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A politician is like quicksilver if you try to put your finger on him, you will find nothing under it.

quote by Austin O'Malley
Added by Lucian Velea
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Quintetto

[To the tune of "Turning, turning, turning, as wheel goes round."]

RECITATIVE. MR. PAPERSTAMP:

Jack Horner's CHRISTMAS PIE my learned nurse
Interpreted to mean the public purse.
From thence a plum he drew. O happy Horner!
Who would not be ensconced in thy snug corner

THE FIVE:

While round the public board all eagerly we linger,
for what we can get we will try, try, try:
And we'll all have a finger, a finger, a finger,
We'll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.

MR. FEATHERNEST:

By my own poetic laws, I'm a dealer in applause
For those who don't deserve it, but will buy, buy
So round the court I linger, and thus I get a finget
A finger, finger, finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.

THE FIVE:

And we'll all have a finger, a finger, a finger,
We'll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.

MR. VAMP:

My share of pie to win, I will dash through thick and thin
And philosophy and liberty shall fly, fly, fly:
And truth and taste shall know, that their eve Iasting foe
Has a finger, finger, finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.

THE FIVE:

And we'll all have a finger, a finger, a finger,
We'll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.

MR. KILLTHEDEAD:

I'll make my verses rattle with the din of war and battle,

[...] Read more

poem by Thomas Love Peacock
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Quicksilver

[transcribed by naoyuki isogai]
Quicksilver, headed out for the creed
Quicksilver, hes gonna take on wheel
Quicksilver, shes a girl for me
In a pool of mercury...
Quicksilver, she pours, you can jaw
Quicksilver, where do you go man, go
Quicksilver, count for 1, 2, 3
In a pool of mercury...
Shes a girl in a million, }
Shes a girl in a billion, } x2
Shes a girl in a trillion, }
Shes a girl in a tree... }
Quicksilver, headed out for the creed
Quicksilver, this gonna take on wheel
Quicksilver, shes a girl for me
In a pool of mercury...
Oh, quicksilver!

song performed by Xtc
Added by Lucian Velea
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Quicksilver

[transcribed by naoyuki isogai]
Quicksilver, headed out for the creed
Quicksilver, hes gonna take on wheel
Quicksilver, shes a girl for me
In a pool of mercury...
Quicksilver, she pours, you can jaw
Quicksilver, where do you go man, go
Quicksilver, count for 1, 2, 3
In a pool of mercury...
Shes a girl in a million, }
Shes a girl in a billion, } x2
Shes a girl in a trillion, }
Shes a girl in a tree... }
Quicksilver, headed out for the creed
Quicksilver, this gonna take on wheel
Quicksilver, shes a girl for me
In a pool of mercury...
Oh, quicksilver!

song performed by Xtc
Added by Lucian Velea
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Quicksilver Rider

I see the raven's eyes,
and I see the lights
I saw the gold rush
San Francisco nights
I am the reader,
a palmist fly
I can see the future,
I can testify
I knew Attilla,
I met Genghis Khan
Drank with Napoleon,
held Nelson in my arms
Quicksilver rider
medicine man
A sign of faith
children of the damned
Quicksilver rider
salamander man
Prophet of the guises
with the world in his hands
I've known love
I've known pain
Death and sorrow
the mighty and the slain
I was created
in 10 BC
The sign of life
the sign of seed
I met Moses,
I know Jezebel
Partied with Nero
as Rome burned and fell
Quicksilver rider
medicine man
A sign of faith
children of the damned
Quicksilver rider
salamander man
Prophet of the guises
with the world in his hands
Solo
Rattlesnakes heads
and voodoo dolls
It's old religion
like old creole
I am the dust of
time and space
Your darkest nightmare
without a face
I saw sunrise

[...] Read more

song performed by Ufo
Added by Lucian Velea
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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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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It's Summer and The People Choose to Feel Loose

Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Until the people say they've had quite enough.
Just keep it up and finger poppin'.
Turn the heat up and let them burn the rug.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Don't stop the beat,
When the feet cranks up the fever.

It's Summer and the people choose to feel loose.
With flavor tasted to shake loose a caboose.
And groping sweaty bodies with whomever they choose.

Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Until the people say they've had quite enough.
Just keep it up and finger poppin'.

It's Summer and the people choose to feel loose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.

With flavor tasted to shake loose a caboose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Don't stop the beat,
When the feet cranks up the fever.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Do not stop it when it's rockin'.

It's Summer and the people choose to feel loose.
With flavor tasted to shake loose a caboose.
And groping sweaty bodies with whomever they choose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.

It's Summer and the people choose to feel loose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.

It's Summer and the people choose to feel loose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.

It's Summer and the people choose to feel loose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.

It's Summer and the people choose to feel loose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Do not stop it when it's rockin'.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
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Put The Finger On You

I put the finger on you
My hands all out of control
I cant stop it getting down on you
Its moving on its own accord
Yes, Ive got fire in my finger tips
Radiating onto you
I cant control it, cant even hold it
Its knocking on your door
And you know what its for
Chorus:
I put the finger right on you
I put the finger right on you
You put your finger on me too
Then I put the finger, I put the finger
Yeah I put the finger, I put the finger
I put the finger on you for sure
Its the key to unlocking your door, dont you know
Ive broken through your security
My hands aint tied no more, you better watch out
I cant control it, cant even hold it
Speaking up for pleasure
You can feel it on your ankle
Feel it on your knee
Feel it on your thigh
Can you feel me?
Chorus
I cant control it, cant even hold it
Sneaking up on your front door
You can feel it on your ankle
Feel it on your knee
Feel it on your thigh
Can you feel me?
Put it - right on you
Ill do it if you want me to
Can I put it?
I put the finger on you
I hit the spot

song performed by AC-DC
Added by Lucian Velea
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V. Count Guido Franceschini

Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of … why, 't is wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate … aie, aie, aie,
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all's over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short, I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I' the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O' the Franceschini's once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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
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I Am No Politician

I am no politician.
I am direct.
Every blemish and flaw I have,
I accept without regret.
I am not trying to win your approval
To represent your requests.
Nor will I disappoint you...
With deceit to later confess.

I am no politician.
Seeking a way to line my pockets.
I find that disgusting!
And I observe those who can not stop it!
Your quality of life...
With standards you behold.
Isn't my fault at all!
That your best interests,
They have sold!

You selected them to dismiss me.
To keep me and mine in check!
You elected them to suppress my dignity.
To keep my indentity distressed.
You chose them to divide and conquer.
By rules and laws
They clearly defied...
You now regret!
Why me...
You despise?

I am no politician!
My priorities are my happiness.
Not to masquerade with pretentions...
For purposes to make promises,
With intentions to forget.

I am no politician...
To trap you like prey.
And dangle you to capture...
As I make arrangements with others,
To take away the safety from your nests.
To portray in false charades.

I am no politician.
So voice your anger,
To those you believed...
Would come to your aid.
While on your knees you plead.

I am no politician!

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
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I Am

Well fire it up
Chop one out
Somebody's got to know
That I'm two days in
I got two days left to go
Cause I am Georgia
I am Memphis Tennesee
I am everything
Hollywood wants to be
I am love and I am hate
I'm your late night drunk debate
But you'll never put
Your finger on me
Have you ever seen the sun
Over the rocky mountains shinin
Or touched the sands
Of a southern Florida beach
Have you seen a grown man cry
Or a child that's slowly dying
Have you looked inside
To see al that you can see
And I am North and South Dakota
And New York City
I am everything Hollywood wants
To be
I am love an I am hate
And all the critics can debate
But they will never put a finger
On me
No you'll never put a finger on
Have you seen the northern falls
Or the midwest seasons changing
A Montana storm
Or a warm Kentucky rain
Have you heard the love that sings
Over the inner city sidewalks
Have you risen above
All that leads to hate
And I am Boston and D.C.
And all of Detroit city
I am everything
That Hollywood wants to be
I am southern rock-n-roll
Country and hip hop soul
And you'll never put a finger on me
I'm a father and and I'm a friend
I'm your brother till the end
But you'll never put your finger on me
I am only God knows why
Ill be a cowboy till I die

[...] Read more

song performed by Kid Rock
Added by Lucian Velea
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VII. Pompilia

I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.

All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—

[...] Read more

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

Do you see this Ring?
'T is Rome-work, made to match
(By Castellani's imitative craft)
Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn,
After a dropping April; found alive
Spark-like 'mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots
That roof old tombs at Chiusi: soft, you see,
Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There's one trick,
(Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device
And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold
As this was,—such mere oozings from the mine,
Virgin as oval tawny pendent tear
At beehive-edge when ripened combs o'erflow,—
To bear the file's tooth and the hammer's tap:
Since hammer needs must widen out the round,
And file emboss it fine with lily-flowers,
Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear.
That trick is, the artificer melts up wax
With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold
With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both,
Effects a manageable mass, then works:
But his work ended, once the thing a ring,
Oh, there's repristination! Just a spirt
O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face,
And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume;
While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains,
The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness,
Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:
Prime nature with an added artistry—
No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.
What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say;
A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.

Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss
I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about
By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since?
Examine it yourselves! I found this book,
Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just,
(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,
Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,
One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,
Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths,
Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time,
Toward Baccio's marble,—ay, the basement-ledge
O' the pedestal where sits and menaces
John of the Black Bands with the upright spear,
'Twixt palace and church,—Riccardi where they lived,
His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Can't Put My Finger On It

Is it alive, does it writhe
Can it survive under the sun?
I can't put my finger on it.
Is it green, is it red
Is it alive or is it dead
I can't put my finger on it
Scathe with a lathe
All the days in the past
I can't put my finger on it
Is it brown, is it white
Is it really outta sight
I can't put my finger on it
Can it squeal, does it squirm
If it's fresh will it burn?
I can't put my finger on it
Can it fly, will it try
If the wings are still wet?
I can't put my finger on it
Can it heal, is it real
Can it feel the threads of time?
I can't put my finger on it
Does it glow, will it shine
Does it leave a trail of slime
I can't put my finger on it
Are you surprised when I touch the dwarf inside?
(Repeat three times)
(Repeat first verse

song performed by Ween
Added by Lucian Velea
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I Can't Put My Finger On It

[chanting]
Is it alive, does it writhe
Can it survive under the sun?
I can't put my finger on it
Is it green, is it red
Is it alive or is it dead
I can't put my finger on it
Scathe with a lathe
All the days in the past
I can't put my finger on it
Is it brown, is it white
Is it really outta sight
I can't put my finger on it
Do you know what i'm saying?
Do you know what i'm saying, people?
Can it squeal, does it squirm
If it's fresh will it burn?
I can't put my finger on it
Can it fly, will it try
If the wings are still wet?
I can't put my finger on it
Can it heal, is it real
Can it feel the threads of time?
I can't put my finger on it
Does it glow, will it shine
Does it leave a trail of slime
I can't put my finger on it
I tell you one time...
Are you surprised when i touch the dwarf inside?
(repeat three times)
(repeat first verse)
Ha ha ha...oh yeah, oh yeah!

song performed by Ween
Added by Lucian Velea
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Love Is In Control

(finger on the trigger)
(Ive) hung around with big shots
Never knew love was in the sights
I guess I missed the target
Caught up in a different line of fire
But I know since Ive been aiming
For the sweetness in your soul
Your name is on the bullet
And its gettin ready to explode
Theres been a change inside my life
And I just wanna let you know
Ive got my finger on the trigger
Love is in control
Ive got my finger on the trigger
I aint lettin go
Bass line:
Baby, lets have some fun
A wont cha be my, my
Number one
Mama used to tell me
Girl, you better load your gun up right
She said ya, ya gotta come out smokin
Hit it with your best shot every time
Well I didnt understand her
til you walked right into range
I saw your love at twenty paces
And I new Id won the game
You better raise your heart up high
Or love will blow you right away
Ive got my finger on the trigger
Love is in control
Ive got my finger on the trigger
I aint lettin go
Ive got my finger on the trigger
Love is in control
Ive got my finger on the trigger
I aint lettin go
Leave off that safety catch
There aint no risk
Were gonna have some fun
Ive got cha, loves begun
So stay with me
Until the mornin sun
Youre superbullet number one
Bass line:
Baby, lets have some fun
A wont cha be my, my
Number one
Theres been a change inside
My life

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song performed by Donna Summer
Added by Lucian Velea
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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

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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VIII. Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator

Ah, my Giacinto, he's no ruddy rogue,
Is not Cinone? What, to-day we're eight?
Seven and one's eight, I hope, old curly-pate!
—Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,
Amo-as-avi-atum-are-ans,
Up to -aturus, person, tense, and mood,
Quies me cum subjunctivo (I could cry)
And chews Corderius with his morning crust!
Look eight years onward, and he's perched, he's perched
Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair,
Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?
—Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case
Like this, papa shall triturate full soon
To smooth Papinianian pulp!

It trots
Already through my head, though noon be now,
Does supper-time and what belongs to eve.
Dispose, O Don, o' the day, first work then play!
—The proverb bids. And "then" means, won't we hold
Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast,
Cinuolo's birth-night, Cinicello's own,
That makes gruff January grin perforce!
For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth
Escaping from so many hearts at once—
When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,
Jokes the hale grandsire,—such are just the sort
To go off suddenly,—he who hides the key
O' the box beneath his pillow every night,—
Which box may hold a parchment (someone thinks)
Will show a scribbled something like a name
"Cinino, Ciniccino," near the end,
"To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,
"Estates, tenements, hereditaments,
"When I decease as honest grandsire ought."
Wherefore—yet this one time again perhaps—
Shan't my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!
Then, uncles, one or the other, well i' the world,
May—drop in, merely?—trudge through rain and wind,
Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint
There's cookery in a certain dwelling-place!
Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,
Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,
And so find door, put galligaskin off
At entry of a decent domicile
Cornered in snug Condotti,—all for love,
All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!

Well,
Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp!

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,—
So things disguise themselves,—I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face
And know it again. Answer you? Then that means
Tell over twice what I, the first time, told
Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe,
Fronting you same three in this very room,
I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,
Who then … nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,
As good as laugh, what in a judge we style
Laughter—no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!
Only,—I think I apprehend the mood:
There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,
"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
"Well, he can say no other than what he says.
"We have been young, too,—come, there's greater guilt!
"Let him but decently disembroil himself,
"Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,—
"We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!
And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast
As if I were a phantom: now 't is—"Friend,
"Collect yourself!"—no laughing matter more—
"Counsel the Court in this extremity,
"Tell us again!"—tell that, for telling which,
I got the jocular piece of punishment,
Was sent to lounge a little in the place
Whence now of a sudden here you summon me
To take the intelligence from just—your lips!
You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,—
That she I helped eight months since to escape
Her husband, was retaken by the same,
Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,—
(I being disallowed to interfere,
Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,
For you and law were guardians quite enough
O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)—
And that he has butchered her accordingly,
As she foretold and as myself believed,—
And, so foretelling and believing so,
We were punished, both of us, the merry way:
Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?
Pompilia is only dying while I speak!
Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?
My masters, there's an old book, you should con
For strange adventures, applicable yet,

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