Poll: Do you know any poetry by heart?

[ToastiestZombie]

There once was a man from peru.
Who dreamed he was eating his shoe.
He woke up in the night.
With a bit of a fright.
To find that his dream had come true.

-Gary the Snail.

 

[SonofaJohannes]

I know Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll, read it in school, spent my free time memorising it. It's an awesome poem

 

[Queen Michael]

Jag köpte min kärlek för pengar
För mig fanns ej annan att få.
Sjung vackert, I skorrande strängar
Sjung vackert om kärlek ändå.

Den drömmen som aldrig besannats
Som dröm var den vacker att få.
För den som ur Eden förbannats
är Eden ett Eden ändå.

-Gustaf Fröding.

 

[SEXTON HALE]

The only poems I can recite from memory are in irish but what the hell here you go.
Subh milis
By Seamus O Neil

Bhi subh milis
Ar bhascrann an dorais
Ach mhuch me an corrai
Ionam a d'eirigh
Mar smaoinigh me ar an la
A bheas an bascrann glan
Agus an lamh beag
Ar iarradh.

 

[Henkie36]

In Flanders fields the poppies blow,
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

One of my personal favorites. Now I only know the first part, like most people, because I think that is the best part.

 

[liquidsolid]

The closest I get is:

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness for he is truly his brothers keeper and the finder of lost children. I will strike down with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. For you will know my name is the LORD when I lay my vengeance upon you.

From Pulp Fiction.

 

[Luke3184]

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less--
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

It's always really spoken to me on an emotional level... /shrugs

 

[ClockworkPenguin]

I lied these are two more I know

Spoiler: Not sure what it's called

You can have your army Khakis,
And your navy blues,
Here's a different sort of fighting man,
I'll introduce to you.

His uniform is unlike
Any you've ever seen;
And the Germans called him Devil Dog,
But his real name is Marine!

He was born on Parris Island
The land that God forgot.
The sand was 14 inches deep,
the sun was blazing hot.

He'd get up every morning,
Way before the sun,
And he'd run a hundred miles or more,
Before the day was done.

He fought in the cold of Korea,
In the heat of Viet Nam.
When ever our country goes to war,
The Marines are first to land.

We'll fight them on the ground,
We'll fight them in the sky,
When the Army and Navy are heading home,
The Marines are standing by.

And when he gets to heaven,
To St. Peter he will tell,
"Another Marine reporting, Sir,
I've served my time in Hell!

Spoiler: No Man's Land

ell how do you do, Private William MacBride
do you mind if I sit here by your graveside?
And I'll rest for a while in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done.

I see by your gravestone that you were only 19
when you joined the dead heroes in 1915.
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
or Willie MacBride was it slow and obscene?

Well the sun's shining now on these green fields of France,
a warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished under the plow
no gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.

But here in this graveyard that is still No Man's land
the countless white crosses in mute witness stand.
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
to a whole generation that was butchered and damned.

And I can't help but wonder now Willie MacBride
do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe them that this war would end wars?

Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame -
the killing and dying - it was all done in vain.
Oh Willie MacBride, it's all happened again
and again, and again, and again, and again.

And did you leave wife or a sweetheart behind,
in some faithful heart are you forever enshrined?
And though you died back in 1915
to some faithful heart are you forever 19?

My dad got me listening to Eric Bogle. It gets me going every time, that one, along with 'And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda' and 'Safe in the Harbour'

 

[Latenz1134]

Felis Cattus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
an endothermic quadruped carnivourous by nature
your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations
a singular development of cat communications
that obviates your hedonistic predilection
for a rythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate effection

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents,
you would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance
and when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
it often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion

Oh Spot, the complex levels of behaviour you display
connote to a fiarly well developed cognitive array
and though you are not sentient Spot, and do not comprehend,
I non-the-less consider you a true and valued friend

Data's poem about his cat Spot fron Star Trek TNG

 

[Scarecrow1001]

And when he gets to heaven, to St Peter he will tell.
Another soldier reporting, sir. I've served my time in Hell.
Only place I have seen that was at the start of Medal of Honour: Front-line. But I played that first mission so many times, that poem is now burned into my mind.

 

[krection]

Well I don't know if this counts:

An Irish Prayer:
May those who love us, love us;
and those who don't love us,
may God turn their hearts;
and if He doesn't turn their hearts,
may he turn their ankles
so we'll know them by their limping.

 

[Gatx]

We should all know where this is from:

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.

It's a couplet, it should count right?

 

[guitarsniper]

Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam, fato profugus laviniaqua venit
litora multum ille et terris iactatis et alto
Vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram

 

[Whitewillow]

If Shakespeare counts (and I think he does) then a fair bit. I'm working on memorizing some Rumi at the moment. And my brothers haikus.