In a mood for poetry?

[Redlass]

Check out this site:

Poetry quiz

They ask a bunch of questions about your mood and life's outlook, then they give you a poem that is supposed to match the way you feel.

I was given Aphra Behn's Love arm'd

[soxfan[$]]

Um, I don't think I did too well.

The site told me I was "obviously feeling rather silly today" and gave me "To a Fish" by James Leigh Hunt.

Ailsa

[emeleel]

I got Edna St. Vincent Millay's Ashes of life.

[Grouch]

The Guardian did quite well by me:
I got T.S. Eliot's "Morning at the Window." It's a nice dour poem to start my morning with.

Of course, I did tell them I was listening to Peruvian nose flutes. Which, I swear to God, was not a lie. I've got "The Mission" soundtrack in the CD player.

[erik_kosberg]

I’m experiencing a bit of an existensial crisis (probably because I didn’t have two chapters of Hegel and some dry toast for breakfast), so it gave me Charlotte Mew’s “The Peddler”.

[hadassahchana[$]]

What a strange coincidence! My poem's author also apparently happens to be another Epinions fan:

As that sweet black which veils the heav'nly eye...

Life is sometimes stranger than Art.

Cindy

[conradd]

Interesting! I got Goodbye by Emerson who is one of my favorite poets. It's a bit ironic considering that my favorite gift would be a plane ticket to anywhere and I see my world through binoculars. Ah well. Guess I'll stay home today.

Goodbye

GOOD-BYE, proud world! I'm going home;
Thou art my friend, and I'm not thine.
Long through thy weary crowds I roam;
A river-ark on the ocean brine,
Long I've been tossed like the driven foam;
But now, proud world! I'm going home.

Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face;
To Grandeur with his wise grimace;
To upstart Wealth's averted eye;
To supple Office, low and high;
To crowded halls, to court and street;
To frozen hearts and hasting feet;
To those who go, and those who come;
Good-bye, proud world! I'm going home.

I am going to my own hearth-stone,
Bosomed to yon green hills alone, -
A secret nook in a pleasant land,
Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;
Where arches green, the livelong day,
Echo the blackbird's roundelay,
And vulgar feet have never trod
A spot that is sacred to thought and God.

O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,
I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;
And when I am stretched beneath the pines,
Where the evening star so holy shines,
I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,
At the sophist schools and the learned clan;
For what are they all, in their high conceit,
When man in the bush with God may meet?

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 - 1882)

Deb
who is conveniently ignoring the darker image of home

[magenta321]

Heh, I was expecting an out of love poem, but here's what I got:

You're experiencing a bit of an existential crisis, aren't you? Here's a poem to help you through your long dark night of the soul.


Life

WHAT is our life? A play of passion,
Our mirth the music of division,
Our mother's wombs the tiring-houses be,
Where we are dressed for this short comedy.
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is,
That sits and marks still who doth act amiss.
Our graves that hide us from the setting sun
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done.
Thus march we, playing, to our latest rest,
Only we die in earnest, that's no jest.

Sir Walter Ralegh (1554 - 1618)

[magenta321]

I went back and started fresh. I relize that I misread the question about the gift. I interpreted it as 'what gift would you be likely to recieve'. I guess I should read more closely, because it asks what gift you truly want.

So here, without further ado, is my real selection:

Aaaah... you're pining for that special person, aren't you? Here's a love poem to sigh over.


Song

I cannot change, as others do,
Though you unjustly scorn;
Since that poor swain that sighs for you,
For you alone was born.
No, Phyllis, no, your heart to move
A surer way I'll try:
And to revenge my slighted love,
Will still love on, will still love on, and die.

When, killed with grief, Amintas lies
And you to mind shall call,
The sighs that now unpitied rise,
The tears that vainly fall,
That welcome hour that ends this smart
Will then begin your pain;
For such a fauthful tender heart
Can never break, can never break in vain.

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647 - 1680)

[Dani257]

Apparantly, I'm pining for that special person. So, I got The Chilterns:
Your hands, my dear, adorable,
Your lips of tenderness
- Oh, I've loved you faithfully and well,
Three years, or a bit less.
It wasn't a success.

Thank God, that's done! and I'll take the road,
Quit of my youth and you,
The Roman road to Wendover
By Tring and Lilley Hoo,
As a free man may do.

For youth goes over, the joys that fly,
The tears that follow fast;
And the dirtiest things we do must lie
Forgotten at the last;
Even love goes past.

What's left behind I shall not find,
The splendor and the pain;
The splash of sun, the shouting wind,
And the brave sting of rain,
I may not meet again.

But the years, that take the best away,
Give something in the end;
And a better friend than love have they,
For none to mar or mend,
That have themselves to friend.

I shall desire and I shall find
The best of my desires;
The autumn road, the mellow wind
That soothes the darkening shires.
And laughter, and inn-fires.

White mist about the black hedgerows,
The slumbering Midland plain,
The silence where the clover grows,
And the dead leaves in the lane,
Certainly, these remain.

And I shall find some girl perhaps,
And a better one than you,
With eyes as wise, but kindlier,
With lips as soft, but true.
And I daresay she will do.

Rupert Brooke (1887 - 1915)

[jankp]

I got a repeat poem. Guess magenta321 and I are soul sisters, huh? :-)

Jan

[soxfan[$]]

I figured my mood would change after a few hours at work. It did (I now feel like getting away from it all), and so did my poem:

The sound of the sea

THE sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,
And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
I heard the first wave of the rising tide
Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep;
A voice out of the silence of the deep,
A sound mysteriously multiplied
As of a cataract from the mountain's side,
Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.
So comes to us at times, from the unknown
And inaccessible solitudes of being,
The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;
And inspirations, that we deem our own,
Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
Of things beyond our reason or control.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882)

[KristenNC]

Clouds

Down the blue night the unending columns press
In noiseless tumult, break and wave and flow,
Now tread the far South, or lift rounds of snow
Up to the white moon's hidden loveliness.
Some pause in their grave wandering comradeless,
And turn with profound gesture vague and slow,
As who would pray good for the world, but know
Their benediction empty as they bless.

They say that the Dead die not, but remain
Near to the rich heirs of their grief and mirth.
I think they ride the calm mid-heaven, as these,
In wise majestic melancholy train,
And watch the moon, and the still-raging seas,
And men, coming and going on the earth.

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894)

[taurusmoon]

I got this one:

Sorry, that page does not exist


Does that scan correctly?

Sara

[bupkiss]

Well, this is what the site claims. But I think my results are due to Morrissey being my hero and Misery being my favorite movie from the choices provided. . . .

Oh dear, you're really down in the dumps ... But we understand; we won't tell you to look on the bright side of life, we'll offer you a poem with which to wallow in the depths of depression.


Daughter of Eve

A FOOL I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.

My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.

Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:
Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.

Christina Rossetti (1830 - 1894)

[quasar]

Hmmm, I get the page but no form :-(

Janice