Poetry Nerd Alert! Part II

• My muse Daniel Craig and I have selected two of our favorite poems. Well, of course Dan loves poetry! Poetry cuts to the core, evoking images and filling the reader with emotion while using very few words. I hope you enjoy this sample of brilliance.
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Disclaimer: please forgive any inconsistencies with the font and spacing. My blog is doing all sorts of weird things today. It is possessed, I swear.

Now, I present to you The Match by Swinburne

• If love were what the rose is,
• And I were like the leaf,

• Our lives would grow together

  In sad or singing weather,

  Blown fields or flowerful closes,

  Green pleasure or gray grief;

  If love were what the rose is,

  And I were like the leaf.

  If I were what the words are,

  And love were like the tune,

  With double sound and single

  Delight our lips would mingle,

  With kisses glad as birds are

  That get sweet rain at noon;

  If I were what the words are,

  And love were like the tune.

  If you were life, my darling,

  And I your love were death,

  We’d shine and snow together

  Ere March made sweet the weather

  With daffodil and starling

  And hours of fruitful breath;

  If you were life, my darling,

  And I your love were death. If you were thrall to sorrow, And I were page to joy, We’d play for lives and seasons With loving looks and treasons And tears of night and morrow And laughs of maid and boy; If you were thrall to sorrow, And I were page to joy. If you were queen of pleasure, And I were king of pain, We’d hunt down love together, Pluck out his flying-feather, And teach his feet a measure, And find his mouth a rein; If you were queen of pleasure, And I were king of pain. Okay, Mr. Swinburne. You are totally awesome, and I have a big literary crush on you. Dan just reminded me that I can't forget Walt Whitman. I chose to share a small portion of O Captain! My Captain! O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done; The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won; The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring: But O heart! heart! heart! 5 O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead. . . Whitman, American poet laureate of his day, wrote that poem for Abraham Lincoln, and it is perfection.

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• Thank you, blogging buddies, for reading through this post. Great poems like these taught me to love words as a child. Today, they inspire me to write fiction, and with my limited skill, to take common language and refashion it into something new and bright. As Frost would say, we writers take "the road less travelled" and indeed, that makes "all the difference."
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• Do you like poetry? Who are your favorite poets?