Asymmetrical Information

How about Catullus, 85?

Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior.

Can we toss out some other favorites? We can you say? Good, here are a few lines that lodged in my brain many years ago, from Swinburne -

Heart handfast in heart as they stood, 'Look thither,'
Did he whisper? 'look forth from the flowers to the sea;
For the foam-flowers endure when the rose-blossoms wither,
And men that love lightly may die - but we?'

"But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

It is the East, and Juliet is the sun."

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
-- William Blake

Stalemate, jailbait, in "My So-Called Life" imprisonment;
Amazing what a good breakfast pickles make, isn't it?

Candy is dandy,
but liquor is quicker.

"On Breaking the Ice", Ogden Nash (entire poem)

Dryden translating Horace:

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He, who can call today his own:
He, secure within, can say
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have liv'd today.
Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine,
The joys I have possest, in spight of fate are mine.
Not Heav'n it self upon the past has pow'r;
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

Not being particularly religious, I found these lines a great help when I learned I had cancer (which now, fortunately, is in remission).

Nor law nor duty bade me fight
Nor public men nor cheering crowds
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds.

Yeats, An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.

Our plesance here is all vain glory
This fals world is but transitory
The flesh is bruckle, the Feynd is slee
Timor mortis conturbat me.

William Dunbar, Lament for the Makars.

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.

Circus boss W.C. Fields, in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, upon being told by a sobbing child that one of the circus elephants had stepped on her dog:
"Here's a quarter, kid. Go buy yourself another dog."

Circus boss W.C. Fields, in You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, upon being told by a sobbing child that one of the circus elephants had stepped on her dog:
"Here's a quarter, kid. Go buy yourself another dog."

How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years,

When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers,

Didst fetter for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal!

Hopkins, "Felix Randal"

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.

-H.L. Mencken

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

Vitae Summa Brevis Spem Nos Vetat Incohare Longam
Ernest Dowson

The careful textbooks measure
in tables at the end
the force that shears a rivet
or makes a tie-bar bend
what traffic wrecks macadam
what concrete can endure
but we poor sons of Adam
have no such literature

Rudyard Kipling - 'The Hymn of Breaking Strain'

Dick, long ago, in an essay question in an examination for engineering students, I quoted just that passage and asked them to comment on it. I expected them to tell me about what they'd learnt in their management lectures. But one twit opined that the passage was irrelevant because "in a University such as this, few of us are poor". I'll never know whether he was being sarcastic.

Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the black bird.

There aren't many lines of poetry that can give you vertigo.

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work, you die."

- Kipling

still.
the cold of your absence blows from the silent TV
the parking lot
the balcony with clothes waving good-bye...
hello.

Lily of the Midnight Sky, Bruce Cockburn Boulder, CO. 11/11/84 from World of Wonders

the risk then, is trying to define what poetry is, rather than the effect it has...

for the whole thing:
http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/lotms.html

Andrew,

Another great pick, sir.

Truth to tell, it's probably too easy. Just about any randomly selected few lines of Kipling is certain to be a gem.

dearieme,

Were you teaching in the Ivy League? If so, I would be inclined to suppose your student was being cluelessly literal. If you were teaching at a state school somewhere, though, I'd be more inclined to suspect snark.

Dick,

Kipling is an easy choice, of course. I do want some credit for avoiding "If." "Gods of the Copybook Headings" is probably my favorite poem by Kipling. However, I was cheating a bit. I wouldn't actually consider those lines perfect.

How about an American poet?

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In the sepulcher there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

-E.A. Poe, "Annabel Lee"

Aldous Huxley would call it "vulgar" (with some justification), but I'm on the side of Oscar Wilde who called Poe "this marvelous lord of rhythmic expression." Certainly, there is no poet who was better at capturing the grief of the widower.

"If it sounds like writing, rewrite it." -- Elmore Leonard

Mama we're all full of lies
Mama we're meant for the flies
And right now they're building a coffin your size
Mama we're all full of lies

thanimayile inimai kaana mudiyuma - especially -malar irundal manam irukkum thanimayillai - yes i'm ancient and foreign

euah xhmqea yukqbjdmx jimt ausgxy libzv nhyjgwrxl

Does your boyfriend know where you are?
The only thing your eyes haven't told me is your name.
(give the person a bottle of tequila) Drink this, then call me when you're ready.
Hi, will you help me find my lost puppy? I think he went into this cheap motel room across the street.

(Walk over to her)"Ok, you can stand next to me, as long as you don't talk about it."

Come on, you can't get pregnant again.

Do you think I could borrow that dress sometime?

Excuse me, miss? Hi, I'm doing a scavenger hunt for my fraternity rush, and one of the things on my list is a umm....weird chick.

Hello, Susie. Your mom couldn't make it this afternoon, she asked me to pick you up and take you home. My, what a pretty dress.

Hi, I make more money than you can spend.

You have the ass of a great artist.

Dick, my money is on "cluelessly literal". Anyway, in an examination you have to earn the mark. He didn't.

"Paul the Apostle
Possessed an Epistle
So very colossal
It made the girls whistle"

According to Handelsman, sung by Blondel to Richard the Lionheart.

It started out so well
They said we made the perfect pair
I clothed myself in your glory and your love
How I loved you
How I cried

The years of care and loyalty
Were nothing but a sham it seems
The years belie we lived a lie
I love you till I die

Save me, save me, save me
I can't face this life alone
Save me, save me, save me
I'm naked and I'm far from home