A Man and Poetry

People might look at a man reading poetry and call him a love-struck fool, because why on earth would any self-respecting man with any self confidence read poetry unless he was trying to impress a woman? Even worse are those boys who write poetry; those people who waste so much time trying to rhyme every line of every verse, hoping that someday, a girl will be impressed.

I would now ask this of any boy: are you telling me that Eminem or Fort Minor are love-struck fools? That G.K. Chesterton or J.R.R. Tolkien waste their time? I have no patience for trying to write poetry myself, but I am a huge fan of "epic poetry" as I call it, or verses that portray an aspect of life in a forceful way. I'm going to post the first few lines or stanzas of some of my favorite pieces with a link following each so you can read the whole poem at your pleasure. Comment and tell me your favorite poems, or post your own in the comment section. Enjoy these tidbits:

White founts falling in the Courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

http://poemhunter.com/poem/lepanto-2/

This is the law of the Yukon, and ever she makes it plain:
"Send not your foolish and feeble; send me your strong and your sane --
Strong for the red rage of battle; sane for I harry them sore;
Send me men girt for the combat, men who are grit to the core;
Swift as the panther in triumph, fierce as the bear in defeat,
Sired of a bulldog parent, steeled in the furnace heat.
Send me the best of your breeding, lend me your chosen ones;
Them will I take to my bosom, them will I call my sons;
Them will I gild with my treasure, them will I glut with my meat;
But the others -- the misfits, the failures -- I trample under my feet.
Dissolute, damned and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain,
Ye would send me the spawn of your gutters -- Go! take back your spawn again.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-law-of-the-yukon/

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.

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/invictus/

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night --
Ten to make and the match to win --
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote
"Play up! play up! and play the game!"

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/vita-lampada/

I highly encourage you all (the boys especially) to read the rest of these poems; they may be long, but it's worth it.