Citatepedia^®.com

Your canine teeth can take you to the grave.

Sicilian proverbs
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

All I Want For Christmas (Is My Two Front Teeth)

(Donald Yetter Gardner)
All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth
My two front teeth, My two front teeth
Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth
Then I could wish you, "Merry Christmas"
It seems so long since I could say
"Sister, Susie sitting on a thistle!"
Gosh, oh gee, how happy Id be, if I could only whistle
All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth
My two front teeth, My two front teeth
Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth
Then I could wish you, "Merry Christmas"
All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth
My two front teeth, My two front teeth
Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth
Then I could wish you, "Merry Christmas"
It seems so long since I could say
"Sister, Susie sitting on a thistle!"
Gosh, oh gee, how happy Id be, if I could only whistle
(All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth)
(Two front teeth), (two front teeth)
Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth
Then I could wish you, "Merry Christmas"
--- Instrumental ---
It seems so long since I could say
"Sister, Susie sitting on a thistle!"
Gosh, oh gee, how happy Id be, if I could only whistle
All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth
Two front teeth, My two front teeth
Gee, if I could only have my two front teeth
Then I could wish you, "Merry Christmas"...

song performed by George Strait
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Murrow Turning Over In His Grave

All the sainted sinners
They pay handsomely
And eventually?
They make the weapons
And they run the prisons
And they sell the justice
Cause being guilty is
Just good business
And well be standing on
The borderline
Aint no one there gonna
Stop it now
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Better watch out
Murrow turning over in his grave
Hes gonna turn wild
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Better watch out
Murrow turning over in his grave
Hes gonna run wild
Half-closed eyes
And the countrys deadly
Do you feel the ooze as your brain drains out
From your pneumatic drills and sharpening knives
Blood in the sky
Are you dead or alive?
All the restless people and the bitter green
Well it fakes this gold, makes the spirit mean
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Better watch out
Murrow turning over in his grave
Hes gonna turn wild
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Better watch out
Murrow turning over in his grave
Hes gonna run wild

song performed by Fleetwood Mac
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Nun in FRiar Small-Bro's Grave... Yard

The midnight clings to dwarfish kings
While robot drones, adorning thrones,
Kneel, bowing to the Old...Guard.
Arrhythmic clocks and wooden box
Grace FRiar Small-Bro's grave...yard.

The diplohacks, in melting wax,
Are swept along, a thriving throng,
Just dying for a life...guard.
And Nun, alone, has beached their bones
In FRiar Small-Bro's grave...yard.

Beyond the streams, a raven screams
At loser fish that swarm and swish;
Nun gently drips her dreams...jarred.
There are no thanks along the banks
Of FRiar Small-Bro's grave...yard.

While FRiar smiles and prowls the aisles
The hierarch obeys his bark;
His maw is oozing pure...lard.
He tells you who and what to do
In FRiar Small-Bro's grave...yard.

Well, FRiar's pets are in a sweat;
He calls the tunes near burning dunes
And taps his cloven feet...charred.
They roast in rooms within the tombs
In FRiar Small-Bro's grave...yard.

His myrmidons, they drool and fawn
While chanting verse near FRiar's hearse -
Extolling, wild, the van...guard.
Remote controls promote the trolls
In FRiar Small-Bro's grave...yard.

With faces straight, in bent debate,
They compromise their empty lies
With any passing re...tard.
Grey zombies groom white flies in bloom
In FRiar Small-Bro's grave...yard.

With ghouls, unlearned, no stone's unturned,
They burnish blame with Nun's proud name
And leave the midnight sky... scarred.
They raise their hats to copy cats
In FRiar Small-Bro's grave...yard.

The rumours spread amongst the dead -
Nun marks the place with saving grace,

[...] Read more

poem by Terry O'Leary
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

With Teeth

But she will not let you go
But this time Im not coming back
She will not let you go
But this time Im not coming back
Keeps holding on
She will not let you go
Keeps holding on and on
She will not let you go
No, no, no, no, no!
With teeth
With teeth
With teeth
With teeth
I cannot go through this again /x8
No, no, no, no, no!
With teeth
With teeth
With teeth
With teeth
Youve finally found the place where you belong
It comes on strong
She makes you hard
The rules have changed, the line begins to blur
To what you were
Wave goodbye
With teeth
With teeth
With teeth
With teeth
And it runs deeper than you dare to dream it could be
The black seal
She makes you better than anything youve tried
Its in her kiss
She comes along
She gets inside

song performed by Nine Inch Nails
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Ghost - Book IV

Coxcombs, who vainly make pretence
To something of exalted sense
'Bove other men, and, gravely wise,
Affect those pleasures to despise,
Which, merely to the eye confined,
Bring no improvement to the mind,
Rail at all pomp; they would not go
For millions to a puppet-show,
Nor can forgive the mighty crime
Of countenancing pantomime;
No, not at Covent Garden, where,
Without a head for play or player,
Or, could a head be found most fit,
Without one player to second it,
They must, obeying Folly's call,
Thrive by mere show, or not at all
With these grave fops, who, (bless their brains!)
Most cruel to themselves, take pains
For wretchedness, and would be thought
Much wiser than a wise man ought,
For his own happiness, to be;
Who what they hear, and what they see,
And what they smell, and taste, and feel,
Distrust, till Reason sets her seal,
And, by long trains of consequences
Insured, gives sanction to the senses;
Who would not (Heaven forbid it!) waste
One hour in what the world calls Taste,
Nor fondly deign to laugh or cry,
Unless they know some reason why;
With these grave fops, whose system seems
To give up certainty for dreams,
The eye of man is understood
As for no other purpose good
Than as a door, through which, of course,
Their passage crowding, objects force,
A downright usher, to admit
New-comers to the court of Wit:
(Good Gravity! forbear thy spleen;
When I say Wit, I Wisdom mean)
Where (such the practice of the court,
Which legal precedents support)
Not one idea is allow'd
To pass unquestion'd in the crowd,
But ere it can obtain the grace
Of holding in the brain a place,
Before the chief in congregation
Must stand a strict examination.
Not such as those, who physic twirl,
Full fraught with death, from every curl;

[...] Read more

poem by Charles Churchill
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Giaour

No breath of air to break the wave
That rolls below the Athenian's grave,
That tomb which, gleaming o'er the cliff
First greets the homeward-veering skiff
High o'er the land he saved in vain;
When shall such Hero live again?

Fair clime! where every season smiles
Benignant o'er those blesséd isles,
Which, seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lend to lonliness delight.
There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the Eastern wave:
And if at times a transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,
Or sweep one blossom from the trees,
How welcome is each gentle air
That waves and wafts the odours there!
For there the Rose, o'er crag or vale,
Sultana of the Nightingale,

The maid for whom his melody,
His thousand songs are heard on high,
Blooms blushing to her lover's tale:
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows,
Far from winters of the west,
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by Nature given
In soft incense back to Heaven;
And gratefu yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.
And many a summer flower is there,
And many a shade that Love might share,
And many a grotto, meant by rest,
That holds the pirate for a guest;
Whose bark in sheltering cove below
Lurks for the pasiing peaceful prow,
Till the gay mariner's guitar
Is heard, and seen the Evening Star;

Then stealing with the muffled oar,
Far shaded by the rocky shore,
Rush the night-prowlers on the prey,
And turns to groan his roudelay.
Strande—that where Nature loved to trace,
As if for Gods, a dwelling place,

[...] Read more

poem by Byron (1813)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Giaour: A Fragment Of A Turkish Tale

No breath of air to break the wave
That rolls below the Athenian's grave,
That tomb which, gleaming o'er the cliff
First greets the homeward-veering skiff
High o'er the land he saved in vain;
When shall such Hero live again?

Fair clime! where every season smiles
Benignant o'er those blesséd isles,
Which, seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lend to lonliness delight.
There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the Eastern wave:
And if at times a transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,
Or sweep one blossom from the trees,
How welcome is each gentle air
That waves and wafts the odours there!
For there the Rose, o'er crag or vale,
Sultana of the Nightingale,

The maid for whom his melody,
His thousand songs are heard on high,
Blooms blushing to her lover's tale:
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows,
Far from winters of the west,
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by Nature given
In soft incense back to Heaven;
And gratefu yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.
And many a summer flower is there,
And many a shade that Love might share,
And many a grotto, meant by rest,
That holds the pirate for a guest;
Whose bark in sheltering cove below
Lurks for the pasiing peaceful prow,
Till the gay mariner's guitar
Is heard, and seen the Evening Star;
Then stealing with the muffled oar,
Far shaded by the rocky shore,
Rush the night-prowlers on the prey,
And turns to groan his roudelay.
Strande-that where Nature loved to trace,
As if for Gods, a dwelling place,
And every charm and grace hath mixed

[...] Read more

poem by Byron
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Zenana

WHAT is there that the world hath not
Gathered in yon enchanted spot?
Where, pale, and with a languid eye,
The fair Sultana listlessly
Leans on her silken couch, and dreams
Of mountain airs, and mountain streams.
Sweet though the music float around,
It wants the old familiar sound;

And fragrant though the flowers are breathing,
From far and near together wreathing,
They are not those she used to wear,
Upon the midnight of her hair.—

She's very young, and childhood's days
With all their old remembered ways,
The empire of her heart contest
With love, that is so new a guest;
When blushing with her Murad near,
Half timid bliss, half sweetest fear,
E'en the beloved past is dim,
Past, present, future, merge in him.
But he, the warrior and the chief,
His hours of happiness are brief;
And he must leave Nadira's side
To woo and win a ruder bride;

Sought, sword in hand and spur on heel,
The fame, that weds with blood and steel.
And while from Delhi far away,
His youthful bride pines through the day,
Weary and sad: thus when again
He seeks to bind love's loosen'd chain;
He finds the tears are scarcely dry
Upon a cheek whose bloom is faded,
The very flush of victory
Is, like the brow he watches, shaded.
A thousand thoughts are at her heart,
His image paramount o'er all,
Yet not all his, the tears that start,
As mournful memories recall
Scenes of another home, which yet
That fond young heart can not forget.
She thinks upon that place of pride,
Which frowned upon the mountain's side;

While round it spread the ancient plain,
Her steps will never cross again.
And near those mighty temples stand,
The miracles of mortal hand,

[...] Read more

poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Gravedigger

Cyrus Jones 1810 to 1913,
Cyrus Jones 1810 to 1913
Made his great grandchildren believe you could live to 100 and 3
Made his great grandchildren believe
A 100 and 3, is forever when you're just a little kid so
You could live to a hundred and three
Cyrus Jones lived forever
A hundred and three is forever when you're just a little kid
So Cyrus Jones lived forever
Gravedigger
When you dig my grave
Gravedigger
Could you make it shallow
When you dig my grave
So that I can feel the rain
Could you make it shallow
Gravedigger
So that I can feel the rain
Gravedigger
Muriel Stonewall 1903 to 1954,
She lost both of her babies in the second great war,
Muriel Stonewall
Now you should never have to watch as your only children are lowered into the ground
1903 to 1954
I mean
She lost both of her babies in the second great war
Never have to bury your own babies
Now you should never have to watch
Your only children lowered in the ground
Gravedigger
I mean you should never have to bury your own babies
When you dig my grave
Could you make it shallow
Gravedigger
So that I can feel the rain
When you dig my grave
Gravedigger
Could you make it shallow
So that I can feel the rain
Ring around the Rosy
Gravedigger
Pocket full of posies
Ashes to ashes
Ring around the rosey
We all fall down
Pocket full of posey
Ashes to ashes
Gravedigger
We all fall down
When you dig my grave

[...] Read more

song performed by Dave Matthews Band
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Jesus Christ

Written by Woodie Guthrie
One, two, three, four
Well Jesus was a man
Who traveled through the land
A hard working man and brave
Well he said to the rich 'Give your money to the poor'
For they layed Jesus Christ in his grave
Hale, halelujah
Hale, halelujah
Hale, halelujah
For they layed Jesus Christ is his grave
Well he went to the preacher
He went to the law
And told them all the same
He said sell all your jewelery and give it to the poor
For they layed Jesus Christ in his grave
Hale, halelujah
Hale, halelujah
Hale, halelujah
For they layed Jesus Christ in his grave
When Jesus came to town all the working folks around
Believed what he did say
Well the bankers and the preachers
They nailed him on a cross
For they layed Jesus Christ in his grave
And [hard] working people
They followed him around
They sung and shouted gay
Well the cops and the soldiers
They nailed him in the head
And they layed Jesus Christ in his grave
Oh, hale, halelujah
Hale, halelujah
Hale, halelujah
For they layed Jesus Christ in his grave
Hale, halelujah
Hale, halelujah
Hale, halelujah
For they layed Jesus Christ in his grave
Well this song was written in New York City
A rich man, preacher and slave
Well if Jesus was to preach while he preached in Galilee
They would lay Jesus Christ in his grave
One, two, three, four!
Hale, halelujah
Hale, halelujah
Hale, halelujah
For they layed Jesus Christ in his grave
Hale, halelujah
Hale, halelujah

[...] Read more

song performed by U2
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sixth Book

THE English have a scornful insular way
Of calling the French light. The levity
Is in the judgment only, which yet stands;
For say a foolish thing but oft enough,
(And here's the secret of a hundred creeds,–
Men get opinions as boys learn to spell,
By re-iteration chiefly) the same thing
Shall pass at least for absolutely wise,
And not with fools exclusively. And so,
We say the French are light, as if we said
The cat mews, or the milch-cow gives us milk:
Say rather, cats are milked, and milch cows mew,
For what is lightness but inconsequence,
Vague fluctuation 'twixt effect and cause,
Compelled by neither? Is a bullet light,
That dashes from the gun-mouth, while the eye
Winks, and the heart beats one, to flatten itself
To a wafer on the white speck on a wall
A hundred paces off? Even so direct,
So sternly undivertible of aim,
Is this French people.
All idealists
Too absolute and earnest, with them all
The idea of a knife cuts real flesh;
And still, devouring the safe interval
Which Nature placed between the thought and act,
They threaten conflagration to the world
And rush with most unscrupulous logic on
Impossible practice. Set your orators
To blow upon them with loud windy mouths
Through watchword phrases, jest or sentiment,
Which drive our burley brutal English mobs
Like so much chaff, whichever way they blow,–
This light French people will not thus be driven.
They turn indeed; but then they turn upon
Some central pivot of their thought and choice,
And veer out by the force of holding fast.
–That's hard to understand, for Englishmen
Unused to abstract questions, and untrained
To trace the involutions, valve by valve,
In each orbed bulb-root of a general truth,
And mark what subtly fine integument
Divides opposed compartments. Freedom's self
Comes concrete to us, to be understood,
Fixed in a feudal form incarnately
To suit our ways of thought and reverence,
The special form, with us, being still the thing.
With us, I say, though I'm of Italy
My mother's birth and grave, by father's grave
And memory; let it be,–a poet's heart

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Canto the Second

I
Oh ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,
It mends their morals, never mind the pain:
The best of mothers and of educations
In Juan's case were but employ'd in vain,
Since, in a way that's rather of the oddest, he
Became divested of his native modesty.

II
Had he but been placed at a public school,
In the third form, or even in the fourth,
His daily task had kept his fancy cool,
At least, had he been nurtured in the north;
Spain may prove an exception to the rule,
But then exceptions always prove its worth -—
A lad of sixteen causing a divorce
Puzzled his tutors very much, of course.

III
I can't say that it puzzles me at all,
If all things be consider'd: first, there was
His lady-mother, mathematical,
A—never mind; his tutor, an old ass;
A pretty woman (that's quite natural,
Or else the thing had hardly come to pass);
A husband rather old, not much in unity
With his young wife—a time, and opportunity.

IV
Well—well, the world must turn upon its axis,
And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails,
And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails;
The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us,
The priest instructs, and so our life exhales,
A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame,
Fighting, devotion, dust,—perhaps a name.

V
I said that Juan had been sent to Cadiz -—
A pretty town, I recollect it well -—
'T is there the mart of the colonial trade is
(Or was, before Peru learn'd to rebel),
And such sweet girls—I mean, such graceful ladies,
Their very walk would make your bosom swell;
I can't describe it, though so much it strike,
Nor liken it—I never saw the like:

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

I Really Mish My Teesh

I always looked after them whilst growing up,
Until I was about twelve years old,
Now at night they are stored in a cup,
The very thought of that leaves me so cold.

I started adulthood with 32 teeth,
All perfect in every way,
White on top, the same underneath,
Not one of them showed signs of decay.

I brushed them on occasion if I felt the need,
But mostly I left them alone,
Mainly after a bevy or perhaps a feed,
Main thing is they were all my own.

Dental hygiene was there but it wasn't great,
But so what, they weren't that bad,
Despite all the warnings I have to now state,
My attitude was totally mad.

I kept being told I had really bad breath,
But I never took heed of the link,
When they said in truth it smells of death,
I blamed it on the fags and the drink.

I ignored the warnings they were under attack,
A decision I would live to regret,
Before I knew it they were covered in plaque,
With oral problems I was now beset.

I kept getting toothache time and again,
It's an affliction that is truly ill gotten,
How did I manage to stand that pain,
Knowing it was my teeth, which were rotten.

The sweet things the booze and the cigarettes,
Had left my teeth in tatters,
It's entirely my fault as nobody forgets,
Looking after them should be all that matters.

I could no longer smile, as I felt so ashamed,
My teeth were worn out and black,
My gums were sore and terribly inflamed,
Too far gone to find a way back.

I couldn't enjoy my food any more,
Cold drinks were a thing of the past,
Eating anything had became such a chore,
I now wish I had made my teeth last.

[...] Read more

poem by Bri Mar
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Idea Track

Dear Hugh Miller
Ive thought it through for a while but it doesnt get any easier
And three months on in this bad design wont make it feel any easier
Your grave, its your grave
Dear Hugh Miller
Its four months now from when we started and nothing feels much easier.
I sit and stare in a cork tiled room and it doesnt get much easier.
Your grave, its your grave
Pretend it works a while, its transmitted live
Pretend it works a while (you dont try)
Pretend it works a while, its transmitted live
Pretend it works a while (dont try)
Dear Hugh Miller,
its four months now from when we started and nothing feels much easier.
I sit and stare in a cork tiled room and it doesnt get much easier.
Your grave, its your grave
Pretend it works a while, its transmitted live
Pretend it works a while (you dont try)
Pretend it works a while, its transmitted live
Pretend it works a while (dont try)
Your grave, its your grave
Pretend it works a while, its transmitted live
Pretend it works a while (you dont try)
Pretend it works a while, its transmitted live
Pretend it works a while (dont try)
I dont care if I dont have an idea track, its an idea track, its an idea
I dont care if I dont have an idea track, its an idea track, its an idea
Your grave, its your grave.

song performed by Idlewild
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Fall of Usher

An elegy on Edgar Allan Poe

"Thou wert the Morning Star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled;
But, having died, thou art like Hesperus giving
New splendor to the dead." - Plato's Aster.

"Thou art gone to the grave!" but thy spirit is shining,
And singing afar in the Realms of the Blest ;
While the living are left by thy cold grave reclining,
And mourning for thee while they long for thy rest---
Left mourning for thee while they long for thy rest!

"Thou art gone to the grave!" thou art gone where thy slumber
No more shall be broken by sorrow or pain---
Soon to rise with that host which no mortal can number,
To lie down no more in that Valley again!
No more to lie down in that Valley again!

"Thou art gone to the grave!" there is none can restore thee,
Or bring thee again from that Silent Abode !
But the Conqueror of Death went to dwell there before thee,
And He has prepared thee the way to thy God!
Prepared thee the way to thy Beautiful God !

"Thou art gone to the grave!" thou art silently sleeping
A sleep which no sorrow shall ever molest;
And, in longing for which, my poor heart now is keeping
This silent lament in its grave in my breast!
Like Shelley for Keats, in its grave in my breast!

"Thou art gone to the grave!" let the dark Weeping Willow
Bend over thy grave where thy beauty was laid!
While thy form, thus reclined on the earth for its pillow,
Shall live in the Spring-flowers which bloom at thy head---
To feed the young Butterflies born at thy head.

"Thou art gone to the grave!" where the Violets are springing,
And feeding upon thee above the damp sod,
Now thy Pandemos mourns, while thy spirit is singing,
And drinking delight from the Fountains of God ---
With thine Ullalume lost from the Fountains of God.

poem by Thomas Holley Chivers
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Dirge of Joy

Oh! this is a joyful dirge, my friends, and this is a hymn of praise;
And this is a clamour of Victory, and a pæan of Ancient Days.
It isn’t a Yelp of the Battlefield; nor a Howl of the Bounding Wave,
But an ode to the Things that the War has Killed, and a lay of the Festive Grave.
’Tis a triolet of the Tomb, you bet, and a whoop because of Despair,
And it’s sung as I stand on my hoary head and wave my legs in the air!
Oh! I dance on the grave of the Suffragette (I dance on my hands and dome),
And the Sanctity-of-the-Marriage-Tie and the Breaking-Up-of-the-Home.
And I dance on the grave of the weird White-Slave that died when the war began;
And Better-Protection-for-Women-and-Girls, and Men-Made-Laws-for-Man!

Oh, I dance on the Liberal Lady’s grave and the Labour Woman’s, too;
And the grave of the Female lie and shriek, with a dance that is wild and new.
And my only regret in this song-a-let as I dance over dale and hill,
Is the Yarn-of-the-Wife and the Tale-of-the-Girl that never a war can kill.

Oh, I dance on the grave of the want-ter-write, and I dance on the Tomb of the Sneer,
And poet-and-author-and-critic, too, who used to be great round here.
But “Old Mother Often” (“Mother of Ten”) and “Parent” escaped from the grave—
And “Pro Bono Publico” liveth again, as “Victis,” or “Honour the Brave.”

Oh, lightly I danced upon Politics’ grave where the Friend of the Candidate slept,
And over the Female Political Devil, oh wildly I bounded and leapt.
But this dance shall be nothing compared with the dance of the spook of the writer who sings
On the grave of the bard and the Bulletin’s grave, out there at the Finish of Things!

poem by Henry Lawson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Brothers

'These Tourists, heaven preserve us! needs must live
A profitable life: some glance along,
Rapid and gay, as if the earth were air,
And they were butterflies to wheel about
Long as the summer lasted: some, as wise,
Perched on the forehead of a jutting crag,
Pencil in hand and book upon the knee,
Will look and scribble, scribble on and look,
Until a man might travel twelve stout miles,
Or reap an acre of his neighbour's corn.
But, for that moping Son of Idleness,
Why can he tarry 'yonder'?--In our churchyard
Is neither epitaph nor monument,
Tombstone nor name--only the turf we tread
And a few natural graves.'
To Jane, his wife,
Thus spake the homely Priest of Ennerdale.
It was a July evening; and he sate
Upon the long stone-seat beneath the eaves
Of his old cottage,--as it chanced, that day,
Employed in winter's work. Upon the stone
His wife sate near him, teasing matted wool,
While, from the twin cards toothed with glittering wire,
He fed the spindle of his youngest child,
Who, in the open air, with due accord
Of busy hands and back-and-forward steps,
Her large round wheel was turning. Towards the field
In which the Parish Chapel stood alone,
Girt round with a bare ring of mossy wall,
While half an hour went by, the Priest had sent
Many a long look of wonder: and at last,
Risen from his seat, beside the snow-white ridge
Of carded wool which the old man had piled
He laid his implements with gentle care,
Each in the other locked; and, down the path
That from his cottage to the church-yard led,
He took his way, impatient to accost
The Stranger, whom he saw still lingering there.
'Twas one well known to him in former days,
A Shepherd-lad; who ere his sixteenth year
Had left that calling, tempted to entrust
His expectations to the fickle winds
And perilous waters; with the mariners
A fellow-mariner;--and so had fared
Through twenty seasons; but he had been reared
Among the mountains, and he in his heart
Was half a shepherd on the stormy seas.
Oft in the piping shrouds had Leonard heard
The tones of waterfalls, and inland sounds
Of caves and trees:--and, when the regular wind

[...] Read more

poem by William Wordsworth
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Berenice by edgar allan poe

MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that arch, -as distinct too, yet as intimately blended. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow! How is it that from beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness? -from the covenant of peace a simile of sorrow? But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.

My baptismal name is Egaeus; that of my family I will not mention. Yet there are no towers in the land more time-honored than my gloomy, gray, hereditary halls. Our line has been called a race of visionaries; and in many striking particulars -in the character of the family mansion -in the frescos of the chief saloon -in the tapestries of the dormitories -in the chiselling of some buttresses in the armory -but more especially in the gallery of antique paintings -in the fashion of the library chamber -and, lastly, in the very peculiar nature of the library's contents, there is more than sufficient evidence to warrant the belief.

The recollections of my earliest years are connected with that chamber, and with its volumes -of which latter I will say no more. Here died my mother. Herein was I born. But it is mere idleness to say that I had not lived before -that the soul has no previous existence. You deny it? -let us not argue the matter. Convinced myself, I seek not to convince. There is, however, a remembrance of aerial forms -of spiritual and meaning eyes -of sounds, musical yet sad -a remembrance which will not be excluded; a memory like a shadow, vague, variable, indefinite, unsteady; and like a shadow, too, in the impossibility of my getting rid of it while the sunlight of my reason shall exist.

In that chamber was I born. Thus awaking from the long night of what seemed, but was not, nonentity, at once into the very regions of fairy-land -into a palace of imagination -into the wild dominions of monastic thought and erudition -it is not singular that I gazed around me with a startled and ardent eye -that I loitered away my boyhood in books, and dissipated my youth in reverie; but it is singular that as years rolled away, and the noon of manhood found me still in the mansion of my fathers -it is wonderful what stagnation there fell upon the springs of my life -wonderful how total an inversion took place in the character of my commonest thought. The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn, -not the material of my every-day existence-but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself.

Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up together in my paternal halls. Yet differently we grew -I ill of health, and buried in gloom -she agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy; hers the ramble on the hill-side -mine the studies of the cloister -I living within my own heart, and addicted body and soul to the most intense and painful meditation -she roaming carelessly through life with no thought of the shadows in her path, or the silent flight of the raven-winged hours. Berenice! -I call upon her name -Berenice! -and from the gray ruins of memory a thousand tumultuous recollections are startled at the sound! Ah! vividly is her image before me now, as in the early days of her light-heartedness and joy! Oh! gorgeous yet fantastic beauty! Oh! sylph amid the shrubberies of Arnheim! -Oh! Naiad among its fountains! -and then -then all is mystery and terror, and a tale which should not be told. Disease -a fatal disease -fell like the simoom upon her frame, and, even while I gazed upon her, the spirit of change swept, over her, pervading her mind, her habits, and her character, and, in a manner the most subtle and terrible, disturbing even the identity of her person! Alas! the destroyer came and went, and the victim -where was she, I knew her not -or knew her no longer as Berenice.

Among the numerous train of maladies superinduced by that fatal and primary one which effected a revolution of so horrible a kind in the moral and physical being of my cousin, may be mentioned as the most distressing and obstinate in its nature, a species of epilepsy not unfrequently terminating in trance itself -trance very nearly resembling positive dissolution, and from which her manner of recovery was in most instances, startlingly abrupt. In the mean time my own disease -for I have been told that I should call it by no other appelation -my own disease, then, grew rapidly upon me, and assumed finally a monomaniac character of a novel and extraordinary form -hourly and momently gaining vigor -and at length obtaining over me the most incomprehensible ascendancy. This monomania, if I must so term it, consisted in a morbid irritability of those properties of the mind in metaphysical science termed the attentive. It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe.

To muse for long unwearied hours with my attention riveted to some frivolous device on the margin, or in the topography of a book; to become absorbed for the better part of a summer's day, in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry, or upon the door; to lose myself for an entire night in watching the steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a fire; to dream away whole days over the perfume of a flower; to repeat monotonously some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind; to lose all sense of motion or physical existence, by means of absolute bodily quiescence long and obstinately persevered in; -such were a few of the most common and least pernicious vagaries induced by a condition of the mental faculties, not, indeed, altogether unparalleled, but certainly bidding defiance to anything like analysis or explanation.

Yet let me not be misapprehended. -The undue, earnest, and morbid attention thus excited by objects in their own nature frivolous, must not be confounded in character with that ruminating propensity common to all mankind, and more especially indulged in by persons of ardent imagination. It was not even, as might be at first supposed, an extreme condition or exaggeration of such propensity, but primarily and essentially distinct and different. In the one instance, the dreamer, or enthusiast, being interested by an object usually not frivolous, imperceptibly loses sight of this object in a wilderness of deductions and suggestions issuing therefrom, until, at the conclusion of a day dream often replete with luxury, he finds the incitamentum or first cause of his musings entirely vanished and forgotten. In my case the primary object was invariably frivolous, although assuming, through the medium of my distempered vision, a refracted and unreal importance. Few deductions, if any, were made; and those few pertinaciously returning in upon the original object as a centre. The meditations were never pleasurable; and, at the termination of the reverie, the first cause, so far from being out of sight, had attained that supernaturally exaggerated interest which was the prevailing feature of the disease. In a word, the powers of mind more particularly exercised were, with me, as I have said before, the attentive, and are, with the day-dreamer, the speculative.

My books, at this epoch, if they did not actually serve to irritate the disorder, partook, it will be perceived, largely, in their imaginative and inconsequential nature, of the characteristic qualities of the disorder itself. I well remember, among others, the treatise of the noble Italian Coelius Secundus Curio 'de Amplitudine Beati Regni dei'; St. Austin's great work, the 'City of God'; and Tertullian 'de Carne Christi, ' in which the paradoxical sentence 'Mortuus est Dei filius; credible est quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit; certum est quia impossibile est' occupied my undivided time, for many weeks of laborious and fruitless investigation.

Thus it will appear that, shaken from its balance only by trivial things, my reason bore resemblance to that ocean-crag spoken of by Ptolemy Hephestion, which steadily resisting the attacks of human violence, and the fiercer fury of the waters and the winds, trembled only to the touch of the flower called Asphodel. And although, to a careless thinker, it might appear a matter beyond doubt, that the alteration produced by her unhappy malady, in the moral condition of Berenice, would afford me many objects for the exercise of that intense and abnormal meditation whose nature I have been at some trouble in explaining, yet such was not in any degree the case. In the lucid intervals of my infirmity, her calamity, indeed, gave me pain, and, taking deeply to heart that total wreck of her fair and gentle life, I did not fall to ponder frequently and bitterly upon the wonder-working means by which so strange a revolution had been so suddenly brought to pass. But these reflections partook not of the idiosyncrasy of my disease, and were such as would have occurred, under similar circumstances, to the ordinary mass of mankind. True to its own character, my disorder revelled in the less important but more startling changes wrought in the physical frame of Berenice -in the singular and most appalling distortion of her personal identity.

During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings with me, had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind. Through the gray of the early morning -among the trellised shadows of the forest at noonday -and in the silence of my library at night, she had flitted by my eyes, and I had seen her -not as the living and breathing Berenice, but as the Berenice of a dream -not as a being of the earth, earthy, but as the abstraction of such a being-not as a thing to admire, but to analyze -not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most abstruse although desultory speculation. And now -now I shuddered in her presence, and grew pale at her approach; yet bitterly lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called to mind that she had loved me long, and, in an evil moment, I spoke to her of marriage.

And at length the period of our nuptials was approaching, when, upon an afternoon in the winter of the year, -one of those unseasonably warm, calm, and misty days which are the nurse of the beautiful Halcyon*, -I sat, (and sat, as I thought, alone,) in the inner apartment of the library. But uplifting my eyes I saw that Berenice stood before me.

*For as Jove, during the winter season, gives twice seven days of warmth, men have called this clement and temperate time the nurse of the beautiful Halcyon -Simonides.

Was it my own excited imagination -or the misty influence of the atmosphere -or the uncertain twilight of the chamber -or the gray draperies which fell around her figure -that caused in it so vacillating and indistinct an outline? I could not tell. She spoke no word, I -not for worlds could I have uttered a syllable. An icy chill ran through my frame; a sense of insufferable anxiety oppressed me; a consuming curiosity pervaded my soul; and sinking back upon the chair, I remained for some time breathless and motionless, with my eyes riveted upon her person. Alas! its emaciation was excessive, and not one vestige of the former being, lurked in any single line of the contour. My burning glances at length fell upon the face.

The forehead was high, and very pale, and singularly placid; and the once jetty hair fell partially over it, and overshadowed the hollow temples with innumerable ringlets now of a vivid yellow, and Jarring discordantly, in their fantastic character, with the reigning melancholy of the countenance. The eyes were lifeless, and lustreless, and seemingly pupil-less, and I shrank involuntarily from their glassy stare to the contemplation of the thin and shrunken lips. They parted; and in a smile of peculiar meaning, the teeth of the changed Berenice disclosed themselves slowly to my view. Would to God that I had never beheld them, or that, having done so, I had died!

The shutting of a door disturbed me, and, looking up, I found that my cousin had departed from the chamber. But from the disordered chamber of my brain, had not, alas! departed, and would not be driven away, the white and ghastly spectrum of the teeth. Not a speck on their surface -not a shade on their enamel -not an indenture in their edges -but what that period of her smile had sufficed to brand in upon my memory. I saw them now even more unequivocally than I beheld them then. The teeth! -the teeth! -they were here, and there, and everywhere, and visibly and palpably before me; long, narrow, and excessively white, with the pale lips writhing about them, as in the very moment of their first terrible development. Then came the full fury of my monomania, and I struggled in vain against its strange and irresistible influence. In the multiplied objects of the external world I had no thoughts but for the teeth. For these I longed with a phrenzied desire. All other matters and all different interests became absorbed in their single contemplation. They -they alone were present to the mental eye, and they, in their sole individuality, became the essence of my mental life. I held them in every light. I turned them in every attitude. I surveyed their characteristics. I dwelt upon their peculiarities. I pondered upon their conformation. I mused upon the alteration in their nature. I shuddered as I assigned to them in imagination a sensitive and sentient power, and even when unassisted by the lips, a capability of moral expression. Of Mad'selle Salle it has been well said, 'que tous ses pas etaient des sentiments, ' and of Berenice I more seriously believed que toutes ses dents etaient des idees. Des idees! -ah here was the idiotic thought that destroyed me! Des idees! -ah therefore it was that I coveted them so madly! I felt that their possession could alone ever restore me to peace, in giving me back to reason.

And the evening closed in upon me thus-and then the darkness came, and tarried, and went -and the day again dawned -and the mists of a second night were now gathering around -and still I sat motionless in that solitary room; and still I sat buried in meditation, and still the phantasma of the teeth maintained its terrible ascendancy as, with the most vivid hideous distinctness, it floated about amid the changing lights and shadows of the chamber. At length there broke in upon my dreams a cry as of horror and dismay; and thereunto, after a pause, succeeded the sound of troubled voices, intermingled with many low moanings of sorrow, or of pain. I arose from my seat and, throwing open one of the doors of the library, saw standing out in the antechamber a servant maiden, all in tears, who told me that Berenice was -no more. She had been seized with epilepsy in the early morning, and now, at the closing in of the night, the grave was ready for its tenant, and all the preparations for the burial were completed.

I found myself sitting in the library, and again sitting there alone. It seemed that I had newly awakened from a confused and exciting dream. I knew that it was now midnight, and I was well aware that since the setting of the sun Berenice had been interred. But of that dreary period which intervened I had no positive -at least no definite comprehension. Yet its memory was replete with horror -horror more horrible from being vague, and terror more terrible from ambiguity. It was a fearful page in the record my existence, written all over with dim, and hideous, and unintelligible recollections. I strived to decypher them, but in vain; while ever and anon, like the spirit of a departed sound, the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seemed to be ringing in my ears. I had done a deed -what was it? I asked myself the question aloud, and the whispering echoes of the chamber answered me, 'what was it? '

On the table beside me burned a lamp, and near it lay a little box. It was of no remarkable character, and I had seen it frequently before, for it was the property of the family physician; but how came it there, upon my table, and why did I shudder in regarding it? These things were in no manner to be accounted for, and my eyes at length dropped to the open pages of a book, and to a sentence underscored therein. The words were the singular but simple ones of the poet Ebn Zaiat, 'Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas.' Why then, as I perused them, did the hairs of my head erect themselves on end, and the blood of my body become congealed within my veins?

There came a light tap at the library door, and pale as the tenant of a tomb, a menial entered upon tiptoe. His looks were wild with terror, and he spoke to me in a voice tremulous, husky, and very low. What said he? -some broken sentences I heard. He told of a wild cry disturbing the silence of the night -of the gathering together of the household-of a search in the direction of the sound; -and then his tones grew thrillingly distinct as he whispered me of a violated grave -of a disfigured body enshrouded, yet still breathing, still palpitating, still alive!

He pointed to garments; -they were muddy and clotted with gore. I spoke not, and he took me gently by the hand; -it was indented with the impress of human nails. He directed my attention to some object against the wall; -I looked at it for some minutes; -it was a spade. With a shriek I bounded to the table, and grasped the box that lay upon it. But I could not force it open; and in my tremor it slipped from my hands, and fell heavily, and burst into pieces; and from it, with a rattling sound, there rolled out some instruments of dental surgery, intermingled with thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking substances that were scattered to and fro about the floor.

poem by Erie Morganmaples
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Dream

'TWAS summer eve; the changeful beams still play'd
On the fir-bark and through the beechen shade;
Still with soft crimson glow'd each floating cloud;
Still the stream glitter'd where the willow bow'd;
Still the pale moon sate silent and alone,
Nor yet the stars had rallied round her throne;
Those diamond courtiers, who, while yet the West
Wears the red shield above his dying breast,
Dare not assume the loss they all desire,
Nor pay their homage to the fainter fire,
But wait in trembling till the Sun's fair light
Fading, shall leave them free to welcome Night!

So when some Chief, whose name through realms afar
Was still the watchword of succesful war,
Met by the fatal hour which waits for all,
Is, on the field he rallied, forced to fall,
The conquerors pause to watch his parting breath,
Awed by the terrors of that mighty death;
Nor dare the meed of victory to claim,
Nor lift the standard to a meaner name,
Till every spark of soul hath ebb'd away,
And leaves what was a hero, common clay.

Oh! Twilight! Spirit that dost render birth
To dim enchantments; melting Heaven with Earth,
Leaving on craggy hills and rumning streams
A softness like the atmosphere of dreams;
Thy hour to all is welcome! Faint and sweet
Thy light falls round the peasant's homeward feet,
Who, slow returning from his task of toil,
Sees the low sunset gild the cultured soil,
And, tho' such radliance round him brightly glows,
Marks the small spark his cottage window throws.
Still as his heart forestals his weary pace,
Fondly he dreams of each familiar face,
Recalls the treasures of his narrow life,
His rosy children, and his sunburnt wife,

To whom his coming is the chief event
Of simple days in cheerful labour spent.
The rich man's chariot hath gone whirling past,
And those poor cottagers have only cast
One careless glance on all that show of pride,
Then to their tasks turn'd quietly aside;
But him they wait for, him they welcome home,
Fond sentinels look forth to see him come;
The fagot sent for when the fire grew dim,
The frugal meal prepared, are all for him;
For him the watching of that sturdy boy,

[...] Read more

poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Rise Again

(instrumental intro)
Going to jamaica,
Warm and coral waters flow
There she goes
Sun kissed her body, in this magic feel love grow,
Love grows
Feel like letting go
Hey mr. saturday night
? ? right out the hole
It stops in a minute,
Its right down in it
Hey, were really back on a roll
I dont know why, I dont know why
Feel so good I could die, I could die
Great escape, Ill be there, by the skin of my teeth, on a wish and a prayer
With a head full of hammers, both feet in the grave, Im gonna stand Im gonna rise again
Dream time (lavinia? ? ),
Even though the odds are stacked, shes coming back
(moon monkeys barking? ) in a bitter chocolate glow,
There she goes, feel like letting go...
Hey, mr. cool jazz nights, let the fever go,
It stops in a minute, Im down in it
Hey, play it long and slow
I dont know why, I dont know why,
Feels so good I could die, I could die,
With a great escape, Ill be there, by the skin of my teeth on a wish and a prayer
With a head full of hammers, both feet in the grave, Im gonna stand Im gonna rise again
(instrumental)
With a great escape, Ill be there, by the skin of my teeth on a wish and a prayer
With a head full of hammers both feet in the grave, Im gonna stand Im gonna rise again
Ive been stricken, Ill be there, by the skin of my teeth on a wish and a prayer, and im
Not going down, both feet in the grave, Im gonna stand Im gonna rise again.
Dream time (lavinia? ? )
Feel like letting go.
(end!)

song performed by Ufo
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!