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A good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read.

Terry Pratchett in Guards! Guards!
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy! | In Romanian

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
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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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Everybody Knows

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that youve been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows youve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows
And everybody knows that its now or never
Everybody knows that its me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when youve done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old black joes still pickin cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows
And everybody knows that the plague is coming
Everybody knows that its moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But theres gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows
And everybody knows that youre in trouble
Everybody knows what youve been through
From the bloody cross on top of calvary
To the beach of malibu

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song performed by Leonard Cohen
Added by Lucian Velea
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Everybody Know

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died
Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows
Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that you've been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows you've been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
Everybody knows, everybody knows
That's how it goes
Everybody knows
And everybody knows that it's now or never
Everybody knows that it's me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when you've done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old Black Joe's still pickin' cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows
And everybody knows that the Plague is coming
Everybody knows that it's moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But there's gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows
And everybody knows that you're in trouble
Everybody knows what you've been through
From the bloody cross on top of Calvary
To the beach of Malibu

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song performed by Leonard Cohen
Added by Lucian Velea
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XI. Guido

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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Black History

Boom, boom, boom!
That was in 1530 to the Slave Trade;
My Mama told me so,
My Papa told me so,
In the name of our ancestors gone by;
Slaves for arms,
Slaves for powder,
Slaves for hardware,
Slaves for spirits;
Boom, boom, boom! !
All over the West Coast of Africa!
Today, i am a Blackman to tell you a story.

Black History, the Black African, the Black Race;
Of my ancestors gone by,
Boom, boom, boom!
Black head, black sugar, black coffee;
Where are the true identities of the Blacks?
That was in 1530 to the Slave trade.

Black History, black love;
A Black Race to a call.
Tap your fingers and do think about it,
My Mama told me so;
Bllack shoes, black phones;
With the Black History gone too soon,
My Papa told me so.
Black hair, black eyes;
The black coal to steam up the engines!
In the name of my ancestors gone by;
But, where are the black pens of love to share?

Do think about this and learn from it,
Boom, boom, boom!
A Blackman in the house to tell us a story;
Where is William Wilberforce?
Where is Thomas Buxton?
Where is Granville Sharp?
What about the Slaves? !
These men need to tell us more;
They killed my ancestors softly without compensations!
Black love, black stream, a black home to live in;
Like 'Naughty By Nature',
I've got 'Queen Latifah' to tell us more.

Of the Black Songs,
Of the Black race,
With a Black-Limo to keep us going;
This Slave Trade was a Black History to us all.
Boom, boom, boom!

[...] Read more

poem by Edward Kofi Louis
Added by Poetry Lover
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Sun-Up

(Shadows over a cradle…
fire-light craning….
A hand
throws something in the fire
and a smaller hand
runs into the flame and out again,
singed and empty….
Shadows
settling over a cradle…
two hands
and a fire.)

I

CELIA

Cherry, cherry, glowing on the hearth, bright red cherry…. When you try to pick up cherry Celia's shriek sticks in you like a pin.

When God throws hailstones you cuddle in Celia's shawl and press your feet on her belly high up like a stool. When Celia makes umbrella of her hand. Rain falls through big pink spokes of her fingers. When wind blows Celia's gown up off her legs she runs under pillars of the bank— great round pillars of the bank have on white stockings too.

Celia says my father
will bring me a golden bowl.
When I think of my father
I cannot see him
for the big yellow bowl
like the moon with two handles
he carries in front of him.

Grandpa, grandpa…
(Light all about you…
ginger… pouring out of green jars…)
You don't believe he has gone away and left his great coat…
so you pretend… you see his face up in the ceiling.
When you clap your hands and cry, grandpa, grandpa, grandpa,
Celia crosses herself.

It isn't a dream…. It comes again and again…. You hear ivy crying on steeples the flames haven't caught yet and images screaming when they see red light on the lilies on the stained glass window of St. Joseph. The girl with the black eyes holds you tight, and you run… and run past the wild, wild towers… and trees in the gardens tugging at their feet and little frightened dolls shut up in the shops crying… and crying… because no one stops… you spin like a penny thrown out in the street. Then the man clutches her by the hair…. He always clutches her by the hair…. His eyes stick out like spears. You see her pulled-back face and her black, black eyes lit up by the glare…. Then everything goes out. Please God, don't let me dream any more of the girl with the black, black eyes.

Celia's shadow rocks and rocks… and mama's eyes stare out of the pillow as though she had gone away and the night had come in her place as it comes in empty rooms… you can't bear it— the night threshing about and lashing its tail on its sides as bold as a wolf that isn't afraid— and you scream at her face, that is white as a stone on a grave and pull it around to the light, till the night draws backward… the night that walks alone and goes away without end. Mama says, I am cold, Betty, and shivers. Celia tucks the quilt about her feet, but I run for my little red cloak because red is hot like fire.

I wish Celia
could see the sea climb up on the sky
and slide off again…

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poem by Lola Ridge
Added by Poetry Lover
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Queen In The Black

Excuse me please your majesty
I chance this moment nervously
To share with you a fantasy
That I have lived inside of me
And it is so pretty
And it is so fine
Its the kind youd love to last you
Until the end of time
Weve talked of love, weve talked of life
And what would make the world so nice
Weve walked the sand by lovers sea
Ive held your body close to me
And it is so pretty
How Id love to know
For if I had a chance to hold you
Id never let you go
Youre my queen in the black
With your time-stopping body
Queen in the black
With your eyes that hypnotize, girl
Queen in the black
With your voice thats sweet as candy
Queen in the black
Miss ebony, you really turn me on
Theres not a day that passes by
That I dont have you on my mind
If this aint love I have inside
Then my hearts telling me a lie
Cause it feels so special
And it feels so right
And if I could I know Id love you
For the rest of my life
Youre my queen in the black
With your time-stopping body
Queen in the black
With your eyes that hypnotize, girl
Queen in the black
With your voice thats sweet as candy
Queen in the black
With your soft and sexy lips, babe
Queen in the black
I love the way you move your body
Queen in the black
You know you are nothing less than royalty
Queen in the black
Oh, Ill place you on a throne, girl
Queen in the black
Miss ebony, you really turn me on
Queen in the black
With your time-stopping body

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song performed by Stevie Wonder
Added by Lucian Velea
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III. The Other Half-Rome

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

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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A Fable For Critics

Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade,
Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made,
For the god being one day too warm in his wooing,
She took to the tree to escape his pursuing;
Be the cause what it might, from his offers she shrunk,
And, Ginevra-like, shut herself up in a trunk;
And, though 'twas a step into which he had driven her,
He somehow or other had never forgiven her;
Her memory he nursed as a kind of a tonic,
Something bitter to chew when he'd play the Byronic,
And I can't count the obstinate nymphs that he brought over
By a strange kind of smile he put on when he thought of her.
'My case is like Dido's,' he sometimes remarked;
'When I last saw my love, she was fairly embarked
In a laurel, as _she_ thought-but (ah, how Fate mocks!)
She has found it by this time a very bad box;
Let hunters from me take this saw when they need it,-
You're not always sure of your game when you've treed it.
Just conceive such a change taking place in one's mistress!
What romance would be left?-who can flatter or kiss trees?
And, for mercy's sake, how could one keep up a dialogue
With a dull wooden thing that will live and will die a log,-
Not to say that the thought would forever intrude
That you've less chance to win her the more she is wood?
Ah! it went to my heart, and the memory still grieves,
To see those loved graces all taking their leaves;
Those charms beyond speech, so enchanting but now,
As they left me forever, each making its bough!
If her tongue _had_ a tang sometimes more than was right,
Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite.'

Now, Daphne-before she was happily treeified-
Over all other blossoms the lily had deified,
And when she expected the god on a visit
('Twas before he had made his intentions explicit),
Some buds she arranged with a vast deal of care,
To look as if artlessly twined in her hair,
Where they seemed, as he said, when he paid his addresses,
Like the day breaking through, the long night of her tresses;
So whenever he wished to be quite irresistible,
Like a man with eight trumps in his hand at a whist-table
(I feared me at first that the rhyme was untwistable,
Though I might have lugged in an allusion to Cristabel),-
He would take up a lily, and gloomily look in it,
As I shall at the--, when they cut up my book in it.

Well, here, after all the bad rhyme I've been spinning,
I've got back at last to my story's beginning:
Sitting there, as I say, in the shade of his mistress,
As dull as a volume of old Chester mysteries,

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poem by James Russell Lowell
Added by Poetry Lover
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Hole In My Head

Remember yesterday?
Driving down the M4
The sun lit up your face
Playing all the tunes
Feeling like a child again
The pain has been erased
I feel much better anyhow
Until I see that black cloud
I got a hole in my head
And it's making me sad
Got a hole and the world keeps looking in
Got a hole in my head
And it's making me sad
Got a hole and the world keeps crashing in
Stop looking in
Hide it all away
Keeping your heart inside a box
That no one else can take
Smile it all away
Holding back a thousand lies
But that was yesterday
I love it when she comes around
Until I see that black cloud
I got a hole in my head
And it's making me sad
Got a hole and the world keeps looking in
Got a hole in my head
And it's making me sad
Got a hole and the world keeps crashing in
Got a hole in my head
Got this song in my head
Waiting for the sun to come around
Waiting for the sun to come around
Take another smoke
I though you said you'd given up?
And does your mother know?
Take another rest
Holding out my hand again
I hope that we're still friends
I got a, I got a, I got a, I got a...
I got a hole in my head
And it's making me sad
Got a hole and the world keeps looking in
Got a hole in my head
And it's making me sad
Got a hole and the world keeps crashing in
I got a hole in my head
And it's making me sad
Got a hole and the world keeps looking in
Got a hole in my head

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song performed by Feeder
Added by Lucian Velea
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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

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

THEY met still sooner. 'Twas a year from thence
When Lucy Gresham, the sick semptress girl,
Who sewed by Marian's chair so still and quick,
And leant her head upon the back to cough
More freely when, the mistress turning round,
The others took occasion to laugh out,–
Gave up a last. Among the workers, spoke
A bold girl with black eyebrows and red lips,–
'You know the news? Who's dying, do you think?
Our Lucy Gresham. I expected it
As little as Nell Hart's wedding. Blush not, Nell,
Thy curls be red enough without thy cheeks;
And, some day, there'll be found a man to dote
On red curls.–Lucy Gresham swooned last night,
Dropped sudden in the street while going home;
And now the baker says, who took her up
And laid her by her grandmother in bed,
He'll give her a week to die in. Pass the silk.
Let's hope he gave her a loaf too, within reach,
For otherwise they'll starve before they die,
That funny pair of bedfellows! Miss Bell,
I'll thank you for the scissors. The old crone
Is paralytic–that's the reason why
Our Lucy's thread went faster than her breath,
Which went too quick, we all know. Marian Erle!
Why, Marian Erle, you're not the fool to cry?
Your tears spoil Lady Waldemar's new dress,
You piece of pity!'
Marian rose up straight,
And, breaking through the talk and through the work,
Went outward, in the face of their surprise,
To Lucy's home, to nurse her back to life
Or down to death. She knew by such an act,
All place and grace were forfeit in the house,
Whose mistress would supply the missing hand
With necessary, not inhuman haste,
And take no blame. But pity, too, had dues:
She could not leave a solitary soul
To founder in the dark, while she sate still
And lavished stitches on a lady's hem
As if no other work were paramount.
'Why, God,' thought Marian, 'has a missing hand
This moment; Lucy wants a drink, perhaps.
Let others miss me! never miss me, God!'

So Marian sat by Lucy's bed, content
With duty, and was strong, for recompense,
To hold the lamp of human love arm-high
To catch the death-strained eyes and comfort them,
Until the angels, on the luminous side

[...] Read more

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

{co-lead vocal by sheryl crow}
Baby knows
Baby knows
Baby knows, huh
Baby knows
(baby knows) - this funky joint in the city
(baby knows) - where the freaks come out 2 play
(baby knows) - venezuelan, black and pretty
(baby knows) - the kind that make u wanna pay, yeah
Chorus:
(baby knows) - she got the long dark legs
(baby knows) - she got the butt that go round
(baby knows) - this kind of poochie make u beg
(baby knows) - turn a dog into a hound
(baby knows) - she tell me what I wanna hear
(baby knows) - she stroke me up and never down
(baby knows) - whispering sexiness in my ear
(baby knows) - Im just a junkie 4 the sound
(baby knows) - she make u call your boys
(baby knows) - in a pow-wow 2 scope a plan
(baby knows) - how 2 ditch her man in a trunk of a lexus
A perplexing hex this witch has flexed
Chorus
Oh, baby - oh, baby
Baby
(baby knows) - she knows how 2 make u feel
(baby knows) - like your stuff aint brown tonite
(baby knows) - and her perfume... it smells like the weekend
(baby knows) - this funky joint way down in the city
(baby knows) - where the girls sing along 2 the hip-hop all nite long
(baby knows) - white girls, black girls, latinas - oh so pretty
(baby knows) - wont make me give u this ring, baby
Oh, oh, oh
Chorus
Ough, ough
Yeah (baby, baby)
Baby knows
Yeah-yeah (baby, baby)
Baby knows
She got the long dark legs - (baby knows)
She got the butt that go round (round and round)
This kind of poochie make u beg - (baby knows)
Give me your number and I call u
No, u do just turn me down

song performed by Prince
Added by Lucian Velea
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Hole In The Wall

Hey babe, where did you go
When the down down got too much
Hey baby, where will you be found
When the down down gets to much
We were such an ugly pair
The chameleon twins theyd stop and stare
Lovers know when love has gone
A black hole there where love was once the
End
Hey babe, where will you be
When the crack crack gets too much (crack)
Hey babe, where will you go
Oh, we were such an ugly pair
The chameleon twins theyd stop and stare
Lovers know when love has gone
A black hole there where love was once the
End
Chorus
Theres a hole in the wall
Theres a hole in the wall
Ooh a hole in the wall
Theres a hole in the wall
(she has under our expert persuasion)
(has implicated you in high treason)
(you are under arrest)
(do you have any final requests, requests)
Its a move to take you through
Its a move to take you through
Its a move to take you through
To take you through
To take you through
(you have until the sand runs up)
(do you have any final requests)
(you look great, you look great)
(you look great)
Hey babe where will you go when the hole in
The wall is shut
Wow, babe you know where Ill be when that
Hole in wall is shut
We were such an ugly pair
The chameleon twins theyd stop and stare
Lovers know when love has gone
A black hole there where love was once the
End
Chorus
Theres a hole in the wall
Ooh - a hole in the wall
Theres a hole in the wall
Catch it before you fall
The hole in the wall

[...] Read more

song performed by Billy Idol
Added by Lucian Velea
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Everybody Knows Why The Children Are Hungry

Everybody knows why the children are hungry.
Everybody knows why the poor give up dreaming
and the rich can't sleep without surveillance.
Everybody knows why this young girl can't read
and the Taliban throw acid in her face.
Everybody knows why this young boy
at twelve years old
feels about as heroic as a statistic
and looks at the future as if
he were already a has-been.
Everybody knows why there's a rifle in his hand.
Everybody knows why
there are people washed up
on the streets of our cities
as if a great ship of state had gone down
like a garbage barge off the coast of New Jersey.
Everybody knows why
women are being sexually colonized
in the Democratic Republic of the mineral-rich Congo.
Everybody knows their atrocities
like serial killers and baseball cards.
You read a lot of existentialism
that prefers existence to essence
but you still find it hard to picture the abyss
that defines being as a special case of nothingness:
look into a dead child's eyes
look into a dead child's mind
look at what she cherished about life
like a cosmology all of her own
a myth of origin
a reason for stars
rejected by the metaphysics of the flies
that gather like punctuation marks all over her eyes.
Everybody knows
why the truth is veiled in spider-webs
that are maintained like political systems
who let the few who know how to spin silk out of their ass
eat everyone.
New eyes for old lamps
here comes this year's candidates
like autumn to the ballot-box
like worms to a windfall of apples
to improve the lives of illegal immigrants
by privatizing concentration camps.
Everybody wants to stick their thumb in plum pudding
and say what a good boy am I
and everybody forgets who they stole it from
and everybody regrets that they didn't get caught
in time to do it all over again
as they address themselves like greed

[...] Read more

poem by Patrick White
Added by Poetry Lover
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The Pastime of Pleasure : The First Part.

Here begynneth the passe tyme of pleasure.

Ryyght myghty prynce / & redoubted souerayne
Saylynge forthe well / in the shyppe of grace
Ouer the wawes / of this lyfe vncertayne
Ryght towarde heuen / to haue dwellynge place
Grace dothe you guyde / in euery doubtfull cace
Your gouernaunce / dothe euermore eschewe
The synne of slouthe / enemy to vertewe
Grace stereth well / the grace of god is grete
Whiche you hathe brought / to your ryall se
And in your ryght / it hath you surely sette
Aboue vs all / to haue the soueraynte
Whose worthy power / and regall dygnyte
All our rancour / and our debate and ceace
Hath to vs brought / bothe welthe reste and peace
Frome whome dyscendeth / by the ryghtfull lyne
Noble pryuce Henry / to succede the crowne
That in his youthe / dothe so clerely shyne
In euery vertu / castynge the vyce adowne
He shall of fame / attayne the hye renowne
No doubte but grace / shall hym well enclose
Whiche by trewe ryght / sprange of the reed rose
Your noble grace / and excellent hyenes
For to accepte / I beseche ryght humbly
This lytell boke / opprest with rudenes
Without rethorycke / or colour crafty
Nothynge I am / experte in poetry
As the monke of Bury / floure of eloquence
Whiche was in tyme / of grete excellence
Of your predecessour / the .v. kynge henry
Vnto whose grace / he dyde present
Ryght famous bokes / of parfyte memory
Of his faynynge with termes eloquent
Whose fatall fyccyons / are yet permanent
Grounded on reason / with clowdy fygures
He cloked the trouthe / of all his scryptures
The lyght of trouthe / I lacke connynge to cloke
To drawe a curtayne / I dare not to presume
Nor hyde my mater / with a mysty smoke
My rudenes connynge / dothe so sore cōsume
Yet as I maye / I shall blowe out a fume
To hyde my mynde / vnderneth a fable
By conuert colour / well and probable
Besechynge your grace / to pardon myne ignoraunce
Whiche this fayned fable / to eschewe ydlenesse
Hane so compyled / now without doubtaunce
For to present / to your hye worthynesse
To folowe the trace / and all the parfytenesse
Of my mayster Lydgate / with due exercyse

[...] Read more

poem by Stephen Hawes
Added by Poetry Lover
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Hole In The World

There's a hole in the world tonight.
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow.
There's a hole in the world tonight.
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.
They say that anger is just love disappointed.
They say that love is just a state of mind.
But all this fighting over who is anointed,
Oh, how can people be so blind?
There's a hole in the world tonight.
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow.
There's a hole in the world tonight.
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.
Oh, they tell me there's a place over yonder
Cool water running through the burning sand.
Until we learn to love one another,
We will never reach the Promised Land.
There's a hole in the world tonight.
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow.
There's a hole in the world tonight.
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.
(There's a hole in the world tonight.)
They say that anger is just love disappointed.
(There's a cloud of fear and sorrow.)
They say that love is just a state of mind.
(There's a hole in the world tonight.)
But all this fighting over who will be anointed,
(Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow.)
Oh, how can people be so blind?
There's a hole in the world tonight.
(Hole in the world)
There's a cloud of fear and sorrow.
(Fear and sorrow)
There's a hole in the world tonight.
(Ooooh)
Don't let there be a hole in the world tomorrow (repeat three times)

song performed by Eagles
Added by Lucian Velea
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Lowdown

Pop
I dont want to throw away my time
Playing games I dont respect or like
I cant give away my sovereignty
To existence with no song of me
And the hole in my heart
Im lowdown
Theres a hole in my heart
Im low
Theres a hole in my heart
Im lowdown
Theres a hole in my heart
Im low
I built myself a beautiful brick wall
Gets a little higher every day
_? _ ignorance inhabits me
Cause Ive already chased my love away
And the hole in my heart
Im lowdown
Theres a hole in my heart
Im low
Theres a hole in my heart
Im lowdown
Theres a hole in my heart
Im low
Take that happy banner off the wall
I dont need to see no smiling face
All I really wants a cup of tea
To feel a warmth inside of me
And the hole in my heart
Im lowdown
Theres a hole in my heart
Im low
Theres a hole in my heart
Im lowdown
Theres a hole in my heart
Im low
Theres a hole in my heart
Im lowdown
Theres a hole in my heart
Im low
Theres a hole in my heart
Im lowdown
Theres a hole in my heart
Im low

song performed by Iggy Pop
Added by Lucian Velea
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