/lit/ - Literature

I always liked the poem -If, since i was a kid.
I don't read many poems though.

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son

Eärendil was a mariner
that tarried in Arvernien;
he built a boat of timber felled
in Nimbrethil to journey in;
her sails he wove of silver fair,
of silver were her lanterns made,
her prow was fashioned like a swan,
and light upon her banners laid.

In panoply of ancient kings,
in chained rings he armoured him;
his shining shield was scored with runes
to ward all wounds and harm from him;
his bow was made of dragon-horn,
his arrows shorn of ebony;
of silver was his habergeon,
his scabbard of chalcedony;
his sword of steel was valiant,
of adamant his helmet tall,
an eagle-plume upon his crest,
upon his breast an emerald.

Beneath the Moon and under star
he wandered far from northern strands,
bewildered on enchanted ways
beyond the days of mortal lands.
From gnashing of the Narrow Ice
where shadow lies on frozen hills,
from nether heats and burning waste
he turned in haste, and roving still
on starless waters far astray
at last he came to Night of Naught,
and passed, and never sight he saw
of shining shore nor light he sought.

The winds of wrath came driving him,
and blindly in the foam he fled
from west to east and errandless,
unheralded he homeward sped.
There flying Elwing came to him,
and flame was in the darkness lit;
more bright than light of diamond
the fire upon her carcanet.
The Silmaril she bound on him
and crowned him with the living light,
and dauntless then with burning brow
he turned his prow; and in the night
from otherworld beyond the Sea
there strong and free a storm arose,
a wind of power in Tarmenel;
by paths that seldom mortal goes
his boat it bore with biting breath
as might of death across the grey
and long-forsaken seas distressed:
from east to west he passed away.

>>3202554

(cont)

Through Evernight he back was borne
on black and roaring waves that ran
o'er leagues unlit and foundered shores
that drowned before the Days began,
until he hears on strands of pearl
where ends the world the music long,
where ever-foaming billows roll
the yellow gold and jewels wan.
He saw the Mountain silent rise
where twilight lies upon the knees
of Valinor, and Eldamar
beheld afar beyond the seas.
A wanderer escaped from night
to haven white he came at last,
to Elvenhome the green and fair
where keen the air, where pale as glass
beneath the Hill of Ilmarin
a-glimmer in a valley sheer
the lamplit towers of Tirion
are mirrored on the Shadowmere.

He tarried there from errantry,
and melodies they taught to him,
and sages old him marvels told,
and harps of gold they brought to him.
They clothed him then in elven-white,
and seven lights before him sent,
as through the Calacirian
to hidden land forlorn he went.
He came unto the timeless halls
where shining fall the countless years,
and endless reigns the Elder King
in Ilmarin on Mountain sheer;
and words unheard were spoken then
of folk of Men and Elven-kin,
beyond the world were visions showed
forbid to those that dwell therein.

A ship then new they built for him
of mithril and of elven-glass
with shining prow; no shaven oar
nor sail she bore on silver mast:
the Silmaril as lantern light
and banner bright with living flame
to gleam thereon by Elbereth
herself was set, who thither came
and wings immortal made for him,
and laid on him undying doom,
to sail the shoreless skies and come
behind the Sun and light of Moon.

>>3202557

(cont)

From Evereven's lofty hills
where softly silver fountains fall
his wings him bore, a wandering light,
beyond the might Mountain Wall.
From World's End then he turned away,
and yearned again to find afar
his home through shadows journeying,
and burning as an island star
on high above the mists he came,
a distant flame before the Sun,
a wonder ere the waking dawn
where grey the Norland waters run.

And over Middle-earth he passed
and heard at last the weeping sore
of women and of elven-maids
In Elder Days, in years of yore.
But on him mighty doom was laid,
till Moon should fade, an orbéd star
to pass, and tarry never more
on Hither Shores where mortals are;
or ever still a herald on
an errand that should never rest
to bear his shining lamp afar,
the Flammifer of Westernesse.

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough

Just total perfection aesthetically, aurally and metaphorically.

>0 R G A N I C L I F E , I N ” R E A L L I F E ” .
>THE YEAR WAS TWOTHOUSAND THIRTEEN.

>IT WAS DARK; THREE THIRTY a.m. (3:30 a.m.).

>I WENT OUTSIDE TO SMOKE A CIGARETTE WHILST WALKING.

>EVERYTHING WAS “SPOOKY”, AND I FELT “DREAD”, AWAY FROM THE WORLD WIDE WEB.

>I SCARE CATS, AND PERSONS ALIKE.

>I AM SLIGHTLY SCARED.

>DURING DAYTIME, EVERYTHING IS “SPOOKY” NOW, AND I FEEL “DREAD”, AWAY FROM THE WORLD WIDE WEB.

> ライ9

>>3203236
> le koz face

>>3202544

Dream Song 14
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no

Inner Resources." I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as Achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into the mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.

I love the way in which it describes boredom in such a fascinating and tense manner.

When I had journeyed half of our lifes way,
I found myself within a shadowed forest
for I had lost the path that does not stray.
Ah, it is hard to speak of what it was,
that savage forest, dense and difficult,
which even in recall renews my fear--so bitter
death is hardly more severe!

But to retell the good discovered there
I'll also tell the other things that I saw.

>I forget
I cannot say how I abandoned the true path...
rose along the boundary of the valley...
that lead men straight along all roads...
>I forget

And just as he who, with exhausted breath, having escaped from sea to shore
turns to watch the dangerous waters he has quit,
so did my spirit, still a fugitive, turn to look back at the pass
that has never let any man survive.
Wow, I used to know the first Canto off hand

A Question

A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth.

Robert Frost

It helps.

This particular path is rather pculiar.
It starts off narrow, veers to the left,
Widens, goes through an archway, splits into two,
And becomes, without warning, both a stairway and a cliff.

>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU

The Closest I Mean to I Lust You
by Anne Barngrover

I want you purple potatoes. I want you finger-
lings strong. I want you rainbow
carrots. I want you pink-eyed
peas. When I say you I mean you there—sweet
pickles in bathtub jars. Parlay of peaches.
Mayhaw pepper jam. I want you
pecan oil. I want you raw
honey in drums. I want you risen
and loaves. Orange nut want. Sour cream
want. Almond lemon poppy seed want.
When I say want I mean cloves
of want, slices of want, lickfuls and lickfuls and
wet spot. I want you muskmelon.
I want you pod and pole. When you come
around the air is meringue and moonshine.
Dirt slurs like pudding where we seed to flower.

>>3204489
I can't say what I love about it so much. The images are all just so perfect. She writes like she's screaming and whispering at the same time. I want to be that.

I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl
BY KARYNA MCGLYNN

It’s no wonder I’m always tired with all these tract houses—
It’s night & cold
on my belly in the undeveloped field now
I have to bury her
clothing inside a black garbage bag in plot D
police cars roll past but continue down the treeless parkway
even after shining
their lights on me in my freshman sundress
I can only assume
they don’t see the significance of my presence
but I must say 1994 is a simpler time—not everyone is suspect
I crawl up next to
my old house & look through a lit window
my mother reads
a book in bed I want to knock on the glass, there’s something
I need to tell her

The book by the same name is fucking insane. Some sort of time travel type thing going on.

>>3203732
Taylor Mali mah nigga

From childhood's hour I have not been
as others were, I have not seen
as others saw, I could not bring
my passions from a common spring /
From the same source I have not taken
my sorrow, I could not awaken
my heart to joy at the same tone,
and all I loved, I loved alone /
Then in my childhood, in the dawn
of a most stormy life, was drawn
from every depth of good and ill
the mystery which binds me still -
from the torrent, and the fountain
from the red cliff of the mountain
from the sun that round me roll'd
with its autumn tint of gold
from the lightning in the sky
as it passed me flying by
from the thunder, and the storm,
and the cloud that took the form
(while the rest of heaven was blue)
of a Daemon in my view -

>>3203613
INFERNO!

>>3203613
Oh, I think I've remembered the middle part


I cannot say how I had entered the wood,
I was so full of sleep just at the point
where I abandoned the true path.
but when I reached the bottom of a hill,
it rose along the boundary of the valley
that had harassed my heart with so much fear.
I looked on high and saw its shoulders
clothed already by the rays of that same planet
which serves to lead men straight along all roads.
At this my fears were somewhat quieted,
for through the night of sorrow I had spent,
the lake within my heart felt terror present.

>>3203732
why is he yelling?

>>3202559
bitch was writing a new poem was what he was doing

Edgar Allen Poe - The Conqueror worm

Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly-
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Woe!

That motley drama- oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!- it writhes!- with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Out- out are the lights- out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

Not my favorite poem, but probably my favorite stanza:

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.

Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
Than, moonless, one’s own self encounter
In lonesome place.

Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror’s least.

The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O’erlooking a superior spectre
More near.

-Emily Dickinson

Shelley - Alastor; or the Spirit of Solitude

I'll just link it because its 720 lines

http://www.bartleby.com/139/shel112.html

>>3202544

My number one (and God Tier in my opinion)

Dream Song 14
By John Berryman

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored
means you have no

Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as achilles,

who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.