i need a poem which has uncertainty as its theme.. any poet is fine as long as it sticks to the theme.. thanks a lot

Here's one:

Doubts
by Rupert Brooke


When she sleeps, her soul, I know,
Goes a wanderer on the air,
Wings where I may never go,
Leaves her lying, still and fair,
Waiting, empty, laid aside,
Like a dress upon a chair. . . .
This I know, and yet I know
Doubts that will not be denied.

For if the soul be not in place,
What has laid trouble in her face?
And, sits there nothing ware and wise
Behind the curtains of her eyes,
What is it, in the self's eclipse,
Shadows, soft and passingly,
About the corners of her lips,
The smile that is essential she?

And if the spirit be not there,
Why is fragrance in the hair?

Les

As I said at the Korean restaurant, do I dare eat a pooch?


[www.cs.rice.edu]

The love song of J.Alfred Prufrock.
I read something about uncertainty in an essay (on another site if I find the site again I will forward it)

And Yet I Don’t Know!
by R. P. Weston and Bert Lee

Now, my sister’s daughter Elizabeth May
Is going to get married next Sunday, they say.
Now, what shall I buy her? She’s such a nice gel!
I think a piano would do very well.
I saw one today, only ninety five pound:
A decent piano, I’ll have it sent round.

And yet I don’t know! And yet I don’t know!
I think she’s the rottenest player I know.
And if she keeps thumping out that ‘Maiden’s Pray’r’
The husband might kill his young bride, and so there!
I won’t buy the piano! It’s not that I’m mean;
I think I’d best buy her a sewing machine.

And yet I don’t know! And yet I don’t know!
A sewing machine is a ‘tenner’ or so!
A ‘tenner’ would buy lots of needles and thread,
And things that are hand-made are best, so it’s said.
So it’s not that I’m mingy, although I’m half Scotch –
I know what I’ll buy her; an Ingersoll watch!

And yet I don’t know! And yet I don’t know!
In five or six years they’re too fast or slow.
And when she’s turn’d seventy, that’s if she’s spar’d,
‘Twill have cost her a fortune in being repair’d.
Or else she’ll have pawn’d it, and lost it, so there!
I know what I’ll buy her; a jumper to wear!

And yet I don’t know! And yet I don’t know!
The girls won’t wear jumpers in ten years or so.
Beside she might start getting fat before long.
And fat girls in jumpers show too much ong bong!
And open work jumpers give ladies the ‘flu,
I’ll buy her some handkerchiefs, that’s what I’ll do!

And yet I don’t know! And yet I don’t know!
Good hankies cost twelve bob a dozen or so,
And twelve bob’s too much for her poor Uncle John.
Why, anything does just to blow your nose on.
And talking of noses, hers looks red enough!
I know what I’ll buy her; a nice powder puff.

She can’t powder her nose with a grand piano,
Nor yet with a sewing machine.
She can’t powder her nose with an Ingersoll watch:
Well, it’s silly! You see what I mean!

She can’t powder her nose with a jumper:
She would find it a little bit rough;
So I’ll go round to Woolworth’s tonight, God bless her!
And buy her a powder puff.

And yet I don’t know! And yet I don’t know!
Sixpence ha’p’nies don’t grow in backyards,
So I don’t think I’ll send her a powder puff,
I’ll send her – my kindest regards!

Part XCV of Tennyson's 'In Memoriam':


You say, but with no touch of scorn,
Sweet-hearted, you, whose light-blue eyes
Are tender over drowning flies,
You tell me, doubt is Devil-born.

I know not: one indeed I knew
In many a subtle question versed,
Who touch’d a jarring lyre at first,
But ever strove to make it true:

Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music out.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.

He fought his doubts and gather’d strength,
He would not make his judgment blind,
He faced the spectres of the mind
And laid them: thus he came at length

To find a stronger faith his own;
And Power was with him in the night,
Which makes the darkness and the light,
And dwells not in the light alone,

But in the darkness and the cloud,
As over Sinaï’s peaks of old,
While Israel made their gods of gold,
Altho’ the trumpet blew so loud.

Ode To A Nightingale
by John Keats

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness,---
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O for a draught of vintage, that hath been
Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provencal song, and sun-burnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,
And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known,
The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;
Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs;
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Clustered around by all her starry fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;
Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

Darkling I listen; and for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain---
To thy high requiem become a sod

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!
No hungry generations tread thee down;
The voice I hear this passing night was heard
In ancient days by emperor and clown:
Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn;
The same that oft-times hath
Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is famed to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:---do I wake or sleep?


Keats, he's a dude.....poem about uncertainity of life, whether reality is as it seems sorta thing....can give more details if necessary

DOUBT

Will he be true to me?
That I do not know
But since the dawn
I have had as much disorder in my thoughts
As in my black hair.

by E.P.Mathers (1892-1939),
translated from the Japanese of Hori Kawa

Another one for this thread:

MAYBE
by Carl Sandburg

Maybe he believes me, maybe not.
Maybe I can marry him, maybe not.

Maybe the wind on the prairie,
The wind on the sea, maybe,
Somebody, somewhere, maybe can tell.

I will lay my head on his shoulder
And when he asks me I will say yes,
Maybe.