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Innocence can be an offence.

African proverbs
Added by Lucian Velea
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My Innocence Killed Me

INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE OH WHY DO I CRY? INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE WHERE IS THE TRUTH OVER THE LIE? INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE CAN THE GROUND KEEP ME DOWN? INNOCENCE OH INNOCENCE, WHO KEEPS PULLING YOU DOWN?

FAIL TO THE SYSTEM MY INNOCENCE WAS TAKING AWAY
I WISH FOR IT BACK EACH AND EVERY DAY
AS I LIE SMOTHERED UNDERGROUND
I COULD HAVE SURVIVED IF INNOCENCE WOULD HAVE STAYED AROUND
MY SHELTER, MY GROUND, AND ALSO MY ROOF
WHICH WAS DESIGNED ONLY TO PROTECT MY PROOF
EVIDENCE IS SUBMITTED ONLY TO HELP
WHEN I TURNED TO LOOK INTO YOUR EYES YOU LEFT
SEEKING WEALTH
ONLY TO LEAVE ME INSIDE AN EMPTY CHAMBER
FILLED WITH SO MUCH MAINLY ANGER
MY DISAPPOINTMENT IS PERCEIVED AS RAGE
IT'S JUST A CRAZE
TO BE TAKEN OUT OF MY MISERY RELEASED FROM THIS CAGE

INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE OH WHY I CRY? INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE WHERE IS THE TRUTH OVER THE LIE? INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE CAN THE GREED KEEP ME DOWN? INNOCENCE OH INNOCENCE, WHO KEEPS PULLING YOU DOWN?

NEGATIVE INTERIOR EMOTIONALLY INFERIOR
WHY DOES MY FREEDOM HAVE TO BE DESTROYED OVER MATERIAL?
LOOKING AT INNOCENCE AND IT SEEMS SO STRANGE.
LOOKING AT MY SITUATION AND REALIZING NOTHING WILL CHANGE.
PURE INJUSTICE TRAIL IS NOT THE SAME.
TAKING MENTAL PICTURES PLACING THEM INSIDE A FRAME.
WHEN THEY ENTER HELL HOPELY THEY BURN IN FLAMES.
I WILL NEVER BE THE SAME.
TO DEATH WHAT IS GAIN?
TO BONDAGE WHAT IS A CHAIN?

INNOCENCE WAS SLAINED AS THEY SCREAMED OUT MY NAME I'M ASKING FOR CHANGE GOT DEATH IN EXCHANGE PARDON MY SCREAM AND KICKS FORGET ABOUT MY INNOCENCE FREEDOM INVOLVE TRICKS AND I CAN'T HELP BUT LAUGH MY INNOCENCE IS THE ONLY REASON I GOT STABBED ON THIS SLAB AS I'M SLICED IN HALF REACHING FOR THE INNOCENCE THAT I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GRAB YELLING OUT SO UNJUST VOICE YELLS OUT HUSH AND RUSH INTO MY EMBRACE AS THEY REVIVE MY SPIRIT AND TOUCH MY FACE. IS IT GOD OR INNOCENCE THAT I CHASE?

INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE WHY DO I CRY? INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE WHERE IS THE TRUTH OVER THE LIE? INNOCENCE, INNOCENCE CAN GREED KEEP ME DOWN?
INNOCENCE OH INNOCENCE, WHO KEEPS PULLING YOU DOWN.

poem by Courtney Steele
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Just to Show the Kids Today What Innocence Is

Remember those lollipops we liked alot and licked.
I remember licking every bit and saving the sticks.

Remember spending nickels to get five hot rockets.
Sucking those hot balls until the juice dripped from our lips.

Do you remember candy dots on strips of paper...
With every flavor there but chocolate.

Those times are gone but innocence should be held over.
Just to show the kids today what innocence is!
And...
Those times are gone but innocence should be held over.
Just to show the kids today what innocence is!

Remember those lollipops we liked alot and licked.
I remember licking every bit and saving the sticks.

Remember spending nickels to get five hot rockets.
Sucking those hot balls until the juice dripped from our lips.

Do you remember candy dots on strips of paper...
With every flavor there but chocolate.

Those times are gone but innocence should be held over.
Just to show the kids today what innocence is!
And...
Those times are gone but innocence should be held over.
Just to show the kids today what innocence is!

There were many benefits to being young and innocent.

Those times are gone but innocence should be held over.
Just to show the kids today what innocence is!

There were many benefits to being young and innocent.

Those times are gone but innocence should be held over.
Just to show the kids today what innocence is!

Just to show them proof that innocence once lived!

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Sigismond And Guiscardo. From Boccace

While Norman Tancred in Salerno reigned,
The title of a gracious Prince he gained;
Till turned a tyrant in his latter days,
He lost the lustre of his former praise,
And from the bright meridian where he stood
Descending dipped his hands in lovers' blood.

This Prince, of Fortune's favour long possessed,
Yet was with one fair daughter only blessed;
And blessed he might have been with her alone,
But oh! how much more happy had he none!
She was his care, his hope, and his delight,
Most in his thought, and ever in his sight:
Next, nay beyond his life, he held her dear;
She lived by him, and now he lived in her.
For this, when ripe for marriage, he delayed
Her nuptial bands, and kept her long a maid,
As envying any else should share a part
Of what was his, and claiming all her heart.
At length, as public decency required,
And all his vassals eagerly desired,
With mind averse, he rather underwent
His people's will than gave his own consent.
So was she torn, as from a lover's side,
And made, almost in his despite, a bride.

Short were her marriage joys; for in the prime
Of youth, her lord expired before his time;
And to her father's court in little space
Restored anew, she held a higher place;
More loved, and more exalted into grace.
This Princess, fresh and young, and fair and wise,
The worshipped idol of her father's eyes,
Did all her sex in every grace exceed,
And had more wit beside than women need.

Youth, health, and ease, and most an amorous mind,
To second nuptials had her thoughts inclined;
And former joys had left a secret string behind.
But, prodigal in every other grant,
Her sire left unsupplied her only want,
And she, betwixt her modesty and pride,
Her wishes, which she could not help, would hide.

Resolved at last to lose no longer time,
And yet to please her self without a crime,
She cast her eyes around the court, to find
A worthy subject suiting to her mind,
To him in holy nuptials to be tied,
A seeming widow, and a secret bride.

[...] Read more

poem by John Dryden
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Innocence Again

Do you remember when
You were way back then
You held the world inside your hands
When you told me love
Was the strongest stuff
Your strength was innocence
But, oh man
The signs of the times are omens
You're starting the day in
No man's land again
Who are you gonna be?
When you're on your knees, who do you believe? (oh, oh, oh)
Fear is a lonely man
You've been given innocence
You've been given innocence again
You should know by now
That your darkest hour
Is when your broken heart goes down
It's a bitter end
When the sweet begins
Grace is sufficiency
But, oh dear, we'll never deserve it
No dear, we never could earn it
Now, here the choice is yours
Who are you gonna be?
When you're on your knees, who do you believe? (oh, oh, oh)
Fear is a lonely man
You've been given innocence
You've been given innocence again
Grace is high and low
Grace is high and low
Grace is high and low
We'll never be the same
Who are you gonna be?
When you're on your knees, who do you believe? (oh, oh, oh)
Fear is a lonely man
You've been given innocence
You've been given innocence again
oh, oh, oh...
You've been given innocence, innocence, innocence.
Who are you gonna be...
You've been given innocence.

song performed by Switchfoot
Added by Lucian Velea
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Innocence Taken

Innocence taken
by those who thought
that it was ok to lie
by those who thought
nothing matters
Innocence taken
no longer available
Innocence unable
to ever speak again
Innocence silenced
to soon
Innocence taken
there's no truth over the lie
Innocence taken
by those who thought
I'll be the same again
by those who thought
its ok to kill
by those who thought
it's ok to take
Innocence replaced
by fear and mistrust
Innocence disappeared
before it came
Innocence taken
by those who
laughed at every cry
by those who had none
Innocence reflecting
a little girls eyes
innocence taken away
without my permission

poem by Kiara Davar
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Defense and offence.

Defense is a kind of offence;
Offence is a smart defense.
Offence is to break defense.
Defense is to thwart offence.
As predator, one needs offence.
As a prey, one needs defense.
Otherwise defense is as bad as offence.
12.02.2008

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Let Joy And Innocence Prevail

I tell you of a girl her husband was a soldier
gone to war in some strange country far away
no word had come to her
but the rumour of great battles fought
and dying in their thousands and the world full of fear
as the day would turn to evening she would a pure white candle
and place it in a window bright from where it could be seen
as she placed it in the window softly ? and ?
she said let this burning candle be a beacon
let joy and innocence prevail
let joy and innocence prevail
believe that luck will never fail
let joy and innocence prevail
and one night, asleep, she dreamed she saw her husband
fall in a great white cavilry charge
and waking in tears she saw the candle burning in the window
she still had hope
and through the window a man in the distance
but has he came closer, she saw he was a stranger
the stranger said I bring a message from a general
your captain has been wounded, his life hangs by a thread
he calls out your name and he wishes you to come to him
but the journey is a hard road and you may be afraid
and she laughed and said no road could be too hard for I am fearless
a captain and a husband I have gained this bright new day
and she said with all her heart she would fly to be beside hik
and her love would heal his wounds restore him to her
let joy and innocence prevail
let joy and innocence prevail
believe that luck will never fail
let joy and innocence prevail
let joy and innocence prevail
let joy and innocence prevail
believe that luck will never fail
let joy and innocence prevail
let joy and innocence prevail

song performed by Grace Jones
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Task: Book VI. -- The Winter Walk at Noon

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;
And as the mind is pitch’d the ear is pleased
With melting airs, or martial, brisk, or grave:
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Is touch’d within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on!
With easy force it opens all the cells
Where Memory slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
Such comprehensive views the spirit takes,
That in a few short moments I retrace
(As in a map the voyager his course)
The windings of my way through many years.
Short as in retrospect the journey seems,
It seem’d not always short; the rugged path,
And prospect oft so dreary and forlorn,
Moved many a sigh at its disheartening length.
Yet, feeling present evils, while the past
Faintly impress the mind, or not at all,
How readily we wish time spent revoked,
That we might try the ground again, where once
(Through inexperience, as we now perceive)
We miss’d that happiness we might have found!
Some friend is gone, perhaps his son’s best friend,
A father, whose authority, in show
When most severe, and mustering all its force,
Was but the graver countenance of love:
Whose favour, like the clouds of spring, might lower,
And utter now and then an awful voice,
But had a blessing in its darkest frown,
Threatening at once and nourishing the plant.
We loved, but not enough, the gentle hand
That rear’d us. At a thoughtless age, allured
By every gilded folly, we renounced
His sheltering side, and wilfully forewent
That converse, which we now in vain regret.
How gladly would the man recall to life
The boy’s neglected sire! a mother too,
That softer friend, perhaps more gladly still,
Might he demand them at the gates of death.
Sorrow has, since they went, subdued and tamed
The playful humour; he could now endure
(Himself grown sober in the vale of tears)
And feel a parent’s presence no restraint.
But not to understand a treasure’s worth

[...] Read more

poem by William Cowper
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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
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Innocence Is A Harmonic Restoration Seed

innocence is a blessing easily tarnished
innocence sees beauty even in dark souls
innocence has belief to calm brutal beasts
innocence is a sacred gift easily forfeit lost

innocence has faith to restore hardened hearts
innocence has vision to invoke creative remedies
innocence is a unique seed of passion harmonies
innocence has truth to see path to restorations
innocence has patience to work new miracles

poem by Terence George Craddock
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Innocence Matter: Restoration Perfection

Innocence is the question?
Innocence is the X factor?
Innocence is life mortality?
Innocence is sinless state immortality?

Innocence is physical perfection?
Innocence is purity soul divinity?
Innocence is state of grace harmony?
Innocence is Trinity creation link eternity?
Innocence is life breath immortality?

poem by Terence George Craddock
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The Benefit Of This Is Missed

It's better with a bit of innocence.
Better with a benefit of it,
Yes.
It's better with a bit of innocence.
Better with a benefit of it,
And...
So much exposed has people sick.
It's better with a bit of innocence.
And wish they do for peace and quietness.
It's better with a benefit of it!
Yes.

So many are lost for many reasons.
And destroyed by the cost of losing innocence.
Many wish for a taste of more sweetened seasons.
Wanting to reminisce,
A beneift missed.

People wish to unlock their doors to explore.
Remembering when there was an innocence of this.
Many are seeking a life to live adored.
Knowing how beneficial and wanting this more.

So many are lost for many reasons.
And destroyed by the cost of losing innocence.
Many wish for a taste of more sweetened seasons.
Wanting to reminisce,
A beneift missed.

It's better with a bit of innocence.
Better with a benefit of it,
Yes.
It's better with a bit of innocence.
Better with a benefit of it,
And...
So much exposed has people sick.
It's better with a bit of innocence.
And wish they do for peace and quietness.
It's better with a benefit of it!
Yes.
And the benefit of this is missed.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Little Pieces of Innocence

Little Pieces of Innocence
(0n watching my children sleep)

Sweet sleep, little pieces of innocence,
While dreams so serenely fair,
Fill their heads with joyous thoughts,
How gladly do I stand and stare,
Upon the gifts that love has brought.

No darkness spreads her sorrow here,
Sleep on dear children, rest, but know,
Your father watches with such delight,
This moment of truth, and with heart aglow,
And filled with love this night.

Those little pieces of innocence,
So serene, so full of grace,
Sweetest gifts that Heaven imparts,
Fondly shall I long embrace,
The innocence in their hearts.

Those little pieces of innocence,
Their youthful years so few,
Enjoy now as you grow,
Joys of innocence, pure and true,
That only children ever know.

The hour is fleeting, and morn is nigh,
Innocence so filled with truth,
Awake! enjoy your childhood years,
Before time sweeps away your youth,
And innocence disappears.

Never, never can I lose them,
No time or distance shall stake a claim,
Though saddness may overcome me,
My heart will stay the same,
And those little pieces of innocence will forever be.

By
Richard Netherland Cook

poem by Richard Netherland Cook
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Land Of Innocence

Nightfall in my childhood,
Memories of my future send
Their scent in my mind...

My life and my feelings now?
A knife through my heart,
Sins that torn apart
The once-innocent mind...

The moon’s glance falls over the
Garden of my childhood,
There, where beauty is still untainted,
When I was as fresh as the morning dew...
I remember those feelings so well,
I keep them hidden in a safe place,
Locked inside my heart!

I believed then in the snowy-egret nymph,
I thought she came to me at night,
And carried me above the water
Through the Danube Delta,
To see the secret lagoons
Covered up by weeping willows,
To see the black swans as they dance,
As they perform a sacred ritual of nature,
To see the pelicans as they sleep.
Gazing at the black egrets,
As the wind smoothes their soft feathers,
To see those black ballerinas
As they all reveal an unknown passion:
The passion for the night!

And my dreams were beautiful then,
My voice was clear and sweet,
My mind was innocent and true,
Not touched by the perverted hand of life...

And it’s true what the nymph said to me,
Looking in my eyes, singing softly to my ear:

“From cradle to coffin,
You shall dream,
You shall wish and hope!
But remember, innocence can never be lost,
You will always have it inside,
Take your memories, put them aside,
And you shall find it
Right there; innocence stays! ”

How can I break away from what I am now,

[...] Read more

poem by Elya Thorn
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III. The Other Half-Rome

Another day that finds her living yet,
Little Pompilia, with the patient brow
And lamentable smile on those poor lips,
And, under the white hospital-array,
A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise
You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through again,
Alive i' the ruins. 'T is a miracle.
It seems that, when her husband struck her first,
She prayed Madonna just that she might live
So long as to confess and be absolved;
And whether it was that, all her sad life long
Never before successful in a prayer,
This prayer rose with authority too dread,—
Or whether, because earth was hell to her,
By compensation, when the blackness broke
She got one glimpse of quiet and the cool blue,
To show her for a moment such things were,—
Or else,—as the Augustinian Brother thinks,
The friar who took confession from her lip,—
When a probationary soul that moved
From nobleness to nobleness, as she,
Over the rough way of the world, succumbs,
Bloodies its last thorn with unflinching foot,
The angels love to do their work betimes,
Staunch some wounds here nor leave so much for God.
Who knows? However it be, confessed, absolved,
She lies, with overplus of life beside
To speak and right herself from first to last,
Right the friend also, lamb-pure, lion-brave,
Care for the boy's concerns, to save the son
From the sire, her two-weeks' infant orphaned thus,
And—with best smile of all reserved for him—
Pardon that sire and husband from the heart.
A miracle, so tell your Molinists!

There she lies in the long white lazar-house.
Rome has besieged, these two days, never doubt,
Saint Anna's where she waits her death, to hear
Though but the chink o' the bell, turn o' the hinge
When the reluctant wicket opes at last,
Lets in, on now this and now that pretence,
Too many by half,—complain the men of art,—
For a patient in such plight. The lawyers first
Paid the due visit—justice must be done;
They took her witness, why the murder was.
Then the priests followed properly,—a soul
To shrive; 't was Brother Celestine's own right,
The same who noises thus her gifts abroad.
But many more, who found they were old friends,
Pushed in to have their stare and take their talk

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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IV. Tertium Quid

True, Excellency—as his Highness says,
Though she's not dead yet, she's as good as stretched
Symmetrical beside the other two;
Though he's not judged yet, he's the same as judged,
So do the facts abound and superabound:
And nothing hinders that we lift the case
Out of the shade into the shine, allow
Qualified persons to pronounce at last,
Nay, edge in an authoritative word
Between this rabble's-brabble of dolts and fools
Who make up reasonless unreasoning Rome.
"Now for the Trial!" they roar: "the Trial to test
"The truth, weigh husband and weigh wife alike
"I' the scales of law, make one scale kick the beam!"
Law's a machine from which, to please the mob,
Truth the divinity must needs descend
And clear things at the play's fifth act—aha!
Hammer into their noddles who was who
And what was what. I tell the simpletons
"Could law be competent to such a feat
"'T were done already: what begins next week
"Is end o' the Trial, last link of a chain
"Whereof the first was forged three years ago
"When law addressed herself to set wrong right,
"And proved so slow in taking the first step
"That ever some new grievance,—tort, retort,
"On one or the other side,—o'ertook i' the game,
"Retarded sentence, till this deed of death
"Is thrown in, as it were, last bale to boat
"Crammed to the edge with cargo—or passengers?
"'Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est!
"'Huc appelle!'—passengers, the word must be."
Long since, the boat was loaded to my eyes.
To hear the rabble and brabble, you'd call the case
Fused and confused past human finding out.
One calls the square round, t' other the round square—
And pardonably in that first surprise
O' the blood that fell and splashed the diagram:
But now we've used our eyes to the violent hue
Can't we look through the crimson and trace lines?
It makes a man despair of history,
Eusebius and the established fact—fig's end!
Oh, give the fools their Trial, rattle away
With the leash of lawyers, two on either side—
One barks, one bites,—Masters Arcangeli
And Spreti,—that's the husband's ultimate hope
Against the Fisc and the other kind of Fisc,
Bound to do barking for the wife: bow—wow!
Why, Excellency, we and his Highness here
Would settle the matter as sufficiently

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Innocence Is Affirmation Verification Of Light

Innocence is not an absence of legal guilt
Innocence is not freedom from specific wrongs
Innocence is a quality state of freedom from sins guilt

loss of innocence no integral part
of maturity necessary coming of age
awareness of world pain suffering evil

Innocence is not absence of normative experience
Innocence is not ignorance not knowing evil
Innocence is affirmation a naked sinless nature
Innocence is choice verification of brilliant divinity light

poem by Terence George Craddock
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The Three Great Stimulants

I picked the morning paper off the floor
It was full of other peoples little wars
Wouldnt they like their peace
Dont we get bored
And we call for the three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones
Artifice, brutality and innocence
Artifice and innocence
No tanks have ever rumbled through these streets
And the drone of planes at night has never frightened me
I keep the hours and the company that I please
And we call for the three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones
Artifice, brutality and innocence
Artifice and innocence
Oh and deep in the night
Our appetites find us
Release us and bind us
Deep in the night
While madmen sit up building bombs
And making laws and bars
Theyd like to slam free choice behind us
I saw a little lawyer on the tube
He said, its so easy now, anyone can sue.
Let me show you how your petty aggravations can profit you!
Call for the three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones
Artifice, brutality and innocence
Artifice and innocence
Oh and deep in the night
Appetites find us
Release us and blind us
Deep in the night
While madmen sit up building bombs
And making laws and bars
Theyre gonna slam free choice behind us
Last night I dreamed I saw the planet flicker
Great forests fell like buffalo
Everything got sicker
And to the bitter end
Big business bickered
And they call for the three great stimulants
Of the exhausted ones
Artifice, brutality and innocence
Artifice and innocence
Oh these times, these times
Oh these changing times
Change in the heart of all mankind
Oh these troubled times

song performed by Joni Mitchell
Added by Lucian Velea
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People Are So Ready to Rage

People are so ready to rage.
With open mouths they shout...
And a madness pours right out.

People are so ready to rage.
To say today they're crazy,
Would not today amaze!

Gone,
From them...
Is any sign that hints,
Of an innocence.

And gone,
Are ballooned parades...
People use to love,
And...
Celebrate.

People are so ready to rage.
With open mouths they shout...
And a madness pours right out.

People are so ready to rage.
To say today they're crazy,
Would not today amaze!

Gone,
From them...
Is any sign that hints,
Of an innocence.

And gone,
Are ballooned parades...
People use to love,
And...
Celebrate.

What their exercising is their right to bleed.
What their exercising is their right to bleed.
What their exercising is their right to bleed.
What their exercising is their right!
And...
Gone,
From them...
Is any sign that hints,
Of an...Innocence.

And gone...
Are ballooned parades,

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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IX. Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus

Had I God's leave, how I would alter things!
If I might read instead of print my speech,—
Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower
Refuses obstinate to blow in print,
As wildings planted in a prim parterre,—
This scurvy room were turned an immense hall;
Opposite, fifty judges in a row;
This side and that of me, for audience—Rome:
And, where yon window is, the Pope should hide—
Watch, curtained, but peep visibly enough.
A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd,
Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff,
Up comes an usher, louts him low, "The Court
"Requires the allocution of the Fisc!"
I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause
O'er the hushed multitude: I count—One, two—

Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law,—
When it may hap some painter, much in vogue
Throughout our city nutritive of arts,
Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,
And manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Afford my lords their Holy Family,—
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How such a painter sets himself to paint?
Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe
A-journeying to Egypt, prove the piece:
Why, first he sedulously practiseth,
This painter,—girding loin and lighting lamp,—
On what may nourish eye, make facile hand;
Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so)
From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk
Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves,—
This Luca or this Carlo or the like.
To him the bones their inmost secret yield,
Each notch and nodule signify their use:
On him the muscles turn, in triple tier,
And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man
"Familiarize thee with our play that lifts
"Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm and foot!"
—Ensuring due correctness in the nude.
Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know!
He,—to art's surface rising from her depth,—
If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found,
May simulate a Joseph, (happy chance!)—
Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow,
Loseth no involution, cheek or chap,
Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives!
Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse

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