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We don't break the law.

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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!

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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

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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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IX. Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus

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

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

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Break North '97

[kool keith]
Yeah..
Black mon, come get him served
Black mon, come get him served
Black mon, come get him served
Yeah! live from, the st. nickalaus arena in detroit, michigan
We gon' get busy with fifty-five million thousand people out there
Let the crowd go wild!
One, two, three, four..
[kool keith]
I got a radio, small and yet portable
Comfortable, with the sound in audio
Kickin, high hats just tickin
Spicy lyrics, and words finger lickin.. good
But you know i could
Beat on steel, break tons of wood.. down
With a funky sound
Square mixer, the record is round
And turning, for the million i'm earning
Shock the rhythm, and just keep learning
This, that is supposed to
Grab your ear, and have it move close
To the speakers, so you hear me clearly
I'm out yes, to damage severely
You're very far, and not yet nearly
Expressing them, but you're messing them up
Your bummy rhymes, i'm dressing them up
For the battle win, like a snake i'm rattlin
The red ball with the wooden piece paddlin
Mc's stop perpetrating
Break north (break north)
Break north (break north)
Break north (break north)
Break north (break north)
Break north (break north)
Break north (break north)
[ced gee]
I'm a merchandise, a customized item
Computer rapper for suckers who wanna bite em
Stand back, watch the man recite em
It took a second a minute for me to write em
And type em and hype em and psych em, up
Change my rhythm, before i get stuck
In an altitude, beyond my own level
I smack rappers, and send em to the devil
On a bus, return em to dust
I start infections, reduce em to pus
I'm on the scanner, with brains i blow out
Your old bones, and skulls i throw out
To the backyard, and yes the wackyard

[...] Read more

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Reminders

Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As word
s confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.Two different views, As words confuse and break. I can't get out, There's no way out of here,I can't get clear.

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Mother In Law

(a. toussaint)
Mother in law, mother in law
Mother in law, mother in law
The worst person I know
Mother in law, mother in law
She worries me so
Mother in law, mother in law
If she leaves us alone
We could have a happy home
Sent from down below
Mother in law, mother in law
Mother in law, mother in law
Satan should be her name
Mother in law, mother in law
To me theyre about the same
Mother in law, mother in law
Everytime I open my mouth
Steps in trying to put me out
How could you stood so low
Mother in law, mother in law
Mother in law, mother in law
Come home with my pay
Mother in law, mother in law
She asks me what I made
Mother in law, mother in law
She thinks her advice is a contribution
If she would leave that would be the solution
Dont come back no more
Mother in law, mother in law
Mother in law, mother in law....

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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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Break The Chain

Key:-a - anita r - ray
R:now its time to break it
A:come on come on
Come on come on
R:break it down
A:i wanted to break your chain, yeah
Make the right chioce in life
You gotta do it now
You gotta to do it now
You gotta to ah yeah
You gotta oh
R:2 unlimited
Break it
Break it
A:break the chain, break it for me
Free your sprit, set your soul free
Break the chain, feel it in your hands
Break the chain so nothing can hold us back
R: if you gonna break the chain, think of the main source ( source )
Do your job and take the right course ( course )
Dont let your mind dont play no tricks in the world; alot of things to face
Your life in this world goes up and down
You gotta pay attention to stick around
Get this one thing striaght in your brain
Set yourself free and break that chain
A:break the chain, break it for me
Free your sprit, set your soul free
Break the chain, feel it in your hands
Break the chain so nothing can hold us back
A:break the chain, break it for me
Free your sprit, set your soul free
Break the chain, feel it in your hands
Break the chain so nothing can hold us back
A: your future is in your hands...
R: bass bass
A: break or fake or make your chain
R: and break that chain
A: come on come on
R: break it break it
A: come on come on
R: break it break it
A: let nothing stand in your way
R: so get yourself together cause the music makes you better
You gotta rearrange, stand up and make that change
cause if you dont, then you wont and you never gonna see the perfect life in reality
Can you see what I mean, can you hear I what I say
Can I break it ah yeah ( ah yeah ), yes I may
On a mission we go, sunshine or rain
Set yourself free but you gonna break that chain
A:break the chain, break it for me

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Breaking The Law

There I was completely wasting, out of work and down
All inside its so frustrating as I drift from town to town
Feel as though nobody cares if I live or die
So I might as well begin to put some action in my life
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
So much for the golden future, I cant even start
Ive had every promise broken, theres anger in my heart
You dont know what its like, you dont have a clue
If you did youd find yourselves doing the same thing too
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
You dont know what its like
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law, breaking the law
Breaking the law

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Give The Po Man A Break

Give po man a break
Give po man a break
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a

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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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I Fought The Law

Breakin' rocks in the hot sun
I fought the law and the law won
I fougth the law and the law won
I needed money 'cause I had none
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I miss my baby and I feel so bad
I guess my race is run
She was the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
Robbin' people with a six-gun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I miss my baby and the good fun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I miss my baby and I feel so bad
I guess my race is run
She was the best girl that I ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won

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I Fought The Law

(s.curtis)
Im breakin rocks in the hot sun, I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won, I needed money cos I had none
I fought the law and the law won, I fought the law and the law won
I left my baby and I feel so bad, I guess my race is run
Shes the best girl I ever had, I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won, I was robbing people with a six gun
I fought the law and the law won, I fought the law and the law won
I miss my baby and good fun, I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won, I left my baby and I feel so bad
I guess my race is run, shes the best girl I ever had
I fought the law and the law won, I fought the law and the law won

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III. The Other Half-Rome

Another day that finds her living yet,
Little Pompilia, with the patient brow
And lamentable smile on those poor lips,
And, under the white hospital-array,
A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise
You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through again,
Alive i' the ruins. 'T is a miracle.
It seems that, when her husband struck her first,
She prayed Madonna just that she might live
So long as to confess and be absolved;
And whether it was that, all her sad life long
Never before successful in a prayer,
This prayer rose with authority too dread,—
Or whether, because earth was hell to her,
By compensation, when the blackness broke
She got one glimpse of quiet and the cool blue,
To show her for a moment such things were,—
Or else,—as the Augustinian Brother thinks,
The friar who took confession from her lip,—
When a probationary soul that moved
From nobleness to nobleness, as she,
Over the rough way of the world, succumbs,
Bloodies its last thorn with unflinching foot,
The angels love to do their work betimes,
Staunch some wounds here nor leave so much for God.
Who knows? However it be, confessed, absolved,
She lies, with overplus of life beside
To speak and right herself from first to last,
Right the friend also, lamb-pure, lion-brave,
Care for the boy's concerns, to save the son
From the sire, her two-weeks' infant orphaned thus,
And—with best smile of all reserved for him—
Pardon that sire and husband from the heart.
A miracle, so tell your Molinists!

There she lies in the long white lazar-house.
Rome has besieged, these two days, never doubt,
Saint Anna's where she waits her death, to hear
Though but the chink o' the bell, turn o' the hinge
When the reluctant wicket opes at last,
Lets in, on now this and now that pretence,
Too many by half,—complain the men of art,—
For a patient in such plight. The lawyers first
Paid the due visit—justice must be done;
They took her witness, why the murder was.
Then the priests followed properly,—a soul
To shrive; 't was Brother Celestine's own right,
The same who noises thus her gifts abroad.
But many more, who found they were old friends,
Pushed in to have their stare and take their talk

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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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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

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I Fought The Law

Breakin rocks in the hot sun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I needed the money cause I had none
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I miss my baby and I feel so bad
I guess my race is run
Shes the best girl Ive ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
Robin people with a six gun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I miss my baby and I feel so bad
I guess my race is run
Shes the best girl Ive ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won

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I Fought The Law

Breakin' rocks in the hot sun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
I needed money 'cause I had none
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
Well I miss my baby and I feel so bad
I guess my race is run
She's the best girl I've ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
Robbin' people with a six-gun
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won
Well I miss my baby and I feel so bad
I guess my race is run
She's the best girl I've ever had
I fought the law and the law won
I fought the law and the law won

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I. The Ring and the Book

Do you see this Ring?
'T is Rome-work, made to match
(By Castellani's imitative craft)
Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn,
After a dropping April; found alive
Spark-like 'mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots
That roof old tombs at Chiusi: soft, you see,
Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There's one trick,
(Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device
And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold
As this was,—such mere oozings from the mine,
Virgin as oval tawny pendent tear
At beehive-edge when ripened combs o'erflow,—
To bear the file's tooth and the hammer's tap:
Since hammer needs must widen out the round,
And file emboss it fine with lily-flowers,
Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear.
That trick is, the artificer melts up wax
With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold
With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both,
Effects a manageable mass, then works:
But his work ended, once the thing a ring,
Oh, there's repristination! Just a spirt
O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face,
And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume;
While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains,
The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness,
Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:
Prime nature with an added artistry—
No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.
What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say;
A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.

Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss
I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about
By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since?
Examine it yourselves! I found this book,
Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just,
(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,
Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,
One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,
Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths,
Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time,
Toward Baccio's marble,—ay, the basement-ledge
O' the pedestal where sits and menaces
John of the Black Bands with the upright spear,
'Twixt palace and church,—Riccardi where they lived,
His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.

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