Poems that make you shiver

[devilish]

The Erk King by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Wow! I love how Schubert did this in Erlkonig. If anyone has a chance,
listen to it -- in it is where we get the traditional villain-theme music that
you find in old cartoons. To hear one person do the 3 voices (Father, son, and
Elf King) in a good rendition is ***HAUNTING****!

-D

 

[Swoop109]

Being both a gamer and a fan of Robert E. Howard, this one has special meaning to me.

Recompense,

I have not heard lutes beckon me, nor the brazon bugles call,
But once in the dim of a haunted lea I heard the silence fall.
I have not heard the regal drum, nor seen the flags unfurled,
But I have watched the dragons come, fire-eyed, across the world.

I have not seen the horsemen fall before the hurtling host,
But I have paced a silent hall where each step waked a ghost.
I have not kissed the tiger-feet of a strange-eyed golden god,
But I have walked a city's street where no man else has trod.

I have not raised the canopies that shelter revelling
kings,
But I have fled from crimson eyes and black unearthly wings.
I have not knelt outside the door to kiss a pallid
queen,
But I have seen a ghostly shore that no man else has seen.

I have not seen the standards sweep from keep and castle wall,
But I have seen a woman leap from a dragons's crimson stall,
And I have heard the strange surges boom that no man heard before,
And seen a strange black city loom on a mystic night-black shore.

And I have felt the sudden blow of a nameless wind's cold breath,
And watched the grisly pilgrims go that walked the roads of Death,
And I have seen black valleys gape, abysses in the
gloom,
And I have fought the deathless Ape that guards the Doors of Doom.

I have not seen the face of Pan, nor mocked the Dryad's haste,
But I have trailed a dark-eyed Man across a windy
waste.
I have not died as men may die, nor sinned as man have sinned,
But I have reached a misty sky upon a granite
wind.

 

[Lady Mer]

Lots of poems already mentioned. One not mention yet is e.e. cummings' maggie and milly and molly and may.

maggie and milly and molly and may.
went down to the beach (to play one day)
and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly
she couldn't remember her troubles,
and milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;
and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:
and may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone
for whatever we lose (like a you or a me)
it's always ourselves we find in the sea

 

[kirinke]

A Soulless Well

Deep in a shadow filled well
Are fires so deep, a ripping hell. . .
Lighting the night, fire so bright
Swinging an dancing in the height. . .
In the nothing is a plain-
For the true insane...
Stalking the night like a cat's black form,
Is a sword of night that's never warm. . .
Shining so bright, yet forever dark,
Wandering through time till it strikes the
heart. The soul is set free, But at great cost.

I wrote this when i was still in high-school.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I used these two in games more than once...

Tom O'Bedlam's Song

From the hag and hungry goblin
That into rags would rend ye,
The spirit that stands by the naked man
In the Book of Moons, defend ye.
That of your five sound senses
You never be forsaken,
Nor wander from your selves with Tom
Abroad to beg your bacon,

While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,
Feeding, drink or clothing;
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.

Of thirty bare years have I
Twice twenty been enragèd,
And of forty been three times fifteen
In durance soundly cagèd.
On the lordly lofts of Bedlam
With stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips, ding-dong,
With wholesome hunger plenty,

And now I sing, Any food, any feeding,
Feeding, drink or clothing;
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.

With a thought I took for Maudlin,
And a cruse of cockle pottage,
With a thing thus tall, sky bless you all,
I befell into this dotage.
I slept not since the Conquest,
Till then I never wakèd,
Till the roguish boy of love where I lay
Me found and stript me nakèd.

While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,
Feeding, drink or clothing;
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.

When I short have shorn my sow's face
And swigged my horny barrel,
In an oaken inn, I pound my skin
As a suit of gilt apparel;
The moon's my constant mistress,
And the lovely owl my marrow;
The flaming drake and the night crow make
Me music to my sorrow.

While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,
Feeding, drink or clothing;
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.

The palsy plagues my pulses
When I prig your pigs or pullen
Your culvers take, or matchless make
Your Chanticleer or Sullen.
When I want provant, with Humphry
I sup, and when benighted,
I repose in Paul's with waking souls,
Yet never am affrighted.

But I do sing, Any food, any feeding,
Feeding, drink or clothing;
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.

I know more than Apollo,
For oft when he lies sleeping
I see the stars at mortal wars
In the wounded welkin weeping.
The moon embrace her shepherd,
And the Queen of Love her warrior,
While the first doth horn the star of morn,
And the next the heavenly Farrier.

While I do sing, Any food, any feeding,
Feeding, drink or clothing;
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.

The Gypsies, Snap and Pedro,
Are none of Tom's comradoes,
The punk I scorn, and the cutpurse sworn
And the roaring boy's bravadoes.
The meek, the white, the gentle,
Me handle not nor spare not;
But those that cross Tom Rynosseross
Do what the panther dare not.

Although I sing, Any food, any feeding,
Feeding, drink or clothing;
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.

With an host of furious fancies,
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air
To the wilderness I wander.
By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summoned am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wide world's end:
Methinks it is no journey.

Yet I will sing, Any food, any feeding,
Feeding, drink or clothing;
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.

Meg Maudlin's Song

For to see mad Tom of Bedlam
Ten thousand years I'll travel
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes
for to save her shoes from gravel

(Chorus) Still I sing bonny boys,
bonny mad boys
Bedlam boys are bonny
For they all go bare and they
live by the air......
And they want no drink nor money

Now I repent that ever
Poor Tom was so Disdain'd
My wits were lost when him I cross't
Which makes me go thus chain'd

Chorus

My staff has murder'd giants
My bag a long knife carries
For to cut mince pies from children's thighs
And feed them to the fairies

Chorus

My horn is made of thunder
I stole it out of heaven
The rainbow there is this I wear
For which I thence was driven

Chorus

I went down to Pluto's kitchen
for to get me food one morning
and there I got souls piping hot
all on the spit a-turning

Chorus

Then I took up a cauldron
where boil'd ten thousand 'Tornies
'Twas full of flame, yet I drank the same
and wished them happy journeys

Chorus

The spirits white as lightning
Would on my travels guide me
the stars would shake and the moon would quake
Whenever they espied me

Chorus

And now that I have gotten
A lease than doomsday longer
To live on earth with some in mirth
Ten whales shall find my hunger

Chorus

No Gypsy, slut, or doxy
Shall win my mad Tom from me
We'll weep all night and with stars fight
the fray will well become me

Chorus

And when that I have beaten
The man i' the moon to a powder
His dog I'll take and him I'll make
Bark as no daemon louder

Chorus

A health to Tom of Bedlam
Go Fill the seas in a barrel
I'll drink it all, well brewed with gall
And maudlin drunk I'll quarrel.

Chorus

For to see mad Tom of Bedlam
Ten thousand miles I'll travel
Mad Maudlin goes on dirty toes
for to save her shoes from gravel

Chorus


Technically songs, the original tunes re I believe long lost.

The Auld Grump

 

[John Q. Mayhem]

There's a Rammstein song based in part off The Erl King. I think it's called Dalai Lama.

 

[Krieg]

Dylan Thomas: DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

The Auld Grump

FWIW There is an MP3 of Dylan Thomas reciting it himself on a few poetry web pages.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

A few stanzas from Dolores by Algernon Charles Swinburne, because it reminds me so much of my love:

By the hunger of change and emotion,
By the thirst of unbearable things,
By despair, the twin-born of devotion,
By the pleasure that winces and stings,
The delight that consumes the desire,
The desire that outruns the delight,
By the cruelty deaf as a fire
And blind as the night,

By the ravenous teeth that have smitten
Through the kisses that blossom and bud,
By the lips intertwisted and bitten
Till the foam has a savour of blood,
By the pulse as it rises and falters,
By the hands as they slacken and strain,
I adjure thee, respond from thine altars,
Our Lady of Pain.

 

[Klaus]

I was going to add "If" by Rudyard Kipling, but Auld Grump beat me to it...

I first read it in a DC comic that featured Wally West at his therapist's office, trying to find a reason why he couldn't run as fast as he did when he was Kid Flash. The therapist quotes the "distance run" part of "If" and Wally says it was framed over Barry Allen's desk when he was alive, and that Wally never understood what it meant. The final page is Wally crying alone in the therapist's office, holding pictures of him and Barry, and "If" written out in its entire glory.

 

[shilsen]

Lots of my favourites are already posted, so here's a little-known one, by Arthur Hugh Clough (IIRC, it was written as a response to Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach", which is another beautiful poem):

Say not the Struggle nought Availeth

Say not the struggle nought availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not nor faileth,
And as things have been, things remain;

If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers--
And, but for you, possess the field.

For while the tired waves vainly breaking
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.

And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly,
But westward, look! the land is bright.

Someday I'll get to play a D&D bard, singing this in the middle of a stricken field.