For too long, decisions have been taken behind closed doors - tablets of stone have simply been past down to people without bothering to involve people, listen to their views or give them information about what we are doing and why.
quote by Peter Mandelson
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Reminders
Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As word
s confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.
song performed by Feeder
Added by Lucian Velea
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Give The Po Man A Break
Give po man a break
Give po man a break
Give po man a
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[...] Read more
song performed by Fatboy Slim
Added by Lucian Velea
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Listen To The Rain
(Rain)
Listen listen
Listen listen
Listen listen
Listen listen
Listen (listen) listen (listen)
Listen (listen) listen (listen)
Listen (listen) listen (listen)
Listen listen
Listen to each drop of rain (listen listen)
Aaah
Whispering secrets in rain (listen listen)
Aaah
Frantically searching for someone to hear
That story be more than it hides
Please don't let go
Can't we stay for a while?
It's just to hard to say goodbye
Listen to the rain
Aa...ah
Listen listen listen listen listen listen to the rain
Weeping
Oo...ooh oooh ooh oo...ooh
Oo...ooh oooh oh oh
Listen (listen) listen (listen)
Listen (listen) listen
I stand alone in the storm (listen listen)
Suddenly sweet words take hold
(Listen listen)
Hurry they stay for you haven't much time
Open your eyes to the love around you
You can feel youre alone
But I'm here still with you
You can do what you dream
Just remember to listen to the rain
oo...ooh oh oh oh oh
ooh ooh oh oh oooh
Listen
song performed by Evanescence
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Tower Beyond Tragedy
I
You'd never have thought the Queen was Helen's sister- Troy's
burning-flower from Sparta, the beautiful sea-flower
Cut in clear stone, crowned with the fragrant golden mane, she
the ageless, the uncontaminable-
This Clytemnestra was her sister, low-statured, fierce-lipped, not
dark nor blonde, greenish-gray-eyed,
Sinewed with strength, you saw, under the purple folds of the
queen-cloak, but craftier than queenly,
Standing between the gilded wooden porch-pillars, great steps of
stone above the steep street,
Awaiting the King.
Most of his men were quartered on the town;
he, clanking bronze, with fifty
And certain captives, came to the stair. The Queen's men were
a hundred in the street and a hundred
Lining the ramp, eighty on the great flags of the porch; she
raising her white arms the spear-butts
Thundered on the stone, and the shields clashed; eight shining
clarions
Let fly from the wide window over the entrance the wildbirds of
their metal throats, air-cleaving
Over the King come home. He raised his thick burnt-colored
beard and smiled; then Clytemnestra,
Gathering the robe, setting the golden-sandaled feet carefully,
stone by stone, descended
One half the stair. But one of the captives marred the comeliness
of that embrace with a cry
Gull-shrill, blade-sharp, cutting between the purple cloak and
the bronze plates, then Clytemnestra:
Who was it? The King answered: A piece of our goods out of
the snatch of Asia, a daughter of the king,
So treat her kindly and she may come into her wits again. Eh,
you keep state here my queen.
You've not been the poorer for me.- In heart, in the widowed
chamber, dear, she pale replied, though the slaves
Toiled, the spearmen were faithful. What's her name, the slavegirl's?
AGAMEMNON Come up the stair. They tell me my kinsman's
Lodged himself on you.
CLYTEMNESTRA Your cousin Aegisthus? He was out of refuge,
flits between here and Tiryns.
Dear: the girl's name?
AGAMEMNON Cassandra. We've a hundred or so other
captives; besides two hundred
Rotted in the hulls, they tell odd stories about you and your
guest: eh? no matter: the ships
Ooze pitch and the August road smokes dirt, I smell like an
old shepherd's goatskin, you'll have bath-water?
CLYTEMNESTRA
They're making it hot. Come, my lord. My hands will pour it.
[...] Read more
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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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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A Memory-Picture
Laugh, my Friends, and without blame
Lightly quit what lightly came:
Rich to-morrow as to-day
Spend as madly as you may.
I, with little land to stir,
Am the exacter labourer.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
But my Youth reminds me—‘Thou
Hast liv’d light as these live now:
As these are, thou too wert such:
Much hast had, hast squander’d much.’
Fortune’s now less frequent heir,
Ah! I husband what’s grown rare.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Young, I said: ‘A face is gone
If too hotly mus’d upon:
And our best impressions are
Those that do themselves repair.’
Many a face I then let by,
Ah! is faded utterly.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Marguerite says: ‘As last year went,
So the coming year’ll be spent:
Some day next year, I shall be,
Entering heedless, kiss’d by thee.’
Ah! I hope—yet, once away,
What may chain us, who can say?
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Paint that lilac kerchief, bound
Her soft face, her hair around:
Tied under the archest chin
Mockery ever ambush’d in.
Let the fluttering fringes streak
All her pale, sweet-rounded cheek.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Paint that figure’s pliant grace
As she towards me lean’d her face,
Half refus’d and half resign’d,
Murmuring, ‘Art thou still unkind?’
Many a broken promise then
[...] Read more
poem by Matthew Arnold (1849)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,--
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre.
Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.
PART THE FIRST
I
In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant,
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates
Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows.
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and cornfields
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain; and away to the northward
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic
Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station descended
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village.
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of hemlock,
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries.
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables projecting
Over the basement below protected and shaded the doorway.
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset
Lighted the village street and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors
[...] Read more
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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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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V. Count Guido Franceschini
Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of … why, 't is wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate … aie, aie, aie,
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all's over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short, I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I' the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O' the Franceschini's once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The House Of Dust: Complete
I.
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.
'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.
We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .
Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.
Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.
Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.
II.
[...] Read more
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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The Columbiad: Book X
The vision resumed, and extended over the whole earth. Present character of different nations. Future progress of society with respect to commerce; discoveries; inland navigation; philosophical, med and political knowledge. Science of government. Assimilation and final union of all languages. Its effect on education, and on the advancement of physical and moral science. The physical precedes the moral, as Phosphor precedes the Sun. View of a general Congress from all nations, assembled to establish the political harmony of mankind. Conclusion.
Hesper again his heavenly power display'd,
And shook the yielding canopy of shade.
Sudden the stars their trembling fires withdrew.
Returning splendors burst upon the view,
Floods of unfolding light the skies adorn,
And more than midday glories grace the morn.
So shone the earth, as if the sideral train,
Broad as full suns, had sail'd the ethereal plain;
When no distinguisht orb could strike the sight,
But one clear blaze of all-surrounding light
O'erflow'd the vault of heaven. For now in view
Remoter climes and future ages drew;
Whose deeds of happier fame, in long array,
Call'd into vision, fill the newborn day.
Far as seraphic power could lift the eye,
Or earth or ocean bend the yielding sky,
Or circling sutis awake the breathing gale,
Drake lead the way, or Cook extend the sail;
Where Behren sever'd, with adventurous prow,
Hesperia's headland from Tartaria's brow;
Where sage Vancouvre's patient leads were hurl'd,
Where Deimen stretch'd his solitary world;
All lands, all seas that boast a present name,
And all that unborn time shall give to fame,
Around the Pair in bright expansion rise,
And earth, in one vast level, bounds the skies.
They saw the nations tread their different shores,
Ply their own toils and wield their local powers,
Their present state in all its views disclose,
Their gleams of happiness, their shades of woes,
Plodding in various stages thro the range
Of man's unheeded but unceasing change.
Columbus traced them with experienced eye,
And class'd and counted all the flags that fly;
He mark'd what tribes still rove the savage waste,
What cultured realms the sweets of plenty taste;
Where arts and virtues fix their golden reign,
Or peace adorns, or slaughter dyes the plain.
He saw the restless Tartar, proud to roam,
Move with his herds and pitch a transient home;
Tibet's long tracts and China's fixt domain,
Dull as their despots, yield their cultured grain;
Cambodia, Siam, Asia's myriad isles
And old Indostan, with their wealthy spoils
[...] Read more
poem by Joel Barlow
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Talk Soup
I dated siamese twins
I slept with bigfoot, too
Get me on sally jesse
Put me on donahue
cause I wanna tell the world about it
Right now
My dogs a narcoleptic
My moms a circus freak
I gotta get a spot on
Geraldos show this week
cause I wanna tell the world about it
Right now
Im just an anorexic codependant bingo addict
Stripper born without a chin
And Im only comfortable talking about it
When the whole wide world is listening in
Talk soup... talk soup
Listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me
My wife ran off with elvis
My boss shaved off my hair
Ive got a thing for poodles
And rubber underwear
And I wanna tell the world about it
Right now
I had a close encounter
I never chew my food
I got eleven nose jobs
I yodel in the nude
And I wanna tell the world about it
Right now
Im just a cross-dressin alcoholic neo-nazi
Porno star, as you may have guessed
And Im really gonna feel a whole lot better
If you let me get this thing off my chest
Talk soup... talk soup
Listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me
Im just your average schizophrenic nymphomaniac
Albino go-go dancer, you see
Nothin so bad that I cant share it
With a billion friends on national tv, whoa...
I have no genitalia
I sold my kids for cheese
I love my blow up doll, so
Bring out those cameras, please
cause I wanna tell the world about it
Right now
Talk soup... talk soup
Listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me
Talk soup... talk soup
Listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me
[...] Read more
song performed by Weird Al Yankovic
Added by Lucian Velea
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Give Up
(bernard edwards/nile rodgers)
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
You better listen well
When I tell you
To be on the look out
You cant call for help
cause I know you inside out
Despite all your hideouts
Im no great pretender
Ill make you surrender
So come along quietly
Heres a thought to remember
I have not met a man yet
To escape from my drag-net
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Ill give you just the facts man
And you can draw all your own conclusions
Ill keep your mind surrounded
With chains of love so strong
You cant break through them
My arsenal is stocked
With all kinds of seductive weapons
Although your hearts locked up
My love will assist me
So that you cant resist me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
No, no, no
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
[...] Read more
song performed by Diana Ross
Added by Lucian Velea
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Inside Information
One man to the left
One man to the right
One man in the middle
One man dressed in white
One man in the east
One man from the west
One man in the middle
One man under house arrest
(step back)
Get hooked on the power
Gotta stay in the game
Be the man of the hour
Gotta make a name for yourself
And the lady waits, so patiently
She waits for the call
She knows just what you need
You need inside, information
Information at a very high price
She gives you inside, information
That can change your whole life overnight,
In a minute
One man to the left
One man to the right
One man in the middle
Caught in the broad daylight
Just a man on the street
Another face in the crowd
One man on the beat
Wants everything that hes not allowed
And the lady waits, so patiently
She waits for the call
She knows just what you need
You need inside, information
She can get it at a very high price
A little, inside, information
It can change your whole life overnight
With a little inside, information
You get money, you get power, you get it all
Yeah but that inside, information
Can leave you waiting for that hammer to fall
(let it fall)
She gets that inside, information
Information at a very high price
With that inside, information
Its danger with each roll of the dice
You want that inside, information
Take the money, take the power, take it all
Take that inside, information
But get ready cause the hammer will fall
Its gonna fall
[...] Read more
song performed by Foreigner
Added by Lucian Velea
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Rokeby: Canto VI.
I.
The summer sun, whose early power
Was wont to gild Matilda's bower,
And rouse her with his matin ray
Her duteous orisons to pay,
That morning sun has three times seen
The flowers unfold on Rokeby green,
But sees no more the slumbers fly
From fair Matilda's hazel eye;
That morning sun has three times broke
On Rokeby's glades of elm and oak,
But, rising from their sylvan screen,
Marks no grey turrets' glance between.
A shapeless mass lie keep and tower,
That, hissing to the morning shower,
Can but with smouldering vapour pay
The early smile of summer day.
The peasant, to his labour bound,
Pauses to view the blacken'd mound,
Striving, amid the ruin'd space,
Each well-remember'd spot to trace.
That length of frail and fire-scorch'd wall
Once screen'd the hospitable hall;
When yonder broken arch was whole,
‘Twas there was dealt the weekly dole;
And where yon tottering columns nod,
The chapel sent the hymn to God.
So flits the world's uncertain span
Nor zeal for God, nor love for man,
Gives mortal monuments a date
Beyond the power of Time and Fate.
The towers must share the builder's doom;
Ruin is theirs, and his a tomb:
But better boon benignant Heaven
To Faith and Charity has given,
And bids the Christian hope sublime
Transcend the bounds of Fate and Time.
II.
Now the third night of summer came,
Since that which witness'd Rokeby's flame.
On Brignall cliffs and Scargill brake
The owlet's homilies awake,
The bittern scream'd from rush and flag,
The raven slumber'd on his crag,
Forth from his den the otter drew,
Grayling and trout their tyrant knew,
As between reed and sedge he peers,
With fierce round snout and sharpen'd ears
Or, prowling by the moonbeam cool,
[...] Read more
poem by Sir Walter Scott
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Prejudice
IN yonder red-brick mansion, tight and square,
Just at the town's commencement, lives the mayor.
Some yards of shining gravel, fenced with box,
Lead to the painted portal--where one knocks :
There, in the left-hand parlour, all in state,
Sit he and she, on either side the grate.
But though their goods and chattels, sound and new,
Bespeak the owners very well to do,
His worship's wig and morning suit betray
Slight indications of an humbler day
That long, low shop, where still the name appears,
Some doors below, they kept for forty years :
And there, with various fortunes, smooth and rough,
They sold tobacco, coffee, tea, and snuff.
There labelled drawers display their spicy row--
Clove, mace, and nutmeg : from the ceiling low
Dangle long twelves and eights , and slender rush,
Mix'd with the varied forms of genus brush ;
Cask, firkin, bag, and barrel, crowd the floor,
And piles of country cheeses guard the door.
The frugal dames came in from far and near,
To buy their ounces and their quarterns here.
Hard was the toil, the profits slow to count,
And yet the mole-hill was at last a mount.
Those petty gains were hoarded day by day,
With little cost, for not a child had they ;
Till, long proceeding on the saving plan,
He found himself a warm, fore-handed man :
And being now arrived at life's decline,
Both he and she, they formed the bold design,
(Although it touched their prudence to the quick)
To turn their savings into stone and brick.
How many an ounce of tea and ounce of snuff,
There must have been consumed to make enough !
At length, with paint and paper, bright and gay,
The box was finished, and they went away.
But when their faces were no longer seen
Amongst the canisters of black and green ,
--Those well-known faces, all the country round--
'Twas said that had they levelled to the ground
The two old walnut trees before the door,
The customers would not have missed them more.
Now, like a pair of parrots in a cage,
They live, and civic honours crown their age :
Thrice, since the Whitsuntide they settled there,
Seven years ago, has he been chosen mayor ;
And now you'd scarcely know they were the same ;
Conscious he struts, of power, and wealth, and fame ;
[...] Read more
poem by Jane Taylor
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The greatest sin
Having supremely spell binding eyes was simply not a sin at all; but
pretending that you were gruesomely blind; unable to see a step
further even after possessing them right since innocent childhood;
was the greatest sin,
Having robust complexioned feet was simply not a sin at all; but
pretending that you couldn't walk even an inch forward; had not the
slightest of capacity to run even after possessing them right since
innocent childhood; was the greatest sin,
Having tenaciously knotted fingers projecting from the palm was
simply not a sin at all; but pretending that you had grave difficulty
in hoisting objects; didn't posses the most minuscule of power to
defend yourself even after possessing them right since innocent
childhood; was the greatest sin,
Having dangling earlobes delectably cascading from the periphery of
your rubicund cheek was simply not a sin at all; but pretending that
you couldn't bear the tiniest of sound; floundered miserably to
decipher the intricacy of voice even after possessing them right
since innocent childhood; was the greatest sin,
Having a perfectly throbbing heart palpitating in marvellous
synchrony inside your chest was simply not a sin at all; but
pretending that you just didn't have the power to love; the virtue to
embrace other humans of your kind even after possessing it right
since innocent childhood; was the greatest sin,
Having dual pairs of luscious lips was simply not a sin at all; but
pretending that you couldn't speak a single word; abysmally stuttered
to convey the most infinitesimal of message to your compatriots even
after possessing them right since innocent childhood; was the
greatest sin,
Having ravishing clusters of hair on your scalp was simply not a sin
at all; but pretending that God had kept you disdainfully bald; that
your head shivered uncontrollably in cold even after possessing them
right since innocent childhood; was the greatest sin,
Having boundless lines on your glowing palm was simply not a sin at
all; but pretending that your entire life was ruined; your progress
had come to an abrupt standstill even after possessing them right
since innocent childhood; was the greatest sin,
Having pompously bulging muscle in your arms was simply not a sin at
all; but pretending that you were as feeble as a mosquito; couldn't
lift your very own body even after having them right since innocent
childhood; was the greatest sin,
Having thousands of voluptuously tantalizing eyelashes extruding from
[...] Read more
poem by Nikhil Parekh
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Behind Closed Doors
(kenny odell)
My baby makes me proud
Lord, dont he make me proud
He never makes a scene
By hangin all over me in a crowd
cause people like to talk
Lord, dont they like to talk
But when they turn out the lights
I know hell be leavin with me
And when we get behind closed doors
Then I let my hair hang down
He makes me glad that Im a woman
Oh, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors
My baby makes me smile
Lord, dont he make me smile
Hes never far away
Or too tired to say I want you
And Im always a lady
Just like a lady should be
But when they turn out the lights
Hes still my baby to me
And when we get behind closed doors
Then I let my hair hang down
Oh, he makes me glad Im a woman
Oh, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors
Oh, behind closed doors
I let my hair hang down
Im glad that Im a woman
No one knows what goes on behind closed doors
Behind closed doors
I let my hair hang down
He makes me glad Im a woman
No one knows what goes on behind closed doors
And when we get behind closed doors
Then I let my hair hang down
song performed by Diana Ross
Added by Lucian Velea
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Tamar
I
A night the half-moon was like a dancing-girl,
No, like a drunkard's last half-dollar
Shoved on the polished bar of the eastern hill-range,
Young Cauldwell rode his pony along the sea-cliff;
When she stopped, spurred; when she trembled, drove
The teeth of the little jagged wheels so deep
They tasted blood; the mare with four slim hooves
On a foot of ground pivoted like a top,
Jumped from the crumble of sod, went down, caught, slipped;
Then, the quick frenzy finished, stiffening herself
Slid with her drunken rider down the ledges,
Shot from sheer rock and broke
Her life out on the rounded tidal boulders.
The night you know accepted with no show of emotion the little
accident; grave Orion
Moved northwest from the naked shore, the moon moved to
meridian, the slow pulse of the ocean
Beat, the slow tide came in across the slippery stones; it drowned
the dead mare's muzzle and sluggishly
Felt for the rider; Cauldwell’s sleepy soul came back from the
blind course curious to know
What sea-cold fingers tapped the walls of its deserted ruin.
Pain, pain and faintness, crushing
Weights, and a vain desire to vomit, and soon again
die icy fingers, they had crept over the loose hand and lay in the
hair now. He rolled sidewise
Against mountains of weight and for another half-hour lay still.
With a gush of liquid noises
The wave covered him head and all, his body
Crawled without consciousness and like a creature with no bones,
a seaworm, lifted its face
Above the sea-wrack of a stone; then a white twilight grew about
the moon, and above
The ancient water, the everlasting repetition of the dawn. You
shipwrecked horseman
So many and still so many and now for you the last. But when it
grew daylight
He grew quite conscious; broken ends of bone ground on each
other among the working fibers
While by half-inches he was drawing himself out of the seawrack
up to sandy granite,
Out of the tide's path. Where the thin ledge tailed into flat cliff
he fell asleep. . . .
Far seaward
The daylight moon hung like a slip of cloud against the horizon.
The tide was ebbing
From the dead horse and the black belt of sea-growth. Cauldwell
seemed to have felt her crying beside him,
[...] Read more
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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