My Favorite Poem

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

'Behold this ruin "Twas a skull
Once of ethereal spirit full
This narrow cell was Life's retreat
This space was thought’s mysterious seat
What beauteous visions filled this spot!
What dreams of pleasure long forgot!
Nor hope, nor joy, nor love, nor fear
Has left one trace of record here.

'Beneath this mouldering canopy
Once shone the bright and busy eye:
But start not at the dismal void....
If social love that eye employed,
If with no flawless fire it gleamed,
But through the dews of kindness beamed
That eye shall be forever bright
When stars and sun are sunk in night.

Within this hollow cavern hung
The ready, swift, and tuneful tongue:
If Falsehood’s honey it disdained
And when it could not praise was chained,
If bold in Virtue's cause it spoke,
Yet gentle concord never broke
This silent tongue shall plead for thee
When time unveils eternity.

Say did these fingers delve the mine,
Or with the envied rubies shine?
To hew the rock, or wear a gem
Can little now avail to them;
But if the page of Truth they sought
Or comfort to the mourner brought
These hands a richer mead shall claim
Than all that wait on Wealth and Fame.

Avails it, whether base or shod
These feet the Paths of duty trod
If from the bowers of ease they fled
To seek Afflictions humble shed
If Grandeur's guilty bribe they spurned
And home to Virtue's cot returned
These feet with angel wings shall vie
And tread the palace of the sky’.

[aleksir Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close aleksir]

I sit beside the fire and think...

(here's mine)

by J. R. R. Tolkien

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
In summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago,
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.

[nursetanya1973 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close nursetanya1973]

Jim,
Who authored your poem? It seems very familiar.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

I dunno.

I first heard it as a college freshman, kneeling in a dark room lit only by three candles. The part down to the verse "Within this hollow cavern hung" was part of our college fraternity initiation ritual. The president was standing in full regalia, holding a skull as he recited it.

So, way back then, it was in our ritual manual. It was titled Ode to a Skull.

Four years later it was me doing the reciting, and it has always stuck with me, both the words and the meaning of the words.

Jim,
Who authored your poem? It seems very familiar.

[JLB Please excuse me, I'm a Dick. Not a moron just a Dick Find all posts View Profile Close JLB]

oops. How did that happen?

[nursetanya1973 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close nursetanya1973]

Cool memories. Funny how some things can take us back to another time and place, isn't it?

I cannot hear anything from Garth Brooks' "No Fences" album without being transported to a lower bunk in a Fort Knox barracks building with my head phones on trying to go to sleep and wondering if I was gonna make it through that hell.

[Pstreet1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pstreet1]

It's origin is cloudy. It was attributed to an annonymous Asian medical student, and, more probably, to

Behold this ruin! 'Twas a skull
Once of ethereal spirit full!
This narrow cell was Life's retreat;
This place was Thought's mysterious seat!
What beauteous pictures fill'd that spot,
What dreams of pleasure, long forgot!
Nor Love, nor Joy, nor Hope, nor Fear,
Has left one trace, one record here.
- Anna Jane Vardill (Mrs. James Niven),
appeared in "European Magazine", Nov., 1816, with signature V., claimed by Robert Philip in 1826 and falsely claimed for J.D. Gordman

[riverdees05 Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close riverdees05]

To a Skeleton /Asian Student Medical Journal 2002 [ASMJ]