Came across this poem today that I had to memorize back in school (Class 6). Memories came flooding back! Thought I'd share it with you...You too could go ahead and post the ones that make you reminisce the good ol' days.


"Sea-Fever"

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.


By John Masefield (1878-1967).
(English Poet Laureate, 1930-1967.)

Almost everyone knows "Stopping by the woods in the snowy morning" and "the road not taken" by Robert Frost but here is one of my favorites, many of you might not have read:

Asking for Roses:

A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,
With doors that none but the wind ever closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.

I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;
'I wonder,' I say, 'who the owner of those is.'
'Oh, no one you know,' she answers me airy,
'But one we must ask if we want any roses.'

So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly
There in the hush of the wood that reposes,
And turn and go up to the open door boldly,
And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses.

'Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?'
'Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses.
'Pray, are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you!
'Tis summer again; there's two come for roses.

'A word with you, that of the singer recalling--
Old Herrick: a saying that every maid knows is
A flower unplucked is but left to the falling,
And nothing is gained by not gathering roses.'

We do not loosen our hands' intertwining
(Not caring so very much what she supposes),
There when she comes on us mistily shining
And grants us by silence the boon of her roses.

Note: Read it multiple times and tell me if you dont like it.

This one by Lew Sarrett is my most favorite:

Four little foxes

Speak gently, Spring, and make no sudden sound
for in my windy valley yesterday I found
New born foxes squirming on the ground
Speak gently.
Walk softly, March, forbear the bitter blow,
Her feet within a trap, her blood upon the snow,
The four little foxes saw their mother go
Walk softly.
Go lightly, Spring, oh give them no alarm;
When I covered them with boughs to shelter
them from harm
The thin blue foxes suckled at my arm
Go Lightly.
Step softly, March, with your rampant
hurricane
Nuzzling one another and whimp'ring with
pain,
The new little foxes are shiv'ring in
the rain
Step softly

Not only is "No Glove, No Love" a buzz cliché these days, some of those words were pretty significant during the evolution of the Romancism Literature too. ;p.

I think I studied the upcoming poem in the Gulmohar Reader as well when I was in sixth or seventh grade. 'Absolutely loved those series as I could peek into the excerpts from classic English literature.
Here is one of my most memorable poems, (which I believe) no one has posted on this thread yet.



The Glove and the Lions-James Leigh Hunt

King Francis was a hearty king, and loved a royal sport,
And one day, as his lions fought, sat looking on the court.
The nobles filled the benches, with the ladies in their pride,
And 'mongst them sat the Count de Lorge, with one for whom he signed:
And truly 'twas a gallant thing to see that crowning show,
Valor and love, and a king above, and the royal beasts below.

Ramped and roared the lions, with horrid laughing jaws;
They bit, they glared, gave blows like beams, a wind went with their paws;
With wallowing might and stifled roar they rolled on one another,
Till all the pit with sand and mane was in a thunderous smother;
The bloody foam above the bars came whisking through the air;
Said Francis then, "Faith, gentlemen, we're better here than there."

De Lorge's love o'er heard the King, a beauteous lively dame,
With smiling lips and sharp bright eyes, which always seemed the same;
She thought, The Count my lover is brave as brave can be;
He surely would do wondrous things to show his love of me;
King, ladies, lovers, all look on; the occasion is divine;
I'll drop my glove, to prove his love; great glory will be mine.

She dropped her glove, to prove his love, then looked at him and smiled;
He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild:
The leap was quick, return was quick, he has regained his place,
Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in the lady's face.
"By Heaven," said Francis, "rightly done!" and he rose from where he sat;
"No love," quoth he, "but vanity, sets love a task like that."

Sam-sara! (;p)

Kudos! to you for initiating a thread, the subject of which, is so close to my heart.:)

hey samsara thanks for the thread
the speech by antony from julius caesar was a classic although i used to sleep a lot LIT class
howeva here is another one, one of my favorite poems by the greatest Milton

WHEN I CONSIDER HOW MY LIGHT IS SPENT

When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide,
"Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?"
I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts: who best
Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

TM, Thanks...we're all in the same boat, huh? BTW, I still remember the poem you posted, "The Glove and the Lions" vividly and the Gul Mohar pic of the nobles sitting around the pit of lions. Being in a school where we had to attend Divinty class, the episode on Daniel in the Lions' pit was done the same year and I remember trying to connect one to the other as they had similar text book images except the diff clothing due to diff genres. hahah

Thanks Sahayog for Milton's best known sonnet. Did you know that he went to St. Paul's too?? Unfortunately, to the one in London (a Paulite poor joke during our ICSE batch then! hahah). And, the header was supposed to be "On his Blindness".

Anyone remember this?? The teacher who taught us this poem managed to make it my favorite back then, thanks to his 'action-packed thriller' moves. Read and reminisce:


CASABLANCA
:Felicia Dorothea Browne Hemans

The Boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but him had fled;
The flame that lit the battle’s wreck
Shone round him o’er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud though childlike form.

The flames rolled on; he would not go
Without his father’s word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

He called aloud, "Say, Father, say,
If yet my task be done!"
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.

"Speak, Father!" once again he cried,
"If I may yet be gone!"
And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames rolled on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair,
And looked from that lone post of death
In still yet brave despair,

And shouted but once more aloud,
"My father! must I stay?"
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,
The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And streamed above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound;
The boy, - Oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds, that far around
With fragments strewed the sea,-

With shroud and mast and pennon fair,
That well had home their part,-
But the noblest thing that perished there
Was that young, faithful heart.

Just cant believe you guys forgot "solitary Reaper"

If anyone did post it above..apologize for repeating it!!!

"solitary Reaper" --------------william wordsworth

Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
0 listen! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.

No nightingale did ever chaunt
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travellers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands;
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings? -
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago;
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of to-day?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?

Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.

GreenEarth, snurp posted "The Solitary Reaper" around the beginning of this thread. Surely, can't leave out any of Wordsworth's masterpieces!! Anyway, thanks for the nice poem by the greatest of the Nature poets.

Suntali ko poi
Rabindranath Tagore's Where the mind is without fear is one of the poems I hold close to my heart so is The solitary Reaper and so is "The Daffodils" - that poem always reminds of manda manda hawa chaleyko in Darjeeling.

The Highwayman
By Alfred Noyes

Part One
I
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight, over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding-
Riding-riding-
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

II
He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

III
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

IV
And dark in the old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say-

V
"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."

VI
He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the West.

Part Two
I
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gipsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching-
Marching-marching-
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

II
They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through the casement, the road that he would ride.

III
They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say-
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

IV
She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till here fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like
years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

V
The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain.

VI
Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs
ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did
not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up strait and still!

VII
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night
!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him-with her death.

VIII
He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

IX
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.

* * * * * *

X
And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding-
Riding-riding-
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

XI
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard,
And he taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.


Notes:
This is the original version of The Highwayman, copyrighted 1906, 1913.

Danger bro, "The Highwayman" ta maile pahilo din nai post gari sakechhu. Anyway, a great poem and am glad we have similar tastes!! Thanks for the wonderful contribution. :D :D

How could we, ICSEites have forgotten?? Here it is, written on the death of the mighty Duke of Marlboroguh himself (Winston Churchill's notorious ancestor) a few years after the Battle of Blenheim. This poem basically says, No one, however powerful can escape the clutches of death:


A Satirical Elegy (On the Death of a Late Famous General)
:Jonathan Swift


His Grace! impossible! what, dead!
Of old age, too and in his bed!
And could that Mighty Warrior fall?
And so inglorious, after all!
Well, since he's gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now;
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He'd wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so old
As by the newspapers we're told?
Threescore, I think, is pretty high;
'Twas time in conscience he should die.
This world he cumbered long enough;
He burnt his candle to the snuff;
And that's the reason, some folks think,
He left behind so great a stink.
Behold his funeral appears,
Nor widow's sighs, nor orphan's tears,
Wont at such times each heart to pierce,
Attend the progress of his hearse.
But what of that, his friends may say,
He had those honors in his day.
True to his profit and his pride,
He made them weep before he died.

Come hither, all ye empty things,
Ye bubbles raised by breath of kings;
Who float upon the tide of state,
Come hither, and behold your fate.
Let Pride be taught by this rebuke,
How very mean a thing's a Duke;
From all his ill-got honors flung,
Turned to the dirt from whence he sprung.

Another flashback from my unforgettable school days.

Robert Kennedy had quoted lines from this poem during his speeches:

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
but I have promises to keep
and miles to go before I sleep,
and miles to go before I sleep.".


Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there's some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Forst..A classic American icon. In my Lit class, the professor got an original tape recorded of Frost reciting "The Road Not Taken"...It was a big deal for me then hearing of the same poem I did during the ICSE!! Another good one, TM!!

Thanks Samsara!
Read the next one, you won't be disappointed.

Yet another one from Gulmohar; I would not mind spending money to collect those books I had used during my school years and add to my collection. Those books are like photo albums to me as each page of those text books have so much links to my yonder years.

Anyways, the next poem tells the story of a person who has everthing a man could want. Yet this king is so unhappy with life so as to "hatch
a malady in gloom". It takes almost a year to find the remedy which happens to be wearing the shirt of a poor but a happy bloke.


The Enchanted Shirt - John Hay (1838-1905)

Fytte the First: wherein it shall be shown how the Truth is too mighty a Drug for such as be of feeble temper

The King was sick. His cheek was red
And his eye was clear and bright;
He ate and drank with a kingly zest,
And peacefully snored at night.

But he said he was sick, and a king should know,
And doctors came by the score.
They did not cure him. He cut off their heads
And sent to the schools for more.

At last two famous doctors came,
And one was as poor as a rat,
He had passed his life in studious toil,
And never found time to grow fat.

The other had never looked in a book;
His patients gave him no trouble,
If they recovered they paid him well,
If they died their heirs paid double.

Together they looked at the royal tongue,
As the King on his couch reclined;
In succession they thumped his august chest,
But no trace of disease could find.

The old sage said, "You're as sound as a nut."
"Hang him up," roared the King in a gale,
In a ten-knot gale of royal rage;
The other leech grew a shade pale;

But he pensively rubbed his sagacious nose,
And thus his prescription ran,
The King will be well, if he sleeps one night
In the Shirt of a Happy Man.

Fytte the Second: tells of the search for the Shirt and how it was nigh found but was not, for reasons which are said or sung

Wide o'er the realm the couriers rode,
And fast their horses ran,
And many they saw, and to many they spoke,
But they found no Happy Man.

They found poor men who would fain be rich,
And rich who thought they were poor;
And men who twisted their waists in stays,
And women that shorthose wore.

They saw two men by the roadside sit,
And both bemoaned their lot;
For one had buried his wife, he said,
And the other one had not.

At last as they came to a village gate,
A beggar lay whistling there;
He whistled and sang and laughed and rolled
On the grass in the soft June air.

The weary couriers paused and looked
At the scamp so blithe and gay;
And one of them said, "Heaven save you, friend!
You seem to be happy to-day."

"Oh, yes, fair sirs," the rascal laughed,
And his voice rang free and glad,
"An idle man has so much to do
That he never has time to be sad."

"This is our man," the courier said;
"Our luck has led us aright.
I will give you a hundred ducats, friend,
For the loan of your shirt to-night."

The merry blackguard lay back on the grass,
And laughed till his face was black;
"I would do it, God wot," and he roared with the fun,
"But I haven't a shirt to my back."

Fytte the Third: shewing how His Majesty the King came at last to sleep in a Happy Man his Shirt

Each day to the King the reports came in
Of his unsuccessful spies,
And the sad panorama of human woes
Passed daily under his eyes.

And he grew ashamed of his useless life,
And his maladies hatched in gloom;
He opened his windows and let the air
Of the free heaven into his room.

And out he went in the world and toiled
In his own appointed way;
And the people blessed him, the land was glad,
And the King was well and gay.

TM, was this in the Gul Mohar as well??? A real nice easy going peom that glued me to its every word...Damn, you're on a roll here. Another nice one fella!! I'll be back with another poem from the good ol' days. Laterzzz!

TM i LOVE THAT ONE THNKS
stopping by woods on a snowy evening
it reminds me my english litreature teacher at SAS MORE Teacher more than anyone
Mr P Devasia better known as PD or Pompey since our badge

SAMASARA who taught english to your badge??? huh

Sahayog, for the ICSE, the fella was Surinimal Chakravarthi, the currenct Principal of La Martinerre, another fine British Raj school in Calcutta. The guy looked like a butter-fly!!

I was at SPS until the first term of class 11. It was then that David Howard (our Rector) taught us Lit...The man is a genius. Each class of his was a dramatic perfomrance of the highest caliber. I've never seen anyone with such an enthusiasm to teach and immerse oneself into making life out of the text as he did! BTW, His Wuthering Heights' performance at class still gives me the creeps!!

At BCS, the Headmaster, Kabir Mustafi (another Old Paulite) taught us Lit...And, he too was another genius.

My love for literature was a product of me having great teachers. I consider myself extremely lucky to have such esteemed teachers...The ones who now head the finest schools in India!!