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My father taught me to read music and play the piano-but not well, even though people have said that I'm a natural musician.

quote by Ethel Merman
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For All Pianos All Around The World

pi
piano
piano use
piano key
piano roll
piano wire
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pianoforte
piano store
piano pedal
piano bench
piano effect
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piano maker
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piano tuning
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piano rhythm
piano sample
piano teacher
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piano concerto
piano repertoire
piano brand name

anno piano twenty twelve

poem by Nicolas Grenier
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Let It All Be Music

Music is a mirror
Near around my soul
Music is the spirit
Come on let it roll
Music is my nature
People have you heard
Music is my future
Music is the world
Let it all be music
People sing a song
Let it all be music
Let us sing it on and on and on and on
Lets play the music
My kind of music
Lets play the music
Play it on
Lets play the music
My kind of music
Lets play the music
Play it on and on and on
Music isnt somewhere
Music turns you right
Music is a fever
Leads you day and night
Music is like heaven
Where you wanna be
Music is religion
Music sets you free
Let it all be music
People sing a song
Let it all be music
Let us sing it on and on and on and on
Lets play the music
My kind of music
Lets play the music
Play it on
Lets play the music
My kind of music
Lets play the music
Play it on and on and on
Music is tomorrow
Music is today
Music is forever
Music is the way
Music is for women
Music is for men
Music is for children
Sing it all again
Let it all be music
People sing a song

[...] Read more

song performed by Boney M.
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First Book

OF writing many books there is no end;
And I who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine,–
Will write my story for my better self,
As when you paint your portrait for a friend,
Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it
Long after he has ceased to love you, just
To hold together what he was and is.

I, writing thus, am still what men call young;
I have not so far left the coasts of life
To travel inland, that I cannot hear
That murmur of the outer Infinite
Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep
When wondered at for smiling; not so far,
But still I catch my mother at her post
Beside the nursery-door, with finger up,
'Hush, hush–here's too much noise!' while her sweet eyes
Leap forward, taking part against her word
In the child's riot. Still I sit and feel
My father's slow hand, when she had left us both,
Stroke out my childish curls across his knee;
And hear Assunta's daily jest (she knew
He liked it better than a better jest)
Inquire how many golden scudi went
To make such ringlets. O my father's hand,
Stroke the poor hair down, stroke it heavily,–
Draw, press the child's head closer to thy knee!
I'm still too young, too young to sit alone.

I write. My mother was a Florentine,
Whose rare blue eyes were shut from seeing me
When scarcely I was four years old; my life,
A poor spark snatched up from a failing lamp
Which went out therefore. She was weak and frail;
She could not bear the joy of giving life–
The mother's rapture slew her. If her kiss
Had left a longer weight upon my lips,
It might have steadied the uneasy breath,
And reconciled and fraternised my soul
With the new order. As it was, indeed,
I felt a mother-want about the world,
And still went seeking, like a bleating lamb
Left out at night, in shutting up the fold,–
As restless as a nest-deserted bird
Grown chill through something being away, though what
It knows not. I, Aurora Leigh, was born
To make my father sadder, and myself
Not overjoyous, truly. Women know
The way to rear up children, (to be just,)

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
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Tale XXI

The Learned Boy

An honest man was Farmer Jones, and true;
He did by all as all by him should do;
Grave, cautious, careful, fond of gain was he,
Yet famed for rustic hospitality:
Left with his children in a widow'd state,
The quiet man submitted to his fate;
Though prudent matrons waited for his call,
With cool forbearance he avoided all;
Though each profess'd a pure maternal joy,
By kind attention to his feeble boy;
And though a friendly Widow knew no rest,
Whilst neighbour Jones was lonely and distress'd;
Nay, though the maidens spoke in tender tone
Their hearts' concern to see him left alone,
Jones still persisted in that cheerless life,
As if 'twere sin to take a second wife.
Oh! 'tis a precious thing, when wives are dead,
To find such numbers who will serve instead;
And in whatever state a man be thrown,
'Tis that precisely they would wish their own;
Left the departed infants--then their joy
Is to sustain each lovely girl and boy:
Whatever calling his, whatever trade,
To that their chief attention has been paid;
His happy taste in all things they approve,
His friends they honour, and his food they love;
His wish for order, prudence in affairs,
An equal temper (thank their stars!), are theirs;
In fact, it seem'd to be a thing decreed,
And fix'd as fate, that marriage must succeed:
Yet some, like Jones, with stubborn hearts and

hard,
Can hear such claims and show them no regard.
Soon as our Farmer, like a general, found
By what strong foes he was encompass'd round,
Engage he dared not, and he could not fly,
But saw his hope in gentle parley lie;
With looks of kindness then, and trembling heart,
He met the foe, and art opposed to art.
Now spoke that foe insidious--gentle tones,
And gentle looks, assumed for Farmer Jones:
'Three girls,' the Widow cried, 'a lively three
To govern well--indeed it cannot be.'
'Yes,' he replied, 'it calls for pains and care:
But I must bear it.'--'Sir, you cannot bear;
Your son is weak, and asks a mother's eye:'
'That, my kind friend, a father's may supply.'

[...] Read more

poem by George Crabbe
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,—
So things disguise themselves,—I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face
And know it again. Answer you? Then that means
Tell over twice what I, the first time, told
Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe,
Fronting you same three in this very room,
I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,
Who then … nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,
As good as laugh, what in a judge we style
Laughter—no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!
Only,—I think I apprehend the mood:
There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,
"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
"Well, he can say no other than what he says.
"We have been young, too,—come, there's greater guilt!
"Let him but decently disembroil himself,
"Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,—
"We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!
And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast
As if I were a phantom: now 't is—"Friend,
"Collect yourself!"—no laughing matter more—
"Counsel the Court in this extremity,
"Tell us again!"—tell that, for telling which,
I got the jocular piece of punishment,
Was sent to lounge a little in the place
Whence now of a sudden here you summon me
To take the intelligence from just—your lips!
You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,—
That she I helped eight months since to escape
Her husband, was retaken by the same,
Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,—
(I being disallowed to interfere,
Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,
For you and law were guardians quite enough
O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)—
And that he has butchered her accordingly,
As she foretold and as myself believed,—
And, so foretelling and believing so,
We were punished, both of us, the merry way:
Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?
Pompilia is only dying while I speak!
Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?
My masters, there's an old book, you should con
For strange adventures, applicable yet,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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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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Play That Funky Music

(vanilla ice, earthquake)
Play that funky music
Play that funky music, white boy
Play that funky music
Play that funky music, white boy
Im back and Im ringin the bell
A rockin on the mike while the fly girls yell
In ecstasy in the back of me
Well thats my dj deshay cuttin all them zs
Hittin hard and the girlies goin crazy
Vanillas on the mike, man Im not lazy.
Im lettin my drug kick in
It controls my mouth and I begin
To just let it flow, let my concepts go
My posses to the side yellin, go vanilla go!
Smooth cause thats the way I will be
And if you dont give a damn, then
Why you starin at me
So get off cause I control the stage
Theres no dissin allowed
Im in my own phase
The girlies sa y they love me and that is ok
And I can dance better than any kid n play
Play that funky music come on come on
Play that funky music, white boy I cant hear you, say it,
Play that funky music say it, say it, say
Play that funky music, white boy it, come on
Yea, a little bit louder
Now come on, come on
Stage 2 -- yea the one ya wanna listen to
Its off my head so let the beat play through
So I can funk it up and make it sound good
1-2-3 yo -- knock on some wood
For good luck, I like my rhymes atrocious
Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious
Im an effect and that you can bet
I can take a fly girl and make her wet.
Im like samson -- samson to delilah
Theres no denyin, you can try to hang
But youll keep tryin to get my style
Over and over, practice makes perfect
But not if youre a loafer.
Youll get nowhere, no place, no time, no girls
Soon -- oh my god, homebody, you probably eat
Spaghetti with a spoon! come on and say it!
Play that funky music
Play that funky music, white boy
Play that funky music come on come on
Play that funky music white boy lets do it
Vip. vanilla ice yep, yep, Im comin hard like a rhino

[...] Read more

song performed by Vanilla Ice
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Play That Funky Music

(vanilla ice, earthquake)
Play that funky music
Play that funky music, white boy
Play that funky music
Play that funky music, white boy
Im back and Im ringin the bell
A rockin on the mike while the fly girls yell
In ecstasy in the back of me
Well thats my dj deshay cuttin all them zs
Hittin hard and the girlies goin crazy
Vanillas on the mike, man Im not lazy.
Im lettin my drug kick in
It controls my mouth and I begin
To just let it flow, let my concepts go
My posses to the side yellin, go vanilla go!
Smooth cause thats the way I will be
And if you dont give a damn, then
Why you starin at me
So get off cause I control the stage
Theres no dissin allowed
Im in my own phase
The girlies sa y they love me and that is ok
And I can dance better than any kid n play
Play that funky music come on come on
Play that funky music, white boy I cant hear you, say it,
Play that funky music say it, say it, say
Play that funky music, white boy it, come on
Yea, a little bit louder
Now come on, come on
Stage 2 -- yea the one ya wanna listen to
Its off my head so let the beat play through
So I can funk it up and make it sound good
1-2-3 yo -- knock on some wood
For good luck, I like my rhymes atrocious
Supercalafragilisticexpialidocious
Im an effect and that you can bet
I can take a fly girl and make her wet.
Im like samson -- samson to delilah
Theres no denyin, you can try to hang
But youll keep tryin to get my style
Over and over, practice makes perfect
But not if youre a loafer.
Youll get nowhere, no place, no time, no girls
Soon -- oh my god, homebody, you probably eat
Spaghetti with a spoon! come on and say it!
Play that funky music
Play that funky music, white boy
Play that funky music come on come on
Play that funky music white boy lets do it
Vip. vanilla ice yep, yep, Im comin hard like a rhino

[...] Read more

song performed by Vanilla Ice
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The Piano Lurched

Contact was sharp…

I jolted from immediacy of senses torn from mind:
Such was I at unawares with you –
To strike with Master’s single chord that pounced and caught me blind –
Piano, how you lurched and rent me through!

Delightful music welcomed me to drift in quasi-syncope:
Soft tranquillo sought to rest my bones –
I glided reaching largo; sang with sweet cantabile, and
Forte let me in to louder tones.

I cried with lacrimoso; squirmed when agitato flared;
My hearing rang when fingers danced the trill.
And so it was, this maestro grand was genius declared –
Acting out in music for the thrill.

Translating pen to piano, this player takes me back thro’ time…
In the chamber, fine composers charm:
I watch the manic hands of Liszt abound with tunes sublime;
Mozart teased my mood with stark alarm.

Then entered Bach to demonstrate his mathematic flare,
Calculating notes supreme of form.
And I – the minion audience – sat wanting in my chair,
Having heard my idols all perform.

Did Darwin’s theory tell at all why Man evolved this way?
Why would music help him to survive?
But scientific muse had veered my thoughts from this display, and
Music called: ‘Just listen - you’re alive! ’

The maestro draws conclusion; lets the piano die a death
To stand as wood, inert just as before –
A pollished casket lined with keys, at calm from naught of breath,
Bade me scream: ‘Bravo! ’ and ‘Hail! Encore! ’

He wakes the box to dance again with noble works of art:
Resurrected; fully primed with zest.
Now even I was back to life with reason in my heart –
Heightened from the pounding in my chest.

Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
All rights reserved

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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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
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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.

[...] Read more

poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Victor Should Have Been A Jazz Musician

I went to a concert, to see nina, simone,
The concert was over, there was still a band playing, the rap up,
The booguh played with his hands, I close my eyes, and look at him,
Victor should have been a jazz musician,
I said to myself, victor should have been a jazz musician,
I looked at his face, and I saw victor, looked at his smile, and I saw victor,
I looked at his hair, and thought,
Victor should have been a jazz musician,
Victor should have been a jazz musician,
And the people dancing on the floor, dancing on the floor, were so high,
You should have seen victor smile, you should have seen victor smile,
As they danced all the while all around on the floor, and he laughed,
Victor should have been a jazz musician,
Oh, victor should have been a jazz musician,
He was playing so nice, the jazz musician,
Ah, ah,
Hes living in a fast beat, in a city thats hot,
Telling all the latinos and puerto ricans, victor seems happy, but he doesnt even know himself, hes gotta look inside to know his first love,
Victor was a jazz musician, he was playing so nice, victor was a jazz musician, (? ) victor was a jazz musician,
Victor loves his music, he loves his music, somewhere, he plays his music, somewhere,
Victor is a jazz musician,
Jazz.

song performed by Grace Jones
Added by Lucian Velea
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My Redemption Poem

When satan fell,
for one wrong mistake.
He was thrown in hell,
it was all he could take.
For there was still light in him,
but with it was now doubt.
Upon his face grew a grin,
all he did was rage and shout.
He yelled to God 'Why did it have to be me? ',
but he didnt answer,
and satan did see.
That hell was his to rule,
with unimaginable pain,
he would truly be cruel.
To all the lost souls,
he was their Dark King.
With their blood in his bowl,
in their pain,
for him they would sing.
Over the eons he became insane,
but there was still light in him.
Hidden in a deep part of his soul,
a place he forgot to know.
And one day their blood spilled out of the bowl,
he felt something stir.
A sadness so deep,
with a pain so true.
He could never sleep,
so the pain was all he could know.
As he sat there,
with tears in his eyes,
he thought noone was there,
noone to hear his cries.
He heard a voice,
and this is what it said 'Son why do you cry? '
He couldnt believe what he heard,
and was voiceless.
God said 'Son your here by your own choice'.
And with that he felt,
in numerous times,
all the pain he had delt.
And now he seen,
that little light,
he could find that little gleam.
He fell to his knees,
for all to see.
He prayed to God,
saying 'Father can i be saved? '.
'Am i doomed to live a life in this darkness? '.
And God said to satan 'My son all you had to do was accept your choice',

[...] Read more

poem by Nick Wingler
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Feel The Music

What is music and why is it here?

Music is made for the ear.

To be made and played for many of decades.

To be embraced by different cultures and race,

Music

the heart of man

Only it seems now only a few understand

Music.

The upbeat the down beat the chords the rhythm it plays.

Exchanging and changing forever.

Music.

Not one man can take the responsibility for making the music the music made us.

You have to trust in the

Music

Classical Jazz, Swing, Country everything it brings.

Music.

Although music has a lot of names it will always remain the same

Music will always change.

The dramatic character of a story.

It will always end with the final glory.

Because of its graceful authority

[...] Read more

poem by Tiffany Burton
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Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

This is the forest primeval; but where are the hearts that beneath it
Leaped like the roe, when he hears in the woodland the voice of the huntsman
Where is the thatch-roofed village, the home of Acadian farmers,--
Men whose lives glided on like rivers that water the woodlands,
Darkened by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image of heaven?
Waste are those pleasant farms, and the farmers forever departed!
Scattered like dust and leaves, when the mighty blasts of October
Seize them, and whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far o'er the ocean
Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre.

Ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,
Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,
List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;
List to a Tale of Love in Acadie, home of the happy.

PART THE FIRST

I

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,
Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre
Lay in the fruitful valley. Vast meadows stretched to the eastward,
Giving the village its name, and pasture to flocks without number.
Dikes, that the hands of the farmers had raised with labor incessant,
Shut out the turbulent tides; but at stated seasons the flood-gates
Opened, and welcomed the sea to wander at will o'er the meadows.
West and south there were fields of flax, and orchards and cornfields
Spreading afar and unfenced o'er the plain; and away to the northward
Blomidon rose, and the forests old, and aloft on the mountains
Sea-fogs pitched their tents, and mists from the mighty Atlantic
Looked on the happy valley, but ne'er from their station descended
There, in the midst of its farms, reposed the Acadian village.
Strongly built were the houses, with frames of oak and of hemlock,
Such as the peasants of Normandy built in the reign of the Henries.
Thatched were the roofs, with dormer-windows; and gables projecting
Over the basement below protected and shaded the doorway.
There in the tranquil evenings of summer, when brightly the sunset
Lighted the village street and gilded the vanes on the chimneys,
Matrons and maidens sat in snow-white caps and in kirtles
Scarlet and blue and green, with distaffs spinning the golden
Flax for the gossiping looms, whose noisy shuttles within doors

[...] Read more

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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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
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Mammary Tunes

Under heavy haze I cast an ear…
Was that a distant hymn?

To view, to peer ahead,
I span thro’ sharpened eyes,
Connecting brain. Surprise
Awards emotion to the show –
A fine refrain.

I think I know the source:
Without recourse my keen and
Eager shoes propel my whole.

And she regales me as I close –
The drifting notes propose I place
An ear to verge upon the emanation.
Choice of left or right
Invites and overwhelms;
A brief respite, and then
I poise an aural organ,
Seeking out the balance
In the tone from rhythmic flesh.

O Holy Grail, the sweet spot!

Honed in stereophony and
Mastered out of euphony:
Her music –
Diaphragms of luscious areolae
Give the tune

Atop a vibrant bass –
Quivers in the
Belly of her breast.
And presently
I fall beneath a spell of heady music
As her reproductive cushions do the rest.

Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2011

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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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)
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IV. Tertium Quid

True, Excellency—as his Highness says,
Though she's not dead yet, she's as good as stretched
Symmetrical beside the other two;
Though he's not judged yet, he's the same as judged,
So do the facts abound and superabound:
And nothing hinders that we lift the case
Out of the shade into the shine, allow
Qualified persons to pronounce at last,
Nay, edge in an authoritative word
Between this rabble's-brabble of dolts and fools
Who make up reasonless unreasoning Rome.
"Now for the Trial!" they roar: "the Trial to test
"The truth, weigh husband and weigh wife alike
"I' the scales of law, make one scale kick the beam!"
Law's a machine from which, to please the mob,
Truth the divinity must needs descend
And clear things at the play's fifth act—aha!
Hammer into their noddles who was who
And what was what. I tell the simpletons
"Could law be competent to such a feat
"'T were done already: what begins next week
"Is end o' the Trial, last link of a chain
"Whereof the first was forged three years ago
"When law addressed herself to set wrong right,
"And proved so slow in taking the first step
"That ever some new grievance,—tort, retort,
"On one or the other side,—o'ertook i' the game,
"Retarded sentence, till this deed of death
"Is thrown in, as it were, last bale to boat
"Crammed to the edge with cargo—or passengers?
"'Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est!
"'Huc appelle!'—passengers, the word must be."
Long since, the boat was loaded to my eyes.
To hear the rabble and brabble, you'd call the case
Fused and confused past human finding out.
One calls the square round, t' other the round square—
And pardonably in that first surprise
O' the blood that fell and splashed the diagram:
But now we've used our eyes to the violent hue
Can't we look through the crimson and trace lines?
It makes a man despair of history,
Eusebius and the established fact—fig's end!
Oh, give the fools their Trial, rattle away
With the leash of lawyers, two on either side—
One barks, one bites,—Masters Arcangeli
And Spreti,—that's the husband's ultimate hope
Against the Fisc and the other kind of Fisc,
Bound to do barking for the wife: bow—wow!
Why, Excellency, we and his Highness here
Would settle the matter as sufficiently

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Lancelot And Elaine

Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable,
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,
High in her chamber up a tower to the east
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot;
Which first she placed where the morning's earliest ray
Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam;
Then fearing rust or soilure fashioned for it
A case of silk, and braided thereupon
All the devices blazoned on the shield
In their own tinct, and added, of her wit,
A border fantasy of branch and flower,
And yellow-throated nestling in the nest.
Nor rested thus content, but day by day,
Leaving her household and good father, climbed
That eastern tower, and entering barred her door,
Stript off the case, and read the naked shield,
Now guessed a hidden meaning in his arms,
Now made a pretty history to herself
Of every dint a sword had beaten in it,
And every scratch a lance had made upon it,
Conjecturing when and where: this cut is fresh;
That ten years back; this dealt him at Caerlyle;
That at Caerleon; this at Camelot:
And ah God's mercy, what a stroke was there!
And here a thrust that might have killed, but God
Broke the strong lance, and rolled his enemy down,
And saved him: so she lived in fantasy.

How came the lily maid by that good shield
Of Lancelot, she that knew not even his name?
He left it with her, when he rode to tilt
For the great diamond in the diamond jousts,
Which Arthur had ordained, and by that name
Had named them, since a diamond was the prize.

For Arthur, long before they crowned him King,
Roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse,
Had found a glen, gray boulder and black tarn.
A horror lived about the tarn, and clave
Like its own mists to all the mountain side:
For here two brothers, one a king, had met
And fought together; but their names were lost;
And each had slain his brother at a blow;
And down they fell and made the glen abhorred:
And there they lay till all their bones were bleached,
And lichened into colour with the crags:
And he, that once was king, had on a crown
Of diamonds, one in front, and four aside.
And Arthur came, and labouring up the pass,
All in a misty moonshine, unawares

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poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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