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Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle.

quote by Michelangelo
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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
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Perfection

Hush little baby, gotta be strong
cause in this world we are born to fight
Be the best prove them wrong
A winners work is never done
Reach the top number one
Perfection...
Oh perfection
You drive me crazy with perfection
Ive worn my pride as my perfection
Perfection....oh!
I was taught to be tough
That the best that you can be aint enough
Crack the whip, sacrifice
But I found out paradise had a price
I didnt know it then
But oh I know it now
You gotta work as hard at love
To make the love work out
You know this heart of mine
Had made some big mistakes
I guess that when it comes to love
I just dont know what it takes...
Chorus:
All my life Ive been driven by perfection
Pushed it to the limit every day and night
Whoa...Ive been driven by perfection
But nothins perfect when love aint right
Nothins perfect when love aint right
Gave it all played my part
I gave everything I had but my heart
Worked so hard made a name
But the loneliness inside stays the same
When love is here to today
And then its gone today
You got a list of lovers like a resume
You gotta take some times
To make it something real
I guess that when it comes to love
I just dont know how to feel
Chorus repeat
Oh perfection
You drive me crazy with perfection
Ive worn my pride as my perfection
Im goin crazy with perfection

song performed by Cher
Added by Lucian Velea
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Perfection

(desmond child/ diane warren)
Producer for bonnie, cher & darlene: desmond child
Recorded in 1987, bonnie did guest vocals on this song for cher's self-titled lp, along with 60's session queen darlene love.lyrics taken from uk cd sleeve.
Hush little baby, gotta be strong
'cause in this world we are born to fight...
Be the best, prove them wrong
A winner's work is never done...
Reach the top, number one
Perfection...
Oh, perfection
You drive me crazy with perfection
I've worn my pride as my protection
Perfection...oh!
I was taught to be tough
The best that you can be ain't enough
Crack the whip, sacrifice
But i found out paradise had a price
I didn't know it then
But oh i know it now
You gotta work as hard as love
To make the love work out
You know this heart of mine
Has made some big mistakes
I guess that when it comes to love
I just don't know what i takes...
Chorus:
All my life i've been driven by perfection
Pushed it to the limit every day and night
Whoa...i've been driven by perfection
But nothing's perfect when love ain't right
Nothing's perfect when love ain't right...
Gave it all
Played my part
I gave everything i had but my heart
Worked so hard
Made a name
But the loneliness inside stays the same
When love is here today
And then it's gone today
You got a list of lovers lookin' like a resum?br> you gotta take some time
To make it something real
I guess that when it comes to love
I just don't know how to feel
(chorus)
Oh, perfection
You drive me crazy with perfection
I've worn my pride as my protection
I'm goin' crazy with perfection

song performed by Bonnie Tyler
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Epithalamion Made At Lincoln's Inn

I

HAIL sun-beams in the east are spread ;
Leave, leave, fair bride, your solitary bed ;
No more shall you return to it alone ;
It nurseth sadness, and your body's print,
Like to a grave, the yielding down doth dint ;
You, and your other you, meet there anon.
Put forth, put forth, that warm balm-breathing thigh,
Which when next time you in these sheets will smother,
There it must meet another,
Which never was, but must be, oft, more nigh.
Come glad from thence, go gladder than you came ;
To-day put on perfection, and a woman's name.
Daughters of London, you which be
Our golden mines, and furnish'd treasury ;
You which are angels, yet still bring with you
Thousands of angels on your marriage days ;
Help with your presence, and devise to praise
These rites, which also unto you grow due ;
Conceitedly dress her, and be assign'd,
By you fit place for every flower and jewel ;
Make her for love fit fuel,
As gay as Flora and as rich as Ind ;
So may she, fair and rich in nothing lame,
To-day put on perfection, and a woman's name.

And you frolic patricians,
Sons of those senators, wealth's deep oceans ;
Ye painted courtiers, barrels of other's wits ;
Ye countrymen, who but your beasts love none ;
Ye of those fellowships, whereof he's one,
Of study and play made strange hermaphrodites,
Here shine ; this bridegroom to the temple bring.
Lo, in yon path which store of strew'd flowers graceth,
The sober virgin paceth ;
Except my sight fail, 'tis no other thing.
Weep not, nor blush, here is no grief nor shame,
To-day put on perfection, and a woman's name.

Thy two-leaved gates, fair temple, unfold,
And these two in thy sacred bosom hold,
Till mystically join'd but one they be ;
Then may thy lean and hunger-starvèd womb
Long time expect their bodies, and their tomb,
Long after their own parents fatten thee.
All elder claims, and all cold barrenness,
All yielding to new loves, be far for ever,
Which might these two dissever ;
Always, all th'other may each one possess ;

[...] Read more

poem by John Donne
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Images-Perfection Ever Flames, An Endless Supply of Moths

As I am,
I'm perceived Perfection
upon my ivory pedestal
in brilliant light
crystalline.

But these are my prison walls
Uniques Glow
is Perfection's Pall
which exiles me from that outer world
of reality.
I cannot mingle there.

My existence is constrained.

As bright as my Radiant Glow,
upon approach
to your world
I would dim
and be destroyed.

We can talk you and I
in Perfection's Harmony
but the moment you gain
my speaking voice,
my thoughts,
all is taken from Perfection's Shelf
and another less perfect me appears.

Nothing will compare
to me as I was.
Should I
in coming to you
destroy that Perfection which is now so dear?

Conundrum.

Corporeal life
is Kryptonite
yet mental isolation is too numbing.
I am Beauty in the light
but unavailable;
forever Uncoming.

Sometimes
Beauty is torture
we ourselves inflict
to escape our worldly life.
But since its shape

[...] Read more

poem by Lonnie Hicks
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IX. Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus

Had I God's leave, how I would alter things!
If I might read instead of print my speech,—
Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower
Refuses obstinate to blow in print,
As wildings planted in a prim parterre,—
This scurvy room were turned an immense hall;
Opposite, fifty judges in a row;
This side and that of me, for audience—Rome:
And, where yon window is, the Pope should hide—
Watch, curtained, but peep visibly enough.
A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd,
Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff,
Up comes an usher, louts him low, "The Court
"Requires the allocution of the Fisc!"
I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause
O'er the hushed multitude: I count—One, two—

Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law,—
When it may hap some painter, much in vogue
Throughout our city nutritive of arts,
Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,
And manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Afford my lords their Holy Family,—
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How such a painter sets himself to paint?
Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe
A-journeying to Egypt, prove the piece:
Why, first he sedulously practiseth,
This painter,—girding loin and lighting lamp,—
On what may nourish eye, make facile hand;
Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so)
From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk
Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves,—
This Luca or this Carlo or the like.
To him the bones their inmost secret yield,
Each notch and nodule signify their use:
On him the muscles turn, in triple tier,
And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man
"Familiarize thee with our play that lifts
"Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm and foot!"
—Ensuring due correctness in the nude.
Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know!
He,—to art's surface rising from her depth,—
If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found,
May simulate a Joseph, (happy chance!)—
Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow,
Loseth no involution, cheek or chap,
Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives!
Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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The World In The Heart

--BUT if the foe no more without presides,
There is an inner chamber where it hides ;
In that strong hold prepares its last defence ;
And none but heavenly arms can drive it thence.
This is the Christian's conflict,--he alone
Pursues its flight to that interior throne.
This is the test that makes his title clear ;
For only they approve their aim sincere,
Who seek the flattering world to dispossess
Where none but God and conscience have access.
All modes by man devised to purchase bliss,
Full well he knows are cheaper far than this :
Hence the attempt, with penance, pain, and loss,
And prayers, and alms, to frame a lighter cross.

To travel barefoot to some hallowed shrine,
If this would do, how soon should Heaven be mine !
--To walk with God ; resigning every weight,
To run with patience up to Zion's gate ;
To hold affections fixt on things above ;
To value heavenly more than earthly love ;
To dread the frown of God's discerning eye
More than the world's opprobrious calumny ;
To keep faith's prospects prominent and clear ;
To seek not rest, nor wish to find it here ;
Is harder work--too hard for arms like ours,
Opposed by principalities and powers,
Had He not covenanted to supply
Helmet and shield from Heaven's armory.

A ceaseless round of mummery to fulfil,
Leaves the world's empire unmolested still :
Nor more effective every outward way,
By which we seek to disavow its sway.
The downcast look, grave habit, slow address,
Are vain attempts to make the labour less ;
There is an inward army to pursue ;
A mere external conflict will not do.

They who sincerely bid the world depart
Not only from the house, but from the heart,
Retreating wisely, where its torrent roars,
And anxious still to shut it out of doors,
Contract their wishes to the sober size
Of fire-side comfort, and domestic ties ;
Yet they should deem the battle but begun,
Nor think at such light cost the victory won.
Whatever passes as a cloud, between
The mental eye of faith and things unseen,
Causing that better world to disappear,

[...] Read more

poem by Jane Taylor
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The Convocation: A Poem

When Vertue's Standard Ecclesiasticks bear,
Their sacred Robe the noblest Minds revere.
All to its Guidance do their Thoughts submit,
But such who triumph in licentious Wit;
And nauseous Mirth as high Desert esteem,
When rais'd by Scorn upon Religion's Theme
As Kings by Right Divine o'er Nations sway,
As the most worthy, their high Pow'rs obey;
Homage by all is to the Priesthood born,
And none but Fools their Heav'nly Pastors scorn.

Yet censure not the Muse's Freedom here:
If urg'd by Errors, she must seem severe!
Tho' keen her Satyr, she no Envy bears;
Tho' Priests she lashes, she their Function spares.
Nor for ill Members such the Clergy calls,
But on their Shame, and not their Glory, falls.

Of all the Plagues with which the World is curst,
Time has still prov'd that Priestcraft is the worst.
By some, what Notions thro' the World are spread?
On Falshoods grounded, and from Int'rest bred;
Errour has still the giddy World perplext,
Whilst Scripture gilds it with some sacred Text.
This wild Opinions Strife and Faction brings,
The Bane of Nations, the Misrule of Kings.
Priests oft profane what they from Heav'n derive;
Some live by Legends, some by Murders thrive,
Some sell their Gods, and Altar-Rites deface,
With Doctrines some the Brain-sick People craze.

The Pagan prey on slaughter'd Wretches Fates,
The Romish fatten on the best Estates,
The British stain what Heav'n has right confest,
And Sectaries the Scriptures falsly wrest.

Amongst the Tribe, how few are, as they ought,
Clear in their Souls, instructive in their Thought!
The Good, like Prophets, shew their Precepts pure;
The Ill with Craft the Heav'nly Light obscure;
False to their Trust, they lead their Flocks astray,
And with their Errors cloud the sacred Way.

Tho' artless Numbers may my Verses throng,
Yet now Religion's Cause inspires my Song:

[...] Read more

poem by Richard Savage
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After a Quarrel

WE have quarreled; ugly things have been said,
Bitter things, in a tone controlled, well-bred,
Temperate; we weighed our words, lest the lust
Of cruelty lose the edge of being just.
We have quarreled over a trifle, one of those trifles
That strike their roots to the very heart of each,
To the cold and earthy places where even love stifles,
And kindness and friendly habit cannot reach ;
Those unexplored vaults of the spirit, black, unknown,
Where each is a king, but a king ashamed, alone,
Afraid of the world, afraid of friend and foe.
Oh, human creatures must quarrel, my dear, I know;
But if we must, let's quarrel for something great,
For something final and dangerous - mastery; hate,
Freedom, or jealousy, virtue, death, or life:
For then two loves leap up on the wings of strife
Into the sun and air of their own souls' sight,
Locked together, joined, putting forth all their might
That love may survive or fail, or perish or win,
But perish not for a trifle. That is sin.

poem by Alice Duer Miller
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Otho The Great - Act II

SCENE I.
An Ante-chamber in the Castle.
Enter LUDOLPH and SIGIFRED.
Ludolph. No more advices, no more cautioning:
I leave it all to fate to any thing!
I cannot square my conduct to time, place,
Or circumstances; to me 'tis all a mist!
Sigifred. I say no more.
Ludolph. It seems I am to wait
Here in the ante-room; that may be a trifle.
You see now how I dance attendance here,
Without that tyrant temper, you so blame,
Snapping the rein. You have medicin'd me
With good advices; and I here remain,
In this most honourable ante-room,
Your patient scholar.
Sigifred. Do not wrong me, Prince.
By Heavens, I'd rather kiss Duke Conrad's slipper,
When in the morning he doth yawn with pride,
Than see you humbled but a half-degree!
Truth is, the Emperor would fain dismiss
The nobles ere he sees you.
Enter GONFRED from the Council-room.
Ludolph. Well, sir! What?
Gonfred. Great honour to the Prince! The Emperor,
Hearing that his brave son had re-appeared,
Instant dismiss 'd the Council from his sight,
As Jove fans off the clouds. Even now they pass.
[Exit.
Enter the Nobles from the Council-room. They cross the stage,
bowing unth respect to LUDOLPH, he frowning on them.
CONRAD follows. Exeunt Nobles.
Ludolph. Not the discoloured poisons of a fen,
Which he who breathes feels warning of his death,
Could taste so nauseous to the bodily sense,
As these prodigious sycophants disgust
The soul's fine palate.
Conrad. Princely Ludolph, hail!
Welcome, thou younger sceptre to the realm!
Strength to thy virgin crownet's golden buds,
That they, against the winter of thy sire,
May burst, and swell, and flourish round thy brows,
Maturing to a weighty diadem!
Yet be that hour far off; and may he live,
Who waits for thee, as the chapp'd earth for rain.
Set my life's star! I have lived long enough,
Since under my glad roof, propitiously,
Father and son each other re-possess.
Ludolph. Fine wording, Duke! but words could never yet
Forestall the fates; have you not learnt that yet?

[...] Read more

poem by John Keats
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Trifles go to make perfection,
And perfection is no trifle.

quote by Michelangelo
Added by Lucian Velea
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Sea Dreams

A city clerk, but gently born and bred;
His wife, an unknown artist's orphan child--
One babe was theirs, a Margaret, three years old:
They, thinking that her clear germander eye
Droopt in the giant-factoried city-gloom,
Came, with a month's leave given them, to the sea:
For which his gains were dock'd, however small:
Small were his gains, and hard his work; besides,
Their slender household fortunes (for the man
Had risk'd his little) like the little thrift,
Trembled in perilous places o'er a deep:
And oft, when sitting all alone, his face
Would darken, as he cursed his credulousness,
And that one unctuous mount which lured him, rogue,
To buy strange shares in some Peruvian mine.
Now seaward-bound for health they gain'd a coast,
All sand and cliff and deep-inrunning cave,
At close of day; slept, woke, and went the next,
The Sabbath, pious variers from the church,
To chapel; where a heated pulpiteer,
Not preaching simple Christ to simple men,
Announced the coming doom, and fulminated
Against the scarlet woman and her creed:
For sideways up he swung his arms, and shriek'd
`Thus, thus with violence,' ev'n as if he held
The Apocalyptic millstone, and himself
Were that great Angel; `Thus with violence
Shall Babylon be cast into the sea;
Then comes the close.' The gentle-hearted wife
Sat shuddering at the ruin of a world;
He at his own: but when the wordy storm
Had ended, forth they came and paced the shore,
Ran in and out the long sea-framing caves,
Drank the large air, and saw, but scarce believed
(The sootflake of so many a summer still
Clung to their fancies) that they saw, the sea.
So now on sand they walk'd, and now on cliff,
Lingering about the thymy promontories,
Till all the sails were darken'd in the west,
And rosed in the east: then homeward and to bed:
Where she, who kept a tender Christian hope
Haunting a holy text, and still to that
Returning, as the bird returns, at night,
`Let not the sun go down upon your wrath,'
Said, `Love, forgive him:' but he did not speak;
And silenced by that silence lay the wife,
Remembering her dear Lord who died for all,
And musing on the little lives of men,
And how they mar this little by their feuds.

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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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
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This peach my teacher

This peach
that I’ve just eaten,
been graced by,
been blessed by,
been taught by,
been transformed by…

it’s as if some
Messenger of the Gods
had arrived, stopwatch in hand,
saying, everything holds in perfection
but a little moment -
as William Shakespeare noted:

so I’m going to arrange things so that
as the stopwatch ticks out
ten seconds to that moment,
you’ll reach out your hand to the fruitbowl,
take it, feel its yielding softness under velvet skin,
cut it carefully twice through the poles,
once equatorially… and as it falls apart,
spear one segment; eat…

this peach
was full of what even Rilke
could say no more than, peachness..

it was a living proof of Plato:
its perfection taught me
where essence meets experience,
where actuality meets the ideal of peach;
where a singular perfection speaks of
all perfections; where perfection
leaves from perfection, naught else but perfect…

how could such a perfect thing
have been invented by one
who does not love? Who is not love?
This peach is love itself, and I the worshipper
must needs make of myself a living God
to whom to kneel, to offer praise and gratitude
for all perfection known..

this peach my teacher.

poem by Michael Shepherd
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Perfection

Your cold and poor-spirited love
Was like running water upon my hands...
I did for your love, all that I could....
As an imperfect man that I am...
I offered you just possible things...
Warmth when you were cold,
And consolation when you felt hopeless...
You search for perfection
Which you will never find...
Perfect is the rain that falls
In the spring time...
Perfect are the flowers that grow
in a real garden of love....
Perfect is the smile in a child
Who plays with toys...
Perfection is a man
Who had it all
And now is getting tired and old...
Perfection are the memories
In your heart and mind...
Perfection is something
You shall never find
On me or any other man
Since perfection is just
In your dreams and imagination...
Now perfection becomes
Just like a story untold....
How sad it is
That my love you can no longer have
Neither my hands again hold...
o! Woman, wish you good luck
In your new try...

COPY WRITE©2009

poem by Romeo Della Valle
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An Essay on Criticism

Part I

INTRODUCTION. That it is as great a fault to judge ill as to write ill, and a more dangerous one to the public. That a true Taste is as rare to be found as a true Genius. That most men are born with some Taste, but spoiled by false education. The multitude of Critics, and causes of them. That we are to study our own Taste, and know the limits of it. Nature the best guide of judgment. Improved by Art and rules, which are but methodized Nature. Rules derived from the practice of the ancient poets. That therefore the ancients are necessary to be studied by a Critic, particularly Homer and Virgil. Of licenses, and the use of them by the ancients. Reverence due to the ancients, and praise of them.

'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill;
But of the two less dangerous is th'offence
To tire our patience than mislead our sense:
Some few in that, but numbers err in this;
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss;
A fool might once himself alone expose;
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.

'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
In Poets as true Genius is but rare,
True Taste as seldom is the Critic's share;
Both must alike from Heav'n derive their light,
These born to judge, as well as those to write.
Let such teach others who themselves excel,
And censure freely who have written well;
Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true,
But are not Critics to their judgment too?

Yet if we look more closely, we shall find
Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind:
Nature affords at least a glimm'ring light;
The lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right:
But as the slightest sketch, if justly traced,
Is by ill col'ring but the more disgraced,
So by false learning is good sense defaced:
Some are bewilder'd in the maze of schools,
And some made coxcombs Nature meant but fools:
In search of wit these lose their common sense,
And then turn Critics in their own defence:
Each burns alike, who can or cannot write,
Or with a rival's or an eunuch's spite.
All fools have still an itching to deride,
And fain would be upon the laughing side.
If Mævius scribble in Apollo's spite,
There are who judge still worse than he can write.

Some have at first for Wits, then Poets pass'd;
Turn'd Critics next, and prov'd plain Fools at last.
Some neither can for Wits nor Critics pass,
As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.
Those half-learn'd witlings, numerous in our isle,
As half-form'd insects on the banks of Nile;
Unfinish'd things, one knows not what to call,

[...] Read more

poem by Alexander Pope
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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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Aim at perfection, be satisfied with excellence

Aim at perfection
But be satisfied with excellence

As absolute perfection is
Unattainable
We say in science
Absolute zero is unattainable

Perfection means zero defects
In the product or outcome
And it means zero deviation
In the process and systems employed

While excellence in performance is
Being ahead of most of others
With regard to process and
Quality of the product
And this is achievable

It is well known and established that
Imperfection and randomness
Are the essence of survival
And the nature has all its biodiversity
Because of imperfection and
Deviation from the norms

Insistence on perfection
May lead to failures
And likely win you more foes than friends

You may even leave a scar in the hearts of
Your own people and friends
If you zero in on perfection only

The fact remains
There is no perfected art
There is no perfected process
There is no perfected write
All await your touch
And improvement therefrom

You do not compromise either
As you will be struggling to
Excel all others

Target at the best
Arrive at the best possible

poem by Bashyam Narayanan
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Colin Clouts Come Home Againe

Colin Clouts Come Home Againe
THe shepheards boy (best knowen by that name)
That after Tityrus first sung his lay,
Laies of sweet loue, without rebuke or blame,
Sate (as his custome was) vpon a day,
Charming his oaten pipe vnto his peres,
The shepheard swaines, that did about him play:
Who all the while with greedie listfull eares,
Did stand astonisht at his curious skill,
Like hartlesse deare, dismayed with thunders sound.
At last when as he piped had his fill,
He rested him: and sitting then around,
One of those groomes (a iolly groome was he,
As euer piped on an oaten reed,
And lou'd this shepheard dearest in degree,
Hight Hobbinol) gan thus to him areed.
Colin my liefe, my life, how great a losse
Had all the shepheards nation by thy lacke?
And I poore swaine of many greatest crosse:
That sith thy Muse first since thy turning backe
Was heard to sound as she was wont on hye,
Hast made vs all so blessed and so blythe.
Whilest thou wast hence, all dead in dole did lye:
The woods were heard to waile full many a sythe,
And all their birds with silence to complaine:
The fields with faded flowers did seem to mourne,
And all their flocks from feeding to refraine:
The running waters wept for thy returne,
And all their fish with langour did lament:
But now both woods and fields, and floods reuiue,
Sith thou art come, their cause of meriment,
That vs late dead, hast made againe aliue:
But were it not too painfull to repeat
The passed fortunes, which to thee befell
In thy late voyage, we thee would entreat,
Now at thy leisure them to vs to tell.
To whom the shepheard gently answered thus,
Hobbin thou temptest me to that I couet:
For of good passed newly to discus,
By dubble vsurie doth twise renew it.
And since I saw that Angels blessed eie,
Her worlds bright sun, her heauens fairest light,
My mind full of my thoughts satietie,
Doth feed on sweet contentment of that sight:
Since that same day in nought I take delight,
Ne feeling haue in any earthly pleasure,
But in remembrance of that glorious bright,
My lifes sole blisse, my hearts eternall threasure.
Wake then my pipe, my sleepie Muse awake,
Till I haue told her praises lasting long:

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poem by Edmund Spenser
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Perfect Lie/ You Are Loved The Way You Are

Stand in front of the mirror
Either boys or girls, some got depression
Try to find yourself underneath the reflection
Dissect each point, seek for perfection
Dreaming of perfection, adore some corrections

Never know the word of satisfy
Already beautiful but admire to modify
Don't you know who really you are?
You are loved by the way you are

Most of us rather see what appeared outside
always forgot to evaluate what lies inside
Most of us deceived by the open eyesight
always fooled because blinded heart-sight

Perfection makes everyone affected
Perfect one is what you wanted
Perfect lie is what you invented
Perfect word only a word that human created
A real you, that what you have neglected

Dear,
Don't feel down,
if u are blessed as jasmine flower
Why must you envy of that sunflower
I know, it is big, sweet yellow, catchy for eyes to look
But, don't you know sunflower adore the way you look?
Hypnotize fragrance by cute in white, posses its own hook
So unfair to compare the different beauty you both look

Jasmine, u never be sunflower even u dressed in yellow
The fake pigment will fade away soon
Sunflower, perfumed never make u placed in jasmine row
The artificial scent will gone before noon

No need to hear anyone to drag you down
Yet thou be like a rose, beauty guarded by thorns
Thankful to have what u have now
You always loved by who you are now
It is always good to be yourself
Better than lost yourself in your own lie

In fantasy, to taste perfection, perfect lie u got
In reality, perfection is only belong to God
And...you are always loved the way you are

*Note: U are beautiful, no matter what people say...
This is for everyone that think they are not good enough
in many aspects not limited to beauty perception

poem by Unwritten Soul
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