Circumstance does not make me, it reveals me.
quote by William James
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And Let Me See Your Circumstances
She said
'How will I know that I love him'
and she said 'you'll know at the time.'
'What time will that be
and why does Time have to be
the decider of my love needs? '
'When your body is ready
and the time is right-
and the person is right-
you will know
and you will be ready for love.'
'So' she said 'love is circumstance? '
'In some ways.'
'But if circumstance is what is required
what about me? she said.
My dear.I said, 'Romeo and Juliet fell in love in a bad
circumstance and all died in the end.
So circumstances matter.'
But I think love is irresistible
outside rationality.
Love is Ultimate Mystery.' she said.
'Only in the young.' she said
'As we mature
especially near 30
love becomes mostly circumstance
and moved mostly by rationality.'
'So are you saying maturity dictates
that we choose from among partners
available then
and is more decision than
true love's mystery.? '
Ah what I am saying
is that while young we choose
from mystery
and after the divorce
we are more governed by circumstance.
And choosing in weighing circumstance
is the height of rationality
and the opposite of mystery.'
[...] Read more
poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Revolving (Nafaka)
There's a reason for joy
consider the circumstance of life
there's a reason to remember
the circumstance of life
there's a reason to understand
the circumstance of life
revolvong revolving
in the shade of reasonong
the circumstance of life
a bitter taste of captivity
consider the circumstance of life
the breath widens the freedom
consider the circumstance of life
the feet can move the hands can touch
finally
consider the circumstance of life
revolving revolving
in the shade of feelings
the circumstance of life
pulling the trees
down the roads of darkness
killing the pain
in the shade of a cage
revolving revolving revolving
poem by Miroslava Odalovic
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IX. Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus
Had I God's leave, how I would alter things!
If I might read instead of print my speech,—
Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower
Refuses obstinate to blow in print,
As wildings planted in a prim parterre,—
This scurvy room were turned an immense hall;
Opposite, fifty judges in a row;
This side and that of me, for audience—Rome:
And, where yon window is, the Pope should hide—
Watch, curtained, but peep visibly enough.
A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd,
Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff,
Up comes an usher, louts him low, "The Court
"Requires the allocution of the Fisc!"
I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause
O'er the hushed multitude: I count—One, two—
Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law,—
When it may hap some painter, much in vogue
Throughout our city nutritive of arts,
Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,
And manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Afford my lords their Holy Family,—
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How such a painter sets himself to paint?
Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe
A-journeying to Egypt, prove the piece:
Why, first he sedulously practiseth,
This painter,—girding loin and lighting lamp,—
On what may nourish eye, make facile hand;
Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so)
From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk
Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves,—
This Luca or this Carlo or the like.
To him the bones their inmost secret yield,
Each notch and nodule signify their use:
On him the muscles turn, in triple tier,
And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man
"Familiarize thee with our play that lifts
"Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm and foot!"
—Ensuring due correctness in the nude.
Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know!
He,—to art's surface rising from her depth,—
If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found,
May simulate a Joseph, (happy chance!)—
Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow,
Loseth no involution, cheek or chap,
Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives!
Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Bitter-Tasting
I'm in between,
bitter tasted;
overcome by my own nature,
but, unrepentant, I still am
by choice and circumstance.
I step upon my own fate
plunge holes in my own ship
live with storms and tumult
I alone create.
I'm in between
and bitter tasting
overcome by my own nature.
But unrepentant I still am
by choice and circumstance.
I've been wrong many times
and humble enough to know,
but alone,
I'm not strong enough
to reverse trend,
turn the bend
and came back again.
But, I
still want
to unlove you.
Twirl me round
one more time,
whatever comes by me
will surprise;
but, it will be mine.
I'm in between,
bitters tasting;
overcome by my own nature
but unrepentant I still am
by choice and circumstance.
My life complete
will state in the Book
of Summation:
Lived by Instinct
Died From Commitment:
The Pallbearers
were
Choice and Circumstance.
poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Crouching Creature
I am a Crouching Creature
bounded by Circumstance
and Choices I've made.
I pound against
the Circumstantial Wall
and I choose to bloody
my own fists against it all
but defiant
I will not relent
and measure this
as my commitment
to fight these chains.
Choosing in life
and family
in the world and my
career
is bounded by my iron Circumstances.
Where does my Circumstance live
and how can I circumvent
its boundaries?
Can I move?
Can I melt into some one's else's
Circumstance?
Will I in choosing
merely replicate
old choices
and old Circumstance?
I must I tell my self:
break away from me
and my choosing
to the extent
these choices make
my old and new
Circumstances endlessly repeating.
.
Yet, I hope somehow
with magical bent
to break that wall.
What do you think?
Will I succeed?
poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Veiled Scenes Behind The Sun
Perceived glimpses cast emotions
Perceptions give glimpses
Wrapped in a draped veil
Cupped hands you hold out with discretion
An offering of vagueness
When a turning sun reveals
Truth maybe scant but
Concealing the obvious is obvious
When a turning sun reveals
Eyes meeting eyes are not insincere
When the turning sun reveals
A pall fades behind the dark side
Truth in abstention drapes around me
It revolves then evolves
Bending the beating heart
When a turning sun reveals
When the turning sun turns
There is dimness, there is luminosity
Aspirations and bleakness
For all this disappears behind the sun gloaming
poem by Eric Von Rohr
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi
Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,—
So things disguise themselves,—I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face
And know it again. Answer you? Then that means
Tell over twice what I, the first time, told
Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe,
Fronting you same three in this very room,
I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,
Who then … nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,
As good as laugh, what in a judge we style
Laughter—no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!
Only,—I think I apprehend the mood:
There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,
"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
"Well, he can say no other than what he says.
"We have been young, too,—come, there's greater guilt!
"Let him but decently disembroil himself,
"Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,—
"We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!
And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast
As if I were a phantom: now 't is—"Friend,
"Collect yourself!"—no laughing matter more—
"Counsel the Court in this extremity,
"Tell us again!"—tell that, for telling which,
I got the jocular piece of punishment,
Was sent to lounge a little in the place
Whence now of a sudden here you summon me
To take the intelligence from just—your lips!
You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,—
That she I helped eight months since to escape
Her husband, was retaken by the same,
Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,—
(I being disallowed to interfere,
Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,
For you and law were guardians quite enough
O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)—
And that he has butchered her accordingly,
As she foretold and as myself believed,—
And, so foretelling and believing so,
We were punished, both of us, the merry way:
Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?
Pompilia is only dying while I speak!
Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?
My masters, there's an old book, you should con
For strange adventures, applicable yet,
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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VIII. Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator
Ah, my Giacinto, he's no ruddy rogue,
Is not Cinone? What, to-day we're eight?
Seven and one's eight, I hope, old curly-pate!
—Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,
Amo-as-avi-atum-are-ans,
Up to -aturus, person, tense, and mood,
Quies me cum subjunctivo (I could cry)
And chews Corderius with his morning crust!
Look eight years onward, and he's perched, he's perched
Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair,
Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?
—Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case
Like this, papa shall triturate full soon
To smooth Papinianian pulp!
It trots
Already through my head, though noon be now,
Does supper-time and what belongs to eve.
Dispose, O Don, o' the day, first work then play!
—The proverb bids. And "then" means, won't we hold
Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast,
Cinuolo's birth-night, Cinicello's own,
That makes gruff January grin perforce!
For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth
Escaping from so many hearts at once—
When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,
Jokes the hale grandsire,—such are just the sort
To go off suddenly,—he who hides the key
O' the box beneath his pillow every night,—
Which box may hold a parchment (someone thinks)
Will show a scribbled something like a name
"Cinino, Ciniccino," near the end,
"To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,
"Estates, tenements, hereditaments,
"When I decease as honest grandsire ought."
Wherefore—yet this one time again perhaps—
Shan't my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!
Then, uncles, one or the other, well i' the world,
May—drop in, merely?—trudge through rain and wind,
Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint
There's cookery in a certain dwelling-place!
Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,
Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,
And so find door, put galligaskin off
At entry of a decent domicile
Cornered in snug Condotti,—all for love,
All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!
Well,
Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp!
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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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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Victims Of Circumstance
They stand bewildered by all that goes around them,
living within their own little worlds,
which we cannot even understand.
These victims of circumstance stand.
We all look on and bow our heads,
when they bury victims of war,
but turn away whenever we see
these poor lost souls.
Some are there because of defects at birth,
others the aftermath of disease,
while others involved in accidents,
and left to suffer humiliation.
The brain is a wonderful thing,
when it functions properly,
functioning wrong its host
is charged with insanity.
There are those who are violent,
and in institutions are the only life they will ever see.
Others have strange ways, and act in a childlike manner be.
While others need constant attention, because of hardly any brain activity.
All are victims of circumstance,
beyond anyone’s control.
They would live a normal life,
if they had a choice to be.
They are victims shunned by society,
who say they are a blight, on our lives,
and locked away out of sight,
every one of them should be.
No one wants to associate with them;
their only friends are of their own kind.
They look out with pleading eyes,
for someone who may be kind.
The names they are called are hurtful,
yet they do not understand.
These poor lost souls
only ask for a helping hand.
Those who have worked with the mentally ill,
will tell you, not all of them are stupid.
They can feel just like us, love, hurt and pain.
Some can do what we call menial tasks
and others look after themselves.
[...] Read more
poem by David Harris
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The Children Of Poor And Dysfunctional Parents
The children of poor and dysfunctional parents of any success in life stand little chance
The odds seem stacked against them by their birth circumstance
For them life is an uphill battle a struggle every day
The lady of luck and fortune does never smile their way
Though some wealthy parents can also be dysfunctional it does seem fair to say
That the child born to such parents at least financially will be okay
For those who say money speaks every language are saying what is true
People respect people with money though respect they may not be due,
Pity the poor children who become homeless at a young age and become institutionalized
For most of them their full potential is never realized
In a fair Human World this would never be
By circumstance of birth I feel that good luck was with me
There are millions of homeless children in the World of today
Due to their circumstance of birth in which they had no say.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Who Knows What The Future Will Bring
Tis said of every individual that they can shape their own destiny
Though others will tell you quite differently and with such thinking would not agree
Who knows what will happen tomorrow who knows what your future will bring
Though at present you feel a bit ordinary and none other your praises do sing.
You may try to shape your own destiny without taking circumstance into account
And you may have great plans for the future and to little that too can amount
To if destiny does not point in that direction your destiny and circumstance
Does play a huge part in your future our gift of life came about by chance.
Who knows what will happen tomorrow you may feel sad and tearful today
Tonight you may win first division tattslotto and you can celebrate in a big way
Or tomorrow for you than today little different with your same set of worries and woes
As Shaw once said 'Life's Not Meant To Be Easy' but such is life one must suppose.
Who knows what the future will bring to you despite what some say it does seem to me
That we cannot look into the future such things are beyond us to see
Those things known as circumstance and destiny a huge part in our lives do play
And these two can make us or break us for in our future they have a big say.
poem by Francis Duggan
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I Reach For The Light
(eric carmen)
I cant begin to count the times
I have been by myself
I lie wake my lonely room
Tells me theres no one else
No one else
I reach for the light
It shines above my head
Reveals the bed that youre not in
I reach for the light
It shines across the room
And brings to mind what might have been
I tell myself Im better off
No one can have me now
I see your crumpled photograph
It makes me laugh aloud
Laugh aloud
I reach for the light
It shines above my head
Reveals the bed that youre not in
I reach for the light
It shines across the room
And brings to mind what might have been
And I wish I could forget
How good you look, tonight
When you smiled at me
And walked away with him
Oh, oh no!
I reach for the light
It shines above my head
Reveals the bed that youre not in
I reach for the light
It shines across the room
And brings to mind what might have been
I reach for the light, now
(I reach for the light)
I tell myself Im better off
No one can hurt me now
(I reach for the light)
I see your crumpled photograph
It makes me laugh aloud
(I reach for the light)
I lay wake my lonely room
Tells me theres no one there
(I reach for the light)
song performed by Eric Carmen
Added by Lucian Velea
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Epithalamium
A bee in the field. The house on the mountain
reveals itself to have been there through summer.
It's not a bee but a horse eating frosted grass
in the yawn light. Secrets, the anguish of smoke
above the chimney as it shreds what it's learned
of fire. The horse has moved, it's not a horse
but a woman doing the stations of the cross
with a dead baby in her arms. The anguish of the house
as it reveals smoke to the mountain. A woman
eating cold grass in Your name, shredding herself
like fire. The woman has stopped, it's not a woman
but smoke on its knees keeping secrets in what it reveals.
The everything has moved, it's not everything
but a shredding of the anguish of names. The marriage
of light: particle to wave. Do you take? I do.
poem by Bob Hicok
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Tender Is My Touch
Tender is my touch,
I know.
Although my balled fists...
When unclenched,
Reveals a gentleness
Of my fingertips.
Each day I grow,
With patience that comes.
From my head to my heart...
Masquerading yet welcomed.
All obstacles faced...
Are not completely removed.
Of this I am aware.
But none of this,
Is deserving for either one of us...
For me to prove to you.
There is more inside me than conflict.
And as I grow,
I'm more willing to show it.
Since I too wish for more happiness.
But how can I desire for more peace to thrive...
If I expose only resistence.
Without expressing how I feel inside.
And you are not aware I hide.
When only my exterior...
Reveals that strong side,
Of a need to carry my pride outside.
Tender is my touch,
I know.
Although my balled fists...
When unclenched,
Reveals a gentleness
Of my fingertips.
Come closer...
Come.
And be a witness to it!
Hold me.
I too have fears.
But I'm wishing them not to exist like this.
Come closer...
Come.
And be a witness to it!
Sit and let's develop trust.
We can if this is what we wish.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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You Ain't Got It Like a Psychic
You can't tell me what I'm thinking...
Until I tell you what that is!
Uh-uh...
You ain't got it like a psychic.
You can run around and tell folks,
What you think my business is!
But,
Uh-uh...
You ain't got it like a psychic.
You can sneak across the floor.
And put your ear to the door.
Tell my neighbors and friends,
What I do and who for!
But,
Uh-uh,
You ain't got it like a psychic.
It's too bad your lips don't seal.
You need to hush 'em.
You need to keep them closed.
It's so sad you have a mind that reveals...
It's gonna crack!
It's ripe for that.
Waiting to set you back with a heart attack.
It's too bad your lips don't seal.
You need to hush 'em.
You need to keep them closed.
It's so sad you have a mind that reveals...
It's gonna crack!
It's ripe for that.
You can run around and tell folks,
What you think my business is!
But,
Uh-uh...
You ain't got it like a psychic.
You can sneak across the floor.
And put your ear to the door.
But,
Uh-uh,
You ain't got it like a psychic.
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Victim Of Circumstance
Here I am, once again
This time, babe, Im gonna do it right
Minds made up, heart is set
Aint no way Im gonna compromise
Something happened, hollywood skies
I was mesmerized
Suits and ties with platinum eyes
Cold cash junkies got the best of me
Victim of circumstance
Got myself back together
Learned my lesson well
I had to put up a fight, to make it right
Freedoms ringing like the sound of a bell
Victim of circumstance
One more thing I want to say to you
Before you go away
Dont you let em, no!
Dont you let em, no!
song performed by Santana
Added by Lucian Velea
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I. The Ring and the Book
Do you see this Ring?
'T is Rome-work, made to match
(By Castellani's imitative craft)
Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn,
After a dropping April; found alive
Spark-like 'mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots
That roof old tombs at Chiusi: soft, you see,
Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There's one trick,
(Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device
And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold
As this was,—such mere oozings from the mine,
Virgin as oval tawny pendent tear
At beehive-edge when ripened combs o'erflow,—
To bear the file's tooth and the hammer's tap:
Since hammer needs must widen out the round,
And file emboss it fine with lily-flowers,
Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear.
That trick is, the artificer melts up wax
With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold
With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both,
Effects a manageable mass, then works:
But his work ended, once the thing a ring,
Oh, there's repristination! Just a spirt
O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face,
And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume;
While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains,
The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness,
Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:
Prime nature with an added artistry—
No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.
What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say;
A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.
Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss
I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about
By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since?
Examine it yourselves! I found this book,
Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just,
(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,
Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,
One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,
Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths,
Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time,
Toward Baccio's marble,—ay, the basement-ledge
O' the pedestal where sits and menaces
John of the Black Bands with the upright spear,
'Twixt palace and church,—Riccardi where they lived,
His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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XI. Guido
You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock
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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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XII. The Book and the Ring
Here were the end, had anything an end:
Thus, lit and launched, up and up roared and soared
A rocket, till the key o' the vault was reached,
And wide heaven held, a breathless minute-space,
In brilliant usurpature: thus caught spark,
Rushed to the height, and hung at full of fame
Over men's upturned faces, ghastly thence,
Our glaring Guido: now decline must be.
In its explosion, you have seen his act,
By my power—may-be, judged it by your own,—
Or composite as good orbs prove, or crammed
With worse ingredients than the Wormwood Star.
The act, over and ended, falls and fades:
What was once seen, grows what is now described,
Then talked of, told about, a tinge the less
In every fresh transmission; till it melts,
Trickles in silent orange or wan grey
Across our memory, dies and leaves all dark,
And presently we find the stars again.
Follow the main streaks, meditate the mode
Of brightness, how it hastes to blend with black!
After that February Twenty-Two,
Since our salvation, Sixteen-Ninety-Eight,
Of all reports that were, or may have been,
Concerning those the day killed or let live,
Four I count only. Take the first that comes.
A letter from a stranger, man of rank,
Venetian visitor at Rome,—who knows,
On what pretence of busy idleness?
Thus he begins on evening of that day.
"Here are we at our end of Carnival;
"Prodigious gaiety and monstrous mirth,
"And constant shift of entertaining show:
"With influx, from each quarter of the globe,
"Of strangers nowise wishful to be last
"I' the struggle for a good place presently
"When that befalls fate cannot long defer.
"The old Pope totters on the verge o' the grave:
"You see, Malpichi understood far more
"Than Tozzi how to treat the ailments: age,
"No question, renders these inveterate.
"Cardinal Spada, actual Minister,
"Is possible Pope; I wager on his head,
"Since those four entertainments of his niece
"Which set all Rome a-stare: Pope probably—
"Though Colloredo has his backers too,
"And San Cesario makes one doubt at times:
"Altieri will be Chamberlain at most.
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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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