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Leaves Begin to Shudder

A bum called Boe has stubbed his toe, he's stumbled in the gutter;
With broken neck, he looks a wreck, the sparrows all aflutter,
The passers-by, they close an eye, and turn their heads and mutter:
'Let's pray for rains to wash the lanes, to clear away the clutter.'
A river slows neath mountain snows, and leaves begin to shudder.

poem by Terry O'Leary
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Smile Please

A smiling face is on earth like star
A frown cant bring out the beauty that you are
Love within and youll begin smiling...
Therere brighter days ahead
Dont mess your face up with better tears
cause life is gonna be what it is
Its okay, please dont delay from smiling...
Therere brighter days ahead
Bum
Bum bum di ti bum
Bum bum di ti bum
Bum bum di ti bum
Di ti bum
Bum bum di ti bum
Bum bum di ti bum
Bum bum di ti bum
A smiling face you dont have to see
cause its as joyful as a christmas tree
Love within and youll begin smiling...
Therere brighter days ahead
Loves not competing its on your side
Youre in life picture so why must you cry
So for a friend please begin to smile - please
Therere brighter days ahead
Bum
Bum bum di ti bum
Bum bum di ti bum
Bum bum di ti bum
Please smile for me
Bum
Bum bum di ti bum
Bum bum di ti bum
Bum bum di ti bum
Please smile for me
Bum - smile
Bum
Bum bum di ti bum
Bum bum di ti bum
Bum bum di ti bum

song performed by Stevie Wonder
Added by Lucian Velea
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Best Man

I was getting fed up
With all your dipping out with every girl around town
You know what I'm talking 'bout
Cause you've been caught
And I forgave you many times
But now I slipped up
And while your friend was around
I gave him a taste of my love
I know that I broke your trust for a night of lust
But don't let that break us up
1 - Charge it to the game baby
I know what's going on when you say your alone
And you won't pick up the phone
Charge it to the game baby
You can't even hate
Don't get up in my face
Cause your boy got a taste
2 - He is your best man, your best friend
I guess you didn't know that I had him
I know that you hate that
It's like that
You were the best but yet he ain't so bad
Repeat 2
I needed a shoulder to cry on
But I got more than a shoulder that night
I know that you're mad and you're angry
Who gives a damn?
You didn't treat me right
You know that I love you
More than anything, you are the center of my life
It was just tit for tat, a little pay back
Let it go and leave it like that
Repeat 1
Repeat 2 (2x)
So many times you broke my heart
I never thought that it would heal
So I decided to return the pain
You always make me feel
Now I won't try to justify
What I did but I'll tell you why
If you think someone else is in my life
Then maybe you'll treat me right, yeah
Bum, bum, bum
Bum, bum, bum
Bum, bum, bum, bum
Bum, bum, bum
Bum, bum, bum
Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum
Bum, bum, bum
Bum, bum, bum

[...] Read more

song performed by Faith Evans
Added by Lucian Velea
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Many People Hate To Make A Ripple

Not many people beating on their own drum.
Bumma dum bum.
Bumma dum bum.
Not many people making music they hum.
Bumma dum bum.
Bumma dum bum.

Cause many people hate to make a ripple.

Bumma dum bum.
Bumma dum bum.

Many people hate to make a ripple.

Bumma dum bum.
Bumma dum bum.

Clinging on a moan and a whine all the time.
Bumma dum bum.
Bumma dum bum.

Complaining to their neighbors and their neighbors don't mind.
Bumma dum bum.
Bumma dum bum.

Cause many people hate to make a ripple.

Bumma dum bum.
Bumma dum bum.

Many people hate to make a ripple.

Bumma dum bum.
Bumma dum bum.

Not many people beating on their own drum.
Bumma dum bum.
Bumma dum bum.
Not many people making music they hum.
Bumma dum bum.
Bumma dum bum.

Cause many people hate to make a ripple.

Bumma dum bum.
Bumma dum bum.

Cause many people hate to make a ripple.

Bumma dum bum.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Little Drummer Boy

Rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Come they told me
Pa rum pum pum pum (ba bum)
A new born king to see (ba bum)
Pa rum pum pum pum (ba bum)
Our finest gifts we bring
Pa rum pum pum pum (ba bum)
Rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum (ba bum)
Little (little) baby
Pa rum pum pum pum (ba bum)
I am a poor boy too
Pa rum pum pum pum (ba bum)
I have no gift to bring
Pa rum pum pum pum (ba bum)
(ooohh)
Thats fit to give our king
Pa rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Then he smiled
Smiled at me!
Mary nodded
Pa rum pum pum pum (ba bum)
The ox and lamb kept time
Pa rum pum pum pum
I played my drum for him
Pa rum pum pum pum
I played my best for him
Pa rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum (ba bum)
Me and my drum...
Rum bum bum bum
Rum bum bum bum
Rum bum bum bum
Me and my drum (oh)
Rum bum bum bum
Rum bum bum bum
Rum bum bum bum
Me and my (me and my, me and my...)
Drum...

song performed by Vanessa Williams
Added by Lucian Velea
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XI. Guido

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Never Land

PREFACE
This yarn is a fabric woven of several earlier warped works, lightly laced together with additional braided tales of human frailty. The looms were purling frantically... Some pearls may be found wonting, hanging loose, dangling free within a fuzzy flight of fancy... These untethered strands may be fastened, or be forgotten, or be hidden by the readers in the corners of their minds... Some may end up in stitches, others all torn up or ripped apart, others may just say ‘made of hole cloth', ‘sew what' or ‘I don't seam to get the needle point'... This wanton web is yours to spin...

Some have said that such strange things ‘have Never happened in our Land', such quaint things ‘could Never happen in our Land'', such murky things ‘will Never happen in our Land''... and this may be true... such is the gossamer that veils the human mind... and thus ensues the title of this Fantasy...

NEVER LAND

An ancient man named Peter Pan, disguised but from the past,
With feathered cap and tunic wrap and sabre's sailed his last.
Though fully grown, on dust he's flown and perched upon a mast
Atop the Walls around the sprawls, unvisited and vast -
And all the while with bitter smile he's watching us aghast.

As day begins, a spindle spins, it weaves a wanton web;
Like puckered prunes, like midday moons, like yesterday's celebs,
We scrape and grope, we seldom hope - he's watching while we ebb:

The organ grinder preaches fine on Sunday afternoons -
He quotes from books but overlooks the Secrets Carved in Runes:
'You've tried and toyed, but can't avoid or shun the pale monsoons,
It's sink or swim as echoed dim in swinging door saloons'.
The laughingstocks are flinging rocks at ball-and-chained baboons.

While ghetto boys are looting toys preparing for their doom
And Mademoiselles are weaving shells on tapestries with looms,
Cathedral cats and rafter rats are peering in the room,
Where ragged strangers stoop for change, for coppers in the gloom,
Whose thoughts are more upon the doors of crypts in Christmas bloom,
And gold doubloons and silver spoons that tempt beyond the tomb.

Mid Uzi shots from vacant lots, that strike and ricochet
A painted girl with flaxen curl (named Wendy) 's on her way
To tantalise with half-clad thighs, to trick again today;
And indiscreet upon the street she gives her pride away
To any guy who's passing by with time and cash to pay.
(In concert halls beyond the Walls, unjaded girls ballet,
With flowered thoughts of Camelot and dreams of cabarets.)

The alley ways within the maze are paved with rats and mice.
Evangelists with moneyed fists collect the sacrifice
From losers scorned and rubes reborn, and promise paradise,
While in the back they cook some crack, inhale, and roll the dice.

A bum called Boe has stubbed his toe, he's stumbled in the gutter;
With broken neck, he looks a wreck, the sparrows all aflutter,
The passers-by, they close an eye, and turn their heads and mutter:
'Let's pray for rains to wash the lanes, to clear away the clutter.'
A river slows neath mountain snows, and leaves begin to shudder.

[...] Read more

poem by Terry O'Leary
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Loving That Taste For The Gutter

If they always call those they visit trash,
And on a daily basis they are around them.
What do they regard themselves?
Trash collectors?
Or recycled garbage...
Loving that taste for the gutter.

They can't leave it,
'Cause they come right back.
No matter what they call it they want it like that!
Because they love that taste for the gutter.
They love that taste for the gutter.

Whenever its suspected someone else will attack,
They will defend their trash with a coming back.
Because they love that taste for the gutter.
Yes they love that taste for the gutter.

They can't leave it,
'Cause they come right back.
No matter what they call it they want it like that!
Because they love that taste for the gutter.
They love that taste for the gutter.

If they always call those they visit trash,
And on a daily basis they are around them.
What do they regard themselves?
Trash collectors?
Garbage defenders?

Whenever its suspected someone else will attack,
They will defend their trash with a coming back.
Because they love that taste for the gutter.
Yes they love that taste for the gutter.

Garbage defenders,
Loving that taste for the gutter.
Trash collectors,
Loving that taste for the gutter.
But wont admit or quit,
Loving that taste for the gutter.

They can't leave it,
'Cause they come right back.
Because they love that taste for the gutter.
Garbage defenders,
Loving that taste for the gutter.
Trash collectors,
Loving that taste for the gutter.
But wont admit or quit,

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Shepherds Calendar - July

Daughter of pastoral smells and sights
And sultry days and dewy nights
July resumes her yearly place
Wi her milking maiden face
Ruddy and tand yet sweet to view
When everywhere's a vale of dew
And raps it round her looks that smiles
A lovly rest to daily toils
Wi last months closing scenes and dins
Her sultry beaming birth begins

Hay makers still in grounds appear
And some are thinning nearly clear
Save oddly lingering shocks about
Which the tithman counteth out
Sticking their green boughs where they go
The parsons yearly claims to know
Which farmers view wi grudging eye
And grumbling drive their waggons bye
In hedge bound close and meadow plains
Stript groups of busy bustling swains
From all her hants wi noises rude
Drives to the wood lands solitude
That seeks a spot unmarkd wi paths
Far from the close and meadow swaths
Wi smutty song and story gay
They cart the witherd smelling hay
Boys loading on the waggon stand
And men below wi sturdy hand
Heave up the shocks on lathy prong
While horse boys lead the team along
And maidens drag the rake behind
Wi light dress shaping to the wind
And trembling locks of curly hair
And snow white bosoms nearly bare
That charms ones sight amid the hay
Like lingering blossoms of the may
From clowns rude jokes they often turn
And oft their cheeks wi blushes burn
From talk which to escape a sneer
They oft affect as not to hear
Some in the nooks about the ground
Pile up the stacks swelld bellying round
The milking cattles winter fare
That in the snow are fodderd there
Warm spots wi black thorn thickets lind
And trees to brake the northern wind
While masters oft the sultry hours
Will urge their speed and talk of showers
When boy from home trotts to the stack

[...] Read more

poem by John Clare
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Would you ever believe

WOULD YOU EVER believe if I called a nondescript table of teakwood; as a vivacious bird soaring high in the sky,

Would you ever believe if I called a ruffled sheet of paper; as a chunk of glittering gold,

Would you ever believe if I called a grandiloquent watch embodied with diamonds; as a lump of bedraggled stone,

Would you ever believe if I called a mountain of compacted mud; as a switchboard of pugnacious electricity,

Would you ever believe if I called a resplendent rainbow in the sky; as a broomstick with incongruous bristles,

Would you ever believe if I called a rusty canister of dilapidated iron; as a mesmerizing rose growing in the garden,

Would you ever believe if I called a pink tablet of luxury soap; as a mosquito hovering acrimoniously in the cloistered room,

Would you ever believe if I called a boat rollicking merrily on the undulating waves; as a rustic jungle spider,

Would you ever believe if I called a valley profusely embedded with snow; as an unscrupulous dog on the street,

Would you ever believe if I called a pair of luscious lips; as a disdainfully fetid shoe,

Would you ever believe if I called a fluorescent rod of light; as a jagged bush of cactus growing in the sweltering desert,

Would you ever believe if I called the blazing sun; as a pudgy bar of delectable chocolate,
Would you ever believe if I called an angular sculptured bone; as acid bubbling in a swanky bottle,

Would you ever believe if I called a scintillating oyster; as an inarticulate matchstick coated with lead,

Would you ever believe if I called a cluster of bells jingling from the ceiling; as a sordid cockroach philandering beside the lavatory seat,

Would you ever believe if I called a fruit of succulent coconut; as a dead mans morbid tooth,

Would you ever believe If I called a steaming cup of filter coffee; as gaudily colored water emanating from the street fountains,

Would you ever believe if I called the majestic statue of a revered historian; as a slab of tangy peanut butter,

Would you ever believe if I called a vibrant shirt; as a protuberant pigeon discerningly pecking its beak at grains scattered on the floor,

Would you ever believe if I called a flocculent bud of cotton; as a camouflaged lizard transgressing through wild projections of grass,

Would you ever believe if I called a photograph depicting the steep gorges; as a gutter inundated with obnoxious sewage,

Would you ever believe if I called a lanky giraffe; as a convict nefariously lurking through solitary streets of the city,

Would you ever believe if I called a pair of flamboyant sunglasses; as a weird tattoo to be adhered to the chest,

Would you ever believe if I called a chicken’s egg; as logs of sooty charcoal abundantly stashed in the colossal warehouse,

Would you ever believe if I called a biscuit replete with golden honey; as a ominously slithering reptile in the jungles,

Would you ever believe if I called a bald man possessing a profoundly tonsured scalp; as a gas balloon floating in insipid air,

[...] Read more

poem by Nikhil Parekh
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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

[...] Read more

poem by James Thomson
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Whatever

Im liking you too much
Dont take advantage of
My tender heart and everything about me
In giving you my trust
Im giving you my love
So do take care, please be gentle with my heart
cause everything I do is bout you, baby
Baby, I dont wanna be apart, ooh
Ive been loving you from the start
Heres my heart, heres my heart
Everything I do is all about you, baby
Whatever you do, whatever you think
I look in your eyes
You dont know how my heart aches
Whatever you say, whatever could mean
Youre breaking my heart
I want it all the time, I want it every night
I cant stop thinking, cant stop thinking about you
Im burning with desire, my heart and soul on fire
So do take care, please be careful with my heart
(bum, bum, bum) anything you do, I crave it, baby, baby, baby
(bum, bum, bum) I cant get you out a my mind
(bum, bum, bum) loving you I cant deny youre in my heart
(bum, bum, bum) deep inside, everything I do is all about you, baby
Whatever you do, whatever you think
I look in your eyes
You dont know how my heart aches
Whatever you say, whatever could mean
Youre breaking my heart
I maybe a fool for you, baby
Well, I cant help myself
Maybe Im too in love
What else can I do but go crazy
For your love, boy, Id give anything
(bum, bum, bum)
(bum, bum, bum)
(ho?h?h
Whatever you do, whatever you think
I look in your eyes
You dont know how my heart aches
Whatever you say, whatever could mean
Youre breaking my heart
Whatever you do, whatever you think
I look in your eyes
You dont know how my heart aches
Whatever you say, whatever could mean
Youre breaking my heart
Whatever you do, whatever you think
I look in your eyes
You dont know how my heart aches

[...] Read more

song performed by En Vogue
Added by Lucian Velea
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Come Back To Me My Love

Orbison/melson
Bum bum bum da de da oh oh oh yeah yeah
Bum bum bum da de da ah come back to me my love
Come back to me
16 years ago today early one sunday morn
Just before the break of day a cute little girl was born
From that very moment on her lifes been gay and free
Laughing eyes and loving ways as sweet as she could be
Bum bum bum da de da oh oh oh yeah yeah
Bum bum bum da de da ah come back to me my love
Come back to me
We had a quarrel I cant forget the night I made her cry
Her tender heart just fell apart as she said good-bye
Now today is her birthday my babys sweet 16
But someone else is in my place to hold my every dream
Bum bum bum da de da oh oh oh yeah yeah
Bum bum bum da de da ah come back to me my love
Come back to me

song performed by Roy Orbison
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Undying One- Canto III

'THERE is a sound the autumn wind doth make
Howling and moaning, listlessly and low:
Methinks that to a heart that ought to break
All the earth's voices seem to murmur so.
The visions that crost
Our path in light--
The things that we lost
In the dim dark night--
The faces for which we vainly yearn--
The voices whose tones will not return--
That low sad wailing breeze doth bring
Borne on its swift and rushing wing.
Have ye sat alone when that wind was loud,
And the moon shone dim from the wintry cloud?
When the fire was quench'd on your lonely hearth,
And the voices were still which spoke of mirth?

If such an evening, tho' but one,
It hath been yours to spend alone--
Never,--though years may roll along
Cheer'd by the merry dance and song;
Though you mark'd not that bleak wind's sound before,
When louder perchance it used to roar--
Never shall sound of that wintry gale
Be aught to you but a voice of wail!
So o'er the careless heart and eye
The storms of the world go sweeping by;
But oh! when once we have learn'd to weep,
Well doth sorrow his stern watch keep.
Let one of our airy joys decay--
Let one of our blossoms fade away--
And all the griefs that others share
Seem ours, as well as theirs, to bear:
And the sound of wail, like that rushing wind
Shall bring all our own deep woe to mind!

'I went through the world, but I paused not now
At the gladsome heart and the joyous brow:
I went through the world, and I stay'd to mark
Where the heart was sore, and the spirit dark:
And the grief of others, though sad to see,
Was fraught with a demon's joy to me!

'I saw the inconstant lover come to take
Farewell of her he loved in better days,
And, coldly careless, watch the heart-strings break--
Which beat so fondly at his words of praise.
She was a faded, painted, guilt-bow'd thing,
Seeking to mock the hues of early spring,
When misery and years had done their worst

[...] Read more

poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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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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Percys Song

Bad news, bad news,
Come to me where I sleep,
Turn, turn, turn again.
Sayin one of your friends
Is in trouble deep,
Turn, turn to the rain
And the wind.
Tell me the trouble,
Tell once to my ear,
Turn, turn, turn again.
Joliet prison
And ninety-nine years,
Turn, turn to the rain
And the wind.
Oh whats the charge
Of how this came to be,
Turn, turn, turn again.
Manslaughter
In the highest of degree,
Turn, turn to the rain
And the wind.
I sat down and wrote
The best words I could write,
Turn, turn, turn again.
Explaining to the judge
Id be there on wednesday night,
Turn, turn to the rain
And the wind.
Without a reply,
I left by the moon,
Turn, turn, turn again.
And was in his chambers
By the next afternoon,
Turn, turn to the rain
And the wind.
Could ya tell me the facts?
I said without fear,
Turn, turn, turn again.
That a friend of mine
Would get ninety-nine years,
Turn, turn to the rain
And the wind.
A crash on the highway
Flew the car to a field,
Turn, turn, turn again.
There was four persons killed
And he was at the wheel,
Turn, turn to the rain
And the wind.
But I knew him as good

[...] Read more

song performed by Bob Dylan
Added by Lucian Velea
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Boe the Cat

Boe the Cat was not an easy cat to like
But then he did not like others either.

Blandishments carried no weight with Boe,
He bit or scratched at all who drew close
Believing the entire house to be his domain,
He considered a carelessly unprotected ankle
anywhere as fair game for attack

There was, in truth, little endearing about him.
“The Cat from Hell” my daughter pronounced
As he rebuffed yet another of her overtures.

He was in indoor cat, and quite mad.

Boe’s one redeeming virtue I could see
Was his unqualified devotion to my wife
And the joy his exclusive adoration gave her.
He had arrived with her, a dowry of sorts,
Or an inscrutable prenuptual agreement.

To be fair, the Cat was gentle with our son.
And usually chose to sleep in our room, Still,
I found him generally surly, suspicious and
Ill tempered. “No. He’s feisty but he's family”
Insisted my wife, scooping him up in her arms

Saved from a South Boston slum before I arrived,
Boe was as tied to her as remote from the world..
Whenever we took an overnight, we would return
To hairballs or puddles (or sometimes worse)
Expressing his feelings on being abandoned.

The first person up, I aways made the coffee.
The Cat from Hell came as I prepared to put
His catfood on his mat—just in time to bite me.
Truth. Predictable, and embarrassing too-
My limbs looked scored by needle tracks!

Once, fretting about something, I awoke early
And had the dish in place before Boe arrived.
Seeing it, he just stared balefully at me, waiting.
I retrieved the food, pretended to fill the plate,
Put it down. He promptly bit me, then ate content.

Boe did have a favorite pasttime in his life:
To crouch motionless by windows staring out
At the birds flittering on feeders and squirrels
Racing across the lawn, his jaws trembling,
Instinctually knowing how nicely they’d crunch.

[...] Read more

poem by Chuck Toll
Added by Poetry Lover
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Peter Bell, A Tale

PROLOGUE

There's something in a flying horse,
There's something in a huge balloon;
But through the clouds I'll never float
Until I have a little Boat,
Shaped like the crescent-moon.

And now I 'have' a little Boat,
In shape a very crescent-moon
Fast through the clouds my boat can sail;
But if perchance your faith should fail,
Look up--and you shall see me soon!

The woods, my Friends, are round you roaring,
Rocking and roaring like a sea;
The noise of danger's in your ears,
And ye have all a thousand fears
Both for my little Boat and me!

Meanwhile untroubled I admire
The pointed horns of my canoe;
And, did not pity touch my breast,
To see how ye are all distrest,
Till my ribs ached, I'd laugh at you!

Away we go, my Boat and I--
Frail man ne'er sate in such another;
Whether among the winds we strive,
Or deep into the clouds we dive,
Each is contented with the other.

Away we go--and what care we
For treasons, tumults, and for wars?
We are as calm in our delight
As is the crescent-moon so bright
Among the scattered stars.

Up goes my Boat among the stars
Through many a breathless field of light,
Through many a long blue field of ether,
Leaving ten thousand stars beneath her:
Up goes my little Boat so bright!

The Crab, the Scorpion, and the Bull--
We pry among them all; have shot
High o'er the red-haired race of Mars,
Covered from top to toe with scars;
Such company I like it not!

[...] Read more

poem by William Wordsworth
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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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Thurso’s Landing

I
The coast-road was being straightened and repaired again,
A group of men labored at the steep curve
Where it falls from the north to Mill Creek. They scattered and hid
Behind cut banks, except one blond young man
Who stooped over the rock and strolled away smiling
As if he shared a secret joke with the dynamite;
It waited until he had passed back of a boulder,
Then split its rock cage; a yellowish torrent
Of fragments rose up the air and the echoes bumped
From mountain to mountain. The men returned slowly
And took up their dropped tools, while a banner of dust
Waved over the gorge on the northwest wind, very high
Above the heads of the forest.
Some distance west of the road,
On the promontory above the triangle
Of glittering ocean that fills the gorge-mouth,
A woman and a lame man from the farm below
Had been watching, and turned to go down the hill. The young
woman looked back,
Widening her violet eyes under the shade of her hand. 'I think
they'll blast again in a minute.'
And the man: 'I wish they'd let the poor old road be. I don't
like improvements.' 'Why not?' 'They bring in the world;
We're well without it.' His lameness gave him some look of age
but he was young too; tall and thin-faced,
With a high wavering nose. 'Isn't he amusing,' she said, 'that
boy Rick Armstrong, the dynamite man,
How slowly he walks away after he lights the fuse. He loves to
show off. Reave likes him, too,'
She added; and they clambered down the path in the rock-face,
little dark specks
Between the great headland rock and the bright blue sea.

II
The road-workers had made their camp
North of this headland, where the sea-cliff was broken down and
sloped to a cove. The violet-eyed woman's husband,
Reave Thurso, rode down the slope to the camp in the gorgeous
autumn sundown, his hired man Johnny Luna
Riding behind him. The road-men had just quit work and four
or five were bathing in the purple surf-edge,
The others talked by the tents; blue smoke fragrant with food
and oak-wood drifted from the cabin stove-pipe
And slowly went fainting up the vast hill.
Thurso drew rein by
a group of men at a tent door
And frowned at them without speaking, square-shouldered and
heavy-jawed, too heavy with strength for so young a man,
He chose one of the men with his eyes. 'You're Danny Woodruff,

[...] Read more

poem by Robinson Jeffers
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The Dream

'TWAS summer eve; the changeful beams still play'd
On the fir-bark and through the beechen shade;
Still with soft crimson glow'd each floating cloud;
Still the stream glitter'd where the willow bow'd;
Still the pale moon sate silent and alone,
Nor yet the stars had rallied round her throne;
Those diamond courtiers, who, while yet the West
Wears the red shield above his dying breast,
Dare not assume the loss they all desire,
Nor pay their homage to the fainter fire,
But wait in trembling till the Sun's fair light
Fading, shall leave them free to welcome Night!

So when some Chief, whose name through realms afar
Was still the watchword of succesful war,
Met by the fatal hour which waits for all,
Is, on the field he rallied, forced to fall,
The conquerors pause to watch his parting breath,
Awed by the terrors of that mighty death;
Nor dare the meed of victory to claim,
Nor lift the standard to a meaner name,
Till every spark of soul hath ebb'd away,
And leaves what was a hero, common clay.

Oh! Twilight! Spirit that dost render birth
To dim enchantments; melting Heaven with Earth,
Leaving on craggy hills and rumning streams
A softness like the atmosphere of dreams;
Thy hour to all is welcome! Faint and sweet
Thy light falls round the peasant's homeward feet,
Who, slow returning from his task of toil,
Sees the low sunset gild the cultured soil,
And, tho' such radliance round him brightly glows,
Marks the small spark his cottage window throws.
Still as his heart forestals his weary pace,
Fondly he dreams of each familiar face,
Recalls the treasures of his narrow life,
His rosy children, and his sunburnt wife,

To whom his coming is the chief event
Of simple days in cheerful labour spent.
The rich man's chariot hath gone whirling past,
And those poor cottagers have only cast
One careless glance on all that show of pride,
Then to their tasks turn'd quietly aside;
But him they wait for, him they welcome home,
Fond sentinels look forth to see him come;
The fagot sent for when the fire grew dim,
The frugal meal prepared, are all for him;
For him the watching of that sturdy boy,

[...] Read more

poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
Added by Poetry Lover
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