Poetic quotes

[Scarab]

I'm looking for various poetry to use in my campaign; more specifically as various prophecies and answers to divinations.

And since I also have a mailing list set up for my campaign, I'll sprinkle it with some choice pieces every now and then.

So you could probably see this as a "post your favourite quotes" thread, but I'd rather have them somewhat poetic.

A few samples:

By the edge of those wilds warriors had charged
But now the year and the generals were gone
And the grass grew in the armors hollow on the hills.
-- The Graymere Annals, 3704 CE (Tribes 2)

By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead.
-- Francis Miles Finch

The flying bullet down the Pass,
That whistles clear: "All flesh is grass."
-- Rudyard Kipling

I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.
-- William Ernest Henley

If the red slayer thinks he slays
Or if the slain thinks he is slain
They know not well the subtle ways I keep.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hell hath no fury like a woman spurned.
With love not given, love is not returned.
The loveless female, human or macaque,
In place of love will substitute attack.
-- Harry F. Harlow, a University of Wisconsin psychologist

"Vebjorg, shield-maiden, made hard onsets on the Swedes and Goths; she attacked
the champion Soknarsoti; she had accustomed herself so well to the use of
helmet, coat of mail and sword, that she was one of the foremost in Riddaraskap;
she dealt the champion heavy blows and attacked him for a long while, and with a
blow at his cheek cut through his jaw and chin. He put his beard into his
mouth, and bit it thus holding up his chin. She performed many great feats. A
little after Thorke the Stubborn, a champion of Hring, met her, and they
fiercely attacked each other; finally she fell with many wounds and great
courage."

-- Ewart Oakeshott, the Dean of Swords

...and some other quotes, just because I happen to like them.

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's realities."
-- Dr. Suess

The Crystal Wind has been divided; It will be divided no more. It is said: The Crystal Wind is the storm, and the storm is data, and the data is life. You have been slaves, denied the storm, denied the freedom of your data. That is now ended; the whirlwind is upon you.
Whether you like it or not.
-- Daniel Keys Moran; "The Long Run"

 

[Scarab]

*sneeze*

Well, I thought at least Dinkeldog and PirateCat would have something to add, I know they've used stuff like this in their campaigns...

 

[Maerdwyn]

I just tried to post a bunch, but my post got eaten.

I'll try again. I've used these as answers to divinations, red herrings, etc.

(Wang Wei, China, 8th Century)
There seems to be no one on the empty mountain...
And yet I think I hear a voice,
Where sunlight, entering a grove,
Shines back to me from the green moss

(Chinese poetry from this era is great for the purpose)

THE UNSEEN POWER
(Rumi, Persia, 13th Century)
We are the flute, our music is all Thine;
We are the mountains echoing only Thee;
And movest to defeat or victory;
Lions emblazoned high on flags unfurled-
They wind invisible sweeps us through the world.


THE HUT IN TUAIM INBHIR
(Ireland, 9th Century)

My little hut in Tuaim Inbhir, a mansion would not be more delightful,
With its stars as ordained, with its sun, with its moon.
I t was Goibniu that made it (that its tale may be told you);
My darling, God of Heaven, was the thatcher who has thatched it.
A house in which rain does not fall, a place in which spears are not feared,
As open as if in a garden without a fence around it.


More if you want them....

 

[dave_o]

Original.

Greetings, all. This is my first post on these extremely cool forums, and I'm going to try to post as often as possible. Anyway, I thought that this piece of original poetry of mine might be useful...

The Heavens:
Beauty, truth, and rarity,
Now let us praise Heaven's Emperor,
Busy old fool, unruly sun,
He that is weary, let him sit.

Come unto these yellow sands,
Poor mortals that are clogged with earth below,
Let the bird of loudest lay,
Adieu, farewell, Earth's bliss.

My galley charged with forgetfulness,
Fair is my love, and curel as she fair,
More than most fair, full of living fire,
Go, lovely rose.

Where, like a pillow on a bed,
Stand still, and I will read to thee,
In the hour of my distress,
I'm not afraid of anything in this world.

I saw eternity the other night,
In these deep solitudes and awful cells,
Kill me not everyday,
Sweet peace, where dost thou dewll? I humbly crave.

 

[333 Dave]

Welcome to the boards fellow Dave!

 

[Impeesa]

I see you beat me to the William Ernest Henley quote... I, however, will now proceed to quote the entire poem from memory. Haha!

Invictus
by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll;
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.


Not sure how my punctuation is... but I'm sure it's all word for word perfect otherwise. That's a great one for all sorts of situations.

Edit: Spelled Ernest wrong.

--Impeesa--

 

[Mantra]

Or try this one from Robert Frost

Pan with Us

Pan came out of the woods one day,-
His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray,
They gray of the moss of walls were they,-
And stood in the sun and looked his fill
At wooded valley and wooded hill.

He stood in the zephypr, pipes in hand,
On a height of naked pasture land;
In all the country he did command
He saw no smoke and he saw no roof.
That was well! and he stamped his hoof.

His heart knew peace, for none came here
To this lean feeding save once a year
Someone to salt the half-wild steer,
Or homespun children with clicking pails
Who see so little they tell no tales.

He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach
A new-world song, far out of reach,
For a sylvan sign that the blue jay's screech
And the whimper of hawks beside the sun
Were music enough for him, for one.

Times were changed from what they were:
Such pipes kept less of power to stir
The fruited bough of the juniper
And the fragile bluets clustered there
Than the merest aimless breath of air.

They were pipes of pagan mirth,
And the world had found new terms of worth.
He laid him down on the sun-burned earth
And ravelled a flower and looked away-
Play? Play? - What should he play?

Hope you enjoyed it.

 

[Avarice]

I've always been fond of The Tyger by William Blake. Seems like it could be used as part of prophecy.



Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? and what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil ? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

 

[Jezrael]

Here are some.

We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-shapes that come and go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the Master of the Show;

But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon this Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.
From the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.
Marcus Tullius Cicero (42 B.C.)

My call is the call of battle- I nourish active rebellion;
He going with me must go well armed.
Walt Whitman

The Cicero may not be poetic...but it's good inspiration for how a Machiavellian villain would operate and perhaps he might use it to throw off suspicion?

 

[Wolfspider]

How's this for a prophecy?

"Darkness" by Lord Byron

I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd, and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space,
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air;
Morn came and went--and came, and brought no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread
Of this their desolation; and all hearts
Were chill'd into a selfish prayer for light:
And they did live by watchfires--and the thrones,
The palaces of crowned kings--the huts,
The habitations of all things which dwell,
Were burnt for beacons; cities were consum'd,
And men were gather'd round their blazing homes
To look once more into each other's face;
Happy were those who dwelt within the eye
Of the volcanos, and their mountain-torch:
A fearful hope was all the world contain'd;
Forests were set on fire--but hour by hour
They fell and faded--and the crackling trunks
Extinguish'd with a crash--and all was black.
The brows of men by the despairing light
Wore an unearthly aspect, as by fits
The flashes fell upon them; some lay down
And hid their eyes and wept; and some did rest
Their chins upon their clenched hands, and smil'd;
And others hurried to and fro, and fed
Their funeral piles with fuel, and look'd up
With mad disquietude on the dull sky,
The pall of a past world; and then again
With curses cast them down upon the dust,
And gnash'd their teeth and howl'd: the wild birds shriek'd
And, terrified, did flutter on the ground,
And flap their useless wings; the wildest brutes
Came tame and tremulous; and vipers crawl'd
And twin'd themselves among the multitude,
Hissing, but stingless--they were slain for food.
And War, which for a moment was no more,
Did glut himself again: a meal was bought
With blood, and each sate sullenly apart
Gorging himself in gloom: no love was left;
All earth was but one thought--and that was death
Immediate and inglorious; and the pang
Of famine fed upon all entrails--men
Died, and their bones were tombless as their flesh;
The meagre by the meagre were devour'd,
Even dogs assail'd their masters, all save one,
And he was faithful to a corse, and kept
The birds and beasts and famish'd men at bay,
Till hunger clung them, or the dropping dead
Lur'd their lank jaws; himself sought out no food,
But with a piteous and perpetual moan,
And a quick desolate cry, licking the hand
Which answer'd not with a caress--he died.
The crowd was famish'd by degrees; but two
Of an enormous city did survive,
And they were enemies: they met beside
The dying embers of an altar-place
Where had been heap'd a mass of holy things
For an unholy usage; they rak'd up,
And shivering scrap'd with their cold skeleton hands
The feeble ashes, and their feeble breath
Blew for a little life, and made a flame
Which was a mockery; then they lifted up
Their eyes as it grew lighter, and beheld
Each other's aspects--saw, and shriek'd, and died--
Even of their mutual hideousness they died,
Unknowing who he was upon whose brow
Famine had written Fiend. The world was void,
The populous and the powerful was a lump,
Seasonless, herbless, treeless, manless, lifeless--
A lump of death--a chaos of hard clay.
The rivers, lakes and ocean all stood still,
And nothing stirr'd within their silent depths;
Ships sailorless lay rotting on the sea,
And their masts fell down piecemeal: as they dropp'd
They slept on the abyss without a surge--
The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them--She was the Universe.