# Poetry and the Enneagram



## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

Of course, there are a lot of threads discussing song lyrics and Enneagram, but I thought it would be nice to have a thread devoted to poetry. Either poems that seem to express a certain Enneatype, typings of poets themselves, the sorts of poetry you prefer (and perhaps how you would tie that to your Enneagram type), the sorts of poetry you write, or generally any Enneagram+poetry commentary.

I am especially interested in typing poets based on their works (or of course other biographical information).

Instincts, too. Poeticism seems to be connected with the self-pres instinct commonly and I'm not sure I agree with that. Be interested to hear commentary. 

Will make a separate posts with some of my own thoughts.


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## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

My favorite poets are probably Yeats, Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, and Keats (in that order), though there are others who I like as well, of course.

I think a Three or Four typing for Yeats would be correct. I can also see Nine in places - see 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' - but I see more image concerns from him. One anecdote I read seemed particularly Three-ish: he had learned perhaps twenty words of Irish at one point, which he'd then forgotten, and then would tell people, "Unfortunately, I've forgotten my Irish". I would also guess a dominant social instinct given his involvement in politics at the time. Much of his work seemed to be centered around crafting a new image - or rather origin story - for Ireland and using that to further current political causes. He would for instance collect stories from the people. At the moment I'd guess so/sx 3w4 but I can also see 4w3.

Though I am now flipping through _Anima Hominus_ and can see some Six:

_"When I think of any great poetical writer of the past (a realist is a historian and obscures the cleavage by the record of his eyes), I comprehend, if I know the lineaments of his life, that the work is the man's flight from his entire horoscope, his blind struggle in the network of the stars". 

"We make out of the quarrel with others, rhetoric, but of the quarrel with ourselves, poetry. Unlike the rhetoricians, who get a confident voice from remembering the crowd they have won or may win, we sing amid our uncertainty; and, smitten even in the presence of your most high beauty by the knowledge of our solitude, our rhythm shudders.[...] Nor has any poet I have read of or heard of or met with been a sentimentalist. The other self, the anti-self or the antithetical self, as one may choose to name it, comes but to those who are no longer deceived, whose passion is reality. The sentimentalists are practical men who believe in money, in position, in a marriage bell, and whose understanding of happiness is to be so busy whether at work or at play that all is forgotten but the momentary aim. They find their pleasure in a cup that is filled from Lethe's wharf, and for the awakening, for the vision, for the revelation of reality, tradition offers us a different word - ecstasy."

"We must not make a false faith by hiding from our thoughts the causes of doubt, for faith is the highest achievement of the human intellect, the only gift man can make to God, and therefore it must be offered in sincerity. Neither must we create, by hiding ugliness, a false beauty as our offering to the world. He only can create the greatest imaginable beauty who has endured all imaginable pangs,for only when we have seen and foreseen what we dream shall we be rewarded by that dazzling, unforeseen, wing-footed wanderer". 

"I find in an old diary: 'I think all happiness depends on the energy to assume the mask of some other life, on a rebirth as something not one's self, something created in a moment and perpetually renewed; in playing a game like that of a child where one loses the infinite pain of self-realisation, in a grotesque or solemn painted face put on that one may hide from the terror of judgment . . . Perhaps all the wins and energies of the world are but the world's flight from an infinite blinding beam'; and again at an earlier date: 'If we cannot imagine ourselves as different from what we are, and try to assume that second self, we cannot impose a discipline upon ourselves through we may accept one from others. Active virtue, as distinguished from the passive acceptance of a code, is therefore theatrical, consciously dramatic, the wearing of a mask . . . Wordsworth, great poet though he be, is often flat and heavy partly because his moral sense, being a discipline he had not created, a mere obedience, has no theatrical element. This increases his popularity with the better kind of journalists and politicians who have written books."
_
Anyways, poem:

* *





Under Ben Bulben
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
I 

Swear by what the Sages spoke 
Round the Mareotic Lake 
That the Witch of Atlas knew, 
Spoke and set the cocks a-crow. 

Swear by those horsemen, by those women, 
Complexion and form prove superhuman, 
That pale, long visaged company 
That airs an immortality 
Completeness of their passions won; 
Now they ride the wintry dawn 
Where Ben Bulben sets the scene. 

Here's the gist of what they mean. 


II 

Many times man lives and dies 
Between his two eternities, 
That of race and that of soul, 
And ancient Ireland knew it all. 
Whether man dies in his bed 
Or the rifle knocks him dead, 
A brief parting from those dear 
Is the worst man has to fear. 
Though grave-diggers' toil is long, 
Sharp their spades, their muscle strong, 
They but thrust their buried men 
Back in the human mind again. 


III 

You that Mitchel's prayer have heard 
`Send war in our time, O Lord!' 
Know that when all words are said 
And a man is fighting mad, 
Something drops from eyes long blind 
He completes his partial mind, 
For an instant stands at ease, 
Laughs aloud, his heart at peace, 
Even the wisest man grows tense 
With some sort of violence 
Before he can accomplish fate 
Know his work or choose his mate. 


IV 

Poet and sculptor do the work 
Nor let the modish painter shirk 
What his great forefathers did, 
Bring the soul of man to God, 
Make him fill the cradles right. 

Measurement began our might: 
Forms a stark Egyptian thought, 
Forms that gentler Phidias wrought. 

Michael Angelo left a proof 
On the Sistine Chapel roof, 
Where but half-awakened Adam 
Can disturb globe-trotting Madam 
Till her bowels are in heat, 
Proof that there's a purpose set 
Before the secret working mind: 
Profane perfection of mankind. 

Quattrocento put in paint, 
On backgrounds for a God or Saint, 
Gardens where a soul's at ease; 
Where everything that meets the eye 
Flowers and grass and cloudless sky 
Resemble forms that are, or seem 
When sleepers wake and yet still dream, 
And when it's vanished still declare, 
With only bed and bedstead there, 
That Heavens had opened. 

Gyres run on; 
When that greater dream had gone 
Calvert and Wilson, Blake and Claude 
Prepared a rest for the people of God, 
Palmer's phrase, but after that 
Confusion fell upon our thought. 


V 

Irish poets learn your trade 
Sing whatever is well made, 
Scorn the sort now growing up 
All out of shape from toe to top, 
Their unremembering hearts and heads 
Base-born products of base beds. 
Sing the peasantry, and then 
Hard-riding country gentlemen, 
The holiness of monks, and after 
Porter-drinkers' randy laughter; 
Sing the lords and ladies gay 
That were beaten into the clay 
Through seven heroic centuries; 
Cast your mind on other days 
That we in coming days may be 
Still the indomitable Irishry. 


VI 

Under bare Ben Bulben's head 
In Drumcliff churchyard Yeats is laid, 
An ancestor was rector there 
Long years ago; a church stands near, 
By the road an ancient Cross. 
No marble, no conventional phrase, 
On limestone quarried near the spot 
By his command these words are cut: 

Cast a cold eye 
On life, on death. 
Horseman, pass by!



* *








As for Tennyson, I've not read too much about him, don't really have a guess...Three might be my guess again. 'Ulysses' is really my favorite poem of all time but I don't see much Enneagram material there. Neither does this one but it's shorter:
* *






The splendour falls on castle walls 
And snowy summits old in story: 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 
And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O hark, O hear! how thin and clear, 
And thinner, clearer, farther going! 
O sweet and far from cliff and scar 
The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! 
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying: 
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

O love, they die in yon rich sky, 
They faint on hill or field or river: 
Our echoes roll from soul to soul, 
And grow for ever and for ever. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying, 
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.




Dylan Thomas - I assume he's generally typed 6w5. 

* *





Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.



* *








also :


* *





I

I see the boys of summer in their ruin
Lay the gold tithings barren,
Setting no store by harvest, freeze the soils;
There in their heat the winter floods
Of frozen loves they fetch their girls,
And drown the cargoed apples in their tides.

These boys of light are curdlers in their folly,
Sour the boiling honey;
The jacks of frost they finger in the hives;
There in the sun the frigid threads
Of doubt and dark they feed their nerves;
The signal moon is zero in their voids.

I see the summer children in their mothers
Split up the brawned womb’s weathers,
Divide the night and day with fairy thumbs;
There in the deep with quartered shades
Of sun and moon they paint their dams
As sunlight paints the shelling of their heads.

I see that from these boys shall men of nothing
Stature by seedy shifting,
Or lame the air with leaping from its heats;
There from their hearts the dogdayed pulse
Of love and light bursts in their throats.
O see the pulse of summer in the ice.
II

But seasons must be challenged or they totter
Into a chiming quarter
Where, punctual as death, we ring the stars;
There, in his night, the black-tongued bells
The sleepy man of winter pulls,
Nor blows back moon-and-midnight as she blows.

We are the dark derniers let us summon
Death from a summer woman,
A muscling life from lovers in their cramp
From the fair dead who flush the sea
The bright-eyed worm on Davy’s lamp
And from the planted womb the man of straw.

We summer boys in this four-winded spinning,
Green of the seaweeds’ iron,
Hold up the noisy sea and drop her birds,
Pick the world’s ball of wave and froth
To choke the deserts with her tides,
And comb the county gardens for a wreath.

In spring we cross our foreheads with the holly,
Heigh ho the blood and berry,
And nail the merry squires to the trees;
Here love’s damp muscle dries and dies
Here break a kiss in no love’s quarry,
O see the poles of promise in the boys.
III

I see you boys of summer in your ruin.
Man in his maggot’s barren.
And boys are full and foreign to the pouch.
I am the man your father was.
We are the sons of flint and pitch.
O see the poles are kissing as they cross.




Keats sp 4w3 probably

* *





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 thine 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 
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth, 
Tasting of Flora and the country green, 
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt 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 to-morrow. 

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, 
Cluster'd 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 cover'd 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, 
Call'd 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 
Charm'd 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 fam'd 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?


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## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

Also, here's a quite Six poem :lovekitty::

If I Were a Dog
by Richard Shelton

I would trot down this road sniffing
on one side and then the other
peeing a little here and there
wherever I felt the urge
having a good time what the hell
saving some because it's a long road

but since I'm not a dog
I walk straight down the road
trying to get home before dark

if I were a dog and I had a master
who beat me I would run away
and go hungry and sniff around
until I found a master who loved me
I could tell by his smell and I
would lick his face so he knew

or maybe it would be a woman
I would protect her we could go
everywhere together even down this
dark road and I wouldn't run from side
to side sniffing I would always
be protecting her and I would stop
to pee only once in awhile

sometimes in the afternoon we could
go to the park and she would throw
a stick I would bring it back to her

each time I put the stick at her feet
I would say _this is my heart_
and she would say _I will make it fly_
_but you must bring it back to me_
I would always bring it back to her
and to no other if I were a dog


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## Rose for a Heart (Nov 14, 2011)

*E4*

New to poetry but ~


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## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

This poem @Niha posted (which is very striking but I'm having to google to find out what it means) reminded me of this one:

First time I heard it, it sent one of those _shivers_ through me, like I'd heard it in childhood or something, just completely unnerving..."dein goldenes Haar Margarete...dein aschenes Haar Sulamith"...haunting.

No Enneagram thoughts, would just like to share:

Video with subtitles:





Original:

* *





Todesfuge

Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken sie abends
wir trinken sie mittags und morgens wir trinken sie nachts
wir trinken und trinken
wir schaufeln ein Grab in den Lüften da liegt man nicht eng
Ein Mann wohnt im Haus der spielt mit den Schlangen der schreibt
der schreibt wenn es dunkelt nach Deutschland
dein goldenes Haar Margarete

er schreibt es und tritt vor das Haus und es blitzen die Sterne 
er pfeift seine Rüden herbei
er pfeift seine Juden hervor läßt schaufeln ein Grab in der Erde
er befiehlt uns spielt auf nun zum Tanz

Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken dich nachts
wir trinken dich morgens und mittags wir trinken dich abends
wir trinken und trinken
Ein Mann wohnt im Haus der spielt mit den Schlangen der schreibt
der schreibt wenn es dunkelt nach Deutschland 
dein goldenes Haar Margarete
Dein aschenes Haar Sulamith

wir schaufeln ein Grab in den Lüften da liegt man nicht eng

Er ruft stecht tiefer ins Erdreich ihr einen ihr andern singet und spielt
er greift nach dem Eisen im Gurt er schwingts seine Augen sind blau
stecht tiefer die Spaten ihr einen ihr anderen spielt weiter zum Tanz auf

Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken dich nachts
wir trinken dich mittags und morgens wir trinken dich abends
wir trinken und trinken
ein Mann wohnt im Haus dein goldenes Haar Margarete 
dein aschenes Haar Sulamith er spielt mit den Schlangen

Er ruft spielt süßer den Tod der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland
er ruft streicht dunkler die Geigen dann steigt ihr als Rauch in die Luft
dann habt ihr ein Grab in den Wolken da liegt man nicht eng

Schwarze Milch der Frühe wir trinken dich nachts
wir trinken dich mittags der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland
wir trinken dich abends und morgens wir trinken und trinken
der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland sein Auge ist blau
er trifft dich mit bleierner Kugel er trifft dich genau
ein Mann wohnt im Haus dein goldenes Haar Margarete
er hetzt seine Rüden auf uns er schenkt uns ein Grab in der Luft
er spielt mit den Schlangen und träumet der Tod ist ein Meister aus
Deutschland 

dein goldenes Haar Margarete 
dein aschenes Haar Sulamith




Translation:


* *






Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown
we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night
we drink and we drink it
we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined
A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes
he writes when dusk falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete
he writes it and steps out of doors and the stars are flashing he whistles his pack out
he whistles his Jews out in earth has them dig for a grave
he commands us strike up for the dance

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink in the morning at noon we drink you at sundown
we drink and we drink you
A man lives in the house he plays with the serpents he writes
he writes when dusk falls to Germany your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamith we dig a grave in the breezes there one lies unconfined.

He calls out jab deeper into the earth you lot you others sing now and play
he grabs at the iron in his belt he waves it his eyes are blue
jab deeper you lot with your spades you others play on for the dance

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at noon in the morning we drink you at sundown
we drink you and we drink you
a man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamith he plays with the serpents

He calls out more sweetly play death death is a master from Germany
he calls out more darkly now stroke your strings then as smoke you will rise into air
then a grave you will have in the clouds there one lies unconfined

Black milk of daybreak we drink you at night
we drink you at noon death is a master from Germany
we drink you at sundown and in the morning we drink and we drink you
death is a master from Germany his eyes are blue
he strikes you with leaden bullets his aim is true
a man lives in the house your golden hair Margarete
he sets his pack on to us he grants us a grave in the air
he plays with the serpents and daydreams death is a master from Germany
your golden hair Margarete
your ashen hair Shulamith


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## Rose for a Heart (Nov 14, 2011)




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## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

Emily Dickinson seems like a sp 4 but I don't really know very much about her. Nine could also make sense.

_I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog – 
To tell one’s name – the livelong June – 
To an admiring Bog!_


And:
_
Because I could not stop for Death – 
He kindly stopped for me – 
The Carriage held but just Ourselves – 
And Immortality.

We slowly drove – He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility – 

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess – in the Ring – 
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain – 
We passed the Setting Sun – 

Or rather – He passed us – 
The Dews drew quivering and chill – 
For only Gossamer, my Gown – 
My Tippet – only Tulle – 

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground – 
The Roof was scarcely visible – 
The Cornice – in the Ground – 

Since then – ‘tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses’ Heads 
Were toward Eternity – _


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## mistakenforstranger (Nov 11, 2012)

I really like the idea of this thread! 

First off, yeah, I can see Emily Dickinson as a 4 based on those poems. I think there's a ton of 4s in poetry. So many in the Romantic period. I took a class on those poets, and I would say based on their poems, Blake (4w5 or 5w4, usually typed 4w5), Wordsworth (4w5 or 9w1), Shelley (4w3 or 4w5), Keats (4w5, which is what I've seen him usually typed as), and Byron (4w3), and I'm not sure on Coleridge. I'm really not familiar with their life very much, but that's my impression of them so far based on their poetry alone. I think Yeats is definitely a 4, possibly a 5, and wouldn't see him as a 3. Far too esoteric in his interests. Also, a very clear Ni-dom. Also, Walt Whitman and ee cummings are very likely 4s. And Rilke I usually see typed as a 5, but I think 4 is a lot better fit. Frost and Eliot I'm really not sure on. And I would agree with Plath and Ginsberg as 4s, too; though Ginsberg gives me a 7-ish feel too. Oh, and what about Dante? A 1w9 or a 4 w/ connection to 1? Emerson I can see as a 1, too. Shakespeare likely a 4, possibly 7.

From one website:



> The romantic movement was replete with Fours: Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Lord Byron and John Keats were all Fours.


Here's my favorite poem:


* *




*Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood**

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 

The earth, and every common sight, 

To me did seem 

Apparelled in celestial light, 

The glory and the freshness of a dream. 

It is not now as it hath been of yore;— 

Turn wheresoe'er I may, 

By night or day. 

The things which I have seen I now can see no more. 



The Rainbow comes and goes, 

And lovely is the Rose, 

The Moon doth with delight 

Look round her when the heavens are bare, 

Waters on a starry night 

Are beautiful and fair; 

The sunshine is a glorious birth; 

But yet I know, where'er I go, 

That there hath past away a glory from the earth. 



Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, 

And while the young lambs bound 

As to the tabor's sound, 

To me alone there came a thought of grief: 

A timely utterance gave that thought relief, 

And I again am strong: 

The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; 

No more shall grief of mine the season wrong; 

I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng, 

The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep, 

And all the earth is gay; 

Land and sea 

Give themselves up to jollity, 

And with the heart of May 

Doth every Beast keep holiday;— 

Thou Child of Joy, 

Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy. 



Ye blessèd creatures, I have heard the call 

Ye to each other make; I see 

The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; 

My heart is at your festival, 

My head hath its coronal, 

The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all. 

Oh evil day! if I were sullen 

While Earth herself is adorning, 

This sweet May-morning, 

And the Children are culling 

On every side, 

In a thousand valleys far and wide, 

Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, 

And the Babe leaps up on his Mother's arm:— 

I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! 

—But there's a Tree, of many, one, 

A single field which I have looked upon, 

Both of them speak of something that is gone; 

The Pansy at my feet 

Doth the same tale repeat: 

Whither is fled the visionary gleam? 

Where is it now, the glory and the dream? 



Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: 

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 

Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

And cometh from afar: 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 

But trailing clouds of glory do we come 

From God, who is our home: 

Heaven lies about us in our infancy! 

Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing Boy, 

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 

He sees it in his joy; 

The Youth, who daily farther from the east 

Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, 

And by the vision splendid 

Is on his way attended; 

At length the Man perceives it die away, 

And fade into the light of common day. 



Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; 

Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, 

And, even with something of a Mother's mind, 

And no unworthy aim, 

The homely Nurse doth all she can 

To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man, 

Forget the glories he hath known, 

And that imperial palace whence he came. 



Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, 

A six years' Darling of a pigmy size! 

See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, 

Fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, 

With light upon him from his father's eyes! 

See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, 

Some fragment from his dream of human life, 

Shaped by himself with newly-learn{e}d art 

A wedding or a festival, 

A mourning or a funeral; 

And this hath now his heart, 

And unto this he frames his song: 

Then will he fit his tongue 

To dialogues of business, love, or strife; 

But it will not be long 

Ere this be thrown aside, 

And with new joy and pride 

The little Actor cons another part; 

Filling from time to time his "humorous stage" 

With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, 

That Life brings with her in her equipage; 

As if his whole vocation 

Were endless imitation. 



Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie 

Thy Soul's immensity; 

Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep 

Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind, 

That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep, 

Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,— 

Mighty Prophet! Seer blest! 

On whom those truths do rest, 

Which we are toiling all our lives to find, 

In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; 

Thou, over whom thy Immortality 

Broods like the Day, a Master o'er a Slave, 

A Presence which is not to be put by; 

Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might 

Of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height, 

Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke 

The years to bring the inevitable yoke, 

Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? 

Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, 

And custom lie upon thee with a weight, 

Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life! 



O joy! that in our embers 

Is something that doth live, 

That Nature yet remembers 

What was so fugitive! 

The thought of our past years in me doth breed 

Perpetual benediction: not indeed 

For that which is most worthy to be blest; 

Delight and liberty, the simple creed 

Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, 

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:— 

Not for these I raise 

The song of thanks and praise 

But for those obstinate questionings 

Of sense and outward things, 

Fallings from us, vanishings; 

Blank misgivings of a Creature 

Moving about in worlds not realised, 

High instincts before which our mortal Nature 

Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: 

But for those first affections, 

Those shadowy recollections, 

Which, be they what they may 

Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, 

Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; 

Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 

Our noisy years seem moments in the being 

Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, 

To perish never; 

Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, 

Nor Man nor Boy, 

Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 

Can utterly abolish or destroy! 

Hence in a season of calm weather 

Though inland far we be, 

Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea 

Which brought us hither, 

Can in a moment travel thither, 

And see the Children sport upon the shore, 

And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. 



Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song! 

And let the young Lambs bound 

As to the tabor's sound! 

We in thought will join your throng, 

Ye that pipe and ye that play, 

Ye that through your hearts to-day 

Feel the gladness of the May! 

What though the radiance which was once so bright 

Be now for ever taken from my sight, 

Though nothing can bring back the hour 

Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; 

We will grieve not, rather find 

Strength in what remains behind; 

In the primal sympathy 

Which having been must ever be; 

In the soothing thoughts that spring 

Out of human suffering; 

In the faith that looks through death, 

In years that bring the philosophic mind. 

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, 

Forebode not any severing of our loves! 

Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; 

I only have relinquished one delight 

To live beneath your more habitual sway. 

I love the Brooks which down their channels fret, 

Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; 

The innocent brightness of a new-born Day 

Is lovely yet; 

The Clouds that gather round the setting sun 

Do take a sober colouring from an eye 

That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; 

Another race hath been, and other palms are won. 

Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 

Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, 

To me the meanest flower that blows can give 

Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

*



Frost's poem "Mending Wall" always seemed 9 to me, especially repeating the phrase to keep the peace:


* *




Mending Wall*BY ROBERT FROST*


Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours."

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

"Why do they make good neighbours? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offence.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."



Looking at Tennyson's Ulysses, I see 7, especially here, and growth arrow to 5 ("To follow knowledge"). Whether that's the poet's type is another story:


* *





I am a part of all that I have met; 

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' 

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades 

For ever and forever when I move. 

How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! 

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life 

Were all too little, and of one to me 

Little remains: but every hour is saved 

From that eternal silence, something more, 

A bringer of new things; and vile it were 

For some three suns to store and hoard myself, 

And this gray spirit yearning in desire 

To follow knowledge like a sinking star, 

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.


----------



## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

@mistakenforstranger yeah I've been thinking about Yeats and I think I agree about 4. Social Four. 

Also, Seven for Ulysses makes a lot of sense! "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield" 

(Tennyson seems too boring on the whole to be a Seven - to be sure, he's my second-favorite poet, but...I'd guess One before Seven) But for the poem, yes, that seems quite good)

I like this poem "Imitations of Immortality". I don't know how to type it - seems more 'human themes' than anything, but I can see it being the work of a Nine poet.


----------



## mistakenforstranger (Nov 11, 2012)

Phoenix Virtue said:


> @*mistakenforstranger* yeah I've been thinking about Yeats and I think I agree about 4. Social Four.


I only know a little bit of Yeats by way of James Joyce, and I think they're both 4w5s. Joyce makes references to Yeats throughout Ulysses. I think you can see Yeats' so-4 here, which Joyce's comments to him are funny since he would follow the same path later in his novels, in terms of drawing from folklore, politics, etc.

https://incompetentwriter.com/2012/06/15/james-joyce-meets-wb-yeats/



Phoenix Virtue said:


> Also, Seven for Ulysses makes a lot of sense! "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield"
> 
> (Tennyson seems too boring on the whole to be a Seven - to be sure, he's my second-favorite poet, but...I'd guess One before Seven) But for the poem, yes, that seems quite good)


I know nothing about Tennyson to be of help. Would 5 be an option with the line to 7? 



Phoenix Virtue said:


> I like this poem "Imitations of Immortality". I don't know how to type it - seems more 'human themes' than anything, but I can see it being the work of a Nine poet.


Yeah, I see Holy Origin in it too, which I've underlined, but also elements of 9, such as the "forgetting." I can see both options for Wordsworth without knowing too much about his life.

*Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: 

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, 

Hath had elsewhere its setting, 

And cometh from afar: 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 

But trailing clouds of glory do we come 

From God, who is our home: 

Heaven lies about us in our infancy! *


----------



## Aletheia (Dec 25, 2014)

Dickinson was a 5w4. 

_One need not be a chamber to be haunted,	
One need not be a house;	
The brain has corridors surpassing	
Material place.	

Far safer, of a midnight meeting 
External ghost,	
Than an interior confronting	
That whiter host.	

Far safer through an Abbey gallop,	
The stones achase, 
Than, moonless, one’s own self encounter	
In lonesome place.	

Ourself, behind ourself concealed,	
Should startle most;	
Assassin, hid in our apartment, 
Be horror’s least.	

The prudent carries a revolver,	
He bolts the door,	
O’erlooking a superior spectre	
More near._


----------



## Scarlet Eyes (May 15, 2015)

OK, you have no idea how excited I was when I saw this thread :crazy: 

I can see both 4w5 and 5w4 for Emily Dickinson, though I'm leaning towards the latter. She was _definitely_ a withdrawn type. 

I'll be sure to post some more of my thoughts tomorrow, since it's almost 3 am. So good night!


----------



## d e c a d e n t (Apr 21, 2013)

Silly perhaps, but I wonder if some types are less likely to care for poetry.


----------



## Darkbloom (Aug 11, 2013)

Distortions said:


> Silly perhaps, but I wonder if some types are less likely to care for poetry.


Me)
I just hate poetry tbh, all of it, I'd rather listen to music.
The closest thing to poetry I like are Lana Del Rey's songs, because I like the idea of her and I really like some of her lyrics but the music is _so_ boring, with some exceptions (the lolita one for example!)
Still, I don't sit and read her lyrics either, it's like that thing when I love a color but rarely wear it or feel the need to be around it, it's just in my heart and that's enough.


I'm not sure how type related it is though.


----------



## Philathea (Feb 16, 2015)

Sylvia Plath - 4w5 sp/sx

Mad Girl's Love Song

* *





"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"




She has many others that are probably more indicative of type but this is the only one I like. (On the subject of different types being more inclined to liking poetry- I doubt it's type related but I have no appreciation for poetry, literally none, and it's bizarre because it feels like.. people can see something I can't, like I'm missing something.)

I think Dickinson is a 5 or a 9.


----------



## Superfluous (Jan 28, 2014)

This is a song for the genius child.
Sing it softly, for the song is wild.
Sing it softly as ever you can
Lest it get out of hand.
Nobody loves a genius child.
Can you love an eagle, 
Tame or wild?
Can you love an eagle, 
Wild or tame?
Can you love a monster of frightening name?
Nobody loves a genius child.
Free him – and let his soul run wild.
— Langston Hughes, ‘Genius Child’

Social dom 6w7, but I can't tell if he's sexual or self pres second.


----------



## Scarlet Eyes (May 15, 2015)

I think Dorothy Parker is a 6w5, but I'm not too sure.

"Resumé" might be a 6 poem integrating to 9.


* *




_Razors pain you; 
Rivers are damp; 
Acids stain you; 
And drugs cause cramp. 
Guns aren’t lawful; 
Nooses give; 
Gas smells awful; 
You might as well live._




I like "The Evening Primrose" too, though I can't detect any possible type.


* *




_You know the bloom, unearthly white,
That none has seen by morning light-
The tender moon, alone, may bare
Its beauty to the secret air.
Who'd venture past its dark retreat
Must kneel, for holy things and sweet,
That blossom, mystically blown,
No man may gather for his own
Nor touch it, lest it droop and fall....
Oh, I am not like that at all! _




As for which types are more likely to gravitate towards poetry...I don't think it's really related to type, just personal artistic preferences. I enjoy reading and writing poetry, but I can see why some people don't like the medium. Biggest reasons I've heard is that it's too time-consuming to interpret the poem. Plus, I know that quite a few poems are very abstract, so some people prefer to read something more straight-forward.


----------



## shazam (Oct 18, 2015)

I like this one.

His soul was changed—before his deeds had driven
Him forth to war with man and forfeit heaven.
Warp'd by the world in Disappointment's school,
In words too wise—in conduct there a fool—
Too firm to yield—and far too proud to stoop—
Doom'd by his very virtues for a dupe,
He curs'd those virtues as the cause of ill,
And not the traitors who betrayed him still;﻿
Nor deem'd that gifts bestowed on better men
Had left him joy, and means to give again.
Fear'd—shunn'd—belied—ere youth had lost her force,
He hated man too much to feel remorse—
And thought the voice of wrath a sacred call,
To pay the injuries of some on all.
He knew himself a villain—but he deem'd
The rest no better than the thing he seem'd;
And scorn'd the best as hypocrites who hid
Those deeds the bolder spirit plainly did.﻿
He knew himself detested, but he knew
The hearts that loath'd him, crouch'd and dreaded too.
Lone, wild, and strange, he stood alike exempt
From all affection and from all contempt


----------



## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

Re: actually liking poetry, I don't know that it's type-related, I think it takes 'practice' as well as just being some sort of other personality characteristic. I'd say I have the appreciation I have for poetry now because I've forced and forced myself to read as well taking a lot of classes where it was dealt with, plus coming from a family where reciting poetry was pretty common, but even so it's difficult for me. If I'd put more work in I think I'd understand and genuinely enjoy it better. Now it still takes either a lot of willpower..."I'm just gonna read every line of this, in order", or extremely mental wangling "I'm going to pretend I'm in a summery palace garden reading the new verses that everyone is talking about" or something))

Though I'd also guess withdrawn types to be able to deal with it a bit better!

That said, I like all the poems that have been posted on this thread but was especially struck by the one @Philathea posted. I have to say, I knew the name of Sylvia Plath before making this thread but hadn't actually read any of her work, turns out I quite like her!


----------



## d e c a d e n t (Apr 21, 2013)

I can actually like some poems. Like when I was a kid, I would memorize some poems I liked and recite them to whoever would listen (those weren't necessarily any, uhm... classic poems, though, just random poems my young self found gripping at the time).

But I hate writing poems myself. When I tried it at some point it felt too pointless. So the closest I got was writing this troll poem for school that somehow got an A (I mean it was pretty much random, but apparently it brought a tear to my teacher's eye. Ah, poetry, at least it can be easier to bullshit with that medium).

Anyway, I can like reading them, when I'm able to follow. But _writing_ poems... not gonna lie, it is easy to associate that kind of thing with 4, as stereotypical as that might be.


----------



## mistakenforstranger (Nov 11, 2012)

Phoenix Virtue said:


> "Look on my works ye mighty and despair!" seems like a 3 sentiment, the double meaning of 'look I'm so much cooler than you' in real time, that's 3s goal, and then after death and the passage of time that becoming vain and empty. I mean yeah that's universal but I see it as more of a 3 theme, something that a 3 would think about)


Well, I think it's meant to be from the perspective of Ozymandias (Ramesses II) rather than Shelley, but by extension, one could argue, as it's universal, it applies to anyone who is in a position of power. It's just the "voice" is from another perspective in that poem, so I don't really see it as being about Shelley as it is more of a critique of a fading empire/fallen idol and the futility of everything.

It's an "inscription" too, so not really Shelley himself:

And on the pedestal, these words appear: 
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; 
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! 

Perhaps Ozymandias is a 3, but I'd be inclined to say 8 from those lines.


----------



## mistakenforstranger (Nov 11, 2012)

throughtheroses said:


> @*mistakenforstranger*
> 
> Yeah, I figured I was being irrational about Shelley. My initial comment about him and Byron being 3s was meant to be more cheeky than anything.  I think you picked out some excellent evidence for him actually being a 4.
> 
> ...


Ah, no problem! I'm glad that you can see where I'm coming from, and yes, it's hard not to be protective of Keats as a 4. Poor Keats. :crying:


----------



## Scarlet Eyes (May 15, 2015)

(Sorry about the late reply. I was going to post last night but my parents are pissed at me for not conforming to their sleep schedules. :dry

Anyway, @Phoenix Virtue, I really liked the imagery you used in your poems and song lyrics. And you have a gift for rhyme. I've only done one poem that rhymes and it's cringey as hell. 

OK, now it's my turn to fulfill my end of the deal. Does this confirm my 9w8 fix? :th_blush:


* *




*Volcanic Eruption*

_Most mistake me for a mere mountain
Stoic, solid, and oh so subdued
A mere observer above the rest
But if you try me, trick
I will spew flames and lava
Erupt in fury at what you've done
Rain scalding stones upon you
Have you run in terror and vain
And at the climax
You will either melt by the heat
Or asphyxiate by my ash_




Hope this doesn't label me as a stereotypical, angsty teen.


----------



## 7rr7s (Jun 6, 2011)

Pablo Neruda, 8w7. 
_
Sonnet XVII. 

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul. 

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, 
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
So I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.






_

Lord Byron 7w8. 


_Advice To A Girl. 

Never love unless you can
Bear with all the faults of a man!
Men sometimes will jealous be,
Though but little cause they see,
And hang the head as discontent,
And speak what straight they will repent.

Men that but one saint adore,
Make a show of love to more;
Beauty must be scorned in one:
For what is courtship but disguise?
True hearts may have dissembling eyes.

Men, when their affairs require,
Must awhile themselves retire;
Sometimes hunt, and sometimes hawk,
And not ever sit and talk-
If these and such -like you can bear,
Then like, and love, and never fear!

_


----------



## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

BlueChristmas06 said:


> Pablo Neruda, 8w7.
> _
> Sonnet XVII.
> 
> ...


Can you explain your typings? I find them intriguing)

Btw @Scarlet Eyes I really like this poem) Thanks for sharing)


----------



## 7rr7s (Jun 6, 2011)

Phoenix Virtue said:


> Can you explain your typings? I find them intriguing)
> 
> Btw @*Scarlet Eyes* I really like this poem) Thanks for sharing)


Neruda's poetry is more visceral, it's sensual, but it's in a more rugged way. He grew up kind of in the outdoors too, so alot of his imagery about love and the feminine has elements of that. But even in the poem I posted above, he uses aggressive imagery to describe it; arrows of carnations, fire shooting off, fragrance from the earth living inside his body. Later on in his life he got involved in politics and devoted much of his poetry to social change. All of these things point to 8 for me. Propably Sx/So if I had to guess for his instincts. 


Byron lived a pretty wild life, but by all accounts he was bold, restless, high energy and prone to extreme mood swings (due to manic depression, which isn't type related). At his worst he could be self absorbed, moody, grandiose, and violent, but he also knew how to kind of harness it, or that it was necessary to experience the extremes in his own temperament. He took a lot of risks, was careless with money, promiscuous, and reckless. The only other type I could see him being is a sexual 2, but I would say the evidence is pretty convincing he was a 7w8 sp/sx.

Also, I can't really see any other type but a 7 building small forts and ships on his pond and recreating naval battles with toy ships all day.


----------



## angelfish (Feb 17, 2011)

Rumi 9w1 sx/so. 

These spiritual window-shoppers, 
who idly ask, 'How much is that?' Oh, I'm just looking. 
They handle a hundred items and put them down, 
shadows with no capital.

What is spent is love and two eyes wet with weeping. 
But these walk into a shop, 
and their whole lives pass suddenly in that moment, 
in that shop.

Where did you go? "Nowhere." 
What did you have to eat? "Nothing much."

Even if you don't know what you want, 
buy _something_, to be part of the exchanging flow.

Start a huge, foolish project, 
like Noah.

It makes absolutely no difference 
what people think of you.



Versailles said:


> This is a song for the genius child.
> Sing it softly, for the song is wild.
> Sing it softly as ever you can
> Lest it get out of hand.
> ...


Almost certainly sexual. 

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode? 

Pretty visceral for sx-last.


I would guess that Neruda has sp further up in his stacking, probably sx/sp. He has several odes to commonplace things - lemon, tomato, fish, bird watching, clothing - even a large tuna in the market! - that seem very sp-meets-sx to me. He often leaps from mundane to survival and vice versa, or from life/death to energy/attraction/union and vice versa.

Leave me a place underground, a labyrinth,
where I can go, when I wish to turn,
without eyes, without touch,
in the void, to dumb stone,
or the finger of shadow.

I know that you cannot, no one, no thing
can deliver up that place, or that path,
but what can I do with my pitiful passions,
if they are no use, on the surface
of everyday life,
if I cannot look to survive,
except by dying, going beyond, entering
into the state, metallic and slumbering, 
of primeval flame?


----------



## Scarlet Eyes (May 15, 2015)

Meh, I hate creative blocks. :frustrating: Maybe I should post something in that 5 minute poem thread or Surreal Snake's prose thread. But I don't know, my self-consciousness is getting in the way. 

I almost forgot about this poem I came across while reading a manwha. Invictus by William Ernest Henley. I'm not sure about his Enneagram, yet this piece seems to vibe as 8.


* *




_Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul. _


----------



## Aletheia (Dec 25, 2014)

Rainer Maria Rilke 


* *






I've seen him typed as both 4w5 or 5w4, but I lean more towards the latter. It seems it can be hard to distinguish between the two enneagrams when it comes to their poetry and respective works. It takes some digging around biographically to truly discern, I think.

_You, darkness, that I come from
I love you more than all the fires
that fence in the world,
for the fire makes a circle of light for everyone
and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything-
shapes and fires, animals and myself,
how easily it gathers them -
powers and people-

and it is possible a great presence is moving near me.

I have faith in nights. _





* *




_
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am._




The following, I believe, are all 4w5's:

Anne Sexton


* *




_
I have gone out, a possessed witch,
haunting the black air, braver at night;
dreaming evil, I have done my hitch
over the plain houses, light by light:
lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind.
A woman like that is not a woman, quite.
I have been her kind.

I have found the warm caves in the woods,
filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves,
closets, silks, innumerable goods;
fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves:
whining, rearranging the disaligned.
A woman like that is misunderstood.
I have been her kind.

I have ridden in your cart, driver,
waved my nude arms at villages going by,
learning the last bright routes, survivor
where your flames still bite my thigh
and my ribs crack where your wheels wind.
A woman like that is not ashamed to die.
I have been her kind._






* *




_Watch out for intellect,
because it knows so much it knows nothing
and leaves you hanging upside down,
mouthing knowledge as your heart
falls out of your mouth.

Watch out for love
(unless it is true,
and every part of you says yes including the toes) ,
it will wrap you up like a mummy,
and your scream won't be heard
and none of your running will end.

Love? Be it man. Be it woman.
It must be a wave you want to glide in on,
give your body to it, give your laugh to it,
give, when the gravelly sand takes you,
your tears to the land. To love another is something
like prayer and can't be planned, you just fall
into its arms because your belief undoes your disbelief.

Special person,
if I were you I'd pay no attention
to admonitions from me,
made somewhat out of your words
and somewhat out of mine.
A collaboration.
I do not believe a word I have said,
except some, except I think of you like a young tree
with pasted-on leaves and know you'll root
and the real green thing will come.

Let go. Let go.
Oh special person,
possible leaves,
this typewriter likes you on the way to them,
but wants to break crystal glasses
in celebration,
for you,
when the dark crust is thrown off
and you float all around
like a happened balloon._




Arthur Rimbaud


* *




_

I

On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping
White Ophelia floats like a great lily;
Floats very slowly, lying in her long veils...
- In the far-off woods you can hear them sound the mort.

For more than a thousand years sad Ophelia
Has passed, a white phantom, down the long black river.
For more than a thousand years her sweet madness
Has murmured its ballad to the evening breeze.

The wind kisses her breasts and unfolds in a wreath
Her great veils rising and falling with the waters;
The shivering willows weep on her shoulder,
The rushes lean over her wide, dreaming brow.

The ruffled water-lilies are sighing around her;
At times she rouses, in a slumbering alder,
Some nest from which escapes a small rustle of wings;
- A mysterious anthem falls from the golden stars.
_





* *




_I only find within my bones
A taste for eating earth and stones.
When I feed, I feed on air,
Rocks and coals and iron ore.

My hunger, turn. Hunger, feed,
A field of bran.
Gather as you can the bright
Poison weed.

Eat the rocks a beggar breaks,
The stones of ancient churches' walls;
Pebbles, children of the flood,
Loaves left lying in the mud.

¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯

Beneath the bush a wolf will howl
Spitting bright feathers
From his feast of fowl:
Like him, I devour myself.
Waiting to be gathered
Fruits and grasses spend their hours;
The spider spinning in the hedge
Eats only flowers.

Let me sleep! Let me boil
On the altars of Solomon;
Let me soak the rusty soil,
And flow into Kendron._




Virginia Woolf


* *




...whose prose is seeped in poetry

_Month by month things are losing their hardness; even my body now lets light through; my spine is soft like wax near the flame of a candle. I dream; I dream._


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## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

Mary Oliver 9w1 I assume) sp? Is writing about...idk...'small subjects' sp?

The Summer Day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

The Swan

Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air -
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music - like the rain pelting the trees - like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds -
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings Like the stretching light of the river?
_And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?_


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## Scarlet Eyes (May 15, 2015)

While I was researching more about the Ubermensch, it just occurred to me that Nietzsche also wrote some poetry. It was actually my first exposure to him. The overwhelming consensus for his type is 5w4. Seems like his entire philosophy was classic 5 nihilism.


* *





*Parable Of The Madman 
*

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning
hours,
ran to the market place, and cried incessantly:
'I seek God! I seek God!'
As many of those who did not believe in God
were standing around just then,
he provoked much laughter.
Has he got lost? asked one.
Did he lose his way like a child? asked another.
Or is he hiding?
Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?
Thus they yelled and laughed.

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes.
'Whither is God?' he cried; 'I will tell you.
We have killed him--you and I.
All of us are his murderers.
But how did we do this?
How could we drink up the sea?
Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon?
What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun?
Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving?
Away from all suns?
Are we not plunging continually?
Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions?
Is there still any up or down?
Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing?
Do we not feel the breath of empty space?
Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us?
Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning?
Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers
who are burying God?
Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition?
Gods, too, decompose.
God is dead.
God remains dead.
And we have killed him.

'How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?
What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled
to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us?
What water is there for us to clean ourselves?
What festivals of atonement, what sacred gamesshall we have to invent?
Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us?
Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?
There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us -
For the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all
history hitherto.'

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners;
and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment.
At last he threw his lantern on the ground,
and it broke into pieces and went out.
'I have come too early,' he said then; 'my time is not yet.
This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering;
it has not yet reached the ears of men.
Lightning and thunder require time;
the light of the stars requires time;
deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard.
This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars -
and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day
the madman forced his way into several churches
and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo.
Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing
but:
'What after all are these churches now
if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?'


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## Vaka (Feb 26, 2010)

*I'm interested in how you'd type me if you care to read...instincts, enneagram, trifix, mbti, all that shit, anything, I'm interested*
--ps, all three were written in two days, two of them in one morning, both while highly stressed and sleep deprived so not too harsh on the judgment lmfao


*Untitled 1*


I was simple word, but together we were sword
slicing my skin into the pieces of my birth
reborn porcelain skin into our own inside joke,
sacredity, and swollen moment of haunted light
You were sentimentality and I gave you my senses


If you watched close enough, you’d see the whole 
world wrong with me. You see, I’m hopelessly right 
of all I need to be. But we…we were hopelessly left
to all the songs hummed only by habit. We’d fuse 
and we would freeze and then we’d let ourselves go
just the way we started: inevitable but fixed
Then I’d transform and you’d transform me 
and you’d stand: immoldable but mine. 
I didn’t fucking care the whole world was wrong 
with us: “we are we are we are and we are”
because I had you, the fucking multiverse.


I used to lie and say, “life is short, but we 
have just enough to share”….but that was used 
up, tied down, face up, laced down writhing in 
the rhythm of our little death and all the mess to 
come. Bedsheets torn and wrinkled, pillows taken 
to the shape of your breasts and collarbones and 
neck and jaw, but somehow absent of your face.


I picked you out of a lineup and I shot you down.
Your face I wanted to leave bloodlet into my 
chest as you thrust and thrust. My hair has never 
been quite the same, I never let it grow. I wanted to 
hold the moment we turned. I wanted to replay it 
all and maybe it’d be the same as it was before.
I had wanted you to feel me naturally me, but I’d 
been holding me hostage like I could pray this away
I’ve sewn my hands shut to pretend I couldn’t help it



If this doesn’t bruise, I’ll pretend it never happened



I mean, all I wanted was a hug, quick and painless
but at some point you just…you get what you pay for

_*
Untitled 2*

_ Cigarette burns in the back of our throats leave whispers separate today,
vulnerable to cold air. Exposed!, shamed, we’re feeling desperate today

We think sharks lack taste for our flesh so we taunt and we taunt
We’re just anemic and nothing bothers unless they’re desperate today

Sun’s fire doesn’t faze us because we can see only in geometries 
like it gets lost in translation, in night’s cutting word desperate today.

The fact we can be anything more than just lines and curves and angles 
confounds me because we think only in algebra,. I’m desperate today

Divine miscalculation is driving me to desperate today dripping out 
of my mind to a distilled and livid nature separate from the daze


*Untitled 3*


Contrary to popular belief, I am nocturnal
and all I am to blinding incivility is a 
concubine. no friend, not quite a slave, never a lover.
honeymoon is over, I’ve made peace with the enigma.
I’ve fallen for the perversion of it all. even when
I give up the ghost because their panting breaths breath me in 
two, I know it’s divine intervention. I imitate 
their fervor and lividity and I place me just as
I’m meant to be, like mom’s letters thrown into campfire,
beaten to inarticulate ashes I hold dearly 
until they’re meant to be received into circulation 
greater than the one within this body. I’m light itself


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## Vaka (Feb 26, 2010)

I'm not sure if I'm diverting by doing that, but maybe it helps the development of your theory?? Hopefully : haha. Well, in any case, I'm interested and thank you for anything anyone says

Particularly because people are mentioning themes like nihilism and when we write, we don't write with these themes in mind typically, they're evident to other people. I don't know what other read into me by my writing


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## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

@lykanized they seem sx/(sp?) 4w5. sx 4 is...obvious, and there's some 5 in there I think...'I've made peace with the enigma', etc.

Really like these by the way! I think the second one is especially good. Has a classic ring to it.


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## Scarlet Eyes (May 15, 2015)

I think I have a psychic connection with my notebooks. Earlier today, I was thinking about retrieving one of them from the living room. Then I heard my little sister flipping through it. Panic mode on :laughing:

Been looking through a lot more poets lately, but only because I literally have no ideas left. I remember reading through this poem by Charles Baudelaire over and over when I had a severe depressive spell. Not sure on his Enneagram, but I've seen 1w9 and 4w5.


* *





*The Void*
_I feel null and void
I feel disturbed confused annoyed
angered by the lack of meaning
meaning what I’m not sure of
distraught by distress
dressed without self-impress
second-guessed fractalized into infinity
a Void in my game-plan
for where determinancy used to be
necromancy
awaken me!
I can’t even sleep in this Void of non-entity
titulate my desire to re-Create
something worthy of being admired
if only by Me
the only Being that I know with constancy_

Damn, I relate to this poem so well. I could blame it on an Fi-loop, but that would be too easy.


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## Vaka (Feb 26, 2010)

Phoenix Virtue said:


> @*lykanized* they seem sx/(sp?) 4w5. sx 4 is...obvious, and there's some 5 in there I think...'I've made peace with the enigma', etc.
> 
> Really like these by the way! I think the second one is especially good. Has a classic ring to it.


Thank you for your perspective. I think it's interesting because, I know I said before, but when we write or really do anything at all that relates to creation, of course we're not consciously choosing these themes, these overarching themes. But...when we write, when we do anything, we can't help but have a part of our subconscious self plainly and undeniably bared in a way we can't control

If you have anything else to say, I'd love to read, if not, that's ok. I'll maybe at more to the thread later. Not my poetry, but just perspective


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## Scarlet Eyes (May 15, 2015)

@Phoenix Virtue Lol, I was going to brag on the FT thread that my hair's almost grazing my hips. Then I forgot that I can't post on that thread  Anyway, your current hair length really suits you :star:

I feel like I should say something vaguely insightful on this thread, but it's almost 2 am. So this is just a poem from Emily Dickinson, still one of my favorite poets. (Who's most likely a 5w4, but that's already been covered.) Good night! 


_THE BRAIN is wider than the sky,	
For, put them side by side,	
The one the other will include	
With ease, and you beside.	

The brain is deeper than the sea, 
For, hold them, blue to blue,	
The one the other will absorb,	
As sponges, buckets do.	

The brain is just the weight of God,	
For, lift them, pound for pound, 
And they will differ, if they do,	
As syllable from sound._


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## Dangerose (Sep 30, 2014)

@Scarlet Eyes why can't you post on that thread? :shocked:


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## Scarlet Eyes (May 15, 2015)

Phoenix Virtue said:


> @Scarlet Eyes why can't you post on that thread? :shocked:





* *




http://personalitycafe.com/support-suggestions/864762-messed-up-quick-reply-box.html

The mods already took note of it, but I guess they're busy with other matters on the forum. Might contact them again this week though. And sorry for the slight derail.


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## Scarlet Eyes (May 15, 2015)

I know it's been covered already, but I wonder how certain poets' Enneagrams could show up in their writings. Aspects such as overarching themes and fixations. Looking at some of my poems, I feel like I could be analyzed as a 2 disintegrating to 8. But maybe I'm just fusing pride with 4 elitism. 

Moving that aside, I have no opinion on Robert Frost's type, but I feel like there's SX flavoring in this famous verse.

_"Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice."_


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