Citatepedia^®.com

Innocence does not find near so much protection as guilt.

quote by Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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

Protection

Night after night
I keep holding on
You say you love me
Then you leave me so lonely
Baby, I dont believe a word
Youre sayin
I think its all some evil game
Youre playin
Still all day long all I do is think
About ya
You got me believin that I cant
Live without ya
Well if ya want it, well here is
My confession
Baby, I cant help it, youre my obsession
Protection, thats what I need
I need protection, baby from your love
Protection, thats what I need
I need protection, baby from your love
I wait at home by my telephone
When I call your house, baby
Youre not home
Knock on the door and rush
Down the stairs
When I open up, baby youre
Not there
When were together and ya put
Your arms around me
Your love sweeps away all the
Confusion that surrounds me
You keep my mind
Forever, ever in doubt
You want me believin
That baby, I cant live without
Protection thats what I need
I need protection, baby from your love
Protection, thats what I need
I need protection, baby from your love
We stand alone, at my window
And stare out, at the shadows
Down below
I feel your fingers on my face
I want to stay, I want to run away
Protection thats what I need
I need protection, baby from your love
Protection, thats what I need
I need protection, baby from your love
Protection, thats what I need
I need protection, baby from your love
Protection, thats what I need

[...] Read more

song performed by Donna Summer
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Protection

Night after night
I keep holding on
You say you love me
Then you leave me so lonely
Baby I dont believe a word youre sayin
I think its all some evil game youre playin
Still all day long all I do is think about you
You got me believin that I cant live without you
Well if you want it, heres my confession
Baby I cant help it, youre my obsession
Protection, thats what I need
I need protection, baby, from your love
Protection, thats what I need
I need protection, baby, from your love
I wait at home by the telephone
When I call your house, baby, youre not there
Knock on the door and I rush down the stairs
When I open up, baby, youre not there
When were together
When were together and you put your arms around me
You keep my mind
Forever, ever in doubt
You want me believin
That, baby, I cant live without
Protection, thats what I need
I need protection, baby, from your love
Protection, thats what I need
I need protection, baby, from your love
We stand alone, at my window
And stare out, at the shadows down below
I feel your fingers on my face
I want to stay, I want to run away
Protection, thats what I need
I need protection, baby, from your love
Protection, thats what I need
I need protection, baby, from your love
Protection
Liner notes on lost masters bootleg cd:
Bruce springsteen and the e street band, the hit factory, new york city,
August 1, 1983. the full e street band completed take of song written for
Donna summer.

song performed by Bruce Springsteen
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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

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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Soul Protection

Johnnys got a job
Spreading the cure
Self employed
Hes a one man crusade
We want to give you your soul protection
Something inside
Big mistake
Spread the word
To the new generation
We want to give you your soul protection
One more night
One more dream
One more time
One more scream
One more heart
One more name
One more chance
For your soul protection.
Johnnys got pride
Ill pay it all back
Now he calls it
the poetry of motion
We want to give you your soul protection
Listen to this
This is life
Listen to your heart
And youre living under clock law
We want to give you your soul protection
Hide your fear
Hide your shame
Hide your tears
And hide your pain
Hide your face
Hide your name
Hide your need
For your soul protection
Everybodys scared
Big glass house
Dont throw stones
At your soul protection
We want to give you your soul protection
Johnnys got faith
Prays to god
Mention love
And he calls it nostalgia
We want to give you your soul protection.

song performed by Gary Numan
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Paradise Lost: Book 09

No more of talk where God or Angel guest
With Man, as with his friend, familiar us'd,
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast; permitting him the while
Venial discourse unblam'd. I now must change
Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,
And disobedience: on the part of Heaven
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery
Death's harbinger: Sad talk!yet argument
Not less but more heroick than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd;
Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long
Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son:

If answerable style I can obtain
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplor'd,
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse:
Since first this subject for heroick song
Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by nature to indite
Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroick deem'd chief mastery to dissect
With long and tedious havock fabled knights
In battles feign'd; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroick martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast
Serv'd up in hall with sewers and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,
Not that which justly gives heroick name
To person, or to poem. Me, of these
Nor skill'd nor studious, higher argument
Remains; sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing
Depress'd; and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring

[...] Read more

poem by John Milton
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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

Canto the First

I
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.

II
Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
And fill'd their sign posts then, like Wellesley now;
Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk,
Followers of fame, "nine farrow" of that sow:
France, too, had Buonaparté and Dumourier
Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.

III
Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,
Were French, and famous people, as we know:
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,
With many of the military set,
Exceedingly remarkable at times,
But not at all adapted to my rhymes.

IV
Nelson was once Britannia's god of war,
And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd;
There's no more to be said of Trafalgar,
'T is with our hero quietly inurn'd;
Because the army's grown more popular,
At which the naval people are concern'd;
Besides, the prince is all for the land-service,
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.

V
Brave men were living before Agamemnon
And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;
But then they shone not on the poet's page,
And so have been forgotten:—I condemn none,
But can't find any in the present age
Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);
So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan.

[...] Read more

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

The God-Forgotten Election

Pat M'Durmer brought the tidings to the town of God-Forgotten :
‘There are lively days before ye—commin Parlymint’s dissolved!’
And the boys were all excited, for the State, of course, was ‘rotten,’
And, in subsequent elections, God-Forgotten was involved.
There was little there to live for save in drinking beer and eating;
But we rose on this occasion ere the news appeared in print,
For the boys of God-Forgotten, at a wild, uproarious meeting,
Nominated Billy Blazes for the commin Parlymint.

Other towns had other favourites, but the day before the battle
Bushmen flocked to God-Forgotten, and the distant sheds were still;
Sheep were left to go to glory, and neglected mobs of cattle
Went a-straying down the river at their sweet bucolic will.
William Spouter stood for Freetrade (and his votes were split by Nottin),
He had influence behind him and he also had the tin,
But across the lonely flatlands came the cry of God-Forgotten,
‘Vote for Blazes and Protection, and the land you’re living in!’

Pat M‘Durmer said, ‘Ye schaymers, please to shut yer ugly faces,
‘Lend yer dirty ears a momint while I give ye all a hint:
‘Keep ye sober till to-morrow and record yer vote for Blazes
‘If ye want to send a ringer to the commin Parlymint.
‘As a young and growin’ township God-Forgotten’s been neglected,
‘And, if we’d be ripresinted, now’s the moment to begin—
‘Have the local towns encouraged, local industries purtected:
‘Vote for Blazes, and Protection, and the land ye’re livin’ in.

‘I don’t say that William Blazes is a perfect out-an’ outer,
‘I don’t say he have the larnin’, for he never had the luck;
‘I don’t say he have the logic, or the gift of gab, like Spouter,
‘I don’t say he have the practice—BUT I SAY HE HAVE THE PLUCK!
‘Now the country’s gone to ruin, and the Governments are rotten,
‘But he’ll save the public credit and purtect the public tin;
‘To the iverlastin’ glory of the name of God-Forgotten
‘Vote for Blazes and Protection, and the land ye’re livin’ in!’

Pat M‘D. went on the war-path, and he worked like salts and senna,
For he organised committees full of energy and push;
And those wild committees riding through the whisky-fed Gehenna
Routed out astonished voters from their humpies in the bush.
Everything on wheels was ‘rinted,’ and half-sobered drunks were shot in;
Said M‘Durmer to the driver, ‘If ye want to save yer skin,
‘Never stop to wet yer whistles—drive like hell to God-Forgotten,
‘Make the villains plump for Blazes, and the land they’re livin, in.’

Half the local long-departed (for the purpose resurrected)
Plumped for Blazes and Protection, and the country where they died;
So he topped the poll by sixty, and when Blazes was elected
There was victory and triumph on the God-Forgotten side.
Then the boys got up a banquet, and our chairman, Pat M‘Durmer,

[...] Read more

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

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
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!