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It's impossible to always get across what I'm trying to say, but, if I just stay honest, then I'm not going to look back on any of these interviews and wonder what I was trying to do or be.

quote by Kristen Stewart
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Impossible and the Possible.

Poem Title: The struggle to overcome the difference between the Impossible and the Possible
Acrostic Poem 166a

The struggle to overcome the difference between the impossible and the possible.
Hope being the word that springs to mind to link these two opposites to attract.
Eternally wandering Cyber space side by side hooking onto every adjective or verb.

Seeking Impossible causes to take away excuses and make them once more possible.
To overcome the bigoted, blind, self centred mind set of the un-believers.
Reaching corners of the mind that you of Christian or Muslim Faith never thought existed.
Unless you have spent all your life on earth in a cocoon not within real time.
God has chosen you to teach the differences between the Impossible and Possible.
Given that if at first you don`t succeed... You`ll get it right next time.
Love for all your Fellow Men and Women may seem Impossible. Trust me it`s the only way.
Every possibility, has been at sometime within it`s life...seemed Impossible.

Take the making of a silk purse from one sows ear. If you will
Or the finding of a needle in a hay-stack or the abolition of third world hunger and the like.

Or the creation of the Love of Nation unto Nation... The end to all War or domination
Very nearly every single problem has a solution, indeed sometimes many solutions do exist.
Electricity, how unbelievable to the even the wisest man once upon a time thought “impossible”
Radio waves converted into the sweetest sounds ever heard by mortal Man
Communication instant Chat across the Globe in real time ….one to one...”Impossible”
Of loving commitment between different creeds and cultures without ever meeting possible.
Mighty soon God will look down on earth and see the two words rolled into one!
Entreating the Impossible always Possible and the Possible never Impossible.

The struggle to overcome the difference between the Impossible and the Possible.
Holy Holy Holy, Eureka, Glory be! We are getting there, I do believe I really do believe.
Eternally where two Poets or more can get together to speak as one, in one Like-minded.

Difference between the Impossible and the Possible are reduced to nil
In practical terms every metaphor, rhetoric, noun or verb or adjective can be polished.
From the most impossible dream into the possible reality of the finest prose ever written.
From the dullest of dyslectic mutterings to the most flowery of sweetest love songs.
Endlessly tripping from the lips of stranger meeting stranger, wisest verse ever heard.
Re-acting opposites attracting the Impossible with the Possible. Judge for yourselves.
Enacting with the humble Poet that composed this message. You may never chance to meet.
Never in a Thousand years of trying, these chances, sure don't happen every day.
Catch the Impossible catch on the very boundaries of your mind to make a difference.
Every chance that one single catch will win your team the Game.

By making then the Impossible Possible, you have changed in one action the life you have.
Every Impossible thought can then be dismissed from your mind possibly forever
The sun to leave the sky, the rivers all run dry, a baby not to cry ….Impossible.
We have that song within our mind, which keeps our feet upon the ground
Every now and then to be able to accept that all things are not Possible.

[...] Read more

poem by Philip Winchester
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Honest Men

Were just a stones throw
From burning hellfire
Does anybody know,
Where did all the heroes go?
Weve had our fill of
This gallery of scoundrels,
The leaders of the world,
Those power hungry liars
Rise up and sound the sirens,
Send out the searching powers,
All we need is a few good men
Send the s.o.s. and red alerts
All across the universe
Calling your honest men?
S.o.s. emergency,
Sinking fast and getting worse.
Wheres your honest men?
In some village, far away,
Or in a little town pub.
High on a mountain top
There must be an honest man
Calling all honest men
Throw out the tyrants,
The aged fat cats
Outlived their usefulness
They have led us to this mess
Make them answer,
Hold them to their promises,
And throw them in the street
If they wont tell the truth
S.o.s. and red alert
All across the universe,
Calling all honest men
S.o.s. emergency,
Sinking fast and getting worse,
Wheres your honest men?
To your stations,
Man the ramparts,
The barricades
We need new heroes urgently
We need a few good honest men
Calling all honest men
Calling all honest men
Call to him
He lives next door,
Across the street
On the upper floor.
Its our only hope we need him now
Send the s.o.s. and red alert,
All across the universe,

[...] Read more

song performed by Electric Light Orchestra
Added by Lucian Velea
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Stay

Please stay with me now
Dont you let me go
Ill make it somehow
I got to let you know
That Ill make it
Somehow, some way
Though I wait on the day
What Im doings got to pay
Someway, somehow
My baby, when he cries
Its cause somethings on his mind
This world is full of lies
You and me are one of a kind
The good lord will stand behind every step
We are blind to fate, thats life, thats life
Stay, stay, stay, stay (wont you please)
Stay, stay, stay, stay
It fits, but you cant make it work
Where theres pain, theres got to be hurt
And the green grass grows from the dirt
Yeah, thats a fact of life alright
The good lord stands behind every step
We are blind to fate, thats life, thats life
Stay, oh wont you please
Stay, stay (wont you)
Stay, stay, stay, stay
Stay, stay, stay, stay
Stay, stay (right here)
Stay, stay (dont you go, no no)
Stay, stay (oh no no)
Stay, stay (stay baby baby please stay)
Stay, stay (right here, right here, right here)
Stay, stay (I want you to stay right here)
Stay, stay (we can stay here, together, together yeah)
Stay, stay (dont listen to what people say)
Stay, stay (stay, stay, listen now yeah)
Stay, stay (stay, yeah yeah now)

song performed by Erykah Badu
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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Jack Honest, or the Widow and Her Son

Jack Honest was only eight years of age when his father died,
And by the death of his father, Mrs Honest was sorely tried;
And Jack was his father's only joy and pride,
And for honesty Jack couldn't be equalled in the country-side.

So a short time before Jack's father died,
'Twas loud and bitterly for Jack he cried,
And bade him sit down by his bedside,
And then told him to be honest whatever did betide.

John, he said, looking him earnestly in the face,
Never let your actions your name disgrace,
Remember, my dear boy, and do what's right,
And God will bless you by day and night.

Then Mr Honest bade his son farewell, and breathed his last,
While the hot tears from Jack's eyes fell thick and fast;
And the poor child did loudly sob and moan,
When he knew his father had left him and his mother alone.

So, as time wore on, Jack grew to be a fine boy,
And was to his mother a help and joy;
And, one evening, she said, Jack, you are my only prop,
I must tell you, dear, I'm thinking about opening a shop.

Oh! that's a capital thought, mother, cried Jack,
And to take care of the shop I won't be slack;
Then his mother said, Jackey, we will try this plan,
And look to God for his blessing, and do all we can.

So the widow opened the shop and succeeded very well,
But in a few months fresh troubles her befell--
Alas! poor Mrs Honest was of fever taken ill,
But Jack attended his mother with a kindly will.

But, for fear of catching the fever, her customers kept away,
And once more there wasn't enough money the rent to pay;
And in her difficulties Mrs Honest could form no plan to get out,
But God would help her, she had no doubt.

So, one afternoon, Mrs Honest sent Jack away
To a person that owed her some money, and told him not to stay,
But when he got there the person had fled,
And to return home without the money he was in dread.

So he saw a gentleman in a carriage driving along at a rapid rate,
And Jack ran forward to his mansion and opened the lodge-gate,
Then the gentleman opened his purse and gave him, as he thought, a shilling
For opening the lodge-gate so cleverly and so willing.

[...] Read more

poem by William Topaz McGonagall
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It's Impossible

It's impossible to tell the sun to leave the sky,
It's just impossible.
It's impossible to ask a baby not to cry,
It's just impossible.
Can I hold you closer to me
And not feel you going through me,
But the second that I never think of you?
Oh, how impossible.
Can the ocean keep from rushing to the shore?
It's just impossible.
If I had you could I ever ask for more?
It's just impossible.
And tomorrow, should you ask me for the world
Somehow I'd get it, I would sell my very soul
And not regret it for to live without your love
Is just impossible
Can the ocean keep from rushing to the shore?
It's just impossible.
If I had you could I ever ask for more?
It's just impossible.
And tomorrow, should you ask me for the world
Somehow I'd get it, I would sell my very soul
And not regret it for to live without your love
Is just impossible
Oh impossible,
Impossible.
Impossible.

song performed by Elvis Presley
Added by Lucian Velea
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Eyes Across the Sky

(Look up, look with your eyes across the sky -
Any pair of eyes will do!)

Look up – look with your eyes across the sky.
Look up – look with your eyes across the sky.
Look up (see all the magic there on high)
Look up see the summer sun shining
Look up (to all the clouds there going by)
Look up see how they drift in timeless timing.

Eyes across the sky
Are waiting to meet another new day,
Waiting to meet another new day.

Look up – look with your eyes across the sky.
Look up – look with your eyes across the sky.
Look up (for imaginations you desire)
Look up see the summer sun shining.
Look up (to contact the clouds higher)
Look up see the summer sun shining.

Eyes across the sky
Are waiting to meet another new day,
Waiting to meet another new day.

(Across the sky)

Everybody... your eyes across the sky,
Look up – look with your eyes across the sky,
Look up (see all the magic there on high)
Look up see the summer sun shining.
Look up (to all the clouds there going by)
Look up see how they drift in timeless timing.

Eyes across the sky
Are waiting to meet another new day,
Waiting to meet another new day.

Eyes across the sky
Are flying in a fantasy play,
Flying in a fantasy play
Now and forever – today.
Today!

poem by Peter S. Quinn
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Stay '81

Verse:
Am I just dreaming or did you walk through my door?
Do you still feel the same way that you did before?
Did you come to bring me sorrow?
Like all those wasted days
Let's not think about tomorrow
You can stay
Am I just dreaming or did you say you have to go?
If you can't stay forever, I don't wanna know
There's no need to talk about it
The way things used to be
I'm not living here without you
(Chorus:)
Won't you stay, stay darlin'
You could stay, stay darlin'
Won't you stay, stay darlin'
You could stay, stay darlin'
You could stay, stay, stay darlin'
You could stay, stay, stay darlin'
(repeat)
No, no, can't let go
No, no, can't let go
No, no, can't let go
Am I just dreaming?
(verse)
You could stay, stay darlin'
You could stay, stay darlin'
Won't you stay, stay darlin'
You could stay, stay darlin'
(repeat)
You could stay, stay, stay darlin'
You could stay, stay, stay darlin'
(repeat and fade

song performed by Madonna
Added by Lucian Velea
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S-e-x-x-y

Dressed only in clothes
From her head to her toes
This is the way
The talking part goes
S-e-x-x-y
More than enough
Around the clock with nobody else
S-e-x-x-y
There she is
Standing on the bed
Cookie in one hand, wig on her head
S-e-x-x-y
X because its extra baby
Y because its extra baby
Unnoticed by few
Very very few
And that includes you
Look inside your mind
Look inside your eye
Secret agent spy, come to see why
S-e-x-x-y
One finger nail
Across your back
Babys first gold tooth initials inscribed
S-e-x-x-y
X because its extra baby
Y because its extra baby
You gotta understand
She wants to be your man
Shes got another plan
Notes
The infamous warren rigg microwave remix goes as follows:
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y s-e-x-x-y
S-e-x-x-y s-e-x-x-y

[...] Read more

song performed by They Might Be Giants
Added by Lucian Velea
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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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IV. Tertium Quid

True, Excellency—as his Highness says,
Though she's not dead yet, she's as good as stretched
Symmetrical beside the other two;
Though he's not judged yet, he's the same as judged,
So do the facts abound and superabound:
And nothing hinders that we lift the case
Out of the shade into the shine, allow
Qualified persons to pronounce at last,
Nay, edge in an authoritative word
Between this rabble's-brabble of dolts and fools
Who make up reasonless unreasoning Rome.
"Now for the Trial!" they roar: "the Trial to test
"The truth, weigh husband and weigh wife alike
"I' the scales of law, make one scale kick the beam!"
Law's a machine from which, to please the mob,
Truth the divinity must needs descend
And clear things at the play's fifth act—aha!
Hammer into their noddles who was who
And what was what. I tell the simpletons
"Could law be competent to such a feat
"'T were done already: what begins next week
"Is end o' the Trial, last link of a chain
"Whereof the first was forged three years ago
"When law addressed herself to set wrong right,
"And proved so slow in taking the first step
"That ever some new grievance,—tort, retort,
"On one or the other side,—o'ertook i' the game,
"Retarded sentence, till this deed of death
"Is thrown in, as it were, last bale to boat
"Crammed to the edge with cargo—or passengers?
"'Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est!
"'Huc appelle!'—passengers, the word must be."
Long since, the boat was loaded to my eyes.
To hear the rabble and brabble, you'd call the case
Fused and confused past human finding out.
One calls the square round, t' other the round square—
And pardonably in that first surprise
O' the blood that fell and splashed the diagram:
But now we've used our eyes to the violent hue
Can't we look through the crimson and trace lines?
It makes a man despair of history,
Eusebius and the established fact—fig's end!
Oh, give the fools their Trial, rattle away
With the leash of lawyers, two on either side—
One barks, one bites,—Masters Arcangeli
And Spreti,—that's the husband's ultimate hope
Against the Fisc and the other kind of Fisc,
Bound to do barking for the wife: bow—wow!
Why, Excellency, we and his Highness here
Would settle the matter as sufficiently

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Poor Honest Men

(A.D. 1800)

Your jar of Virginny
Will cost you a guinea,
Which you reckon too much by five shillings or ten;
But light your churchwarden
And judge it according,
When I've told you the troubles of poor honest men.

From the Capes of the Delaware,
As you are well aware,
We sail which tobacco for England-but then,
Our own British cruisers,
They watch us come through, sirs,
And they press half a score of us poor honest men!

Or if by quick sailing
(Thick weather prevailing )
We leave them behind ( as we do now and then)
We are sure of a gun from
Each frigate we run from,
Which is often destruction to poor honest men!

Broadsides the Atlantic
We tumble short-handed,
With shot-holes to plug and new canvas to bend;
And off the Azores,
Dutch, Dons and Monsieurs
Are waiting to terrify poor honest men.

Napoleon's embargo
Is laid on all cargo
Which comfort or aid to King George may intend;
And since roll, twist and leaf,
Of all comforts is chief,
They try for to steal it from poor honest men!
With no heart for fight,
We take refuge in flight,
But fire as we run, our retreat to defend;
Until our stern-chasers
Cut up her fore-braces,
And she flies off the wind from us poor honest men!

'Twix' the Forties and Fifties,
South-eastward the drift is,
And so, when we think we are making Land's End
Alas, it is Ushant
With half the King's Navy
Blockading French ports against poor honest men!

[...] Read more

poem by Rudyard Kipling
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The Impossible

What seems to be impossible, is realized through the God of Israel,
By God, all things are possible, while His purpose, God does fulfill.
Christ is Immanuel, God with us, and in The Lord, we place our trust,
Though men are but of dust, He does the impossible in men like us.

All the impossible for God above, is nothing for His Awesome Love,
Guiding us in times deemed tough; showing all what faith’s made of.
The impossible comes many ways, as we live out these earthly days,
But as the task, to Him we raise, He turns that impossible into praise.

The things in life that men pursue, Christ, in Heaven above foreknew,
All difficult things we need to do, can and will be completed through,
The authority of the Living God, who reigns above this earth we trod,
As God guides us with staff and rod, as we travel on the earthly sod.

Even situations that we can face, would be impossible without Grace,
As we look back to time and place, God’s Hand in lives we can trace.
His hand of Grace reaches down, where the impossible can be found,
With a love that’s sure and sound, providing a Grace that will abound.

Nothing is impossible for Him, who sent His Son to die for all our sin,
Using our faith God puts within, He helps us through the time we’re in.
All the impossible men conceive, God works out in those who believe,
So The Spirit in others may conceive, desire that His Son they receive.

(12/2007)

poem by Bob Gotti
Added by Poetry Lover
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Seventh Book

'THE woman's motive? shall we daub ourselves
With finding roots for nettles? 'tis soft clay
And easily explored. She had the means,
The moneys, by the lady's liberal grace,
In trust for that Australian scheme and me,
Which so, that she might clutch with both her hands,
And chink to her naughty uses undisturbed,
She served me (after all it was not strange,;
'Twas only what my mother would have done)
A motherly, unmerciful, good turn.

'Well, after. There are nettles everywhere,
But smooth green grasses are more common still;
The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud;
A miller's wife at Clichy took me in
And spent her pity on me,–made me calm
And merely very reasonably sad.
She found me a servant's place in Paris where
I tried to take the cast-off life again,
And stood as quiet as a beaten ass
Who, having fallen through overloads, stands up
To let them charge him with another pack.

'A few months, so. My mistress, young and light,
Was easy with me, less for kindness than
Because she led, herself, an easy time
Betwixt her lover and her looking-glass,
Scarce knowing which way she was praised the most.
She felt so pretty and so pleased all day
She could not take the trouble to be cross,
But sometimes, as I stooped to tie her shoe,
Would tap me softly with her slender foot
Still restless with the last night's dancing in't,
And say 'Fie, pale-face! are you English girls
'All grave and silent? mass-book still, and Lent?
'And first-communion colours on your cheeks,
'Worn past the time for't? little fool, be gay!'
At which she vanished, like a fairy, through
A gap of silver laughter.
'Came an hour
When all went otherwise. She did not speak,
But clenched her brows, and clipped me with her eyes
As if a viper with a pair of tongs,
Too far for any touch, yet near enough
To view the writhing creature,–then at last,
'Stand still there, in the holy Virgin's name,
'Thou Marian; thou'rt no reputable girl,
'Although sufficient dull for twenty saints!
'I think thou mock'st me and my house,' she said;
'Confess thou'lt be a mother in a month,

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Thurso’s Landing

I
The coast-road was being straightened and repaired again,
A group of men labored at the steep curve
Where it falls from the north to Mill Creek. They scattered and hid
Behind cut banks, except one blond young man
Who stooped over the rock and strolled away smiling
As if he shared a secret joke with the dynamite;
It waited until he had passed back of a boulder,
Then split its rock cage; a yellowish torrent
Of fragments rose up the air and the echoes bumped
From mountain to mountain. The men returned slowly
And took up their dropped tools, while a banner of dust
Waved over the gorge on the northwest wind, very high
Above the heads of the forest.
Some distance west of the road,
On the promontory above the triangle
Of glittering ocean that fills the gorge-mouth,
A woman and a lame man from the farm below
Had been watching, and turned to go down the hill. The young
woman looked back,
Widening her violet eyes under the shade of her hand. 'I think
they'll blast again in a minute.'
And the man: 'I wish they'd let the poor old road be. I don't
like improvements.' 'Why not?' 'They bring in the world;
We're well without it.' His lameness gave him some look of age
but he was young too; tall and thin-faced,
With a high wavering nose. 'Isn't he amusing,' she said, 'that
boy Rick Armstrong, the dynamite man,
How slowly he walks away after he lights the fuse. He loves to
show off. Reave likes him, too,'
She added; and they clambered down the path in the rock-face,
little dark specks
Between the great headland rock and the bright blue sea.

II
The road-workers had made their camp
North of this headland, where the sea-cliff was broken down and
sloped to a cove. The violet-eyed woman's husband,
Reave Thurso, rode down the slope to the camp in the gorgeous
autumn sundown, his hired man Johnny Luna
Riding behind him. The road-men had just quit work and four
or five were bathing in the purple surf-edge,
The others talked by the tents; blue smoke fragrant with food
and oak-wood drifted from the cabin stove-pipe
And slowly went fainting up the vast hill.
Thurso drew rein by
a group of men at a tent door
And frowned at them without speaking, square-shouldered and
heavy-jawed, too heavy with strength for so young a man,
He chose one of the men with his eyes. 'You're Danny Woodruff,

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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The Undying One- Canto III

'THERE is a sound the autumn wind doth make
Howling and moaning, listlessly and low:
Methinks that to a heart that ought to break
All the earth's voices seem to murmur so.
The visions that crost
Our path in light--
The things that we lost
In the dim dark night--
The faces for which we vainly yearn--
The voices whose tones will not return--
That low sad wailing breeze doth bring
Borne on its swift and rushing wing.
Have ye sat alone when that wind was loud,
And the moon shone dim from the wintry cloud?
When the fire was quench'd on your lonely hearth,
And the voices were still which spoke of mirth?

If such an evening, tho' but one,
It hath been yours to spend alone--
Never,--though years may roll along
Cheer'd by the merry dance and song;
Though you mark'd not that bleak wind's sound before,
When louder perchance it used to roar--
Never shall sound of that wintry gale
Be aught to you but a voice of wail!
So o'er the careless heart and eye
The storms of the world go sweeping by;
But oh! when once we have learn'd to weep,
Well doth sorrow his stern watch keep.
Let one of our airy joys decay--
Let one of our blossoms fade away--
And all the griefs that others share
Seem ours, as well as theirs, to bear:
And the sound of wail, like that rushing wind
Shall bring all our own deep woe to mind!

'I went through the world, but I paused not now
At the gladsome heart and the joyous brow:
I went through the world, and I stay'd to mark
Where the heart was sore, and the spirit dark:
And the grief of others, though sad to see,
Was fraught with a demon's joy to me!

'I saw the inconstant lover come to take
Farewell of her he loved in better days,
And, coldly careless, watch the heart-strings break--
Which beat so fondly at his words of praise.
She was a faded, painted, guilt-bow'd thing,
Seeking to mock the hues of early spring,
When misery and years had done their worst

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poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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VII. Pompilia

I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.

All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Independence

Happy the bard (though few such bards we find)
Who, 'bove controlment, dares to speak his mind;
Dares, unabash'd, in every place appear,
And nothing fears, but what he ought to fear:
Him Fashion cannot tempt, him abject Need
Cannot compel, him Pride cannot mislead
To be the slave of Greatness, to strike sail
When, sweeping onward with her peacock's tail,
Quality in full plumage passes by;
He views her with a fix'd, contemptuous eye,
And mocks the puppet, keeps his own due state,
And is above conversing with the great.
Perish those slaves, those minions of the quill,
Who have conspired to seize that sacred hill
Where the Nine Sisters pour a genuine strain,
And sunk the mountain level with the plain;
Who, with mean, private views, and servile art,
No spark of virtue living in their heart,
Have basely turn'd apostates; have debased
Their dignity of office; have disgraced,
Like Eli's sons, the altars where they stand,
And caused their name to stink through all the land;
Have stoop'd to prostitute their venal pen
For the support of great, but guilty men;
Have made the bard, of their own vile accord,
Inferior to that thing we call a lord.
What is a lord? Doth that plain simple word
Contain some magic spell? As soon as heard,
Like an alarum bell on Night's dull ear,
Doth it strike louder, and more strong appear
Than other words? Whether we will or no,
Through Reason's court doth it unquestion'd go
E'en on the mention, and of course transmit
Notions of something excellent; of wit
Pleasing, though keen; of humour free, though chaste;
Of sterling genius, with sound judgment graced;
Of virtue far above temptation's reach,
And honour, which not malice can impeach?
Believe it not--'twas Nature's first intent,
Before their rank became their punishment,
They should have pass'd for men, nor blush'd to prize
The blessings she bestow'd; she gave them eyes,
And they could see; she gave them ears--they heard;
The instruments of stirring, and they stirr'd;
Like us, they were design'd to eat, to drink,
To talk, and (every now and then) to think;
Till they, by Pride corrupted, for the sake
Of singularity, disclaim'd that make;
Till they, disdaining Nature's vulgar mode,
Flew off, and struck into another road,

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poem by Charles Churchill
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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!

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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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
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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