So, here's where you post your favorite poem from any book, or at least the name of it, and what book it's from, and who by.

Oh, and try not to post one that's really long, like The Lady of Shalot or The Highwayman....that's a little long for someone to read on this forum.

The Duel of Finrod Felagund and Sauron by JRR Tolkien, in The Silmarillion

He chanted a song of wizardry,
Of piercing, opening, of treachery,
Revealing, uncovering, betraying,
Then sudden Felagund there swaying,
Sang in answer a song of staying,
Resisting, battling, against power,
Of secrets kept, strength like a tower,
Of trust unbroken, freedom, escape,
Of changing and of shifting shape,
Of snares eluded, broken traps,
The prison opening, the chain that snaps.
Backwards and forwards swayed their song,
Reeling and foundering as ever more strong,
The chanting swelled and Felagund fought,
And all the magic and might he brought,
Of Elvenesse into his words,
Then in the gloom they heard the birds,
Singing afar in Nargothrond,
The sighing of the Sea beyond,
Upon the western shores on sand,
On sand of pearls in Elven-land.
Then the gloom gathered, darkness growing,
In Valinor the red blood flowing,
Beside the Sea where the Noldor slew,
The Foamriders, and stealing drew,
Their white ships with their white sails,
From lamp-lit havens, the wind wails,
The wolf howls, the ravens flee,
The ice mutters in the mouths of the Sea,
The captives sad in Angband mourn,
Thunder rumbles, the fires burn,
And Finrod fell before the throne.


In Moria, in Khazad Dum, by JRR Tolkien, in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

The world was young, the mountains green,
No stain yet on the Moon was seen,
No words were laid on stream or stone
When Durin woke and walked alone.
He named the nameless hills and dells;
He drank from yet untasted wells;
He stooped and looked in Mirrormere,
And saw a crown of stars appear,
As gems upon a silver thread,
Above the shadow of his head.

The world was fair, the moutnains tall,
In Elder Days before the fall
Of mighty kings in Nargothrond
And Gondolin, who now beyond
The Western Seas have passed away:
The World was fair in Durin's Day.

A king he was on carven throne
In many-pillared halls of stone
With golden roof and silver floor,
And runes of power on his door.
The light of sun and star and moon
In shining lamps of crystal hewn
Undimmed by cloud or shade of night
There shone for ever fair and bright.

There hammer on the anvil smote,
There chisel clove, and graver wrote;
There forged was blade, and bound was hilt;
The delver mined, the mason built.
There beryl, pearl, and opal pale,
And metal wrought like fishes' mail,
Buckler and corslet, axe and sword,
And shining spears were laid in hoard.

Unwearied then were Durin's folk;
Beneath the mountains music woke:
The harpers harped, the minstrels sang,
And at the gates the trumpets rang.

The world is grey, the mountain old,
The forge's fire is ashen-cold;
The harp is wrung, no hammer falls:
The darkness dwells in Durin's halls;
The shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khâzad-dûm.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in water deep,
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.

Excerpt from The Karaethon Cycle(The Prophecies of the Dragon) in Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan

Fortune rides like the sun on high
with the fox that makes the ravens fly
Luck his soul, the lightning his eye
He snatches the moons from out of the sky

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So, those are some of my favorites.....the first two because I always feel kind of emotional reading them (especially the first one), and the last because it's about my favorite character in the series, and it is so true.

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The Road Not Travelled, by Robert Frost, and it's included at the beginning of A Crack in the Line, by Micheal Lawrence. READ IT PPL ITS A GREAT BOOK!!

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Do you mean The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost?
I agree, that's a great poem!

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>>Be the change you wish to see in the world<<



Banner credit: Shadowcat & Nurrantiel Mashiara

Yes, that one! I absolutely adore it!!

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I think I have to read that for English by Monday....o_O

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Owh... I chose it to recite/perform for Speech class once. It's a very good way to get into the essence of a poem or a text!

Well, since the thread deals with poems, I'm gonna post it:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

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>>Be the change you wish to see in the world<<



Banner credit: Shadowcat & Nurrantiel Mashiara

the road not taken's great, but i prefer frost's 'desert places':

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.


i also love anything by sylvia plath - however many times i read it, 'lady lazarus' never fails to smack me right between the eyes, it's so powerful and so honest in dealing with her previous suicide attempts and predicting the final (unfortunately, successful) one:

I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--

A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot

A paperweight,
My face featureless, fine
Jew linen.

Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--

The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.

Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me

And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.

This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.

What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see

Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies

These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,

Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.

The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut

As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.

Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.

It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical

Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:

'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge

For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.

And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood

Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.

I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby

That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.

Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--

A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.

Herr god, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.

One of my favourites is in the Romance of the three kingdoms.
It goes like this...
Not far from Xiangyangs massive walls
There stands, clear cut against the sky,
A lofty ridge, and at its foot
A gentle stream goes gliding by.
The contour, curving up and down,
Although by resting cloud it's marred,
Arrests the eye; and here and there
The flank by waterfalls is scarred.
There, like a sleeping dragon coiled,
Or phoenix hid among thick pines,
You see, secure from prying eyes,
A cot, reed-built on rustic lines.
The rough-joined doors, pushed by the wind,
Swing idly open and disclose
The greatest genius of the world
Enjoying still his calm repose.
The air is full of woodland scents,
Around are hedgerows trim and green,
Close-growing intercrossed bamboos
Replace the painted doorway screen.
But look within and books you see
By every couch, near every chair;
And you may guess that common persons
Are very seldom welcomed there.
The hut seems far from human ken,
So far one might expect to find
Wild forest denizens there, trained
To serve in place of humankind.
Without a hoary crane might stand
As warden of the outer gate;
Within a long-armed gibbon come
To offer fruit upon a plate.
But enter; there refinement reigns;
Brocaded silk the lutes protect,
And burnished weapons on the walls
The green of pines outside reflect.
For he who dwells within that hut
Is talented beyond compare,
Although he lives the simple life
And harvest seems his only care.
He waits until the thunderous call
Shall bid him wake, nor sleep again;
Then will he forth and at his word
Peace over all the land shall reign.

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"This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great. Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck? "

i have always love egar allan poes poems..especially the raven.

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thanks smeag



yes as you can tell im a big ohio state fan

That didnt actually make sense. Cany yu repeat that for me please?

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"This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great. Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck? "

<center>The Shortest War Poem Ever Written
By Brinker Hadley

The War
Is a bore</center>


From John Knowles' A Separate Peace

Well, at least he didnt beat around the bush in writing that poem right?? Better to use too few words than too many and spoil its meaning.

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"This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the Great. Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck? "

Isn't it awesome?? Shakespeare is overrated.

I'm an absolute fan of all Tolkien's poetry, but my favorite would have to be Galadriel's Song...I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew - you guys know the one, you're all fanatics like me

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I LOVE this poem - it's just so detailed and it creates a cool pic in your head!

that may be the shortest war poem, but this has got to be the shortest ever poem:

the poem intentionally left blank






by Charles Bernstein

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<center>

**MY BOOK**

~ proud to be a shieldmaiden for christ ~</center>