Poetry takes many forms and we all have our favourites. Here are some of mine.
Now boys, just a moment; You’ve all had your say,
While enjoying yourselves in a so pleasant way.
We have toasted our sweethearts, our friends, and our wives,
We have toasted each other, wishing all merry lives.
But now I will give you the toast that is best,
Tis one in a million and outshines the rest;
Don’t frown when I tell you, this toast beats all others,
But drink one more toast, boys – a toast to our mothers!
I’m Sick I And I Cannot Go To School Today
by Shel Silverstein
“I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash, and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I’m going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox.
And there’s one more ... that’s seventeen!
And don’t you think ... my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue,
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I’m sure that my left leg is broke.
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button’s caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle’s sprained,
My ‘pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb,
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my spine is weak.
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow’s bent — my spine ain’t straight.
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is ...
... WHAT?
What’s that? What’s that you say?
You say today is ... Saturday?
G’bye, I’m going out to play!”
This by Elizabeth Barret Browning
If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
"I love her for her smile ... her look ... her way of speaking gently —
For a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day."
For these things in themselves, beloved, may be changed,
or changed for thee — and love so wrought may be unwrought so.
Neither love me for thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry —
A creature might forget to weep, who bore thy comfort long,
and lose thy love thereby.
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore thou mayst love on,
through love’s eternity.
The Call of the Wild
By Robert Service
Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there's nothing else to gaze on,
Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore,
Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon,
Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar?
Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it,
Searched the Vastness for a something you have lost?
Have you strung your soul to silence? Then for God's sake go and do it;
Hear the challenge, learn the lesson, pay the cost.
Have you wandered in the wilderness, the sagebrush desolation,
The bunch-grass levels where the cattle graze?
Have you whistled bits of rag-time at the end of all creation,
And learned to know the desert's little ways?
Have you camped upon the foothills, have you galloped o'er the ranges,
Have you roamed the arid sun-lands through and through?
Have you chummed up with the mesa? Do you know its moods and changes?
Then listen to the Wild — it's calling you.
Have you known the Great White Silence, not a snow-gemmed twig aquiver?
(Eternal truths that shame our soothing lies).
Have you broken trail on snowshoes? Mushed your huskies up the river,
Dared the unknown, led the way, and clutched the prize?
Have you marked the map's void spaces, mingled with the mongrel races,
Felt the savage strength of brute in every thew?
And though grim as hell the worst is, can you round it off with curses?
Then hearken to the Wild — it's wanting you.
Have you suffered, starved and triumphed, groveled down, yet grasped at glory,
Grown bigger in the bigness of the whole?
"Done things" just for the doing, letting babblers tell the story,
Seeing through the nice veneer the naked soul?
Have you seen God in His splendors, heard the text that nature renders?
(You'll never hear it in the family pew).
The simple things, the true things, the silent men who do things —
Then listen to the Wild — it's calling you.
They have cradled you in custom, they have primed you with their preaching,
They have soaked you in convention through and through;
They have put you in a showcase; you're a credit to their teaching —
But can't you hear the Wild? — it's calling you.
Let us probe the silent places, let us seek what luck betide us;
Let us journey to a lonely land I know.
There's a whisper on the night-wind, there's a star agleam to guide us,
And the Wild is calling, calling ... let us go.
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