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Don't put the bait near the fire.

Sicilian proverbs
Added by Lucian Velea
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Fire Ferocious

Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.

You show no mercy – no regard:
A writhing army uncontrolled.
At least you don’t discriminate,
Selecting to exterminate:
All dealt with equal pain untold.

Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.

In time of drought you run amok –
An open chimney of the land.
Prefer to scorch than suffocate:
In blinding zeal, incinerate
To blackened vista now unmanned.

Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.

Destruction be your only goal
For you to vent your jealous wrath
On gentle life with caring soul
And human victims to console:
As you are none, but psychopath.

Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.

So there it is – you are but flame:
Reacting gases to adorn –
With orange flicks of flailing arms,
You’re flaunting your demonic charms!
Now leave us for bereaved to mourn.

Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.

So many lives to claim.

[...] Read more

poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Say It Bait It And Run

You can say it and run.
Say it and run.
About what's been done.
You can say it and berate it.

You can say it and run.
Say it and run.
About what's been done.
You can say it,
Leave and run.

How we slid to the bottom from the top.
Say it bait it and run.
Who did what to start this problem.
Say it bait it and run.
Corruption done under dirty rugs.
Say it bait it and run.
What thugs brought this to fisticuffs.
Say it bait it and run.
What party pooped their rule.
Say it bait it and run.
Who's too cool and cuckoo too!
Say it bait it and run.

You can say it and run.
Say it and run.
About what's been done.
You can say it and berate it.

You can say it and run.
Say it and run.
About what's been done.
You can say it,
Leave and run.

Who's too cool and cuckoo too!
Say it bait it and run.
Who's too cuckoo and too cool.
Say it bait it and run.
Who's too cool and cuckoo too!
Say it bait it and run.
Who's too cuckoo and too cool.
Say it bait it and run.

But that cool cuckoo's no fool.
To cause what has been done!

You can say it and run.
Say it and run.
About what's been done.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Fire Below

(bonnie tyler/ paul hopkins/ peter oxendale)
Producer for bonnie: peter oxendale
Recorded in 1988 as a b-side for the single the best. lyrics taken from careful listening.
What I need
Is what you got
And a man like you must surely have a lot
Its what I need
So now you know
It takes a whole lot of loving
To put out the fire below
What you see
Is what you get
And if thats not enough
You know you aint seen nothing yet
So hold on tight
And dont let go
It takes a whole lot of loving
To put out the fire below
The fire below
The fire below
It takes a whole lot of loving
To put out the fire below
The fire below
The fire below
It takes a whole lot of loving
To put out the fire below
When I play
Its not a game
Ive got nothing to lose
But you sure got a lot to gain
Come on, come on, come on
Im ready to go
It takes a whole lot of loving
To put out the fire below
Ooh, the fire below
The fire below
It takes a whole of loving
To put out the fire below
The fire below
The fire below
It takes a whole lot of loving
To put out the fire below, oh yeah, oh yeah
Oh yeah
Now if you take me up
I wont bring you down
Now, you know I aint fooling
And I wont take no messing around
Come on, come on, come on
Im ready to go
It takes a whole lot of loving

[...] Read more

song performed by Bonnie Tyler
Added by Lucian Velea
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Put Out The Fire

Words and music by brian may
They called him a hero
In the land of the free
But he wouldnt shake my hand boy
He disappointed me
So I got my hand gun
And I blew him away
That critter was a bad guy
And I had to make him pay
You might fear for my reason
I dont care what they say
Look out baby its the season
For the mad masquerade
Put out the fire put out the fire put out the fire
Oh you need a bullet like a hole in the head
Put out the fire put out the fire put out the fire
Dont believe what your grand-daddy said
She was my lover
It was a shame that she died
But the constitutions right on my side
cause I caught my lover in the neighbours bed
I got retribution
Filled em all full of lead
Ive been told its the fashion
To let me on the streets again
Its nothing but a crime of passion
And Im not to blame
Put out the fire put out the fire put out the fire
You need a weapon like a hole in the head
Put out the fire put out the fire baby put out the fire
And let your sons and daughters sleep sound in their beds
You know a gun never killed nobody
You can ask anyone
People get shot by people
People with guns
Put out the fire put out the fire put out the fire
You need a gun like a hole in the head
Put out the fire put out the fire put out the fire
Just tell me that old fashioned gun law is dead
Shoot shoot..

song performed by Queen
Added by Lucian Velea
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Out Of The Frying Pan

out of the frying pan (and into the fire)
It's only two o'clock and the temperture's beginning to soar
And all around the city you see the walking wounded and the living dead
It's never been this hot and i've never been so bored
And breathing is just no fun anymore
And then i saw you like a summer dream
And you're the answer to every prayer that i ever said
I saw you like a summer dream
And you're the answer to every prayer that i ever said
You can feel the pulse of the pavement racing like a runaway horse
The subways are steaming and the skin of the street is gleaming with sweat
I've seen you sitting on the steps outside
And you were looking so restless and reckless and lost
I think it's time for you to come inside
I'll be waiting here with something that you'll never forget
I think it's time for you to come inside
I'll be waiting here with something that you'll never forget
Come on! come on!
And there'll be no turning back
You were only killing time and it'll kill you right back
Come on! come on!
It's time to burn up the fuse
You've got nothing to do and even less to lose
You've got nothing to do and even less to lose
So wander down the ancient hallway
Taking the stairs only one at a time
Follow the sound of my heartbeat now
I'm in the room at the top, you're at the end of the line
Open the door and lay down on the bed
The sun is just a ball of desire
And i wanna take you out of the frying pan (and into the fire)
Out of the frying pan (and into the fire)
Out of the frying pan (and into the fire)
And i wanna take you out of the frying pan (and into the fire)
Out of the frying pan (and into the fire)
Out of the frying pan (and into the fire)
And into the fire! fire! fire!
And into the fire! fire! fire!
And into the fire! fire! fire!
And into the fire!
It's only two o'clock and the tempertures beginning to soar
And all around the city you see the walking wounded and the living dead
It's never been this hot and i've never been so bored
And breathing is just no fun anymore
And then i saw you like a summer dream
And you're the answer to every prayer that i ever said
I saw you like a summer dream
And you're the answer to every prayer that i ever said
Come on! come on!
And there'll be no turning back

[...] Read more

song performed by Meat Loaf
Added by Lucian Velea
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Book VI - Part 02 - Great Meteorological Phenomena, Etc

And so in first place, then
With thunder are shaken the blue deeps of heaven,
Because the ethereal clouds, scudding aloft,
Together clash, what time 'gainst one another
The winds are battling. For never a sound there come
From out the serene regions of the sky;
But wheresoever in a host more dense
The clouds foregather, thence more often comes
A crash with mighty rumbling. And, again,
Clouds cannot be of so condensed a frame
As stones and timbers, nor again so fine
As mists and flying smoke; for then perforce
They'd either fall, borne down by their brute weight,
Like stones, or, like the smoke, they'd powerless be
To keep their mass, or to retain within
Frore snows and storms of hail. And they give forth
O'er skiey levels of the spreading world
A sound on high, as linen-awning, stretched
O'er mighty theatres, gives forth at times
A cracking roar, when much 'tis beaten about
Betwixt the poles and cross-beams. Sometimes, too,
Asunder rent by wanton gusts, it raves
And imitates the tearing sound of sheets
Of paper- even this kind of noise thou mayst
In thunder hear- or sound as when winds whirl
With lashings and do buffet about in air
A hanging cloth and flying paper-sheets.
For sometimes, too, it chances that the clouds
Cannot together crash head-on, but rather
Move side-wise and with motions contrary
Graze each the other's body without speed,
From whence that dry sound grateth on our ears,
So long drawn-out, until the clouds have passed
From out their close positions.
And, again,
In following wise all things seem oft to quake
At shock of heavy thunder, and mightiest walls
Of the wide reaches of the upper world
There on the instant to have sprung apart,
Riven asunder, what time a gathered blast
Of the fierce hurricane hath all at once
Twisted its way into a mass of clouds,
And, there enclosed, ever more and more
Compelleth by its spinning whirl the cloud
To grow all hollow with a thickened crust
Surrounding; for thereafter, when the force
And the keen onset of the wind have weakened
That crust, lo, then the cloud, to-split in twain,
Gives forth a hideous crash with bang and boom.
No marvel this; since oft a bladder small,

[...] Read more

poem by Lucretius
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Book I - Part 06 - Confutation Of Other Philosophers

And on such grounds it is that those who held
The stuff of things is fire, and out of fire
Alone the cosmic sum is formed, are seen
Mightily from true reason to have lapsed.
Of whom, chief leader to do battle, comes
That Heraclitus, famous for dark speech
Among the silly, not the serious Greeks
Who search for truth. For dolts are ever prone
That to bewonder and adore which hides
Beneath distorted words, holding that true
Which sweetly tickles in their stupid ears,
Or which is rouged in finely finished phrase.
For how, I ask, can things so varied be,
If formed of fire, single and pure? No whit
'Twould help for fire to be condensed or thinned,
If all the parts of fire did still preserve
But fire's own nature, seen before in gross.
The heat were keener with the parts compressed,
Milder, again when severed or dispersed-
And more than this thou canst conceive of naught
That from such causes could become; much less
Might earth's variety of things be born
From any fires soever, dense or rare.
This too: if they suppose a void in things,
Then fires can be condensed and still left rare;
But since they see such opposites of thought
Rising against them, and are loath to leave
An unmixed void in things, they fear the steep
And lose the road of truth. Nor do they see,
That, if from things we take away the void,
All things are then condensed, and out of all
One body made, which has no power to dart
Swiftly from out itself not anything-
As throws the fire its light and warmth around,
Giving thee proof its parts are not compact.
But if perhaps they think, in other wise,
Fires through their combinations can be quenched
And change their substance, very well: behold,
If fire shall spare to do so in no part,
Then heat will perish utterly and all,
And out of nothing would the world be formed.
For change in anything from out its bounds
Means instant death of that which was before;
And thus a somewhat must persist unharmed
Amid the world, lest all return to naught,
And, born from naught, abundance thrive anew.
Now since indeed there are those surest bodies
Which keep their nature evermore the same,
Upon whose going out and coming in
And changed order things their nature change,

[...] Read more

poem by Lucretius
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Fire

I am the god of hellfire, and I bring you... fire
I am the god of hellfire, and I bring you... fire
I am the god of hellfire, and I bring you... fire
Fire, fire, fire, fire!
When I was a youth I used to burn cali weed in a rizzler-a-rizzler-a-rizzler-a-rizzler-a
When I was a youth I used to burn cali weed in a rizzler-a-rizzler-a-rizzler-a-rizzler-a
When I was a youth I used to burn cali weed in a rizzler-a-rizzler-a-rizzler-a-rizzler-a
I am rocking!
When I was a youth I used to burn cali weed in a rizzler-a-rizzler-a-rizzler-a-rizzler-a
Fire - When I was a youth I used to burn cali weed in a - fire -
rizzler-a-rizzler-a-rizzler-a-rizzler-a
Fire - When I was a youth I used to burn cali weed in a - fire -
rizzler-a-rizzler-a-rizzler-a-rizzler-a
Fire, fire, fire, fire
I am rocking!
Fire!
I am the god of hellfire, and I bring you... fire!
I am the god of hellfire, and I bring you... fire!
I am the god of hellfire, and I bring you... fire!
I am the god of hellfire, and I bring you... fire!
I am the god of hellfire, and I bring you... fire, fire, fire!
I am the god of hellfire, and I bring you... fire, fire, fire, fire, fire!

song performed by Prodigy
Added by Lucian Velea
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Give Your Heart To The Hawks

1 he apples hung until a wind at the equinox,

That heaped the beach with black weed, filled the dry grass

Under the old trees with rosy fruit.

In the morning Fayne Fraser gathered the sound ones into a

basket,

The bruised ones into a pan. One place they lay so thickly
She knelt to reach them.

Her husband's brother passing
Along the broken fence of the stubble-field,
His quick brown eyes took in one moving glance
A little gopher-snake at his feet flowing through the stubble
To gain the fence, and Fayne crouched after apples
With her mop of red hair like a glowing coal
Against the shadow in the garden. The small shapely reptile
Flowed into a thicket of dead thistle-stalks
Around a fence-post, but its tail was not hidden.
The young man drew it all out, and as the coil
Whipped over his wrist, smiled at it; he stepped carefully
Across the sag of the wire. When Fayne looked up
His hand was hidden; she looked over her shoulder
And twitched her sunburnt lips from small white teeth
To answer the spark of malice in his eyes, but turned
To the apples, intent again. Michael looked down
At her white neck, rarely touched by the sun,
But now the cinnabar-colored hair fell off from it;
And her shoulders in the light-blue shirt, and long legs like a boy's
Bare-ankled in blue-jean trousers, the country wear;
He stooped quietly and slipped the small cool snake
Up the blue-denim leg. Fayne screamed and writhed,
Clutching her thigh. 'Michael, you beast.' She stood up
And stroked her leg, with little sharp cries, the slender invader
Fell down her ankle.

Fayne snatched for it and missed;

Michael stood by rejoicing, his rather small

Finely cut features in a dance of delight;

Fayne with one sweep flung at his face

All the bruised and half-spoiled apples in the pan,

[...] Read more

poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Love Fire

Fire fire
Fire fire
Fire fire fire fire
Cant put it out with water
Keeps on burning
Keeps on burning
Keeps on burning burning burning
In my soul
Your love is like a burning fire
It keeps on burning burning burning
In my soul
This love of mine its my one desire
Its gonna set my soul on fire
Itll never grow cold
Fire fire fire
Fire fire fire
Keeps on burning burning burning
In my soul
Your love is so kind to i
So good good
Itll never grow cold
This love of mine its my one desire
Its gonna set my soul on fire
Itll never grow cold
Fire fire
Fire fire
Fire fire fire fire
Cant put it out with water
Keeps on burning
Keeps on burning
Keeps on burning burning burning
In my soul

song performed by Simply Red
Added by Lucian Velea
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Delicious

April, (? )
When you get that smile in your eye.
Something inside
Goes wild wild wild.
Sunshine
Chase away my rainy days.
Our summer leave
Is here. please stay.
Chorus:
Ill hold (hold) you in my arms next to me.
You (you) are the one that set me free.
You (you) put the fire in my heart.
Delicious.
Ill (hold) never ever ever let you go.
Youre (you) my taste of honey, girl.
You (you) put the fire in my heart.
Delicious.
Rainbow
Let me know the storm has past.
These memories
Will last and last.
Passion
Curling through the core of the night.
Where have you been
All my life.
Ill hold (hold) you in my arms next to me.
You (you) are the one that sets me free.
You (you) put the fire in my heart.
Delicious.
Ill (hold) never ever ever let you go.
Youre (you) my taste of honey, girl.
You (you) put the fire in my heart.
Delicious.
We as one
Here we lie.
Holding hands
Across the sky.
Please be mine. Ill never ever leave you.
Please be mine.
Ill hold (hold) you in my arms next to me.
You (you) are the one that sets me free.
You (you) put the fire in my heart.
Delicious.
Ill (hold) never ever ever let you go.
Youre (you) my taste of honey, girl.
You (you) put the fire in my heart.
Delicious. (put the fire in my heart)
Ill hold (hold) you in my arms next to me.
You (you) are the one that set me free.
You (you) put the fire in my heart.

[...] Read more

song performed by New Edition
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II. Half-Rome

What, you, Sir, come too? (Just the man I'd meet.)
Be ruled by me and have a care o' the crowd:
This way, while fresh folk go and get their gaze:
I'll tell you like a book and save your shins.
Fie, what a roaring day we've had! Whose fault?
Lorenzo in Lucina,—here's a church
To hold a crowd at need, accommodate
All comers from the Corso! If this crush
Make not its priests ashamed of what they show
For temple-room, don't prick them to draw purse
And down with bricks and mortar, eke us out
The beggarly transept with its bit of apse
Into a decent space for Christian ease,
Why, to-day's lucky pearl is cast to swine.
Listen and estimate the luck they've had!
(The right man, and I hold him.)

Sir, do you see,
They laid both bodies in the church, this morn
The first thing, on the chancel two steps up,
Behind the little marble balustrade;
Disposed them, Pietro the old murdered fool
To the right of the altar, and his wretched wife
On the other side. In trying to count stabs,
People supposed Violante showed the most,
Till somebody explained us that mistake;
His wounds had been dealt out indifferent where,
But she took all her stabbings in the face,
Since punished thus solely for honour's sake,
Honoris causâ, that's the proper term.
A delicacy there is, our gallants hold,
When you avenge your honour and only then,
That you disfigure the subject, fray the face,
Not just take life and end, in clownish guise.
It was Violante gave the first offence,
Got therefore the conspicuous punishment:
While Pietro, who helped merely, his mere death
Answered the purpose, so his face went free.
We fancied even, free as you please, that face
Showed itself still intolerably wronged;
Was wrinkled over with resentment yet,
Nor calm at all, as murdered faces use,
Once the worst ended: an indignant air
O' the head there was—'t is said the body turned
Round and away, rolled from Violante's side
Where they had laid it loving-husband-like.
If so, if corpses can be sensitive,
Why did not he roll right down altar-step,
Roll on through nave, roll fairly out of church,
Deprive Lorenzo of the spectacle,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Solve Et Coagula

Fire, fire
I dissolve and solidify,
Destroy to recreate,
Disassemble to assemble something pure,
Our rubic sol-ve-et-co-ag-u-la
Kill to be born again, cycled a thousand times
Fire, planetary alchemy,
Fire, the time is here now
Fire, four corners to rise
Fire rise!
Fire, theres always loss within,
Fire, the cleansing its time
Fire, shooting arrows to the sky
Fire
I construct a new institution
Not out of bricks, iron, cement, concrete
Or steel
Our rubic sol-ve-et-co-ag-u-la
Distill to purify,
Weve done it a thousand times
Fire, planetary alchemy,
Fire, the time is here now
Fire, four corners to rise
Fire rise!
Fire, theres always loss within,
Fire, the cleansing its time
Fire, shooting arrows to the sky
Fire
Burn, bleed all the lives of life, ascend to
The sky
Burn, all the martyrs
Fire, planetary alchemy,
Fire, the time is here now
Fire, four corners to rise
Fire rise!
Fire, theres always loss within,
Fire, the cleansing its time
Fire, shooting arrows to the sky
Fire

song performed by Mudvayne
Added by Lucian Velea
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Annus Mirabilis, The Year Of Wonders, 1666

1
In thriving arts long time had Holland grown,
Crouching at home and cruel when abroad:
Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own;
Our King they courted, and our merchants awed.

2
Trade, which, like blood, should circularly flow,
Stopp'd in their channels, found its freedom lost:
Thither the wealth of all the world did go,
And seem'd but shipwreck'd on so base a coast.

3
For them alone the heavens had kindly heat;
In eastern quarries ripening precious dew:
For them the Idumaean balm did sweat,
And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew.

4
The sun but seem'd the labourer of the year;
Each waxing moon supplied her watery store,
To swell those tides, which from the line did bear
Their brimful vessels to the Belgian shore.

5
Thus mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long,
And swept the riches of the world from far;
Yet stoop'd to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong:
And this may prove our second Punic war.

6
What peace can be, where both to one pretend?
(But they more diligent, and we more strong)
Or if a peace, it soon must have an end;
For they would grow too powerful, were it long.

7
Behold two nations, then, engaged so far
That each seven years the fit must shake each land:
Where France will side to weaken us by war,
Who only can his vast designs withstand.

8
See how he feeds the Iberian with delays,
To render us his timely friendship vain:
And while his secret soul on Flanders preys,
He rocks the cradle of the babe of Spain.

9
Such deep designs of empire does he lay

[...] Read more

poem by John Dryden
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You Started This Fire

I lay with you and it's,
Under-cover.
With a ring-aling that dings.
And penetrates to get to things.

Aaahhh, aaahhh, aaahhh.

I lay with you and it's,
Under-cover.
With a ring-aling that dings.
And penetrates to get to things.
And penetrates to get to things.
Repeat.
And penetrates to get to things.
Repeat.
And penetrates to get to things.

Aaahhh, aaahhh, aaahhh.

Now who started this fire?
With a-ring and a-ding-ding-ding.
And a,
Big dingalingaling.
In this,
Sticky heat!
And, breathing deep.

Now who is accused for this fire?
That makes my breathing deep.
And...
Makes me clinch both fist and teeth.

Now who is accused for this fire?
That makes my breathing deep.
And...
Makes me clinch both fist and teeth.

You lay bare with naked clues!
You must of have started this fire.
You looking as if you know what to do too.
You must of have started this fire,
To build up my desire.

And why do I suspect that,
You have done this thing and...
That you want to bring me,
To a place....
To hear me scream

You lay bare with naked clues!

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Fire Burns! Fire Burns!

If you like you can enquire
There are rings of fire
There are hearts on fire
There are desert, grass and bush fires
Burning with a red hot rage on a different stage
They burn and mature that one can only admire

O! Fire O! Fire
My heart is on fire
Inside my soul a little flame has transpired
Have my words mis-fired while I speak of fire?
Fire burns like a scorching red-hot sun
And when fire burns its impact is sometimes no fun

Fire burns! Fire burns!
People die, people cry, people sigh
Fire run, run and run
Let's take turns to run before we turn into a bun
When you play with fire your hands will burn
When you lay with fire, heads will surely turn
Fire burns! Fire burns!

A hand pulls a gun and fires
A man goes to work and gets fired
And while I tire, I ask myself am I a liar?
For I speak of the uncontrollable forest fires
That cannot be announced by any town crier
A little spark
A brittle panic attack
A burning flame
A red-hot blaze
In seconds fire can take out an entire space

Fire burns! Fire burns!
And while the fire transpires
I can see the fire in your eyes
A hot passionate desire that flies and flies
And the fire burns and burns
Run, run and run for heads will turn
And the heat will rise like the scorching sun

Fire burns! Fire burns!
I ask silently for a ceasefire
For fire only ignites to inspire more misery
And out of that misery are born some high fliers
Run, run and run for heads will turn
And whatever burns can never be undone

poem by Sylvia Chidi
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The Iliad: Book 23

Thus did they make their moan throughout the city, while the
Achaeans when they reached the Hellespont went back every man to his
own ship. But Achilles would not let the Myrmidons go, and spoke to
his brave comrades saying, "Myrmidons, famed horsemen and my own
trusted friends, not yet, forsooth, let us unyoke, but with horse
and chariot draw near to the body and mourn Patroclus, in due honour
to the dead. When we have had full comfort of lamentation we will
unyoke our horses and take supper all of us here."
On this they all joined in a cry of wailing and Achilles led them in
their lament. Thrice did they drive their chariots all sorrowing round
the body, and Thetis stirred within them a still deeper yearning.
The sands of the seashore and the men's armour were wet with their
weeping, so great a minister of fear was he whom they had lost.
Chief in all their mourning was the son of Peleus: he laid his
bloodstained hand on the breast of his friend. "Fare well," he
cried, "Patroclus, even in the house of Hades. I will now do all
that I erewhile promised you; I will drag Hector hither and let dogs
devour him raw; twelve noble sons of Trojans will I also slay before
your pyre to avenge you."
As he spoke he treated the body of noble Hector with contumely,
laying it at full length in the dust beside the bier of Patroclus. The
others then put off every man his armour, took the horses from their
chariots, and seated themselves in great multitude by the ship of
the fleet descendant of Aeacus, who thereon feasted them with an
abundant funeral banquet. Many a goodly ox, with many a sheep and
bleating goat did they butcher and cut up; many a tusked boar
moreover, fat and well-fed, did they singe and set to roast in the
flames of Vulcan; and rivulets of blood flowed all round the place
where the body was lying.
Then the princes of the Achaeans took the son of Peleus to
Agamemnon, but hardly could they persuade him to come with them, so
wroth was he for the death of his comrade. As soon as they reached
Agamemnon's tent they told the serving-men to set a large tripod
over the fire in case they might persuade the son of Peleus 'to wash
the clotted gore from this body, but he denied them sternly, and swore
it with a solemn oath, saying, "Nay, by King Jove, first and mightiest
of all gods, it is not meet that water should touch my body, till I
have laid Patroclus on the flames, have built him a barrow, and shaved
my head- for so long as I live no such second sorrow shall ever draw
nigh me. Now, therefore, let us do all that this sad festival demands,
but at break of day, King Agamemnon, bid your men bring wood, and
provide all else that the dead may duly take into the realm of
darkness; the fire shall thus burn him out of our sight the sooner,
and the people shall turn again to their own labours."
Thus did he speak, and they did even as he had said. They made haste
to prepare the meal, they ate, and every man had his full share so
that all were satisfied. As soon as they had had had enough to eat and
drink, the others went to their rest each in his own tent, but the son
of Peleus lay grieving among his Myrmidons by the shore of the
sounding sea, in an open place where the waves came surging in one

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poem by Homer, translated by Samuel Butler
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XI. Guido

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Tamar

I
A night the half-moon was like a dancing-girl,
No, like a drunkard's last half-dollar
Shoved on the polished bar of the eastern hill-range,
Young Cauldwell rode his pony along the sea-cliff;
When she stopped, spurred; when she trembled, drove
The teeth of the little jagged wheels so deep
They tasted blood; the mare with four slim hooves
On a foot of ground pivoted like a top,
Jumped from the crumble of sod, went down, caught, slipped;
Then, the quick frenzy finished, stiffening herself
Slid with her drunken rider down the ledges,
Shot from sheer rock and broke
Her life out on the rounded tidal boulders.

The night you know accepted with no show of emotion the little
accident; grave Orion
Moved northwest from the naked shore, the moon moved to
meridian, the slow pulse of the ocean
Beat, the slow tide came in across the slippery stones; it drowned
the dead mare's muzzle and sluggishly
Felt for the rider; Cauldwell’s sleepy soul came back from the
blind course curious to know
What sea-cold fingers tapped the walls of its deserted ruin.
Pain, pain and faintness, crushing
Weights, and a vain desire to vomit, and soon again
die icy fingers, they had crept over the loose hand and lay in the
hair now. He rolled sidewise
Against mountains of weight and for another half-hour lay still.
With a gush of liquid noises
The wave covered him head and all, his body
Crawled without consciousness and like a creature with no bones,
a seaworm, lifted its face
Above the sea-wrack of a stone; then a white twilight grew about
the moon, and above
The ancient water, the everlasting repetition of the dawn. You
shipwrecked horseman
So many and still so many and now for you the last. But when it
grew daylight
He grew quite conscious; broken ends of bone ground on each
other among the working fibers
While by half-inches he was drawing himself out of the seawrack
up to sandy granite,
Out of the tide's path. Where the thin ledge tailed into flat cliff
he fell asleep. . . .
Far seaward
The daylight moon hung like a slip of cloud against the horizon.
The tide was ebbing
From the dead horse and the black belt of sea-growth. Cauldwell
seemed to have felt her crying beside him,

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Jubilate Agno: Fragment B, Part 2

LET PETER rejoice with the MOON FISH who keeps up the life in the waters by night.

Let Andrew rejoice with the Whale, who is array'd in beauteous blue and is a combination of bulk and activity.

Let James rejoice with the Skuttle-Fish, who foils his foe by the effusion of his ink.

Let John rejoice with Nautilus who spreads his sail and plies his oar, and the Lord is his pilot.

Let Philip rejoice with Boca, which is a fish that can speak.

Let Bartholomew rejoice with the Eel, who is pure in proportion to where he is found and how he is used.

Let Thomas rejoice with the Sword-Fish, whose aim is perpetual and strength insuperable.

Let Matthew rejoice with Uranoscopus, whose eyes are lifted up to God.

Let James the less, rejoice with the Haddock, who brought the piece of money for the Lord and Peter.

Let Jude bless with the Bream, who is of melancholy from his depth and serenity.

Let Simon rejoice with the Sprat, who is pure and innumerable.

Let Matthias rejoice with the Flying-Fish, who has a part with the birds, and is sublimity in his conceit.

Let Stephen rejoice with Remora -- The Lord remove all obstacles to his glory.

Let Paul rejoice with the Scale, who is pleasant and faithful!, like God's good ENGLISHMAN.

Let Agrippa, which is Agricola, rejoice with Elops, who is a choice fish.

Let Joseph rejoice with the Turbut, whose capture makes the poor fisher-man sing.

Let Mary rejoice with the Maid -- blessed be the name of the immaculate CONCEPTION.

Let John, the Baptist, rejoice with the Salmon -- blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus for infant Baptism.

Let Mark rejoice with the Mullet, who is John Dore, God be gracious to him and his family.

Let Barnabus rejoice with the Herring -- God be gracious to the Lord's fishery.

Let Cleopas rejoice with the Mackerel, who cometh in a shoal after a leader.

Let Abiud of the Lord's line rejoice with Murex, who is good and of a precious tincture.

Let Eliakim rejoice with the Shad, who is contemned in his abundance.

Let Azor rejoice with the Flounder, who is both of the sea and of the river,

Let Sadoc rejoice with the Bleak, who playeth upon the surface in the Sun.

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poem by Christopher Smart
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