Ask HN: Who are your favorite poets?

http://alliteration.net/poetry/website.htm

The following was written a few days before his death and is an expression of his experience as a medic after the battle of Gródek in the first world war (translated from german by Eric Plattner & Joseph Suglia):

  Grodek 

  This evening the autumn woods are alive
  with exploding arms, the golden fields
  and blue lakes—and above it all the sun
  unfurls the dark. Night surrounds
  the dying men, the unhinged moan
  of crushed mouths.
  And still, in the willows,
  the red cloud, the abiding God, bloodshed itself,
  begins the harvest in mute fury, the moon’s coolness.
  All roads rupture into black rot.
  Under the golden spray of night and stars
  the sister’s shadow staggers across the acquiescent grove
  to greet the ghosts of heroes, their blossoming skulls.
  And beyond human ears the dark flutes of autumn whisper.
  O noble mourning!—you brazen altars,
  the searing flame of the spirit nurtures a vaster ache,
  the grandsons unborn.

  High Flight
  By John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

  Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
  And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
  Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
  Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
  You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
  High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
  I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
  My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

  Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
  I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
  Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
  And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
  The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
  Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

    Spring and Fall
    
    to a young child
    
    Margaret, are you grieving
    Over Goldengrove unleaving?
    Leaves, like the things of man, you
    With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
    Ah! as the heart grows older
    It will come to such sights colder
    By and by, nor spare a sigh
    Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
    And yet you will weep know why.
    Now no matter, child, the name:
    Sorrow’s springs are the same.
    Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
    What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
    It is the blight man was born for,
    It is Margaret you mourn for.
    
    – Hopkins, 1880
    
    
    A Little Litany
    
    When God turned back eternity and was young,
    Ancient of Days, grown little for your mirth
    (As under the low arch the land is bright)
    Peered through you, gate of heaven—and saw the earth.
    
    Or shutting out his shining skies awhile
    Built you about him for a house of gold
    To see in pictured walls his storied world
    Return upon him as a tale is told.
    
    Or found his mirror there; the only glass
    That would not break with that unbearable light
    Till in a corner of the high dark house
    God looked on God, as ghosts meet in the night.
    
    Star of his morning; that unfallen star
    In that strange starry overturn of space
    When earth and sky changed places for an hour
    And heaven looked upwards in a human face.
    
    Or young on your strong knees and lifted up
    Wisdom cried out, whose voice is in the street,
    And more than twilight of twiformed cherubim
    Made of his throne indeed a mercy-seat.
    
    Or risen from play at your pale raiment's hem
    God, grown adventurous from all time's repose,
    Or your tall body climbed the ivory tower
    And kissed upon your mouth the mystic rose.
    
    – Chesterton
    
    
    Love
    
    Love is a short disease, a long desire,
    A strong and lasting healing; love is like
    An angler landing fish, a hand at lyre,
    A roadhog flogging home his motor-bike;
    Love is a deep unsleeping thing, leaps time
    And steeps amidst eternity for rest
    And love is like three candles lighting rhyme
    And metre I am making for the best;
    An Alleluiatic sequence shows
    A little of love's eloquence that lasts;
    Love has three lights, one to another glows,
    A third proceeds between: naught overcasts
    True love because it knows that it possesses,
    Being possessed, a zest above distresses.
    
    – Bradburne, 1971

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerard_Manley_Hopkins

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._K._Chesterton

[3] http://www.johnbradburnepoems.com/

[4] http://vimeo.com/michaelbradleyjr/love

[&] http://vimeo.com/michaelbradleyjr/mombe