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Flatterers and traders are related.

Basque proverbs
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The New Crusade

LIFE is a trifle;
Honor is all;
Shoulder the rifle;
Answer the call.
'A nation of traders'!
We'll show what we are,
Freedom's crusaders
Who war against war.
Battle is tragic;
Battle shall cease;
Ours is the magic
Mission of Peace.
'A nation of traders'!
We'll show what we are,
Freedom's crusaders
Who war against war.
Gladly we barter
Gold of our youth
For Liberty's charter
Blood-sealed in truth.
'A nation of traders'!
We'll show what we are,
Freedom's crusaders
Who war against war.
Sons of the granite,
Strong be our stroke,
Making this planet
Safe for the folk.
'A nation of traders'!
We'll show what we are,
Freedom's crusaders
Who war against war.
Life is but passion,
Sunshine on dew.
Forward to fashion
The old world anew!
'A nation of traders'!
We'll show what we are,
Freedom's crusaders
Who war against war.

poem by Katharine Lee Bates
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Amusing Trial, in Which a Yankee Lawyer Rendered a Just Verdict.

A Slave sold at Auction.
A time there was, when no one thought
It sin, to hold a slave he'd bought,
And of his strength have the command,
As much as of his house and land.
A Yankee Lawyer long had kept
A negro-man with whom he slept.

And ate, and Sabbath day,
He half the time from church would stay;
When Cuff his master's garments wore.—
'Twas strange you say, but he was poor;
And though he cared not for Cuff's soul,
Yet such the times, that on the whole,

'Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery, thou art a bitter draught.'—Sterne.
His slave must to the meeting go,
If 'twas for nothing but a show.
They lived on thus for several years—
One would not think, that many tears
Would fall from off that shining face,
So sleek and smooth, or he would trace

Note.—In some parts of the country, slaves are scantily fed, while their masters live in luxury.
Note.—In some parts of the country, slaves are scantily fed, while their masters live in luxury.
The chain which bound, or wish to break,
But choose to stay for his own sake,
Where he so well was clothed and fed,
And shared the lawyer's food and bed,
So well contented he might be,
He'd hardly know but he was free,

Fetters formerly used by the slave traders, to confine the ankles of their victims. The editor has seen some that were actually used by Rhode Island traders.
Fetters formerly used by the slave traders, to confine the ankles of their victims. The editor has seen some that were actually used by Rhode Island traders.
But make the fetters of pure gold.
They're hateful still, they gall, they hold,
And if the pill is sugared o'er,
'Tis still as bitter as before.
Cuff ponder'd much, but did not know,
If he his master left to go,

And seek his fortune, he could find
Another master half so kind,
And who would give so large a share
Of the small pittance he could spare,
And every privilege could grant,
Which he could need or ever want;

[...] Read more

poem by Anonymous Americas
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Take care that thou be not made a fool by flatterers, for even the wisest men are abused by these. Know, therefore, that flatterers are the worst kind of traitors; for they will strengthen thy imperfections, encourage thee in all evils, correct thee in nothing; but so shadow and paint all thy vices and follies, as thou shalt never, by their will, discern evil from good, or vice from virtue. And, because all men are apt to flatter themselves, to entertain the additions of other men's praises is most perilous. Do not therefore praise thyself, except thou wilt be counted a vain-glorious fool; neither take delight in the praises of other men, except thou deserve it, and receive it from such as are worthy and honest, and will withal warn thee of thy faults; for flatterers have never any virtue — they are ever base, creeping, cowardly persons. … But it is hard to know them from friends, they are so obsequious and full of protestations; for as a wolf resembles a dog, so doth a flatterer a friend.

quote by Walter Raleigh
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A Map Of Culture

Culture

Contents

What is Culture?

The Importance of Culture

Culture Varies

Culture is Critical

The Sociobiology Debate

Values, Norms, and Social Control

Signs and Symbols

Language

Terms and Definitions

Approaches to the Study of Culture

Are We Prisoners of Our Culture?

What is Culture?

I prefer the definition used by Ian Robertson: 'all the shared products of society: material and nonmaterial' (Our text defines it in somewhat more ponderous terms- 'The totality of learned, socially transmitted behavior. It includes ideas, values, and customs (as well as the sailboats, comic books, and birth control devices) of groups of people' (p.32) .

Back to Contents

[...] Read more

poem by Nyein Way
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Get Work

On one fine but fatal morning in the early Eocene,
Lo, a brawny Bloke set out to dig a hole:
First of men to put a puncture in the tertiary green
Was this early, neolithic, human mole.
Gladsomely the toiler hefted his ungainly wooden spade,
As he scarified the bosom of old earth;
And our Progress forthwith started when his first spade-thrust was made,
While the cult of Work, or Graft, was given birth.

Oh, he flung the clods about him with a gay and prideful jerk,
Did this bright and early anthropoidal Bloke.
With the crowd that gathered, goggle-eyed, to watch him at his work
He would crack a pleasant, prehistoric joke.
And they gazed at him in wonder; for the custom of the mob,
When not occupied in inter-tribal strife,
Hitherto had been to eat, and sleep, and hunt, and cheat, and rob
Quite a simple and uncomplicated life.

Wherefore being new and novel, he was treated with respect,
This inventor of the job of shifting sand:
And with fresh-killed meat and fruit and furs his cave the tribesmen decked.
While his praises sounded high on ev'ry hand.
And the chieftain bade his artists in crude pictures to inscribe
On the shin-bone of a Dinosauromyth:
'Lo, the gods have sent a thing called Graft to bless this happy tribe,
And a scheme of Public Works will start forthwith.'

Ev'ry day, from early dawn till dark, the delver labored on
Till the tribesmen grew accustomed to the sight;
And the hunters, on their way to slay the mud-fat mastodon,
Would delay to say he wasn't doing right.
And the loafers from the Lower Caves, who lived by stealing meat,
All the day around the contract used to lurk;
And, when'er he paused to wipe his brow or took time off to eat,
They would yell at him in chorus: 'Aw, git work!'

Fat and lazy fur-skin-traders - wealthy men of such a size
That it took five hides to make them each a vest -
On their way to cheat their neighbors, paused awhile to criticise;
Calling, 'Loafer!' ev'ry time he stopped to rest.
They no longer stocked his larder with the trophies of the chase,
Or the neolithic substitute for beer:
For the chief said: 'He's a worker; we must keep him in his place!'
And the bloated fur-skin-traders cried, 'Hear, hear!'

[...] Read more

poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The relationship..

How am I related to you when I steal from you?
I am a thief, you are a victim and I cheat you.
How is she related to him when she sells her body to him?
She is a business woman, he is her customer,
Her body is a commodity and the business is done.
When we take money from someone,
Who is neither related nor do we have any affection,
How are we related one another?

poem by Veeraiyah Subbulakshmi
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Hollow flatterers

Hollow flatterers,
Do absolutely nothing for me.
Maybe because I've observed them before,
From childhood.
Those people showing their toothy smiles.
As if friends.
And behind someone's back,
They flap their lips loosely with gossip to attack

Compliments not honesty,
They perceive as a correct thing done.
But a sincerity felt in truth...
Is disconnected from them,
And this they can not do to show to anyone.

And as I age with a clarity,
That is daily wisening...
I see the hollow flatterers empty of depth and deed.
And wonder I do to myself as I observe...
Do these people realize others through them can see?
Flapping their lips loosely with gossip...
Yet deceptive as they practice,
A self righteous hypocrisy.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Milton’s Appeal To Cromwell

[CROMWELL, Act III. sc. iv.]

Stay! I no longer can contain myself,
But cry you: Look on John, who bares his mind
To Oliver--to Cromwell, Milton speaks!
Despite a kindling eye and marvel deep
A voice is lifted up without your leave;
For I was never placed at council board
To speak _my_ promptings. When awed strangers come
Who've seen Fox-Mazarin wince at the stings
In my epistles--and bring admiring votes
Of learned colleges, they strain to see
My figure in the glare--the usher utters,
'Behold and hearken! that's my Lord Protector's
Cousin--that, his son-in-law--that next'--who cares!
Some perfumed puppet! 'Milton?' 'He in black--
Yon silent scribe who trims their eloquence!'
Still 'chronicling small-beer,'--such is my duty!
Yea, one whose thunder roared through martyr bones
Till Pope and Louis Grand quaked on their thrones,
And echoed 'Vengeance for the Vaudois,' where
The Sultan slumbers sick with scent of roses.
He is but the mute in this seraglio--
'Pure' Cromwell's Council!
But to be dumb and blind is overmuch!
Impatient Issachar kicks at the load!
Yet diadems are burdens painfuller,
And I would spare thee that sore imposition.
Dear brother Noll, I plead against thyself!
Thou aim'st to be a king; and, in thine heart,
What fool has said: 'There is no king but thou?'
For thee the multitude waged war and won--
The end thou art of wrestlings and of prayer,
Of sleepless watch, long marches, hunger, tears
And blood prolifically spilled, homes lordless,
And homeless lords! The mass must always suffer
That one should reign! the collar's but newly clamp'd,
And nothing but the name thereon is changed--
Master? still masters! mark you not the red
Of shame unutterable in my sightless white?
Still hear me, Cromwell, speaking for your sake!
These fifteen years, we, to you whole-devoted,
Have sought for Liberty--to give it thee?
To make our interests your huckster gains?
The king a lion slain that you may flay,
And wear the robe--well, worthily--I say't,
For I will not abase my brother!
No! I would keep him in the realm serene,
My own ideal of heroes! loved o'er Israel,

[...] Read more

poem by Victor Hugo
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Bigger Wheel

Healers, dealer, skinflick traders, save my skin for
Later or else you wont get free,
Your dim and dismal, loves gone rotten, grim and
Greedy and best forgotten, yet still you say to me
There are bigger wheels than this, wider skies of blue.
Hookers, lookers, pink skinned babies heres a list
Of maybes I have saved for you
Your mad, appalling love and laughter,
Stuck here for ever after
Swimming all around you
There are bigger wheels than this, wider skies of blue.
There are bigger deals, there are bigger wheels
Than you get through.
Healers, dealer, skinflick traders, save my skin for
Later or else you wont get free,
Your dim and dismal, loves gone rotten, grim and
Greedy and best forgotten, and yet still you say to me
There are bigger wheels than this, wider skies of blue.
There are bigger deals, there are bigger wheels
Than you get through.
Hookers, lookers, pink skinned babies heres a list
Of maybes I have saved for you.

song performed by I Am Kloot
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Bigger Wheels

Healers, dealer, skinflick traders, save my skin for later,
or else you won't get free,
Your dim and dismal, loves gone rotten, grim and greedy,
and best forgotten, yet still you say to me.
There are bigger wheels than this, wider skies of blue.
Hookers, lookers, pink skinned babies here's a list of maybe's,
I have saved for you
Your mad, appalling love and laughter, Stuck here for ever after,
and swimming all around you
There are bigger wheels than this, wider skies of blue.
There are bigger deals, there are bigger wheels than you,
To get through.
Healers, dealer, skinflick traders, save my skin for later,
or else you won't get free,
Your dim and dismal, loves gone rotten, grim and greedy,
and best forgotten, yet still you say to me.
There are bigger wheels than this, wider skies of blue.
There are bigger deals, there are bigger wheels than you,
To get through.
Hookers, lookers, pink skinned babies here's a list of maybe's,
That I have saved for you.

song performed by I Am Kloot
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Tale XIX

THE CONVERT.

Some to our Hero have a hero's name
Denied, because no father's he could claim;
Nor could his mother with precision state
A full fair claim to her certificate;
On her own word the marriage must depend -
A point she was not eager to defend:
But who, without a father's name, can raise
His own so high, deserves the greater praise;
The less advantage to the strife he brought,
The greater wonders has his prowess wrought;
He who depends upon his wind and limbs,
Needs neither cork nor bladder when he swims;
Nor will by empty breath be puff'd along,
As not himself--but in his helpers--strong.
Suffice it then, our Hero's name was clear,
For call John Dighton, and he answer'd 'Here!'
But who that name in early life assign'd
He never found, he never tried to find:
Whether his kindred were to John disgrace,
Or John to them, is a disputed case;
His infant state owed nothing to their care -
His mind neglected, and his body bare;
All his success must on himself depend,
He had no money, counsel, guide, or friend;
But in a market-town an active boy
Appear'd, and sought in various ways employ;
Who soon, thus cast upon the world, began
To show the talents of a thriving man.
With spirit high John learn'd the world to

brave,
And in both senses was a ready knave;
Knave as of old obedient, keen, and quick,
Knave as of present, skill'd to shift and trick;
Some humble part of many trades he caught,
He for the builder and the painter wrought;
For serving-maids on secret errands ran,
The waiter's helper, and the ostler's man;
And when he chanced (oft chanced he) place to lose,
His varying genius shone in blacking shoes:
A midnight fisher by the pond he stood,
Assistant poacher, he o'erlook'd the wood;
At an election John's impartial mind
Was to no cause nor candidate confined;
To all in turn he full allegiance swore,
And in his hat the various badges bore:
His liberal soul with every sect agreed,
Unheard their reasons, he received their creed:

[...] Read more

poem by George Crabbe
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Wrecked Illusions

Dedicated to Louis Becke

You are now in London town,
Louis Becke,
Keeping up your old renown,
Writing yarns of women brown,
Getting yellow money down,
Or a cheque.

That is right enough, maybe -
You are wise;
But your Isles of the South Sea,
Where the life is bold and free,
You may have them all for me -
Dash your eyes!

I armful of you, I am,
To the neck;
And I cannot think with a calm
Of your tales 'By Reef and Palm'
But I have to mutter 'D--n
Louis Becke!'

You have lined, the press records
(Not in joke),
At the hospitable boards
Of a lot of dukes and lords,
And beguiled them with you words -
Simple folk!

Yet I would not envy you,
Be it said,
if the tales you told were true
As they were unique and new -
But you made them all up, Loo,
In your head.

Never, as in days of yore,
(You will see)
On your pages shall I pore,
With their yarns of love and gore,
Never, Louis, anymore
Becke for me.

I'd rejoice to have you here
(You might grieve!)
With your pen behind your ear,
In this clammy atmosphere,
Where it rains all round the year,

[...] Read more

poem by Victor James Daley
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It’s All Relative

This life some say is all relative, effecting how they choose to live.
Times may change, this is true, but should it change me and you?
If indeed this life is relative for you, whom or what is it related to?
Not all, you can be assured, is approved or endorsed by The Lord.

Cultures do rise and cultures fall, all at the hands of The Lord of all.
Christ who created all, my friend, will be the same in the very end.
In these ever changing days, sure and unchanging are His ways.
Eternal laws aren’t compromised; by Him wickedness is despised.

Anything that is contrary to Him, could my friend, be laced with sin.
For Satan wraps sin in a disguise, making sin pleasing to our eyes.
But Believers have the mind of Christ, to point us all to Eternal Life.
Are you moved by things on earth, or by the spirit of your new birth?

A Christian’s life should be relevant, to The Spirit whom Christ sent.
For we are to become sanctified, to live our life for Christ who died,
This is to live life as a sacrifice, reflecting the ways of Jesus Christ.
While we live our life down here, we should live it in reverent fear.

All our ways should be relative, to Him who died so we could live.
Living our life for Jesus Christ, recalling He paid the ultimate price.
And knowing that it was related to, His Father’s will for me and you.
And everything is related friend, to where in Eternity you shall end.

poem by Bob Gotti
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In_Time_Mate Or In_Time_I_Date Sting [H]Alter-Wring Or Sing Altar Ring? After Gellet Burgess Abstrophy

'Forever' seems an attitude -
whenever iover-stated -
fantastical as fervent mood
through which it is created.
Sweet dreams evolve as covert feud
quite unanticipated
when he or she, or both, prim, prude,
fast, loose, find faith inflated
when practicalities intrude
on idyll time-outdated.
Familiarity, once wooed
contempt breeds, dissipated
when lovey-dovey interlude's
perceived plot perpetrated
on pipe-dream theme somewhat askewed
when truth is estimated.

Is passion palled by plenitude,
or, consecrated, sated?
castrated by its magnitude,
once baited is abated?
Is passion passing interlude
its pride of place vacated
when self by self is too imbued -
in_time_mate intim_I_dated,
passion pursuant to pursued
with chaste and chased related,
missel_toe issue tissue wooed?
bourgeois romance out-dated?

Is love cavorting in the nude
tryst trophy team instated,
with double assets well accrued
pendant physicians placated?
Or is it just lust for bust crude
between divorce created
by cheesy lawyers out for feud
too well remunerated,
communication mis-construed,
excuse pre-fabricated?
Is family sollicitude
ideal deal which rich waited?

Is love submissive servitude
to idyll over-rated
triple A by Moody's in the Mood,
Fitch, Standard Poor downrated?
or self through wealth from shelf rescued
by bright knight silver plated.
Is true romance a tale well cued

[...] Read more

poem by Jonathan Robin
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A Heart Without A Mind Of Its Own

When a fire within,
Begins heating from a need...
Staying with a flame uncontained.
No effort made can remove this feeling,
Within...
Started by another set on purpose to blaze.

Gone away...
And exposed,
Is a heart without a mind of its own.

And gone away...
Goes...
Anything related to a...
Common sense.

When a fire within,
Begins heating from a need...
Staying with a flame uncontained.
No effort made can remove this feeling,
Within...
Started by another set on purpose to blaze.

Gone away...
And exposed,
Is a heart without a mind of its own...
To burn with yearning.

Gone away,
To expose...
Goes,
Anything related to a...
Common sense.

And gone away,
To expose...
Goes,
Anything related to a...
Common sense.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Was, Is And Will Be

‘All that was, is and will be unto end of time, is in the
Torah, from first to last word: details of species, each
individual, all that happened from birth to death'

The old Hebrew version of the Old Testament is a
crossword puzzle computer program, a Bible code;
skip fifty letters in sequences to find the term Torah
at the beginning of Genesis, Exodus, Numbers
and Deuteronomy

The universe a cryptogram set by the Almighty;
the Bible a time-lock opened by computer, code-
breakers found the names, dates and cities of 66
wise men encoded together in a network criss-
crossing Bible text

No spaces between words - 304 805 letters - in a
continuous line: start on first letter, search names,
words and phrases, skip 1,2,3,4 - X letters; start
on second letter, repeat the process and continue
up to last letter

Find key words & related facts encoded together,
matching words in close proximity, length of skips
between search words to be small, interlocking
words reveal related information in Bible text
only, not in millions of test cases

Bible provides infinite information, related words in
cross-word puzzles cross vertically, horizontally and
diagonally; meets quantum physics theory of unlimited
probability and possibility - I shall never fear
boredom again

Armed with this computer program which resembles
notes of music in never-ending configurations - as
unique as snowdrops and fingerprints; no wonder
everything is contained and explained therein -
as to meaning and origin:

Existence manifests as an intelligent, loving energy
which illustrates quantum physics principles and
relativity in a great testament to creation!

[The Bible Code, Michael Drosnin, Weidenfeld &
Nicolson,1997 -
Quotes from pp.19 - 25]

poem by Margaret Alice Second
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0020 A loving sestina to Our Lady

1 In Europe, around the end of the 12th century, women
2 began to be regarded by men as more than a good lay
3 and mother to your children; but that contented sorta love
4 that even men feel afterward, could be seen as quite divine
5 and thus related however distantly to the Creator;
6 this gave rise to a type of poetry called the sestina.

6 a troubadour called Arnaut Daniel invented the sestina,
1 so it’s said, around 1190; and this new respect for women
5 as being, believe it or not, related distantly to their Creator
2 led to this, to us, rather absurd and complicated ‘lay’ -
4 that was the rather double-entendre name for the divine
3 love for mankind related to the act of physical love

3 which, though we make this a common metaphor for love
6 today, was new then, to unreconstructed men; the sestina
4 which plugs the same six end-words throughout, divine
1 and human, was supposed to underline that women,
2 exquisitely praised in the poetry of the troubadour’s lay,
5 were men’s path to loving, through them, his Creator;

5 Creator of man and woman, Adam and Eve; Creator
3 of all things and of, crucially, both human and divine love
2 and this point was hammered home; the troubadour’s lay
6 in this somewhat tiresome form of the sestina
1 was supposed to make men respectful, and women
4 feel good about themselves (like Maya) as being divine;

4 but of course, troubadours were also human and divine
5 musicians; sexy and available (OK, blame their Creator…)
1 and, it was envied, did their own share of loving women
3 while going from castle to castle, gig to gig, love to love;
6 which gave rather a double edge to their sung sestina
2 and prompted many a coarse joke about ‘a good lay’..

2 however, poets - Dante, Petrarch - found the lay
4 a way of linking human love and the divine;
6 a profound metaphor, in a fine, poetic sestina,
5 that love in all its forms is the very nature of the Creator
3 and that we should remember this while making love
1 and perhaps have rather more respect for women..

Envoi:
5 I hope that this sestina has made its point: the Creator
3 is Love; Love is the Creator; and for most of us, this love
1 arises from, let’s say, a very poetic lay; with women.

poem by Michael Shepherd
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Courtship of Miles Standish, The

I
MILES STANDISH

In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims
To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,
Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan leather,
Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Captain.
Buried in thought he seemed, with his hands behind him, and pausing
Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of warfare,
Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber, --
Cutlass and corselet of steel, and his trusty sword of Damascus,
Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical Arabic sentence,
While underneath, in a corner, were fowling-piece, musket, and matchlock.
Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic,
Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron;
Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already
Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in November.
Near him was seated John Alden, his friend and household companion,
Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the window:
Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon complexion,
Having the dew of his youth, and the beauty thereof, as the captives
Whom Saint Gregory saw, and exclaimed, "Not Angles, but Angels."
Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the Mayflower.

Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe interrupting,
Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth.
"Look at these arms," he said, "the war-like weapons that hang here
Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection!
This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flanders; this breastplate,
Well I remember the day! once save my life in a skirmish;
Here in front you can see the very dint of the bullet
Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish arcabucero.
Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish
Would at this moment be mould, in their grave in the Flemish morasses."
Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up from his writing:
"Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the speed of the bullet;
He in his mercy preserved you, to be our shield and our weapon!"
Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words of the stripling:
"See, how bright they are burnished, as if in an arsenal hanging;
That is because I have done it myself, and not left it to others.
Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an excellent adage;
So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and your inkhorn.
Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible army,
Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest and his matchlock,
Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and pillage,
And, like Caesar, I know the name of each of my soldiers!"
This he said with a smile, that danced in his eyes, as the sunbeams
Dance on the waves of the sea, and vanish again in a moment.
Alden laughed as he wrote, and still the Captain continued:
"Look! you can see from this window my brazen howitzer planted

[...] Read more

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Courtship of Miles Standish

I
MILES STANDISH

In the Old Colony days, in Plymouth the land of the Pilgrims
To and fro in a room of his simple and primitive dwelling,
Clad in doublet and hose, and boots of Cordovan leather,
Strode, with a martial air, Miles Standish the Puritan Captain.
Buried in thought he seemed, with his hands behind him, and pausing
Ever and anon to behold his glittering weapons of warfare,
Hanging in shining array along the walls of the chamber, --
Cutlass and corselet of steel, and his trusty sword of Damascus,
Curved at the point and inscribed with its mystical Arabic sentence,
While underneath, in a corner, were fowling-piece, musket, and matchlock.
Short of stature he was, but strongly built and athletic,
Broad in the shoulders, deep-chested, with muscles and sinews of iron;
Brown as a nut was his face, but his russet beard was already
Flaked with patches of snow, as hedges sometimes in November.
Near him was seated John Alden, his friend and household companion,
Writing with diligent speed at a table of pine by the window:
Fair-haired, azure-eyed, with delicate Saxon complexion,
Having the dew of his youth, and the beauty thereof, as the captives
Whom Saint Gregory saw, and exclaimed, "Not Angles, but Angels."
Youngest of all was he of the men who came in the Mayflower.

Suddenly breaking the silence, the diligent scribe interrupting,
Spake, in the pride of his heart, Miles Standish the Captain of Plymouth.
"Look at these arms," he said, "the war-like weapons that hang here
Burnished and bright and clean, as if for parade or inspection!
This is the sword of Damascus I fought with in Flanders; this breastplate,
Well I remember the day! once save my life in a skirmish;
Here in front you can see the very dint of the bullet
Fired point-blank at my heart by a Spanish arcabucero.
Had it not been of sheer steel, the forgotten bones of Miles Standish
Would at this moment be mould, in their grave in the Flemish morasses."
Thereupon answered John Alden, but looked not up from his writing:
"Truly the breath of the Lord hath slackened the speed of the bullet;
He in his mercy preserved you, to be our shield and our weapon!"
Still the Captain continued, unheeding the words of the stripling:
"See, how bright they are burnished, as if in an arsenal hanging;
That is because I have done it myself, and not left it to others.
Serve yourself, would you be well served, is an excellent adage;
So I take care of my arms, as you of your pens and your inkhorn.
Then, too, there are my soldiers, my great, invincible army,
Twelve men, all equipped, having each his rest and his matchlock,
Eighteen shillings a month, together with diet and pillage,
And, like Caesar, I know the name of each of my soldiers!"
This he said with a smile, that danced in his eyes, as the sunbeams
Dance on the waves of the sea, and vanish again in a moment.
Alden laughed as he wrote, and still the Captain continued:
"Look! you can see from this window my brazen howitzer planted

[...] Read more

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Added by Poetry Lover
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I had the honor of speaking with Asimov. The album ended up being something not directly related to Asimov, but related instead to the concept of the power of robotics.

quote by Alan Parsons
Added by Lucian Velea
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