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The art of progress is to preserve order amid change.

quote by A.N. Whitehead
Added by Lucian Velea
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In the New Year, Let’s Change …

Change is something that must come;
Change is good for everyone.
Change is something that will come;
Change is one we must welcome!

Change is good if one’s better;
Change is better to be best;
Change is nice if life’s better;
Change is the key to all success!

Let’s change our attitudes in life;
Let’s change our outlooks, behavior;
Let’s change if it can help us fare;
Let’s change the way, we see the world!

But change, we must anticipate in life;
We must be ready to take up change;
We ought to change if change we must;
But let us first believe in change!

Let change not remove identity;
Let change not weaken traditions;
Let change not ‘shake the tree by roots! ’
Let change bring effects desired by us.

Let changes come in the New Year;
Let changes make a man better;
Let changes better humanity;
Let changes not undo our gains!

Rein in the changes, advantageous;
Bring in the changes essential;
Take up the changes, we must make;
Let changes bolster life’s purpose!

Let New Year change the heart of man;
Let New Year change the mind and thoughts;
Let New Year change our living styles;
Let New Year change our sinful soul.

Let’s change and change the world around;
Let’s change our inner world and home;
Let’s change the things, we need to change;
Let’s change our lack of trust in God.

The more we change, ’tis good for us;
The less, we change, our life stagnates;
Changes are a part of life;
By changing, culture keeps alive!

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poem by John Celes
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Change Your Mind

When you get weak, and you need to test your will
When lifes complete, but theres something missing still
Distracting you from this must be the one you love
Must be the one whose magic touch can change your mind
Dont let another day go by without the magic touch
Distracting you (change your mind)
Supporting you (change your mind)
Embracing you (change your mind)
Convincing you (change your mind)
When youre confused and the world has got you down
When you feel used and you just cant play the clown
Protecting you from this must be the one you love
Must be the one whose magic touch can change your mind
Dont let another day go by without the magic touch
Protecting you (change your mind)
Restoring you (change your mind)
Revealing you (change your mind)
Soothing you (change your mind)
You hear the sound, you wait around and get the word
You see the picture changing everything youve heard
Destroying you with this must be the one you love
Must be the one whose magic touch can change your mind
Dont let another day go by without the magic touch
Destroying you (change your mind)
Embracing you (change your mind)
Protecting you (change your mind)
Confining you (change your mind)
Distracting you (change your mind)
Supporting you (change your mind)
Distorting you (change your mind)
Controlling you (change your mind)
Change your mind (change your mind)
Change your mind, change your mind (change your mind)
Change your mind (change your mind)
The morning comes and theres an odor in the room
The scent of love, more than a million roses bloom
Embracing you with this must be the one you love
Must be the one whose magic touch can change your mind
Dont let another day go by without the magic touch
Embracing you (change your mind)
Concealing you (change your mind)
Protecting you (change your mind)
Revealing you (change your mind)
Change your mind, change your mind (change your mind)
Change your mind (change your mind)
Change your mind, change your mind (change your mind)
Change your mind (change your mind)
Change your mind, change your mind
Change your mind
Change your mind, change your mind

[...] Read more

song performed by Neil Young
Added by Lucian Velea
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Save me O Lord from all this change

‘Look abroad thro' Nature's range,
‘Nature's mighty law is change'1;
Yea, change is everything, comm'ner or king,
Change is progress; or left I'm so to guess.

Open up and sooner shall thine life change,
Advised Buddha, and there's a rainbow's range
Of wisdom; so taught I thought me to change,
Soon to change mind from no mean a challenge.

‘If ye like not a thing, go ‘head, change it,
‘And if ye can't, change, change the way ye think'2,
If not, there's still a way: to wait, to wit,
Till what ye like not, changes in a wink.

And I'm convinced, ‘nought in this world endure'3,
The world may either change the way I want—
A Buddhist way when things on their own cure!
If not, to a changed me, it least does haunt.

And I agree, ‘weep not the world changes'4,
For reason there's to weep, were it to keep
A stable, changeless state, in stony ease,
E'en a stone changeth, if not in a leap.

And every birth of a brazen new truth
Has caused mischief, nay, oft great upheaval;
A change agent, nor in right frame of youth,
Let me not be one, disaster to deal!

Things change, and we too change, we more than things,
‘The old order changeth, yielding to new'5,
While change of habit irks the lay and kings,
Hope mints new order to strut with tired view!

And all progress, a twain-edge'd old sword,
‘Preserving order amid all the change,
‘Amid the preserved order preserve change'6;
Save me, O Lord, from this balancing board!
_____________________________________________ ___________
1. Robert Burns: Let not women e'er complain.
2. Mary Engelbreit.
3. Ludwig Boerne: ‘Nought endures but change'.
4. William Cullen Bryant:
‘Weep not that the world changes—
did it keep a stable changeless state,
it were cause indeed to weep'.
5. Alfred Lord Tennyson: ‘The passing of Arthur'.
6. Alfred North Whitehead:
‘The art of progress is to preserve order amid change,

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poem by Aniruddha Pathak
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Chill Out (Things Gonna Change)

One of these days,
Things gonna change
One of these days
Tings gonna change
Youll try no w baby
Afterwhile gonna be mine, gonna be mine
One of these days
Morning dawnin,
Try try try
Wont be long long
Things gonna change
Sometime, in the middle of the night
Its so long, its so long its so long
Tings gonna change, things gonna change
Change change change
Tings gonna change,
Further on up the road baby, things gonna change
Change change change
Change change change
Change baby
Youll try not to leave
After while Gonna be mine
My time my time baby
Things gonna change
Change change change
Change change change
Things gonna change
Yes it is
Things gonna change
Change change change
Change change change
Change change change
Change change change
Things gonna change
Things gonna change
Things gonna change
Things gonna change change change change
Things gonna change

song performed by Santana
Added by Lucian Velea
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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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Bitter Sweet Symphony

Cos its a bittersweet symphony this life...
cause its a bittersweet symphony, this life
Trying to make ends meet , youre a slave to the money then you die.
Try to make ends meet
Ill take you down the only road Ive ever been down...
Youre a slave to money then you die
You know the one that takes you to the places where all the pain lives , yeah.
Ill take you down the only road Ive ever been down
You know the one that takes you to the places
No change, I can change, I can change, I can change,
Where all the veins meet yeah,
But Im here in my mould , I am here in my mould.
But Im a million different people from one day to the next...
No change, I can change
I cant change my mould , no,no,no,no,no,no,no
I can change, I can change
But Im here in my mold
Well I never pray,
I am here in my mold
But tonight Im on my knees, yeah.
But Im a million different people
I need to hear some sounds that recognise the pain in me, yeah.
From one day to the next
I let the melody shine, let it cleanze my mind , I feel free now.
I cant change my mold
But the airwaves are clean and theres nobody singing to me now.
No, no, no, no, no
No change, I can change, I can change, I can change,
Well I never pray
But Im here in my mould , I am here in my mould.
But tonight Im on my knees yeah
And Im a million different people from one day to the next
I need to hear some sounds that recognize the pain in me, yeah
I cant change my mould, no,no,no,no,no,no,no
I let the melody shine, let it cleanse my mind, I feel free now
But the airways are clean and theres nobody singing to me now
(well have you ever been down? )
(I can change, I can change...)
No change, I can change
I can change, I can change
Cos its a bittersweet symphony this life.
But Im here in my mold
Trying to make ends meet, trying to find some money then you die.
I am here in my mold
You know I can change, I can change, I can change,
And Im a million different people
But Im here in my mould, I am here in my mould.
From one day to the next
And Im a million different people from one day to the next.
I cant change my mold

[...] Read more

song performed by Verve
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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.

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poem by Sir Francis Bacon
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If I Had You

(Ooh, ooh, ooh)
You by my side
You by my side
(Ooh, ooh)
The other day I saw you walkin' (ooh)
You looked as pretty as a peach
You seemed so near
And yet somehow you're out of my reach (out of my reach)
If I had you I'd have the power (I'd have the power)
To do most anything I choose (whatever you wanted)
Oh, oh, oh, I would not care
Sometimes I'd win (you win, you win)
Sometimes (sometimes) I'd lose, oh, wee
I could change the world [if I could change the world]
If I had you [by my side]
I could change the world [if I could change the world]
If I had you (by my side, yeah)
My momma told me not to worry (I don't cheating)
She said "It'll all come to those who wait"
(Come to you and you won't be wait)
But as I wait, I feel, oh, no
That it's much too late
That's why (never too late, baby)
I could change the world [if I could change the world]
(Change the world)
If I had you (ooh, you, if I had you)
I could change the world [if I could change the world]
(If I could change the world)
If I had you (only you) by my side (yeah) by my side
If I could change the world
(If I had youooh)
If I could change the world (ooh)
(I could change the world)
Oh, yeah
I could change the world [if I could change the world]
If I had you (just me and you, just me and you, baby, yeah) [by my side]
I (ooh, ooh) could change the world [if I could change the world]
(Whatever you wanted)
If I had you (oh, yeah, if I had you) oh, yeah
I could change the world (oh)
If I had you (if I had you)
I could change the world (never, never too late now, no, no)
If I had you, oh, yeah
I (oh, yeah, yeah) could change the world
(I could change the world, I could change the world)
If I had you (if I only, if I only)
I could change the world
(I could change the world, I could change the world)
If I had you (by my side, oh, yeah) [yeah]
I could change the world

[...] Read more

song performed by Rod Stewart
Added by Lucian Velea
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Tale XXI

The Learned Boy

An honest man was Farmer Jones, and true;
He did by all as all by him should do;
Grave, cautious, careful, fond of gain was he,
Yet famed for rustic hospitality:
Left with his children in a widow'd state,
The quiet man submitted to his fate;
Though prudent matrons waited for his call,
With cool forbearance he avoided all;
Though each profess'd a pure maternal joy,
By kind attention to his feeble boy;
And though a friendly Widow knew no rest,
Whilst neighbour Jones was lonely and distress'd;
Nay, though the maidens spoke in tender tone
Their hearts' concern to see him left alone,
Jones still persisted in that cheerless life,
As if 'twere sin to take a second wife.
Oh! 'tis a precious thing, when wives are dead,
To find such numbers who will serve instead;
And in whatever state a man be thrown,
'Tis that precisely they would wish their own;
Left the departed infants--then their joy
Is to sustain each lovely girl and boy:
Whatever calling his, whatever trade,
To that their chief attention has been paid;
His happy taste in all things they approve,
His friends they honour, and his food they love;
His wish for order, prudence in affairs,
An equal temper (thank their stars!), are theirs;
In fact, it seem'd to be a thing decreed,
And fix'd as fate, that marriage must succeed:
Yet some, like Jones, with stubborn hearts and

hard,
Can hear such claims and show them no regard.
Soon as our Farmer, like a general, found
By what strong foes he was encompass'd round,
Engage he dared not, and he could not fly,
But saw his hope in gentle parley lie;
With looks of kindness then, and trembling heart,
He met the foe, and art opposed to art.
Now spoke that foe insidious--gentle tones,
And gentle looks, assumed for Farmer Jones:
'Three girls,' the Widow cried, 'a lively three
To govern well--indeed it cannot be.'
'Yes,' he replied, 'it calls for pains and care:
But I must bear it.'--'Sir, you cannot bear;
Your son is weak, and asks a mother's eye:'
'That, my kind friend, a father's may supply.'

[...] Read more

poem by George Crabbe
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Fifth Book

AURORA LEIGH, be humble. Shall I hope
To speak my poems in mysterious tune
With man and nature,–with the lava-lymph
That trickles from successive galaxies
Still drop by drop adown the finger of God,
In still new worlds?–with summer-days in this,
That scarce dare breathe, they are so beautiful?–
With spring's delicious trouble in the ground
Tormented by the quickened blood of roots.
And softly pricked by golden crocus-sheaves
In token of the harvest-time of flowers?–
With winters and with autumns,–and beyond,
With the human heart's large seasons,–when it hopes
And fears, joys, grieves, and loves?–with all that strain
Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh
In a sacrament of souls? with mother's breasts,
Which, round the new made creatures hanging there,
Throb luminous and harmonious like pure spheres?–
With multitudinous life, and finally
With the great out-goings of ecstatic souls,
Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame,
Their radiant faces upward, burn away
This dark of the body, issuing on a world
Beyond our mortal?–can I speak my verse
So plainly in tune to these things and the rest,
That men shall feel it catch them on the quick,
As having the same warrant over them
To hold and move them, if they will or no,
Alike imperious as the primal rhythm
Of that theurgic nature? I must fail,
Who fail at the beginning to hold and move
One man,–and he my cousin, and he my friend,
And he born tender, made intelligent,
Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides
Of difficult questions; yet, obtuse to me,–
Of me, incurious! likes me very well,
And wishes me a paradise of good,
Good looks, good means, and good digestion!–ay,
But otherwise evades me, puts me off
With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness,–
Too light a book for a grave man's reading! Go,
Aurora Leigh: be humble.
There it is;
We women are too apt to look to one,
Which proves a certain impotence in art.
We strain our natures at doing something great,
Far less because it's something great to do,
Than, haply, that we, so, commend ourselves
As being not small, and more appreciable
To some one friend. We must have mediators

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
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Intrigue

THOU art my love
And thou art the peace of sundown
When the blue shadows soothe
And the grasses and the leaves sleep
To the song of the little brooks
Woe is me.

Thou art my love,
And thou art a storm
That breaks black in the sky
And, sweeping headlong,
Drenches and cowers each tree
And at the panting end
There is no sound
Save the melancholy cry of a single owl
Woe is me!

Thou art my love
And thou art a tinsel thing
And I in my play
Broke thee easily
And from the little fragments
Arose my long sorrow
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art a weary violet
Drooping from sun-caresses.
Answering mine carelessly
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art the ashes of other men's love
And I bury my face in these ashes
And I love them
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art the beard
On another man's face
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art a temple
And in this temple is an altar
And on this altar is my heart
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art a wretch.

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poem by Stephen Crane
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Across The Universe

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither wildly as they slip away
Across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind
Possessing and caressing me
Nothings gonna change my world
Nothings gonna change my world
Nothings gonna change my world
Nothings gonna change my world
Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes
They call me on and on
Across the universe
Thoughts meander like the restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Nothings gonna change my world
Nothings gonna change my world
Nothings gonna change my world
Nothings gonna change my world
Sounds of laughter, shades of life are ringing through my open ears
Inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love, which shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on and on
Across the universe
Nothings gonna change my world
Nothings gonna change my world
Nothings gonna change my world
Nothings gonna change my world
Nothings gonna change my world
Nothings gonna change my world
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Nothings gonna
Nothings gonna change my world
Nothing
Nothing
Nothing
Nothings gonna
Noth, nothings gonna change my world
Nothings gonna change it
Nothings gonna change it
Hey yeah, nothings gonna change it
Nothings gonna change it
Nothings gonna change it
Nothings gonna change it
Nothings gonna change my world
Nothings gonna change it (nothings gonna change it)
Nothings gonna change it (no no no no no)
Nothings gonna change my world (nothings gonna change my world)

song performed by David Bowie
Added by Lucian Velea
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Man In The Middle

Rewrite of Michael Jackson's Man In The Mirror

Girl, I'm about to make a change
Through loving you in this life
It don't feel so good
But I know I gotta do it
I gotta try to make a difference
I gotta make this love affair right

As I turn up the collar on this tattered old Winter coat
This rumor about you I just heard is blowin' my mind
They're all talkin' it up in the streets
About how out of your most personal
You let other guys eat
How could I have been so blind
Trying so desperatly to pretend not to see
Your greedy needs
A lover's disregard
A broken heart shattered even more
By your too low cut tube top
Long ago now I realize
Lost the mate of my soul
Led each other on
'Cause we nowhere else to go
That's why now, babe, I just gotta let you know

I'm done being the man in the middle
I'm through asking you to change your ways
Don't know how I can make this final message any clearer
Girl, once you made my world
A better place
Now all your loves me with is a bitter taste
Took a look at myself
Fed up with you
Now I'm gonna make a change
Took a look at myself
So very unhappy
Solo in love with you
Now I gotta, just gotta make this change
(Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na, Nah, yeah)

Too long I've been a victim of your selfish love
It's way past time I became a man and realized
That with you I can no longer share my heart, bed or home
So much better for me, babe
Living now on my own
Alone

A flower you are
Deeply flawed

[...] Read more

poem by Ramona Thompson
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The Cenci : A Tragedy In Five Acts

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Count Francesco Cenci.
Giacomo, his Son.
Bernardo, his Son.
Cardinal Camillo.
Orsino, a Prelate.
Savella, the Pope's Legate.
Olimpio, Assassin.
Marzio, Assassin.
Andrea, Servant to Cenci.
Nobles, Judges, Guards, Servants.
Lucretia, Wife of Cenci, and Step-mother of his children.
Beatrice, his Daughter.

The Scene lies principally in Rome, but changes during the Fourth Act to Petrella, a castle among the Apulian Apennines.
Time. During the Pontificate of Clement VIII.

ACT I

Scene I.
-An Apartment in the Cenci Palace.
Enter Count Cenci, and Cardinal Camillo.

Camillo.
That matter of the murder is hushed up
If you consent to yield his Holiness
Your fief that lies beyond the Pincian gate.-
It needed all my interest in the conclave
To bend him to this point: he said that you
Bought perilous impunity with your gold;
That crimes like yours if once or twice compounded
Enriched the Church, and respited from hell
An erring soul which might repent and live:-
But that the glory and the interest
Of the high throne he fills, little consist
With making it a daily mart of guilt
As manifold and hideous as the deeds
Which you scarce hide from men's revolted eyes.

Cenci.
The third of my possessions-let it go!
Ay, I once heard the nephew of the Pope
Had sent his architect to view the ground,
Meaning to build a villa on my vines
The next time I compounded with his uncle:
I little thought he should outwit me so!

[...] Read more

poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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The Believer's Jointure : Chapter II.

Containing the Marks and Characters of the Believer in Christ; together with some further privileges and grounds of comfort to the Saints.

Sect. I.

Doubting Believers called to examine, by marks drawn from their love to Him and his presence, their view of his glory, and their being emptied of Self-Righteousness, &c.

Good news! but, says the drooping bride,
Ah! what's all this to me?
Thou doubt'st thy right, when shadows hide
Thy Husband's face from thee.

Though sin and guilt thy spirit faints,
And trembling fears thy fate;
But harbour not thy groundless plaints,
Thy Husband's advent wait.

Thou sobb'st, 'O were I sure he's mine,
This would give glad'ning ease;'
And say'st, Though wants and woes combine,
Thy Husband would thee please.

But up and down, and seldom clear,
Inclos'd with hellish routs;
Yet yield thou not, nor foster fear:
Thy Husband hates thy doubts.

Thy cries and tears may slighted seem,
And barr'd from present ease;
Yet blame thyself, but never dream
Thy Husband's ill to please.

Thy jealous unbelieving heart
Still droops, and knows not why;
Then prove thyself to ease thy smart,
Thy Husband bids the try.

The following questions put to the
As scripture-marks, may tell
And shew, what'er thy failings be,
Thy Husband loves thee well.

MARKS.

Art thou content when he's away?
Can earth allay thy pants?
If conscience witness, won't it say,
Thy Husband's all thou wants?

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poem by Ralph Erskine
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The Growth of Love

1
They that in play can do the thing they would,
Having an instinct throned in reason's place,
--And every perfect action hath the grace
Of indolence or thoughtless hardihood--
These are the best: yet be there workmen good
Who lose in earnestness control of face,
Or reckon means, and rapt in effort base
Reach to their end by steps well understood.
Me whom thou sawest of late strive with the pains
Of one who spends his strength to rule his nerve,
--Even as a painter breathlessly who stains
His scarcely moving hand lest it should swerve--
Behold me, now that I have cast my chains,
Master of the art which for thy sake I serve.

2
For thou art mine: and now I am ashamed
To have uséd means to win so pure acquist,
And of my trembling fear that might have misst
Thro' very care the gold at which I aim'd;
And am as happy but to hear thee named,
As are those gentle souls by angels kisst
In pictures seen leaving their marble cist
To go before the throne of grace unblamed.
Nor surer am I water hath the skill
To quench my thirst, or that my strength is freed
In delicate ordination as I will,
Than that to be myself is all I need
For thee to be most mine: so I stand still,
And save to taste my joy no more take heed.

3
The whole world now is but the minister
Of thee to me: I see no other scheme
But universal love, from timeless dream
Waking to thee his joy's interpreter.
I walk around and in the fields confer
Of love at large with tree and flower and stream,
And list the lark descant upon my theme,
Heaven's musical accepted worshipper.
Thy smile outfaceth ill: and that old feud
'Twixt things and me is quash'd in our new truce;
And nature now dearly with thee endued
No more in shame ponders her old excuse,
But quite forgets her frowns and antics rude,
So kindly hath she grown to her new use.

4

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poem by Robert Seymour Bridges
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Quatrains Of Life

What has my youth been that I love it thus,
Sad youth, to all but one grown tedious,
Stale as the news which last week wearied us,
Or a tired actor's tale told to an empty house?

What did it bring me that I loved it, even
With joy before it and that dream of Heaven,
Boyhood's first rapture of requited bliss,
What did it give? What ever has it given?

'Let me recount the value of my days,
Call up each witness, mete out blame and praise,
Set life itself before me as it was,
And--for I love it--list to what it says.

Oh, I will judge it fairly. Each old pleasure
Shared with dead lips shall stand a separate treasure.
Each untold grief, which now seems lesser pain,
Shall here be weighed and argued of at leisure.

I will not mark mere follies. These would make
The count too large and in the telling take
More tears than I can spare from seemlier themes
To cure its laughter when my heart should ache.

Only the griefs which are essential things,
The bitter fruit which all experience brings;
Nor only of crossed pleasures, but the creed
Men learn who deal with nations and with kings.

All shall be counted fairly, griefs and joys,
Solely distinguishing 'twixt mirth and noise,
The thing which was and that which falsely seemed,
Pleasure and vanity, man's bliss and boy's.

So I shall learn the reason of my trust
In this poor life, these particles of dust
Made sentient for a little while with tears,
Till the great ``may--be'' ends for me in ``must.''

My childhood? Ah, my childhood! What of it
Stripped of all fancy, bare of all conceit?
Where is the infancy the poets sang?
Which was the true and which the counterfeit?

I see it now, alas, with eyes unsealed,
That age of innocence too well revealed.
The flowers I gathered--for I gathered flowers--
Were not more vain than I in that far field.

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poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Gareth And Lynette

The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent,
And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring
Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine
Lost footing, fell, and so was whirled away.
'How he went down,' said Gareth, 'as a false knight
Or evil king before my lance if lance
Were mine to use--O senseless cataract,
Bearing all down in thy precipitancy--
And yet thou art but swollen with cold snows
And mine is living blood: thou dost His will,
The Maker's, and not knowest, and I that know,
Have strength and wit, in my good mother's hall
Linger with vacillating obedience,
Prisoned, and kept and coaxed and whistled to--
Since the good mother holds me still a child!
Good mother is bad mother unto me!
A worse were better; yet no worse would I.
Heaven yield her for it, but in me put force
To weary her ears with one continuous prayer,
Until she let me fly discaged to sweep
In ever-highering eagle-circles up
To the great Sun of Glory, and thence swoop
Down upon all things base, and dash them dead,
A knight of Arthur, working out his will,
To cleanse the world. Why, Gawain, when he came
With Modred hither in the summertime,
Asked me to tilt with him, the proven knight.
Modred for want of worthier was the judge.
Then I so shook him in the saddle, he said,
"Thou hast half prevailed against me," said so--he--
Though Modred biting his thin lips was mute,
For he is alway sullen: what care I?'

And Gareth went, and hovering round her chair
Asked, 'Mother, though ye count me still the child,
Sweet mother, do ye love the child?' She laughed,
'Thou art but a wild-goose to question it.'
'Then, mother, an ye love the child,' he said,
'Being a goose and rather tame than wild,
Hear the child's story.' 'Yea, my well-beloved,
An 'twere but of the goose and golden eggs.'

And Gareth answered her with kindling eyes,
'Nay, nay, good mother, but this egg of mine
Was finer gold than any goose can lay;
For this an Eagle, a royal Eagle, laid
Almost beyond eye-reach, on such a palm
As glitters gilded in thy Book of Hours.
And there was ever haunting round the palm
A lusty youth, but poor, who often saw

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poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Sohrab and Rustum

And the first grey of morning fill'd the east,
And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream.
But all the Tartar camp along the stream
Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep;
Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long
He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed;
But when the grey dawn stole into his tent,
He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword,
And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent,
And went abroad into the cold wet fog,
Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's tent.

Through the black Tartar tents he pass'd, which stood
Clustering like bee-hives on the low flat strand
Of Oxus, where the summer-floods o'erflow
When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere
Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low strand,
And to a hillock came, a little back
From the stream's brink--the spot where first a boat,
Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land.
The men of former times had crown'd the top
With a clay fort; but that was fall'n, and now
The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent,
A dome of laths, and o'er it felts were spread.
And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood
Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent,
And found the old man sleeping on his bed
Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms.
And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step
Was dull'd; for he slept light, an old man's sleep;
And he rose quickly on one arm, and said:--

"Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn.
Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?"

But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said:--
"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I.
The sun is not yet risen, and the foe
Sleep; but I sleep not; all night long I lie
Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee.
For so did King Afrasiab bid me seek
Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son,
In Samarcand, before the army march'd;
And I will tell thee what my heart desires.
Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan first
I came among the Tartars and bore arms,
I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown,
At my boy's years, the courage of a man.
This too thou know'st, that while I still bear on
The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world,

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poem by Matthew Arnold (1853)
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Canto the Fourth

I.

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O’er the far times when many a subject land
Looked to the wingèd Lion’s marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!

II.

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was; her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

III.

In Venice, Tasso’s echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone - but beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade - but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

IV.

But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city’s vanished sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away -
The keystones of the arch! though all were o’er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

V.

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poem by Byron from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818)
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