The Best Poem You Have Ever Read

i think i have abt ten

I remember looking outside my office one day and this Poem just came to mind,it was apt

SYMPATHY
SYMPATHY
. . .

BY PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
    When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;   
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,   
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
    When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,   
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
    Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;   
For he must fly back to his perch and cling   
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
    And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars   
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
    When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
    But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,   
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!

The second poem i love is Heritage by Countee Cullen
another Harlem renaissance writer

Heritage


What is Africa to me:
Copper sun or scarlet sea,
Jungle star or jungle track,
Strong bronzed men, or regal black

Women from whose loins I sprang
When the birds of Eden sang?

One three centuries removed
From the scenes his fathers loved,

Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,
What is Africa to me?

So I lie, who all day long
Want no sound except the song

Sung by wild barbaric birds
Goading massive jungle herds,

Juggernauts of flesh that pass
Trampling tall defiant grass

Where young forest lovers lie,
Plighting troth beneath the sky.
So I lie, who always hear,

Though I cram against my ear
Both my thumbs, and keep them there,
Great drums throbbing through the air.
So I lie, whose fount of pride,

Dear distress, and joy allied,
Is my somber flesh and skin,
With the dark blood dammed within

Like great pulsing tides of wine
That, I fear, must burst the fine

Channels of the chafing net
Where they surge and foam and fret.

Africa? A book one thumbs
Listlessly, till slumber comes.

Unremembered are her bats
Circling through the night, her cats

Crouching in the river reeds,
Stalking gentle flesh that feeds

By the river brink; no more
Does the bugle-throated roar

Cry that monarch claws have leapt
From the scabbards where they slept.

Silver snakes that once a year
Doff the lovely coats you wear,

Seek no covert in your fear
Lest a mortal eye should see

What's your nakedness to me?
Here no leprous flowers rear
Fierce corollas in the air;

Here no bodies sleek and wet,
Dripping mingled rain and sweat,
Tread the savage measures of

Jungle boys and girls in love.
What is last year's snow to me,
Last year's anything? The tree
Budding yearly must forget
How its past arose or set—
Bough and blossom, flower, fruit,
Even what shy bird with mute
Wonder at her travail there,
Meekly labored in its hair.
One three centuries removed
From the scenes his fathers loved,
Spicy grove, cinnamon tree,
What is Africa to me?
So I lie, who find no peace
Night or day, no slight release
From the unremittent beat
Made by cruel padded feet
Walking through my body's street.
Up and down they go, and back,
Treading out a jungle track.
So I lie, who never quite
Safely sleep from rain at night—
I can never rest at all
When the rain begins to fall;
Like a soul gone mad with pain
I must match its weird refrain;
Ever must I twist and squirm,
Writhing like a baited worm,
While its primal measures drip
Through my body, crying, "Strip!
Doff this new exuberance.
Come and dance the Lover's Dance!"
In an old remembered way
Rain works on me night and day.
Quaint, outlandish heathen gods
Black men fashion out of rods,
Clay, and brittle bits of stone,
In a likeness like their own,
My conversion came high-priced;
I belong to Jesus Christ,
Preacher of Humility;
Heathen gods are naught to me.
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
So I make an idle boast;
Jesus of the twice-turned cheek,
Lamb of God, although I speak
With my mouth thus, in my heart
Do I play a double part.
Ever at Thy glowing altar
Must my heart grow sick and falter,
Wishing He I served were black,
Thinking then it would not lack
Precedent of pain to guide it,
Let who would or might deride it;
Surely then this flesh would know
Yours had borne a kindred woe.
Lord, I fashion dark gods, too,
Daring even to give You
Dark despairing features where,
Crowned with dark rebellious hair,
Patience wavers just so much as
Mortal grief compels, while touches
Quick and hot, of anger, rise
To smitten cheek and weary eyes.
Lord, forgive me if my need
Sometimes shapes a human creed.
All day long and all night through,
One thing only must I do:
Quench my pride and cool my blood,
Lest I perish in the flood,
Lest a hidden ember set
Timber that I thought was wet
Burning like the dryest fax,
Melting like the merest wax,
Lest the grave restore its dead.
Not yet has my heart or head
In the least way realized
They and I are civilized

I cant say I have a best poem,the same way I cant say I have a favourite writer.But there are some poems that I have read which made me to ponder long afterwards,either because of their sublime thoughts or their sheer aesthetic beauty.Wole Soyinka's "Death in the Dawn" and "Requiem", Christopher Okigbo's "He was a shrub among Poplars" and "The Newcomer", Coleridges' "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", Tennyson's "In Memoriam:A.H Halam" are some of the poems that have kept me enthralled.But to have a best poem,I am not sure I do.

,  I love 'to my coy mistress" by andrew marvell,  it's great, 

"the graves a fine and private place
but none i think do there embrace"
thats one of my best quotes from it,  then

"a thousand years to praise thine eyes
and on thy forehead gaze" it is so romantic.

i also love shakespeares,  " can i compare you to a summer's day, thou art so lovely and so temperate" love it.

try dylan thomas "do not go gentle into that goodnight" now that is my best poem.
read walter raleigh's "souls errand" and Rudyard Kipling's "if"

i can talk about poems all day,  anyway i love all these.

Dat 1 na nursery rhyme Even u kno fit memorize 'am.
Topic:

Here is my father, my caring loving father.
Working hard all day to make my future brighten,
strict but kind,
day and night,
caring father,
i love my father.
_{Do u love your papa}