Anyone have a favourite poem? I have two - Sea Fever by John Masefield and Fern Hill by Dylan Thomas. I also love Edward Thomas , as you may have noticed in the Edward Thomas thread! Here's a taster of my two favourites -

Sea Fever - John Masefield
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.


Extract from Fern Hill - Dylan Thomas (It's a long'un so only one verse)
Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

That sea fever one is great, i hadn't read it before and just glancing through it made me feel like there were waves beneath me, and spray being thrown up all around...you can feel the pull the power of the sea has, and there's a great suggestion of obsession that won't end till life does? I don't know, that's what I took form it and I haven't analysed poetry since I left school, but i liked it.


I'm a big fan of Emily Dickenson - here are some of my favourites:
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I noticed people disappeared
When but a little child -
Supposed they visited remote
Or settled regions wild

Now know I they both visited
And settled regions wild
But did because they died - A fact
Withheld the little child

In a Library
A precious, mouldering pleasure 'tis
To meet an ancient book
In just the dress his century wore
A priviledge I think

His venerable hand to take
And warming in our own
A passage back, or two, to make
To times when he was young

His quaint opinions to inspect
His knowledge to unfold
On what concerns our mutual mind,
The literature of old

What interested scholars most
What competitions ran
When Plato was a certainty
And Sophocles a man

When Sappho was a living girl
And Beatice wore
The gown that Dante deified
Facts, centuries before.

He traverses familiar
As one should come to town
And tell you all your dreams were true
He lived where dreams were sown

His pleasure is enchantment
You beg him not to go
Old volumes shake their vellum heads
And tantalise just so


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An everywhere of silver
With ropes of sand
To keep it from effacing
The track called land

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Each that we lose takes part of us
A crecent still abides
Which like the moon some turbid night
Is summoned by the tides

I love the way her poetry flows and the images, though often dark, can be very striking and vivid, but for someone who wrote some poems so touched by death and eternity she had a strong love of life and beauty as well.

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