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I prefer the rather old and battered, things with character, to the brand new.

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Wislawa Szymborska

Possibilities

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here
to many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

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Brand New Game

Saw you talk near the slots
And I got a brand new game
Running down the alley with an hour you bought
From a man with no last name
Like an idiot animal
Too stupid to shame
Got a brand new game
Got a brand new, brand new game
Got a brand new game
Got a brand new game
Ape man in a cave
Painting on the wall
Nothings gonna keep the visions menacing glances
And nothing thats got it all
From gazing over to where hope sleeps
Artificially small
Like a beast to tame
Got a brand new game
Got a brand new, brand new game
Got a brand new game
Got a brand new game
Now monkey is alright?
Come on
Ones never enough, twos always a crowd
I got a mindful scoping the slide?
And a glass side nature mane?
Everythings impossible
Theres nothing to do
But oppose this road remain?
Push the point to oblivion
And keep turning the plane
Got a brand new game
Got a brand new, brand new game
Got a brand new game
Got a brand new game

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Brand New

Brand new, its brand new for you
Brand new, its brand new for you
Brand new, its brand new for you
Brand new, its brand new for you
Deep inside you will find
Something that you wont mind
Think about diamond rings and goldfronts combined
Then go back go way back
Something passed that you lack
Well Ive got brand new scooby snack just for you
Brand new, its brand new for you(x4)
Deep inside you will find
Something that you wont mind
Think about diamond rings and goldfronts combined
Then go back go way back
Something passed that you lack
Well Ive got brand new scooby snack just for you
Sabrosa
Brand new, its brand new for you (x4)

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Brand New Morning

It's a brand new morning of a brand new day.
It's a brand new chance to make it all work out some way.
Hey! It's a brand new morning and a brand new smile.
It's some brand new things you just might see in a while;
Then your life takes on a bright new shiny style.
Forget the past now, it's an ancient history.
It's a time to be reborn, it's a time for being free.
Someone might be waiting here outside where you can see-
And you just might see -
Yeah, you just might see -
That it's a brand new morning with a brand new sun,
And it's just as warm for you as it is for everyone.
Don't just walk, come on, get it on, get on the run.
It's a brand new morning, ooh, it's a brand new day.
Forget the past now, it's an ancient history.
It's a time to be reborn, it's a time for being free.
Someone might be waiting here outside where you can see -
And you just might see -
Yeah, you just might see -
That it's a brand new morning with a brand new sun,
And it's just as warm for you as it is for everyone.
Don't just walk, come on, get it on, get on the run.
It's a brand new morning, ooh, it's a brand new day.

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Brand New Me

(Kris Bergsnes/Lee Thomas Miller)
That morning sun was burnin' in my eyes
I could see a brand new day
And all the hurt and anger weighin' on my heart
Had begun to drift away
I saw it written on a church marquee as I drove into town
Said today's a new beginning friend
And I had to laugh out loud, 'cause there's no doubt
I'm a brand new me
I've been shattered by the storm but I survived
I'm a brand new me
I found a revelation in the tears I cried
I opened up my eyes
Oh, what a change I see
I'm a brand new me
There's a warrior and a victim living deep
Inside all of us
We have to choose to fight or surrender
When the world beats us up
I know where my weakness lies,
but I know it's a fight that I can win
I may get broken trying to get up
But I can't wait to start again, I'm gonna start again
I'm a brand new me
I've been shattered by the storm but I survived
I'm a brand new me
I found a revelation in the tears I cried
I opened up my eyes
Oh, what a change I see
I'm a brand new me
Days come and go, yeah they come
and go like a road with no end
Hope fades but never dies
Just look at me catchin' my second wind
I'm a brand new me
I've been shattered by the storm but I survived
I'm a brand new me
I found a revelation in the tears I cried
I opened up my eyes
Oh, what a change I see
I'm a brand new me
I'm a brand new me
I'm a brand new me
I'm a brand new me

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Brand New Feeling

Its a brand new feeling
That I never ever had before
And Im always amazed at the range of my emotions
Cause its a brand new feeling
Getting better every minute of the day
And it fits me like a glove
And it rocks me like a boat
On the ocean
Ah whod a believed it
Oh I must be getting lazy
Spending so much time
With just one girl
Lord this is crazy
But Im not running anywhere anyhow
Im staying right here
Itll do for now
Cause its a brand new feeling
That I never ever had before
And Im always amazed at the range of my emotions
Cause its a good, good feeling
Getting better every minute of the day
And it fits me like a glove
And it rocks me like a boat
On the ocean
Brand new feeling
Brand new, brand new feeling
Cause you look up and smile
This never happen before
God this is really strange
Let me have some more
Mmmm coconut butter
Pull the curtains tight
Feeling better already
Im staying in tonight
Cause its a brand new feeling
That I never ever had before
And Im always amazed at the range of my emotions
Cause its a good, good feeling
Getting better every minute of the day
And it fits me like a glove
And it rocks me like a boat
On the ocean
Brand new feeling
Brand new, brand new feeling
I said it fits me like a glove
And it rocks me like a boat
On the ocean
Its a brand new
Its a brand new
Its a brand new feeling

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Choices

i prefer smooth peanut butter
to crunchy
mind you
crunchy is all right
but i prefer smooth.

i prefer strawberry jam
to raspberry
mind you
raspberry is tasty
but it's got all those seeds
and i prefer strawberry.

i prefer mustard
to mayonaisse
mind you mayonaisse has it's place
amongst condiments
but is likely to go bad
if left out to long
and poison everyone
so on the whole i prefer mustard.

i prefer cooked meat
to raw meat
for much the same reason
as i prefer mustard to mayonaisse
although it also has to do
with the fact that i don't
like my meat to bleat
or moo or make chicken noises (BAGOCK!)
when i eat
so i tend to avoid the raw
though mind you
the meat that i prefer
may at some time have been raw.

i prefer not to say
why i think so
but i do
and i suppose it's all
just a matter of taste
so if you'd prefer to think so
then crunchy is better
than smooth
even if it does interfere
with the texture of the
peanut butter
and jelly (strawberry) sandwich
which ought to be somewhat
devoid of substance

[...] Read more

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A Brand New Day

Everybody look around-
cause theres a reason to rejoice
You see-
Everybody come out,
And lets commence to singing joyfully...
Everybody look up-
And feel the hope
That weve been waiting on-
Everybodys glad
Because our silent fear
And dread is gone...
Freedom you see,
Has got our hearts singing so joyfully
Just look about
You owe it to yourself
To check it out
Cant you feel a brand-new day?
Cant you feel a brand-new day?
Cant you feel a brand-new day?
Cant you feel a brand-new day?
Everybody be glad
Because the sun is shining just for us
Everybody wake up!
Into the morning, into happiness
Hello world!
Its like a different way of living now...
And thank you world
Wed always knew that wed be free somehow
In harmony,
Lets show the world that weve got liberty
Its such a change
For us to live so independently-
Freedom, you see-
Has got our hearts singing so joyfully
Just look about,
You owe it to yourself to check it out
Cant you feel a brand-new day?
Cant you feel a brand-new day?
Cant you feel a brand-new day?
Everybody be glad
Because the sun is shining just for us
Everybody wake up!
Into the morning, into happiness
Hello world!
Its like a different way of living now...
And thank you world
Wed always knew that wed be free somehow
In harmony,
Lets show the world that weve got liberty
Its such a change

[...] Read more

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Brand New Day

Words and music by sting
How many of you people out there
Been hurt in some kind of love affair
And how many times do you swear that youll never love again?
How many lonely, sleepless nights
How many lies, how many fights
And why would you want to put yourself through all that again?
love is pain, I hear you say
Love has a cruel and bitter way
Of paying you back for all the faith you ever had in your brain
How could it be that what you need the most
Can leave you feeling just like a ghost?
You never want to feel so sad and lost again
One day you could be looking
Through an old book in rainy weather
You see a picture of her smiling at you
When you were still together
You could be walking down the street
And who should you chance to meet
But that same old smile that youve been thinking of all day
You can turn the clock to zero, honey
Ill sell the stock, well spend all the money
Were starting up a brand new day
Turn the clock all the way back
I wonder if shell take me back
Im thinking in a brand new way
Turn the clock to zero, sister
Youll never know how much I missed her
Starting up a brand new day
Turn the clock to zero, boss
The rivers wide, well swim across
Started up a brand new day
It could happen to you - just like it happened to me
Theres simply no immunity - theres no guarantee
I say loves such a force - if you find yourself in it
And sometimes no reflection is there
Baby wait a minute, wait a minute
Wait a minute, wait a minute
Wait a minute, wait a minute
Turn the clock to zero, honey
Ill sell the stock, well spend all the money
Were starting up a brand new day
Turn the clock to zero, mac
Im begging her to take me back
Im thinking in a brand new way
Turn the clock to zero, boss
The rivers wide, well swim across
Started up a brand new day
Turn the clock to zero buddy
Dont wanna be no fuddy duddy

[...] Read more

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Embarrassed And Battered

Embarrassed and battered.
And nothing you have done is deserving of that.
Nothing you have done is deserving of that.

Embarrassed and battered.
And nothing you have done is deserving of that.
Nothing you have done is deserving of that.

Some people bring home their tempers to leave.
And nothing you have done is deserving of that.
While others show their hearts hanging on their sleeves.
And nothing you have done is deserving of that.
Nothing you have done is deserving of that.

Dragging on their backs every burden to keep.
And nothing you have done is deserving of that.
Bringing on their moodiness when they turn the key.
And nothing you have done is deserving of that.
Nothing you have done is deserving of that.

Keeping everybody up so they can't sleep.
And nothing you have done is deserving of that.
Nothing you have done is deserving of that.

Embarrassed and battered.
And nothing you have done is deserving of that.
Nothing you have done is deserving of that.

Embarrassed and battered.
And nothing you have done is deserving of that.
Nothing you have done is deserving of that.

Some people bring home their tempers to leave.
Bringing on their moodiness when they turn the key.
Dragging on their backs every burden to keep.
While others show their hearts hanging on their sleeves.
Keeping everybody up so they can't sleep.
And nothing you have done is deserving of that.
Nothing you have done is deserving of that.

Embarrassed and battered.
And nothing you have done is deserving of that.
Embarrassed and battered.
And nothing you have done is deserving of that.
Nothing you have done is deserving of that.
Embarrassed and battered.

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A Brand New Day

(luther vandross)
Everybody look around
'cause there's a reason to rejoice you see
Everybody come out
And let's commence to singing joyfully
Everybody look up
And feel the hope that we've been waiting for
Everybody's glad
Because our silent fear and dread is gone
Freedom, you see, has got our hearts singing so joyfully
Just look about
You owe it to yourself to check it out
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Everybody be glad
Because the sun is shining just for us
Everybody wake up
Into the morning into happiness
Hello world
It's like a different way of living now
And thank you world
We always knew that we'd be free somehow
In harmony
And show the world that we've got liberty
It's such a change
For us to live so independently
Freedom, you see, has got our hearts singing so joyfully
Just look about
You owe it to yourself to check it out
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Everybody be glad
Because the sun is shining just for us
Everybody wake up
Into the morning into happiness
Hello world
It's like a different way of living now
And thank you world
We always knew that we'd be free somehow
In harmony
And show the world that we've got liberty
It's such a change
For us to live so independently
Freedom, you see, has got our hearts singing so joyfully
Just look about
You owe it to yourself to check it out
Can't you feel a brand new day?
Can't you feel a brand new day?

[...] Read more

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A Brand New Day (radio Edit)

How many of you people out there
Been hurt in some kind of love affair?
And how many times did you swear
That youd never love again?
How many lonely, sleepless nights?
How many lies, how many fights?
And why would you want to
Put yourself through all of that again?
Love is pain I hear you say
Love is a cruel and bitter way of
Paying you back for all the faith you ever had in your brain
How could it be that what you need the most
Can leave you feeling just like a ghost?
You never want to feel so sad and lost again
One day you could be looking
Through an old book in rainy weather
You see a picture of her smiling at you
When you were still together
You could be walking down the street
And who should you chance to meet?
But that same old smile youve been thinking of all day?
Why don't we turn the clock to zero honey?
Ill sell the stock well spend all the money
We're starting up a brand new day
Turn the clock all the way back
I wonder if shell take me back
Im thinking in a brand new way
Turn the clock to zero sister
Youll never know how much I missed her
Starting up a brand new day
Turn the clock to zero boss
The rivers wide well swim across
We're starting up a brand new day
It could happen to you
Just like it happened to me
There is simply no immunity
There's no guarantee
I say love is such a force if you find yourself in it
You need some time for reflection
You say, baby wait a minute, wait a minute
Wait a minute, wait a minute
Wait a minute, wait a minute
Turn the clock to zero honey
Ill sell the stock well spend all the money
We're starting up a brand new day
Turn the clock to zero Mac
I'm begging her to take me back
Im thinking in a brand new way
Turn the clock to zero boss
The rivers wide we'll swim across

[...] Read more

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Nature

Weather constantly changes.
No character, only dynamic.
Dull and dreary,
Or bitter and cold,
Or bright and shiny.
This is mother nature.
She is of this world.
She dictates the mood.
She affects mine.

Emotions, constantly changing.
Personality has dynamic,
But lacks character.
It is constantly changing.
Bitter and resentful,
Frustrated and annoyed
Happy & joyous.
This is human nature.
It is of this world.
It dictates our mood.
It affects another.

Mother nature cannot be controlled.
For she is not ours.
Yet mother nature controls me,
Though I am not hers.
Together, we must exist.
We must accept each as we both are.
Though one affects the other.
Based on emotion, not character.

During the storm,
The sky is still the sky,
The ground, is still the ground
The sun is still the sun.
This is the character of mother nature.
The snow may cover the ground,
But the ground remains.
The clouds may cover the sun,
But the sun remains.
Character is always constant.

Nature affects character.
Character is patience, kindness,
Compassion, empathy, forgiving.
Plain and simple,
Our character is love.
Human nature covers human character,
Although it might not be seen,
It still remains.

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Brand New Beat

More leverage was passed today
From the radio I heard him say
I fixed another lock on my toilet door
House to house checks will commence throughout
Looking at my prize possessions
Trying to remember which ones I own
I could be up for a weeks detention
Without a line I could die in there
Another law was passed today
Cut price bullets in your hardware store
And to pass your time of stay
Life size cutouts are your target score
Throwing open the windows
And screaming down the street
Eight oclock and all is well
Until the brand new beat
Can you smell the brand new beat
Star shaped badge that shines upon
Comes free in your bumper pack
But if its left around too long
Itll burn right through to your back
Throwing open the windows
And screaming down the street
Eight oclock and all is well
Until the brand new beat
Can you smell the brand new beat
Shipped direct via the isle of man
The money maker shows his face
He breeds his fear across the land
Then casts off without a trace
Eight oclock and all is well
Until the brand new beat
You can smell the brand new beat
Can you hear the brand new beat
You can hear the brand new beat
Can you smell the brand new beat

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The Lady of the Lake: Canto IV. - The Prophecy

I.
The rose is fairest when 't is budding new,
And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears;
The rose is sweetest washed with morning dew
And love is loveliest when embalmed in tears.
O wilding rose, whom fancy thus endears,
I bid your blossoms in my bonnet wave,
Emblem of hope and love through future years!'
Thus spoke young Norman, heir of Armandave,
What time the sun arose on Vennachar's broad wave.

II.
Such fond conceit, half said, half sung,
Love prompted to the bridegroom's tongue.
All while he stripped the wild-rose spray,
His axe and bow beside him lay,
For on a pass 'twixt lake and wood
A wakeful sentinel he stood.
Hark!-on the rock a footstep rung,
And instant to his arms he sprung.
'Stand, or thou diest!-What, Malise?-soon
Art thou returned from Braes of Doune.
By thy keen step and glance I know,
Thou bring'st us tidings of the foe.'-
For while the Fiery Cross tried on,
On distant scout had Malise gone.-
'Where sleeps the Chief?' the henchman said.
'Apart, in yonder misty glade;
To his lone couch I'll be your guide.'-
Then called a slumberer by his side,
And stirred him with his slackened bow,-
'Up, up, Glentarkin! rouse thee, ho!
We seek the Chieftain; on the track
Keep eagle watch till I come back.'

III.
Together up the pass they sped:
'What of the foeman?' Norman said.-
'Varying reports from near and far;
This certain,-that a band of war
Has for two days been ready boune,
At prompt command to march from Doune;
King James the while, with princely powers,
Holds revelry in Stirling towers.
Soon will this dark and gathering cloud
Speak on our glens in thunder loud.
Inured to bide such bitter bout,
The warrior's plaid may bear it out;
But, Norman, how wilt thou provide
A shelter for thy bonny bride?''-

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Berenice by edgar allan poe

MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that arch, -as distinct too, yet as intimately blended. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow! How is it that from beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness? -from the covenant of peace a simile of sorrow? But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.

My baptismal name is Egaeus; that of my family I will not mention. Yet there are no towers in the land more time-honored than my gloomy, gray, hereditary halls. Our line has been called a race of visionaries; and in many striking particulars -in the character of the family mansion -in the frescos of the chief saloon -in the tapestries of the dormitories -in the chiselling of some buttresses in the armory -but more especially in the gallery of antique paintings -in the fashion of the library chamber -and, lastly, in the very peculiar nature of the library's contents, there is more than sufficient evidence to warrant the belief.

The recollections of my earliest years are connected with that chamber, and with its volumes -of which latter I will say no more. Here died my mother. Herein was I born. But it is mere idleness to say that I had not lived before -that the soul has no previous existence. You deny it? -let us not argue the matter. Convinced myself, I seek not to convince. There is, however, a remembrance of aerial forms -of spiritual and meaning eyes -of sounds, musical yet sad -a remembrance which will not be excluded; a memory like a shadow, vague, variable, indefinite, unsteady; and like a shadow, too, in the impossibility of my getting rid of it while the sunlight of my reason shall exist.

In that chamber was I born. Thus awaking from the long night of what seemed, but was not, nonentity, at once into the very regions of fairy-land -into a palace of imagination -into the wild dominions of monastic thought and erudition -it is not singular that I gazed around me with a startled and ardent eye -that I loitered away my boyhood in books, and dissipated my youth in reverie; but it is singular that as years rolled away, and the noon of manhood found me still in the mansion of my fathers -it is wonderful what stagnation there fell upon the springs of my life -wonderful how total an inversion took place in the character of my commonest thought. The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn, -not the material of my every-day existence-but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself.

Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up together in my paternal halls. Yet differently we grew -I ill of health, and buried in gloom -she agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy; hers the ramble on the hill-side -mine the studies of the cloister -I living within my own heart, and addicted body and soul to the most intense and painful meditation -she roaming carelessly through life with no thought of the shadows in her path, or the silent flight of the raven-winged hours. Berenice! -I call upon her name -Berenice! -and from the gray ruins of memory a thousand tumultuous recollections are startled at the sound! Ah! vividly is her image before me now, as in the early days of her light-heartedness and joy! Oh! gorgeous yet fantastic beauty! Oh! sylph amid the shrubberies of Arnheim! -Oh! Naiad among its fountains! -and then -then all is mystery and terror, and a tale which should not be told. Disease -a fatal disease -fell like the simoom upon her frame, and, even while I gazed upon her, the spirit of change swept, over her, pervading her mind, her habits, and her character, and, in a manner the most subtle and terrible, disturbing even the identity of her person! Alas! the destroyer came and went, and the victim -where was she, I knew her not -or knew her no longer as Berenice.

Among the numerous train of maladies superinduced by that fatal and primary one which effected a revolution of so horrible a kind in the moral and physical being of my cousin, may be mentioned as the most distressing and obstinate in its nature, a species of epilepsy not unfrequently terminating in trance itself -trance very nearly resembling positive dissolution, and from which her manner of recovery was in most instances, startlingly abrupt. In the mean time my own disease -for I have been told that I should call it by no other appelation -my own disease, then, grew rapidly upon me, and assumed finally a monomaniac character of a novel and extraordinary form -hourly and momently gaining vigor -and at length obtaining over me the most incomprehensible ascendancy. This monomania, if I must so term it, consisted in a morbid irritability of those properties of the mind in metaphysical science termed the attentive. It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe.

To muse for long unwearied hours with my attention riveted to some frivolous device on the margin, or in the topography of a book; to become absorbed for the better part of a summer's day, in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry, or upon the door; to lose myself for an entire night in watching the steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a fire; to dream away whole days over the perfume of a flower; to repeat monotonously some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind; to lose all sense of motion or physical existence, by means of absolute bodily quiescence long and obstinately persevered in; -such were a few of the most common and least pernicious vagaries induced by a condition of the mental faculties, not, indeed, altogether unparalleled, but certainly bidding defiance to anything like analysis or explanation.

Yet let me not be misapprehended. -The undue, earnest, and morbid attention thus excited by objects in their own nature frivolous, must not be confounded in character with that ruminating propensity common to all mankind, and more especially indulged in by persons of ardent imagination. It was not even, as might be at first supposed, an extreme condition or exaggeration of such propensity, but primarily and essentially distinct and different. In the one instance, the dreamer, or enthusiast, being interested by an object usually not frivolous, imperceptibly loses sight of this object in a wilderness of deductions and suggestions issuing therefrom, until, at the conclusion of a day dream often replete with luxury, he finds the incitamentum or first cause of his musings entirely vanished and forgotten. In my case the primary object was invariably frivolous, although assuming, through the medium of my distempered vision, a refracted and unreal importance. Few deductions, if any, were made; and those few pertinaciously returning in upon the original object as a centre. The meditations were never pleasurable; and, at the termination of the reverie, the first cause, so far from being out of sight, had attained that supernaturally exaggerated interest which was the prevailing feature of the disease. In a word, the powers of mind more particularly exercised were, with me, as I have said before, the attentive, and are, with the day-dreamer, the speculative.

My books, at this epoch, if they did not actually serve to irritate the disorder, partook, it will be perceived, largely, in their imaginative and inconsequential nature, of the characteristic qualities of the disorder itself. I well remember, among others, the treatise of the noble Italian Coelius Secundus Curio 'de Amplitudine Beati Regni dei'; St. Austin's great work, the 'City of God'; and Tertullian 'de Carne Christi, ' in which the paradoxical sentence 'Mortuus est Dei filius; credible est quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit; certum est quia impossibile est' occupied my undivided time, for many weeks of laborious and fruitless investigation.

Thus it will appear that, shaken from its balance only by trivial things, my reason bore resemblance to that ocean-crag spoken of by Ptolemy Hephestion, which steadily resisting the attacks of human violence, and the fiercer fury of the waters and the winds, trembled only to the touch of the flower called Asphodel. And although, to a careless thinker, it might appear a matter beyond doubt, that the alteration produced by her unhappy malady, in the moral condition of Berenice, would afford me many objects for the exercise of that intense and abnormal meditation whose nature I have been at some trouble in explaining, yet such was not in any degree the case. In the lucid intervals of my infirmity, her calamity, indeed, gave me pain, and, taking deeply to heart that total wreck of her fair and gentle life, I did not fall to ponder frequently and bitterly upon the wonder-working means by which so strange a revolution had been so suddenly brought to pass. But these reflections partook not of the idiosyncrasy of my disease, and were such as would have occurred, under similar circumstances, to the ordinary mass of mankind. True to its own character, my disorder revelled in the less important but more startling changes wrought in the physical frame of Berenice -in the singular and most appalling distortion of her personal identity.

During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings with me, had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind. Through the gray of the early morning -among the trellised shadows of the forest at noonday -and in the silence of my library at night, she had flitted by my eyes, and I had seen her -not as the living and breathing Berenice, but as the Berenice of a dream -not as a being of the earth, earthy, but as the abstraction of such a being-not as a thing to admire, but to analyze -not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most abstruse although desultory speculation. And now -now I shuddered in her presence, and grew pale at her approach; yet bitterly lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called to mind that she had loved me long, and, in an evil moment, I spoke to her of marriage.

And at length the period of our nuptials was approaching, when, upon an afternoon in the winter of the year, -one of those unseasonably warm, calm, and misty days which are the nurse of the beautiful Halcyon*, -I sat, (and sat, as I thought, alone,) in the inner apartment of the library. But uplifting my eyes I saw that Berenice stood before me.

*For as Jove, during the winter season, gives twice seven days of warmth, men have called this clement and temperate time the nurse of the beautiful Halcyon -Simonides.

Was it my own excited imagination -or the misty influence of the atmosphere -or the uncertain twilight of the chamber -or the gray draperies which fell around her figure -that caused in it so vacillating and indistinct an outline? I could not tell. She spoke no word, I -not for worlds could I have uttered a syllable. An icy chill ran through my frame; a sense of insufferable anxiety oppressed me; a consuming curiosity pervaded my soul; and sinking back upon the chair, I remained for some time breathless and motionless, with my eyes riveted upon her person. Alas! its emaciation was excessive, and not one vestige of the former being, lurked in any single line of the contour. My burning glances at length fell upon the face.

The forehead was high, and very pale, and singularly placid; and the once jetty hair fell partially over it, and overshadowed the hollow temples with innumerable ringlets now of a vivid yellow, and Jarring discordantly, in their fantastic character, with the reigning melancholy of the countenance. The eyes were lifeless, and lustreless, and seemingly pupil-less, and I shrank involuntarily from their glassy stare to the contemplation of the thin and shrunken lips. They parted; and in a smile of peculiar meaning, the teeth of the changed Berenice disclosed themselves slowly to my view. Would to God that I had never beheld them, or that, having done so, I had died!

The shutting of a door disturbed me, and, looking up, I found that my cousin had departed from the chamber. But from the disordered chamber of my brain, had not, alas! departed, and would not be driven away, the white and ghastly spectrum of the teeth. Not a speck on their surface -not a shade on their enamel -not an indenture in their edges -but what that period of her smile had sufficed to brand in upon my memory. I saw them now even more unequivocally than I beheld them then. The teeth! -the teeth! -they were here, and there, and everywhere, and visibly and palpably before me; long, narrow, and excessively white, with the pale lips writhing about them, as in the very moment of their first terrible development. Then came the full fury of my monomania, and I struggled in vain against its strange and irresistible influence. In the multiplied objects of the external world I had no thoughts but for the teeth. For these I longed with a phrenzied desire. All other matters and all different interests became absorbed in their single contemplation. They -they alone were present to the mental eye, and they, in their sole individuality, became the essence of my mental life. I held them in every light. I turned them in every attitude. I surveyed their characteristics. I dwelt upon their peculiarities. I pondered upon their conformation. I mused upon the alteration in their nature. I shuddered as I assigned to them in imagination a sensitive and sentient power, and even when unassisted by the lips, a capability of moral expression. Of Mad'selle Salle it has been well said, 'que tous ses pas etaient des sentiments, ' and of Berenice I more seriously believed que toutes ses dents etaient des idees. Des idees! -ah here was the idiotic thought that destroyed me! Des idees! -ah therefore it was that I coveted them so madly! I felt that their possession could alone ever restore me to peace, in giving me back to reason.

And the evening closed in upon me thus-and then the darkness came, and tarried, and went -and the day again dawned -and the mists of a second night were now gathering around -and still I sat motionless in that solitary room; and still I sat buried in meditation, and still the phantasma of the teeth maintained its terrible ascendancy as, with the most vivid hideous distinctness, it floated about amid the changing lights and shadows of the chamber. At length there broke in upon my dreams a cry as of horror and dismay; and thereunto, after a pause, succeeded the sound of troubled voices, intermingled with many low moanings of sorrow, or of pain. I arose from my seat and, throwing open one of the doors of the library, saw standing out in the antechamber a servant maiden, all in tears, who told me that Berenice was -no more. She had been seized with epilepsy in the early morning, and now, at the closing in of the night, the grave was ready for its tenant, and all the preparations for the burial were completed.

I found myself sitting in the library, and again sitting there alone. It seemed that I had newly awakened from a confused and exciting dream. I knew that it was now midnight, and I was well aware that since the setting of the sun Berenice had been interred. But of that dreary period which intervened I had no positive -at least no definite comprehension. Yet its memory was replete with horror -horror more horrible from being vague, and terror more terrible from ambiguity. It was a fearful page in the record my existence, written all over with dim, and hideous, and unintelligible recollections. I strived to decypher them, but in vain; while ever and anon, like the spirit of a departed sound, the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seemed to be ringing in my ears. I had done a deed -what was it? I asked myself the question aloud, and the whispering echoes of the chamber answered me, 'what was it? '

On the table beside me burned a lamp, and near it lay a little box. It was of no remarkable character, and I had seen it frequently before, for it was the property of the family physician; but how came it there, upon my table, and why did I shudder in regarding it? These things were in no manner to be accounted for, and my eyes at length dropped to the open pages of a book, and to a sentence underscored therein. The words were the singular but simple ones of the poet Ebn Zaiat, 'Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas.' Why then, as I perused them, did the hairs of my head erect themselves on end, and the blood of my body become congealed within my veins?

There came a light tap at the library door, and pale as the tenant of a tomb, a menial entered upon tiptoe. His looks were wild with terror, and he spoke to me in a voice tremulous, husky, and very low. What said he? -some broken sentences I heard. He told of a wild cry disturbing the silence of the night -of the gathering together of the household-of a search in the direction of the sound; -and then his tones grew thrillingly distinct as he whispered me of a violated grave -of a disfigured body enshrouded, yet still breathing, still palpitating, still alive!

He pointed to garments; -they were muddy and clotted with gore. I spoke not, and he took me gently by the hand; -it was indented with the impress of human nails. He directed my attention to some object against the wall; -I looked at it for some minutes; -it was a spade. With a shriek I bounded to the table, and grasped the box that lay upon it. But I could not force it open; and in my tremor it slipped from my hands, and fell heavily, and burst into pieces; and from it, with a rattling sound, there rolled out some instruments of dental surgery, intermingled with thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking substances that were scattered to and fro about the floor.

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The Cyclops

SILENUS:
O Bacchus, what a world of toil, both now
And ere these limbs were overworn with age,
Have I endured for thee! First, when thou fled’st
The mountain-nymphs who nursed thee, driven afar
By the strange madness Juno sent upon thee;
Then in the battle of the Sons of Earth,
When I stood foot by foot close to thy side,
No unpropitious fellow-combatant,
And, driving through his shield my winged spear,
Slew vast Enceladus. Consider now,
Is it a dream of which I speak to thee?
By Jove it is not, for you have the trophies!
And now I suffer more than all before.
For when I heard that Juno had devised
A tedious voyage for you, I put to sea
With all my children quaint in search of you,
And I myself stood on the beaked prow
And fixed the naked mast; and all my boys
Leaning upon their oars, with splash and strain
Made white with foam the green and purple sea,--
And so we sought you, king. We were sailing
Near Malea, when an eastern wind arose,
And drove us to this waste Aetnean rock;
The one-eyed children of the Ocean God,
The man-destroying Cyclopses, inhabit,
On this wild shore, their solitary caves,
And one of these, named Polypheme. has caught us
To be his slaves; and so, for all delight
Of Bacchic sports, sweet dance and melody,
We keep this lawless giant’s wandering flocks.
My sons indeed on far declivities,
Young things themselves, tend on the youngling sheep,
But I remain to fill the water-casks,
Or sweeping the hard floor, or ministering
Some impious and abominable meal
To the fell Cyclops. I am wearied of it!
And now I must scrape up the littered floor
With this great iron rake, so to receive
My absent master and his evening sheep
In a cave neat and clean. Even now I see
My children tending the flocks hitherward.
Ha! what is this? are your Sicinnian measures
Even now the same, as when with dance and song
You brought young Bacchus to Althaea’s halls?

CHORUS OF SATYRS:

STROPHE:
Where has he of race divine

[...] Read more

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Memoirs Of A Housewife

I have a secret obsession
Its totally tupperware
My own science project
Defying wear and tear
Im jealous of shopping carts
And all of their brand new things
I want to fondle their labels
In hopes onell rub off on me
cause everybody wants to feel brand new
Like they do
I spend my days indoors
Doing like ding-dongs do
Perfectly preserving
Myself for you
I take things out of their boxes
Take out my note pad and pen
Study carefully
cause everybody wants to feel brand new
Like they do
So tell me you want me
Tell me you need me
Tell me Ill always be desirable
Especially to you
Make me feel brand new
Attractive!
Brand spanking clean
And desirable as homecoming queen
But if I were to bet
All of the frenchfries in the world
That you would say such things
I would surely be one very hungry girl
I approach china cautiously
If theres cracks I deny it
I ingest only perfect things
Into my visual diet
And at night I undress myself
In front of your favorite things
Your brand new hand-tied blue bass fishing lure
And in the corner your money clip sings
Everybody wants to feel brand new
Everybody wants to feel brand new
Like they do
As they do
I do too

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Brand New Day

At the end of the day you are worn out, you are worn out, and too tired to sleep
But then you do dream of wonderful things
That you might do, right on through to the next day
And then you wake up
The suns on your face
Youre stretchin while youre sayin
Its a brand new day!
Its a brand new day and the sky is clear
So lets come together, everybody cheer
Come out people from everywhere
Lets see your faces, the day well share
Come on and celebrate a brand new day everyday!
Call out to the workers and the children in the schools
Its a day of celebration so put down your tools and
Celebrate a brand new day everyday!
Come see the mountains and come see the shores
Mother nature is calling so come climb aboard and
Celebrate a brand new day everyday! lets go -
At the end of the day there is no doubt you are worn out
Ooh but then you do dream of wonderful things
Wonderful things you might do
And then you wake up
The suns on your face
Youre stretchin while youre sayin
Its a brand new day!
Celebrate a brand new day, everyday!
Celebrate a brand new day, everyday!

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The Sha La La Song

At last its over,
I knew I could not hold him,
His love for freedom
Was far too strong.
But though hes gone now
My life is just beginning,
Ill soon forget him,
Ill soon forget him,
I must forget him, lord!
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la,
Theres a brand new day beginning.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la,
Theres a brand new love that waits for me.
Will I remember,
Will I still hear him whisper ?
Will I still feel his
Lips on mine ?
In dreams I see him,
Perhaps hell stay forever
And all Im wishing
And all Im hoping
And all my longing, too.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la,
Theres a brand new day beginning.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la,
Theres a brand new love that waits for me.
He made me happy
And though I suffered, too,
Theres no mistaking
Our love was true.
But such a sweet love
Just wasnt meant to be
And its all over
Yes, its all over,
And now its done Ill start anew.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la,
Theres a brand new day beginning.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la,
Theres a brand new love beginning.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la,
Theres a brand new day beginning.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la-la,
Theres a brand new love beginning.

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