Acknowledgment of torture is not accountability for it.
quote by Yousef Munayyer
Added by Lucian Velea
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Mr. Torture
Welcome to the torture chamber
said the sign above the entrance
laughinh as it taked you by the hand
Looking as i maniac savage
inside you can sense the anguish
theatre of pain has just begun
Mr.Torture gives pain
with his whips and his chains
he knows just what you crave
Mr. Torture
If youre feeling alone
then just pick up your phone
dial 18 double 0 Mr. Torture
Mr. Torture sells pain
Only sixty sents a minute
for his special brand of singing
phone guaranteed to blow your mind
You can catch him on a website
has a live chat every weeknight
cyber-torture soon coming your way
Mr Torture sells pain
to the houswives in Spain
he knows just what you crave
Mr Torture
If youre feeling alone
then just pick up your phone
dial 18 double 0 Mr. Torture
Mr Torture sells pain
Handcaffed,bounded,chained and blinded
body, soul and mind ignated
every sense is torn and ripped apart
Hes been banned in twenty countries
though he does it for money
he gets pleasure by hearing you scream
Mr. Torture gives pain
with his whips and his chaines
he knows just what you crave Mr. Torture
If youre feelin alone
then just pick up your phone
dial 18 double 0 Mr. Torture
Mr. Torture sells pain
song performed by Helloween
Added by Lucian Velea
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Sad Exchange
Quietly thinking to myself
Sharing half our mind instead of none
The shakings just begun
The pleasantries are gone,
This sad exchange pleased neither one of us
So we finally gave up
Meanings tend to give out
The Time was gone to act out
this living torture, living torture
No talking When I want you to Listen
No talking cos it's Living torture, Living torture
Dont know why, dont know why, we cant stand aside
(I don't want your many faces
we don't see right)
If I had known back then
Whatever I know now
I'd think Id have answers but I dont know why
So we finally gave up
The Meanings tend to give out
The Time was gone to act out
But Here I am and Im still living
No talking when I want you to listen
No Talking cos it's Living Torture, Living Torture
No talking when I want you to listen
Don't tell me what Im trying to say to you
Both of us know
What it sounds like in my mind
Now both of us know
What it sounds It Sound like
Both of us know
What it sounds like in my mind
Now both of us know
Now both of us know
No talking when I want you to listen
No Talking cos it's Living Torture, Living Torture
No talking when I want you to listen
Don't tell me what Im trying to say to you
Quietly thinking to myself
This sad exchange pleased neither on of us
[Thanks to pure_anarchy866@hotmail.com for these lyrics]
song performed by Finger Eleven
Added by Lucian Velea
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On Torture We Should Not Keep Our Silence
In many so called Democratic Countries Human Rights laws are being transgressed
And people due to their difference from others are imprisoned and oppressed
And suffer the worst forms of torture should we in silence stand idly by
For a wrong against any individual is a wrong against you and I.
A loss of Human rights to any individual is a loss of rights to all
The huge plague of locusts destroyed the grain crops though their numbers once were small
And like the locusts those who go along with torture their numbers multiply
But on such a matter for me to keep my silence would be to live a lie.
On torture we should not keep our silence 'tis time we made a stand
I've got a lethal weapon here the pen is in my hand
I may not command much power but to my own self I must be true
For if you do not speak out against torture you become a torturer too.
In many so called Democratic Countries Governments to torture turn a blind eye
And people due to torture have even been known to die
And those who keep their silence on such a matter are saying
torture is okay
Though a loss of rights to one individual is a loss of rights to all or to me 'twould seem that way.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Accountabilty My Greatest Priority
Something to fight is corruption
Something to embrace is accountability
Nothing better than perfection
Everything to get in this race as our priority
Accountability my greatest priority
With dignity as the only identity
As corruption never makes glow
Growing is what makes glow
With proofs to show
Development then becomes
The next room-mate
As success shall surely be our fate
Accountability gives us good fate
Integrity just our faith
With this accountability light of mine
We will certainly shine
poem by Ehimika Ehimigbai
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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
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Legalization Of Waterboarding?
walk not a torturous road to justice?
make not evil lawful within the state
as Nazi Germany did walk not this road
issue no torture warrant to legalize crime
as Nazi Germany legalized mass murder
allow torture to be clinically supervised?
assign observer proper medical monitoring
duty to determine control quality of torture?
guard against torture life-threatening?
duty of trained medical professionals?
officially provide for doctors to treat
the tortured God help this tortured soul
as doctors patch you up to endure more
torture during and after torture ordeal?
would you hang observing head in shame?
George W Bush Loves Waterboarding
George spoke of authorization in memoirs
how his lawyers told him it was legal to
systematically repeatedly drown suspects
innocent but presumed guilty without trial
Amnesty International and Geneva Conventions
disagree with your lawyers ignoring laws George
but my lawyers assured me it benefits our society
but Eve said it was good but Satan said souls will
positively not die thieves are so happy until caught
somebody has stolen right to be tried in impartial court?
right to be held in a prison cell not a humiliation cage?
do you not know sowing hate seeds strengthens enemies?
recruitment soars evil grows holds us at bay by the throat?
Lord is it not written “return evil to no one” it is written!
“Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but yield place
to the wrath; for it is written: “Vengeance is mine;
I will repay, says Jehovah.” But, “if your enemy is
hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something
to drink; for by doing this you will heap fiery coals upon
his head.” “Do not let yourself be conquered by the evil,
but keep conquering the evil with good.” Romans 12: 17-21.
poem by Terence George Craddock
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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!
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Canto the Fourth
I.
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O’er the far times when many a subject land
Looked to the wingèd Lion’s marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!
II.
She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was; her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.
III.
In Venice, Tasso’s echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone - but beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade - but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!
IV.
But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city’s vanished sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away -
The keystones of the arch! though all were o’er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.
V.
[...] Read more
poem by Byron from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818)
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Torture
When they torture your mother
plant a tree
When they torture your father
plant a tree
When they torture your brother
and your sister
plant a tree
When they assassinate
your leaders
and lovers
plant a tree
Whey they torture you
too bad
to talk
plant a tree.
When they begin to torture
the trees
and cut down the forest
they have made
start another.
poem by Alice Walker
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You Picked the Right Day for Torture
You picked the right day for torture.
It was too quiet and serene,
To be left untampered.
You wanted your presence felt...
And it was.
You picked the right day for torture
With or without a diet regimen
Or implementation of facts.
What you do behind one's back...
Is left to your interpretation.
Your rules and dispositions are taught!
Although not followed,
And neither held in high esteem.
You picked the right day for torture...
Perhaps now you can see in bright daylight,
The victims you continue to abuse
Are of your own kind.
And of them none can say you frighten.
Yet all have been too quick to say you are crazed!
And today you are here believing you will be praised,
And honored?
You picked the right day for torture!
And how much of it you take...
Will not leave a witness to feel remorse,
Or show heartbreak!
They have come to watch you exploit,
Your own pain!
You have picked the right day for torture!
Everyone came to give you the limelight,
And the fame you claim!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Immortal Night Walker
In the darkest of nights in the shadows unknown
Mortal blood quenches my thirst of hunger’s desire
I stalk the weak for they possess what I crave
Therefore I prey without mercy abiding
Drool drips black red down my lips of luring
Like lava running down the lei of destruction
My eyes leer lore prowling victims un-expecting
Venom of death door’s poison runs through my veins
But I am not the predator but a victim within my own darkest of dreams
Falling endlessly in the eternal abyss of Hades’ oubliette
Because although I seek the blood of mere mortal man
I must bear the burden of eternal subsistence living as the angel of darkness
For I will never rest in peace until reaper pays his visit
Till then I journey the centuries shunned alone in emotional desolation
Coz my soul is numb from the years of pain’s endurance
Forever losing the soul of my conscience
Empty tears of blood trickle down my face
Yearning for the heart which reaps black with aura’s hate
How I wish I were mortal
How I wish I were human for just one day
Only then would I feel
Only then would I see
The pain and torture
The sadness and despair
Not always do I choose to take a life with each repast
Sometimes I permit their pitiful existence
Some mortify themselves huddled in the corner
Desperately wanting to wake from the nightmares of reality
From the face of one who can never see light
Forever haunting and torturing their mental sights
Ludicrous feelings that I can never feel
Emotions that exist merely within the darkest corners of my mind
I wish I could see what they see
I wish that I could feel what they feel
The pain and torture
The sadness and despair
Other times I make them suffer
Exerting them to become just as I am
Forcing them to endure the life I walk
The path I’ve been forced to saunter all my life
Self-sentiments long dead from the histories of eras past
Meandering under the hour glass like a malignant shadow
Forever walking amongst mere mortals
Overt to notions that our races can never entwine
Because one can never fathom the life of a Nightwalker
As it would compel their thoughts to oblivious madness
[...] Read more
poem by Taralee Wozneak
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Bush At Helm
Turkey’s Touristic Problem
Kurds coming over the hill!
Bush’s sovereign
non-interventionist, Foreign
Policy! Mountain
grave sides agore to fill!
Arise with Saddam’s Hitler admired
imitated stylised televised word!
Scapegoats falsely labelled executed
insurgents reduced rankle not dead!
In flight fled fear fed!
Refugee refuge
safe sanitary zones?
Symbolic symptom
(flat-lining) Bush’s!
International problem
ignored (New World Order) !
A few baby refugee corpses
small accountant price to pay!
(collateral damage civilian)
For history sought new world order!
Is this true political point scoring?
Sentiment stripped to bare bone?
Baboon floating his own balloon?
Democracy must accountable mean
no elected esteemed humane official?
Is above pan-morality credibility Check!
Democracy must not be policy tarnished!
Diverted treated acted easily white washed!
Non-accountable an expendable indifference!
An estimated? millions of Kurds!
Fled into neighbouring countries
during the Bush crisis in 1991!
An estimated four to five
million persecuted Iraqi Kurds!
Under Saddam’s dictatorship!
Were forbidden to celebrate
their ethnic culture! Or organize
representative political activities!
Oppressed Iraqi Kurds
were under constant invasive state
censure! Surveillance!
[...] Read more
poem by Terence George Craddock
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But in this Congress, accountability is just a catch phrase, usually directed elsewhere. Demands to personal responsibility or corporate accountability abound, but rarely congressional accountability or fiscal responsibility.
quote by Melissa Bean
Added by Lucian Velea
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Accountability
All men will be accountable, from the wisest man to the lowest fool,
Accountable to God, our Creator, and His Son who came as Savior.
Some men to a greater degree, who were exposed to Truth regularly,
Less for those who never heard, the regular teaching of God’s Word.
But all men will face accountability, to The Lord and God of Eternity.
Everyone on earth shall ultimately, confess to God on bended knee,
What they knew about Jesus Christ, as they reflect back on their life.
Saddened from choices they made, as their past before them is laid.
This fact will be especially true, of men Born Again, like me and you,
Who from Christ above received, The Holy Spirit when they believed.
The Spirit we received from God, helps us live on this earth we trod,
Living our life different from, the fallen past from where we’ve come.
Living our life to bring Glory to, The Lord, who died for me and you,
Christ died to take away our sin, so that we can live our life for Him.
This life we live, isn’t on our own, but in the power of God’s Throne,
Who sent His Son to show men how, we can live life, here and now.
Accountability is so that we grow, and from our life Christ will show,
While we are accountable to God, Christ leads us with staff and rod,
This as He uses our accountability, in ways which count for Eternity,
Gaining for believers eternal reward, when we live for Christ our Lord.
(Copyright ©06/2007)
poem by Bob Gotti
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Accountability & Success =2012
ACCOUNTABILITY
All of us are accountable to the judgment of God
And when we die without Christ our sadness never ends.
By the deepest longings of our heart and soul
We serve our Lord, ourselves, family and friends.
With accountability we apply God's wisdom
And His protection to promote a righteous life.
We receive His grace by our demeanor
As He leads us through sadness and strife.
All through the Bible over and over again
The chronicle of life is our accountability.
The devil is a roaring lion feasting on souls
Corrupting man's heart with dominance and disability.
Always remember you are never alone
And God is aware of all things around you.
Through faith, prayer, trust, love and commitment
We find fulfillment and purpose in the life we pursue.
SUCCESS WE'RE ON OUR OWN BUT NOT ALONE
Late to bed early to rise
Work like heck and advertise.
Tell the truth and refuse to lie
Be all we can be beneath God's sky.
Love our families and strive to achieve
Triumph by goodness and how we believe.
Heed to the whispers of God in our heart
Retain integrity and from foulness depart.
Let voices proclaim after we have gone
Our love for others still lives on.
Real success comes by who we actually are
Not by trinkets, a big house or car.
We're on our own but not alone
As the deeds of our lifetime are sown.
Love, fear, lust, greed, faith and hate
Are how we are measured and known.
The Lord can close doors no man can open
And open doors no man can close.
It's up to us to prove our Heavenly worth
By our lifetime example of the path we chose.
[...] Read more
poem by Tom Zart
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By and large, I seem to have made more mistakes than any others of whom I know, but have learned thereby to make ever swifter acknowledgment of the errors and thereafter immediately set about to deal more effectively with the truths disclosed by the acknowledgment of erroneous assumptions.
quote by Richard Buckminster Fuller
Added by Lucian Velea
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A Day At Tivoli - Prologue
Fair blows the breeze—depart—depart—
And tread with me th' Italian shore;
And feed thy soul with glorious art;
And drink again of classic lore.
Nor sometime shalt thou deem it wrong,
When not in mood too gravely wise,
At idle length to lie along,
And quaff a bliss from bluest skies.
Or, pleased more pensive joy to woo,
At twilight eve, by ruin grey,
Muse o'er the generations, who
Have passed, as we must pass, away.
Or mark o'er olive tree and vine
Steep towns uphung; to win from them
Some thought of Southern Palestine;
Some dream of old Jerusalem.
Come, Pilgrim-Friend! At last our sun outbreaks,
And chases, one by one, dawn's lingering flakes.
Come, Pilgrim-Friend! and downward let us rove
(Thy long-vow'd vow) this old Tiburtian grove.
See where, beneath, the jocund runnels play,
All cheerly brighten'd in the brightening day.
E'en in the far-off years when Flaccus wrote,
('Tis here, I ween, no pedantry to quote,)
Thus led, they gurgled thro' those orchard-bowers
To feed the herb—the fruitage—and the flowers.
Come, then, and snatch Occasion; transient boon!
And sliding into Future all too soon.
That Future's self possession just as brief,
And stolen, soon as given, by Time—the Thief.
Well! if such filching knave we needs must meet,
Let us, as best we may, the Cheater cheat;
And, since the Then, the Now, will flit so fast,
Look back, and lengthen life into the Past.
That Past is here; where old Tiburtus found
Mere mountain-brow, and fenc'd with walls around;
And for his wearied Argives reared a home
Long ere yon seven proud hills had dream'd of Rome.
'Tis here, amid these patriarch olive trees,
Which Flaccus saw, or ancestry of these;
Oft musing, as he slowly strayed him past,
How here his quiet age should close at last.
And here behold them, still! Like ancient seers
They stand; the dwellers of a thousand years.
Deep-furrow'd, strangely crook'd, and ashy-grey,
[...] Read more
poem by John Kenyon
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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.
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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V. Count Guido Franceschini
Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of … why, 't is wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate … aie, aie, aie,
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all's over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short, I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I' the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O' the Franceschini's once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!
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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A Romaunt. Canto IV.
I.
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, thron'd on her hundred isles!
II.
She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was; her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she rob'd, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increas'd.
III.
In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone -- but Beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade -- but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!
IV.
But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away --
The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er,
For us repeopl'd were the solitary shore.
V.
The beings of the mind are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray
And more belov'd existence: that which Fate
Prohibits to dull life, in this our state
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