Question of the Day: Part One

April is National Poetry Month, so today's question is: what is your favorite poem?

You are encouraged to leave, in addition to title/author, the poem itself in comments, if you'd like.

I am, admittedly, hard-pressed to choose just one favorite. Topping the list are Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis, Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven, W.H. Auden’s The Shield of Achilles, Dylan Thomas’ Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, the collected sonnets of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Ernest Lawrence Thayer’s Casey at the Bat, Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken, many of which are too long to share here, or likely already familiar. So I’ll just share one I really like, though it’s probably not technically my favorite.

Hope Is a Tattered Flag
Carl Sandburg

Hope is a tattered flag and a dream of time.
Hope is a heartspun word, the rainbow, the shadblow in white
The evening star inviolable over the coal mines,
The shimmer of northern lights across a bitter winter night,
The blue hills beyond the smoke of the steel works,
The birds who go on singing to their mates in peace, war, peace,
The ten-cent crocus bulb blooming in a used-car salesroom,
The horseshoe over the door, the luckpiece in the pocket,
The kiss and the comforting laugh and resolve—
Hope is an echo, hope ties itself yonder, yonder.
The spring grass showing itself where least expected,
The rolling fluff of white clouds on a changeable sky,
The broadcast of strings from Japan, bells from Moscow,
Of the voice of the prime minister of Sweden carried
Across the sea in behalf of a world family of nations
And children singing chorals of the Christ child
And Bach being broadcast from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
And tall skyscrapers practically empty of tenants
And the hands of strong men groping for handholds
And the Salvation Army singing God loves us…