Random #24

Over at my other blog, I decided to do the Classics Club Meme October topic.  I decided that it was a great topic and wanted to share it here as well.  It's all about classic poetry. What is your favourite poem? Poetry can be so inspiring, the words, the rhythm, the picture it paints.  So much can be said in just a few short lines.  My long-time favourite poem is by Romantic, William Wordsworth:  

A slumber did my spirit seal;  I had no human fears: She seem'd a thing that could not feel  The touch of earthly years. No motion has she now, no force;  She neither hears nor sees; Roll'd round in earth's diurnal course  With rocks, and stones, and trees.

It is lyrically beautiful, while also being so very sad.  I first read this poem in University.  It has stayed with me since. 

I went through poetry overload after University.  I took an entire course on poetry, plus there was poetry in other classes as well.  I spent so long dissecting classic and contemporary poetry that I couldn't read it anymore, just for the enjoyment.  A couple years ago that slowly started to change with Disney Princesses, and Rime of the Ancient Mariner (which for some reason I never read in University.)  Since, I have kept up with reading poetry here and there.  I also decided that there were some classic poems and poets I had to read.  This past spring, I started reading the complete works of Emily Dickinson.  I decided to do it slowly, as so many poems would just blend together if I read it all at once and I wanted the opportunity to savour each poem.  From the collection, I have two favourites so far:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

and

Death is a dialogue between
The spirit and the dust.
“Dissolve,” says Death.
The Spirit, “Sir, I have another trust.”

Death doubts it, argues from the ground.
The Spirit turns away,
Just laying off, for evidence,
An overcoat of clay.

I know that The Chariot is Dickinson's most well-known poem, and I do think it is wonderful, but I can't have the same favourite as everyone else.  As soon as I read Hope it stuck with me and I think it might be like Wordsworth's classic, a poem I will think of for years to come.