Citatepedia^®.com

The Love of the World Reproved: or, Hypocrisy Detected

Thus says the prophet of the Turk;
Good musselman, abstain from pork!
There is a part in every swine
No friend or follower of mine
May taste, whate'er his inclination,
On pain of excommunication.
Such Mahomet's mysterious charge,
And thus he left the point at large.
Had he the sinful part expressed,
They might with safety eat the rest;
But for one piece they thought it hard
And set their wit at work to find
What joint the prophet had in mind.

Much controversy straight arose,
These choose the back, the belly those;
By some 'tis confidently said
He meant not to forbid the head,
While others at that doctrine rail,
And piously prefer the tail.
Thus, conscience freed from every clog,
Mahometans eat up the hog.

You laugh! - 'tis well, - the tale applied
May make you laugh on t'other side.
Renounce the world, the preacher cries; -
We do, - a multitude replies,
While one as innocent regards
A snug and friendly game at cards;
And one, whatever you may say,
Can see no evil in a play;
Some love a concert or a race,
And others, shooting and the chase.
Reviled and loved, renounced and followed,
Thus bit by bit the world is swallowed;
Each thinks his neighbour makes too free,
Yet likes a slice as well as he,
With sophistry their sauce they sweeten,
Till quite from tail to snout 'tis eaten.

poem by William Cowper
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

How A Naked Mole

breed pit bull puppy pictures breed pitbull pics breed pitbull pure breed pitbull snooty breed pitbulls breed platies breed platties breed plecos breed plecostomus breed point tabulating breed points breed points dog breed points havanese breed points veterans breed pomeranians breed poo puppy shih breed poodle chihuahua breed poodle toy breed portuguese water dog breed poultry rare breed predisposition to cruciate injurie breed primarily seal points breed problems with labadoodles breed problems with labradoodles breed professional pug training breed profile american pit bull terrier breed profile bierwer breed profile bierwer yorkshire terrier breed profile british blue breed profile exmoor pony breed profile german bierwer breed profile hungarian hound breed profile hungarian viszla breed profile labrador retriever breed profile maine coon cats breed profile munchkin cats breed profile of the weimaraner breed profile persian cats temperament breed profile schipperke breed profile selle francais breed profile siamese cat breed profile sphynx breed profile sphynx cat breed profiles dog breeds boxer breed puddle of mudd breed puppies breed puppy pure breed puppy teacup breed puppymill rescue toy wolfspirit breed pure rescue breed pygmy goats breed quail breed questionaire breed quiz selector breed rabbit tan breed rabbits for sale kansas city breed rabbits timeline breed racing greyhound breed ragdoll breed ragdoll cats breed rankings breed rap game mp3 breed rare survival trust breed rare turkey breed rarr monster tee breed rat terrier breed receiver breed red cows breed registry usa breed registry wikipedia the free encycl breed reptans breed rescue and virginia breed rescue black labradors breed rescue club minnesota breed rescue corgi breed rescue corgie breed rescue dallas breed rescue feline breed rescue french bulldogs breed rescue georgia breed rescue groups houston texas breed rescue groups in texas breed rescue groups indianapolis indiana breed rescue groups minnesota breed rescue husky breed rescue in colorado breed rescue in illinois breed rescue in michigan breed rescue in new jersey breed rescue jack russell breed rescue list cat breed rescue list co ok breed rescue list utah breed rescue maine coon breed rescue mississippi breed rescue northern virginia breed rescue of south louisiana breed rescue of terriers nz breed rescue organizations lake charles breed rescue organizations list texas breed rescue policies and procedures breed rescue policy and procedures breed rescue springer spaniel breed rescue wa breed rescue wa huesemann breed rescue weimerainer breed rescue zealots breed rescues list national cat breed rescues of mississippi breed rescuing st louis breed rescuw breed responsibly breed restrctions huskies breed restriction laws breed restriction list insurance breed restriction on german shepard dogs breed restrictions akita breed restrictions huskies breed restrictive legislation breed retrievr breed reviews breed rhodesian ridgeback dogs breed roan to dun breed roan to dun genetics breed roan to roan breed roll mp3 breed rooster breed rottie arizona breed rottweiler name ranger location mi breed rottweler breed rough mix breed s tobacco activism guide breed san juan rabbits breed savannah cat breed scarab beetle breed schipperke breed selecter dog quiz breed selection quiz breed selective legislation breed selector breed selector akc breed selector and dog breed selector au breed selector dog breed selector dog iams breed selector dog purina breed selector dog quiz breed selector dominance breed selector interactive breed selector quiz breed selectors breed seminar content breed seminar presentations breed series breed service golden retriever mi breed severum breed severum in a ten gallon breed sheba breed sheep hebridean rare year graze breed sheep in spring breed sheltie breed shi shus breed shiny pokemon breed shitzu breed shiz shus breed short ears black muzzle stocky breed showing papillons ears breed shrimp labrador retriever dog breed labrador retriever dog breed handbook labrador retriever english breed labrador retriever pit bull mixed breed labrador retriever puppies breed nsw aus labrador retriever puppies the dogs bree labrador retriever types breeds labrador retrievers breed distinctive labrador retrievers breeds labrador types of breeds labradore cross breed labradore spaniel cross breed labraodor retreivers labrador breeders l labrodoodle breed labrodor and rottweiler mixed breed lactating small breed dogs lactating small breed dogs calcium lady and the tramp dog breed lady and the tramp dog breeds laege cow breeds lagotta dog breed lagotto romognolo dog breed lahore pigeon breed laika breed club laika breed club uk laika breeds beregovoy laika dog breed laika the dog breed lake pepin half breed lake pepin half breed rolls lakeland terrier breed info lakeside large dog breed rescue lakewood wa dog breed restrictions lama breeds lamancha breed weaknesses lamb breeds and pictures lamb breeds chart lancier dog breed landrace breed landseer breed standard landseer dog breed landseer dog breed information lanois dog breed lap boxer breed lap cat breed lap cat breeds lap dog breeds lap dog mix breeds lapaso dog breed lapdog breeds laperm breed lapponian herder breed standard laps apso breed standard laps psa dog breed lapsa breeds lapsa dog breed lapsa opsa dog breed lapso opso mixed breed with pomeranian lard hog breed larg breed dog boxes for sale large aggressive breeds of dogs large breed 2 leather dog collar large breed animal boarding large breed animal boarding minnesota large breed bat large breed beagles large breed bluetick pitbull puppies large breed boarding kennels az large breed brazilian fella dog large breed brazilian fella dog pictures large breed canine nutrition calcium req large breed canine nutrition research large breed cedar dog house large breed chihuahua large breed chows large breed christmas clothing large breed crate large breed designer dog collars large breed discrimination in parks large breed doag easy to train large breed doberman large breed dog accerseries large breed dog apparel large breed dog bath large breed dog bathtub large breed dog bed large breed dog beds free shipping large breed dog calcium and phosphorus large breed dog clothes patterns large breed dog collar large breed dog collars fish large breed dog collors large breed dog crate large breed dog crate cover large breed dog cysts large breed dog exercise large breed dog exercise guidelines large breed dog exercise warnings large breed dog facts large breed dog feeders large breed dog food protein large breed dog gestation large breed dog gestation period large breed dog harness large breed dog igloo large breed dog items large breed dog kennel large breed dog muzzles large breed dog names large breed dog nutrition large breed dog photo gallery large breed dog ramp large breed dog shock collars large breed dog surgery saint louis large breed dog sweaters large breed dog trivia large breed dog tub large breed dog veteranarians wisconsin large breed doggy door large breed doghouse large breed doghouses large breed dogs and bone problems large breed dogs bloat large breed dogs bloat prevention large breed dogs good with ren large breed dogs great white large breed dogs guard castles large breed dogs hurcules large breed dogs in airline cabins large breed dogs in airplane cabins large breed dogs tan large breed dogs thailand large breed dogs that dont shed large breed duplex dog houses large breed family and protection dogs large breed german shepards large breed german shepherd large breed glucosamine benefits large breed glucosamine chondroitin bene large breed guard dog large breed harnesses large breed horse large breed house cats large breed housecats large breed hypo alergenic large breed hypoallergenic large breed kitten food large breed labradors large breed lamb and rice large breed leather collars large breed leather dog collar large breed leather dog collars large breed litterbox large breed meetup large breed non shedding dogs large breed of catahoulas large breed of dog mountain rescue large breed of doghouses large breed of dogs large breed of domestic house cats large breed of housecat large breed of pet cat large breed pet friendly rental properti large breed pitbull large breed pitbull kennels large breed pitbull terriers large breed pitbulls large breed plastic kennel large breed professional dog clippers large breed puppies in austin tx large breed puppy care briard large breed puppy care kit large breed puppy diet large breed puppy dog food large breed puppy dogfood large breed puppy food large breed puppy food protein large breed puppy food review large breed puppy food sample large breed puppy food trials large breed puppy foods large breed puppy foods lonewolf brand large breed puppy foods wolf large breed puppy foods wolf brand large breed puppy for sale large breed puppy nutrition large breed puppy rescue large breed red heelers large breed reflective vest large breed rescue norco ca large breed rescue ontario large breed rescue quebec large breed resuce evansville in large breed short hair dogs large breed shorthair dog coat sweater large breed size cats large breed soft dog crate large breed south beach dog collars large breed spayed dogs large breed temple dog large breed toys large breed vet in levittown pa large breed veterinarian tucson large breed veterinarians large breed waist belt large breed water dogs large breed whelping box large breeds of cats large breeds of ponies large bully breed large bully breeds large cat breed large cats breed large cats breed exotic large chested medium sized dog breeds large docked tails mixed breed pup large dof breeds large dog breed large dog breed elevated bowl large dog breed english bull hound large dog breed from south africa large dog breed info large dog breed no drool large dog breed pictures large dog breed recipes watch dogs breeds watch horses breed watch monkeys breed watch the breed watch wife breed watchdog breed watchdog breed dog watchdog breed pitbull watchdog breeds watchdogs breeds watching animals breed watching animals breed humans watching wild animals breed watching wives breed water conditions to breed mosquitos water dog breed water dragon breed standards water rescue breed dog water resistant wool breed water spaniel dog breed water test pointing breeds waterdog breed watusi breed of cattle wax worm breed we are a dying breed we breed speed we worship you isarel new breed we worship you israel new breed web foot breeds web-footed dog breeds web-footed hound breeds webbed feet dog breeds webfoot breeds webkinz codes for rare breeds webquest dog breeds website for all dog breeds websites on horse breeds wee-chon mixed breed weenie dogs breeds weight chart dog breeds weight limit on rabbit breeds weimaraner breed weimaraner breed clubs weimaraner breed diseases weimaraner breed info weimaraner breed information weimaraner breed photos weimaraner breed profile weimaraner breed standards weimaraner dog breed weimaraner dog breeds weimaraner mixed breed weimaraner rottweiler cross breed weimaraners dog breed weimer raner breed of dog weimerainer breed standard weimeraner breed weimeraner breed information weimeraner breeds weimeraner dog breed weimeraner dog breed akc weimeraner dog breeds weimeraner rottweiler cross breed weimeraner viszla mix breed weimerarner breed clubs weimereimer breed info weimereimer breed photos weimereiner breed photos weimeriener darker breeds weiner dog breed weinhaimer breed weinheimer breed weinheimer dog breed weinmaraner breed disposition weinmariner breed weinmeraner breed info weinmeraner dog breed weinmeraner dog breed standards weinreimer dog breed weird cross breeds weird crss breeds weird dog breed mixes weird mixed breed animals weirdest dog breed welch dog breed well behaved dog breeds well breed pets well mannered dog breed well-mannered poniy breeds well-mannered pony breeds wellness kibble for small toy breed wells and breed wellsummer chicken breed characteristics welsch terrior breed information welsh breed welsh breed of dog welsh cardigan corgies breed clubs welsh cardin corgi breed info welsh cat breed welsh corgi and collie mix breed welsh corgi breed infomation welsh corgi breed pembroke dog welsh corgi dog breed welsh corgi dog rescue breed purebreds welsh dog breed welsh dog breeds welsh gorgi breed welsh pembrook corgi breed welsh pony breed welsh terrier breed information welsh terrier breed standard welsh terriers and dog breeds welsumer chicken breed wendy rose half breed chronicles were a albatross breeds were did the pitbull breed originate were is the dying breed now werriwa all breeds dog training club wes craven the breed wes cravens the breed west bend insurance dog breed restrictio west half breed scrip 1885 west highland terrier beagle cross breed west highland terrier breed west highland terrier breed info west highland white dog breed west highland white terrier breed standa west highland white terrier dog breed west higland terrier dog breed west indies dog breeds westerhoven dog breed western breed tack michigan western nc all breed dog rescue western painted turtle breed western pond turtle captive breed westhighland terrier breed of dogs westie bichon mix breed dogs westie breed westie breed info westie breed of dog westie breed of dogs westie cairn breed westie dog breed westie dog breeds westie mixed breed dogs westie shih tzu mixed breed dog westies breed westies breeds westies cairn breed westies dog breed westin breed of dog westminster breed 2008 westminster breed club westminster breed judging video westminster dog breeds westminster dog show breed entries westminster dog show breed judging westminster dog show breed winners westminster dog show breeds westminster dog show new breeds westminster new breeds westminster results 2008 breed westminsters dog breeds weston breed of dog westphalian breed registry brand westphalian horse breed westphalian horse breed brands westy dog breed wether goat breed information whales breeds southern ocean what 2 breeds make a clydesdale what age can you breed chihuahuas what age do cats breed what age do i breed labradors what age do you breed maltese what age to breed a cat what age to breed flemish giants what age to breed pigs what age to breed yorkies what age to breed your dog what are animal breeds what are breed rescue groups what are breeds of smart dogs what are breeds unique characteristics p what are bull breeds of cattle what are european breeds of cattle what are gated horse breeds what are pug breeds like what are some cat breeds what are some squirrel dog breeds what are the breeds of llamas what are the oldest horse breeds what breed are cop dogs what breed are ginger cats what breed dog is gentlest what breed dog should i choose what breed dog was lassie what breed dogs fit my personality what breed horse originated in czechoslo what breed horse you what breed horses gladiators ride what breed hosre originated in czechosla what breed is a crusader rabbit what breed is a dolly dog what breed is a jug dog what breed is a morkie dog what breed is a samoyed dog what breed is a silly dog what breed is a tabby what breed is a tobiano what breed is a tuxedo cat what breed is benji what breed is czechoslovakia what breed is devon rex what breed is flicka pug puppies breed pug sheltie mix breed pugalier hybrid breed puggat breed information puggle breed puggle breed info puggle breed information puggle breed traits puggle dog breed puggle dog breeds puggle mixed breed puggles breeds puggles dog breed puggles new breed pugle dog breed pugs and larger breeds pugs breed pugs breed with beagels pugs dog breed pugs getting along with larger breeds pugs to breed puli breed puli breed as a pet puli breeds puli dog breed pulik dog breed pulldoggies working dog breeds pulldoggies working dog breeds text java pulli dog breed pultry breeds punish the breed not the deed punish the deed not the breed punish tjhe deed not the breed puppia dog harness for large breeds puppie breed puppie breed hybrid poodle puppie breed hybrid poodle bichon puppie breeds puppie mix breed puppies all breeds puppies arkansas breed puppies arkansas breed kennel puppies arkansas breed mill puppies breed puppies breed information dog breeds puppies breeds puppies by breed puppies cute breeds puppies diffrent breeds puppies for sale by breed puppies in different breeds puppies mixed breed puppies mixed breed poodles puppies mixed breeds puppies new breeds puppies of mixed breeds puppies small breeds for sale puppies toy breeds puppies what breed puppy and dog breeds puppy birth weight by breed puppy breed puppy breed choice puppy breed finder puppy breed finder quiz puppy breed illinois puppy breed illinois poodle puppy breed info puppy breed information puppy breed photo gallery puppy breed photos puppy breed picks puppy breed pics puppy breed picture puppy breed pictures puppy breed search puppy breed selector puppy breed selector quiz puppy breed shih poo puppy breed test puppy breeds puppy breeds and info puppy breeds and pictures puppy breeds collage puppy breeds identification puppy breeds identify photos puppy breeds list puppy breeds photos puppy breeds pictures puppy breeds that do not chew puppy breeds with pictures puppy care by breed puppy care for small breed dogs puppy care for specific breeds puppy cross breeds for sale puppy cut for maltese dog breed puppy designer breeds michigan puppy development by breed puppy dog breeds puppy dog breeds chihuahua shar pei puppy finder mixed breed puppy food large breed dogs puppy food vs large breed puppy puppy large breed puppy lhaso poo dog breed puppy love a new breed puppy love all breed puppy luv a new breed puppy luv new breed puppy markings breed puppy mills dogs breed pet stores puppy mills i breed dogs puppy mix breed puppy mixed breed puppy mixed breed finder puppy mixed breed wisconsin puppy names by breed puppy names for small breeds puppy nutrition for small breeds puppy page corgi breed pembroke welsh puppy photos by breed puppy pictures all breeds puppy pictures breeds puppy pictures by breed puppy pictures of every breed puppy pictures with breed name puppy pug breed info puppy purse carrier toy breeds puppy shar pei breed info puppy supplies for small breeds puppycat breed info puppys breeds puppys cross breed pur breed dog rescues pur breed spaniel purchase greyhoud pure breed puppy purdue glee club brian breed dismisal purdue glee club brian breed dismissal purdue glee club brian breed resigned pure bred dog breeds pure bred poodle breed pure breed pure breed 100 pound german shepard pure breed adoption pure breed akitas in philadelphia pa pure breed american eskimos pure breed american pitbull puppies pure breed animal shelters in virginia pure breed animal shelters sites pure breed animals cats health informati pure breed australian sheperd california pure breed beagle pure breed beagle puppies pure breed beagles pure breed beagles for sale pure breed beagles in texas pure breed beagles pups for sale pure breed black poddle pure breed blood test pure breed bloodtest pure breed boer goats pure breed boerboel pups pure breed boerboels pups pure breed boxer pure breed boxer pictures pure breed boxer puppies for sale pure breed boxer puppy pure breed boxer pups pure breed boxers pure breed breeding requirements pure breed brindle boxer pure breed brittney spaniel pure breed buldogs pure breed bulldogs pure breed california rabbits pure breed cat pure breed cat rescue pure breed cat rescues pure breed cats pure breed cats for sale pure breed cats kittens pure breed cattle pure breed charolias cattle pure breed chicken pure breed chickens pure breed chickens catologs pure breed chihuahua pure breed chihuahuas pure breed chiken pure breed chinese shitsu pure breed chinese shitsu in maryland pure breed chiuaua pure breed chocolate lab puppy pure breed chow chow puppies pure breed chow dogs for sale pure breed chow puppies pure breed cocker spanial pure breed cocker spanial puppies pure breed cocker spanial puupies pure breed collie breeder pure breed collie in joplin mo pure breed collies pure breed dalmations pure breed deog adoption orange county pure breed dog pure breed dog adoption horse breed societies horse breed societies uk horse breed society horse breed speeds horse breed standards horse breed sub-species horse breed symbols horse breed tatoos horse breed that originated from czechos horse breed that originated in czechoslo horse breed that oriniginated in czechos horse breed the conquistadores rode horse breed thoroughbred horse breed video horse breed with naturally bad temperame horse breed with pictures horse breed zorse horse breeded in czechoslovakia horse breeds horse breeds 101 horse breeds a through z horse breeds a to z horse breeds a z horse breeds and characteristics horse breeds and color horse breeds and colors horse breeds and head shape horse breeds and information horse breeds and pictures horse breeds and pictures of horses horse breeds and prices horse breeds and senior riders horse breeds and their characteristics horse breeds and there pictures horse breeds and training horse breeds and types horse breeds and what they do horse breeds anglo arabs horse breeds az horse breeds biggest horse breeds blue roan horse breeds brands horse breeds by country horse breeds capella horse breeds charger horse breeds clydale horse breeds clydesdale horse breeds definitions horse breeds description horse breeds different training horse breeds draft horse breeds drafts horse breeds education horse breeds f horse breeds fjords horse breeds for cattle drives horse breeds for ren horse breeds for s horse breeds for riding horse breeds from a to z horse breeds from a-z horse breeds from czechoslovakia horse breeds from czeck horse breeds from czeckoslovakia horse breeds german horse breeds gray horse breeds hanoverian horse breeds havasu horse breeds healthy horse breeds horses pictures horse breeds how many horse breeds in ancient greece horse breeds in canada horse breeds in czechoslovakia horse breeds in mauritius horse breeds in sd horse breeds in the 1500-1600 horse breeds in the civil war horse breeds in the world horse breeds info horse breeds irish draught horse breeds largest horse breeds list horse breeds listing horse breeds mauw horse breeds morgan horse breeds morgon horse breeds most bought horse breeds of horse breeds of czechoslavakia horse breeds of czechoslovakia horse breeds of the old west horse breeds of the world horse breeds of the world museum horse breeds of west texas horse breeds oklahoma state horse breeds originated czechoslovakia horse breeds pdf horse breeds pdf horse breeds horse breeds percherons about horse breeds personality horse breeds photo horse breeds pics horse breeds pictures horse breeds pony horse breeds quarterhorse horse breeds ratings horse breeds regency england horse breeds rocky mountian horse breeds selected girls and animals horse breeds sizes draft horse breeds south africa horse breeds south africa endurance horse breeds spanish barbs horse breeds spanish barbs new york horse breeds spped horse breeds starting with n horse breeds summary for s horse breeds tarpan horse breeds that start with a horse breeds that start with y horse breeds trak horse breeds used in show jumping horse breeds warm cold hot bloods horse breeds wikipedia horse breeds with definitions or descrip horse breeds with definitions or discrip horse breeds with dun color horse breeds with feathers horse breeds with picture horse breeds with pictures horse breeds x horse breeds zorse horse by breed horse cock breed horse colors and breeds chart horse colour breed black to chestnut horse colour breeds australia horse cross breeds horse crossbreeds create new breeds char horse farms in michigan breeds horse jokes breed stereotypes horse ky breed incentive aqha horse lover foal stallion world breed horse numbers by breed horse nutrition b breed horse pedigree all breeds horse personalities pictures breeds horse pictures and breeds horse pictures breeds horse pony breed horse pony breeds horse pony breeds of the world horse racing breed horse racing breeds horse rescue breed horse rescues by breed horse roach back breed horse stud breed horse training tack half breed sidepull horse types breeds horse types breeds feathered feet horse zebra cross breed horsee breeds horseland no breed horses all breeds horses and breeds horses breed horses breed by joy mccarty horses breeds horses in breed horses large breed horses rare breed spaniard horses standard breed horses that are breed in czechoslovakia horses thin skin breeds horses to breed hose breeds hose breeds and types hosre breeds hostile breed hot blood horse breeds hot blooded horse breeds hot climate dog breed hot lake water breeds illness hot pepper breeds hot to breed parakeetes hot to breed whites tree frogs hot wheels street breed hothouse tomato breeds hotsheet odp recreation pets dogs breeds hottest dog breeds houdan poultry breed information houdn dog breed hound breed hound breed caps hound breed characteristics hound breed photos hound breeds hound breeds and disposition hound breeds european hound cross breeds hound dog breed hound dog breeds american hound dog breeds pictures hound of the baskervilles breed hound sight breed hound temperament dog breed hound temperment dog breed hound type dog breeds hounds breeds hounds breeds info hounds hunting breeds hourse breeds house breed dog house breeds house cat breed house cat breeds house cats breeds house insurance agressive breed dogs house pet breeds house rabbit breeds house signs with dog breeds housebreaking a puppy toy breed housebreaking dog breeds housebreaking small breed dogs housebreaking small breed puppies housebreaking toy breeds housing different breeds of ducks togeth hovawart breed how a naked mole rat breeds how a red kangaroo breeds how and when do budgies breed how are ligers breeded how are rottweilers breeded how are toy breeds produced how are wholphins breed how big does a pelican breed how birds breed

poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

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

[...] Read more

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

Lara. A Tale

The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain,
And slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord--
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far chequering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted fagots' hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.

II.
The chief of Lara is return'd again:
And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main?
Left by his sire, too young such loss to know,
Lord of himself;--that heritage of woe,
That fearful empire which the human breast
But holds to rob the heart within of rest!--
With none to check, and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime;
Then, when he most required commandment, then
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern'd men.
It skills not, boots not, step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of its race;
Short was the course his restlessness had run,
But long enough to leave him half undone.

III.
And Lara left in youth his fatherland;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there;
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew
Cold in the many, anxious in the few.
His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name,
His portrait darkens in its fading frame,
Another chief consoled his destined bride,
The young forgot him, and the old had died;
'Yet doth he live!' exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear.
A hundred scutcheons deck with gloomy grace
The Laras' last and longest dwelling-place;
But one is absent from the mouldering file,
That now were welcome to that Gothic pile.

IV.
He comes at last in sudden loneliness,
And whence they know not, why they need not guess;

[...] Read more

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

Lara

LARA. [1]

CANTO THE FIRST.

I.

The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain, [2]
And slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord —
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far chequering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted fagots' hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.

II.

The chief of Lara is return'd again:
And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main?
Left by his sire, too young such loss to know,
Lord of himself; — that heritage of woe,
That fearful empire which the human breast
But holds to rob the heart within of rest! —
With none to check, and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime;
Then, when he most required commandment, then
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern'd men.
It skills not, boots not, step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of its race;
Short was the course his restlessness had run,
But long enough to leave him half undone.

III.

And Lara left in youth his fatherland;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there;
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew
Cold in the many, anxious in the few.
His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name,
His portrait darkens in its fading frame,
Another chief consoled his destined bride,
The young forgot him, and the old had died;
"Yet doth he live!" exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear.

[...] Read more

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

IX. Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus

Had I God's leave, how I would alter things!
If I might read instead of print my speech,—
Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower
Refuses obstinate to blow in print,
As wildings planted in a prim parterre,—
This scurvy room were turned an immense hall;
Opposite, fifty judges in a row;
This side and that of me, for audience—Rome:
And, where yon window is, the Pope should hide—
Watch, curtained, but peep visibly enough.
A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd,
Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff,
Up comes an usher, louts him low, "The Court
"Requires the allocution of the Fisc!"
I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause
O'er the hushed multitude: I count—One, two—

Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law,—
When it may hap some painter, much in vogue
Throughout our city nutritive of arts,
Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,
And manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Afford my lords their Holy Family,—
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How such a painter sets himself to paint?
Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe
A-journeying to Egypt, prove the piece:
Why, first he sedulously practiseth,
This painter,—girding loin and lighting lamp,—
On what may nourish eye, make facile hand;
Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so)
From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk
Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves,—
This Luca or this Carlo or the like.
To him the bones their inmost secret yield,
Each notch and nodule signify their use:
On him the muscles turn, in triple tier,
And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man
"Familiarize thee with our play that lifts
"Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm and foot!"
—Ensuring due correctness in the nude.
Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know!
He,—to art's surface rising from her depth,—
If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found,
May simulate a Joseph, (happy chance!)—
Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow,
Loseth no involution, cheek or chap,
Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives!
Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse

[...] Read more

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

VIII. Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator

Ah, my Giacinto, he's no ruddy rogue,
Is not Cinone? What, to-day we're eight?
Seven and one's eight, I hope, old curly-pate!
—Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,
Amo-as-avi-atum-are-ans,
Up to -aturus, person, tense, and mood,
Quies me cum subjunctivo (I could cry)
And chews Corderius with his morning crust!
Look eight years onward, and he's perched, he's perched
Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair,
Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?
—Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case
Like this, papa shall triturate full soon
To smooth Papinianian pulp!

It trots
Already through my head, though noon be now,
Does supper-time and what belongs to eve.
Dispose, O Don, o' the day, first work then play!
—The proverb bids. And "then" means, won't we hold
Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast,
Cinuolo's birth-night, Cinicello's own,
That makes gruff January grin perforce!
For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth
Escaping from so many hearts at once—
When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,
Jokes the hale grandsire,—such are just the sort
To go off suddenly,—he who hides the key
O' the box beneath his pillow every night,—
Which box may hold a parchment (someone thinks)
Will show a scribbled something like a name
"Cinino, Ciniccino," near the end,
"To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,
"Estates, tenements, hereditaments,
"When I decease as honest grandsire ought."
Wherefore—yet this one time again perhaps—
Shan't my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!
Then, uncles, one or the other, well i' the world,
May—drop in, merely?—trudge through rain and wind,
Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint
There's cookery in a certain dwelling-place!
Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,
Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,
And so find door, put galligaskin off
At entry of a decent domicile
Cornered in snug Condotti,—all for love,
All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!

Well,
Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp!

[...] Read more

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

III. The Other Half-Rome

Another day that finds her living yet,
Little Pompilia, with the patient brow
And lamentable smile on those poor lips,
And, under the white hospital-array,
A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise
You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through again,
Alive i' the ruins. 'T is a miracle.
It seems that, when her husband struck her first,
She prayed Madonna just that she might live
So long as to confess and be absolved;
And whether it was that, all her sad life long
Never before successful in a prayer,
This prayer rose with authority too dread,—
Or whether, because earth was hell to her,
By compensation, when the blackness broke
She got one glimpse of quiet and the cool blue,
To show her for a moment such things were,—
Or else,—as the Augustinian Brother thinks,
The friar who took confession from her lip,—
When a probationary soul that moved
From nobleness to nobleness, as she,
Over the rough way of the world, succumbs,
Bloodies its last thorn with unflinching foot,
The angels love to do their work betimes,
Staunch some wounds here nor leave so much for God.
Who knows? However it be, confessed, absolved,
She lies, with overplus of life beside
To speak and right herself from first to last,
Right the friend also, lamb-pure, lion-brave,
Care for the boy's concerns, to save the son
From the sire, her two-weeks' infant orphaned thus,
And—with best smile of all reserved for him—
Pardon that sire and husband from the heart.
A miracle, so tell your Molinists!

There she lies in the long white lazar-house.
Rome has besieged, these two days, never doubt,
Saint Anna's where she waits her death, to hear
Though but the chink o' the bell, turn o' the hinge
When the reluctant wicket opes at last,
Lets in, on now this and now that pretence,
Too many by half,—complain the men of art,—
For a patient in such plight. The lawyers first
Paid the due visit—justice must be done;
They took her witness, why the murder was.
Then the priests followed properly,—a soul
To shrive; 't was Brother Celestine's own right,
The same who noises thus her gifts abroad.
But many more, who found they were old friends,
Pushed in to have their stare and take their talk

[...] Read more

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

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:

[...] Read more

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

V. Count Guido Franceschini

Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of … why, 't is wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate … aie, aie, aie,
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all's over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short, I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I' the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O' the Franceschini's once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!

[...] Read more

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

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,—

[...] Read more

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

The Hind And The Panther, A Poem In Three Parts : Part III.

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

[...] Read more

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

Canto the Eighth

I
Oh blood and thunder! and oh blood and wounds!
These are but vulgar oaths, as you may deem,
Too gentle reader! and most shocking sounds:
And so they are; yet thus is Glory's dream
Unriddled, and as my true Muse expounds
At present such things, since they are her theme,
So be they her inspirers! Call them Mars,
Bellona, what you will -- they mean but wars.

II
All was prepared -- the fire, the sword, the men
To wield them in their terrible array.
The army, like a lion from his den,
March'd forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay, --
A human Hydra, issuing from its fen
To breathe destruction on its winding way,
Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vain
Immediately in others grew again.

III
History can only take things in the gross;
But could we know them in detail, perchance
In balancing the profit and the loss,
War's merit it by no means might enhance,
To waste so much gold for a little dross,
As hath been done, mere conquest to advance.
The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.

IV
And why? -- because it brings self-approbation;
Whereas the other, after all its glare,
Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation,
Which (it may be) has not much left to spare,
A higher title, or a loftier station,
Though they may make Corruption gape or stare,
Yet, in the end, except in Freedom's battles,
Are nothing but a child of Murder's rattles.

V
And such they are -- and such they will be found:
Not so Leonidas and Washington,
Whose every battle-field is holy ground,
Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone.
How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound!
While the mere victor's may appal or stun
The servile and the vain, such names will be
A watchword till the future shall be free.

[...] Read more

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

Paradise Regained

THE FIRST BOOK

I, WHO erewhile the happy Garden sung
By one man's disobedience lost, now sing
Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.
Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence 10
By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,
And bear through highth or depth of Nature's bounds,
With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in secret done,
And unrecorded left through many an age:
Worthy to have not remained so long unsung.
Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice
More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried
Repentance, and Heaven's kingdom nigh at hand 20
To all baptized. To his great baptism flocked
With awe the regions round, and with them came
From Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed
To the flood Jordan--came as then obscure,
Unmarked, unknown. But him the Baptist soon
Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore
As to his worthier, and would have resigned
To him his heavenly office. Nor was long
His witness unconfirmed: on him baptized
Heaven opened, and in likeness of a Dove 30
The Spirit descended, while the Father's voice
From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son.
That heard the Adversary, who, roving still
About the world, at that assembly famed
Would not be last, and, with the voice divine
Nigh thunder-struck, the exalted man to whom
Such high attest was given a while surveyed
With wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage,
Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air
To council summons all his mighty Peers, 40
Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved,
A gloomy consistory; and them amidst,
With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake:--
"O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World
(For much more willingly I mention Air,
This our old conquest, than remember Hell,
Our hated habitation), well ye know
How many ages, as the years of men,

[...] Read more

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

IV. Tertium Quid

True, Excellency—as his Highness says,
Though she's not dead yet, she's as good as stretched
Symmetrical beside the other two;
Though he's not judged yet, he's the same as judged,
So do the facts abound and superabound:
And nothing hinders that we lift the case
Out of the shade into the shine, allow
Qualified persons to pronounce at last,
Nay, edge in an authoritative word
Between this rabble's-brabble of dolts and fools
Who make up reasonless unreasoning Rome.
"Now for the Trial!" they roar: "the Trial to test
"The truth, weigh husband and weigh wife alike
"I' the scales of law, make one scale kick the beam!"
Law's a machine from which, to please the mob,
Truth the divinity must needs descend
And clear things at the play's fifth act—aha!
Hammer into their noddles who was who
And what was what. I tell the simpletons
"Could law be competent to such a feat
"'T were done already: what begins next week
"Is end o' the Trial, last link of a chain
"Whereof the first was forged three years ago
"When law addressed herself to set wrong right,
"And proved so slow in taking the first step
"That ever some new grievance,—tort, retort,
"On one or the other side,—o'ertook i' the game,
"Retarded sentence, till this deed of death
"Is thrown in, as it were, last bale to boat
"Crammed to the edge with cargo—or passengers?
"'Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est!
"'Huc appelle!'—passengers, the word must be."
Long since, the boat was loaded to my eyes.
To hear the rabble and brabble, you'd call the case
Fused and confused past human finding out.
One calls the square round, t' other the round square—
And pardonably in that first surprise
O' the blood that fell and splashed the diagram:
But now we've used our eyes to the violent hue
Can't we look through the crimson and trace lines?
It makes a man despair of history,
Eusebius and the established fact—fig's end!
Oh, give the fools their Trial, rattle away
With the leash of lawyers, two on either side—
One barks, one bites,—Masters Arcangeli
And Spreti,—that's the husband's ultimate hope
Against the Fisc and the other kind of Fisc,
Bound to do barking for the wife: bow—wow!
Why, Excellency, we and his Highness here
Would settle the matter as sufficiently

[...] Read more

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

II. Half-Rome

What, you, Sir, come too? (Just the man I'd meet.)
Be ruled by me and have a care o' the crowd:
This way, while fresh folk go and get their gaze:
I'll tell you like a book and save your shins.
Fie, what a roaring day we've had! Whose fault?
Lorenzo in Lucina,—here's a church
To hold a crowd at need, accommodate
All comers from the Corso! If this crush
Make not its priests ashamed of what they show
For temple-room, don't prick them to draw purse
And down with bricks and mortar, eke us out
The beggarly transept with its bit of apse
Into a decent space for Christian ease,
Why, to-day's lucky pearl is cast to swine.
Listen and estimate the luck they've had!
(The right man, and I hold him.)

Sir, do you see,
They laid both bodies in the church, this morn
The first thing, on the chancel two steps up,
Behind the little marble balustrade;
Disposed them, Pietro the old murdered fool
To the right of the altar, and his wretched wife
On the other side. In trying to count stabs,
People supposed Violante showed the most,
Till somebody explained us that mistake;
His wounds had been dealt out indifferent where,
But she took all her stabbings in the face,
Since punished thus solely for honour's sake,
Honoris causâ, that's the proper term.
A delicacy there is, our gallants hold,
When you avenge your honour and only then,
That you disfigure the subject, fray the face,
Not just take life and end, in clownish guise.
It was Violante gave the first offence,
Got therefore the conspicuous punishment:
While Pietro, who helped merely, his mere death
Answered the purpose, so his face went free.
We fancied even, free as you please, that face
Showed itself still intolerably wronged;
Was wrinkled over with resentment yet,
Nor calm at all, as murdered faces use,
Once the worst ended: an indignant air
O' the head there was—'t is said the body turned
Round and away, rolled from Violante's side
Where they had laid it loving-husband-like.
If so, if corpses can be sensitive,
Why did not he roll right down altar-step,
Roll on through nave, roll fairly out of church,
Deprive Lorenzo of the spectacle,

[...] Read more

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

Canto the Fifth

I
When amatory poets sing their loves
In liquid lines mellifluously bland,
And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves,
They little think what mischief is in hand;
The greater their success the worse it proves,
As Ovid's verse may give to understand;
Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due severity,
Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.

II
I therefore do denounce all amorous writing,
Except in such a way as not to attract;
Plain -- simple -- short, and by no means inviting,
But with a moral to each error tack'd,
Form'd rather for instructing than delighting,
And with all passions in their turn attack'd;
Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod ill,
This poem will become a moral model.

III
The European with the Asian shore
Sprinkled with palaces; the ocean stream
Here and there studded with a seventy-four;
Sophia's cupola with golden gleam;
The cypress groves; Olympus high and hoar;
The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream,
Far less describe, present the very view
Which charm'd the charming Mary Montagu.

IV
I have a passion for the name of "Mary,"
For once it was a magic sound to me;
And still it half calls up the realms of fairy,
Where I beheld what never was to be;
All feelings changed, but this was last to vary,
A spell from which even yet I am not quite free:
But I grow sad -- and let a tale grow cold,
Which must not be pathetically told.

V
The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave
Broke foaming o'er the blue Symplegades;
'T is a grand sight from off the Giant's Grave
To watch the progress of those rolling seas
Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave
Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease;
There's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in,
Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine.

[...] Read more

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

Don Juan: Canto The Fifth

When amatory poets sing their loves
In liquid lines mellifluously bland,
And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves,
They little think what mischief is in hand;
The greater their success the worse it proves,
As Ovid's verse may give to understand;
Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due severity,
Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.

I therefore do denounce all amorous writing,
Except in such a way as not to attract;
Plain- simple- short, and by no means inviting,
But with a moral to each error tack'd,
Form'd rather for instructing than delighting,
And with all passions in their turn attack'd;
Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod ill,
This poem will become a moral model.

The European with the Asian shore
Sprinkled with palaces; the ocean stream
Here and there studded with a seventy-four;
Sophia's cupola with golden gleam;
The cypress groves; Olympus high and hoar;
The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream,
Far less describe, present the very view
Which charm'd the charming Mary Montagu.

I have a passion for the name of 'Mary,'
For once it was a magic sound to me;
And still it half calls up the realms of fairy,
Where I beheld what never was to be;
All feelings changed, but this was last to vary,
A spell from which even yet I am not quite free:
But I grow sad- and let a tale grow cold,
Which must not be pathetically told.

The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave
Broke foaming o'er the blue Symplegades;
'T is a grand sight from off 'the Giant's Grave
To watch the progress of those rolling seas
Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave
Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease;
There 's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in,
Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine.

'T was a raw day of Autumn's bleak beginning,
When nights are equal, but not so the days;
The Parcae then cut short the further spinning
Of seamen's fates, and the loud tempests raise
The waters, and repentance for past sinning

[...] Read more

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

Eighth Book

ONE eve it happened when I sate alone,
Alone upon the terrace of my tower,
A book upon my knees, to counterfeit
The reading that I never read at all,
While Marian, in the garden down below,
Knelt by the fountain (I could just hear thrill
The drowsy silence of the exhausted day)
And peeled a new fig from that purple heap
In the grass beside her,–turning out the red
To feed her eager child, who sucked at it
With vehement lips across a gap of air
As he stood opposite, face and curls a-flame
With that last sun-ray, crying, 'give me, give,'
And stamping with imperious baby-feet,
(We're all born princes)–something startled me,–
The laugh of sad and innocent souls, that breaks
Abruptly, as if frightened at itself;
'Twas Marian laughed. I saw her glance above
In sudden shame that I should hear her laugh,
And straightway dropped my eyes upon my book,
And knew, the first time, 'twas Boccaccio's tales,
The Falcon's,–of the lover who for love
Destroyed the best that loved him. Some of us
Do it still, and then we sit and laugh no more.
Laugh you, sweet Marian! you've the right to laugh,
Since God himself is for you, and a child!
For me there's somewhat less,–and so, I sigh.

The heavens were making room to hold the night,
The sevenfold heavens unfolding all their gates
To let the stars out slowly (prophesied
In close-approaching advent, not discerned),
While still the cue-owls from the cypresses
Of the Poggio called and counted every pulse
Of the skyey palpitation. Gradually
The purple and transparent shadows slow
Had filled up the whole valley to the brim,
And flooded all the city, which you saw
As some drowned city in some enchanted sea,
Cut off from nature,–drawing you who gaze,
With passionate desire, to leap and plunge,
And find a sea-king with a voice of waves,
And treacherous soft eyes, and slippery locks
You cannot kiss but you shall bring away
Their salt upon your lips. The duomo-bell
Strikes ten, as if it struck ten fathoms down,
So deep; and fifty churches answer it
The same, with fifty various instances.
Some gaslights tremble along squares and streets
The Pitti's palace-front is drawn in fire:

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!