Wednesday Poetry Corner: And Then I'll Shut Up

Indulge me once more, with some Shakespeare. You might be familiar with this little snippet from Macbeth: 

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time; 
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. 

I actually memorized this one in high school. Junior year, I took a Shakespeare course, and the night before each test our teacher would name a passage for extra credit. You earned one E.C. point for each line memorized. I got every single E.C. point that semester because I'm good at memorizing lines. 

Although I had memorized this speech, I didn't remember which play it was from until I reread Macbeth years later. (I have a lot of these memorized parcels cluttering up my memory banks.) 

If you haven't read Macbeth before, beware: 

SPOILERS! 

The above passage is spoken by Macbeth when he hears of Lady Macbeth's death. After high school, having forgotten the context, I would recite it to note the futility of life or the pointlessness of a given situation. But really it's a tearful commentary on how short his beloved's life was! Macbeth is on the brink of war, yet he takes a moment to unconsciously speed-walk through grief. 

And now I'll leave Shakespeare out of it for a while. 

Who is your favorite poet? Do you have one? Or a favorite poem?