Hello! I was just sort of wondering if you people like poetry as much as I do. If so, please post your favorite poems here. They can be about anything.
This idea popped up into my head when I was reading some poetry online.
This is also a no judgement zone, so no matter what topic someone chooses, no snarky comments, or anything. I expect better out of you guys.
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I do love poetry, but suddenly I just thought about this poem in Bride of Habaek lol
How did we meet?
One day, a butterfly flew like a petal and made a small flutter
How did we meet and end up here?
The corner of the street where we exchanged our love in spring.
It was a sudden miracle.
We slowly held hands as we walked down the street together.
The dandelions beneath the telephone pole swayed brightly.
How did we manage to walk pass all those times together?
Were we able to reach love because we walked past such lovable moments?
I came to believe there’s no such thing as coincidence in love
In order to make two people fall in love with each other
I believe universe calculates even the smallest of happenings
Including the wings stroke of a butterfly.
An inevitable miracle.
I didn’t want to think that…we met by a mere coincidence.
So…the only thing I can do is to do my best…
Once, I read the page of the book you used to read aloud to myself.
Once, I sat on the chair you used to sit on and closed my eyes in order to feel your warmth.
Once, I even caressed the rim of the cup you used to use with my fingertips
An inevitable miracle.
I didn’t want to think that…we met by a mere coincidence.
So…the only thing I can do is to do my best…
To love you
At the moment, I am…passing through your love.
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My favorite poem is, and has been for almost 10 years now, “For You, My Love” by Jacques Prevert. It’s such a beautiful love poem and I think it describes love in a such a lovely way.
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I haven’t seen this drama yet, but just by that poem alone, I want to watch it. That’s such a beautiful poem.
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“She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night.
Of cloudless climes and starry nights;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes
And
“Pagan Passion” by Luis G. Dato
I am sweetly perplexed by love sallies, releases,
By the countless retreats and the numberless captures,
By the petulant coldness and agreeable raptures,
By the whisper of phrases that hurts and then pleases,
I am drunk by the prodigal total of leases,
From her body and spirit, her soul and senses,
I revel in approaches and artless offenses,
In her challenging taunts and tenderly teases.
Now will I disengage a red flower from her tresses,
And in delicate folds now has rumpled her dress,
On tomorrow’s new ventures the heart eager presses,
I repose now to ponder on life-soothing losses.
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I love Baudelaire. And my favorite poem of him is “La mort des amants” (“The death of Lovers”)
In French :
Nous aurons des lits pleins d’odeurs légères,
Des divans profonds comme des tombeaux,
Et d’étranges fleurs sur des étagères,
Ecloses pour nous sous des cieux plus beaux.
Usant à l’envi leurs chaleurs dernières,
Nos deux coeurs seront deux vastes flambeaux,
Qui réfléchiront leurs doubles lumières
Dans nos deux esprits, ces miroirs jumeaux.
Un soir fait de rose et de bleu mystique,
Nous Ă©changerons un Ă©clair unique,
Comme un long sanglot, tout chargé d’adieux;
Et plus tard un Ange, entr’ouvrant les portes,
Viendra ranimer, fidèle et joyeux,
Les miroirs ternis et les flammes mortes.
In English :
We shall have beds full of subtle perfumes,
Divans as deep as graves, and on the shelves
Will be strange flowers that blossomed for us
Under more beautiful heavens.
Using their dying flames emulously,
Our two hearts will be two immense torches
Which will reflect their double light
In our two souls, those twin mirrors.
Some evening made of rose and of mystical blue
A single flash will pass between us
Like a long sob, charged with farewells;
And later an Angel, setting the doors ajar,
Faithful and joyous, will come to revive
The tarnished mirrors, the extinguished flames.
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Baudelaire is pretty good, I like quite a few of his poems.
My favorite poems?
Well, the list is long…
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Edgar Allan Poe, John Keats, Khalil Gibran, Mohammad Iqbal, William Blake, and the list goes on…
But here is one poem that I have always liked,
The Rhodora by Ralph Waldo Emerson
In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals fallen in the pool
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask; I never knew;
But in my simple ignorance suppose
The self-same power that brought me there, brought you.
Especially, the stanzas:
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for Being;
AAN RIKA
Slechts Ă©Ă©nmaal heb ik u gezien. Gij waart
Gezeten in een sneltrein, die den trein,
Waar ik mee reed, passeerde in volle vaart.
De kennismaking kon niet korter zijn.
En toch, zij duurde lang genoeg, om mij
Het eindloos levenspad met fletsen lach
Te doen vervolgen. Ach! geen enkel blij
Glimlachje liet ik meer, sinds ik u zag.
Waarom ook hebt gij van dat blonde haar,
Daar de eng’len aan te kennen zijn? En dan,
Waarom blauwe ogen, wonderdiep en klaar?
Gij wist toch, dat ik daar niet tegen kan?
En waarom mij dan zo voorbijgesneld,
En niet als de weerlicht 't rijtuig opgerukt,
En om mijn hals uw armen vastgekneld,
En op mijn mond uw lippen vastgedrukt?
Gij vreesdet mooglijk voor een spoorwegramp?
Maar, Rika, wat kon zaalger voor mij zijn,
Dan, onder hels geratel en gestamp,
Met u verplet te worden door Ă©Ă©n trein?
Piet Paaltjens
TO RIKA
Only once did I see you. You were
Sitting in an expres train, that passed the train
In which I rode with full speed.
The encounter couldn’t have been shorter.
And yet, it lasted long enough for me
To continue the endless path of life with a faded smile.
Oh! Not a single happy
Smile I have produced anymore since I saw you.
Cause why do you have such blond hair,
which the angels are known for? And then,
Why blue eye, wonderfully deep and clear?
You knew I couldn’t handle that, didn’t you?
And then, why pass me so quickly,
instead of pulling up the carriage with the speed of lightning,
With your arms stuck around my neck,
And your mouth pressed against my lips?
You possibly feared for a train wreck?
But, Rika, what could have been more blissful for me
Then, during hellish rattling and stamping,
Being crushed with you by the same train?
Piet Paaltjens, 1867
Snikken en grimlachjes
Ah, I opened this thread to see this comment and I just remembered how much I also love “She Walks in Beauty”. I haven’t read it in a long time and it’s still as pretty as ever. This thread is really reminding me of my literature classes from when I was in high school and uni and I love it. I hope it keeps going and more and more people post poems. 
As a french girl I searched for some “official” translation. So here we go with the translation of Demain dès l’aube by Camille Chevalier-Karfis :
Tomorrow, at dawn, in the hour when the countryside becomes white,
I will leave. You see, I know that you are waiting for me.
I will go by the forest, I will go by the mountain.
I cannot stay far from you any longer.
I will walk eyes fixed on my thoughts,
Without seeing anything outside, nor hearing any noise,
Alone, unknown, the back curved, the hands crossed,
Sad, and the day for me will be like the night.
I will not look at the gold of the evening which falls,
Nor the faraway sails descending towards Harfleur.
And when I arrive, I will put on your tomb
A green bouquet of holly and flowering heather.
I’ll let you know then the french one (if some of you want to try to pronounce it 
)
Demain, dès l’aube, à l’heure où blanchit la campagne,
Je partirai. Vois-tu, je sais que tu m’attends.
J’irai par la forêt, j’irai par la montagne.
Je ne puis demeurer loin de toi plus longtemps.
Je marcherai les yeux fixés sur mes pensées,
Sans rien voir au dehors, sans entendre aucun bruit,
Seul, inconnu, le dos courbé, les mains croisées,
Triste, et le jour pour moi sera comme la nuit.
Je ne regarderai ni l’or du soir qui tombe,
Ni les voiles au loin descendant vers Harfleur,
Et quand j’arriverai, je mettrai sur ta tombe
Un bouquet de houx vert et de bruyère en fleur.
Finally, to understand this poem, you have to know that Hugo’s daughter, Léopoldine died…
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I really love this poem too.
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Yeah, it’s a really good one ! But I have to say that I prefer Victor Hugo as a writer…
I think that my favorite poet would probably be Baudelaire with Les fleurs du mal.
Baudelaire is my favorite too. With Poe. And a little of Musset
I hate Hugo as a writer. He’s so boring.
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I loved his texts about death sentence and I think that he can really describes the problems in our societies such as crimes, poberty or child abuse…
I read a little bit of Poe during my english lessons and I appreciated it too!