Poetry has been an important ingredient in my life and i write it
as well as read it. There aren't many rhymesters around these
days, maybe because it's hard to rhyme and sound natural at the
same time. On the other hand, have you tried memorizing some
non-rhyming poetry? It just doesn't come as easily. Perhaps
the days of memorizing poetry are over.
Here is one of my favorite poems, short and eloquent:
AH! SUN-FLOWER
William Blake
Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller's journey is done;
Where the youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sun-flower wishes to go.
Isn't that beautiful? Uncomplex in rhyme or meter yet still
full of mystery, with archetypal images abounding.
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ReplyDeleteRemoved because it was formatted wrongly. My bad, as they say.
DeleteI agree with Steve that rhyming may cause others to shy away from poetry because it doesn't "sound natural" nowadays. And I think the schools do not require memorization anymore. Yet much of the verse that I can recall comes from rhymed lines. Comes from spoken rhymed lines. Our grandmother read to us from Mother Goose and Robert Louis Stevenson and I can still recite a number of things after 70 years. Fewer years for Steve, but not many. I have a number of favorites, but the first to come to mind, one that was actually 'memorized', probably in high school, is Robert Louis Stevenson's "Requiem":
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you 'grave for me:
Here he lies where he long'd to be.
Home is the sailor home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Not perfect, but close. C'mon folks. Chime in here. Surely you have a favorite or two "remembered" lines that you wouldn't mind sharing?