Beautiful poem, wild rose. Thanks for sharing. I especially like how you define faith, hope, and love. They make you think. But I've been warned lately that "God is love" can't be reversed, i.e. "love is God." It isn't.

Light: so you like "The Raven," eh? Why? I prefer "Annabel Lee" myself.

TheGeneral: Frost wrote some great poems. I like what you chose. Nature poems are calming for me, I think. Probably Frost is the best example. I had to memorize "Stopping by woods" to the tune of something with "ole" at the end.

Phos, I too like Middle Eastern and Asian poetry. I think some cultures are better at producing poetry than others and that the Middle East is the best.^^ The poems were my favorite part of The Thousand Nights and One Night, and I love Khalil Gibrain, Khayyam, Rumi...they can sure weave beauty from words! Here is a favorite Rumi one:

A moment of happiness,
you and I sitting on the veranda,
apparently two, but one in soul, you and I.
We feel the flowing water of life here,
you and I, with the garden's beauty
and the birds singing.
The stars will be watching us,
and we will show them
what it is to be a thin crescent moon.
You and I unselfed, will be together,
indifferent to idle speculation, you and I.
The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar
as we laugh together, you and I.
In one form upon this earth,
and in another form in a timeless sweet land.

kotwcs: Kipling, eh? So what do you like?

Anything and everything he wrote for The Jungle Book. One of my favorites is from the short story "The White Seal":

Seal Lullaby

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, O'er the combers, looks downward to find us
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow.
Oh, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee
Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.

I also like others like "Gunga Din" that are about that colonial period in India. So fascinating!

220chrisTian wrote

But I've been warned lately that "God is love" can't be reversed, i.e. "love is God." It isn't.

That line was there really for the poetry, what I really meant was that love was a manifestation of God, not God in itself. I guess I didn't make that clear enough, I'll change the line to get my point across more clearly, thanks for pointing that out

Phosphorus: interesting... Maybe you wanna share a poem, see what us NarniaWebbers think? Milton, Virgil, and Dante: what are your favs? I've read rather a lot of Milton: Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, "Nativity," "Lycidas." I liked the first two the best. I want to read Paradise Regained, but I haven't gotten around to it. Virgil: parts of the Aeneid, of course, although I didn't care for it that much. Dante: I've read most of the Inferno. I liked the story of Paolo and Francesca the best, although it was tragically selfish. I don't remember his shorter stuff. And except for Chesterton, I'm not familiar with the other writers you named.

Maybe I'll post some of my recent poetry on NWG. The thing about Virgil is that his prestige is based upon the beauty of the Latin verse. Much more so than Homer, it loses a lot by translation. My Latin teacher would spend time in class just gushing about the beauty of Virgil. But I agree, as a story The Aneid is considerably less inspiring.

Phos, I too like Middle Eastern and Asian poetry. I think some cultures are better at producing poetry than others and that the Middle East is the best.^^ The poems were my favorite part of The Thousand Nights and One Night, and I love Khalil Gibrain, Khayyam, Rumi...they can sure weave beauty from words!

Ah, yes. I've never read straight through the unabridged Thousand and One Nights, but I have a deep affection for Eastern verse. I suppose I should include the poetic epics such as Shahnameh. Brilliant language. I wish I could remember some particular things to quote, but that Rumi poem definitely reaches the Sufi standard.

In honor of Valentine's Day yesterday...

"Love (3)" by George Herbert
Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"

"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.

I love poetry! John Keats, J.R.R. Tolkien, Edgar Allen Poe, and Dante are some of my favorite poets.

What a pretty poem,Bella! I love it!

Here's a poem I wrote last week:

The cold,winter wind
Sings a strange melody
In my ear.
Wind carries
White-colored faeries
Through here.
He knows
Though,
I prefer to dance
With the flame-colored sprites.

Whatcha think?

My sister has been writing poetry since she was five, and has a real gift. I happened to chance upon one of her poems recently and after a fair bit of persuasion she allowed me to post it.
It is dedicated to all the seeing impaired

I KNOW
I cannot see the golden sun
Shining in the evening sky
I cannot see the silver moon
Glowing from the night so high
I cannot see a single cloud
Floating up in space above
I cannot see a single bird
Flying up and on in love
But I know these things are
I believe that they are true
I may not see them, but I know
They are real; I'll see them soon
And so I cannot see My king
I cannot see his smiling face
But I feel His tender care
As all my sorrows he erase
And so I know and I believe
Although my eyes cannot see.

W.B. Yeats is my favorite poet, as you can gather from my avvy.

My favorites of his works include:

Fergus and the Druid

When You Are Old

No Second Troy

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

Among Schoolchildren

And the one that begins, "Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven"--but I've forgotten the title.

Aside from Yeats I enjoy Coleridge, Shelley, Byron, Keats, etc. I'm trying hard to become appreciative of more modern poets, and making some headway, but not a whole lot...

Also, I adore Chesterton's "The Ballad of the White Horse."

Edit:
Nice job, Lark! You made good use of rhyme and assonance without being obtrusive or overbearing. It was a very snowy-sounding poem.

@Lark: nice poem! I especially like "flame-colored sprites." I like Keats and Tolkien, too. Dante's a little heavy, although I like his numerology. But Poe?!

@wild rose: nice poem! I'm glad your sister decided to share it. I especially like the last six lines. The concept reminds me of Fanny Crosby's "I shall know Him."

@Gladius: so you like Yeats, eh? I don't, but that doesn't mean anything. Of course I consider him and Chesterton "modern" poets. So what's your idea of modern? Except for Lewis and a teeny bit of Tolkien, I pretty much avoid the 20th century in literature. If a 19th-century writer carries over into the 20th, I'll make an exception for him or her.

wild rose, I love your poem "To the Friends I Haven't Met Yet." It reminds me of a poem I wrote:
To My Future Husband
Our friendship slipped slowly, silently
into love. You encourage me to be my true self,
understanding my love of Narnia,
stuffed animals and such.
Our values and faith match.
You know my faults
but still accept me, knowing you
have faults I likewise accept.
I long for our wedding day
and have only a few questions:
Who are you and when will you enter my life?
I am saving myself for you,
trusting God knows who you are
and has planned the perfect time for us to meet.
And, if you do not exist,
I trust that will work out too.

My professor didn't like it but classmates who reviewed it did.

I've read a lot of poems (as a Creative Writing minor I could hardly avoid it. ) and have written quite a few too. When I was in high school, I got one of them published in a book of poems by young poets.

I like the poems that Madeleine L' Engle includes in her books. I also like Tolkien's poems that are in his books. I've read a far deal of Tennyson because I did a report on his poems in high school. I'm not sure if I had read the one you posted, Shadow. As part of the assignment I had to write a poem in his style. That was not fun since he writes a lot in blank verse and I am terrible at counting syllables and finding stress. I hate scanning poems. I actually wrote the poem about The Last Battle and based it off one of the poems from Idylls of the King or at least it was one about King Arthur. (I don't have the paper on this computer apparently so I can't check to see what I based it on). It was for a class in high school AP Lit I think.

220, when I say "Modern," I mean, "Of our time; current." But I see that since we're speaking of literature I should have called our current poets post-modern.

I haven't read any current poets extensively; actually the only time I do read them is when I get my issue of "Poetry," the journal of the Poetry Foundation. I don't recommend that journal, by the way. I subscribed last December, and I haven't really been impressed. Few of the poems appeal to me either in music or in meaning. The less obscure ones are thought-provoking, but many are just...shocking. I'm not renewing that subscription.

I usually stick to older poets, too. I like Dante and Homer (in translation, unfortunately), and I like Chaucer and Milton and Spenser. I like Shakespeare pretty well, but I've never been as infatuated with him as the general literary populace seems to be. It's probably just bad taste on my part.

I like the Romantics, esp. Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron and Coleridge. Yeats, too, would probably be in this category, though he was late on the scene. I also like what I can understand of T.S. Eliot. He's a great poet, but a bit much for my little brain.

Edit:

I thought I'd post a poem I wrote a couple of weeks ago. Ahem.

To The Open Theists

You speak dichotomies in smooth sophistic strains, and say
That God is impotent, or else unkind;
That he must, if he is good, have hidden from his mind
The wickedness stored up against today.
But dare you call his mercies happy chance,
Or say that in his goodness God is blind?
Was it inadvertent circumstance
Or weakness working in the limb
That smote the apple of the eye of God
Down to Bethlehem?

I like simple poetry, in that it's not wordy, just simple. I do like riddles at times. I like Christina Rossetti's poems. I wrote some poems, but I don't think the're great, great. I know this is a song, but it is absolutely beautiful. It could be poetic also. The song is referring to Jesus.

"The miracle of love has come into my life, as simple as a hand on mine,
as clear as eyes that shine, as dear as lips that smile and speak my name,
the miracle of love has touched me like the sun, has struck a fire within
my heart,
and suddenly I'm warm now, safe from the storm, that's the miracle, the miracle of love.
I'd never seen a miracle, I thought I'd never see one, I never knew
when I saw you, that you would be one.
The miracle of love has made my life a song and I will sing it all day long
and hum it while I'm sleeping,
my song is sweet thanksgiving that always I'll be living, yes always I'll be
living, the miracle of love."

It's from a music video about an animated childrens program. called, "Animated Bible Stories from the New Testament." I don't know if that's on a DVD, since I've only watched a video tape that my Mom got a long time ago.

I love writing poems. I'm not all that fantastic, but here are two short ones I've written.

Fall

A great breezy canopy
Stretching above my head,
Blotched with countless specks of color
Brown, and gold, and red

Shimmering in the sunlight,
Dancing in the breeze,
So many shining sparkling jewels
On every side of me

The haunting cries of traveling geese
Echoing from up so high,
Giant tufts of cotton-ball clouds
Floating, suspended, in the sky

Squirrels busily gathering acorns
Burying them in the ground,
Woodchucks waddling to their dens
With a final, sleepy look around

Flashes of color, dropping from the trees,
Drifting, spiraling, downward in the breeze
Covering the lawn, blanketing the driveway,
Gold, scarlet, and russet piles, waiting to be taken away

This is fall.

The Rainbow

A shimmering stretch of color,
Arching up above,
Framed with purple duskiness,
Draped in a foggy sky
Shining through the hazy mist,
Of this morning’s rain
Curving across the sky,
Reaching endlessly,
Seeming so close, close enough to touch…
And yet so far away

Ah! We have such talented people on here. I love NarniaWeb.

I am no poet - probably - but I do enjoy reading it.

Here is a favorite:

Stars
by Robert Frost

And yet with neither love nor hate,
Those stars like some snow-white
Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
Without the gift of sight.

I like stars. *happy little sigh*

Gladius: To The Open Theists

What an amazing poem you have written there! I love that. (Sorry I don't have more articulate adjectives, but I just really connected with it).

I am not an avid reader of poetry, though I don't know why; it's always a nice surprise to open a book and find a little poem inside -kind of like finding that toy in the cereal pack. Haha. Not really, I'm sure it's more romantic than that, but you know what I mean.

I especially love Lewis Carroll's poems. I'm partial to the nonsensical, that's my problem. I like the freedom that comes with them -to apply them to whatever situation they'll stick to and in some strange way illuminate. I did pick up Milton's Paradise Lost, but put it down after reading the first few pages in the library. I didn't realise it would be so long...and complex (language wise)! I will get back to it one day though, and maybe after I've read it through will understand its beauty and symbolism.

I prefer my poems to be fairly short and thematic, abstract and deep, terribly dark and depressing (some Dickinson, Poe) or rather like a short story with its imagery -as opposed to epic love stories, fantasies or battles -those I prefer to read in novels.

As an example of poems-fitting-a-theme; here's an extract from Carroll's 'Painting the Roses Red':

Painting the roses red
We're painting the roses red
We dare not stop
Or waste a drop
So let the paint be spread
We're painting the roses red
We're painting the roses red!

It inadvertently reminds me of the French Revolution (especially if you read the whole thing) and the attrocities committed on Le Guillotine.