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Whenever we witness art in a building, we are aware of an energy contained by it.

quote by Arthur Erickson
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Cobblestones

The coffin, set up as coffins always are, near the grave, contained the father. The sentence, set up as sentences always are, on the page, contained the words. The meat package, set up as meat packages always are, with cellophane covering, contained the chops. The synagogue, set up as synagogues always are, for people, contained the rabbi. The classroom, set up as classrooms always are, for chairs, contained the professor. The coffin, set up as coffins always are, beside the grave, contained the mother. The word, set up as words always are, beyond hearing, contained the syllables. The prose, set up as prose always is, in census-rectangles, contained the phenomena. The nation, set up as nations always are, in questionnaire rooms, contained the sworn. The can, set up as cans always are, with ornate paper covers, contained the chicken o’noodle soup, with the circular noodles. Abacus, guitar, and quipu, set up as abacus, guitar and quipu always are, hieratically on notional strings, contained tobacco’s troubadours. The coffin, set up as coffins always are, next to the grave, contained the sister. The elegy, set up as elegies always are, dishonestly, contained the family. The steak, set up as steaks always are, artificially reddened, contained the fat. The rectangular venetian blinds, set up as rectangular venetian blinds always are, in the windowframe, contained the slats. The DNA, set up as DNA always is, in double helixes, contained the and. The word people, set up as the word people always is, in writing, contained the o.

poem by Aaron Fogel
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Witness 4 The Prosecution

I am a witness 4 the prosecution of a hate in this love affair
I who am guilty of nothing but always wantin' 2 be there
Mama, I swear I love U, I always have
In school I once traded chairs
If I couldn't be near U, I wanted what was yours
Now I just want U 2 care
I am a witness (Witness)
I am a witness 4 the prosecution of a hate in this love affair
(Witness 4 the prosecution)
Aah yeah
Whatever it is U think that I did
U're wrong, I wouldn't even dare
Cuz U know
I am a witness 4 the prosecution of a hate in this love affair
(Witness 4 the prosecution)
Yes I am
Don't U know I am ...
I am a witness, witness (Witness 4 the prosecution)
Witness 4 the prosecution {x2}
I am a witness 4 the prosecution of a hate in this love affair, yeah
I who am guilty of nothing but always wantin' 2 be there, be there
Oh, I swear by heaven I love U, I always have
In school I once traded chairs
If I couldn't be near U, I wanted what was yours
Now I just want U 2 care
I am a witness 4 the prosecution of a hate in this love affair
(Witness 4 the prosecution)
Yes I am
Let me tell U, whatever it is U think that I did
U're wrong, I wouldn't even dare
No, no, no (Witness 4 the prosecution)
(Witness 4 the prosecution)
(Witness 4 the prosecution)
Witness, witness
Witness, witness
Witness, ooh, witness
Witness 4 the prosecution of a hate in this love affair
Witness, witness
Witness 4 the prosecution {x2}
Guilty, 7 years hard labor, take him away

song performed by Prince
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Witness

I saw an ant devour sherman mountain.
Slip across the floor in the river of honey.
I saw the locust drinking from a fountain.
It smiled at me as I paid my money.
Chorus
Caus Im a witness, witness, see the writing on the wall.
Im a witness, witness, I say Ive seen it all.
Caus Im a witness, witness, Ive got all the proof.
Im a witness, witness, I swear to tell the truth.
I saw her buying in the face of fashion.
Wholl believe with her little white lies.
I saw her arrive on my bed of passion.
But I never saw a look of love in her eyes.
Chorus
Some days my eyes can see for miles and miles around.
Some nights my dreams just take me deep underground.
My minds a time machine, Im in the future and the past.
The past... scrape away...
(violin solo)
Chorus
Chorus
Witness, witness, witness
Witness, witness, witness
Witness, witness, witness
Witness, witness, witness

song performed by Electric Light Orchestra
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Can I Get A Witness

(b. holland / l. dozier / e. holland)
Ah, listen everybody
Especially you guys
Is it right to be left alone
When the one you love is never home?
I love too hard
Yeah, my friends sometimes say
But I believe, oh I believe
That a boy should be loved that way
But it hurts me so inside
See him treat me so unkind
A-somebody, a-somewhere
Tell him it aint fair
Can I get a witness?
Can I get a witness?
Can I get a witness?
Somebody?
Is it right to be treated so bad?
When youve given everything you had
Keep on tossing in my sleep
cause I havent seen my baby all week
Now, you people you do agree
That this aint the way loves supposed to be
A-let me hear you
Let me hear you say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Up early in the morning
With him on my mind
Just to find out all night
That Ive been crying
But I believe, oh, that a boy is a girls best friend
So, Im gonna stick by him til the very end
But he caused so much misery
I forget how loves supposed to be
Somebody, somewhere tell him
It aint fair
Can I get a witness?
Can I get a witness?
I want a witness
Witness, witness, witness, witness
Everybody knows, especially you boys
That a love can be sad
But half a love is twice as bad
Now you people you do agree
That this aint the way loves supposed to be
Let me hear you
Let me hear you say yeah, yeah, yeah
I want a witness
Can I get a witness?
I want a witness
Come on, witness

[...] Read more

song performed by Dusty Springfield
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The Heat The Energy (Pheugoo Remix)

Can you feel it, the energy, the heat
the energy, the heat
Can you feel it, the energy, the heat
the energy, the heat
The energy
The energy
The energy
The energy
Can you feel it
the energy, the heat
the energy, the heat
the energy, the heat
the energy, the heat
the energy, the heat
the energy, the heat
the energy, the heat
the energy, the heat
The energy
The Heat

song performed by Prodigy
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House of fire (Lyrics)

House of fire
House of fire, yeah
Let's build a house of fire, baby
Not one of wood or stone
Walk thru my door of desire, baby
Come on in and make it your home
Don't need a window to watch you, baby
Don't need no roof overhead
Don't need no key to unlock ya, baby
I'll use my lovin'instead
I won't tire
Take me higher
Building a house of fire, baby
Buildin'it with our love
We are buildin'a house of fire every time we touch
House of fire
House of fire
We ain't gotta pay rent now, baby
No landlord to throw us out
I want to play in your garden, baby
When you want it give me a shout
I won't tire
Take me higher
Building a house of fire, baby
Buildin'it with our love
We are building a house of fire every time we touch
We are building this house together, baby
Standing on solid ground
We are building a house of fire
That you can't tear down
Brick by brick the flames get higher
Build it strong with our desire
Building a house of fire, baby
Building it with our love
We are building a house of fire every time we touch
We are building this house together, baby
Standing on solid ground
We are building a house of fire
That you can't tear down
Building a house of fire, baby
Building it with our love
We are building a house of fire every time we touch

poem by Satan's Sibling
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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)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Feeling Out Of Sorts?

Feeling out of sorts these days?
Want to know what you can do?
Need help? Here are 50 ways,
Maybe you'll benefit from a few

ROTMS

SYMPTOMS OF SPIRITUAL AWAKENING

1. Changing sleep patterns: restlessness, hot feet, waking up two or three times a night. Feeling tired after you wake up and sleepy off and on during the day.
There is something called the Triad Sleep Pattern that occurs for many: you sleep for about 2-3 hours, wake up, go back to sleep for another couple of hours, wake again, and go back to sleep again. For others, the sleep requirements have changed. You can get by on less sleep.
Lately I have been experiencing huge waves of energy running into my body from the crown. It feels good, but it keeps me awake for a long time, then subsides.

Advice: Get used to it. Make peace with it and don't worry about getting enough sleep (which often causes more insomnia) . You will be able to make it through the day if you hold thoughts of getting just what you need. You can also request your Higher Power to give you a break now and then and give you a good, deep night's sleep.

If you can't go back to sleep right away, use the waking moments to meditate, read poetry, write in your journal or look at the moon. Your body will adjust to the new pattern.

2. Activity at the crown of the head: Tingling, itching, prickly, crawling sensations along the scalp and/or down the spine. A sense of energy vibrating on top of the head, as if energy is erupting from the head in a shower. Also the sensation of energy pouring in through the crown, described as 'sprinkles'.

This may also be experienced as pressure on the crown, as if someone is pushing his/her finger into the center of your head. As I mentioned in #1, I have been experiencing huge downloads of energy through the crown.
In the past, I have felt more generalized pressure, as if my head is in a gentle vise. One man related that his hair stood on end and his body was covered with goosebumps.

Advice: This is nothing to be alarmed about. What you are experiencing is an opening of the crown chakra. The sensations mean that you are opening up to receive divine energy.

3. Sudden waves of emotion. Crying at the dropp of a hat. Feeling suddenly angry or sad with little provocation. Or inexplicably depressed. Then very happy. Emotional roller coaster. There is often a pressure or sense of emotions congested in the heart chakra (the middle of the chest) . This is not to be confused with the heart, which is located to the left of the heart chakra.

Advice: Accept your feelings as they come up and let them go. Go directly to your heart chakra and feel the emotion. Expand it outward to your all your fields and breathe deeply from the belly all the way up to your upper chest. Just feel the feeling and let it evaporate on its own. Don't direct the emotions at anyone.

You are cleaning out your past. If you want some help with this, say out loud that you intend to release all these old issues and ask your Higher Power to help you. You can also ask Grace Elohim to help you release with ease and gentleness. Be grateful that your body is releasing the see motions and not holding onto them inside where they can do harm.

One source suggests that depression is linked to letting go of relationships to people, work, etc. that no longer match us and our frequencies. When we feel guilty about letting go of these relationships, depression helps us medicate that pain.

4. Old 'stuff' seems to be coming up, as described above, and the people with whom you need to work it out (or their clones) appear in your life. Completion issues.

Or perhaps you need to work through issues of self-worth, abundance, creativity, addictions, etc. The resources or people you need to help you move through these issues start to appear.

Advice: Same as #3. Additionally, don't get too involved in analyzing these issues. Examining them too much will simply cycle you back through them over and over again at deeper and deeper levels. Get professional help if you need to and walk through it.

Do not try to avoid them or disassociate yourself from them. Embrace whatever comes up and thank it for helping you move ahead. Thank your Higher Power for giving you the opportunity to release these issues. Remember, you don't want these issues to stay stuck in your body.

5. Changes in weight. The weight gain in the US population is phenomenal. Other people may be losing weight.

[...] Read more

poem by Ray Lucero
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The Inner Angel

If I look at the mind of God I can see
A vast pure energy ball grow up a tree
He is the pure inner self of us all
Connected within us contained in the ball

The white is the inner the outer is red
Energy from the outside created the dead
Like he grew up the tree he can also grow you
With red interference it’s the best he can do

Past present and future contained in the ball
It was the white energy zone which started it all
Right at the centre of life itself
He grew out the past and future himself

Attached to his mind was the vast Mister Red
Who forced exactly wrong onto his poor head
His mind had to grow whatever he could
And that was to grow everything up to be good

The red weighs deep in parts of his mind
You can see it clearly as you look through time
World War One and World War Two
He was weighted down heavily as the energy grew

Did the red grow his dolphin into a shark
Did it grow through a black Labrador to create a rottweiler bark
Did the uncontrollable red energy ball
Grow a dinosaur up ever so tall

We have the bones to prove the dinosaur
And old people to prove there was a war
Did he shoot the red energy backwards to create the bones
To question our existence in the age of the Stones

Did Jesus grow from the future into the past
To block the red energy which was growing so fast
An intelligent white ball to shoot through time
To be placed into a virgin mother of thine

The Son of God he stood out to be
Past present and future he’s contained in all three
He wanted to help dominant in all
To destroy the red contained in the ball

As the future looms I pray for the white
To force through the red ready to fight
To grow us higher to destroy the sinner
Whether dead or alive we remain inner

poem by Donna Caldwell
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Intrigue

THOU art my love
And thou art the peace of sundown
When the blue shadows soothe
And the grasses and the leaves sleep
To the song of the little brooks
Woe is me.

Thou art my love,
And thou art a storm
That breaks black in the sky
And, sweeping headlong,
Drenches and cowers each tree
And at the panting end
There is no sound
Save the melancholy cry of a single owl
Woe is me!

Thou art my love
And thou art a tinsel thing
And I in my play
Broke thee easily
And from the little fragments
Arose my long sorrow
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art a weary violet
Drooping from sun-caresses.
Answering mine carelessly
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art the ashes of other men's love
And I bury my face in these ashes
And I love them
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art the beard
On another man's face
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art a temple
And in this temple is an altar
And on this altar is my heart
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art a wretch.

[...] Read more

poem by Stephen Crane
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The Believer's Jointure : Chapter II.

Containing the Marks and Characters of the Believer in Christ; together with some further privileges and grounds of comfort to the Saints.

Sect. I.

Doubting Believers called to examine, by marks drawn from their love to Him and his presence, their view of his glory, and their being emptied of Self-Righteousness, &c.

Good news! but, says the drooping bride,
Ah! what's all this to me?
Thou doubt'st thy right, when shadows hide
Thy Husband's face from thee.

Though sin and guilt thy spirit faints,
And trembling fears thy fate;
But harbour not thy groundless plaints,
Thy Husband's advent wait.

Thou sobb'st, 'O were I sure he's mine,
This would give glad'ning ease;'
And say'st, Though wants and woes combine,
Thy Husband would thee please.

But up and down, and seldom clear,
Inclos'd with hellish routs;
Yet yield thou not, nor foster fear:
Thy Husband hates thy doubts.

Thy cries and tears may slighted seem,
And barr'd from present ease;
Yet blame thyself, but never dream
Thy Husband's ill to please.

Thy jealous unbelieving heart
Still droops, and knows not why;
Then prove thyself to ease thy smart,
Thy Husband bids the try.

The following questions put to the
As scripture-marks, may tell
And shew, what'er thy failings be,
Thy Husband loves thee well.

MARKS.

Art thou content when he's away?
Can earth allay thy pants?
If conscience witness, won't it say,
Thy Husband's all thou wants?

[...] Read more

poem by Ralph Erskine
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Fifth Book

AURORA LEIGH, be humble. Shall I hope
To speak my poems in mysterious tune
With man and nature,–with the lava-lymph
That trickles from successive galaxies
Still drop by drop adown the finger of God,
In still new worlds?–with summer-days in this,
That scarce dare breathe, they are so beautiful?–
With spring's delicious trouble in the ground
Tormented by the quickened blood of roots.
And softly pricked by golden crocus-sheaves
In token of the harvest-time of flowers?–
With winters and with autumns,–and beyond,
With the human heart's large seasons,–when it hopes
And fears, joys, grieves, and loves?–with all that strain
Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh
In a sacrament of souls? with mother's breasts,
Which, round the new made creatures hanging there,
Throb luminous and harmonious like pure spheres?–
With multitudinous life, and finally
With the great out-goings of ecstatic souls,
Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame,
Their radiant faces upward, burn away
This dark of the body, issuing on a world
Beyond our mortal?–can I speak my verse
So plainly in tune to these things and the rest,
That men shall feel it catch them on the quick,
As having the same warrant over them
To hold and move them, if they will or no,
Alike imperious as the primal rhythm
Of that theurgic nature? I must fail,
Who fail at the beginning to hold and move
One man,–and he my cousin, and he my friend,
And he born tender, made intelligent,
Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides
Of difficult questions; yet, obtuse to me,–
Of me, incurious! likes me very well,
And wishes me a paradise of good,
Good looks, good means, and good digestion!–ay,
But otherwise evades me, puts me off
With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness,–
Too light a book for a grave man's reading! Go,
Aurora Leigh: be humble.
There it is;
We women are too apt to look to one,
Which proves a certain impotence in art.
We strain our natures at doing something great,
Far less because it's something great to do,
Than, haply, that we, so, commend ourselves
As being not small, and more appreciable
To some one friend. We must have mediators

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
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Building The Perfect Beast

The power of reason, the top of the heap
Were the ones who can kill the things we
Dont eat
Sharper than a serpents tongue
Tighter than a bongo drum
Quicker than a one-night stand
Slicker than a mambo band
And now the day is come
Soon he will be released
Glory hallelujah!
Were building the perfect beast
(building, building, etc..)
Its olympus this time- olympus or bust
For we have met the enemy -and he is us
And now the day is come
Soon he will be released
Glory hallelujah!
Were building the perfect beast
(building, building)
Ever since we crawled out of the ocean
And stood upright on the land
There are some things that we just dont
Understand:
Relieve all pain and suffering
And lift us out of the dark
Turn us all into methuselah-
But where are we gonna park?
(building, building)
The secrets of eternity-
Weve found the lock and turned the key
Were shakin up those building blocks
Going deeper into that box- (pandora
Wouldnt like it)
And now the day is come
Soon he will be released
Glory hallelujah!
Were building the perfect beast
(building, building)
All the way to malibu from the land of the
Talking drum-
Just look how far-look how far weve come

song performed by Don Henley
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Quatrains Of Life

What has my youth been that I love it thus,
Sad youth, to all but one grown tedious,
Stale as the news which last week wearied us,
Or a tired actor's tale told to an empty house?

What did it bring me that I loved it, even
With joy before it and that dream of Heaven,
Boyhood's first rapture of requited bliss,
What did it give? What ever has it given?

'Let me recount the value of my days,
Call up each witness, mete out blame and praise,
Set life itself before me as it was,
And--for I love it--list to what it says.

Oh, I will judge it fairly. Each old pleasure
Shared with dead lips shall stand a separate treasure.
Each untold grief, which now seems lesser pain,
Shall here be weighed and argued of at leisure.

I will not mark mere follies. These would make
The count too large and in the telling take
More tears than I can spare from seemlier themes
To cure its laughter when my heart should ache.

Only the griefs which are essential things,
The bitter fruit which all experience brings;
Nor only of crossed pleasures, but the creed
Men learn who deal with nations and with kings.

All shall be counted fairly, griefs and joys,
Solely distinguishing 'twixt mirth and noise,
The thing which was and that which falsely seemed,
Pleasure and vanity, man's bliss and boy's.

So I shall learn the reason of my trust
In this poor life, these particles of dust
Made sentient for a little while with tears,
Till the great ``may--be'' ends for me in ``must.''

My childhood? Ah, my childhood! What of it
Stripped of all fancy, bare of all conceit?
Where is the infancy the poets sang?
Which was the true and which the counterfeit?

I see it now, alas, with eyes unsealed,
That age of innocence too well revealed.
The flowers I gathered--for I gathered flowers--
Were not more vain than I in that far field.

[...] Read more

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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One Step Ahead

Watch it
Watch it.
Watch it!
Go!
Rap:
Always gotta be one step ahead
You know where youre lying
When you make your own bed
Youll never end up in the red
So watch your step, one step ahead
Intro:
Energy up!
Bring the energy up!
On the double
Verse 1:
Steppin on toes is a common routine
Sneakin up from behind
You wont get anywhere
Dancin out of time
If youre living up to expectations
You may as well be dead
Gotta go for it - gotta go for it
Always gotta be one step ahead
So -
Chorus:
Dont calm down
Bring the energy up
Dont depend on lady luck
Cant walk - you just run instead
If you want to be one step ahead
Verse 2:
Look over your shoulder
And predict whats to come
Youre not feeling life if youre simply numb
So dont be dumb - grab the brass ring
You really cant depend on anything
Gotta make it happen all by yourself
Why rely on anyone else?
So-
Chorus
Dont calm down
Bring the energy up
Dont depend on lady luck
Cant walk - why not run instead?
If you wanna be one step, one step ahead
Bridge:
This dream is holding me tight
Keeping me up all night - oh
Its not out of reach - just out of sight
Do you think Ill get it?

[...] Read more

song performed by Debbie Gibson
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The Cenci : A Tragedy In Five Acts

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Count Francesco Cenci.
Giacomo, his Son.
Bernardo, his Son.
Cardinal Camillo.
Orsino, a Prelate.
Savella, the Pope's Legate.
Olimpio, Assassin.
Marzio, Assassin.
Andrea, Servant to Cenci.
Nobles, Judges, Guards, Servants.
Lucretia, Wife of Cenci, and Step-mother of his children.
Beatrice, his Daughter.

The Scene lies principally in Rome, but changes during the Fourth Act to Petrella, a castle among the Apulian Apennines.
Time. During the Pontificate of Clement VIII.

ACT I

Scene I.
-An Apartment in the Cenci Palace.
Enter Count Cenci, and Cardinal Camillo.

Camillo.
That matter of the murder is hushed up
If you consent to yield his Holiness
Your fief that lies beyond the Pincian gate.-
It needed all my interest in the conclave
To bend him to this point: he said that you
Bought perilous impunity with your gold;
That crimes like yours if once or twice compounded
Enriched the Church, and respited from hell
An erring soul which might repent and live:-
But that the glory and the interest
Of the high throne he fills, little consist
With making it a daily mart of guilt
As manifold and hideous as the deeds
Which you scarce hide from men's revolted eyes.

Cenci.
The third of my possessions-let it go!
Ay, I once heard the nephew of the Pope
Had sent his architect to view the ground,
Meaning to build a villa on my vines
The next time I compounded with his uncle:
I little thought he should outwit me so!

[...] Read more

poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Paradise Regained

THE FIRST BOOK

I, WHO erewhile the happy Garden sung
By one man's disobedience lost, now sing
Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.
Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence 10
By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,
And bear through highth or depth of Nature's bounds,
With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in secret done,
And unrecorded left through many an age:
Worthy to have not remained so long unsung.
Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice
More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried
Repentance, and Heaven's kingdom nigh at hand 20
To all baptized. To his great baptism flocked
With awe the regions round, and with them came
From Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed
To the flood Jordan--came as then obscure,
Unmarked, unknown. But him the Baptist soon
Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore
As to his worthier, and would have resigned
To him his heavenly office. Nor was long
His witness unconfirmed: on him baptized
Heaven opened, and in likeness of a Dove 30
The Spirit descended, while the Father's voice
From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son.
That heard the Adversary, who, roving still
About the world, at that assembly famed
Would not be last, and, with the voice divine
Nigh thunder-struck, the exalted man to whom
Such high attest was given a while surveyed
With wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage,
Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air
To council summons all his mighty Peers, 40
Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved,
A gloomy consistory; and them amidst,
With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake:--
"O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World
(For much more willingly I mention Air,
This our old conquest, than remember Hell,
Our hated habitation), well ye know
How many ages, as the years of men,

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poem by John Milton
Added by Poetry Lover
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Gareth And Lynette

The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent,
And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring
Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine
Lost footing, fell, and so was whirled away.
'How he went down,' said Gareth, 'as a false knight
Or evil king before my lance if lance
Were mine to use--O senseless cataract,
Bearing all down in thy precipitancy--
And yet thou art but swollen with cold snows
And mine is living blood: thou dost His will,
The Maker's, and not knowest, and I that know,
Have strength and wit, in my good mother's hall
Linger with vacillating obedience,
Prisoned, and kept and coaxed and whistled to--
Since the good mother holds me still a child!
Good mother is bad mother unto me!
A worse were better; yet no worse would I.
Heaven yield her for it, but in me put force
To weary her ears with one continuous prayer,
Until she let me fly discaged to sweep
In ever-highering eagle-circles up
To the great Sun of Glory, and thence swoop
Down upon all things base, and dash them dead,
A knight of Arthur, working out his will,
To cleanse the world. Why, Gawain, when he came
With Modred hither in the summertime,
Asked me to tilt with him, the proven knight.
Modred for want of worthier was the judge.
Then I so shook him in the saddle, he said,
"Thou hast half prevailed against me," said so--he--
Though Modred biting his thin lips was mute,
For he is alway sullen: what care I?'

And Gareth went, and hovering round her chair
Asked, 'Mother, though ye count me still the child,
Sweet mother, do ye love the child?' She laughed,
'Thou art but a wild-goose to question it.'
'Then, mother, an ye love the child,' he said,
'Being a goose and rather tame than wild,
Hear the child's story.' 'Yea, my well-beloved,
An 'twere but of the goose and golden eggs.'

And Gareth answered her with kindling eyes,
'Nay, nay, good mother, but this egg of mine
Was finer gold than any goose can lay;
For this an Eagle, a royal Eagle, laid
Almost beyond eye-reach, on such a palm
As glitters gilded in thy Book of Hours.
And there was ever haunting round the palm
A lusty youth, but poor, who often saw

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poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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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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poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Working In The Building

Im working on the building
It's a true foundation
I'm holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
I'm going up to heaven to get my reward
Im working on the building
It's a true foundation
I'm holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
I'm going up to heaven oh yeah, to get my reward
Im working on the building
It's a true foundation
I'm holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
I'm going up to heaven oh yeah, to get my reward
Im working on the building
It's a true foundation
I'm holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
I'm going up to heaven oh yeah, to get my reward
Im working on the building
It's a true foundation
I'm holding up the blood-stained
Banner for my lord
Well I never get tired, tired, tired of working on the building
I'm going up to heaven oh yeah, to get my reward

song performed by Elvis Presley
Added by Lucian Velea
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