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Marvel

There’s nothing in the universe, nothing in DC
That’s fantastic or galactic enough to be me
I’m a marvel
So amazing and venomous with a lyrical hook
I cause carnage in the streets and everywhere you look
I’m a marvel

It all started out like any other normal day
My shirt was quicksilver and my jeans were grey
A fresh sheet in front of me and a pencil mixing in
Rhymes deadly as weapon x, like I’m from Michigan
Slick as night crawlers and with twice the mystique
Wiser than any professor teaching magnetism
Word factors multiplied into a strange pragmatism
I wrote like a colossus while in a toad’s physique
Then it hit me, I suddenly realized
I could write with a fury that could shield the sky
Or set it on fire in waves like a jet ski
I wouldn’t need a phoenix to come resurrect me
From America to Britain, no captain could defend me
Not a war machine or iron man has the mettle to avenge me
So I listened to the blackhearts beating on my block
Kept an eye on my objective like I was a Cyclops

-

The next day, a guy on a dark horse said I was a gimmick
Said my skill was a small thing, I was just an image
Bragged about being supreme and a real wildcat
I was spawned from him like a feather in a styled hat
He said all the chaos I wrote of came from stories on cable
I was hard candy that he could chew now or later
I was nothing but a clown, he was the real violator
I had never known strife and my torment was a fable
He laughed and he laughed but no joke exists
To cover the insults he punished me with
Went further and said the difference between you and me
You’re friendly as ice cream, you should be a jubilee
You pose so much you belong with Vogue
Trying to gambit your past into a rogue
One after another his opinion was unwanted
But I was being knocked with an infinity gauntlet

-
I didn’t know how to respond
My blood turned to ice and my nerves were calm
Were my illusions of grandeur intentional?
Or could my abilities really destroy any sentinel?
I questioned myself on the best path to relief
But I abandoned all hope and unleashed the beast

[...] Read more

poem by P.R. Prosper
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The House Of Dust: Complete

I.

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.

'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.

We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .

Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.

Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.

Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.

II.

[...] Read more

poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Jeans On

When I wake up in the mornin light
I pull on my jeans and I feel all right
I pull my blue jeans on, I pull my old blue jeans on
I pull my blue jeans on, I pull my old blue jeans on
Its the weekend, and I know that youre free
So pull on your jeans and come on out with me
Oh cause I need to have you near me,
I need to feel you close to me
I need to have you near me, I need to feel you close to me
You and me, well go motorbike ridin in the sun
And the wind and the rain
I got money in my pocket, I got a tiger in my tank
And Im king of the road again
Ill meet ya in the usual place
You dont need a thing except your pretty face, alright
I pull my blue jeans on, I pull my old blue jeans on
I pull my blue jeans on, I pull my old blue jeans on
Aw, here we go mama
You and me, well go motorbike ridin in the sun
And the wind and the rain
I got money in my pocket, I got a tiger in my tank
And Im king of the road again
When I wake up in the mornin light
I pull on my jeans and I feel all right
Hey I pull my blue jeans on, I pull my old blue jeans on
I pull my blue jeans on, I pull my old blue jeans on
I pull my blue jeans on, I pull my old blue jeans on
I pull my blue jeans on, I pull my old blue jeans on

song performed by Keith Urban
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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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Make It Clap

[Intro: Sean Paul (Busta Rhymes)]
We make it clap, we make it clap (Huh!)
Yeah yeah yeah (Flipmode!!!) Busta Rhymes (Busta Rhymes!!!)
Sean-A-Paul (Sean Paul!!!)
One more time (Ha!!!) kill 'em with a rhyme (Huh!!!)
Remix time (remix!!!) a dutty yeah, yo, Spliff Star (Spliff!!!)
Flipmode Squad (Ha!!!) we kill 'em with a rhyme, a dutty yeah
[Verse 1: Busta Rhymes]
Cau mi seh jump up clap oonu hand and siddung get up
And mi nah wig out mek everybody flip out oonu fi carry on
To get tired I waan chillout, all a di gal a sweat out
Mek your body keep clappin on
[Sean Paul]
Flipmode a roll wid all di hottest set a gal dem inna di dance
And Dutty Cup we deyah mek di gal dem jump up and prance
Busta Rhymes and Sean-A-Paul di lyrical magician
There fi mek dem switch and jump up wave up dem hands
Flipmode a roll wid all di hottest set a gal dem inna di dance
And Dutty Cup we deyah mek di gal dem jump up and prance
Busta Rhymes and Sean-A-Paul di lyrical magician
There fi mek dem switch and jump up wave up dem hands, so push it up deh
[Busta Rhymes]
Back with the remix with Spliff and Sean-A-Paul on the corner
Can't believe when we do it we smack it down how we wanna
Keepin it comin keepin it goin cause we ain't playin
I'm talkin to all my people cause what I'm sayin is
[Chorus: Busta Rhymes]
In case you ain't know and in case you ain't heard
And if you want us to set it just give me the word
This one goes out to my soldiers that be flippin them birds
To all my shorties wigglin they shakin they curves
[Sean Paul]
We make it clap, we make it clap, we make it clap, we make it clap
[Verse 2: Spliff Star]
Poor snapper, lookin at shorty shakin it and makin it clap
Booty big pokin out like twenties on the lap
When I give it to her shorty know how to throw it back
Booty bangin to the beat sometimes we overlap-sing
Gal peel out your blouse and your tight-jeans
Let me lick you down dip you with some ice-cream
Gal holla holla my name when I slide-in
Thunderstorm, rain, sleet and light-ning
Hold me tight feel the triniman grin-ding and grin-ding and grin-ding
Gal dip and bounce start whin-ning
You see Spliff, Sean Paul and Busta Rhymes, seen
([Busta Rhymes:] We got dough) You could tell by what we dri-ving
([Busta Rhymes:] Lookin to chose) How it's different and blin-ding
And blin-ding and blin-ding it's like that make it clap now
[Chorus]
[Sean Paul]

[...] Read more

song performed by Busta Rhymes
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Canto the Fourth

I.

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O’er the far times when many a subject land
Looked to the wingèd Lion’s marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!

II.

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was; her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

III.

In Venice, Tasso’s echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone - but beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade - but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

IV.

But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city’s vanished sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away -
The keystones of the arch! though all were o’er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

V.

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Make It Clap (remix)

[Sean Paul]
We make it clap, we make it clap (Huh!)
Yeah yeah yeah (Flipmode!!!) Busta Rhymes (Busta Rhymes!)
Sean-A-Paul (Sean Paul!)
One more time (Ha!) kill 'em with a rhyme (Huh!)
Remix time (remix!) a Dutty yeah, yo, Spliff Star (Spliff!)
Flipmode Squad (Ha!) we kill 'em with a rhyme, a dutty yeah
[Busta Rhymes]
Cau mi seh jump up clap oonu hand and siddung get up
And mi nah wig out mek everybody flip out oonu fi carry on
To get tired I waan chillout, all a di gal a sweat out
Mek your body keep clappin on
[Sean Paul]
Flipmode a roll wid all di hottest set a gal dem inna di dance
And Dutty Cup we deyah mek di gal dem jump up and prance
Busta Rhymes and Sean-A-Paul di lyrical magician
There fi mek dem switch and jump up wave up dem hands
Flipmode a roll wid all di hottest set a gal dem inna di dance
And Dutty Cup we deyah mek di gal dem jump up and prance
Busta Rhymes and Sean-A-Paul di lyrical magician
There fi mek dem switch and jump up wave up dem hands, so push it up deh
[Busta Rhymes]
Back with the remix with Spliff and Sean-A-Paul on the corner
Can't believe when we do it we smack it down how we wanna
Keepin it comin keepin it goin cause we ain't playin
I'm talkin to all my people cause what I'm sayin is
[Busta Rhymes]
In case you ain't know and in case you ain't heard
And if you want us to set it just give me the word
This one goes out to my soldiers that be flippin them birds
To all my shorties wigglin they shakin they curves
[Sean Paul]
We make it clap,
We make it clap,
We make it clap,
We make it clap
[Spliff Star]
Poor snapper, lookin at shorty shakin it and makin it clap
Booty big pokin out like twenties on the lap
When I give it to her shorty know how to throw it back
Booty bangin to the beat sometimes we overlap-sing
Gal peel out your blouse and your tight-jeans
Let me lick you down dip you with some ice-cream
Gal holla holla my name when I slide-in
Thunderstorm, rain, sleet and light-ning
Hold me tight feel the triniman grin-ding and grin-ding and grin-ding
Gal dip and bounce start whin-ning
You see Spliff, Sean Paul and Busta Rhymes, seen
(We got dough) You could tell by what we dri-ving
(Lookin to chose) How it's different and blin-ding

[...] Read more

song performed by Sean Paul
Added by Lucian Velea
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A Stinging From A Venomous Tongue

What's been done...
Will always come back to be,
Left for another...
To be delivered,
And...received.
With a stinging from a venomous tongue.
And a stunning meaning to leave stung.

What's been done...
Will always come back to be,
Left for another...
To be delivered,
And...received.
With a stinging from a venomous tongue.
And a stunning meaning to leave stung.

And,
Deserved...
When,
Someone gets to receive...
A stunning meaning to leave stung.
From,
A stinging from a venomous tongue.
A stinging from a venomous tongue.

And,
Deserved...
When someone gets to receive,
A...
Stunning meaning to leave stung.
From...
Someone with a venomous tongue.
And a stinging of it meant to be done.

It's...
Deserved!
When someone gets to receive,
A...
Stunning meaning to leave stung.
From...
Someone with a venomous tongue.
And a stinging of it meant to be done.
A stinging of it meant to be done.

It's...
Deserved!
When someone gets to receive,
A stinging from a venomous tongue.
And a stinging of it meant to be done.
From someone with a venomous tongue.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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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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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
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Got More Rhymes

[ VERSE 1 ]
Now from planet to planet, and from star to star
It doesn't really matter, baby, just who you are
And from Earth to solar system, and to galaxy
It's real hard to get a ticket to hear Young MC
Because I rock like a professional, this ain't no lark
You either hear me at a party, or you see me in the park
I rocked the many places far away from my home
I guess that must be the reason why I'm so well known
I rocked from Iowa to Idaho, Canada to Mexico
I came into the place, you party people, just to let you know
My name is the Young MC, ladies want to come to me
And when they're in my arms, the ladies never ever front on me
Thinkin that you know the deal, boy, why don't you be for real
I love to rock the mic, and sometimes even rock the wheels of steel
Rock the place without a doubt, now I'm gonna turn it out
So listen very close, so I can tell you that it's all about
RHYMES
More RHYMES
Party people, I'm the Young MC, and I got RHYMES
Let me tell you something
Young MC got more RHYMES
[ VERSE 2 ]
Now with a voice like this I rock so well
But I'm not Prince, Lionel Richie, or Patti Labelle
I'm not the Cars, the Pretenders, or the B-52's
My name is Young MC, and I'm the one you should choose
Cause when the music comes in, the beat starts thumpin
And I'm the only man to keep the girlies high jumpin
I'm the doctor on the mic, and yes, I'm so sure
That all you need is one visit, then you'll be cured
Cause in the game of rap I am the referee
When the others need help, they'll come to me
Like Judge Joe Wapner on the _People's Court_
My name is Young MC, rockin on the mic is my sport
And now you know, just from those 12 lines
That a fella like me never falls behind
Cause I'm the cream of the crop, and the leader of the pack
Once you give me the mic, you know there's no turnin back
Because I got more rhymes then the other guys do
They're just a monkey, I'm the whole damn zoo
I can't use a book, I use a hefty bag
Because they're just a string, I'm the American flag
I got more rhymes than water seen by a sailor
More than husbands of Elizabeth Taylor
More than Babe Ruth has hit home runs
Yo, my name is Young MC, so go out there and have some fun
With RHYMES
More RHYMES
I gotta tell you something

[...] Read more

song performed by Young MC
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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Last Instructions to a Painter

After two sittings, now our Lady State
To end her picture does the third time wait.
But ere thou fall'st to work, first, Painter, see
If't ben't too slight grown or too hard for thee.
Canst thou paint without colors? Then 'tis right:
For so we too without a fleet can fight.
Or canst thou daub a signpost, and that ill?
'Twill suit our great debauch and little skill.
Or hast thou marked how antic masters limn
The aly-roof with snuff of candle dim,
Sketching in shady smoke prodigious tools?
'Twill serve this race of drunkards, pimps and fools.
But if to match our crimes thy skill presumes,
As th' Indians, draw our luxury in plumes.
Or if to score out our compendious fame,
With Hooke, then, through the microscope take aim,
Where, like the new Comptroller, all men laugh
To see a tall louse brandish the white staff.
Else shalt thou oft thy guiltless pencil curse,
Stamp on thy palette, not perhaps the worse.
The painter so, long having vexed his cloth--
Of his hound's mouth to feign the raging froth--
His desperate pencil at the work did dart:
His anger reached that rage which passed his art;
Chance finished that which art could but begin,
And he sat smiling how his dog did grin.
So mayst thou pérfect by a lucky blow
What all thy softest touches cannot do.

Paint then St Albans full of soup and gold,
The new court's pattern, stallion of the old.
Him neither wit nor courage did exalt,
But Fortune chose him for her pleasure salt.
Paint him with drayman's shoulders, butcher's mien,
Membered like mules, with elephantine chine.
Well he the title of St Albans bore,
For Bacon never studied nature more.
But age, allayed now that youthful heat,
Fits him in France to play at cards and treat.
Draw no commission lest the court should lie,
That, disavowing treaty, asks supply.
He needs no seal but to St James's lease,
Whose breeches wear the instrument of peace;
Who, if the French dispute his power, from thence
Can straight produce them a plenipotence..
Nor fears he the Most Christian should trepan
Two saints at once, St Germain, St Alban,
But thought the Golden Age was now restored,
When men and women took each other's word.

[...] Read more

poem by Andrew Marvell
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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

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Pharsalia - Book VII: The Battle

Ne'er to the summons of the Eternal laws
More slowly Titan rose, nor drave his steeds,
Forced by the sky revolving, up the heaven,
With gloomier presage; wishing to endure
The pangs of ravished light, and dark eclipse;
And drew the mists up, not to feed his flames,
But lest his light upon Thessalian earth
Might fall undimmed.

Pompeius on that morn,
To him the latest day of happy life,
In troubled sleep an empty dream conceived.
For in the watches of the night he heard
Innumerable Romans shout his name
Within his theatre; the benches vied
To raise his fame and place him with the gods;
As once in youth, when victory was won
O'er conquered tribes where swift Iberus flows,
And where Sertorius' armies fought and fled,
The west subdued, with no less majesty
Than if the purple toga graced the car,
He sat triumphant in his pure white gown
A Roman knight, and heard the Senate's cheer.
Perhaps, as ills drew near, his anxious soul,
Shunning the future wooed the happy past;
Or, as is wont, prophetic slumber showed
That which was not to be, by doubtful forms
Misleading; or as envious Fate forbade
Return to Italy, this glimpse of Rome
Kind Fortune gave. Break not his latest sleep,
Ye sentinels; let not the trumpet call
Strike on his ear: for on the morrow's night
Shapes of the battle lost, of death and war
Shall crowd his rest with terrors. Whence shalt thou
The poor man's happiness of sleep regain?
Happy if even in dreams thy Rome could see
Once more her captain! Would the gods had given
To thee and to thy country one day yet
To reap the latest fruit of such a love:
Though sure of fate to come! Thou marchest on
As though by heaven ordained in Rome to die;
She, conscious ever of her prayers for thee
Heard by the gods, deemed not the fates decreed
Such evil destiny, that she should lose
The last sad solace of her Magnus' tomb.
Then young and old had blent their tears for thee,
And child unbidden; women torn their hair
And struck their bosoms as for Brutus dead.
But now no public woe shall greet thy death
As erst thy praise was heard: but men shall grieve

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poem by Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
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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!

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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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
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Canto the Second

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

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

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

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

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

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poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
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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
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That's It That's All

Back on the scene for ya'll people's delight
You want peace for the people then ya say alright
'Cause George W's got nothing on me
We got to take the power from he
When I'm on the mic I feel good to go
Like a snow day for school with hot cocoa
So don't speak what I heard, just say what I know
And my zodiac sign is Scorpio
Look what the cat dragged in
The creme de la creme without the skin
So take a rest and mind your own biz
And that's it that's all that's all there is
Fresh...fresh...fresh...for you...for you...for you
That's fresh...fresh...fresh...for you...for you...for you
One for Brooklyn, two for Manhattan
Let's go to work, get those hands clappin'
Make you bounce, rock, roll and skate
Don't underrate how I operate
It ain't what you say, it's what you mean
Intention leads to action, that is my theme
So pay attention now as I begin to recap
Puttin' words and ideas stacked back to back
Some rhymes go flat, well mine go fizz
I got no time for the drama 'cause stress is for kids
'Cause when you're dead and buried well you got no biz
And that's it that's all that's all there is
Fresh...fresh...fresh...for you...for you...for you
That's fresh...fresh...fresh...for you...for you...for you
Brand new
The time and place for the mind is here and now
Keep the mind present less to worry about
But like the hammer to the nail hit the nail on the head
Well I don't shoot blanks and I don't shoot lead
Well I'm a freaky streaker like Winnie the Pooh
T-shirt and no pants and I dance the bugaloo
Like George Whipple on New York One
Got a hairy ass and that's no fun
I'm in the rhyme zone a different time zone
And on the microphone you know that I'm at home
It's time we looked past all our differences
An' that's it that's all that's all there is
Come on
Fresh...fresh...fresh...for you...for you...for you
That's fresh...fresh...fresh...for you...for you...for you
An' that's
Fresh...fresh...fresh...for you...for you...for you
That's fresh...fresh...fresh...for you...for you...for you

song performed by Beastie Boys
Added by Lucian Velea
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