Quotes about relics, page 15
Boundless curiosity for friend Thad.
The world is full of mysteries.
Colossal buildings left behind
by earlier societies.
Their purposes still ill defined
Although the archaeologists
advance their favourite theories.
The mysteries will long persist.
Their different hypotheses.
Cannot be proven any way.
They’re based on their experience
Of living in the world to day.
A different frame of reference.
Which cannot possibly apply
They saw the world quite differently.
I do not think we can deny
We’re blinkered in the way we see.
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poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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Total Freedom
In absolute oblivion
With nature and the forces of existence
Into play
Thousands years of history
Written
Some relics and the forgotten one
Gods word or the wise mans talk
Deriving meaning from the stars
Sun and the moon
Goddesses and deities
The great abstraction
In the realm of thought
Freedom remains the desire
Freedom from the bonds of the humanity
Freedom from all wants
Freedom from the will of others
Imposed or perpetuated
Freedom from ideas
In the name of social consciousness
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poem by Sadiqullah Khan
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The Craigie House
Behold! a double glory resteth here,
Wherein was housed in Revolution's time
A man who while a king refused a throne,
Save in his country's grateful heart alone;
And who by singleness of soul sublime
Has made his name to every people dear.
And he who wore the poet's anadem
Kept the old relics in their primal place,
Reviving yet the age of Washington:
Poet and statesman — how their face is one
In greatness, goodness, and a world's embrace,
Though time and genius widely parted them.
A reverent love has kept the olden pile
Almost untouched by innovating hands;
Nor has Art stinted Nature, — here she lies
In ancient ampleness to bless the eyes.
Beyond are spread the open meadow-lands
That stretch away to catch the river's smile.
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poem by Charlotte Fiske Bates (1879)
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Lines Written On Visiting The Chateaux On The Loire
I
``River rolling past the grey
Battlements of yesterday,
Palace strongholds reared by hands
Summoned from transalpine lands,
Skilled in wedding strength with grace,
Fort with stately dwelling-place,
Vizored brow with siren tress,
Majesty with loveliness,-
River, that beheld their sway
Dawn and dwindle, then decay,
Linger, loiter, while I sit,
As the sunshine-shadows flit,
Pondering pictures of the vast
Panorama of the Past,
And, with retrospective gaze,
Tell me of the vanished days.''
II
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poem by Alfred Austin
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A Welsh Testament
All right, I was Welsh. Does it matter?
I spoke a tongue that was passed on
To me in the place I happened to be,
A place huddled between grey walls
Of cloud for at least half the year.
My word for heaven was not yours.
The word for hell had a sharp edge
Put on it by the hand of the wind
Honing, honing with a shrill sound
Day and night. Nothing that Glyn Dwr
Knew was armour against the rain's
Missiles. What was descent from him?
Even God had a Welsh name:
He spoke to him in the old language;
He was to have a peculiar care
For the Welsh people. History showed us
He was too big to be nailed to the wall
Of a stone chapel, yet still we crammed him
Between the boards of a black book.
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poem by Ronald Stuart Thomas
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Adrian Henri's Last Will and Testament
`No one owns life, but anyone who can pick up a Fryingpan owns death.'
William Burroughs
To whom it may concern:
As my imminent death is hourly expected these days/ carbrakes screaming on East Lancs tarmac/trapped in the blazing cinema/mutely screaming I TOLD YOU SO from melting eyeballs as the whitehot fireball dissolves the Cathedral/being the first human being to die of a hangover/ dying of overemotion after seeing 20 schoolgirls waiting at a zebracrossing.
I appoint Messrs Bakunin and Kropotkin my executors and make the following provisions:
1. I leave my priceless collections of Victorian Oil Lamps, photographs of Hayley Mills, brass fenders and Charlie Mingus records to all Liverpool poets under 2 3 who are also blues singers and failed sociology students.
2. I leave the entire East Lancs Road with all its landscapes to the British people.
3. I hereby appoint Wm. Burroughs my literary executor, instructing him to cut up my collected works and distribute them through the public lavatories of the world.
4. Proceeds from the sale of relics: locks of hair, pieces of floorboards I have stood on, fragments of bone flesh teeth bits of old underwear etc. to be given to my widow.
5. I leave my paintings to the Nation with the stipulation that they must be exhibited in Public Houses, Chip Shops, Coffee Bars and the Cellar Clubs throughout the country.
6. Proceeds from the sale of my other effects to be divided equally amongst the 20 most beautiful schoolgirls in England (these to be chosen after due deliberation and exhaustive tests by an informal committee of my friends).
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poem by Adrian Henri
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Elegy IV. Ophilia's Urn. To Mr. Graves
Through the dim veil of evening's dusky shade,
Near some lone fane, or yew's funereal green,
What dreary forms has magic Fear survey'd!
What shrouded spectres Superstition seen!
But you, secure, shall pour your sad complaint,
Nor dread the meagre phantom's wan array;
What none but Fear's officious hand can paint,
What none, but Superstition's eye, survey.
The glimmering twilight and the doubtful dawn
Shall see your step to these sad scenes return:
Constant, as crystal dews impearl the lawn,
Shall Strephon's tear bedew Ophelia's urn.
Sure nought unhallow'd shall presume to stray
Where sleep the relics of that virtuous maid;
Nor aught unlovely bend its devious way,
Where soft Ophelia's dear remains are laid.
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poem by William Shenstone
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Prologue To Western Australia
Nor gold, nor silver are the words set here,
Nor rich-wrought chasing on design of art;
But rugged relics of an unknown sphere
Where fortune chanced I played one time apart.
Unthought of here the critic blame or praise,
These recollections all their faults atone;
To hold the scenes, I’ve writ of men and ways
Uncouth and rough as Austral ironstone.
It may be, I have left the higher gleams
Of skies and flowers unheeded or forgot;
It may be so,— but, looking back, it seems
When I was with, them I beheld them not.
I was no rambling poet, but a man
Hard pressed to dig and delve, with naught of ease
The hot day through, save when the evening's fan
Of sea-winds rustled through the kindly trees.
It may be so; but when I think I smile
At my poor hand and brain to paint the charms
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poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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For my own Monument
AS doctors give physic by way of prevention,
Mat, alive and in health, of his tombstone took care;
For delays are unsafe, and his pious intention
May haply be never fulfill'd by his heir.
Then take Mat's word for it, the sculptor is paid;
That the figure is fine, pray believe your own eye;
Yet credit but lightly what more may be said,
For we flatter ourselves, and teach marble to lie.
Yet counting as far as to fifty his years,
His virtues and vices were as other men's are;
High hopes he conceived, and he smother'd great fears,
In a life parti-colour'd, half pleasure, half care.
Nor to business a drudge, nor to faction a slave,
He strove to make int'rest and freedom agree;
In public employments industrious and grave,
And alone with his friends, Lord! how merry was he!
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poem by Matthew Prior
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If you refuse me once, and think again
If you refuse me once, and think again,
I will complain.
You are deceiv'd, love is no work of art,
It must be got and born,
Not made and worn,
By every one that hath a heart.
Or do you think they more than once can die,
Whom you deny?
Who tell you of a thousand deaths a day,
Like the old poets feign
And tell the pain
They met, but in the common way?
Or do you think 't too soon to yield,
And quit the field?
Nor is that right, they yield that first entreat;
Once one may crave for love,
But more would prove
This heart too little, that too great.
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poem by John Suckling
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