;
To-morrow Â’ill be of all the year the maddest merriest day,
For IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May, mother, IÂ’m to be Queen oÂ’ the May.


NEW-YEARÂ’S EVE
If youÂ’re waking call me early, call me early, mother dear,
For I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year.
It is the last New-year that I shall ever see,
Then you may lay me low iÂ’ the mould and think no more of me.

To-night I saw the sun set; he set and left behind
The good old year, the dear old time, and all my peace of mind;
And the New-yearÂ’s coming up, mother, but I shall never see
The blossom on the blackthorn, the leaf upon the tree.

Last May we made a crown of flowers; we had a merry day;
Beneath the hawthorn on the green they made me Queen of May;
And we danced about the may-pole and in the hazel copse,
Till CharlesÂ’s Wain came out above the tall white chimney-tops.

ThereÂ’s not a flower on all the hills; the frost is on the pane.
I only wish to live till the snowdrops come again;
I wish the snow would melt and the sun come out on high;
I long to see a flower so before the day I die.

The building rookÂ’ll caw from the windy tall elm-tree,
And the tufted plover pipe along the fallow lea,
And the swallow Â’ill come back again with summer oÂ’er the wave,
But I shall lie alone, mother, within the mouldering grave.

Upon the chancel-casement, and upon that grave of mine,
In the early early morning the summer sun Â’ill shine,
Before the red cock crows from the farm upon the hill,
When you are warm-asleep, mother, and all the world is still.

When the flowers come again, mother, beneath the waning light
YouÂ’ll never see me more in the long gray fields at night;
When from the dry dark wold the summer airs blow cool
On the oat-grass and the sword-grass, and the bulrush in the pool.

YouÂ’ll bury me, my mother, just beneath the hawthorn shade,
And youÂ’ll come sometimes and see me where I am lowly laid.
I shall not forget you, mother, I shall hear you when you pass,
With your feet above my head in the long and pleasant grass.

I have been wild and wayward, but youÂ’ll forgive me now;
YouÂ’ll kiss me, my own mother, and forgive me ere I go;
Nay, nay, you must not weep, nor let your grief be wild;
You should not fret for me, mother, you have another child.

If I can IÂ’ll come again, mother, from out my resting-place;
ThoÂ’ youÂ’ll not see me, mother, I shall look upon your face;
ThoÂ’ I cannot speak a work, I shall harken what you say,
And be often, often with you when you think IÂ’m far away.

Good-night, good-night, when I have said good-night for evermore,
And you see me carried out from the threshold of the door,
DonÂ’t let Effie come to see me till my grave be growing green.
SheÂ’ll be a better child to you than ever I have been.

SheÂ’ll find my garden-tools upon the granary floor.
Let her take Â’em, they are hers; I shall never garden more;
But tell her, when IÂ’m gone, to train the rosebush that I set
About the parlor-window and the box of mignonette.

Good-night, sweet mother; call me before the day is born.
All night I lie awake, but I fall asleep at morn;
But I would see the sun rise upon the glad New-year,
So, if youÂ’re waking, call me, call me early, mother dear.


CONCLUSION
I thought to pass away before, and yet alive I am;
And in the fields all round I hear the bleating of the lamb.
How sadly, I remember, rose the morning of the year!
To die before the snowdrop came, and now the violetÂ’s here.

O, sweet is the new violet, that comes beneath the skies,
And sweeter is the young lambÂ’s voice to me that cannot rise,
And sweet is all the land about, and all the flowers that blow,
And sweeter far is death than life to me that long to go.

It seemÂ’d so hard at first, mother, to leave the blessed sun.
And now it seems as hard to stay, and yet His will be done!
But still I think it canÂ’t be long before I find release;
And that good man, the clergyman, has told me words of peace.

O, blessings on his kindly voice and on his silver hair!
And blessings on his whole life long, until he meet me there!
O, blessings on his kindly heart and on his silver head!
A thousand times I blest him, as he knelt beside my bed.

He taught me all the mercy, for he showÂ’d me all the sin.
Now, thoÂ’ my lamp was lighted late, thereÂ’s One will let me in;
Nor would I now be well, mother, again, if that could be,
For my desire is but to pass to Him that died for me.

I did not hear the dog howl, mother, or the death-watch beat,
There came a sweeter token when the night and morning meet;
But sit beside my bed, mother, and put your hand in mine,
And Effie on the other side, and I will tell the sign.

All in the wild March-morning I heard the angels call;
It was when the moon was setting, and the dark was over all;
The trees began to whisper, and the wind began to roll,
And in the wild March-morning I heard them call my soul.

For lying broad awake I thought of you and Effie dear;
I saw you sitting in the house, and I no longer here;
With all my strength I prayÂ’d for both, and so I felt resignÂ’d,
And up the valley came a swell of music on the wind.

I thought that it was fancy, and I listenÂ’d in my bed,
And then did something speak to me–I know not what was said;
For great delight and shuddering took hold of all my mind,
And up the valley came again the music on the wind.

But you were sleeping; and I said, ‘It’s not for them, it’s mine.’
And if it come three times, I thought, I take it for a sign.
And once again it came, and close beside the window-bars,
Then seemÂ’d to go right up to heaven and die among the stars.

So now I think my time is near. I trust it is. I know
The blessed music went that way my soul will have to go.
And for myself, indeed, I care not if I go to-day;
But, Effie, you must comfort her when I am past away.

And say to Robin a kind word, and tell him not to fret;
ThereÂ’s many a worthier than I, would make him happy yet.
If I had lived–I cannot tell–I might have been his wife;
But all these things have ceased to be, with my desire of life.

O, look! the sun begins to rise, the heavens are in a glow;
He shines upon a hundred fields, and all of them I know.
And there I move no longer now, and there his light may shine–
Wild flowers in the valley for other hands than mine.

O, sweet and strange it seems to me, that ere this day is done
The voice, that now is speaking, may be beyond the sun–
For ever and for ever with those just souls and true–
And what is life, that we should moan? why make we such ado?

For ever and for ever, all in a blessed home–
And there to wait a little while till you and Effie come–
To lie within the light of God, as I lie upon your breast–
And the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.


(Edited by Joe 10/04/2002 01:59)

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by Sweet-Sange
I think the thing with poems etc are that they are meant to be taken for what they mean to an individual, either you like them or hate them. We would all be pretty boring if we liked the same thing

---

I think it is also about the perspective you read something from. The first poem is extremely sad because you imagine a young child having lost their mother and being confused by the grief around them as well as their huge loss

---

by Sweet-Sange
Cannibals

---

Thanks for that first poem, Sange. It's lovely (if that's the right word - made me smile

...Someone ate the baby.
What a frightful thing to eat!
Someone ate the baby
Though she wasn't very sweet.

It was a heartless thing to do.
The policemen haven't got a clue.
I simply can't imagine who
Would go and (burp) eat the baby.

Shel Silverstein roolz!