If American men are obsessed with money, American women are obsessed with weight. The men talk of gain, the women talk of loss, and I do not know which talk is the more boring.
quote by Marya Mannes
Added by Lucian Velea
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[...] Read more
poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
Added by Poetry Lover
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Romeo Delight
I told her, never in hell, no special reason.
Must a lied cause I aint leavin.
Were in for a very long night.
Heard a vicious rumor from your mamas tongue:
You a desprate woman, need a man with a gun.
High crime zone in the city of lights.
Baby, please!
Cant take it anymore.
Baby, please!
Cant take it anymore.
Im takin whiskey to the party tonight,
And Im lookin for somebody to squeeze.
I aint lookin for somebody to fight.
Baby, dont get uptight.
Baby, please!
Wanna see my i.d.? try to clip my wings!
Dont have to show you proof of anything.
I know the law friend.
At the leventh hour. Im goin back outside.
Give it a try.
Im your last loose end.
Baby, please!
Cant take it anymore.
Baby, please!
Cant take it anymore.
Im takin whiskey to the party tonight
And Im lookin for somebody to squeeze.
I aint lookin for somebody to fight.
Baby, dont get uptight.
Baby, please!
I feel my heart beat,
Feel my heart beat,
Feel my heart beat,
Oh yeah.
Baby, please!
Cant take it anymore.
Baby, please!
Cant take it anymore.
Im takin whiskey to the party tonight,
And Im lookin for somebody to squeeze.
I aint lookin for somebody to fight.
Baby, dont get uptight.
Baby, please!
Loss of control
Mayday!
I checked it out. I think you ought to know.
Im only wastin time. I think Id better go.
You way too civilized. oh,
Loss of control, loss of control, loss of control!
Loss of control, loss of control, loss of control!
[...] Read more
song performed by Van Halen
Added by Lucian Velea
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Loss Of Control
Mayday!
I checked it out. I think you ought to know.
Im only wastin time. I think Id better go.
You way too civilized. oh,
Loss of control, loss of control, loss of control!
Loss of control, loss of control, loss of control!
Loss of control, loss of control, loss of control!
Loss of control, loss of control, loss of control!
Loss of control, loss of control, loss of control!
Baby, I checked it out. I think you ought to know.
Im only wastin time. I think Id better go.
You way too civilized. oh,
Loss of control, loss of control, loss of control!
Loss of control, loss of control, loss of control!
Loss of control, loss of control, loss of control!
Loss of control, loss of control, loss of control!
Loss of control, loss of control, loss of control!
Baby, I checked it out. I think you ought to know.
Im only wastin time. I think Id better go.
You way too civilized. oh,
Loss of control, loss of control, loss of control!
song performed by Van Halen
Added by Lucian Velea
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Young Americans
They pulled in just behind the fridge
He lays her down, he frowns
Gee my lifes a funny thing, am I still too young?
He kissed her then and there
She took his ring, took his babies
It took him minutes, took her nowhere
Heaven knows, shed have taken anything, but
All night
She wants the young american
Young american, young american, she wants the young american
All right
She wants the young american
Scanning life through the picture windows
She finds the slinky vagabond
He coughs as he passes her ford mustang, but
Heaven forbid, shell take anything
But the freak, and his type, all for nothing
He misses a step and cuts his hand, but
Showing nothing, he swoops like a song
She cries where have all papas heroes gone?
All night
She wants the young american
Young american, young american, she wants the young american
All right
She wants the young american
All the way from washington
Her bread-winner begs off the bathroom floor
We live for just these twenty years
Do we have to die for the fifty more?
All night
He wants the young american
Young american, young american, he wants the young american
All right
He wants the young american
Do you remember, your president nixon?
Do you remember, the bills you have to pay
Or even yesterday
Have you been an un-american?
Just you and your idol singing falsetto bout
Leather, leather everywhere, and
Not a myth left from the ghetto
Well, well, well, would you carry a razor
In case, just in case of depression
Sit on your hands on a bus of survivors
Blushing at all the afro-sheilas
Aint that close to love?
Well, aint that poster love?
Well, it aint that barbie doll
Her hearts been broken just like you have
And
[...] Read more
song performed by David Bowie
Added by Lucian Velea
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Young American
They pulled in just behind the fridge
He lays her down, he frowns
"Gee my life's a funny thing, am I still too young?"
He kissed her then and there
She took his ring, took his babies
It took him minutes, took her nowhere
Heaven knows, she'd have taken anything, but
All night
She wants the young American
Young American, young American, she wants the young American
All right
She wants the young American
Scanning life through the picture windows
She finds the slinky vagabond
He coughs as he passes her Ford Mustang, but
Heaven forbid, she'll take anything
But the freak, and his type, all for nothing
He misses a step and cuts his hand, but
Showing nothing, he swoops like a song
She cries "Where have all Papa's heroes gone?"
All night
She wants the young American
Young American, young American, she wants the young American
All right
She wants the young American
All the way from Washington
Her bread-winner begs off the bathroom floor
"We live for just these twenty years
Do we have to die for the fifty more?"
All night
He wants the young American
Young American, young American, he wants the young American
All right
He wants the young American
Do you remember, your President Nixon?
Do you remember, the bills you have to pay
Or even yesterday
Have you been an un-American?
Just you and your idol singing falsetto 'bout
Leather, leather everywhere, and
Not a myth left from the ghetto
Well, well, well, would you carry a razor
In case, just in case of depression
Sit on your hands on a bus of survivors
Blushing at all the afro-Sheilas
Ain't that close to love?
Well, ain't that poster love?
Well, it ain't that Barbie doll
Her heart's been broken just like you have
And
[...] Read more
song performed by David Bowie
Added by Lucian Velea
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Money Talks
(myles goodwyn)
Published by northern goody two tunes, ltd./capac - ascap
I work so hard just to get along
Before I know it, all the moneys gone
I do my best just to make headway
And save some money for a rainy day
If money talks, its not talkin to me, if money talks, I said
If money talks, its not talkin to me, if money talks
If money can talk, lets talk
If money can talk, we should talk, talk about it
If money can talk, lets talk
If money can talk, we should talk
I find it rough just to pay the rent
Before I know it all the moneys spent
I work hard and toe the line
And learn to take one day at a time
If money talks, its not talkin to me, if money talks, I said
If money talks, its not talkin to me, if money talks
If money can talk, lets talk
If money can talk, we should talk, talk about it
If money can talk, lets talk
If money can talk, lets talk
We pay our taxes just like they say
And man it hurts to give the money away
A penny saved, a penny earned
You do your best, and you still get burned
If money talks, its not talkin to me, if money talks, I said
If money talks, its not talkin to me, if money talks
I work so hard, just like you (just like you)
But someday thingsll change
If money can talk, this is it
If money can talk, lets talk
If money can talk, we should talk, talk about it
If money can talk, lets talk
If money can talk, we should talk
song performed by April Wine
Added by Lucian Velea
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Money, Money
My baby gives me the finance blues, tax me to the limit of my revenues.
Here she comes finger-poppin, clickety-click
She says furs or diamonds, you take your pick.
She wants money, what she wants, she wants money, what she wants,
She wants money, what she wants, she wants money, what she wants,
Money money, money money money. money money, money money money.
She say, money, honey, Id rob a bank,
I just load my gun and mosey down to the bank.
Knockin off my neighborhood savings and load,
To keep my sweet chiquita in eau de cologne.
She wants money, what she wants, she wants money, what she wants,
Money money, money money money. money money, money money money.
Mama dont send me down to rob that bank again,
I got a notion that your leadin me to sin.
Wont you relax, wont you lay way back,
Dont you bug your honey bout no cadillac.
Its only bucks, you dont need no jack.
So wont you please relax and lay way back.
My babys lovin gives me such a thrill;
It gives me inspiration makin counterfeit bills.
Now some folks say the best things in life are free,
She wants money, what she wants, she wants money, what she wants,
Money money, money money money. money money, money money money.
Lord made a lady out of adams rib, next thing you know, you got womens lib.
Lovely to look upon, heaven to touch;
Its a real shame that they got to cost so much.
song performed by Grateful Dead
Added by Lucian Velea
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XI. Guido
You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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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Spectator ab Extra
As I sat in the Café I said to myself,
They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,
They may sneer as they like about eating and drinking,
But help it I cannot, I cannot help thinking
How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
How pleasant it is to have money.
I sit at my table en grand seigneur,
And when I have done, throw a crust to the poor;
Not only the pleasure itself of good living,
But also the pleasure of now and then giving:
So pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
So pleasant it is to have money.
They may talk as they please about what they call pelf,
And how one ought never to think of one’s self,
How pleasures of thought surpass eating and drinking—
My pleasure of thought is the pleasure of thinking
How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
How pleasant it is to have money.
II
Le Diner
Come along, ‘tis the time, ten or more minutes past,
And he who came first had to wait for the last;
The oysters ere this had been in and been out;
Whilst I have been sitting and thinking about
How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
How pleasant it is to have money.
A clear soup with eggs, voilà tout; of the fish
The filets de sole are a moderate dish
A la Orly, but you’re for the red mullet, you say:
By the gods of good fare, who can question today
How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
How pleasant it is to have money.
After oysters, sauterne; then sherry; champagne,
Ere one bottle goes, comes another again;
Fly up, thou bold cork, to the ceiling above,
And tell to our ears in the sound that they love
How pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
How pleasant it is to have money.
I’ve the simplest of palates; absurd it may be,
But I almost could dine on a poulet-au-riz,
Fish and soup and omelette and that – but the deuce –
There were to be woodcocks, and not Charlotte Russe!
So pleasant it is to have money, heigh-ho!
[...] Read more
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
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The Victories Of Love. Book I
I
From Frederick Graham
Mother, I smile at your alarms!
I own, indeed, my Cousin's charms,
But, like all nursery maladies,
Love is not badly taken twice.
Have you forgotten Charlotte Hayes,
My playmate in the pleasant days
At Knatchley, and her sister, Anne,
The twins, so made on the same plan,
That one wore blue, the other white,
To mark them to their father's sight;
And how, at Knatchley harvesting,
You bade me kiss her in the ring,
Like Anne and all the others? You,
That never of my sickness knew,
Will laugh, yet had I the disease,
And gravely, if the signs are these:
As, ere the Spring has any power,
The almond branch all turns to flower,
Though not a leaf is out, so she
The bloom of life provoked in me;
And, hard till then and selfish, I
Was thenceforth nought but sanctity
And service: life was mere delight
In being wholly good and right,
As she was; just, without a slur;
Honouring myself no less than her;
Obeying, in the loneliest place,
Ev'n to the slightest gesture, grace
Assured that one so fair, so true,
He only served that was so too.
For me, hence weak towards the weak,
No more the unnested blackbird's shriek
Startled the light-leaved wood; on high
Wander'd the gadding butterfly,
Unscared by my flung cap; the bee,
Rifling the hollyhock in glee,
Was no more trapp'd with his own flower,
And for his honey slain. Her power,
From great things even to the grass
Through which the unfenced footways pass,
Was law, and that which keeps the law,
Cherubic gaiety and awe;
Day was her doing, and the lark
Had reason for his song; the dark
In anagram innumerous spelt
Her name with stars that throbb'd and felt;
[...] Read more
poem by Coventry Patmore
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Through the eyes of a Field Coronet (Epic)
Introduction
In the kaki coloured tent in Umbilo he writes
his life’s story while women, children and babies are dying,
slowly but surely are obliterated, he see how his nation is suffering
while the events are notched into his mind.
Lying even heavier on him is the treason
of some other Afrikaners who for own gain
have delivered him, to imprisonment in this place of hatred
and thoughts go through him to write a book.
Prologue
The Afrikaner nation sprouted
from Dutchmen,
who fought decades without defeat
against the super power Spain
mixed with French Huguenots
who left their homes and belongings,
with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Associate this then with the fact
that these people fought formidable
for seven generations
against every onslaught that they got
from savages en wild animals
becoming marksmen, riding
and taming wild horses
with one bullet per day
to hunt a wild antelope,
who migrated right across the country
over hills in mass protest
and then you have
the most formidable adversary
and then let them fight
in a natural wilderness
where the hunter,
the sniper and horseman excels
and any enemy is at a lost.
Let them then also be patriotic
into their souls,
believe in and read
out of the word of God
[...] Read more
poem by Gert Strydom
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l Losses Are Sometime Good...
Loss, most of the time bad. On occasion, great!
SOME TIME A LOSS CAN BE GOOD!
Can loss sometime be happy. You bet! Ask some
divorced couples.
The other guy had a loss and I won!
My ex had a loss, of most of our assets. Yes,
you guessed it, I got 'em!
Insurance companies, now there's some, that
many take great delight,
when they suffer a loss.
When the tax man does an audit, if they have
a loss, we have a win! (best kind of loss)
The person who brings suite against you,
suffers a loss. (Ain't that sweet?)
A hostile mother-in-law, suffers a loss,
when her daughter gets divorced.
When one experiences a weight loss.
Now that's something that would make
millions of people happy!
When the owner of your building, is deemed
to be, 'rent controlled, ' it brings a loss
to the greedy titleholder. (break out the champagne)
When the neighbor you hadn't spoken to for years,
has a loss, of the keys, to her car.
When the kid, who keeps running over your lawn,
with his bike, has a loss, of the two wheel monster.
When you child, who you love, but drives you nuts
with their loud music, has a broken stereo,
and a loss of music. (They're unhappy. You're ecstatic.)
When one has a loss of sleep, because their spouse
was amorous all night. (Ahhhh, the good old days.)
When your in-laws, prepare to come to your house,
for the first time, and have a loss of directions.
When your spouse, who cremates every barbecue
[...] Read more
poem by Joe Fazio
Added by Poetry Lover
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Not All Losses Are Bad
Loss, most of the time bad. On occasion, great!
SOME TIME A LOSS CAN BE GOOD!
Can loss sometime be happy. You bet! Ask some
divorced couples.
The other guy had a loss and I won!
My ex had a loss, of most of our assets. Yes,
you guessed it, I got 'em!
Insurance companies, now there's some, that
many take great delight,
when they suffer a loss.
When the tax man does an audit, if they have
a loss, we have a win! (best kind of loss)
The person who brings suite against you,
suffers a loss. (Ain't that sweet?)
A hostile mother-in-law, suffers a loss,
when her daughter gets divorced.
When one experiences a weight loss.
Now that's something that would make
millions of people happy!
When the owner of your building, is deemed
to be, 'rent controlled, ' it brings a loss
to the greedy titleholder. (break out the champagne)
When the neighbor you hadn't spoken to for years,
has a loss, of the keys, to her car.
When the kid, who keeps running over your lawn,
with his bike, has a loss, of the two wheel monster.
When you child, who you love, but drives you nuts
with their loud music, has a broken stereo,
and a loss of music. (They're unhappy. You're ecstatic.)
When one has a loss of sleep, because their spouse
was amorous all night. (Ahhhh, the good old days.)
When your in-laws, prepare to come to your house,
for the first time, and have a loss of directions.
When your spouse, who cremates every barbecue
[...] Read more
poem by Joe Fazio
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Orlando Furioso Canto 20
ARGUMENT
Guido and his from that foul haunt retire,
While all Astolpho chases with his horn,
Who to all quarters of the town sets fire,
Then roving singly round the world is borne.
Marphisa, for Gabrina's cause, in ire
Puts upon young Zerbino scathe and scorn,
And makes him guardian of Gabrina fell,
From whom he first learns news of Isabel.
I
Great fears the women of antiquity
In arms and hallowed arts as well have done,
And of their worthy works the memory
And lustre through this ample world has shone.
Praised is Camilla, with Harpalice,
For the fair course which they in battle run.
Corinna and Sappho, famous for their lore,
Shine two illustrious light, to set no more.
II
Women have reached the pinnacle of glory,
In every art by them professed, well seen;
And whosoever turns the leaf of story,
Finds record of them, neither dim nor mean.
The evil influence will be transitory,
If long deprived of such the world had been;
And envious men, and those that never knew
Their worth, have haply hid their honours due.
III
To me it plainly seems, in this our age
Of women such is the celebrity,
That it may furnish matter to the page,
Whence this dispersed to future years shall be;
And you, ye evil tongues which foully rage,
Be tied to your eternal infamy,
And women's praises so resplendent show,
They shall, by much, Marphisa's worth outgo.
IV
To her returning yet again; the dame
To him who showed to her such courteous lore,
Refused not to disclose her martial name,
Since he agreed to tell the style be bore.
She quickly satisfied the warrior's claim;
To learn his title she desired so sore.
'I am Marphisa,' the virago cried:
All else was known, as bruited far and wide.
[...] Read more
poem by Ludovico Ariosto
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OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII (Entire)
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.
Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood, thou:
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.
Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.
We have but faith: we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.
Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,
But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock thee when we do not fear:
But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.
Forgive what seem’d my sin in me;
What seem’d my worth since I began;
For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.
Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.
Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
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poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Paradise Regained
THE FIRST BOOK
I, WHO erewhile the happy Garden sung
By one man's disobedience lost, now sing
Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.
Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence 10
By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,
And bear through highth or depth of Nature's bounds,
With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in secret done,
And unrecorded left through many an age:
Worthy to have not remained so long unsung.
Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice
More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried
Repentance, and Heaven's kingdom nigh at hand 20
To all baptized. To his great baptism flocked
With awe the regions round, and with them came
From Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed
To the flood Jordan--came as then obscure,
Unmarked, unknown. But him the Baptist soon
Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore
As to his worthier, and would have resigned
To him his heavenly office. Nor was long
His witness unconfirmed: on him baptized
Heaven opened, and in likeness of a Dove 30
The Spirit descended, while the Father's voice
From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son.
That heard the Adversary, who, roving still
About the world, at that assembly famed
Would not be last, and, with the voice divine
Nigh thunder-struck, the exalted man to whom
Such high attest was given a while surveyed
With wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage,
Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air
To council summons all his mighty Peers, 40
Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved,
A gloomy consistory; and them amidst,
With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake:--
"O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World
(For much more willingly I mention Air,
This our old conquest, than remember Hell,
Our hated habitation), well ye know
How many ages, as the years of men,
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poem by John Milton
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A Fable For Critics
Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade,
Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made,
For the god being one day too warm in his wooing,
She took to the tree to escape his pursuing;
Be the cause what it might, from his offers she shrunk,
And, Ginevra-like, shut herself up in a trunk;
And, though 'twas a step into which he had driven her,
He somehow or other had never forgiven her;
Her memory he nursed as a kind of a tonic,
Something bitter to chew when he'd play the Byronic,
And I can't count the obstinate nymphs that he brought over
By a strange kind of smile he put on when he thought of her.
'My case is like Dido's,' he sometimes remarked;
'When I last saw my love, she was fairly embarked
In a laurel, as _she_ thought-but (ah, how Fate mocks!)
She has found it by this time a very bad box;
Let hunters from me take this saw when they need it,-
You're not always sure of your game when you've treed it.
Just conceive such a change taking place in one's mistress!
What romance would be left?-who can flatter or kiss trees?
And, for mercy's sake, how could one keep up a dialogue
With a dull wooden thing that will live and will die a log,-
Not to say that the thought would forever intrude
That you've less chance to win her the more she is wood?
Ah! it went to my heart, and the memory still grieves,
To see those loved graces all taking their leaves;
Those charms beyond speech, so enchanting but now,
As they left me forever, each making its bough!
If her tongue _had_ a tang sometimes more than was right,
Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite.'
Now, Daphne-before she was happily treeified-
Over all other blossoms the lily had deified,
And when she expected the god on a visit
('Twas before he had made his intentions explicit),
Some buds she arranged with a vast deal of care,
To look as if artlessly twined in her hair,
Where they seemed, as he said, when he paid his addresses,
Like the day breaking through, the long night of her tresses;
So whenever he wished to be quite irresistible,
Like a man with eight trumps in his hand at a whist-table
(I feared me at first that the rhyme was untwistable,
Though I might have lugged in an allusion to Cristabel),-
He would take up a lily, and gloomily look in it,
As I shall at the--, when they cut up my book in it.
Well, here, after all the bad rhyme I've been spinning,
I've got back at last to my story's beginning:
Sitting there, as I say, in the shade of his mistress,
As dull as a volume of old Chester mysteries,
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poem by James Russell Lowell
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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
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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Second Book
TIMES followed one another. Came a morn
I stood upon the brink of twenty years,
And looked before and after, as I stood
Woman and artist,–either incomplete,
Both credulous of completion. There I held
The whole creation in my little cup,
And smiled with thirsty lips before I drank,
'Good health to you and me, sweet neighbour mine
And all these peoples.'
I was glad, that day;
The June was in me, with its multitudes
Of nightingales all singing in the dark,
And rosebuds reddening where the calyx split.
I felt so young, so strong, so sure of God!
So glad, I could not choose be very wise!
And, old at twenty, was inclined to pull
My childhood backward in a childish jest
To see the face of't once more, and farewell!
In which fantastic mood I bounded forth
At early morning,–would not wait so long
As even to snatch my bonnet by the strings,
But, brushing a green trail across the lawn
With my gown in the dew, took will and way
Among the acacias of the shrubberies,
To fly my fancies in the open air
And keep my birthday, till my aunt awoke
To stop good dreams. Meanwhile I murmured on,
As honeyed bees keep humming to themselves;
'The worthiest poets have remained uncrowned
Till death has bleached their foreheads to the bone,
And so with me it must be, unless I prove
Unworthy of the grand adversity,–
And certainly I would not fail so much.
What, therefore, if I crown myself to-day
In sport, not pride, to learn the feel of it,
Before my brows be numb as Dante's own
To all the tender pricking of such leaves?
Such leaves? what leaves?'
I pulled the branches down,
To choose from.
'Not the bay! I choose no bay;
The fates deny us if we are overbold:
Nor myrtle–which means chiefly love; and love
Is something awful which one dare not touch
So early o' mornings. This verbena strains
The point of passionate fragrance; and hard by,
This guelder rose, at far too slight a beck
Of the wind, will toss about her flower-apples.
Ah–there's my choice,–that ivy on the wall,
That headlong ivy! not a leaf will grow
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poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
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