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In the country the darkness of night is friendly and familiar, but in a city, with its blaze of lights, it is unnatural, hostile and menacing. It is like a monstrous vulture that hovers, biding its time.

quote by W. Somerset Maugham
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The House Of Dust: Complete

I.

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.

'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.

We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .

Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.

Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.

Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.

II.

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poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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The Tower Beyond Tragedy

I
You'd never have thought the Queen was Helen's sister- Troy's
burning-flower from Sparta, the beautiful sea-flower
Cut in clear stone, crowned with the fragrant golden mane, she
the ageless, the uncontaminable-
This Clytemnestra was her sister, low-statured, fierce-lipped, not
dark nor blonde, greenish-gray-eyed,
Sinewed with strength, you saw, under the purple folds of the
queen-cloak, but craftier than queenly,
Standing between the gilded wooden porch-pillars, great steps of
stone above the steep street,
Awaiting the King.
Most of his men were quartered on the town;
he, clanking bronze, with fifty
And certain captives, came to the stair. The Queen's men were
a hundred in the street and a hundred
Lining the ramp, eighty on the great flags of the porch; she
raising her white arms the spear-butts
Thundered on the stone, and the shields clashed; eight shining
clarions
Let fly from the wide window over the entrance the wildbirds of
their metal throats, air-cleaving
Over the King come home. He raised his thick burnt-colored
beard and smiled; then Clytemnestra,
Gathering the robe, setting the golden-sandaled feet carefully,
stone by stone, descended
One half the stair. But one of the captives marred the comeliness
of that embrace with a cry
Gull-shrill, blade-sharp, cutting between the purple cloak and
the bronze plates, then Clytemnestra:
Who was it? The King answered: A piece of our goods out of
the snatch of Asia, a daughter of the king,
So treat her kindly and she may come into her wits again. Eh,
you keep state here my queen.
You've not been the poorer for me.- In heart, in the widowed
chamber, dear, she pale replied, though the slaves
Toiled, the spearmen were faithful. What's her name, the slavegirl's?
AGAMEMNON Come up the stair. They tell me my kinsman's
Lodged himself on you.
CLYTEMNESTRA Your cousin Aegisthus? He was out of refuge,
flits between here and Tiryns.
Dear: the girl's name?
AGAMEMNON Cassandra. We've a hundred or so other
captives; besides two hundred
Rotted in the hulls, they tell odd stories about you and your
guest: eh? no matter: the ships
Ooze pitch and the August road smokes dirt, I smell like an
old shepherd's goatskin, you'll have bath-water?
CLYTEMNESTRA
They're making it hot. Come, my lord. My hands will pour it.

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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The City of Dreadful Night

Per me si va nella citta dolente.

--Dante

Poi di tanto adoprar, di tanti moti
D'ogni celeste, ogni terrena cosa,
Girando senza posa,
Per tornar sempre la donde son mosse;
Uso alcuno, alcun frutto
Indovinar non so.

Sola nel mondo eterna, a cui si volve
Ogni creata cosa,
In te, morte, si posa
Nostra ignuda natura;
Lieta no, ma sicura
Dell' antico dolor . . .
Pero ch' esser beato
Nega ai mortali e nega a' morti il fato.

--Leopardi

PROEM

Lo, thus, as prostrate, "In the dust I write
My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears."
Yet why evoke the spectres of black night
To blot the sunshine of exultant years?
Why disinter dead faith from mouldering hidden?
Why break the seals of mute despair unbidden,
And wail life's discords into careless ears?

Because a cold rage seizes one at whiles
To show the bitter old and wrinkled truth
Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles,
False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth;
Because it gives some sense of power and passion
In helpless innocence to try to fashion
Our woe in living words howe'er uncouth.

Surely I write not for the hopeful young,
Or those who deem their happiness of worth,
Or such as pasture and grow fat among
The shows of life and feel nor doubt nor dearth,
Or pious spirits with a God above them
To sanctify and glorify and love them,
Or sages who foresee a heaven on earth.

For none of these I write, and none of these
Could read the writing if they deigned to try;

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poem by James Thomson
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Whose Country Is This?

Whose country is this?
It is a land full of snakes;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of many waters;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of thieves! !
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of people;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of oil;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of earthquakes!
Whose country is this?
it is a land full of lovers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of volcanoes!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of beautiful flowers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of hansome men;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of beautiful women;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of roses;
Whose country is this?
it is a land ruled only by men;
Whose country is this?
It is a land without rainfall;
Whose country is this?
It is a land ruled by a woman;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of corruption!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pirates! !
Whose country is this?
It is a land ruled by law;
Whose country is this?
It is a land controlled by rebels!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of ice;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of pregnant women;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah!
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of singers;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of troubles;
Whose country is this?
It is a land full of war! !

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poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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The Eternal Kansas City

Chorus (choir singing)
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city)?
(van singing)
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Train down to st. louis
Get me there alright
Over to the city there, you know that one
Where the farmers daughter digs the farmers son
Dig your charlie parker
Basie and young
Witherspoon and jay mcshann
They will come
Oooowoooowoooo
Chorus (van and choir in background)
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Lady liberty in waiting
You know she lights the way
Her name is billie, shes a holiday
And the city is eternal -- hey, cant you see?
Its inside of you and its inside of me
Oooowoooowoooo
Chorus (van and choir in background)
You know, you know the way to kansas city?
You know, you know the way to kansas city?
You know, you know the way to kansas city?
You know, you know the way to kansas city ?
You know...the way to kansas city
You know...the way to kansas city
Wild thing
You know the way to kansas city (choir only)
Thank you man (van)
You know the way to kansas city
Sing it (van)
You know the way to kansas city (van and choir)
Hit it (van)
You know...the way to kansas city
You know...the way to kansas city

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song performed by Van Morrison
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Song of Wink Star

The Song of Wink Star
a happy story for children of all ages
story and text © Raj Arumugam, June 2008

☼ ☼

☼ Preamble

Come…children all, children of all ages…sit close and listen…
Come and listen to this happy story of the stars and of life…
Come children of the universe, children of all nations and of all races, and of all climates and of all kinds of space and dimensions and universes…
Come, dearest children of all beings of the living universe, come and listen to The Song of Wink Star…

Come and listen to this story, this happy story…listen, as the story itself sings to you…

Sit close then, and listen to the story that was not made by any, or written by a poet, or fashioned by grandfathers and grandmothers warming themselves at the fire of burning stars…

O dearest children all, come and listen to the story that lives
of itself, and that glows bright and happy….

Come…children all, children of all ages, come and listen to this happy story, the story so natural and smooth as life, as it sings itself to you….

☼ The Song of Wink Star
a happy story for children of all ages

☼ 1

Night Child, always so light and gentle, slept on a flower.
And every night, before he went to sleep, he would look up at the sky.
He would look at the eastern corner, five o’clock.

And there he would see all the stars in near and distant galaxies that were only visible to the People of Star Eyes.

Night Child was one of the People of Star Eyes. And so he could see the stars. And of all the stars he could see, he loved to watch Wink Star.

Wink Star twinkled and winked and laughed.
Every night Wink Star did that. Winked and laughed.

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poem by Raj Arumugam
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High In The City

I got the time, I got my feet
Lets go hit the street
High in the city
High in the city
I got my mace and you got your knife
You gotta protect your own life
High in the city
High in the city
I wanna get high in the city
I wanna stay alive here in the city
I wanna stay high in the city
High in the city
High in the city
Lets not walk down sutton place
You know everybody there got an akitas
High in the city
High in the city
Dont wanna talk politics today
I feel too good let me have my way
High in the city
High in the city
Watch out for that guy on your right
Seen him on the news last saturday night
He was high in the city
High in the city
Hey, look theyre setting fire to that jeep
Theres not much you can keep
High in the city
High in the city
I wanna get high in the city
I wanna stay alive in the city
I wanna stay high in the city
High in the city
High in the city
So many people feeling low
And theres only one way to go to
Get high in the city
High in the city
Lets grap a pie, lets hit the park
Ill kiss and hug you till it gets dark
Here in the city
Getting high in the city
(high in the city)
(high in the city and youre looking so pretty)
(feelin pretty witty, gettin high off of the city)
(hi-ai-ai-ai, high in the city)
(high in the city)
(high in the city and youre looking so pretty)
(feelin pretty witty, gettin high off of the city)
(hi-ai-ai-ai, high in the city)

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song performed by Lou Reed
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Tale of Three Cities

New York blasted London blasted
Singapore -
Ripped off each other's metaphoric balls,
Crumbling walls.

Priapic city monoliths -
Blue-sky scraping bastards -
Shout about their height (but really length) .

V8 arseholes didn't care -
Pumping shit into the air,
So long as they were always there to
Fart aloud a smoggy cloud,
Laughing at the weak asthmatic,
Humoured that it seems traumatic.

Watch the greedy cities oozing
Chair-bound fat committees, though they
Look a bunch of titties as they
Waffle on about the pound.

Ever thought to look around and see
That they were dead?

Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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The Idols

An Ode
Luce intellettual, piena d' amore

Prelude
Lo, the spirit of a pulsing star within a stone
Born of earth, sprung from night!
Prisoned with the profound fires of the light
That lives like all the tongues of eloquence
Locked in a speech unknown!
The crystal, cold and hard as innocence,
Immures the flame; and yet as if it knew
Raptures or pangs it could not but betray,
As if the light could feel changes of blood and breath
And all--but--human quiverings of the sense,
Throbs of a sudden rose, a frosty blue,
Shoot thrilling in its ray,
Like the far longings of the intellect
Restless in clouding clay.

Who has confined the Light? Who has held it a slave,
Sold and bought, bought and sold?
Who has made of it a mystery to be doled,
Or trophy, to awe with legendary fire,
Where regal banners wave?
And still into the dark it sends Desire.
In the heart's darkness it sows cruelties.
The bright jewel becomes a beacon to the vile,
A lodestar to corruption, envy's own:
Soiled with blood, fought for, clutched at; this world's prize,
Captive Authority. Oh, the star is stone
To all that outward sight,
Yet still, like truth that none has ever used,
Lives lost in its own light.

Troubled I fly. O let me wander again at will
(Far from cries, far from these
Hard blindnesses and frozen certainties!)
Where life proceeds in vastness unaware
And stirs profound and still:
Where leafing thoughts at shy touch of the air
Tremble, and gleams come seeking to be mine,
Or dart, like suddenly remembered youth,
Like the ache of love, a light, lost, found, and lost again.
Surely in the dusk some messenger was there!
But, haunted in the heart, I thirst, I pine.--
Oh, how can truth be truth
Except I taste it close and sweet and sharp
As an apple to the tooth?

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poem by Robert Laurence Binyon
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Hope

an angel a bridge

of heart

Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness
Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness
Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness
Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness
Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness Darkness
a light
of humanity tree

poem by Nyein Way
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Blaze Of Love

We are running out of time
Weve got one foot on the rock, and one foot over the line
This love, this loves not turning back
Well I dont know about you, but me Im following that
Late at night, watching you sleep, and I know inside, Im over the edge
Chorus:
Im goin down, down, down, in a blaze of love, in a blaze of love
Im goin down, down, down, in a blaze of love, in a blaze of love
Oh you, you can run away
You can shatter my world, scatter my dreams all over the place
But i, Ive grown to love these chains
You can tear em apart but I dont wanna escape
I close my eyes, picture your smile and I know inside, Im over the edge
Im goin down, down, down, in a blaze of love, in a blaze of love
Im goin down, down, down, in a blaze of love, blaze of love
Blaze of love
Blaze of love
(guitar solo)
Oh, Im over the edge...in a blaze of love
(down, down, down, blaze of love) blaze of love
(down, down, down) in a blaze of love, in a blaze of love
Im goin down, down, down, down, down, down
In a blaze of love (blaze of love)
Down, down, down, in a blaze of love...

song performed by Starship
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The Aeneid of Virgil: Book 2

ALL were attentive to the godlike man,
When from his lofty couch he thus began:
“Great queen, what you command me to relate
Renews the sad remembrance of our fate:
An empire from its old foundations rent, 5
And ev’ry woe the Trojans underwent;
A peopled city made a desart place;
All that I saw, and part of which I was:
Not ev’n the hardest of our foes could hear,
Nor stern Ulysses tell without a tear. 10
And now the latter watch of wasting night,
And setting stars, to kindly rest invite;
But, since you take such int’rest in our woe,
And Troy’s disastrous end desire to know,
I will restrain my tears, and briefly tell 15
What in our last and fatal night befell.
“By destiny compell’d, and in despair,
The Greeks grew weary of the tedious war,
And by Minerva’s aid a fabric rear’d,
Which like a steed of monstrous height appear’d: 20
The sides were plank’d with pine; they feign’d it made
For their return, and this the vow they paid.
Thus they pretend, but in the hollow side
Selected numbers of their soldiers hide:
With inward arms the dire machine they load, 25
And iron bowels stuff the dark abode.
In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an isle
(While Fortune did on Priam’s empire smile)
Renown’d for wealth; but, since, a faithless bay,
Where ships expos’d to wind and weather lay. 30
There was their fleet conceal’d. We thought, for Greece
Their sails were hoisted, and our fears release.
The Trojans, coop’d within their walls so long,
Unbar their gates, and issue in a throng,
Like swarming bees, and with delight survey 35
The camp deserted, where the Grecians lay:
The quarters of the sev’ral chiefs they show’d;
Here Phœnix, here Achilles, made abode;
Here join’d the battles; there the navy rode.
Part on the pile their wond’ring eyes employ: 40
The pile by Pallas rais’d to ruin Troy.
Thymoetes first (’t is doubtful whether hir’d,
Or so the Trojan destiny requir’d)
Mov’d that the ramparts might be broken down,
To lodge the monster fabric in the town. 45
But Capys, and the rest of sounder mind,
The fatal present to the flames designed,
Or to the wat’ry deep; at least to bore
The hollow sides, and hidden frauds explore.
The giddy vulgar, as their fancies guide, 50

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poem by Publius Vergilius Maro
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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.

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poem by Byron from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818)
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Vulture Culture

Lenny zakatek - lead vocal
Somehow you made it in the big wide world
And youre absolutely home and dry
You got away from a one horse town
And the only way out was to fly
You heard a lot about an easy street
And it seems like the place to be
You heard some talk about a slippery slope
But you think it cant happen to me
Vulture culture
Use it or you lose it
Vulture culture
Choose it or refuse it
Hollywood is calling wont you join the dance
Moving onto wall street why not take a chance
Its a vulture culture
Never lend a loser a hand
Just a vulture culture
Living off the fat of the land
Nowhere to turn around and catch your breath
Its all relatively trouble free
No need to bother with the bottom line
Or a money back guarantee
You sign a deal thats been etched in stone
Its absolutely cut and dry
Thats when they got you in the danger zone
And the only way out is to die
Vulture culture
Use it or you lose it
Vulture culture
Choose it or refuse it
Hollywood is waiting striking up the band
Everyone on wall street shakes you by the hand
Such a vulture culture
Never lend a loser a hand
Just a vulture culture
Living off the fat of the land
Use it or you lose it
Choose it or refuse it
Hollywoods a no go not a second chance
Nobody on wall street gives a second glance
Its a vulture culture
Moving to the beat of the band
Its a vulture culture
Never lend a loser a hand
Its just a vulture culture
Living off the fat of the land

song performed by Alan Parsons Project
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Thurso’s Landing

I
The coast-road was being straightened and repaired again,
A group of men labored at the steep curve
Where it falls from the north to Mill Creek. They scattered and hid
Behind cut banks, except one blond young man
Who stooped over the rock and strolled away smiling
As if he shared a secret joke with the dynamite;
It waited until he had passed back of a boulder,
Then split its rock cage; a yellowish torrent
Of fragments rose up the air and the echoes bumped
From mountain to mountain. The men returned slowly
And took up their dropped tools, while a banner of dust
Waved over the gorge on the northwest wind, very high
Above the heads of the forest.
Some distance west of the road,
On the promontory above the triangle
Of glittering ocean that fills the gorge-mouth,
A woman and a lame man from the farm below
Had been watching, and turned to go down the hill. The young
woman looked back,
Widening her violet eyes under the shade of her hand. 'I think
they'll blast again in a minute.'
And the man: 'I wish they'd let the poor old road be. I don't
like improvements.' 'Why not?' 'They bring in the world;
We're well without it.' His lameness gave him some look of age
but he was young too; tall and thin-faced,
With a high wavering nose. 'Isn't he amusing,' she said, 'that
boy Rick Armstrong, the dynamite man,
How slowly he walks away after he lights the fuse. He loves to
show off. Reave likes him, too,'
She added; and they clambered down the path in the rock-face,
little dark specks
Between the great headland rock and the bright blue sea.

II
The road-workers had made their camp
North of this headland, where the sea-cliff was broken down and
sloped to a cove. The violet-eyed woman's husband,
Reave Thurso, rode down the slope to the camp in the gorgeous
autumn sundown, his hired man Johnny Luna
Riding behind him. The road-men had just quit work and four
or five were bathing in the purple surf-edge,
The others talked by the tents; blue smoke fragrant with food
and oak-wood drifted from the cabin stove-pipe
And slowly went fainting up the vast hill.
Thurso drew rein by
a group of men at a tent door
And frowned at them without speaking, square-shouldered and
heavy-jawed, too heavy with strength for so young a man,
He chose one of the men with his eyes. 'You're Danny Woodruff,

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Pharsalia - Book VII: The Battle

Ne'er to the summons of the Eternal laws
More slowly Titan rose, nor drave his steeds,
Forced by the sky revolving, up the heaven,
With gloomier presage; wishing to endure
The pangs of ravished light, and dark eclipse;
And drew the mists up, not to feed his flames,
But lest his light upon Thessalian earth
Might fall undimmed.

Pompeius on that morn,
To him the latest day of happy life,
In troubled sleep an empty dream conceived.
For in the watches of the night he heard
Innumerable Romans shout his name
Within his theatre; the benches vied
To raise his fame and place him with the gods;
As once in youth, when victory was won
O'er conquered tribes where swift Iberus flows,
And where Sertorius' armies fought and fled,
The west subdued, with no less majesty
Than if the purple toga graced the car,
He sat triumphant in his pure white gown
A Roman knight, and heard the Senate's cheer.
Perhaps, as ills drew near, his anxious soul,
Shunning the future wooed the happy past;
Or, as is wont, prophetic slumber showed
That which was not to be, by doubtful forms
Misleading; or as envious Fate forbade
Return to Italy, this glimpse of Rome
Kind Fortune gave. Break not his latest sleep,
Ye sentinels; let not the trumpet call
Strike on his ear: for on the morrow's night
Shapes of the battle lost, of death and war
Shall crowd his rest with terrors. Whence shalt thou
The poor man's happiness of sleep regain?
Happy if even in dreams thy Rome could see
Once more her captain! Would the gods had given
To thee and to thy country one day yet
To reap the latest fruit of such a love:
Though sure of fate to come! Thou marchest on
As though by heaven ordained in Rome to die;
She, conscious ever of her prayers for thee
Heard by the gods, deemed not the fates decreed
Such evil destiny, that she should lose
The last sad solace of her Magnus' tomb.
Then young and old had blent their tears for thee,
And child unbidden; women torn their hair
And struck their bosoms as for Brutus dead.
But now no public woe shall greet thy death
As erst thy praise was heard: but men shall grieve

[...] Read more

poem by Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
Added by Poetry Lover
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The Four Seasons : Winter

See, Winter comes, to rule the varied year,
Sullen and sad, with all his rising train;
Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme,
These! that exalt the soul to solemn thought,
And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms,
Congenial horrors, hail! with frequent foot,
Pleased have I, in my cheerful morn of life,
When nursed by careless Solitude I lived,
And sung of Nature with unceasing joy,
Pleased have I wander'd through your rough domain;
Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure;
Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst;
Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brew'd,
In the grim evening sky. Thus pass'd the time,
Till through the lucid chambers of the south
Look'd out the joyous Spring, look'd out, and smiled.
To thee, the patron of her first essay,
The Muse, O Wilmington! renews her song.
Since has she rounded the revolving year:
Skimm'd the gay Spring; on eagle-pinions borne,
Attempted through the Summer-blaze to rise;
Then swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy gale;
And now among the wintry clouds again,
Roll'd in the doubling storm, she tries to soar;
To swell her note with all the rushing winds;
To suit her sounding cadence to the floods;
As is her theme, her numbers wildly great:
Thrice happy could she fill thy judging ear
With bold description, and with manly thought.
Nor art thou skill'd in awful schemes alone,
And how to make a mighty people thrive;
But equal goodness, sound integrity,
A firm, unshaken, uncorrupted soul,
Amid a sliding age, and burning strong,
Not vainly blazing for thy country's weal,
A steady spirit regularly free;
These, each exalting each, the statesman light
Into the patriot; these, the public hope
And eye to thee converting, bid the Muse
Record what envy dares not flattery call.
Now when the cheerless empire of the sky
To Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields,
And fierce Aquarius stains the inverted year;
Hung o'er the farthest verge of Heaven, the sun
Scarce spreads through ether the dejected day.
Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot
His struggling rays, in horizontal lines,
Through the thick air; as clothed in cloudy storm,
Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky;
And, soon-descending, to the long dark night,

[...] Read more

poem by James Thomson
Added by Poetry Lover
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We Built This City

Chorus:
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Say you dont know me or recognize my face
Say you dont care who goes to that kind of place
Knee deep in the hoopla sinking in your fight
Too many runaways eating up the night
Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, dont you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Chorus:
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Someone always playing corporation games
Who cares theyre always changing corporation names
We just want to dance here someone stole the stage
They call us irresponsible write us off the page
Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, dont you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Its just another sunday, in a tired old street
Police have got the choke hold, oh then we just lost the beat
Who counts the money underneath the bar
Who rides the wrecking ball in two rock guitars
Dont tell us you need us, cos were the ship of fools
Looking for america, coming through your schools
(Im looking out over that golden gate bridge
Out on another gorgeous sunny saturday, not seein that bumper to bumper traffic)
Dont you remember (member)(member)
(whats your favorite radio station, in your favorite radio city
The city by the bay, the city that rocks, the city that never sleeps)
Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, dont you remember
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
(we built, we built this city) built this city (we built, we built this city)
(repeats out)

song performed by Starship
Added by Lucian Velea
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New York City

Standing on the corner, just me and yoko ono,
We was waiting for jerry to land.
Up come a man with a guitar in his hand,
Singing, have a marijuana, if you can.
His name was david peel and we found that he was real,
He sang, the pope smokes dope evryday.
Up come a policeman, shoved us of the street,
Singing, power to the people today.
New york city!
New york city!
New york city!
Que pasa, new york?
Que pasa, new york?
Hey! hey!
Well, down to maxs, kansas city, got down the nitty gritty
With the elephants memory band.
Laid something down as the news spread around
About the plastic ono elephants memory band.
Well, we played some funky boogie, and laid some tutti fritti,
Singing, long tall sallys a man.
Up come a preacher man, tryin to be a teacher,
Singing, gods a red herring in drag!
New york city!
New york city!
New york city!
Que pasa, new york?
Que pasa, new york?
Ha! ha!
Hey! hey! hey! hey!
Hey!
Oh yeah!
Hey! new york city!
Alright, new york city!
New york city!
Que pasa, new york?
Que pasa, new york?
Hey! hey!
Well, we did the staten island ferry, making movies for the telly,
Played the fillmore and apollo for freedom.
Tried to shake our image, just a-cycling through the village,
But we found that we had left it back in london.
Well, nobody came to bug us, hustle us or shove us,
We decided to make it our home.
If the man wants to shove us out, we gonna jump and shout,
The statue of liberty said, come!
New york city!
New york city!
New york city!
Que pasa, new york?
Que pasa, new york?

[...] Read more

song performed by Yoko Ono
Added by Lucian Velea
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New York City

Standing on the corner, just me and yoko ono,
We was waiting for jerry to land.
Up come a man with a guitar in his hand,
Singing, have a marijuana, if you can.
His name was david peel and we found that he was real,
He sang, the pope smokes dope evryday.
Up come a policeman, shoved us of the street,
Singing, power to the people today.
New york city!
New york city!
New york city!
Que pasa, new york?
Que pasa, new york?
Hey! hey!
Well, down to maxs, kansas city, got down the nitty gritty
With the elephants memory band.
Laid something down as the news spread around
About the plastic ono elephants memory band.
Well, we played some funky boogie, and laid some tutti fritti,
Singing, long tall sallys a man.
Up come a preacher man, tryin to be a teacher,
Singing, gods a red herring in drag!
New york city!
New york city!
New york city!
Que pasa, new york?
Que pasa, new york?
Ha! ha!
Hey! hey! hey! hey!
Hey!
Oh yeah!
Hey! new york city!
Alright, new york city!
New york city!
Que pasa, new york?
Que pasa, new york?
Hey! hey!
Well, we did the staten island ferry, making movies for the telly,
Played the fillmore and apollo for freedom.
Tried to shake our image, just a-cycling through the village,
But we found that we had left it back in london.
Well, nobody came to bug us, hustle us or shove us,
We decided to make it our home.
If the man wants to shove us out, we gonna jump and shout,
The statue of liberty said, come!
New york city!
New york city!
New york city!
Que pasa, new york?
Que pasa, new york?

[...] Read more

song performed by Yoko Ono
Added by Lucian Velea
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