Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

    Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!
    What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
    Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;
    Wi' usquabae, we'll face the devil!

The road to wisdom? -- Well, it's plain and simple to express: Err and err and err again but less and less and less.

~Piet Hein

"The Sciences Sing a Lullabye"

Physics says: go to sleep. Of course you’re tired. Every atom in you has been dancing the shimmy in silver shoes nonstop from mitosis to now. Quit tapping your feet. They’ll dance inside themselves without you. Go to sleep.

Geology says: it will be all right. Slow inch by inch America is giving itself to the ocean. Go to sleep. Let darkness lap at your sides. Give darkness an inch. You aren’t alone. All of the continents used to be one body. You aren’t alone. Go to sleep.

Astronomy says: the sun will rise tomorrow, Zoology says: on rainbow-fish and lithe gazelle, Psychology says: but first it has to be night, so Biology says: the body-clocks are stopped all over town and History says: here are the blankets, layer on layer, down and down.

Parable of the Old Man and the Young

  So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
  And took the fire with him, and a knife.
  And as they sojourned both of them together,
  Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
  Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
  But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?

  Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
  and builded parapets and trenches there,
  And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
  When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
  Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
  Neither do anything to him. Behold,
  A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;

  Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
  But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
  And half the seed of Europe, one by one. 

  Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, 
  Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, 
  Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs 
  And towards our distant rest began to trudge. 
  Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots 
  But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; 
  Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots  
  Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
  Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, 
  Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; 
  But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, 
  And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... 
  Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, 
  As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. 
  In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, 
  He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. 
  If in some smothering dreams you too could pace 
  Behind the wagon that we flung him in, 
  And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, 
  His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; 
  If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood 
  Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, 
  Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
  Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, 
  My friend, you would not tell with such high zest  
  To children ardent for some desperate glory, 
  The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est 
  Pro patria mori.

  Head to limp head, the sunk-eyed wounded scanned
  Yesterday's Mail; the casualties (typed small)
  And (large) Vast Booty from our Latest Haul.
  Also, they read of Cheap Homes, not yet planned;
  For, said the paper, "When this war is done
  The men's first instinct will be making homes.
  Meanwhile their foremost need is aerodromes,
  It being certain war has just begun.
  Peace would do wrong to our undying dead, --
  The sons we offered might regret they died
  If we got nothing lasting in their stead.
  We must be solidly indemnified.
  Though all be worthy Victory which all bought,
  We rulers sitting in this ancient spot
  Would wrong our very selves if we forgot
  The greatest glory will be theirs who fought,
  Who kept this nation in integrity."
  Nation? -- The half-limbed readers did not chafe
  But smiled at one another curiously
  Like secret men who know their secret safe.
  This is the thing they know and never speak,
  That England one by one had fled to France
  (Not many elsewhere now save under France).
  Pictures of these broad smiles appear each week,
  And people in whose voice real feeling rings
  Say: How they smile! They're happy now, poor things. 

  My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,
  By just exchange one for the other given:
  I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
  There never was a bargain better driven.
  His heart in me keeps me and him in one,
  My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
  He loves my heart for once it was his own;
  I cherish his because in me it bides.
  His heart his wound receivèd from my sight;
  My heart was wounded with his wounded heart;
  For as from me on him his hurt did light,
  So still methought in me his hurt did smart:
  Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss,
  My true love hath my heart and I have his.