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It's Just Another Day

Another senseless public shooting.
Another day to depict someone crazed.
Another dismissing of entitlements and rights,
As to the reasons why people...
Are running for their lives in broad daylight,
While a society diminishes with blinded insights...
To blame their quality of life on kept delusions.
And one who leads as responsible,
For the increase of their madness.

It's just another day,
For denials and deceptions to be accepted.
It's just another day,
For those who cheat, lie, deceive and abuse,
To make claims of any wrongdoing.
It's just another day,
To defend acts of treason.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Depict This Different

Depict this different,
From the others sent.
This one has meaning.
With some evidence in it.

Depict this different.
Pick off the lint.
Wrap this around your mind,
Feel the warmth in it meant.

Depict this different,
From the others sent.
This one has meaning.
With some evidence in it.

Thaw the cold you hold in your heart.
Depict this different.
And don't let a freezing,
In you start.
Depict it!

Rub and cuddle up.
Depict it.
With purpose and a reason.
Appreciate each season,
With a new breath to breathe.

Depict this different,
From the others sent.
This one has meaning.
With some evidence in it.

Depict this different.
You can depict this different.

Depict this different.
You can depict this different.

Rub and cuddle up.
Depict it.
Pleased as a breeze.
Depict it.
Give your troubles up.
Depict it.
And be free.
Depict it.
Don't give them any hints,
Your mind's at ease.

Depict this different,

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Denials Kept

Denials kept,
Victimize and kill.
Denials kept,
Protect the sick from ills.
Denials kept,
Do not warm but chill.
Denials kept,
Keep the truth concealed.
Denials kept,
Produce conflicts to fulfill.
Denials kept,
Hides inside those minds that lie...
To themselves with alibis.

Denials kept,
Victimize and kill.
Denials kept,
Protect the sick from ills.
Denials kept,
Do not warm but chill.
Denials kept,
Keep the truth concealed.
Denials kept,
Hides inside those minds that lie...
To themselves with alibis.

Denials kept,
Destroys not create.
Denials kept,
Chases with debates.
Denials kept,
Confuses those who lose.
Denials kept,
Is the choice of fools.
Denials kept,
Hides inside those minds that lie...
To themselves with alibis.

Denials kept,
Victimize and kill.
Denials kept,
Protect the sick from ills.
Denials kept,
Do not warm but chill.
Denials kept,
Keep the truth concealed.
Denials kept,
Produce conflicts...
To fulfill.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Keep On Running

Some gonna get you
Some gonna grab you
Some gonna jump out of the bushes and grab you
Whole lotta folks, you better run faster.
Some gonna grab you
Some gonna jump out of the bushes and grab you
Some gonna grab you
Oh you need this thing to grab you, ha.
Yea, yea
Keep on running
Keep on running from my love
Keep on running, yea
Keep on running from my love
Some folks say that youre really, really fine,
All you want to be is just a friend of mine,
But I know, the man your with gonna break your heart,
And youll be sad real soon, yea.
Keep on running,
Keep on running from my love,
Keep on running, yea,
Keep on running from my love.
Some folks say that youre really, really fine
But all you want to be is just a friend of mine,
But I know Im gonna get you with him -real soon.
Why do you keep?
Keep on running, running from my love
Yea, keep on running from
Keep on running, running from my love
I need you baby
Keep on running, running from my love
And everyday yea,
Keep on running, running from my love. oh
Keep on running
Keep on running from my love
Keep on running yea
Keep on running from my love
Some folks say that your love is really good
All you want to be is just a friend of mine,
But I know, Im gonna get you in the end
cause I need you so
Keep on running
Keep on running, running from my love
Yea, keep on running baby
Keep on running, running from my love, yea
Keep on running, running from my love
Keep on running, running from my love
...say it loud
Keep on running, running from my love
Oh, yea
Keep on running, running from my love

[...] Read more

song performed by Stevie Wonder
Added by Lucian Velea
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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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A Map Of Culture

Culture

Contents

What is Culture?

The Importance of Culture

Culture Varies

Culture is Critical

The Sociobiology Debate

Values, Norms, and Social Control

Signs and Symbols

Language

Terms and Definitions

Approaches to the Study of Culture

Are We Prisoners of Our Culture?

What is Culture?

I prefer the definition used by Ian Robertson: 'all the shared products of society: material and nonmaterial' (Our text defines it in somewhat more ponderous terms- 'The totality of learned, socially transmitted behavior. It includes ideas, values, and customs (as well as the sailboats, comic books, and birth control devices) of groups of people' (p.32) .

Back to Contents

[...] Read more

poem by Nyein Way
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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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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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Running Away

Ya running and ya running
And ya running away.
Ya running and ya running
And ya running away.
Ya running and ya running
And ya running away.
Ya running and ya running,
But ya cant run away from yourself
Cant run away from yourself -
Cant run away from yourself -
Cant run away from yourself -
Cant run away from yourself -
Cant run away from yourself.
Ya must have done (must have done),
Sometin wrong (something wrong).
Said: ya must have done (must have done),
Wo! sometin wrong (something wrong).
Why you cant find the
Place where you belong?
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do (running away);
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do (running away);
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do (running away);
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do (running away);
Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do (running away).
Every man thinketh his
Burden is the heaviest (heaviest).
Every man thinketh his
Burden is the heaviest (heaviest).
Ya still mean it: who feels it knows it, lord;
Who feels it knows it, lord;
Who feels it knows it, lord;
Who feels it knows it, lord.
Ya running and ya running
And ya running away.
Ya running and ya running
And ya running away.
Ya running and ya running
And ya running away.
Ya running and ya running
But ya cant run away from yourself.
Could ya run away from yourself?
Can you run away from yourself?
Cant run away from yourself!
Cant run away from yourself!
Yeah-eah-eah-eah - from yourself.
Brr - you must have done sometin -
Sometin - sometin - sometin -
Sometin ya dont want nobody to know about:
Ya must have, lord - sometin wrong,
What ya must have done - ya must have done sometin wrong.

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song performed by Bob Marley
Added by Lucian Velea
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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!

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The City of Dreadful Night

Per me si va nella citta dolente.

--Dante

Poi di tanto adoprar, di tanti moti
D'ogni celeste, ogni terrena cosa,
Girando senza posa,
Per tornar sempre la donde son mosse;
Uso alcuno, alcun frutto
Indovinar non so.

Sola nel mondo eterna, a cui si volve
Ogni creata cosa,
In te, morte, si posa
Nostra ignuda natura;
Lieta no, ma sicura
Dell' antico dolor . . .
Pero ch' esser beato
Nega ai mortali e nega a' morti il fato.

--Leopardi

PROEM

Lo, thus, as prostrate, "In the dust I write
My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears."
Yet why evoke the spectres of black night
To blot the sunshine of exultant years?
Why disinter dead faith from mouldering hidden?
Why break the seals of mute despair unbidden,
And wail life's discords into careless ears?

Because a cold rage seizes one at whiles
To show the bitter old and wrinkled truth
Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles,
False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth;
Because it gives some sense of power and passion
In helpless innocence to try to fashion
Our woe in living words howe'er uncouth.

Surely I write not for the hopeful young,
Or those who deem their happiness of worth,
Or such as pasture and grow fat among
The shows of life and feel nor doubt nor dearth,
Or pious spirits with a God above them
To sanctify and glorify and love them,
Or sages who foresee a heaven on earth.

For none of these I write, and none of these
Could read the writing if they deigned to try;

[...] Read more

poem by James Thomson
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Choose a Removal of Delusions

If you choose to save face,
With a haste...
That leaves a pacing done,
In waste.
Eliminate,
The pacing!
And do,
What it takes.

It takes reflection,
Done.
It takes reflection to overcome.
It takes reflection,
Done...
To remove delusions.

It takes reflection,
Done.
It takes reflection to overcome.
It takes reflection,
Done...
To remove delusions,
Of the one that runs.

Sit back.
Choose a removal of delusions.
Sit back.
Choose a removal of delusions.
Sit back.
Choose a removal of delusions and include,
A completion of truth you do.

Just sit back,
Choose a removal of delusions.
Sit back.
Choose a removal of delusions.
Sit back.
Choose a removal of delusions and include,
A completion of truth you do.

Relax and...
Choose a removal of delusions.
Sit back.
Choose a removal of delusions.
Sit back.
Choose a removal of delusions and include,
A completion of truth you do.

If you choose to save face,
With a haste...

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Daylight Katy

She walks be the sea where the seaworld is
And she waits for the man to come
She lives in town with her high-heeled friends
And she knows its a long way down
But she doesnt have to get up in the morning
With her hair so soft and long
Daylight katy come on
Daylight katy come on
If you cant follow me down
Daylight katy go home
Daylight katy come on
Daylight katy come on
If you cant follow me down
Daylight katy go home
She walks to the sea where the seaweed is
Where the rust and the dirt runs deep
She lives nine lives in her midnight world
While her old mans fast asleep
And she doesnt have to get up in the mornin
With her hair so soft and long
Daylight katy come on
Daylight katy come on
If you cant follow me down
Daylight katy go home
Daylight katy come on
Daylight katy come on
If you cant follow me down
Daylight katy go home
She lives by the sea when the summer wind comes
And the sea dont mind at all
She talks to the sea when the sea runs wild
And the waves run steep and tall
And she doesnt have to get up in the mornin
With her hair so soft and long
Daylight katy come on
Daylight katy come on
If you cant follow me down
Daylight katy go home
Daylight katy come on
Daylight katy come on
If you cant follow me down
Daylight katy go home

song performed by Gordon Lightfoot
Added by Lucian Velea
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Prayin For Daylight

(steve bogard/rick giles)
Ive got the lights turned up
The door is locked, the bedroom tvs on
Doing the only thing that gets me through the night
Since youve been gone
Prayin for daylight, waiting for that morning sun
So I can act like my whole life aint going wrong
Baby come back to me, I swear Ill make it right
Dont make me spend another lonely night
Prayin for daylight
(prayin for daylight)
I made a bad miscalculation
Betting you would never leave
cause if youre getting on with your new life.
Then where does that leave me
Prayin for daylight, waiting for that morning sun
So I can act like my whole life aint going wrong
Baby come back to me, I swear Ill make it right
Dont make me spend another lonely night
Prayin for daylight
(prayin for daylight)
Prayin for daylight
(prayin for daylight)
Prayin for daylight
Hoping that I didnt wait too long
(I didnt wait too long)
That this is just the dark before the dawn
Deep in my heart I know
That you love me as much as I love you
And that you must be lying somewhere
Looking up to heaven too
Prayin for daylight, waiting for that morning sun
So I can act like my whole life aint going wrong
Baby come back to me, I swear Ill make it right
Dont make me spend another lonely night
Prayin for daylight
(prayin for daylight)
Prayin for daylight, waiting for that morning sun
So I can act like my whole life aint going wrong
Baby come back to me, I swear Ill make it right
Dont make me spend another lonely night
Prayin for daylight
(prayin for daylight)
Prayin for daylight
I dont want to spend another lonely night
I dont want to spend another lonely night
(prayin for daylight)
Prayin for daylight
I dont want to spend another lonely night
Oooo, oooo, oooo, oooo, oooo

[...] Read more

song performed by Rascal Flatts
Added by Lucian Velea
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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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Reasons

Maurice white, charles stepney & philip bailey
Now, Im craving your body,
Is this real
Temperatures rising, I dont want to feel
Im in the wrong place to be real
Woahh and im; longing to love you
Just for a night,
Kissing and hugging and holding you tight
Please let me love you
With all my might
Reasons, the reasons that we hear,
The reasons that we fear
Our feelings a-wont disappear
Oooh! and- after the love game has been played
All our illusions were just a parade
And all the reasons start to fade
(layering chorus)
La-la-la-etc
After all our reasons why
All the reasons were a lie
After all the reasons lo-ove was neer decide
And, longing to love you for one night
Please let me love you with all of my might, baaaaby
Ooohhh, baby!
Reasons, the reasons that we hear,
The reasons that we fear
Our feelings a-wont disappear
Oooh! and after the love games have been played
All our illusions were just a parade
And all the reasons start to fade
And, in the morning when I rise,
No longer feeling hynotized
For no reasons, our reasons, our reasons
Have no pri-ii-de
(layering chorus)
La-la-la-etc
After all the reasons why
All of the reasons were a lie
After all the reasons lo-ove was neer decide
(phillips last solo) heeehhhhh, ooooh, yeaahhh, oohhh baby,
I cant find the reasons
That my love wont disappear
Cant find the reasons
Why I love you ,my baby, my dear
Cant find the reasons
Wanna love you all night
Cant find the reasons
Gotta squeeze ya, real tight
Cant find the reasons
Baby- yeah,

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song performed by Earth Wind And Fire
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Hind And The Panther, A Poem In Three Parts : Part III.

Much malice, mingled with a little wit,
Perhaps may censure this mysterious writ;
Because the muse has peopled Caledon
With panthers, bears, and wolves, and beasts unknown,
As if we were not stocked with monsters of our own.
Let Æsop answer, who has set to view
Such kinds as Greece and Phrygia never knew;
And Mother Hubbard, in her homely dress,
Has sharply blamed a British lioness;
That queen, whose feast the factious rabble keep,
Exposed obscenely naked, and asleep.
Led by those great examples, may not I
The wonted organs of their words supply?
If men transact like brutes, 'tis equal then
For brutes to claim the privilege of men.
Others our Hind of folly will indite,
To entertain a dangerous guest by night.
Let those remember, that she cannot die,
Till rolling time is lost in round eternity;
Nor need she fear the Panther, though untamed,
Because the Lion's peace was now proclaimed;
The wary savage would not give offence,
To forfeit the protection of her prince;
But watched the time her vengeance to complete,
When all her furry sons in frequent senate met;
Meanwhile she quenched her fury at the flood,
And with a lenten salad cooled her blood.
Their commons, though but coarse, were nothing scant,
Nor did their minds an equal banquet want.
For now the Hind, whose noble nature strove
To express her plain simplicity of love,
Did all the honours of her house so well,
No sharp debates disturbed the friendly meal.
She turned the talk, avoiding that extreme,
To common dangers past, a sadly-pleasing theme;
Remembering every storm which tossed the state,
When both were objects of the public hate,
And dropt a tear betwixt for her own children's fate.
Nor failed she then a full review to make
Of what the Panther suffered for her sake;
Her lost esteem, her truth, her loyal care,
Her faith unshaken to an exiled heir,
Her strength to endure, her courage to defy,
Her choice of honourable infamy.
On these, prolixly thankful, she enlarged;
Then with acknowledgments herself she charged;
For friendship, of itself an holy tie,
Is made more sacred by adversity.
Now should they part, malicious tongues would say,
They met like chance companions on the way,

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poem by John Dryden
Added by Poetry Lover
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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,—

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

Pop
Standing on the borderline
Between joy and reason
Tending carefully my fire
Waiting for my season
I know who these people are
I know what they stand for
Corruptions built into this plan
Nothings under the other hand
Tricks and trials await the child
Instinct keeps me running
Running like a deer
Instinct keeps me running
Running through the grinning shadows
I have seen the sludgy beach
And the poisoned river
I have met the lordly rich
Theyre just getting stiffer
This whole place is like a maze
Or like some medusa
Let me out I cant accept
A certain read life story
Tricks and trials await the child
Instinct keeps me running
Running like a deer
Instinct keeps me running
Running where the sorrow bless me
Instinct keeps me running
Running like a moose
Instinct keeps me running
Running to keep one chance open
Marks on walls, the common outlet
Tell the truth and always will
Marks on wall destroy the thought
Of perfect sunny civilization
Tricks and trials await the child
Instinct keeps me running
Running like a deer
Instinct keeps me running
Running through the grinning shadows
Instinct keeps me running
Running like a bear
Instinct keeps me running
Running to keep one chance open
Instinct keeps me running
Running cause I dont believe it
Instinct keeps me running
Running through the bare emotion
Instinct keeps me running
Instinct keeps me running

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song performed by Iggy Pop
Added by Lucian Velea
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OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII (Entire)

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.

Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood, thou:
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

We have but faith: we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,

But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock thee when we do not fear:
But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

Forgive what seem’d my sin in me;
What seem’d my worth since I began;
For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.

Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,

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poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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The Four Seasons : Autumn

Crown'd with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on; the Doric reed once more,
Well pleased, I tune. Whate'er the wintry frost
Nitrous prepared; the various blossom'd Spring
Put in white promise forth; and Summer-suns
Concocted strong, rush boundless now to view,
Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme.
Onslow! the Muse, ambitious of thy name,
To grace, inspire, and dignify her song,
Would from the public voice thy gentle ear
A while engage. Thy noble cares she knows,
The patriot virtues that distend thy thought,
Spread on thy front, and in thy bosom glow;
While listening senates hang upon thy tongue,
Devolving through the maze of eloquence
A roll of periods, sweeter than her song.
But she too pants for public virtue, she,
Though weak of power, yet strong in ardent will,
Whene'er her country rushes on her heart,
Assumes a bolder note, and fondly tries
To mix the patriot's with the poet's flame.
When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days,
And Libra weighs in equal scales the year;
From Heaven's high cope the fierce effulgence shook
Of parting Summer, a serener blue,
With golden light enliven'd, wide invests
The happy world. Attemper'd suns arise,
Sweet-beam'd, and shedding oft through lucid clouds
A pleasing calm; while broad, and brown, below
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.
Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain:
A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air
Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow.
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;
The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun
By fits effulgent gilds the illumined field,
And black by fits the shadows sweep along.
A gaily chequer'd heart-expanding view,
Far as the circling eye can shoot around,
Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.
These are thy blessings, Industry! rough power!
Whom labour still attends, and sweat, and pain;
Yet the kind source of every gentle art,
And all the soft civility of life:
Raiser of human kind! by Nature cast,
Naked, and helpless, out amid the woods
And wilds, to rude inclement elements;
With various seeds of art deep in the mind

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poem by James Thomson
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