#ooc tag: sorry for any formatting issues oopsie!!

[ask-captain-keating]

What are some of your favorite poems, Captain? (Besides o captain my captain ofc) <3

Anon,

What a wonderful question! I'd be delighted to share a few of my favorites with you all.

To start, my all time favorite is titled "Clair de lune" (translates to "Moonlight") by Paul Verlaine, written in 1896. Those with a keen eye may recognise the title from Claude Debussy's song of the same title, which was a piece inspired by the poem. The original work is in French, but I will provide an English translation by Chris Routledge.

Moonlight

Your soul is a select landscape

Where charming masqueraders and bergamaskers go

Playing the lute and dancing and almost

Sad beneath their fantastic disguises.

All sing in a minor key

Of victorious love and the opportune life,

They do not seem to believe in their happiness

And their song mingles with the moonlight,

With the still moonlight, sad and beautiful,

That sets the birds dreaming in the trees

And the fountains sobbing in ecstasy,

The tall slender fountains among marble statues.

Paul Verlaine, 1869

Another one of my favorites, also by Uncle Walt, is called "O Living Always, Always Dying" from his poetry collection titled Leaves of Grass. Leaves of Grass was published in 1855, but he continuously edited and reworked it until he passed in 1892.

O Living Always, Always Dying

O LIVING always, always dying!

O the burials of me past and present,

O me while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever;

O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not, I am content;)

O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look at where I cast them,

To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind.

Walt Whitman, 1855

The last one I'll share is titled "Love Lives Beyond the Tomb" by John Clare. I only found this poem very recently, so unfortunately I don't know when it was published.

Love Lives Beyond the Tomb

Love lives beyond

The tomb, the earth, which fades like dew—

I love the fond,

The faithful, and the true

Love lives in sleep,

'Tis happiness of healthy dreams

Eve’s dews may weep,

But love delightful seems.

'Tis seen in flowers,

And in the even's pearly dew

On earth's green hours,

And in the heaven's eternal blue.

‘Tis heard in spring

When light and sunbeams, warm and kind,

On angels’ wing

Bring love and music to the wind.

And where is voice,

So young, so beautiful and sweet

As nature’s choice,

Where Spring and lovers meet?

Love lives beyond

The tomb, the earth, the flowers, and dew.

I love the fond,

The faithful, young and true.

John Clare

Another one of my favorite poems was written (or verbalised I suppose?) by a student of mine. Neither he nor I got the chance to write it down, and I most definitely do not have permission to share it. No sleep lost over it, sometimes the best poems are the ones you only hear once! Thank you very much for the question.

Best,

John Keating

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