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Talking poetry with the Russians the other day while we were walking around the state park, I related a few of the poems that had crossed my path in some way or other over the years. This was one that I memorized many years ago for my high school's yearly declamation contest. I sucked, but I continue to find this poem fraught with meaning. Plus one of the best ending couplets ever.

Ode on a Grecian Urn

John Keats. 1795–1821

THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,	 
  Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,	 
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express	 
  A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:	 
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape	         5
  Of deities or mortals, or of both,	 
    In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?	 
  What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?	 
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?	 
    What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?	         10
 
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard	 
  Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;	 
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,	 
  Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:	 
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave	 15
  Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;	 
    Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,	 
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;	 
    She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,	 
  For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!	         20
 
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed	 
  Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;	 
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,	 
  For ever piping songs for ever new;	 
More happy love! more happy, happy love!	         25
  For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,	 
    For ever panting, and for ever young;	 
All breathing human passion far above,	 
  That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,	 
    A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.	         30
 
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?	 
  To what green altar, O mysterious priest,	 
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,	 
  And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?	 
What little town by river or sea-shore,	                 35
  Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,	 
    Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?	 
And, little town, thy streets for evermore	 
  Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell	 
    Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.	         40
 
O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede	 
  Of marble men and maidens overwrought,	 
With forest branches and the trodden weed;	 
  Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought	 
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!	                 45
  When old age shall this generation waste,	 
    Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe	 
  Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,	 
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all	 
    Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'	         50

Ode

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world's great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire's glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song's measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o'erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world's worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

-Arthur O'Shaughnessy

It's been 5 years (!) since the final tragic mission of Columbia, and 22 years (and four days) since the destruction of Challenger.

President Reagan quoted the following poem in his address following the Challenger disaster, and since then, I've never been able to read it without getting choked up.

High Flight

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 windswept heights with easy grace Where never lark, or even eagle flew - And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod The high untresspassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr No 412 squadron, RCAF Killed 11 December 1941

Godspeed, ye fallen pioneers.