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Playing With The Boys

Id say it was the right time
To walk away
When dreaming takes you nowhere
Its time to play
Bodies working overtime
Your money dont matter
The clock keeps ticking
When someones on your mind
Im moving in slow motion
Feels so good
Its a strange anticipation
Knock, knock, knocking on wood
Bodies working overtime
Man against man
And all that ever matters
Is baby whos ahead in the game
Funny but its always the same
Playing, playing with the boys
Playing, playing with the boys
After chasing sunsets
One of lifes simple joys
Is playing with the boys
Said it was the wrong thing
For me to do
I said its just a boys game
Girls play too
My heart is working overtime
In this kind of game
People get hurt
Im afraid that someone is me
If you want to find me, Ill be
Playing, playing with the boys
Staying, playing with the boys
After chasing sunsets
One of lifes simple joys
I dont want to be the moth around your fire
I dont want to be obsessed by my desire
Im ready, Im leaving
Ive seen enough
...with the boys
Ive seen enough
You play too rough
Playing, playing with the boys
Ill be staying, playing with the boys
After chasing sunsets
One of lifes simple joys
Is playing with the boys
Playing with the boys
Playing
Playing

[...] Read more

song performed by Kenny Loggins
Added by Lucian Velea
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Call It Evil (demo)

I've been around watching little late shows
Drink a lot of beer
Like playing cards with my friends
Call it evil
Call it pain
It goes knock, knock, knock-knock-knock-knock, on my door
It goes knock, knock, knock-knock-knock-knock, on my door
That rock and rock, yeah, call it evil
That rock and rock, yeah, call it evil
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, on my door, Yeah!
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, on my door
Going to get as my babe.
It goes knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, on my door
Playing sopwith in the back of my head
What you trying to be crazy?
People look at me, they look at me, but you're dead
Call it evil
Call it pain
It goes knock, knock, knock-knock-knock-knock, on my door
It goes knock, knock, knock-knock-knock-knock, come on
Knock-knock-knock-knock, one more
Knock-knock-knock-knock
That rock and rock, yeah, call it evil
That rock and rock, yeah, call it evil
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, on my door
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, on my door
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, on my door
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, on my door

song performed by Alice Cooper
Added by Lucian Velea
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A Womans Threat

My time, my patience, my love
My blood, my sweat, my tears
My burdens, my drama, my pain
My car, my money, my home
My ups, my downs, my fears
And my hours, my work, my strength
My fault, my this, my that
Nigga please
If you dont stop
(this is a warning)
Someones gonna lay in your bed
(this is a warning)
And someones gonna eat your food
(this is a warning)
And someones gonna wear your clothes
(this is a warning)
And someones gonna fit your shoes
(this is a warning)
And someones gonna get your keys
(this is a warning)
And someones gonna open your doors
(this is a warning)
Someones gonna get your check
(this is a warning)
This is a womans threat
Baby, this is a womans threat
My shakin, my sleep, my stress
My days, my night, my rest
My dos, my donts, my dares
And my church, my pastor, my prayers
My all, my faith, my powers
And my kitchen, my sink, my towels
My joy, my sad, my hate
And my sister, my cousin, my friends
My lights, my gas, my bills
My role, my way, my will
My hollerin, my fussin, my fights
Nigga please
If you dont stop
(this is a warning)
Someones gonna lay in your bed
(this is a warning)
And someones gonna eat your food
(this is a warning)
And someones gonna wear your clothes
(this is a warning)
And someones gonna fit your shoes
(this is a warning)
And someones gonna get your keys
(this is a warning)

[...] Read more

song performed by R. Kelly
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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)
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The Interpretation of Nature and

I.

MAN, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.


II.

Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions.

III.

Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.

IV.

Towards the effecting of works, all that man can do is to put together or put asunder natural bodies. The rest is done by nature working within.

V.

The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all (as things now are) with slight endeavour and scanty success.

VI.

It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.

VII.

The productions of the mind and hand seem very numerous in books and manufactures. But all this variety lies in an exquisite subtlety and derivations from a few things already known; not in the number of axioms.

VIII.

Moreover the works already known are due to chance and experiment rather than to sciences; for the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented; not methods of invention or directions for new works.

IX.

The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this -- that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.

X.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding; so that all those specious meditations, speculations, and glosses in which men indulge are quite from the purpose, only there is no one by to observe it.

XI.

As the sciences which we now have do not help us in finding out new works, so neither does the logic which we now have help us in finding out new sciences.

XII.

The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search after truth. So it does more harm than good.

XIII.

[...] Read more

poem by Sir Francis Bacon
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A Love Like Yours

(e. holland / l. dozier / b. holland)
I broke your heart
And I made you blue
Instead of hurting back
You said I love you
That very day you won my heart
And my love for you shall never part
You have such an understanding way
And I appreciate you need what I say
cause a love like yours dont come knock, knock, knock, knocking
Knock, knocking everyday
Although I treated you bad from the start
Without question you gave me your heart
No, a love like yours dont come knock, knock, knock, knocking
Knock, knocking everyday
Its the little things you do
Oh, that mean so much
So very, very much
(consideration), I never knew
That is, until I met you
Believe me
You made my life complete
And I know our love with all of my mind
You can believe gonna hold on tight
cause a love like yours dont come knock, knock, knock, knocking
Knock, knocking everyday
No, a love like yours dont come knock, knock, knock, knocking
Knock, knocking everyday
Its the little things you do
That mean so much
So very very much
(consideration), no I never knew
That is, until I met you
Believe me
You made my life complete
And I know our love with all of my mind
You can believe gonna hold on tight
cause a love like yours dont come knock, knock, knock, knocking
Knock, knocking everyday
I said a love like yours, it dont come knocking
Knock, knocking everyday
I said a love like yours, it dont come, it dont come knocking
Knock, knocking everyday
cause a love like yours, it dont come knocking

song performed by Dusty Springfield
Added by Lucian Velea
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Strange Things Happen

She believes in god
And karma too
Paranormal powers
You know some people do
Got scorpio risin
Uh huh
Tell you whats in your stars
She was down in rio
Turn the heads of state
Got em into makin
This planet a better place
On copacabana
Uh huh
Oh yeah she radiate better go meditate
Everytime I touch my baby
Strange things happen
Strange things happen
Everytime I touch my baby
Strange things happen to me
Strange things happen
Oh ohhh ohhhh
Oh oh strange things happen
Everytime I touch my baby
Strange things happen to me
Met a pshycic reader
With a crystal ball
Had a vision
Said we could have it all
I caught her gazin
Uh huh
At our destiny cosmically
Everytime I touch my baby
Strange things happen
Oh ohhh ohhhh
Oh oh strange things happen
Everytime I touch my baby
Strange things happen to me
Strange things happen
Oh ohhh ohhhh
Oh oh strange things happen
Everytime I touch my baby
Strange things happen to me
Strange strange strange strange strange strange strange strange strange
Strange strange strange strange strange strange strange strange strange
Strange strange strange
Strange strange strange strange strange strange strange strange strange
Strange strange strange strange strange strange strange strange strange
Strange strange strange
Strange strange strange strange strange strange strange strange strange
Strange strange strange strange strange

song performed by Beach Boys
Added by Lucian Velea
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Feels So Good

Feels good
Im stranded on a spaceship hideaway
And something makes me think Im here to stay
Im so happy where I am
Feels good
Ive journeyed to the other atmospheres
And every breath I take just makes it clear
Im holding heaven in my hands
Its automatic baby and it feels good
And it feels so good
Feels good
And it feels so good
Feels good
These extra-sensory sensations
Are causing me some complications
Electrostatic information
Feels good
Im playing with a pleasure trafficker
Arriving soon intergalactica
Im holding heaven in my hands
Its automatic baby and it feels good
Feels good
Feels good
Feels good
Feels good
And it feels so good
Feels good
And it feels so good
Feels good
And it feels so good
Feels good
And it feels so good
Feels good
Feels so good
Feels so good
Feels so good
Feels good
Feels so good
Feels so good
Feels so good
Feels good
Im stranded on a spaceship hideaway
Feels good
And it feels so good
Feels good
And it feels so good
Feels good
And it feels so good
Feels good
And it feels so good

[...] Read more

song performed by Jamiroquai
Added by Lucian Velea
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Knock On Wood

I dont want to lose the good thing that Ive got
If I do, I will surely, I will lose a lot
For your love is better than any love other Ive know
Its like thunder, lightning
The way you love me is frightening
I better knock on wood
Baby
I got superstitious about you, but I cant take change
You got me spinning, baby, spinning in a trance
But your love is better than any other love Ive known
Its like thunder, lightning
The way you love me is frightening
You better knock on wood
Its no secret, but that woman fills my lovin cup
She sees, so ready, that I get enough
And her love is better than any other love Ive known
Its like thunder
Its like lightning
The way you love me is frightening
I better knock on wood
Baby
Better, yes, better
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) yes, I better
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) oh, knock on wood
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) you know I would, would
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) its no secret
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) no, oh, better
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) hangin above me
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) I cant leave her
(yes you better knock, knock, knock on wood) oh no, baby
Knock on wood, woo!

song performed by David Bowie
Added by Lucian Velea
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Knockin On Heavens Door

Mama take this badge off of me
I cant wear it anymore
Its getting too dark, too dark to see
And I feel like im
Feel Im knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
I feel like, I feel like im
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
I said i, I feel im
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Mama mama mama
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Oh
Take these guns and put em to the ground
I cant, I cant, I cant
I just cant shoot them anymore
Theres a long black cloud
Theres a long black cloud
You know its a, its a comin down
I feel i, I feel i, I feel im
I feel Im knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Now I said mama mama
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Oh now
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Oh
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Wipe this blood from my face
I cant see through the walls
Six white horses coming to carry me away
I feel Im knockin on heavens door
Im
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Gonna take me, gonna take me, gonna take me now
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Wipe this, wipe this, wipe this, wipe this
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Oh mama im
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Mama take these chains off of me
Cause I dont, I dont want them anymore
Theyre getting too damn heavy
And Im crawling across the floor
I feel like, I feel like Im knockin on heavens door
Oh mama
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Ah mama mama mama
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Gonna take me, gonna take me, gonna take me

[...] Read more

song performed by Indigo Girls
Added by Lucian Velea
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Workin Overtime

(nile rodgers/c. max)
Workin overtime, dedicated to you
Gonna cross that thin line
Hope you dont disapprove
cause Im workin overtime
Got to make a new start
cause Im workin overtime
Workin hard
Boy, youve got to think
What your priorities are really all about
Its such a crazy - world
Were on the brink
Therell be no turning back once weve set out
So much left to - do
And so little time
Just read the news to say todays headlines
One idea can last forever
And heres the only way that I can prove it
Workin overtime, dedicated to you
Gonna cross that thin line
Hope you dont disapprove
cause Im workin overtime
Got to make a new start
cause Im workin overtime
Workin hard
Boy I found a way
To raise the level of my self esteem
When I was just a - girl
I learned how to say
I will be proud I see
A me that will always achieve
One idea can last forever
And heres the only way that I can prove it
Workin overtime, dedicated to you
Gonna cross that thin line
Hope you dont disapprove
cause Im workin overtime
Got to make a new start
cause Im workin overtime
Workin hard
And when you want someone
Ill be there for you
And when you need someone - Im dependable
When your world is falling apart
You can lean on me
And nothing will come between our hearts for all eternaty
One idea can last forever
And heres the only way that I can prove it
Workin overtime, dedicated to you
Gonna cross that thin line

[...] Read more

song performed by Diana Ross
Added by Lucian Velea
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The House Of Dust: Complete

I.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

II.

[...] Read more

poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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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
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Knockin On Heavens Door

Mama take this badge off of me
I cant use it any more
Its gettin dark, too dark to see
I feel like Im knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Mama, wipe the blood from my face
Im sick and tired of the war
[...]
I feel like Im knockin on heaves door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door

song performed by George Harrison
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

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

I
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.

II
Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
And fill'd their sign posts then, like Wellesley now;
Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk,
Followers of fame, "nine farrow" of that sow:
France, too, had Buonaparté and Dumourier
Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.

III
Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,
Were French, and famous people, as we know:
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,
With many of the military set,
Exceedingly remarkable at times,
But not at all adapted to my rhymes.

IV
Nelson was once Britannia's god of war,
And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd;
There's no more to be said of Trafalgar,
'T is with our hero quietly inurn'd;
Because the army's grown more popular,
At which the naval people are concern'd;
Besides, the prince is all for the land-service,
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.

V
Brave men were living before Agamemnon
And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;
But then they shone not on the poet's page,
And so have been forgotten:—I condemn none,
But can't find any in the present age
Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);
So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan.

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poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
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The Victories Of Love. Book I

I
From Frederick Graham

Mother, I smile at your alarms!
I own, indeed, my Cousin's charms,
But, like all nursery maladies,
Love is not badly taken twice.
Have you forgotten Charlotte Hayes,
My playmate in the pleasant days
At Knatchley, and her sister, Anne,
The twins, so made on the same plan,
That one wore blue, the other white,
To mark them to their father's sight;
And how, at Knatchley harvesting,
You bade me kiss her in the ring,
Like Anne and all the others? You,
That never of my sickness knew,
Will laugh, yet had I the disease,
And gravely, if the signs are these:

As, ere the Spring has any power,
The almond branch all turns to flower,
Though not a leaf is out, so she
The bloom of life provoked in me;
And, hard till then and selfish, I
Was thenceforth nought but sanctity
And service: life was mere delight
In being wholly good and right,
As she was; just, without a slur;
Honouring myself no less than her;
Obeying, in the loneliest place,
Ev'n to the slightest gesture, grace
Assured that one so fair, so true,
He only served that was so too.
For me, hence weak towards the weak,
No more the unnested blackbird's shriek
Startled the light-leaved wood; on high
Wander'd the gadding butterfly,
Unscared by my flung cap; the bee,
Rifling the hollyhock in glee,
Was no more trapp'd with his own flower,
And for his honey slain. Her power,
From great things even to the grass
Through which the unfenced footways pass,
Was law, and that which keeps the law,
Cherubic gaiety and awe;
Day was her doing, and the lark
Had reason for his song; the dark
In anagram innumerous spelt
Her name with stars that throbb'd and felt;

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poem by Coventry Patmore
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Knocking On Heavens Door

Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Oh oh oh oh oh
Verse 1:
Mama take this badge off of me
I cant use it anymore
Its getting dark too dark to see
feel like Im knocking on heavens door
Chorus:
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
Verse 2:
Mama put my guns in the ground
I cant shoot them anymore
That long black cloud is coming down
Yeah eh yeah ah ah
Feels like Im knocking on heavens door
Chorus:
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
Yeah eh yeah ah ah
Knock knock knocking on heavens door
Oh oh oh oh oh (yeah eh yeah ah ah)
Oh oh oh oh oh (yeah eh yeah ah ah)
Oh oh oh oh oh (yeah eh yeah ah ah)
Oh oh oh oh oh (yeah eh yeah ah ah)

song performed by Avril Lavigne
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Ghost - Book IV

Coxcombs, who vainly make pretence
To something of exalted sense
'Bove other men, and, gravely wise,
Affect those pleasures to despise,
Which, merely to the eye confined,
Bring no improvement to the mind,
Rail at all pomp; they would not go
For millions to a puppet-show,
Nor can forgive the mighty crime
Of countenancing pantomime;
No, not at Covent Garden, where,
Without a head for play or player,
Or, could a head be found most fit,
Without one player to second it,
They must, obeying Folly's call,
Thrive by mere show, or not at all
With these grave fops, who, (bless their brains!)
Most cruel to themselves, take pains
For wretchedness, and would be thought
Much wiser than a wise man ought,
For his own happiness, to be;
Who what they hear, and what they see,
And what they smell, and taste, and feel,
Distrust, till Reason sets her seal,
And, by long trains of consequences
Insured, gives sanction to the senses;
Who would not (Heaven forbid it!) waste
One hour in what the world calls Taste,
Nor fondly deign to laugh or cry,
Unless they know some reason why;
With these grave fops, whose system seems
To give up certainty for dreams,
The eye of man is understood
As for no other purpose good
Than as a door, through which, of course,
Their passage crowding, objects force,
A downright usher, to admit
New-comers to the court of Wit:
(Good Gravity! forbear thy spleen;
When I say Wit, I Wisdom mean)
Where (such the practice of the court,
Which legal precedents support)
Not one idea is allow'd
To pass unquestion'd in the crowd,
But ere it can obtain the grace
Of holding in the brain a place,
Before the chief in congregation
Must stand a strict examination.
Not such as those, who physic twirl,
Full fraught with death, from every curl;

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poem by Charles Churchill
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The Cremona Violin

Part First

Frau Concert-Meister Altgelt shut the door.
A storm was rising, heavy gusts of wind
Swirled through the trees, and scattered leaves before
Her on the clean, flagged path. The sky behind
The distant town was black, and sharp defined
Against it shone the lines of roofs and towers,
Superimposed and flat like cardboard flowers.

A pasted city on a purple ground,
Picked out with luminous paint, it seemed. The cloud
Split on an edge of lightning, and a sound
Of rivers full and rushing boomed through bowed,
Tossed, hissing branches. Thunder rumbled loud
Beyond the town fast swallowing into gloom.
Frau Altgelt closed the windows of each room.

She bustled round to shake by constant moving
The strange, weird atmosphere. She stirred the fire,
She twitched the supper-cloth as though improving
Its careful setting, then her own attire
Came in for notice, tiptoeing higher and higher
She peered into the wall-glass, now adjusting
A straying lock, or else a ribbon thrusting

This way or that to suit her. At last sitting,
Or rather plumping down upon a chair,
She took her work, the stocking she was knitting,
And watched the rain upon the window glare
In white, bright drops. Through the black glass a flare
Of lightning squirmed about her needles. 'Oh!'
She cried. 'What can be keeping Theodore so!'

A roll of thunder set the casements clapping.
Frau Altgelt flung her work aside and ran,
Pulled open the house door, with kerchief flapping
She stood and gazed along the street. A man
Flung back the garden-gate and nearly ran
Her down as she stood in the door. 'Why, Dear,
What in the name of patience brings you here?

Quick, Lotta, shut the door, my violin
I fear is wetted. Now, Dear, bring a light.
This clasp is very much too worn and thin.
I'll take the other fiddle out to-night
If it still rains. Tut! Tut! my child, you're quite
Clumsy. Here, help me, hold the case while I -
Give me the candle. No, the inside's dry.

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poem by Amy Lowell
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