Rabbit Holes a commonplace book,❦kept in the open
Tag · 19 folios

Poetry

A pencil mark from the long tail. Browse the hand-chosen subjects for broader paths through the book.

249 Verse 15 Feb 2026

Go to the limits of your longing

source · substack.com ↗
I woke up and began my doomscrolling session on Substack and came across a note by [the awesome Cate Hall](https://substack.com/@usefulfictions/note/c-214648890?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=1eft5) with a screenshot of Rilke's 'Go to the Limits of Your Longing' poem.[The translation](https://onbeing.org/poetry/go-to-the-limits-of-your-longing/) is under copyright but out of curiosity I asked Gemini and Claude to find the [original German version](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24288) and then translate it:*God speaks to each of us before our making,* *then walks in silence as the night is breaking.* *But the words spoken before we each begin—* *these words, like silver, are these:**You, sent out beyond your own senses,* *go to the edge of your longing;* *clothe me.**Grow like a fire behind all things,* *so that their shadows, stretched wide,* *may always cover me entirely.**Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.* *One must only keep going: no feeling is the furthest.* *Do not let yourself be severed from me.*
keep reading — 2 min ↗
PoetryRainer Maria Rilke 4 threads →
199 Link 24 Jan 2026

Dare to feel

source · themarginalian.org ↗

Cummings should know — just four years earlier, he had fought that hardest battle himself: When he was awarded the prestigious Academy of American Poets annual fellowship — the MacArthur of poetry — Cummings had to withstand harsh criticism from traditionalists who besieged him with hate for the bravery of breaking with tradition and being nobody-but-himself in his art. With an eye to that unassailable creative integrity…

keep reading — 2 min ↗
PhilosophyLifeArt 4 threads →
160 Verse 04 Jan 2026

A Psalm of Life

[What a beautiful poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Psalm_of_Life)What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist.A Psalm of LifeTell me not, in mournful numbers,Life is but an empty dream!—For the soul is dead that slumbers,
keep reading — 2 min ↗
Poetry 4 threads →
153 Verse 01 Jan 2026

Gitanjali 48

source · poets.org ↗
[Pure and sublime poetic beauty](https://poets.org/poem/gitanjali-48).The morning sea of silence broke into ripples of bird songs; and the flowers were all merry by the roadside; and the wealth of gold was scattered through the rift of the clouds while we busily went on our way and paid no heed.We sang no glad songs nor played; we went not to the village for barter; we spoke not a word nor smiled; we lingered not on the way. We quickened our pace more and more as the time sped by.The sun rose to the mid sky and doves cooed in the shade. Withered leaves danced and whirled in the hot air of noon. The shepherd boy drowsed and dreamed in the shadow of the banyan tree, and I laid myself down by the water and stretched my tired limbs on the grass.My companions laughed at me in scorn; they held their heads high and hurried on; they never looked back nor rested; they vanished in the distant blue haze. They crossed many meadows and hills, and passed through strange, far-away countries. All honour to you, heroic host of the interminable path! Mockery and reproach pricked me to rise, but found no response in me. I gave myself up for lost in the depth of a glad humiliation—in the shadow of a dim delight.The repose of the sun-embroidered green gloom slowly spread over my heart. I forgot for what I had travelled, and I surrendered my mind without struggle to the maze of shadows and songs.
keep reading — 2 min ↗
Rabindranath TagorePoetrySpiritual 4 threads →
143 Verse 28 Dec 2025

Gitanjali 3 by Rabindranath Tagore

God damn it, this is beautiful!I know not how thou singest, my master! I ever listen in silent amazement.The light of thy music illumines the world. The life breath of thy music runs from sky to sky. The holy stream of thy music breaks through all stony obstacles and rushes on.My heart longs to join in thy song, but vainly struggles for a voice. I would speak, but speech breaks not into song, and I cry out baffled. Ah, thou hast made my heart captive in the endless meshes of thy music, my master![From WikiSource](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Gitanjali/3).
keep reading — 1 min ↗
PoetryRabindranath Tagore 4 threads →
097 Verse 08 Nov 2025

Evil by Arthur Rimbauld

Ufff. What a poem. Each verse feels saturated with the bloody, neglected horrors of our own time — horrors I’m no doubt forcing into it, but can’t help seeing thereCouldn't stop hearing the echoes of the present.While loud the red-flecked mouths of cannons singAnd grapeshot whistles under empty sky;While, red and green, before each preening King,The massed battalions break, and thousands die;
keep reading — 1 min ↗
Poetry 4 threads →
096 Verse 06 Nov 2025

Leviathan by George Oppen

I came across George Oppen [in this article](https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v37/n12/ben-lerner/diary), and a random Google l[ed me to this poem](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53221/leviathan-56d2325279712), and the only word that can succinctly capture my reaction is "dayum!"Truth also is the pursuit of it:Like happiness, and it will not stand.Even the verse begins to eat awayIn the acid. Pursuit, pursuit;A wind moves a little,
keep reading — 1 min ↗
Poetry 4 threads →
063 Verse 11 Oct 2025

Rilke's advice to a young poet

[From Letters to a Young poet by Rainer Maria Rilke](https://poets.org/text/letters-young-poet-first-letter):There is only one way: Go within. Search for the cause, find the impetus that bids you write. Put it to this test: Does it stretch out its roots in the deepest place of your heart? Can you avow that you would die if you were forbidden to write? Above all, in the most silent hour of your night, ask yourself this: Must I write? Dig deep into yourself for a true answer. And if it should ring its assent, if you can confidently meet this serious question with a simple, "I must," then build your life upon it. It has become your necessity. Your life, in even the most mundane and least significant hour, must become a sign, a testimony to this urge.Then draw near to nature. Pretend you are the very first man and then write what you see and experience, what you love and lose. Do not write love poems, at least at first; they present the greatest challenge. It requires great, fully ripened power to produce something personal, something unique, when there are so many good and sometimes even brilliant renditions in great numbers. Beware of general themes. Cling to those that your every- day life offers you. Write about your sorrows, your wishes, your passing thoughts, your belief in anything beautiful. Describe all that with fervent, quiet, and humble sincerity. In order to express yourself, use things in your surroundings, the scenes of your dreams, and the subjects of your memory.
keep reading — 2 min ↗
PoetryRilkeWriting 4 threads →
033 Verse 07 Sept 2025

Poetry is a salve for the soul

[A beautiful perspective on what poetry can do for us by Leila Chatti](https://lithub.com/on-not-writing-and-letting-wildness-be-your-guide):I have always put my faith in poetry, have come to it for answers. (I have never understood the shame, in poets, in admitting this.) And there was no one else, then, to turn to—the world closed, I lived inside a room of books. This is not metaphor.Sequestered in my personal library, wildered by grief, I looked to the poets who had all my life guided me. Those women who, like oracles, spoke the true thing. Godmouthed. Who had seen what was and would be. And said it strange.Oracle: from the Latin _orare._ To pray or to speak. Surely they lived as I did. Needing to write poems, in order to do both at the same time.I approached their poems like the prophecies of oracles—something to be deciphered, the message cryptic. The oracle at Delphi was originally a girl, then later a woman over the age of fifty. Her title: Pythia. My mind sees this and instinctively reads it as code, rearranging its letters: Sylvia Plath. It was with her work I began, first woman poet I encountered on my way to becoming one. Poet who spoke the unsayable thoughts I could not name and had believed were mine alone.Poet: from the Greek _poietes._ Maker.
keep reading — 2 min ↗
Poetry 4 threads →
026 Verse 31 Aug 2025

The heart wants what it wants

I learned that the famous line "The heart wants what it wants" is from a famous letter by Emily Dickinson and not Woody Allen.The full line:Dear Mary -When the Best is gone - I know that other things are not of consequence - The Heart wants what it wants - or else it does not care -You wonder why I write - so - Because I cannot help - I like to have you know some care - so when your life gets faint for it’s other life - you can lean on us - We wont break, Mary. We look very small - but the Reed can carry weight.[Read the letter here.](https://paperlanterns.ink/letter/dickinson-mary-bowles-1862/)
keep reading — 1 min ↗
LettersPoetry 4 threads →
014 Verse 18 Aug 2025

The greatest anonymous poem

I heard about the poem _“Tom o’ Bedlam”_ in an [interview with Harold Bloom](https://www.rabbitholes.garden/posts/2025-08-17-why-read). He called it _“the greatest anonymous lyric poem in English,”_ and he’s not wrong. I’ve reread it multiple times, and what stands out is its steadily increasing intensity, culminating in that stunning crescendo at the end. The poem is written in Early Modern English, so I asked Gemini to explain it to me line by line.“Tom o’ Bedlam” is a haunting and powerful anonymous English folk ballad from the 17th century. It’s sung from the perspective of a “Tom o’ Bedlam,” a licensed beggar who was formerly an inmate of the Bethlehem Royal Hospital (Bedlam), a notorious mental asylum in London. These former patients were given a special license to beg for food and money, often carrying a distinctive horn to identify themselves. The poem is a mix of fantastical rants, social commentary, and a deep-seated sadness.**Here is the full poem, followed by a line-by-line interpretation:**From the hag and hungry goblinThat into rags would rend ye,The spirit that stands by the naked man
keep reading — 8 min ↗
Poetry 4 threads →
003 Verse 03 Aug 2025

Good advice from Rudyard Kilpling

# Rudyard Kipling, Michael Caine, and the Testicle-Punching Self-Help Industrial ComplexI woke up and, like any good, sane, and sensible human being, I picked up my phone, headed to the commode, sat on the toilet, and started my productivity ritual of doomscrolling.And in between my highly productive doomscrolling, I came across a video of the legendary [Michael Caine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Caine) reciting [Rudyard Kipling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling)'s *If—*, one of his favorite poems.<div style="position: relative; width: 100%; padding-bottom: 56.25%;"><iframesrc="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EEFMVIfl2UY"
keep reading — 6 min ↗
Rudyard KiplingPoetrySelf Help 4 threads →