Subject: Memorizing Poetry
Posted by: Lochalsh
Date: Feb 13 10
Were you made to memorize poetry in school? Which poem or poems do you still recall, perfectly or imperfectly?
I still remember a lot of Tennyson, Keats, Wordsworth, and Whitman, poems with a musical quality. One poem I learned when I was thirteen pops into my head all the time; let's see if I get it right:
If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.
(Poet: Moslih Eddin Saadi)
Posted by: Lochalsh
Date: Feb 13 10
Were you made to memorize poetry in school? Which poem or poems do you still recall, perfectly or imperfectly?
I still remember a lot of Tennyson, Keats, Wordsworth, and Whitman, poems with a musical quality. One poem I learned when I was thirteen pops into my head all the time; let's see if I get it right:
If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft,
And from thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left,
Sell one, and with the dole
Buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.
(Poet: Moslih Eddin Saadi)
107 replies. On page 1 of 6 pages. 1 2 3 4 5 6
t_s 
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The poem that I remember bits of from school (it was in old language at the time - this is the translated version: The Twa Corbies (or The 2 crows) As I was walking all alone, I heard two crows (or ravens) making a moan; One said to the other, "Where shall we go and dine today?" "In behind that old turf wall, I sense there lies a newly slain knight; And nobody knows that he lies there, But his hawk, his hound and his lady fair." "His hound is to the hunting gone, His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl home, His lady's has taken another mate, So we may make our dinner sweet." "You will sit on his white neck-bone, And I'll peck out his pretty blue eyes; With one lock of his golden hair We'll thatch our nest when it grows bare." "Many a one for him is moaning, But nobody will know where he is gone; Over his white bones, when they are bare, The wind will blow for evermore." If you want to see/read the old scots version let me know Reply #1. Feb 13 10, 8:25 AM |
Lochalsh
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I'd love to read the Old Scots version of the poem; I didn't choose this player name just on a whim, after all! :=) I think I may have heard "Twa Corbies" as a song. Could that be? Reply #2. Feb 13 10, 8:37 AM |
Cymruambyth
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When I was in school I enjoyed memorizing poetry and can still recite whole poems or chunks of poetry I learned back in the dark ages. I especially liked A. E. Housman, Robert Browning, John Keats, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Rupert Brooke, but my all-time favourite is Dylan Thomas. One of my favourite poems by A.E. Housman is from his collection of poems called 'The Shropshire Lad': Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now of my threescore-years-and-ten Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score That only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs is little room, About the woodland I will go To see the cherry hung with snow. I also loved learning and reciting 'The Highwayman' by Alfred Noyes, and 'The Traveller' by Walter de la Mare. Reply #3. Feb 13 10, 8:59 AM |
adams627
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I remember memorizing and reciting Kipling's "If". Still can do three out of four stanzas! If If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or, being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on"; If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run - Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son! Reply #4. Feb 13 10, 9:12 AM |
| Lochalsh
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I'm not sure that young people are required to memorize poetry these days, but I've always asked it of university students in my Spanish classes. It helps them to learn vocabulary, pronunciation, and intonation in that language, and it adds to their storehouse of cultural knowledge. Of course, we acquire some of those same skills when we learn poetry in English. A snippet for each one of you who has posted already. You probably know who wrote the entire sonnet: But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor'd, and sorrows end. Reply #5. Feb 13 10, 9:49 AM |
| t_s
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Twa Corbies (not translated) Lyrics as well as poetry As I was walking all alane, I heard twa corbies makin' a mane. The tane intae the tither did say, O, "Whaur sall we gang and dine the day, O, whaur sall we gang and dine the day?" "It's in ahint you auld fail dyke, I wot there lies a new slain knight, an naebody kens that he lies there, O, but his hawk and his hound and his lady fair, O, but his hawk and his hound and his lady fair". "His hound is to the haunting gane, his hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame, his lady's ta'en anither mate, O, so we may mak our dinner swate". "Ye'll sit on his white hause-bane, and I'll pike oot his bonny blue e'en, we'll theek oor nest when it grows bare, O, we'll theek oor nest when it grows bare". There's mony a ane for him maks mane, but nane sall ken whaur he is gane, o'er his white banes when they are bare, O, the wind sall blaw for evenmair, O, the wind sall blaw for evenmair Hi there :-) Yes, the poem came before the lyrics. I am a Scot, t_s stands for Tattie Scone ( a scottish yummy delicacy!) although I live outside of the country now. :-) Reply #6. Feb 13 10, 2:45 PM |
| Lochalsh
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Tattie Scone (now there's a bonny name!), thank you so much for the second version! Lochalsh (but not Kyle) Reply #7. Feb 13 10, 11:00 PM |
tezza1551
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I have bits and pieces of various poems tucked away inside my head.. bits of Young lochinvar, The Inchcape Bell, from when I was very young The Pirate Don Dirk of Dowdee, another about the stained glass windows of a church "there is a little church I pass with windows all of coloured glass ... one summer day I crept inside and down the aisle so dark and wide I saw the windows then quite plain Before I crept outside again One is of baby Jesus laid Upon the manger; the other of the shepherd kind Who loved the poor lost lambs to find. The sun shone on the blue and gold On scarlet and the purple fold..... I also know Man from Snowy River, Clancy of the Overflow and others by Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson and quite a few other Aussie poets. One of the best of these is "We are Going" by Oodgeroo Noonuccal or Kath Walker. Too long to put in here, but worth a read. Reply #8. Feb 13 10, 11:32 PM |
bubbatom1
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The boy stood on the burning deck His pockets full of crackers One fell down between his legs And blew off both his ........ Sorry but that's the only thing I can remember. I may be an English teacher, but if there's one thing I don't like much it's poetry, unless it's been written by Pam Ayers. Reply #9. Feb 14 10, 5:52 AM |
lesley153
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One poem stayed in my mind from the Dark Ages of O level Eng Lit. We read a few war poems, but this is the one I most enjoyed hearing, because I loved the way the soldier's daydreaming about the beauty around him became intertwined with the grating language of their tutor as he talks about guns. I believe it was written in 1942. I'm a bit of a fraud because I've forgotten most of it. I just remembered the title and a few of the phrases. NAMING OF PARTS - Henry Reed To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday, We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning, We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day, To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica Glistens like coral in all of the neighbouring gardens, And to-day we have naming of parts. This is the lower sling swivel. And this Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see, When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel, Which in your case you have not got. The branches Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures, Which in our case we have not got. This is the safety-catch, which is always released With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see Any of them using their finger. And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers: They call it easing the Spring. They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt, And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance, Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards, For to-day we have naming of parts. Reply #10. Feb 14 10, 8:58 AM |
| Lochalsh
|
Lesley, that's a wonderful poem, although quite chilling. I'll admit I've never memorized it; in fact, I'd never read it until some English-major friends quoted it to me in grad school. (I was busy reading in Spanish.) I keep thinking it's by Randall Jarrell, though it's not. There's a reason for my confusion, though, and I'll show you with this poem I *do* have committed to memory: he Death of the Ball Turret Gunner From my mother's sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose. Reply #11. Feb 14 10, 4:11 PM |
| Lochalsh
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Oops, cut off the "T" of the title! Reply #12. Feb 14 10, 4:12 PM |
| Lochalsh
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I didn't explain very well why I associate the two poems. Both show the ghastliness of war, of course, the second poem in a most graphic way. I find the first poem even more disturbing, however, since it juxtaposes beauty with guns used for killing. Okay, now I'm through. :) Reply #13. Feb 14 10, 4:15 PM |
| lesley153
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Thanks, you didn't have to stop! This poem is an astonishingly powerful five-line nightmare. I hadn't heard of this writer, perhaps because English schools, or my school, preferred to stick with UK poets and authors, and I didn't go looking for poetry after I'd left school. They didn't apply the same xenophobia to the music we heard - we were fed masses of programme music (the brains of the time were convinced that children can't listen to music without stories and images to focus on, and I think they can), and that meant a diet of Dukas (Sorcerer's Apprentice), Saint-Saëns (Danse Macabre, and the animals), Mussorgsky (Pictures at an Exhibition) and Prokofiev (Peter and the Wolf). That was a bit off topic, sorry! Reply #14. Feb 14 10, 6:36 PM |
| Lochalsh
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Bubbatom said: The boy stood on the burning deck His pockets full of crackers One fell down between his legs And blew off both his ........ Uh-oh, I guess there's one more Australian term I'm not familiar with! (Thanks to these boards, though, I do know not to go to Australia and root for a team.) Reply #15. Feb 14 10, 7:24 PM |
| tezza1551
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This is a fairly powerful poem, written by Australian Bruce Dawe in 1968 during the Vietnam War: Homecoming All day, day after day, they’re bringing them home, they’re picking them up, those they can find, and bringing them home, they’re bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks, in convoys, they’re zipping them up in green plastic bags, they’re tagging them now in Saigon, in the mortuary coolness they’re giving them names, they’re rolling them out of the deep-freeze lockers — on the tarmac at Tan Son Nhut the noble jets are whining like hounds, they are bringing them home – curly heads, kinky-hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms – they’re high, now, high and higher, over the land, the steaming chow mein, their shadows are tracing the blue curve of the Pacific with sorrowful quick fingers, heading south, heading east, home, home, home — and the coasts swing upward, the old ridiculous curvatures of earth, the knuckled hills, the mangrove-swamps, the desert emptiness… in their sterile housing they tilt towards these like skiers – taxiing in, on the long runways, the howl of their homecoming rises surrounding them like their last moments (the mash, the splendour) then fading at length as they move on to small towns where dogs in the frozen sunset raise muzzles in mute salute, and on to cities in whose wide web of suburbs telegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering tree and the spider grief swings in his bitter geometry – they’re bringing them home, now, too late, too early. Reply #16. Feb 14 10, 8:28 PM |
redwaldo
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Great post tezza1551 Reply #17. Feb 14 10, 8:44 PM |
| Lochalsh
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Unfortunate as war is, it does generate lovely, thought-provoking poetry. Perhaps someday, someone will dedicate a whole thread to it! Reply #18. Feb 14 10, 9:52 PM |
| Lochalsh
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Tezza, thank you for that poem. I'm moved. Reply #19. Feb 14 10, 9:53 PM |
| tezza1551
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RedWaldo, Dawe is one of my favourite poets... I actually did a book club session on what I titled The Poetry of War..used Wilfred Owen, Dawe, Sassoon, Brooke... was interesting to contrast the different attitudes. Another good one of Dawe's is Returned Men... can't find it on line, but will post it when I get home tonight. Reply #20. Feb 14 10, 9:56 PM |
107 replies. On page 1 of 6 pages. 1 2 3 4 5 6
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