I don't care what stage or what reason, as long as we're playing.
quote by Billy Idol
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Rosciad
Unknowing and unknown, the hardy Muse
Boldly defies all mean and partial views;
With honest freedom plays the critic's part,
And praises, as she censures, from the heart.
Roscius deceased, each high aspiring player
Push'd all his interest for the vacant chair.
The buskin'd heroes of the mimic stage
No longer whine in love, and rant in rage;
The monarch quits his throne, and condescends
Humbly to court the favour of his friends;
For pity's sake tells undeserved mishaps,
And, their applause to gain, recounts his claps.
Thus the victorious chiefs of ancient Rome,
To win the mob, a suppliant's form assume;
In pompous strain fight o'er the extinguish'd war,
And show where honour bled in every scar.
But though bare merit might in Rome appear
The strongest plea for favour, 'tis not here;
We form our judgment in another way;
And they will best succeed, who best can pay:
Those who would gain the votes of British tribes,
Must add to force of merit, force of bribes.
What can an actor give? In every age
Cash hath been rudely banish'd from the stage;
Monarchs themselves, to grief of every player,
Appear as often as their image there:
They can't, like candidate for other seat,
Pour seas of wine, and mountains raise of meat.
Wine! they could bribe you with the world as soon,
And of 'Roast Beef,' they only know the tune:
But what they have they give; could Clive do more,
Though for each million he had brought home four?
Shuter keeps open house at Southwark fair,
And hopes the friends of humour will be there;
In Smithfield, Yates prepares the rival treat
For those who laughter love, instead of meat;
Foote, at Old House,--for even Foote will be,
In self-conceit, an actor,--bribes with tea;
Which Wilkinson at second-hand receives,
And at the New, pours water on the leaves.
The town divided, each runs several ways,
As passion, humour, interest, party sways.
Things of no moment, colour of the hair,
Shape of a leg, complexion brown or fair,
A dress well chosen, or a patch misplaced,
Conciliate favour, or create distaste.
From galleries loud peals of laughter roll,
And thunder Shuter's praises; he's so droll.
Embox'd, the ladies must have something smart,
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Churchill
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I Don't Care Anymore
Well you can tell ev'ryone I'm a down disgrace
So drag my name all over the place.
I don't care anymore. (I don't care)
You can tell ev'rybody 'bout the state I'm in
You won't catch me crying 'cos I just can't win.
I don't care anymore I don't care anymore
I don't care what you say
I don't play the same games you play.
'Cos I've been talking to the people that you call your friends
And it seems to me there's a means to and end.
They don't care anymore. (they don't care)
And as for me I can sit here and bide my time
I got nothing to lose if I speak my mind.
I don't care anymore I don't care no more
I don't care what you say
We never played by the same rules anyway.
I won't be there anymore
Get out of my way
Let me by
I got better things to do with my time
I don't care anymore I don't care anymore
I don't care anymore I don't care anymore
Well, I don't care now what you say (I don't care what you say)
'Cos ev'ry day (everyday)
I'm feeling fine with myself (I'm feeling fine with myself)
And I don't care now what you say (I don't care what you say)
Hey I'll do alright by myself (I'll be alright by myself)
I don't care (I don't care) anymore (anymore)
I don't care (I don't care) anymore (anymore)
I don't care (I don't care) anymore (anymore)
I don't care anymore
Do you care? Hell no!
Do you care? Hell no!
Do you care? Hell no!
What what?
Do you care? Hell no!
Do you care? Hell no!
Do you care? Hell no!
What what?
Do you care? Hell no!
Do you care? Hell no!
Do you care? Hell no!
What what?
Do you care? Hell no!
Do you care? Hell no!
Do you care? Hell no!
What what?
'Cos I remember all the times I tried so hard
And you laughed in my face 'cos ya held all the cards.
I don't care anymore.
[...] Read more
song performed by Kelis
Added by Lucian Velea
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One Reason To Believe
Lighting candles in the church of my choice, loving strangers in the dark
Looking for someone to give me what I lack
Searching for something 'till you showed me the gun in my back
I'm human and I need it, I must have my beliefs
I open myself to the love, yeah
And I love you 'cause you showed me a merciful release
I'm living this time and I know you gave me the reason
Chorus:
One reason (to believe), one reason (you're the one)
One reason (to believe), one reason (my baby)
One reason (it's all I need), one reason (to believe)
One reason (my baby), one reason
Trying to get faith from the eight fifty paperbacks
Hoping they'll show me the way (the way to what?)
Man in a crisis, a young girl in his bed
She's trying to help him when she tells him it's all in his head
I'm human and I need it, I must have my beliefs
I open myself to the love, yeah
I love you 'cause you showed me a merciful release
I'm living this time and I know you gave me the reason
chorus
I bow to the east or I kneel to the west, it's a matter of faith
I'm the only one who has to believe it
chorus
(Solo)
One reason, one reason, one reason, one reason
I bow to the east or I kneel to the west, it's a matter of faith
I'm the only one who has to believe it
One reason (to believe), one reason (you're the one)
One reason (one reason), one reason (my baby)
One reason (that's all I need), one reason (to believe)
One reason (to believe), one reason (just give me one)
One reason (one reason), one reason (to believe)
One reason (it's all I need), one reason (my baby)
One reason (my baby), one reason (my baby)
One reason (you are the reason), one reason
One reason (that's all I want), one reason (that's all I need)...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
song performed by Rick Springfield
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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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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Solomon on the Vanity of the World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Power. Book III.
The Argument
Solomon considers man through the several stages and conditions of life, and concludes, in general, that we are all miserable. He reflects more particularly upon the trouble and uncertainty of greatness and power; gives some instances thereof from Adam down to himself; and still concludes that All Is Vanity. He reasons again upon life, death, and a future being; finds human wisdom too imperfect to resolve his doubts; has recourse to religion; is informed by an angel what shall happen to himself, his family, and his kingdom, till the redemption of Israel; and, upon the whole, resolves to submit his inquiries and anxieties to the will of his Creator.
Come then, my soul: I call thee by that name,
Thou busy thing, from whence I know I am;
For, knowing that I am, I know thou art,
Since that must needs exist which can impart:
But how thou camest to be, or whence thy spring,
For various of thee priests and poets sing.
Hearest thou submissive, but a lowly birth,
Some secret particles of finer earth,
A plain effect which Nature must beget,
As motion orders, and as atoms meet,
Companion of the body's good or ill,
From force of instinct more than choice of will,
Conscious of fear or valour, joy or pain,
As the wild courses of the blood ordain;
Who, as degrees of heat and cold prevail,
In youth dost flourish, and with age shalt fail,
Till, mingled with thy partner's latest breath,
Thou fliest, dissolved in air and lost in death.
Or, if thy great existence would aspire
To causes more sublime, of heavenly fire
Wert thou a spark struck off, a separate ray,
Ordain'd to mingle with terrestrial clay,
With it condemn'd for certain years to dwell,
To grieve its frailties, and its pains to feel,
To teach it good and ill, disgrace or fame,
Pale it with rage, or redden it with shame,
To guide its actions with informing care,
In peace to judge, to conquer in the war;
Render it agile, witty, valiant, sage,
As fits the various course of human age,
Till, as the earthly part decays and falls,
The captive breaks her prison's mouldering walls,
Hovers awhile upon the sad remains,
Which now the pile or sepulchre contains,
And thence, with liberty unbounded, flies,
Impatient to regain her native skies?
Whate'er thou art, where'er ordain'd to go,
(Points which we rather may dispute than know)
Come on, thou little inmate of this breast,
Which for thy sake from passions'l divest
For these, thou say'st, raise all the stormy strife,
[...] Read more
poem by Matthew Prior
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One Reason
Lighting candles in the church of my choice
Loving strangers in the dark
Looking for someone to give me what i lack
Searching for something 'til you showed me
The gun in my back
I'm human and i need it
And i must have my beliefs
I open myself to the love (yea)
I love you 'cause you showed me
A merciful release
I'm living this time and i know you gave
Me the reason
One reason (to believe), one reason (you're the one)
One reason (to believe), one reason (my baby)
One reason (it's all i need), one reason (to believe)
Trying to get faith from the $8.50 paperbacks
Hoping they'll show me the way (the way to what)
Man in a crisis, a young girl in his bed
She's trying to help him when she tells him
It's all in his head
I'm human and i need it
I must have my beliefs
I open myself to the love (yea)
I love you 'cause you showed me
A merciful release
I'm living this time and i know you gave
Me the reason
One reason (to believe), one reason (you're the one)
One reason (to believe), one reason (my baby)
One reason (it's all i need), one reason (to believe)
I bow to the east or i kneel to the west
It's a matter of faith
I'm the only one who has to believe it
One reason (to believe), one reason (you're the one)
One reason (to believe), one reason (my baby)
One reason (it's all i need), one reason (to believe)
I bow to the east or i kneel to the west
It's a matter of faith
I'm the only one who has to believe it
One reason (to believe), one reason (you're the one)
One reason (to believe), one reason (my baby)
One reason (it's all i need), one reason (to believe)
song performed by Rick Springfield
Added by Lucian Velea
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Solomon on the Vanity of the World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Pleasure. Book II.
The Argument
Solomon, again seeking happiness, inquires if wealth and greatness can produce it: begins with the magnificence of gardens and buildings; the luxury of music and feasting; and proceeds to the hopes and desires of love. In two episodes are shown the follies and troubles of that passion. Solomon, still disappointed, falls under the temptations of libertinism and idolatry; recovers his thought; reasons aright; and concludes that, as to the pursuit of pleasure and sensual delight, All Is Vanity and Vexation of Spirit.
Try then, O man, the moments to deceive
That from the womb attend thee to the grave:
For wearied Nature find some apter scheme;
Health be thy hope, and pleasure be thy theme;
From the perplexing and unequal ways
Where Study brings thee from the endless maze
Which Doubt persuades o run, forewarn'd, recede
To the gay field, and flowery path, that lead
To jocund mirth, soft joy, and careless ease:
Forsake what my instruct for what may please:
Essay amusing art and proud expense,
And make thy reason subject to thy sense.
I communed thus: the power of wealth I tried,
And all the various luxe of costly pride;
Artists and plans relieved my solemn hours:
I founded palaces and planted bowers,
Birds, fishes, beasts, of exotic kind
I to the limits of my court confined,
To trees transferr'd I gave a second birth,
And bade a foreign shade grace Judah's earth.
Fish-ponds were made where former forests grew
And hills were levell'd to extend the view.
Rivers, diverted from their native course,
And bound with chains of artificial force,
From large cascades in pleasing tumult roll'd,
Or rose through figured stone or breathing gold.
From furthest Africa's tormented womb
The marble brought, erects the spacious dome,
Or forms the pillars' long-extended rows,
On which the planted grove and pensile garden grows.
The workmen here obey the master's call,
To gild the turret and to paint the wall;
To mark the pavement there with various stone,
And on the jasper steps to rear the throne:
The spreading cedar, that an age had stood,
Supreme of trees, and mistress of the wood,
Cut down and carved, my shining roof adorns,
And Lebanon his ruin'd honour mourns.
A thousand artists show their cunning powers
To raise the wonders of the ivory towers:
A thousand maidens ply the purple loom
[...] Read more
poem by Matthew Prior
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The Library
When the sad soul, by care and grief oppress'd,
Looks round the world, but looks in vain for rest;
When every object that appears in view
Partakes her gloom and seems dejected too;
Where shall affliction from itself retire?
Where fade away and placidly expire?
Alas! we fly to silent scenes in vain;
Care blasts the honours of the flow'ry plain:
Care veils in clouds the sun's meridian beam,
Sighs through the grove, and murmurs in the stream;
For when the soul is labouring in despair,
In vain the body breathes a purer air:
No storm-tost sailor sighs for slumbering seas,-
He dreads the tempest, but invokes the breeze;
On the smooth mirror of the deep resides
Reflected woe, and o'er unruffled tides
The ghost of every former danger glides.
Thus, in the calms of life, we only see
A steadier image of our misery;
But lively gales and gently clouded skies
Disperse the sad reflections as they rise;
And busy thoughts and little cares avail
To ease the mind, when rest and reason fail.
When the dull thought, by no designs employ'd,
Dwells on the past, or suffer'd or enjoy'd,
We bleed anew in every former grief,
And joys departed furnish no relief.
Not Hope herself, with all her flattering art,
Can cure this stubborn sickness of the heart:
The soul disdains each comfort she prepares,
And anxious searches for congenial cares;
Those lenient cares, which with our own combined,
By mix'd sensations ease th' afflicted mind,
And steal our grief away, and leave their own
behind;
A lighter grief! which feeling hearts endure
Without regret, nor e'en demand a cure.
But what strange art, what magic can dispose
The troubled mind to change its native woes?
Or lead us willing from ourselves, to see
Others more wretched, more undone than we?
This BOOKS can do;--nor this alone; they give
New views to life, and teach us how to live;
They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they
chastise,
Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise:
Their aid they yield to all: they never shun
The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone:
[...] Read more
poem by George Crabbe
Added by Poetry Lover
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Get Off The Stage
Oh, you silly old man
You silly old man
Youre making a fool of yourself
So get off the stage
You silly old man
In your misguided trousers
With your mascara and your fender guitar
And you think you can arouse us ?
But the song that you just sang
It sounds exactly like the last one
And the next one
I bet you it will sound
Like this one
Downstage, and offstage
Dont you feel all run in ?
And do you wonder when they will take it away ?
This is your final fling
But then applause ran high
But for the patience of the ones behind you
As a verse drags on like a month drags on
Its very short, but it seems very long
And the song that you just sang
It sounds exactly like the last one
And the next one
I bet you it will sound
Like this one
So, get off the stage
Oh, get off the stage
And when we get down off of the stage
Please stay off the stage - all day !
Get off the stage
Oh, get off the stage
And when weve had our money back
Then Id like your back in plaster
Oh, I know that you say
How age has no meaning
Oh, but here is your audience now
And theyre screaming :
Get off the stage
Oh, get off the stage
Because Ive given you enough of my time
And the money that wasnt even mine
Have you seen yourself recently ?
Oh, get off the stage
Oh, get off the stage
For whom, oh ...
For whom, oh ...
For whom, oh ...
For whom, oh ...
Get off the stage
[...] Read more
song performed by Morrissey
Added by Lucian Velea
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An Essay on Man: Epistle II
I.
Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is man.
Plac'd on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a god, or beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas'ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confus'd;
Still by himself abus'd, or disabus'd;
Created half to rise, and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl'd:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
Go, wondrous creature! mount where science guides,
Go, measure earth, weigh air, and state the tides;
Instruct the planets in what orbs to run,
Correct old time, and regulate the sun;
Go, soar with Plato to th' empyreal sphere,
To the first good, first perfect, and first fair;
Or tread the mazy round his follow'rs trod,
And quitting sense call imitating God;
As Eastern priests in giddy circles run,
And turn their heads to imitate the sun.
Go, teach Eternal Wisdom how to rule—
Then drop into thyself, and be a fool!
Superior beings, when of late they saw
A mortal Man unfold all Nature's law,
Admir'd such wisdom in an earthly shape,
And showed a Newton as we shew an Ape.
Could he, whose rules the rapid comet bind,
Describe or fix one movement of his mind?
Who saw its fires here rise, and there descend,
Explain his own beginning, or his end?
Alas what wonder! Man's superior part
Uncheck'd may rise, and climb from art to art;
But when his own great work is but begun,
What Reason weaves, by Passion is undone.
Trace science then, with modesty thy guide;
First strip off all her equipage of pride;
Deduct what is but vanity, or dress,
[...] Read more
poem by Alexander Pope
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The White Cliffs
I
I have loved England, dearly and deeply,
Since that first morning, shining and pure,
The white cliffs of Dover I saw rising steeply
Out of the sea that once made her secure.
I had no thought then of husband or lover,
I was a traveller, the guest of a week;
Yet when they pointed 'the white cliffs of Dover',
Startled I found there were tears on my cheek.
I have loved England, and still as a stranger,
Here is my home and I still am alone.
Now in her hour of trial and danger,
Only the English are really her own.
II
It happened the first evening I was there.
Some one was giving a ball in Belgrave Square.
At Belgrave Square, that most Victorian spot.—
Lives there a novel-reader who has not
At some time wept for those delightful girls,
Daughters of dukes, prime ministers and earls,
In bonnets, berthas, bustles, buttoned basques,
Hiding behind their pure Victorian masks
Hearts just as hot - hotter perhaps than those
Whose owners now abandon hats and hose?
Who has not wept for Lady Joan or Jill
Loving against her noble parent's will
A handsome guardsman, who to her alarm
Feels her hand kissed behind a potted palm
At Lady Ivry's ball the dreadful night
Before his regiment goes off to fight;
And see him the next morning, in the park,
Complete in busbee, marching to embark.
I had read freely, even as a child,
Not only Meredith and Oscar Wilde
But many novels of an earlier day—
Ravenshoe, Can You Forgive Her?, Vivien Grey,
Ouida, The Duchess, Broughton's Red As a Rose,
Guy Livingstone, Whyte-Melville— Heaven knows
What others. Now, I thought, I was to see
Their habitat, though like the Miller of Dee,
I cared for none and no one cared for me.
III
A light blue carpet on the stair
And tall young footmen everywhere,
Tall young men with English faces
Standing rigidly in their places,
Rows and rows of them stiff and staid
[...] Read more
poem by Alice Duer Miller
Added by Poetry Lover
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Playing With The Boys
Id say it was the right time
To walk away
When dreaming takes you nowhere
Its time to play
Bodies working overtime
Your money dont matter
The clock keeps ticking
When someones on your mind
Im moving in slow motion
Feels so good
Its a strange anticipation
Knock, knock, knocking on wood
Bodies working overtime
Man against man
And all that ever matters
Is baby whos ahead in the game
Funny but its always the same
Playing, playing with the boys
Playing, playing with the boys
After chasing sunsets
One of lifes simple joys
Is playing with the boys
Said it was the wrong thing
For me to do
I said its just a boys game
Girls play too
My heart is working overtime
In this kind of game
People get hurt
Im afraid that someone is me
If you want to find me, Ill be
Playing, playing with the boys
Staying, playing with the boys
After chasing sunsets
One of lifes simple joys
I dont want to be the moth around your fire
I dont want to be obsessed by my desire
Im ready, Im leaving
Ive seen enough
...with the boys
Ive seen enough
You play too rough
Playing, playing with the boys
Ill be staying, playing with the boys
After chasing sunsets
One of lifes simple joys
Is playing with the boys
Playing with the boys
Playing
Playing
[...] Read more
song performed by Kenny Loggins
Added by Lucian Velea
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I Love....
i love...
that's the reason i walk,
the reason i breathe.
the reason i grieve.
the reason i dance.
the reason i smile.
the reason i listen.
the reason i offer a hand.
the reason i see beauty.
the reason i see both darkness,
and light....
the reason i take chances.
the reason i keep going.
the reason i get angry.
the reason i forgive.
the reason i touch.
the reason i question.
the reason i believe.
the reason i am tolerant.
the reason i understand.
the reason i fall.
the reason i fly.
the reason i write...
the reason i am what i am!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Added by Poetry Lover
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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,—
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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Paradise Lost: Book 09
No more of talk where God or Angel guest
With Man, as with his friend, familiar us'd,
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast; permitting him the while
Venial discourse unblam'd. I now must change
Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,
And disobedience: on the part of Heaven
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery
Death's harbinger: Sad talk!yet argument
Not less but more heroick than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd;
Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long
Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son:
If answerable style I can obtain
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplor'd,
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse:
Since first this subject for heroick song
Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by nature to indite
Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroick deem'd chief mastery to dissect
With long and tedious havock fabled knights
In battles feign'd; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroick martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast
Serv'd up in hall with sewers and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,
Not that which justly gives heroick name
To person, or to poem. Me, of these
Nor skill'd nor studious, higher argument
Remains; sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing
Depress'd; and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring
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poem by John Milton
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The Ghost - Book IV
Coxcombs, who vainly make pretence
To something of exalted sense
'Bove other men, and, gravely wise,
Affect those pleasures to despise,
Which, merely to the eye confined,
Bring no improvement to the mind,
Rail at all pomp; they would not go
For millions to a puppet-show,
Nor can forgive the mighty crime
Of countenancing pantomime;
No, not at Covent Garden, where,
Without a head for play or player,
Or, could a head be found most fit,
Without one player to second it,
They must, obeying Folly's call,
Thrive by mere show, or not at all
With these grave fops, who, (bless their brains!)
Most cruel to themselves, take pains
For wretchedness, and would be thought
Much wiser than a wise man ought,
For his own happiness, to be;
Who what they hear, and what they see,
And what they smell, and taste, and feel,
Distrust, till Reason sets her seal,
And, by long trains of consequences
Insured, gives sanction to the senses;
Who would not (Heaven forbid it!) waste
One hour in what the world calls Taste,
Nor fondly deign to laugh or cry,
Unless they know some reason why;
With these grave fops, whose system seems
To give up certainty for dreams,
The eye of man is understood
As for no other purpose good
Than as a door, through which, of course,
Their passage crowding, objects force,
A downright usher, to admit
New-comers to the court of Wit:
(Good Gravity! forbear thy spleen;
When I say Wit, I Wisdom mean)
Where (such the practice of the court,
Which legal precedents support)
Not one idea is allow'd
To pass unquestion'd in the crowd,
But ere it can obtain the grace
Of holding in the brain a place,
Before the chief in congregation
Must stand a strict examination.
Not such as those, who physic twirl,
Full fraught with death, from every curl;
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poem by Charles Churchill
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The Apology
ADDRESSED TO THE CRITICAL REVIEWERS.
Tristitiam et Metus.--HORACE.
Laughs not the heart when giants, big with pride,
Assume the pompous port, the martial stride;
O'er arm Herculean heave the enormous shield,
Vast as a weaver's beam the javelin wield;
With the loud voice of thundering Jove defy,
And dare to single combat--what?--A fly!
And laugh we less when giant names, which shine
Establish'd, as it were, by right divine;
Critics, whom every captive art adores,
To whom glad Science pours forth all her stores;
Who high in letter'd reputation sit,
And hold, Astraea-like, the scales of wit,
With partial rage rush forth--oh! shame to tell!--
To crush a bard just bursting from the shell?
Great are his perils in this stormy time
Who rashly ventures on a sea of rhyme:
Around vast surges roll, winds envious blow,
And jealous rocks and quicksands lurk below:
Greatly his foes he dreads, but more his friends;
He hurts me most who lavishly commends.
Look through the world--in every other trade
The same employment's cause of kindness made,
At least appearance of good will creates,
And every fool puffs off the fool he hates:
Cobblers with cobblers smoke away the night,
And in the common cause e'en players unite;
Authors alone, with more than savage rage,
Unnatural war with brother authors wage.
The pride of Nature would as soon admit
Competitors in empire as in wit;
Onward they rush, at Fame's imperious call,
And, less than greatest, would not be at all.
Smit with the love of honour,--or the pence,--
O'errun with wit, and destitute of sense,
Should any novice in the rhyming trade
With lawless pen the realms of verse invade,
Forth from the court, where sceptred sages sit,
Abused with praise, and flatter'd into wit,
Where in lethargic majesty they reign,
And what they won by dulness, still maintain,
Legions of factious authors throng at once,
Fool beckons fool, and dunce awakens dunce.
To 'Hamilton's the ready lies repair--
Ne'er was lie made which was not welcome there--
Thence, on maturer judgment's anvil wrought,
The polish'd falsehood's into public brought.
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poem by Charles Churchill
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Child Molester
Note- I wanted to write something something darker and deeper then what I currently have been.
This is what came out.
Dark Rewrite of Britney Spear's Womanizer
Storyline-One woman takes the stand that no one else will to save her street from the unthinkable
Perverted neighbor
I know where you're from
I think it's best you get your twisted... going
Got more then just a clue what you're up to
You can play squeaky clean tp all the others gathered here
But I know what you really are, what you really are sickie
Look at you
Tryin' to act so on the up and up
Sickie, you
Got everyone else here fooled
But not me, oh no, not me
Fakin' like deep down you're a good one
Let's just lay our cards out on the table
Get it all out now
Call 'em like we both know 'em
Child molester, child-child molester
You're a child molester
Oh, child molester, oh you're a child molester, sickie
You-you know-you know you are
You-you know-you know you are
Child molester, child molester, child molester
Sicko, don't try stage that front
Oh no, no, not with me
Cos I know just-just what you are, ah, ah, what you are
Sicko, don't try to stage that front
Oh no, no, not with me
Cos I know just-just what you are, ah, ah, what you are
(Spoken) You got some kind of twisted game goin'
You got them all believin' you're so charmin'
But I won't let you keep on doin' it
You child molester
Sicko, don't try stage that front
Oh no, no, not with me
Cos I know just-just what you are, ah, ah, what you are
Sicko, don't try to stage that front
Oh no, no, not with me
Cos I know just-just what you are, ah, ah, what you are
(Spoken) You say I'm crazy
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poem by Ramona Thompson
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Tirocinium; or, a Review of Schools
It is not from his form, in which we trace
Strength join'd with beauty, dignity with grace,
That man, the master of this globe, derives
His right of empire over all that lives.
That form, indeed, the associate of a mind
Vast in its powers, ethereal in its kind,
That form, the labour of Almighty skill,
Framed for the service of a freeborn will,
Asserts precedence, and bespeaks control,
But borrows all its grandeur from the soul.
Hers is the state, the splendour, and the throne,
An intellectual kingdom, all her own.
For her the memory fills her ample page
With truths pour’d down from every distant age;
For her amasses an unbounded store,
The wisdom of great nations, now no more;
Though laden, not encumber’d with her spoil;
Laborious, yet unconscious of her toil;
When copiously supplied, then most enlarged;
Still to be fed, and not to be surcharged.
For her the Fancy, roving unconfined,
The present muse of every pensive mind,
Works magic wonders, adds a brighter hue
To Nature’s scenes than Nature ever knew.
At her command winds rise and waters roar,
Again she lays them slumbering on the shore;
With flower and fruit the wilderness supplies,
Or bids the rocks in ruder pomp arise.
For her the Judgment, umpire in the strife
That Grace and Nature have to wage through life,
Quick-sighted arbiter of good and ill,
Appointed sage preceptor to the Will,
Condemns, approves, and, with a faithful voice,
Guides the decision of a doubtful choice.
Why did the fiat of a God give birth
To yon fair Sun and his attendant Earth?
And, when descending he resigns the skies,
Why takes the gentler Moon her turn to rise,
Whom Ocean feels through all his countless waves,
And owns her power on every shore he laves?
Why do the seasons still enrich the year,
Fruitful and young as in their first career?
Spring hangs her infant blossoms on the trees,
Rock’d in the cradle of the western breeze:
Summer in haste the thriving charge receives
Beneath the shade of her expanded leaves,
Till Autumn’s fiercer heats and plenteous dews
Dye them at last in all their glowing hues.—
‘Twere wild profusion all, and bootless waste,
Power misemploy’d, munificence misplaced,
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poem by William Cowper
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