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Love of Mr Chowdy

You loved to hug Mr Chowdy;
You liked it when his wet nose
Brushed your chin or his long
Tongue licked your ear. Don’t let
The darn mutt bark too much,
Father said, or he’ll have to go
And sleep in the yard out in the
Doghouse. You used to feed him
From scraps saved from meals,
Or pushed him small pieces under
The table out of sight of the others.
Some evenings you managed to
Sneak him into your room and let
Him lie in comfort on your bed;
Listening out in case the parents
Came and turfed him off into
The kitchen or out in the cold.
Some nights you could hear his
Heavy breathing across the way
Beside the window where you let
Him lay. Now you’re much older
And Mr Chowdy’s dead; now it’s
Your husband’s snoring and heavy
Breathing that you hear in bed.

poem by Terry Collett
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Doghouse

Well, I came home late one night
And much to my surprise
I was thrown right across the kitchen floor
She hit me right between the eyes.
Now Im living in the doghouse, doghouse
Doghouse, doghouse,
Doghouse, doghouse.
I was out with a friend of mine
We were feeling mighty fine
And we sure was movin fast
And I didnt make it back on time
And she put me in the doghouse, doghouse
Doghouse, doghouse,
Doghouse, doghouse.
I had a big tall red with one of my friends
He was feeling mighty fine
When I came home late that night
She hit me right between the eyes
And she put me in the doghouse, doghouse
Doghouse, doghouse,
Doghouse, doghouse.
She put me in the doghouse,
Doghouse, doghouse,
Im living in the doghouse,
Doghouse, doghouse,
Doghouse, doghouse.
So if you find yourself in a party mood
Let your conscience be your guide
Dont be like me and let lefty win
Or youll find yourself outside
Living in the doghouse, doghouse
Doghouse, doghouse,
Doghouse, doghouse.

song performed by Neil Young
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Old Bark Hut

Oh, my name is Bob the Swagman, before you all I stand,
And I've had many ups and downs while travelling through the land.
I once was well-to-do, my boys, but now I am stumped up,
And I'm forced to go on rations in an old bark hut.

In an old bark hut. In an old bark hut.
I'm forced to go on rations in an old bark hut.
Ten pounds of flour, ten pounds of beef, some sugar and some tea,
That's all they give to a hungry man, until the Seventh Day.
If you don't be moighty sparing, you'll go with a hungry gut
For that's one of the great misfortunes in an old bark hut.

In an old bark hut. In an old bark hut.
For that's one of the great misfortunes in an old bark hut.
The bucket you boil your beef in has to carry water, too,
And they'll say you're getting mighty flash if you should ask for two.
I've a billy, and a pint pot, and a broken-handled cup,
And they all adorn the table in the old bark hut.

In an old bark hut. In an old bark hut.
And they all adorn the table in the old bark hut.
Faith, the table is not made of wood, as many you have seen
For if I had one half so good, I'd think myself serene
'Tis only an old sheet of bark—God knows when it was cut
It was blown from off the rafters of the old bark hut.

In an old bark hut. In an old bark hut.
It was blown from off the rafters of the old bark hut.
And of furniture, there's no such thing, 'twas never in the place,
Except the stool I sit upon—and that's an old gin case.
It does us for a safe as well, but you must keep it shut,
Or the flies would make it canter round the old hark hut.

In an old bark hut. In an old bark hut.
Or the flies would make it canter round the old bark hut.
If you should leave it open, and the flies should find your meat,
They'll scarcely leave a single piece that's fit for man to eat.
But you mustn't curse, nor grumble—what won't fatten will fill up
For what's out of sight is out of mind in an old bark hut.

In an old bark hut. In an old bark hut.
For what's out of sight is out of mind in an old bark hut.
In the summer time, when the weather's warm, this hut is nice and cool,
And you'll find the gentle breezes blowing in through every hole.
You can leave the old door open, or you can leave it shut,
There's no fear of suffocation in the old bark hut.

In an old bark hut. In an old bark hut.
There's no fear of suffocation in the old bark hut.

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poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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Better in the Doghouse

Sometimes,
It's the wrong time...
To take your leash off me.
I prefer it in doghouse.
'Woof, woof.'
I like the service in the doghouse.
'Woof', woof'.

Sometimes,
It's the wrong time...
To take your leash off me.
I'm undisturbed when in the doghouse.
'Woof, woof'.
I get free pieces in the doghouse.
'Woof, woof.'
I get that pity kind of kitty when received,
When...

In the doghouse,
'Woof, woof'
In the doghouse,
'Woof, woof'.

That pity kitty that I get that's best to me...
Is in the doghouse,
'Woof, woof.'
The kitty's better in the doghouse.
'Woof, woof'.
I like it better in the doghouse.
'Woof, woof'.

Sometimes,
It's the wrong time...
To take your leash off me.
I prefer it in doghouse.
'Woof, woof.'
I like the service in the doghouse.
'Woof', woof'.

Sometimes,
It's the wrong time...
To take your leash off me.
The kitty's better in the doghouse.
'Woof, woof'.
It gets better in the doghouse.
'Woof, woof'.
I like it better in the doghouse.
'Woof, woof'.
I prefer it in the doghouse.
'Woof, woof'.

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poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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First Book

OF writing many books there is no end;
And I who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine,–
Will write my story for my better self,
As when you paint your portrait for a friend,
Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it
Long after he has ceased to love you, just
To hold together what he was and is.

I, writing thus, am still what men call young;
I have not so far left the coasts of life
To travel inland, that I cannot hear
That murmur of the outer Infinite
Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep
When wondered at for smiling; not so far,
But still I catch my mother at her post
Beside the nursery-door, with finger up,
'Hush, hush–here's too much noise!' while her sweet eyes
Leap forward, taking part against her word
In the child's riot. Still I sit and feel
My father's slow hand, when she had left us both,
Stroke out my childish curls across his knee;
And hear Assunta's daily jest (she knew
He liked it better than a better jest)
Inquire how many golden scudi went
To make such ringlets. O my father's hand,
Stroke the poor hair down, stroke it heavily,–
Draw, press the child's head closer to thy knee!
I'm still too young, too young to sit alone.

I write. My mother was a Florentine,
Whose rare blue eyes were shut from seeing me
When scarcely I was four years old; my life,
A poor spark snatched up from a failing lamp
Which went out therefore. She was weak and frail;
She could not bear the joy of giving life–
The mother's rapture slew her. If her kiss
Had left a longer weight upon my lips,
It might have steadied the uneasy breath,
And reconciled and fraternised my soul
With the new order. As it was, indeed,
I felt a mother-want about the world,
And still went seeking, like a bleating lamb
Left out at night, in shutting up the fold,–
As restless as a nest-deserted bird
Grown chill through something being away, though what
It knows not. I, Aurora Leigh, was born
To make my father sadder, and myself
Not overjoyous, truly. Women know
The way to rear up children, (to be just,)

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poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

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

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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I Aint Been Licked

(nickolas ashford/valerie simpson)
Roll down the gangway
So theyll see that its me
I know theyll wonder about my recovery
Yes, I lost a love that promised happiness
What my heart wouldnt accept
Put me to the test
They keep a holding me down
But I rise
Yes it can be done
They keep a holding me down
But I rise
They cant make me run
Keep a holding me down
But I rise
Got my second wind
Keep a holding me down
But I rise
Tell em Im back again
Just say
I aint been licked
I aint been licked
I aint been licked
Tell em for me
I aint been licked
Like outa nowhere my whole world fell apart
Till this day no one knows
What I felt in my heart
All those precious things
Inside me tried to still
Hands I thought would help
Pushed me over the hill
Keep a holding me down
But I rise
Yes, it can be done
Keep a holding me down
But I rise
They cant make me run
Keep a holding me down
But I rise
Got my second wind
Keep a holding me down
But I rise
Tell em Im back again
Just say
I aint been licked
I aint been licked
I aint been licked
Tell em for me
I aint been licked

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song performed by Diana Ross
Added by Lucian Velea
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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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Lancelot And Elaine

Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable,
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,
High in her chamber up a tower to the east
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot;
Which first she placed where the morning's earliest ray
Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam;
Then fearing rust or soilure fashioned for it
A case of silk, and braided thereupon
All the devices blazoned on the shield
In their own tinct, and added, of her wit,
A border fantasy of branch and flower,
And yellow-throated nestling in the nest.
Nor rested thus content, but day by day,
Leaving her household and good father, climbed
That eastern tower, and entering barred her door,
Stript off the case, and read the naked shield,
Now guessed a hidden meaning in his arms,
Now made a pretty history to herself
Of every dint a sword had beaten in it,
And every scratch a lance had made upon it,
Conjecturing when and where: this cut is fresh;
That ten years back; this dealt him at Caerlyle;
That at Caerleon; this at Camelot:
And ah God's mercy, what a stroke was there!
And here a thrust that might have killed, but God
Broke the strong lance, and rolled his enemy down,
And saved him: so she lived in fantasy.

How came the lily maid by that good shield
Of Lancelot, she that knew not even his name?
He left it with her, when he rode to tilt
For the great diamond in the diamond jousts,
Which Arthur had ordained, and by that name
Had named them, since a diamond was the prize.

For Arthur, long before they crowned him King,
Roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse,
Had found a glen, gray boulder and black tarn.
A horror lived about the tarn, and clave
Like its own mists to all the mountain side:
For here two brothers, one a king, had met
And fought together; but their names were lost;
And each had slain his brother at a blow;
And down they fell and made the glen abhorred:
And there they lay till all their bones were bleached,
And lichened into colour with the crags:
And he, that once was king, had on a crown
Of diamonds, one in front, and four aside.
And Arthur came, and labouring up the pass,
All in a misty moonshine, unawares

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poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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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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Prince Dorus

In days of yore, as Ancient Stories tell,
A King in love with a great Princess fell.
Long at her feet submiss the Monarch sigh'd,
While she with stern repulse his suit denied.
Yet was he form'd by birth to please the fair,
Dress'd, danc'd, and courted, with a Monarch's air;
But Magic Spells her frozen breast had steel'd
With stubborn pride, that knew not how to yield.

This to the King a courteous Fairy told,
And bade the Monarch in his suit be bold;
For he that would the charming Princess wed,
Had only on her cat's black tail to tread,
When straight the Spell would vanish into air,
And he enjoy for life the yielding fair.

He thank'd the Fairy for her kind advice.-
Thought he, 'If this be all, I'll not be nice;
Rather than in my courtship I will fail,
I will to mince-meat tread Minon's black tail.'

To the Princess's court repairing strait,
He sought the cat that must decide his fate;
But when he found her, how the creature stared!
How her back bristled, and her great eyes glared!
That tail, which he so fondly hop'd his prize,
Was swell'd by wrath to twice its usual size;
And all her cattish gestures plainly spoke,
She thought the affair he came upon, no joke.

With wary step the cautious King draws near,
And slyly means to attack her in her rear;
But when he thinks upon her tail to pounce,
Whisk-off she skips-three yards upon a bounce-
Again he tries, again his efforts fail-
Minon's a witch-the deuce is in her tail.-

The anxious chase for weeks the Monarch tried,
Till courage fail'd, and hope within him died.
A desperate suit 'twas useless to prefer,
Or hope to catch a tail of quicksilver.-
When on a day, beyond his hopes, he found
Minon, his foe, asleep upon the ground;
Her ample tail hehind her lay outspread,
Full to the eye, and tempting to the tread.

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poem by Charles Lamb
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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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Finding Oneself......... [EXTREMELY LONG; Growing Up; Relationships; Humor

Part One

When Bri was 13 and in grade 8,
he noticed classmates beginning to date.
At school (other) boys got their way with the girls with a kiss.
But Bri didn't have the urge; he thought 'what's this? '
He decided he should give it a try,
but each time he tried, the girl would cry.
Not only would she cry; she would run away and hide.
Bri felt between himself and the other boys a great divide.

Back home after school he'd seclude himself in his room and cry.
Through his mind was repeated the question 'why? ' 'Why DO they cry? Why? '

Bri was a straight A+ student with no flubs.
He played football but (except for 'Cooking') he joined not clubs.

After a few months Bri gave up (on girls) . He had NO close friends to set him right;
his parents should have known the problem, but they weren't bright.

In high school he took AP courses, and took 3 courses at a nearby college.
He ignored girls and sports and concentrated on gaining knowledge.

He got a full scholarship to Harvard, but his advisor looked at him funny.
By age 26 he had his PhD in psychology and started making money.
But he still asked 'why? '
It still bothered him and at times he'd cry.

Then waking up one day from a dream, Bri suddenly asked himself 'were they shy?
And if so, why with ME and not the other boys? Why DID they cry? '
The answer could be that his brain and looks were superior.
Were those girls only uncomfortable with boys that were inferior (to him) ?
If that really was the answer, he could now save face,
and could pursue women with HIS high level of brains, looks, and grace.
(But WAS it the answer? He was still not SURE why they did cry.)
For now he would work hard, avoid girls, and try to keep his eyes dry.
In two more years would be a second high school reunion. Thoughts of attending gave Bri a fright. (He'd skipped the first,5 year, reunion.)
But by going this time he might find out if his answer to his 'why? ' was right.

PART TWO

For two more years he waited anxiously for invitation he was dreading.
At times he'd awaken at night from a 'reunion dream', profusely sweating.
Finally it arrived in mail; it would be in June, before it got TOO warm.
He kept his calendar free for the whole month, doubting, at work, he could perform.
He got out the yearbooks his Mom had bought, and he studied each girl's name.
Would he have the nerve to ask them 'why? ' ….OR would he be too scared and lame?

He lived on sedatives for a week. He picked his favorite tie, and a light grey business suit.
Would he find out if the girls had just been shy, or would they give him 'the boot'?

[...] Read more

poem by Bri Edwards
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You Saved Me

True stories (what)
Miracles (what)
True blessings (what)
All because of love
True stories (what)
Miracles (what)
True blessings (what)
All because of love
I was riding in my car one day (oh)
In the express lane rolling down the freeway
And suddenly the phone rings
Then I reached down beside me
Then I looked on the floor felt on the back seat
See I was drinking while I was driving
Never thinking bout what I was doing
I turned around and before I knew it
Here comes this truck now
The doctor said I don't think he's gonna make it
Family said make the funeral arrangements
Unplug the machine he's gone now
then told my wife to be strong now
then a small voice said on to me
if you promise to stop drinking
I surrendered on that day
And for 10 years I've been straight
Chorus:
You saved me(woah) You saved me.
You saved me, You saved me, gave me a second chance
You saved me, You saved me
You saved me, You saved me
Now I've been sitting in the chair
waiting on the phone to ring
Praying up to God that someone would call me with a job opening
Cause its been so hard for me month to month
Struggling to eat but still there was no answer(no answer)
I stopped believing in his word And got so mad at him
When somebody say Gods good I just laugh at them(oh yeah)
And in the nick of time his blessing rained on me
By his grace the phone ring a lady says were hiring
And that's when I knew
Chorus:
You saved me(saved) You saved me.
You saved me, You saved me, gave me a second chance
You saved me, You saved me
You saved me, You saved me
Now I was 18 out on the block selling drugs
With a gun at my waist And for people had no love
See the streets was my home and family and friends were gone
Had no one to trust and deep inside I was all alone
And then a deal went bad one day and it was enough to pause me

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song performed by R. Kelly
Added by Lucian Velea
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Fifth Book

AURORA LEIGH, be humble. Shall I hope
To speak my poems in mysterious tune
With man and nature,–with the lava-lymph
That trickles from successive galaxies
Still drop by drop adown the finger of God,
In still new worlds?–with summer-days in this,
That scarce dare breathe, they are so beautiful?–
With spring's delicious trouble in the ground
Tormented by the quickened blood of roots.
And softly pricked by golden crocus-sheaves
In token of the harvest-time of flowers?–
With winters and with autumns,–and beyond,
With the human heart's large seasons,–when it hopes
And fears, joys, grieves, and loves?–with all that strain
Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh
In a sacrament of souls? with mother's breasts,
Which, round the new made creatures hanging there,
Throb luminous and harmonious like pure spheres?–
With multitudinous life, and finally
With the great out-goings of ecstatic souls,
Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame,
Their radiant faces upward, burn away
This dark of the body, issuing on a world
Beyond our mortal?–can I speak my verse
So plainly in tune to these things and the rest,
That men shall feel it catch them on the quick,
As having the same warrant over them
To hold and move them, if they will or no,
Alike imperious as the primal rhythm
Of that theurgic nature? I must fail,
Who fail at the beginning to hold and move
One man,–and he my cousin, and he my friend,
And he born tender, made intelligent,
Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides
Of difficult questions; yet, obtuse to me,–
Of me, incurious! likes me very well,
And wishes me a paradise of good,
Good looks, good means, and good digestion!–ay,
But otherwise evades me, puts me off
With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness,–
Too light a book for a grave man's reading! Go,
Aurora Leigh: be humble.
There it is;
We women are too apt to look to one,
Which proves a certain impotence in art.
We strain our natures at doing something great,
Far less because it's something great to do,
Than, haply, that we, so, commend ourselves
As being not small, and more appreciable
To some one friend. We must have mediators

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Nun in FRiar Small-Bro's Grave... Yard

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[...] Read more

poem by Terry O'Leary
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Venus and Adonis

'Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo
Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua.'

To the right honorable Henry Wriothesly, Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield.
Right honorable.

I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden only, if your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a god-father, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honourable survey, and your honour to your heart's content; which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world's hopeful expectation.

Your honour's in all duty.

Even as the sun with purple-colour'd face
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek'd Adonis hied him to the chase;
Hunting he loved, but love he laugh'd to scorn;
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold-faced suitor 'gins to woo him.
'Thrice-fairer than myself,' thus she began,
'The field's chief flower, sweet above compare,
Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,
More white and red than doves or roses are;
Nature that made thee, with herself at strife,
Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.
'Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed,
And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;
If thou wilt deign this favour, for thy meed
A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:
Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,
And being set, I'll smother thee with kisses;
'And yet not cloy thy lips with loathed satiety,
But rather famish them amid their plenty,
Making them red and pale with fresh variety,
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty:
A summer's day will seem an hour but short,
Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.'
With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,
The precedent of pith and livelihood,
And trembling in her passion, calls it balm,
Earth's sovereign salve to do a goddess good:
Being so enraged, desire doth lend her force
Courageously to pluck him from his horse.
Over one arm the lusty courser's rein,
Under her other was the tender boy,
Who blush'd and pouted in a dull disdain,
With leaden appetite, unapt to toy;
She red and hot as coals of glowing fire,
He red for shame, but frosty in desire.
The studded bridle on a ragged bough
Nimbly she fastens:--O, how quick is love!--
The steed is stalled up, and even now
To tie the rider she begins to prove:

[...] Read more

poem by William Shakespeare
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Cenci : A Tragedy In Five Acts

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Count Francesco Cenci.
Giacomo, his Son.
Bernardo, his Son.
Cardinal Camillo.
Orsino, a Prelate.
Savella, the Pope's Legate.
Olimpio, Assassin.
Marzio, Assassin.
Andrea, Servant to Cenci.
Nobles, Judges, Guards, Servants.
Lucretia, Wife of Cenci, and Step-mother of his children.
Beatrice, his Daughter.

The Scene lies principally in Rome, but changes during the Fourth Act to Petrella, a castle among the Apulian Apennines.
Time. During the Pontificate of Clement VIII.

ACT I

Scene I.
-An Apartment in the Cenci Palace.
Enter Count Cenci, and Cardinal Camillo.

Camillo.
That matter of the murder is hushed up
If you consent to yield his Holiness
Your fief that lies beyond the Pincian gate.-
It needed all my interest in the conclave
To bend him to this point: he said that you
Bought perilous impunity with your gold;
That crimes like yours if once or twice compounded
Enriched the Church, and respited from hell
An erring soul which might repent and live:-
But that the glory and the interest
Of the high throne he fills, little consist
With making it a daily mart of guilt
As manifold and hideous as the deeds
Which you scarce hide from men's revolted eyes.

Cenci.
The third of my possessions-let it go!
Ay, I once heard the nephew of the Pope
Had sent his architect to view the ground,
Meaning to build a villa on my vines
The next time I compounded with his uncle:
I little thought he should outwit me so!

[...] Read more

poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Too Darn Hot

(c. porter)
Its too darn hot.
Its too darn hot.
I like to sup with my baby tonight,
Refill the cup with my baby tonight.
I like to sup with my baby tonight,
Refill the cup with my baby tonight.
But I aint up to my baby tonight,
cause its too darn hot.
Its too darn hot.
Its just too darn hot.
I like to coo with my baby tonight,
And pitch the woo with my baby tonight.
I like to coo with my baby tonight,
And pitch the woo with my baby tonight.
But brother you fight my baby tonight,
cause its too darn hot.
According to the kinsey report,
Every average man you know
Much prefers his lovey dovey to court,
When the temperature is low.
But when the thermometer goes way up,
And the weather is sizzling hot.
Mr. pants for romance is not!
Because its too darn hot. (too hot!)
Its too darn hot,
Its too darn hot.
Oh, its too darn hot,
Its too darn hot.
I like to coo with my baby tonight,
And pitch the woo with my baby tonight.
I like to coo with my baby tonight,
And pitch the woo with my baby tonight.
But brother you fight my baby tonight,
cause its too darn hot.
Mr. gob for his squab,
A marine for his queen,
A g.i. for his cutie-pie is not.
Oh its too darn hot,
Its too darn hot,
Its too darn hot!
I gotta get the heat down,
Gotta get the heat down.

song performed by Erasure
Added by Lucian Velea
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