I am one of those for whom superfluity is a necessity.
quote by Theophile Gautier
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
The Soul Of The World
The beauty of the morning reflects to the innermost of the world.
To the most persuasive illumination of the color of the earth
That lure to the eyes of the evil one
The joyous day of the righteousness may behold the gleams of the spirit of the goodness.
The keenness of the righteous one defeat the malicious ambiance of the wicked one
The soul of the world will bring to the joyous bowel of the earth.
That gathers the positive reactions of human existence.
And the lustrous of positive point of views
Healed the chaotic nature of the soul of the world
And the rain and streams
Cannot efface or conceal
The beauty of the universe
It is the soul of the world
This cannot be separated to the consciousness of the human being
Don’t be stupefy of what you have done
Because the soul of the world conspire us to do such things
The diamantine of affections will lighted
and firm into the soul of the world
The diaphanous of the sky to the free flowing of the blood of martyrs
Praises the everlasting blood sheds of the flesh and the soul
The equivocal of the soul and existence
Resounded to the thoughts and to the soul of the human being
Behold the soul of the world
How can we face the world without the soul of the world?
It seems like to be ambiguous to the part of subjectivist
If what kind of soul where I meant to be
I am only referring to the inseparable conjunction of individual and world
If there were no soul of the world, there would be no necessity
Without necessity, no reason and no understanding
The nothing out of which the soul of the world came, is nothing without the world
Thus, the soul of the world is only necessary out of itself and through itself
But, the necessity of the soul of the world is the necessity of reason
Whatever we think it is not of our own action
It is an action of the soul of the world
Which the most profoundest and most essential necessity of reasons
If we think that, the mountains turn into mud
Without the necessity of reasons
Is like a white paper o tabularaza which have no truth value and material validity
But, if we think that the mountain would turn into dust
With the necessity of reasons
Is like a crystal clear does the truth value and the material validity had
Behold the soul of the world
The sweetness of the night coaxing the stars above
How sweet the soul of the world it is?
God knows this soul of the world conspire us
The wind and the sun tell us if how this soul of the world is important to us.
From the dark depths of the earth as far as to the shallowness of the universe
Reflect the goodness and necessities of the soul of the world
The dewdrops linger to the lips of the red rose in the battlefield
Entice the soul of the world to the chaotic and morbid
[...] Read more
poem by Vicente Añonuevo
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Crossroad Entente
The muzzy gloaming watched
Two lovers gliding past
The old serpentine road
Catching the last streaks of fire
Both hands interlaced,
Both hearts on the sleeves,
Both surreptitiously stealing the charms
Dangling on both wrists
And before the road unwinds
They sealed treason with a kiss;
The road pounced in hubris
The lovers embraced defeat
As they fall in love
With the sole idea of it
And divulge into a treaty
With the intertwining roads.
Whilst downhill, past the museum
Where the boulevard was a jungle
And the illuminations were low
But the premature stars were aglow
Cascading down the deathly hallow
A pack of wolves saunter
Reeking with carnal hunger
And the stuttering caveat
Espies for the periapt
Of a prospective prey
Drifting with a different starvation.
In the instigation of decision
Bloods will pact on the gravel
Another road will kill corrupt
The advances in one's path
Whose pathway, I'd like to know
The unruffled tresses of the hill
Cleared the lazy patios
For a vagabond wandering
In her gravid belly
And beneath the crimson firmament
At the summit of the tor's ripple
Stood the succulent temptation
Of stagnation, in the semblance
Of a plushy apple tree
And the nomadic dream
To be truly free
Chose the vacant atmosphere
Apt for a paper plane—less the liberty
And devoid of serendipity.
A profounder undertaking
For a severer toll.
[...] Read more
poem by Norman Santos
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Vicissitude II: Spring
The picador sun retires
And pants gloriously in his throne
His sweat quenched the drought;
Ocher turns to green and yellow
Marauding with the superfluity
Of palettes soused in nubile flowers—
A chateau of jaunty heraldries
And in the subterfuge of its alleys
I trampled in a quaint boudoir;
A loquacious room for a witling orchid
In the labyrinthine contours of the heather
I strife, I stride, I earnestly bristle
The verdure of saccharine spring time
But the pristine panoramic scene
Diverges a tatterdemalion man
Lost in dainty blossoming days
So I sifted through the prairies,
Ran across turfs, knolls, and valleys,
And slumber with a wilting orchid
The maelstrom of iridescent petals
That dabs the flagellating thorns
Oscillates like the sun and moon
With soporific lulls and inebriated
Pangs of melancholia in gnarls
Chagrined by the superfluity
Foreboding the dawn of debauchery
In the bosom of a redolent spring
poem by Norman Santos
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
To Pee and Review
On the surface,
We are close!
Friends mostly,
Out of necessity!
And for years...
It has been like this.
Our different points of views were missed!
Adrift in the air somewhere!
Caring...
Out of necessity.
Sharing...
Out of necessity.
Nudging each other to prejudge another!
Out of necessity!
And today our depths of thought,
Are on levels distant from seeing eye to eye.
Remember when we tried that...?
And I made you cry because 'you' asked for honesty?
And I didn't lie,
I was always me!
Believing we had each other's back!
And when you did that,
I was caught off track.
In fact...
I knew then we were in separate 'stations'
Traveling in the same direction,
But on different schedules!
Somehow...
We didn't allow each other a 'pitstop'!
To check things out!
'To pee and review'!
Getting real with our findings.
To return to discuss them with each other!
'Can we do that now? '
Where should we start?
We can either begin this ride together...again!
But this time,
Let's not take the scenic route!
That way didn't do anything for either one of us!
A memorable 'trip' requires the kind of adventure,
We obviously didn't share!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
As for plenty, we had not only for necessity, conveniency and decency, but for delight and pleasure to superfluity.
quote by Margaret Cavendish
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Charity
Fairest and foremost of the train that wait
On man's most dignified and happiest state,
Whether we name thee Charity or Love,
Chief grace below, and all in all above,
Prosper (I press thee with a powerful plea)
A task I venture on, impell’d by thee:
Oh never seen but in thy blest effects,
Or felt but in the soul that Heaven selects;
Who seeks to praise thee, and to make thee known
To other hearts, must have thee in his own.
Come, prompt me with benevolent desires,
Teach me to kindle at thy gentle fires,
And, though disgraced and slighted, to redeem
A poet’s name, by making thee the theme.
God, working ever on a social plan,
By various ties attaches man to man:
He made at first, though free and unconfined,
One man the common father of the kind;
That every tribe, though placed as he sees best,
Where seas or deserts part them from the rest,
Differing in language, manners, or in face,
Might feel themselves allied to all the race.
When Cook—lamented, and with tears as just
As ever mingled with heroic dust—
Steer’d Britain’s oak into a world unknown,
And in his country’s glory sought his own,
Wherever he found man to nature true,
The rights of man were sacred in his view;
He soothed with gifts, and greeted with a smile,
The simple native of the new-found isle;
He spurn’d the wretch that slighted or withstood
The tender argument of kindred blood;
Nor would endure that any should control
His freeborn brethren of the southern pole.
But, though some nobler minds a law respect,
That none shall with impunity neglect,
In baser souls unnumber’d evils meet,
To thwart its influence, and its end defeat.
While Cook is loved for savage lives he saved,
See Cortez odious for a world enslaved!
Where wast thou then, sweet Charity? where then,
Thou tutelary friend of helpless men?
Wast thou in monkish cells and nunneries found,
Or building hospitals on English ground?
No.—Mammon makes the world his legatee
Through fear, not love; and Heaven abhors the fee.
Wherever found (and all men need thy care),
Nor age, nor infancy could find thee there.
The hand that slew till it could slay no more,
Was glued to the sword-hilt with Indian gore.
[...] Read more
poem by William Cowper
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Act Out Bit Parts as Wit Departs after John Donne Meditation XVII Nunc lento sonitu dicunt morieris
Cloud cuckoo land where bland hands band against all authenticity,
there, playing ball before thrall's shawls eliminates lucidity.
Who waits awhile, stands, serves, won't free last long without dexterity -
which in itself suspicions casts whate'er one's assiduity.
Though almost fifty years have sped since Orwell paper penned to see
what hidden time-traps lay ahead - if writ today the same would be
as relevant or more. Where fed still silent mass majority
clings to and through employment bread with slight sustainability.
Every man an island is unto himself, or so should be,
yet many abdicate their fate, cede self-respect and liberty.
Each to each together chained, suspecting self-sufficiency;
by rigid rules, conventions, penned - dumb shadows in Democracy.
When compromising breezes blend, most bend, to please society,
trends ill to curse where currents tend that set sad score for sanity.
Should stout voice shout out from closed shop hive to doubt respectability,
we flout it lest it compromise our own invincibility.
Ignoring soul-song's anguished sighs most sacrifice ability,
conforming fear cut ties, hope dies - lip-service preserves stability.
Impeached, tried, sentenced, while rich thrive and undermine equality,
most stifle stranger's signal sighs 'there's none so blind as will not see! '
In restive rows, mechanic chain, men chafe forever to be free,
it rankles, goes against the grain, God: global productivity!
Tired, tied to task, most wills expend as ciphers in some factory,
or jobless, friendless, on social skills depend meal wheels of industry.
From dawn to dusk husk men mark time imprisoned intellectually,
as tiny cogs flywheels attend - a terrifying sight to see.
Pensions devalued, most descend to penniless impotency,
health in tatters, wealth at end, as social superfluity.
Where Government sets our stipend to suit its sensitivity.
Why do annuities ascend? electoral necessity.
Should one question this and that? Ideals are incongruity
to uncommitted bureaucrat who kills with calm complacency.
Though Internet for change once whet our appetites, 'authority'
lies heavier than lead inset upon the space we'd trace as free.
Mass media most minds has fed with blatant mediocrity,
environment and climate bled by sub-committee potpourri.
The generations now instead of freedom find RFID
reduces categories read, teach each reach barred identity.
Respecting pensions, these are spread so thinly through life's lottery,
the turf is bogged, no thoroughbred may speed with legitimity.
[...] Read more
poem by Jonathan Robin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Four Seasons : Autumn
Crown'd with the sickle and the wheaten sheaf,
While Autumn, nodding o'er the yellow plain,
Comes jovial on; the Doric reed once more,
Well pleased, I tune. Whate'er the wintry frost
Nitrous prepared; the various blossom'd Spring
Put in white promise forth; and Summer-suns
Concocted strong, rush boundless now to view,
Full, perfect all, and swell my glorious theme.
Onslow! the Muse, ambitious of thy name,
To grace, inspire, and dignify her song,
Would from the public voice thy gentle ear
A while engage. Thy noble cares she knows,
The patriot virtues that distend thy thought,
Spread on thy front, and in thy bosom glow;
While listening senates hang upon thy tongue,
Devolving through the maze of eloquence
A roll of periods, sweeter than her song.
But she too pants for public virtue, she,
Though weak of power, yet strong in ardent will,
Whene'er her country rushes on her heart,
Assumes a bolder note, and fondly tries
To mix the patriot's with the poet's flame.
When the bright Virgin gives the beauteous days,
And Libra weighs in equal scales the year;
From Heaven's high cope the fierce effulgence shook
Of parting Summer, a serener blue,
With golden light enliven'd, wide invests
The happy world. Attemper'd suns arise,
Sweet-beam'd, and shedding oft through lucid clouds
A pleasing calm; while broad, and brown, below
Extensive harvests hang the heavy head.
Rich, silent, deep, they stand; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain:
A calm of plenty! till the ruffled air
Falls from its poise, and gives the breeze to blow.
Rent is the fleecy mantle of the sky;
The clouds fly different; and the sudden sun
By fits effulgent gilds the illumined field,
And black by fits the shadows sweep along.
A gaily chequer'd heart-expanding view,
Far as the circling eye can shoot around,
Unbounded tossing in a flood of corn.
These are thy blessings, Industry! rough power!
Whom labour still attends, and sweat, and pain;
Yet the kind source of every gentle art,
And all the soft civility of life:
Raiser of human kind! by Nature cast,
Naked, and helpless, out amid the woods
And wilds, to rude inclement elements;
With various seeds of art deep in the mind
[...] Read more
poem by James Thomson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
RagDoll
How you feelin'?
The day has had its way with both of us
And no
I've gone out of my way
But I'm not free
From this pain I'm reelin'
I was a fool to think someday you would come around
But no no no
I'm not thinkin' that way
'Cause now I see
You are not what you seem
You are a mystery to me
Sometimes I just wanna scream
I think you should just go away 'cause
There's no necessity for you to stay, yeah
Next time you come around my way
Forget it baby, you're not comin' in
How's your day been, yeah
'Cause mine has taken strange and lovely turns
But no no no
I feel better today
'Cause I'm off my knees
You are not what you seem
You are a mystery to me
Sometimes I just wanna scream, yeah
I think you should just go away 'cause
There's no necessity for you to stay, yeah
Next time you come around my way
Forget it baby, you're not comin' in
A heart ready for a lot of sorrow
No you can't come back tomorrow
Shut my windows, lock my doors
'Cause my heart won't be your ragdoll anymore
Yeah I think you should just go away 'cause
There's no necessity for you to stay, yeah
Next time you come around my way
Forget it baby, you're not comin' in
A heart ready for a lot of sorrow
No you can't come back tomorrow
Shut my windows, lock my doors
'Cause my heart won't be your ragdoll anymore
song performed by Maroon 5
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Happy Dust
For Margot
Snow that fallest from heaven, bear me aloft on thy wings
To the domes of the star-girdled Seven, the abode of
ineffable things,
Quintessence of joy and of strength, that, abolishing
future and past,
Mak'st the Present an infinite length, my soul all-One
with the Vast,
The Lone, the Unnameable God, that is ice of His
measureless cold,
Without being or form or abode, without motion or
matter, the fold
Where the shepherded Universe sleeps, with nor sense
nor delusion nor dream,
No spirit that wantons or weeps, no thought in its silence
supreme.
I sit, and am utterly still; in mine eyes is my fathomless
lust
Ablaze to annihilate Will, to crumble my being to dust,
To calcine the dust to an ash, to burn up the ash to an air,
To abolish the air with a flash of the final, the fulminant
flare.
All this I have done, and dissolved the primordial germ
of my thought;
I have rolled myself up, and revolved the wheel of my
being to Naught.
Is there even the memory left? That I was, that I am?
It is lost.
As I utter the Word, I am cleft by the last swift spear of
the frost.
Snow! I am nothing at last; I sit, and am utterly still;
They are perished, the phantoms, and past; they were
born of my weariness-will
When I craved, craved being and form, when the con-
sciousness-cloud was a mist
Precurser of stupor and storm, when I and my shadow
had kissed,
And brought into life all the shapes that confused the
clear space with their marks,
Vain spectres whose vapour escapes, a whirlwind of
ruinous sparks,
No substance have any of these; I have dreamed them in
sickness of lust,
Delirium born of disease-ah, whence was the master,
the "must"
Imposed on the All? is it true, then, that
something in me
Is subject to fate? Are there two, after all,
[...] Read more
poem by Aleister Crowley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
To Count Carlo Pepoli
This wearisome and this distressing sleep
That we call life, O how dost thou support,
My Pepoli? With what hopes feedest thou
Thy heart? Say in what thoughts, and in what deeds,
Agreeable or sad, dost thou invest
The idleness thy ancestors bequeathed
To thee, a dull and heavy heritage?
All life, indeed, in every walk of life,
Is idleness, if we may give that name
To every work achieved, or effort made,
That has no worthy aim in view, or fails
That aim to reach. And if you idle call
The busy crew, that daily we behold,
From tranquil morn unto the dewy eve,
Behind the plough, or tending plants and flocks,
Because they live simply to keep alive,
And life is worthless for itself alone,
The honest truth you speak. His nights and days
The pilot spends in idleness; the toil
And sweat in workshops are but idleness;
The soldier's vigils, perils of the field,
The eager merchant's cares are idle all;
Because true happiness, for which alone
Our mortal nature longs and strives, no man,
Or for himself, or others, e'er acquires
Through toil or sweat, through peril, or through care.
Yet for this fierce desire, which mortals still
From the beginning of the world have felt,
But ever felt in vain, for happiness,
By way of soothing remedy devised,
Nature, in this unhappy life of ours,
Had manifold necessities prepared,
Not without thought or labor satisfied;
So that the days, though ever sad, less dull
Might seem unto the human family;
And this desire, bewildered and confused,
Might have less power to agitate the heart.
So, too, the various families of brutes,
Who have, no less than we, and vainly, too,
Desire for happiness; but they, intent
On that which is essential to their life,
Consume their days more pleasantly, by far,
Nor chide, with us, the dulness of the hours.
But _we_, who unto other hands commit
The furnishing of our immediate wants,
Have a necessity more grave to meet,
For which no other ever can provide,
With ennui laden, and with suffering;
The stern necessity of killing time;
That cruel, obstinate necessity,
[...] Read more
poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Aurobindo 74 Savitri Book 4
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Four: The Book of Birth and Quest
Canto One: The Birth and Childhood of the Flame
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'Arrived upon the strange and dubious globe
The child remembering inly a far home
Lived guarded in her spirit's luminous cell, '
'Harmoniously she impressed the earth with heaven.'
'Each minute was a throb of beauty's heart; '
'Near was her spirit to its parent Sun,
The Breath within to the eternal joy.'
Such was Savitri, such was fate's necessity..
'An occult godhead of this beauty is cause,
The spirit and intimate guest of all this charm, '
'Invisibly protected from our sense'
'This at a heavenlier height was shown in her.'
'An invisible sunlight ran within her veins
And flooded her brain with heavenly brilliances
That woke a wider sight than earth could know.'
Such was Savitri, such was fate's necessity..
'Outlined in the sincerity of that ray
Her springing childlike thoughts were richly turned
Into luminous patterns of her soul's deep truth,
And from her eyes she cast another look
On all around her than man's ignorant view.'
'For with a greater Nature she was one.'
'A new epiphany appeared in her.'
Such was Savitri, such was fate's necessity..
'And when the slow rhyme of the expanding years'
'Had honey-packed her sense and filled her limbs, '
Her solitary greatness was not less.
Many high gods dwelt in one beautiful home;
Yet was her nature's orb a perfect whole,
Immense and various like a universe.....
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Moment Of Transition
In all lives
where great character
is attained...
comes a moment
requiring
exceptional transition.
Sometimes
historically to achieve
something revolutionary...
profoundly better
something imminently bad
must transpire first.
Not to recognize
the necessity
effort required...
to alleviate
inhuman pain
is an inherent evil.
Not to recognize
the personal necessity;
required to alleviate...
inhuman catastrophic pain;
when possible is to exhibit
callous inhuman indifference.
Not to individually make
a stand for our fellow man;
during times exhibiting...
evil in excessive transition;
is the most destructive tragedy
inditing the entire human race.
Not to recognize
the personal necessity;
necessary in submitting to risk...
this enacting pain of transition;
sacrifice which must be taken
is the most destructive tragedy of all.
Copyright © Terence George Craddock
See also Stone Cross Prologue, Stone Cross, A Moral Civilized World, Peaked Cap; Skull-And-Crossbones Badge, Dagmar Topf: A Defence Of Family Furnaces and Struck Down With A Thunderbolt.
The topic of this poem addresses inhuman regimes such as Nazi Germany and the moral obligation of free governments and individuals to resist them. Herman Göring, ordered SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, to begin The Final Solution on July 31 1941. Heydrich organizes The Wannsee Conference, for January 20 1942, the date generally agreed upon as the start of the Holocaust.
The exhibited ‘callous inhuman indifference’ mentioned, can perhaps best be understood with reference to a quotation from George Orwell, reflecting on the coming of World War II. Orwell said “When one thinks of the lies and betrayals of those years, the cynical abandonment of one ally after another, the imbecile optimism of the Tory press, the flat refusal to believe that dictators meant war, even when they shouted it from house tops, the inability of the moneyed class to see anything wrong whatever in concentration camps, ghettoes, massacres, and undeclared wars, one is driven to feel that moral decadence played its part as well as mere stupidity.”
poem by Terence George Craddock
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Bishop Blougram's Apology
No more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk.
A final glass for me, though: cool, i' faith!
We ought to have our Abbey back, you see.
It's different, preaching in basilicas,
And doing duty in some masterpiece
Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart!
I doubt if they're half baked, those chalk rosettes,
Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere;
It's just like breathing in a lime-kiln: eh?
These hot long ceremonies of our church
Cost us a little—oh, they pay the price,
You take me—amply pay it! Now, we'll talk.
So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs.
No deprecation—nay, I beg you, sir!
Beside 't is our engagement: don't you know,
I promised, if you'd watch a dinner out,
We'd see truth dawn together?—truth that peeps
Over the glasses' edge when dinner's done,
And body gets its sop and holds its noise
And leaves soul free a little. Now's the time:
Truth's break of day! You do despise me then.
And if I say, "despise me"—never fear!
1 know you do not in a certain sense—
Not in my arm-chair, for example: here,
I well imagine you respect my place
(Status, entourage, worldly circumstance)
Quite to its value—very much indeed:
—Are up to the protesting eyes of you
In pride at being seated here for once—
You'll turn it to such capital account!
When somebody, through years and years to come,
Hints of the bishop—names me—that's enough:
"Blougram? I knew him"—(into it you slide)
"Dined with him once, a Corpus Christi Day,
All alone, we two; he's a clever man:
And after dinner—why, the wine you know—
Oh, there was wine, and good!—what with the wine . . .
'Faith, we began upon all sorts of talk!
He's no bad fellow, Blougram; he had seen
Something of mine he relished, some review:
He's quite above their humbug in his heart,
Half-said as much, indeed—the thing's his trade.
I warrant, Blougram's sceptical at times:
How otherwise? I liked him, I confess!"
Che che, my dear sir, as we say at Rome,
Don't you protest now! It's fair give and take;
You have had your turn and spoken your home-truths:
The hand's mine now, and here you follow suit.
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from Men and Women (1855)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
VIII. Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator
Ah, my Giacinto, he's no ruddy rogue,
Is not Cinone? What, to-day we're eight?
Seven and one's eight, I hope, old curly-pate!
—Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,
Amo-as-avi-atum-are-ans,
Up to -aturus, person, tense, and mood,
Quies me cum subjunctivo (I could cry)
And chews Corderius with his morning crust!
Look eight years onward, and he's perched, he's perched
Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair,
Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?
—Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case
Like this, papa shall triturate full soon
To smooth Papinianian pulp!
It trots
Already through my head, though noon be now,
Does supper-time and what belongs to eve.
Dispose, O Don, o' the day, first work then play!
—The proverb bids. And "then" means, won't we hold
Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast,
Cinuolo's birth-night, Cinicello's own,
That makes gruff January grin perforce!
For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth
Escaping from so many hearts at once—
When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,
Jokes the hale grandsire,—such are just the sort
To go off suddenly,—he who hides the key
O' the box beneath his pillow every night,—
Which box may hold a parchment (someone thinks)
Will show a scribbled something like a name
"Cinino, Ciniccino," near the end,
"To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,
"Estates, tenements, hereditaments,
"When I decease as honest grandsire ought."
Wherefore—yet this one time again perhaps—
Shan't my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!
Then, uncles, one or the other, well i' the world,
May—drop in, merely?—trudge through rain and wind,
Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint
There's cookery in a certain dwelling-place!
Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,
Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,
And so find door, put galligaskin off
At entry of a decent domicile
Cornered in snug Condotti,—all for love,
All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!
Well,
Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp!
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A superfluity of wealth, and a train of domestic slaves, naturally banish a sense of general liberty, and nourish the seeds of that kind of independence that usually terminates in aristocracy.
quote by Mercy Otis Warren
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Castaway
Poor little diary, with its simple thoughts,
its good resolves, its "Studied French an hour,"
"Read Modern History," "Trimmed up my grey hat,"
"Darned stockings," "Tatted," "Practised my new song,"
"Went to the daily service," "Took Bess soup,"
"Went out to tea." Poor simple diary!
and did I write it? Was I this good girl,
this budding colourless young rose of home?
did I so live content in such a life,
seeing no larger scope, nor asking it,
than this small constant round -- old clothes to mend,
new clothes to make, then go and say my prayers,
or carry soup, or take a little walk
and pick the ragged-robins in the hedge?
Then for ambition, (was there ever life
that could forego that?) to improve my mind
and know French better and sing harder songs;
for gaiety, to go, in my best white
well washed and starched and freshened with new bows,
and take tea out to meet the clergyman.
No wishes and no cares, almost no hopes,
only the young girl's hazed and golden dreams
that veil the Future from her.
So long since:
and now it seems a jest to talk of me
as if I could be one with her, of me
who am ...... me.
And what is that? My looking-glass
answers it passably; a woman sure,
no fiend, no slimy thing out of the pools,
a woman with a ripe and smiling lip
that has no venom in its touch I think,
with a white brow on which there is no brand;
a woman none dare call not beautiful,
not womanly in every woman's grace.
Aye let me feed upon my beauty thus,
be glad in it like painters when they see
at last the face they dreamed but could not find
look from their canvass on them, triumph in it,
the dearest thing I have. Why, 'tis my all,
let me make much of it: is it not this,
this beauty, my own curse at once and tool
to snare men's souls -- (I know what the good say
of beauty in such creatures) -- is it not this
that makes me feel myself a woman still,
some little pride, some little --
[...] Read more
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Ruins of Rome, by Bellay
1
Ye heavenly spirits, whose ashy cinders lie
Under deep ruins, with huge walls opprest,
But not your praise, the which shall never die
Through your fair verses, ne in ashes rest;
If so be shrilling voice of wight alive
May reach from hence to depth of darkest hell,
Then let those deep Abysses open rive,
That ye may understand my shreiking yell.
Thrice having seen under the heavens' vail
Your tomb's devoted compass over all,
Thrice unto you with loud voice I appeal,
And for your antique fury here do call,
The whiles that I with sacred horror sing,
Your glory, fairest of all earthly thing.
2
Great Babylon her haughty walls will praise,
And sharpèd steeples high shot up in air;
Greece will the old Ephesian buildings blaze;
And Nylus' nurslings their Pyramids fair;
The same yet vaunting Greece will tell the story
Of Jove's great image in Olympus placed,
Mausolus' work will be the Carian's glory,
And Crete will boast the Labybrinth, now 'rased;
The antique Rhodian will likewise set forth
The great Colosse, erect to Memory;
And what else in the world is of like worth,
Some greater learnèd wit will magnify.
But I will sing above all monuments
Seven Roman Hills, the world's seven wonderments.
3
Thou stranger, which for Rome in Rome here seekest,
And nought of Rome in Rome perceiv'st at all,
These same old walls, old arches, which thou seest,
Old Palaces, is that which Rome men call.
Behold what wreak, what ruin, and what waste,
And how that she, which with her mighty power
Tam'd all the world, hath tam'd herself at last,
The prey of time, which all things doth devour.
Rome now of Rome is th' only funeral,
And only Rome of Rome hath victory;
Ne ought save Tyber hastening to his fall
Remains of all: O world's inconstancy.
[...] Read more
poem by Edmund Spenser
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!