That's actually mine too!

And one of mine!

I couldn't pick a favourite - "If You Forget Me" by Pablo Neruda is up there. I love "If Your Nerve, Deny You" and "Hope Is The Thing With Feathers" by Emily Dickinson too!

Roses are red, violets are blue

I love you, and you do too.

Roses are red, violets are blue

I can't come near, I've got the flu.

Roses are red, violets are purple

Everytime I eat with you, I burple.

Auntie, did you feel no pain,falling from that apple tree?

Could you do it, please, again ? 'Cause my friend here didn't see.

Billy, in one of his bright new sashes,fell in the fire and was burned to ashes.

Now, although the room grows chilly, I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy.

If a man who "TURNIPS" cries, cries not when his father dies,

It's a sign that he would rather have a turnip, than his father.

One bright morning in the middle of the night

two dead boys got up to fight.

Back to back they faced each other,drew their swords and shot each other.

A deaf policeman heard the noise, came and arrested those two dead boys.

When I was walking down the stair, I met a man who wasn't there.

He wasn't there again today, I wish that man would go away.

All except for the roses rhymes are from an old poetry textbook from my mother's schooldays.

So many! Ithaca – C.P. Cavafy, The Lonely Hunter – William Sharp, How Do I Love Thee? – Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnet 116 – Shakespeare. I could go on...

I learned Wordsworth's "Upon Westminster Bridge" when I was at school and its still one of my favourites.

Yes, even though poetry is not my 'thing' I do love those of Rumi and Kahlil Gibran, Maya Angelou, Robert Frost - the Road not Taken, and more. Ithaca ~ Ithaka is a favourite, I love the language, the rhythm and the meaning behind it ... it also speaks to my Greek Cypriot heritage (even though I was born in Australia and for now live in London).

Ithaka

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.”

― C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems

"Since Homer's Odyssey, Ithaca symbolizes the destination of a long journey, the supreme aim that every man tries to fulfill all his life long, the sweet homeland, the eternal calmness and satisfaction.The most famous poem about Ithaca has been written by the renowned Greek poet Constantine Cavafy and is entitled "Ithaka". He makes an allusion of the legendary journey of Ulysses to the journey of every man through life and suggests that each person is looking for his own Ithaca, his personal supreme goal. However, in the end, it is not the goal but the journey that matters, because this journey makes us wise and gives people the richest good: experience, knowledge and maturity. This poem was written in 1911 and has been translated in many languages since then. Its lyric words and message are touching. " Source: www.greeka.com

Hey, Stella, our thoughts are with the Greeks right now :)

In Summers Heat by Ovid .

Would be lovely to have the actual poems to read on one page rather than having to google each one.

WB Yeats, He wishes for the cloths of heaven:

Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of the night and the light and the halflight

I would spread the cloths under your feet.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams.

I have spread my dreams under your feet

Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams.