Did you ever hear a poem that has stuck in your head for years and years?

[AuntPatti]

Moses supposes his toeses are roses
But Moses supposes erroneously.
For nobody's toeses are posies of roses
As Moses supposes his toeses to be.


This is from the drinking game "Passout", which I still have in my closet, but haven't opened in nearly 30 years.

 

[Liberty Belle]

Nature's first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaf's a flower
But only so an hour
Then leaf subsides to leaf
And Eden sank to grief
So dawn goes down today
Nothing gold can stay

A stranger recited that poem to me years ago! I was working as a cashier in Rite Aid while I was in college and a man came up to me, saw my name badge (my name is Eden), and recited the poem. I'll never forget that and I can still see his face.

 

[Liberty Belle]

Moses supposes his toeses are roses
But Moses supposes erroneously.
For nobody's toeses are posies of roses
As Moses supposes his toeses to be.


This is from the drinking game "Passout", which I still have in my closet, but haven't opened in nearly 30 years.

lol I was going to put that one. We learned it when we were little.

 

[MIGrandma]

Nope, not a poem.

But for my 8th grade history final exam we had to memorize the names of all of the presidents. I can still say them all to this day.

 

[amy4bruce]

Boy, do I know a lot of those poems (and "Moses Supposes" was used in Singin' in the Rain as a song).

But I learned this one in 1st grade (I think), have no idea who the author is, and can still recite it at will. Will sometimes objects.

Once there was an elephant
Who tried to use the telephant.
No, it was an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone.
Dear me, I'm not sure quite
That even now I've got it right.

Anyhow, he got his trunk
Entanbled in the telephunk.
The more he tried to get it free
The lowder buzzed the telephee.
I fear I'd better drop this song
About the elephlunk and telephong.

Not sure if the words are right, but that's what remains from the late 1950s.

 

[DutchsMommy]

I was an elementery librarian for 35 years and loved to use this one:

A wise old owl sat in an oak.
The more he saw, the less he spoke.
The less he spoke, the more he heard.
Why can't we all be like that wise old bird?

My grandma taught me that one, but the last line was 'Now wasn't he a wise old bird'

Another one I remember, but never remember the whole thing is:

One fine day in the middle of the night
Two dead men got up to fight
One blind man to call fair play, one dumb man to shout hurray
And it goes on.......

Also, and the spelling is going to be wrong but here goes:

When chapman billies leave the street,
And droothy neighbours, neighbours meet
As market days are wearing late
And folks begin to tak the gate
As we sit boozing at the nappy,
Getting foo and unco happy,
I think nay on the lang scots miles,
The mosses, water, slaps and styles,
That lay between ua and our haim,
Where sits our sulky sullen dame
Gather brow like gathering storm
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm
(Robert Burns - Tam O'Shanter)

 

[ZuZugal]

I never could remember any, but apparently my Mom remembers everything she ever read as a child and will recite poems and songs for any given occasion, in German. Some of them go on forever. There are moments when it gets a little trying.

I learned this in high school:

My hat it has 3 corners:

Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken,
drei Ecken hat mein Hut.
Und hätt er nicht drei Ecken,
so wär er nicht mein Hut.

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

Proofrock, the only poem I ever retained except maybe a Frost's After Apople Picking

Let us go there you and I
underneath the setting sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table
Let us wlk through half deserted streets.
The muttering rtreats of restless nights in
one night cheap hotels
...
..
Streets that follow like a tediuos argument
of insidiuos intent
to lead us to an ovewwhelming question
Oh do not ask what is it
Let us go and make our visit

In the room the women come and go
talking of Michelangelo

....

Time fo you and a time for me
and a time for hundreds of indecisons
and for a hundred visions and revisioons
before taking of toast and tea

.....
I grow old I grow old
I shall wear the bottom of my trousers rolled
Shall I part my hair behind
Shall I dare to eat a peach
I shall wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach
I have heard the mermaids signing
I do not think they will sing to me

...

We have lingered in the chambers of th sea
By sea girls wreathed in sea wead red and brown
Till human voices wake us and we drown

I think I have mispelled enough.

 

[Acklander]

A poem I read back in high School. Can't remember who wrote it


How can I go on living?
Knowing that when I die, I'll have to stop giving.
How long will you remember me?

What will I do when it gets dark?
And I haven't had a chance to leave my mark.
How will you know I was there?

How can I go to sleep?
Knowing I haven't given you something to keep
How will you know I cared?

Maybe if I just give you the love of mine
I won't have to leave a little sign
saying "Remember me, I was here, I cared"

 

[texasthumper]

He who has a thing to sell;
and goes and whispers in a well;
is not so apt to get the dollars;
as he who climbs a tree and hollers.

(I work in the Marketing department)

 

[Scornelius]

I'll sing you the poem of a silly young king,
Who played with the world at the end of a string.
But he only loved one single thing,
And that was his peanut butter sandwich!

 

[C.Ann]

These are great!

Anyone else?

 

[Bob NC]

Roses are red
Violets are blue
My sister has measles
Can you swim?

 

[Muushka]

"Phoebe B. Beebe and her new canoe canal in Saugatuck, near Naugatuck, Connecticut."

When I learned this limerick, about 50 years ago scared1 the book said that I would never forget it. And I didn't!
I just googled it and there it was!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Moses supposes his toeses are roses
But Moses supposes erroneously.
For nobody's toeses are posies of roses
As Moses supposes his toeses to be.


This is from the drinking game "Passout", which I still have in my closet, but haven't opened in nearly 30 years.

I'm sure it originates elsewhere, but I remember watching it on "Singing in the Rain".

My kids love it!

 

[piglet too]

There are two poems that I can still recite since learning them in high school

The Tiger
Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Annabel Lee
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me -
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud one night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling -my darling -my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea -
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

There are also two children's books that I can recite from memory, "Big Pumpkin" by Erica Silverman and "Because a Little Bug Went Ka-choo".

 

[BCDisneyFanatic]

Courage

Courage is the price which life exacts for granting peace.
The soul that knows it not, knows no release
From little things;

Knows not the livid loneliness of fear
Nor mountain heights, where bitter joy can hear
The sound of wings.

How can life grant us boon of living, compensate,
For dull gray ugliness and pregnant hate
Unless we dare
The soul's dominion? Each time we make a choice we pay
With courage to behold resistless day
And count it fair.

I studied this poem by Amelia Earhart in Grade 9 English, and fell in love with it. It's been my inspiration at many of the low points in my life.

 

[NEVERENOUGHWDW]

Emily Dickinson
A Narrow Fellow in the Grass




A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him,--did you not,
His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,--
When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature's people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.

 

[Angelrose]

I had to memorize a poem in grade school. It was called Myself. I only remember a little bit of it. I have it written down somewhere. But I've always loved it.

I have to live with myself and so
I want to be fit for myself to know
I want to be able as years go by
Always to look myself straight in the eye.

That's all I can remember.

 

[snykymom]

When I read the title, the one that immediately popped into my head, unbidden:

Candy is dandy
But liquor is quicker!
Ogden Nash

And of course, how many of us can still recite
One fish, two fish
Red fish, blue fish
Dr. Seuss

Or
I do not like them with a fox,
I do not like them in a box,
I do not like them here or there,
I do not like them anywhere.
I do not like green eggs and ham.
I do not like them, Sam-I-am!

And that's not even counting the ones I HAD to learn!