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I suppose young people think football is glamorous - soccer - it's big money and the stars of it, they look good and have a great big house and a huge Ferrari.

quote by Bryan Ferry
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Soccer Under 20

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poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
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Soccer Rollback

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poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
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Sobre Horizontes

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poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
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University Of Central Florida Volleyball

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poem by Caasder Fronds
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Soboba

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poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
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Veterinary Camps

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poem by Caasder Fronds
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Twin State

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poem by Caasder Fronds
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Soccer–Passion Song

Soccer–Passion Song

Soccer in the evening;
Soccer in the morning;
Soccer in spring and fall.

Soccer in the raining;
Soccer in the snowing;
Soccer in winter and summer.

Soccer in between my feet,
where I walk;
Soccer in my heart and mind,
how I live;
Soccer my love and life.

Soccer I wake up and play;
Soccer I hold it to sleep;
Soccer my work and rest.

Soccer I sing a new song;
Soccer I dance the magic steps;
Soccer my tears and joy.

Soccer my Mom buys it for me to play;
Soccer my Dad brings me to the game;
Soccer my dear Love watches me to score.

Soccer I dribble and shoot;
Soccer I pass and fall;
Soccer my glory and downfall.

Soccer I strike to attack;
Soccer I tackle to defend;
Soccer my struggle and survival.

Soccer I receive the flags and the whistles;
Soccer I get the yellow and red card;
Soccer my moves and stop.

Soccer I meet my friends;
Soccer I make my enemies;
Soccer my conflict and peace.

Soccer I play and watch;
Soccer I watch but cannot play;
Soccer my dream and reality.

Soccer I learn the rights;
Soccer I confess the fouls;

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poem by Laijon Liu
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Using Boot Camp

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poem by Caasder Fronds
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Allegany Camp

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poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
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Canto the First

I
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.

II
Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
And fill'd their sign posts then, like Wellesley now;
Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk,
Followers of fame, "nine farrow" of that sow:
France, too, had Buonaparté and Dumourier
Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.

III
Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,
Were French, and famous people, as we know:
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,
With many of the military set,
Exceedingly remarkable at times,
But not at all adapted to my rhymes.

IV
Nelson was once Britannia's god of war,
And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd;
There's no more to be said of Trafalgar,
'T is with our hero quietly inurn'd;
Because the army's grown more popular,
At which the naval people are concern'd;
Besides, the prince is all for the land-service,
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.

V
Brave men were living before Agamemnon
And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;
But then they shone not on the poet's page,
And so have been forgotten:—I condemn none,
But can't find any in the present age
Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);
So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan.

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poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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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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:

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poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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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Love Island

House house, house house
House house, house house
House house, house house
House house, house house
House house, house house
House house, house house
House house, house house
House house, house house
House, house, house, house
House, house, house, house
House, house, house, house
House, house, house, house
House house house house, house house house house
House house house house, house house house house
House
House
House

song performed by Fatboy Slim
Added by Lucian Velea
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Wednesday's Child (Sheffield Wednesday Soccer Club)

It eats soccer. It breathes soccer. It lives soccer. It fades when it's team fades and it blooms when it's team blooms. It has the letters S.W. permanently etched upon it's brain and it probably even arranges it's Monopoly money in S.W. formations. What is it, you ask? It's a soccer fan. You knew that, didn't you? But it isn't just any soccer fan. It is specifically a Sheffield Wednesday soccer fan. Or addict, for want of a better word.

Yes, of course, even I know about Liverpool, Everton, Arsenal and Man. United fans. They're the normal, run-of-the-mill type but Owls supporters are really Something Else!

I have had the somewhat dubious good fortune of becoming rather well acquainted with one of these strange 'animals' but until today, I'd managed to evade any one-to-one discourse on the merits or demerits of one man's passion for his team. On the face of it, you could say I asked for it. In a weak moment, I queried how his team had fared over the past week or so. It was like asking a hypochondriac the state of his health.

Well, there I was, supposedly having a cup of tea with his wife, my friend Sheila. But Sheila knew the signs and, together with two equally clued-up daughters, had opportunely beaten a hasty retreat into the garden. They had long since paid their dues. Now, it was my turn.

It was a reasonably tentative beginning. It is more than probable that Ken, the addict, suspected I would never stay the course but feeling somewhat emotionally trapped by the knowledge that he had no sons with whom to share his enthrallment of the game, what else could I do but don my interested-looking mask, take a deep breath and settle back to hear him out. By tacit consent, we both knew that I was a victim of sorts. Destiny rides again!

My heart sunk a little when I realised that he was starting from scratch. From the actual day when his team first started playing. His enthusiasm was boundless but somehow I found myself becoming absorbed in what he was saying. His eyes took on a bright, azure sparkle and his mouth was motoring at twice the speed of sound as it travelled back and forth in time. I stared in mute fascination. This was for real! This was the guy's life. Dear Lord, where was I when enthusiasm for anything was dished out? I raised my eyes Heavenwards and found myself looking straight into those of a grey, woolly owl who was peering down at me from a built-in show-case. The Sheffield Wednesday Football Club mascot. I knew I was a gonner when I found myself asking how the Club had come to be so named.

Sheffield Wednesday, as we know it today, Ken told me, came into being in 1867 as the football section of the Wednesday Cricket Club, which had been in existence since 1820. The cricket club had been the creation of a group of Sheffield craftsmen who gave it the name 'Wednesday' for the simple reason that that was the day when they took regular afternoons off to pursue their sporting enthusiasms.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the meeting at which the football section was formed took place on a Wednesday and this, at a local sporting pub, The Adelphi. Members of the cricket club called the meeting because they wanted a way of keeping everybody together during the winter months but the step was probably partly inspired by the dramatic increase in football's popularity in the town over the previous ten years.

Ken's eyes misted over somewhat as he proudly told me that it had been Sheffield who had led the way in organised football even before the birth of the national FA in 1863. So Wednesday no doubt felt it appropriate to have their own football section. At the very least, it would mean that their players would not be tempted to drift off to other clubs at the end of the summer and forget to return in the following spring.

The founders could not have imagined that the infant football section would become the dominant partner. So strong, in fact, that within sixteen years it would break free and Wednesday Football Club would become one of the most famous names in English football - and a force in the professional game to boot (no pun intended!) Would they also have believed that the Cricket Club would survive only until 1924 and then die through lack of support, so that today, it is all but forgotten.

By now, there was no doubt that Ken knew he had my attention for I was leaning forward in my chair, hanging onto every word. Vortex-like, my concentration was being pulled and drawn into the centre of what could only be described as the secret world of the soccer-addict; a passionate and breathtaking intensity which would encompass anything related thereto, from a humble soccer boot to a moth-eaten ticket to some long-ago and memorable match played.

'Look! ' he said, paging through a well-thumbed book, 'here's a picture of Wednesday's first match at Olive Grove. This site was bought from the Duke of Norfolk. Did you know that? ' As if I would! But no reply was necessary as he pressed on regardless to tell me about how officials at the time were unable to persuade either Preston or Aston Villa to provide the opposition for a match but Blackburn Rovers did decide to accept the invitation to play. Things weren't going too well but I wanted to fall off my chair to show him how thrilled I was too when Wednesday recovered from a three-goal deficit to draw 4-4 but he wouldn't have noticed. He was in another world.

And then he was down in the depths again as he showed me pictures of headlines proclaiming how Dooley had broken his leg at Deepdale way back in 1953. It was to be the end of the big centre-forward's career. Oh, shame, Ken, I said. And I really meant it.

1954-55 proved to be a disastrous season with Wednesday finishing bottom of the table, nine points below relegation companions Leicester City. The Owls won only 8 games, losing 24 and conceding 100 goals. However, Ken assured me, they won the Second Division Championship in 1955-56 with three points to spare and in the following season they finished mid-table. But, oh dear, by 1957-58 they were down again. The Addict's voice faded and I thought he had been called by the angels.

'And then....? ' I encouraged. Momentarily, he seemed to surface.

'Go on, get along with you, ' he said with a half-smile, 'you're not really interested.'

'Oh, I am, I am, ' I protested gamely, whereupon he went on to tell me all about the so-called bribes scandal or betting-coup revelations which broke in the Sunday newspapers of 1964. Not only did Wednesday suffer in terms of its reputation but it also lost two of its best players.

The situation sounded sufficiently grave for me to try my mournful-look but no, it wasn't necessary as The Addict changed course and went on to tell me the good news about how in 1971, that bloke Dooley, (who'd broken his leg 18 years or so earlier and subsequently had to have it amputated) had been made manager of the club. He was still an idol in the city and the folk-hero of Hillsborough. But his magic was limited and he proved that he was as human as anyone else in his lack of anticipated performance.

But Sheila was rattling crockery in the kitchen and the thought of a nice cup of tea was becoming more and more enticing. Escape was out of the question. We still had about twenty years more to work through! There's a limit to a body's endurance and a feminine mind's appreciation of a predominantly masculine interest.

So, a little less stoically now, I went 'up' with the Owls and 'down' with the Owls as we travelled through from one Division to another over a timespan of many years. But much of their pain was to dissolve in relief when in 1985, they reached their highest position for 25 years by coming fifth in the FA Cup semi-Final. Even if they did lose to Everton.

In that same year, Wednesday were to equalise in the dying seconds of the match with Chelsea. They were 3-O up at half-time and I can well imagine how Ken had nearly fallen off his chair when hearing on the BBC World Service later that evening that the game had ended at 4-4. He still hasn't got over the sheer horror of it all.

There was no stopping him now and I just had to give in and hear about how the next time round, Chelsea lost the toss with the Owls' Chairman tossing the coin and the replay going to Stamford Bridge. Wednesday lost 2-1 proving that the Chelsea bogey had struck again. 'We can't even beat a bunch of pensioners, ' the Addict grinned. I was impressed by his ability not to take himself and his beloved team too seriously.

'And last year, you actually visited the Club, didn't you? ' I asked, determined to hastily gobble up the few remaining years so that I could go and have my tea. I knew of course that the highlight of his addicthood had been when Wednesday were promoted to First Division by beating Man. United in the Rumbelows League Cup Final at Wembley and didn't want to go into all that lot again. Like I said, there's a limit........

'Ah yes, ' he replied dreamily. Even he was beginning to tire. But no, not yet. I had a feeling we were about to move into extra time. More like injury-time, one would say.

'Come, ' he said, leading me towards a cupboard filled with everything and anything that could have any association whatsoever with his team. I'd seen it all before and I would see it again, but there's an indisputable thrill of sharing both old-time and current mementoes and memorabilia of a soccer club, some six thousand miles away, right here in the living room of one of its most ardent supporters.

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poem by Margaret Kollmer
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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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II. Half-Rome

What, you, Sir, come too? (Just the man I'd meet.)
Be ruled by me and have a care o' the crowd:
This way, while fresh folk go and get their gaze:
I'll tell you like a book and save your shins.
Fie, what a roaring day we've had! Whose fault?
Lorenzo in Lucina,—here's a church
To hold a crowd at need, accommodate
All comers from the Corso! If this crush
Make not its priests ashamed of what they show
For temple-room, don't prick them to draw purse
And down with bricks and mortar, eke us out
The beggarly transept with its bit of apse
Into a decent space for Christian ease,
Why, to-day's lucky pearl is cast to swine.
Listen and estimate the luck they've had!
(The right man, and I hold him.)

Sir, do you see,
They laid both bodies in the church, this morn
The first thing, on the chancel two steps up,
Behind the little marble balustrade;
Disposed them, Pietro the old murdered fool
To the right of the altar, and his wretched wife
On the other side. In trying to count stabs,
People supposed Violante showed the most,
Till somebody explained us that mistake;
His wounds had been dealt out indifferent where,
But she took all her stabbings in the face,
Since punished thus solely for honour's sake,
Honoris causâ, that's the proper term.
A delicacy there is, our gallants hold,
When you avenge your honour and only then,
That you disfigure the subject, fray the face,
Not just take life and end, in clownish guise.
It was Violante gave the first offence,
Got therefore the conspicuous punishment:
While Pietro, who helped merely, his mere death
Answered the purpose, so his face went free.
We fancied even, free as you please, that face
Showed itself still intolerably wronged;
Was wrinkled over with resentment yet,
Nor calm at all, as murdered faces use,
Once the worst ended: an indignant air
O' the head there was—'t is said the body turned
Round and away, rolled from Violante's side
Where they had laid it loving-husband-like.
If so, if corpses can be sensitive,
Why did not he roll right down altar-step,
Roll on through nave, roll fairly out of church,
Deprive Lorenzo of the spectacle,

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Canto the Second

I
Oh ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,
It mends their morals, never mind the pain:
The best of mothers and of educations
In Juan's case were but employ'd in vain,
Since, in a way that's rather of the oddest, he
Became divested of his native modesty.

II
Had he but been placed at a public school,
In the third form, or even in the fourth,
His daily task had kept his fancy cool,
At least, had he been nurtured in the north;
Spain may prove an exception to the rule,
But then exceptions always prove its worth -—
A lad of sixteen causing a divorce
Puzzled his tutors very much, of course.

III
I can't say that it puzzles me at all,
If all things be consider'd: first, there was
His lady-mother, mathematical,
A—never mind; his tutor, an old ass;
A pretty woman (that's quite natural,
Or else the thing had hardly come to pass);
A husband rather old, not much in unity
With his young wife—a time, and opportunity.

IV
Well—well, the world must turn upon its axis,
And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails,
And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails;
The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us,
The priest instructs, and so our life exhales,
A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame,
Fighting, devotion, dust,—perhaps a name.

V
I said that Juan had been sent to Cadiz -—
A pretty town, I recollect it well -—
'T is there the mart of the colonial trade is
(Or was, before Peru learn'd to rebel),
And such sweet girls—I mean, such graceful ladies,
Their very walk would make your bosom swell;
I can't describe it, though so much it strike,
Nor liken it—I never saw the like:

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poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
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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,

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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