Such fire was not by water to be drowned, nor he his nature changed by changing ground.
quote by Ludovico Ariosto
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The Interpretation of Nature and
I.
MAN, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.
II.
Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions.
III.
Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.
IV.
Towards the effecting of works, all that man can do is to put together or put asunder natural bodies. The rest is done by nature working within.
V.
The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all (as things now are) with slight endeavour and scanty success.
VI.
It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.
VII.
The productions of the mind and hand seem very numerous in books and manufactures. But all this variety lies in an exquisite subtlety and derivations from a few things already known; not in the number of axioms.
VIII.
Moreover the works already known are due to chance and experiment rather than to sciences; for the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented; not methods of invention or directions for new works.
IX.
The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this -- that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.
X.
The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding; so that all those specious meditations, speculations, and glosses in which men indulge are quite from the purpose, only there is no one by to observe it.
XI.
As the sciences which we now have do not help us in finding out new works, so neither does the logic which we now have help us in finding out new sciences.
XII.
The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search after truth. So it does more harm than good.
XIII.
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poem by Sir Francis Bacon
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Tamar
I
A night the half-moon was like a dancing-girl,
No, like a drunkard's last half-dollar
Shoved on the polished bar of the eastern hill-range,
Young Cauldwell rode his pony along the sea-cliff;
When she stopped, spurred; when she trembled, drove
The teeth of the little jagged wheels so deep
They tasted blood; the mare with four slim hooves
On a foot of ground pivoted like a top,
Jumped from the crumble of sod, went down, caught, slipped;
Then, the quick frenzy finished, stiffening herself
Slid with her drunken rider down the ledges,
Shot from sheer rock and broke
Her life out on the rounded tidal boulders.
The night you know accepted with no show of emotion the little
accident; grave Orion
Moved northwest from the naked shore, the moon moved to
meridian, the slow pulse of the ocean
Beat, the slow tide came in across the slippery stones; it drowned
the dead mare's muzzle and sluggishly
Felt for the rider; Cauldwell’s sleepy soul came back from the
blind course curious to know
What sea-cold fingers tapped the walls of its deserted ruin.
Pain, pain and faintness, crushing
Weights, and a vain desire to vomit, and soon again
die icy fingers, they had crept over the loose hand and lay in the
hair now. He rolled sidewise
Against mountains of weight and for another half-hour lay still.
With a gush of liquid noises
The wave covered him head and all, his body
Crawled without consciousness and like a creature with no bones,
a seaworm, lifted its face
Above the sea-wrack of a stone; then a white twilight grew about
the moon, and above
The ancient water, the everlasting repetition of the dawn. You
shipwrecked horseman
So many and still so many and now for you the last. But when it
grew daylight
He grew quite conscious; broken ends of bone ground on each
other among the working fibers
While by half-inches he was drawing himself out of the seawrack
up to sandy granite,
Out of the tide's path. Where the thin ledge tailed into flat cliff
he fell asleep. . . .
Far seaward
The daylight moon hung like a slip of cloud against the horizon.
The tide was ebbing
From the dead horse and the black belt of sea-growth. Cauldwell
seemed to have felt her crying beside him,
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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Fire Ferocious
Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.
You show no mercy – no regard:
A writhing army uncontrolled.
At least you don’t discriminate,
Selecting to exterminate:
All dealt with equal pain untold.
Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.
In time of drought you run amok –
An open chimney of the land.
Prefer to scorch than suffocate:
In blinding zeal, incinerate
To blackened vista now unmanned.
Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.
Destruction be your only goal
For you to vent your jealous wrath
On gentle life with caring soul
And human victims to console:
As you are none, but psychopath.
Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.
So there it is – you are but flame:
Reacting gases to adorn –
With orange flicks of flailing arms,
You’re flaunting your demonic charms!
Now leave us for bereaved to mourn.
Fire! Fire! Ferocious fire!
You restless wall of flame.
Fire! Fire! Roaring higher!
Your fury to never tame.
So many lives to claim.
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Mist Upon the Placid Morn
Bleed out your beauty, Autumn –
Give up a gentle wrist, and smear
Your bloody hues atop the green.
Cast a calming throw of heady peace
Upon the cooling land.
And as you grant the sun a final fling of warmth,
Charge the silent air
(Now lolling on a foliar deathbed)
With earthen whiff to intimate the fungal push.
Soon you’ll send a shiver down the watery spine of
Quivering ponds, punctual brooks, and
Listless lakes, to warn them of the freeze to come.
Behold! your mellow spirit
Hanging as a mist upon the placid morn –
A sight that draws a sneaking tear or two – forlorn
Observers are we all of colder climes to view!
Autumn Lady, must you be the summer waning –?
Our adieu to fairer-weather life?
Ah well, at least you hum a warming tone, ensuring
Nature’s rhythm still abounds.
But now you must prepare the mind for chilly times –
You know the drill –
Guiding us along a sloping path
To ease our psyche in to sleet and snow –
The blue-ice bite of winter.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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The Rosciad
Unknowing and unknown, the hardy Muse
Boldly defies all mean and partial views;
With honest freedom plays the critic's part,
And praises, as she censures, from the heart.
Roscius deceased, each high aspiring player
Push'd all his interest for the vacant chair.
The buskin'd heroes of the mimic stage
No longer whine in love, and rant in rage;
The monarch quits his throne, and condescends
Humbly to court the favour of his friends;
For pity's sake tells undeserved mishaps,
And, their applause to gain, recounts his claps.
Thus the victorious chiefs of ancient Rome,
To win the mob, a suppliant's form assume;
In pompous strain fight o'er the extinguish'd war,
And show where honour bled in every scar.
But though bare merit might in Rome appear
The strongest plea for favour, 'tis not here;
We form our judgment in another way;
And they will best succeed, who best can pay:
Those who would gain the votes of British tribes,
Must add to force of merit, force of bribes.
What can an actor give? In every age
Cash hath been rudely banish'd from the stage;
Monarchs themselves, to grief of every player,
Appear as often as their image there:
They can't, like candidate for other seat,
Pour seas of wine, and mountains raise of meat.
Wine! they could bribe you with the world as soon,
And of 'Roast Beef,' they only know the tune:
But what they have they give; could Clive do more,
Though for each million he had brought home four?
Shuter keeps open house at Southwark fair,
And hopes the friends of humour will be there;
In Smithfield, Yates prepares the rival treat
For those who laughter love, instead of meat;
Foote, at Old House,--for even Foote will be,
In self-conceit, an actor,--bribes with tea;
Which Wilkinson at second-hand receives,
And at the New, pours water on the leaves.
The town divided, each runs several ways,
As passion, humour, interest, party sways.
Things of no moment, colour of the hair,
Shape of a leg, complexion brown or fair,
A dress well chosen, or a patch misplaced,
Conciliate favour, or create distaste.
From galleries loud peals of laughter roll,
And thunder Shuter's praises; he's so droll.
Embox'd, the ladies must have something smart,
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poem by Charles Churchill
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Book I - Part 06 - Confutation Of Other Philosophers
And on such grounds it is that those who held
The stuff of things is fire, and out of fire
Alone the cosmic sum is formed, are seen
Mightily from true reason to have lapsed.
Of whom, chief leader to do battle, comes
That Heraclitus, famous for dark speech
Among the silly, not the serious Greeks
Who search for truth. For dolts are ever prone
That to bewonder and adore which hides
Beneath distorted words, holding that true
Which sweetly tickles in their stupid ears,
Or which is rouged in finely finished phrase.
For how, I ask, can things so varied be,
If formed of fire, single and pure? No whit
'Twould help for fire to be condensed or thinned,
If all the parts of fire did still preserve
But fire's own nature, seen before in gross.
The heat were keener with the parts compressed,
Milder, again when severed or dispersed-
And more than this thou canst conceive of naught
That from such causes could become; much less
Might earth's variety of things be born
From any fires soever, dense or rare.
This too: if they suppose a void in things,
Then fires can be condensed and still left rare;
But since they see such opposites of thought
Rising against them, and are loath to leave
An unmixed void in things, they fear the steep
And lose the road of truth. Nor do they see,
That, if from things we take away the void,
All things are then condensed, and out of all
One body made, which has no power to dart
Swiftly from out itself not anything-
As throws the fire its light and warmth around,
Giving thee proof its parts are not compact.
But if perhaps they think, in other wise,
Fires through their combinations can be quenched
And change their substance, very well: behold,
If fire shall spare to do so in no part,
Then heat will perish utterly and all,
And out of nothing would the world be formed.
For change in anything from out its bounds
Means instant death of that which was before;
And thus a somewhat must persist unharmed
Amid the world, lest all return to naught,
And, born from naught, abundance thrive anew.
Now since indeed there are those surest bodies
Which keep their nature evermore the same,
Upon whose going out and coming in
And changed order things their nature change,
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poem by Lucretius
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As I ventured to the Wood
As I ventured to the wood,
I stopped to draw on dewy air; let
Droplets shimmer in my hair, that
Rested on my tranquil head – as
In a sense of cosy bed.
As I ventured to the wood,
A gesturing cuckoo perched above,
And then in song with cooing dove,
‘You're welcome’, bade he, ’Enter please
To roam our land with gentle breeze.’
As I ventured to the wood,
A fallow deer of limpid eye
Gave care to glance at lucky I.
The heavenly aura 'bout her glow had
Charmed me, like a fine Bordeaux.
As I ventured to the wood,
A dazzling flower waved her face
In blazing show of dance and chase, and
Reddened bright in shade of dawn, she
Flirted like a prancing fawn.
As I ventured to the wood,
A butterfly had graced my arm,
And knowing I bid him no harm, he
Splayed for me hypnotic wing in
Colours for to urge me sing!
As I ventured to the wood,
The radiant sun shone down on me.
He flushed and beamed ‘I say to thee,
You bless your land; be filled with pride, and
Cherish e’er yon countryside! ’
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
All rights reserved
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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A Country Path in Late Spring
The path of mossy ground nestled
In between maternal hedgerows,
That overgrew atop, dimming down
The brilliance of the day.
Embosomed, a calm-cool vision –
Abstract takes of nature, in
Leaf-spattered green shades;
Stem-speckled brown hues;
Shards of sunlight percolating
Through the random flaws to
Up glittering sprites upon the leaves.
And avian chatter bounced along the burrow,
Smattered by the crosstalk
Of busybody insects;
But outside the green comfort zone,
Other worlds of other sounds of other life
Otherwise gave a hint of
Other dozy goings on.
Hawthorn filled the air,
Filled the nose,
Filled the head –
Pungency had overpowered all –
Gave the late-spring-early-summer haze.
Here and there a break of colour:
Odd bluebells – escapees from nearby woods –
Blue-blushing bell faces glancing down,
Aware of their erectness in the stem;
The flaming wing of red admirals
Broke through a hedge hole to
Break up the calm backdrop,
While flitting blue tits gave
To greater-bodied animation.
Nature’s warm narration –
The undertones of life.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Give Your Heart To The Hawks
1 he apples hung until a wind at the equinox,
That heaped the beach with black weed, filled the dry grass
Under the old trees with rosy fruit.
In the morning Fayne Fraser gathered the sound ones into a
basket,
The bruised ones into a pan. One place they lay so thickly
She knelt to reach them.
Her husband's brother passing
Along the broken fence of the stubble-field,
His quick brown eyes took in one moving glance
A little gopher-snake at his feet flowing through the stubble
To gain the fence, and Fayne crouched after apples
With her mop of red hair like a glowing coal
Against the shadow in the garden. The small shapely reptile
Flowed into a thicket of dead thistle-stalks
Around a fence-post, but its tail was not hidden.
The young man drew it all out, and as the coil
Whipped over his wrist, smiled at it; he stepped carefully
Across the sag of the wire. When Fayne looked up
His hand was hidden; she looked over her shoulder
And twitched her sunburnt lips from small white teeth
To answer the spark of malice in his eyes, but turned
To the apples, intent again. Michael looked down
At her white neck, rarely touched by the sun,
But now the cinnabar-colored hair fell off from it;
And her shoulders in the light-blue shirt, and long legs like a boy's
Bare-ankled in blue-jean trousers, the country wear;
He stooped quietly and slipped the small cool snake
Up the blue-denim leg. Fayne screamed and writhed,
Clutching her thigh. 'Michael, you beast.' She stood up
And stroked her leg, with little sharp cries, the slender invader
Fell down her ankle.
Fayne snatched for it and missed;
Michael stood by rejoicing, his rather small
Finely cut features in a dance of delight;
Fayne with one sweep flung at his face
All the bruised and half-spoiled apples in the pan,
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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Book VI - Part 02 - Great Meteorological Phenomena, Etc
And so in first place, then
With thunder are shaken the blue deeps of heaven,
Because the ethereal clouds, scudding aloft,
Together clash, what time 'gainst one another
The winds are battling. For never a sound there come
From out the serene regions of the sky;
But wheresoever in a host more dense
The clouds foregather, thence more often comes
A crash with mighty rumbling. And, again,
Clouds cannot be of so condensed a frame
As stones and timbers, nor again so fine
As mists and flying smoke; for then perforce
They'd either fall, borne down by their brute weight,
Like stones, or, like the smoke, they'd powerless be
To keep their mass, or to retain within
Frore snows and storms of hail. And they give forth
O'er skiey levels of the spreading world
A sound on high, as linen-awning, stretched
O'er mighty theatres, gives forth at times
A cracking roar, when much 'tis beaten about
Betwixt the poles and cross-beams. Sometimes, too,
Asunder rent by wanton gusts, it raves
And imitates the tearing sound of sheets
Of paper- even this kind of noise thou mayst
In thunder hear- or sound as when winds whirl
With lashings and do buffet about in air
A hanging cloth and flying paper-sheets.
For sometimes, too, it chances that the clouds
Cannot together crash head-on, but rather
Move side-wise and with motions contrary
Graze each the other's body without speed,
From whence that dry sound grateth on our ears,
So long drawn-out, until the clouds have passed
From out their close positions.
And, again,
In following wise all things seem oft to quake
At shock of heavy thunder, and mightiest walls
Of the wide reaches of the upper world
There on the instant to have sprung apart,
Riven asunder, what time a gathered blast
Of the fierce hurricane hath all at once
Twisted its way into a mass of clouds,
And, there enclosed, ever more and more
Compelleth by its spinning whirl the cloud
To grow all hollow with a thickened crust
Surrounding; for thereafter, when the force
And the keen onset of the wind have weakened
That crust, lo, then the cloud, to-split in twain,
Gives forth a hideous crash with bang and boom.
No marvel this; since oft a bladder small,
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poem by Lucretius
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Testify
Come a little closer it's a feeling that I can't deny
I was weak, but I never thought I'd speak about the darker side
Is that a ten? I could repent on the side of the road
But, I kept on going yeah I headed for another load
I get up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground in the middle of the night
Oh, I testify
I was laid upon the grave by a preacher's hand I cannot lie
And, I forsake many vows I made to be with you tonight
Could you be the salvation cause I never felt like this before
And, could you lend me your hand because I'm falling back on the floor
I get up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground in the middle of the night
Oh, I testify
On a road outside of nowhere, in the middle of the night
Well I guess I hit rock bottom and the dawn was not in sight
And a Tempest made of fire, onset the sky aglow
And a sweet young thing called out my name
And this is how it goes, she says...
Choir:
"Go boy, can you hear them?
Are you falling through the cracks in your eyes?"
"Go boy, can you hear them?
Are you falling through the cracks in your eyes?"
"Go boy, can you hear them?
Are you falling through the cracks in your eyes?"
Meatloaf: And I got down on my knees
Choir :"Go boy, can you hear them?
Are you falling through the cracks in your eyes?"
"Go boy, can you hear them?
Are you falling through the cracks in your eyes?"
Meatloaf (over the top of the choirs last two repititions):
I get up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground and I'm falling back down
Up from the ground and I testify
I get up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground and I'm falling back down
Up from the ground and I testify
Meatloaf & Choir:
Up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground and I'm falling back down
Up from the ground and I testify
Up from the ground in the middle of the morning
Up from the ground in the middle of the evening
Up from the ground and I'm falling back down
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song performed by Meat Loaf
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Roan Stallion
The dog barked; then the woman stood in the doorway, and hearing
iron strike stone down the steep road
Covered her head with a black shawl and entered the light rain;
she stood at the turn of the road.
A nobly formed woman; erect and strong as a new tower; the
features stolid and dark
But sculptured into a strong grace; straight nose with a high bridge,
firm and wide eyes, full chin,
Red lips; she was only a fourth part Indian; a Scottish sailor had
planted her in young native earth,
Spanish and Indian, twenty-one years before. He had named her
California when she was born;
That was her name; and had gone north.
She heard the hooves and
wheels come nearer, up the steep road.
The buckskin mare, leaning against the breastpiece, plodded into
sight round the wet bank.
The pale face of the driver followed; the burnt-out eyes; they had
fortune in them. He sat twisted
On the seat of the old buggy, leading a second horse by a long
halter, a roan, a big one,
That stepped daintily; by the swell of the neck, a stallion. 'What
have you got, Johnny?' 'Maskerel's stallion.
Mine now. I won him last night, I had very good luck.' He was
quite drunk, 'They bring their mares up here now.
I keep this fellow. I got money besides, but I'll not show you.'
'Did you buy something, Johnny,
For our Christine? Christmas comes in two days, Johnny.' 'By
God, forgot,' he answered laughing.
'Don't tell Christine it's Christmas; after while I get her something,
maybe.' But California:
'I shared your luck when you lost: you lost me once, Johnny, remember?
Tom Dell had me two nights
Here in the house: other times we've gone hungry: now that
you've won, Christine will have her Christmas.
We share your luck, Johnny. You give me money, I go down to
Monterey to-morrow,
Buy presents for Christine, come back in the evening. Next day
Christmas.' 'You have wet ride,' he answered
Giggling. 'Here money. Five dollar; ten; twelve dollar. You
buy two bottles of rye whiskey for Johnny.'
A11 right. I go to-morrow.'
He was an outcast Hollander; not
old, but shriveled with bad living.
The child Christine inherited from his race blue eyes, from his
life a wizened forehead; she watched
From the house-door her father lurch out of the buggy and lead
with due respect the stallion
To the new corral, the strong one; leaving the wearily breathing
buckskin mare to his wife to unharness.
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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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The Castle Of Indolence
The castle hight of Indolence,
And its false luxury;
Where for a little time, alas!
We lived right jollily.
O mortal man, who livest here by toil,
Do not complain of this thy hard estate;
That like an emmet thou must ever moil,
Is a sad sentence of an ancient date:
And, certes, there is for it reason great;
For, though sometimes it makes thee weep and wail,
And curse thy star, and early drudge and late;
Withouten that would come a heavier bale,
Loose life, unruly passions, and diseases pale.
In lowly dale, fast by a river's side,
With woody hill o'er hill encompass'd round,
A most enchanting wizard did abide,
Than whom a fiend more fell is no where found.
It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground;
And there a season atween June and May,
Half prankt with spring, with summer half imbrown'd,
A listless climate made, where, sooth to say,
No living wight could work, ne cared even for play.
Was nought around but images of rest:
Sleep-soothing groves, and quiet lawns between;
And flowery beds that slumbrous influence kest,
From poppies breathed; and beds of pleasant green,
Where never yet was creeping creature seen.
Meantime, unnumber'd glittering streamlets play'd,
And hurled every where their waters sheen;
That, as they bicker'd through the sunny glade,
Though restless still themselves, a lulling murmur made.
Join'd to the prattle of the purling rills
Were heard the lowing herds along the vale,
And flocks loud bleating from the distant hills,
And vacant shepherds piping in the dale:
And, now and then, sweet Philomel would wail,
Or stock-doves plain amid the forest deep,
That drowsy rustled to the sighing gale;
And still a coil the grasshopper did keep;
Yet all these sounds yblent inclined all to sleep.
Full in the passage of the vale, above,
A sable, silent, solemn forest stood;
Where nought but shadowy forms was seen to move,
As Idless fancied in her dreaming mood:
And up the hills, on either side, a wood
Of blackening pines, aye waving to and fro,
Sent forth a sleepy horror through the blood;
And where this valley winded out, below,
The murmuring main was heard, and scarcely heard, to flow.
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poem by James Thomson
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Canto the Second
I
Oh ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,
It mends their morals, never mind the pain:
The best of mothers and of educations
In Juan's case were but employ'd in vain,
Since, in a way that's rather of the oddest, he
Became divested of his native modesty.
II
Had he but been placed at a public school,
In the third form, or even in the fourth,
His daily task had kept his fancy cool,
At least, had he been nurtured in the north;
Spain may prove an exception to the rule,
But then exceptions always prove its worth -—
A lad of sixteen causing a divorce
Puzzled his tutors very much, of course.
III
I can't say that it puzzles me at all,
If all things be consider'd: first, there was
His lady-mother, mathematical,
A—never mind; his tutor, an old ass;
A pretty woman (that's quite natural,
Or else the thing had hardly come to pass);
A husband rather old, not much in unity
With his young wife—a time, and opportunity.
IV
Well—well, the world must turn upon its axis,
And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails,
And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails;
The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us,
The priest instructs, and so our life exhales,
A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame,
Fighting, devotion, dust,—perhaps a name.
V
I said that Juan had been sent to Cadiz -—
A pretty town, I recollect it well -—
'T is there the mart of the colonial trade is
(Or was, before Peru learn'd to rebel),
And such sweet girls—I mean, such graceful ladies,
Their very walk would make your bosom swell;
I can't describe it, though so much it strike,
Nor liken it—I never saw the like:
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poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
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Changing Dimensions Seen
Changing dimensions seen.
No retracting to step back.
Changing dimensions seen.
The past is gone and that's a fact.
Changing dimensions seen.
Changing dimensions seen.
A consciousness has been uplifted.
Changing dimensions seen.
And gone are all those flaws abhorred.
Changing dimensions seen.
Those bigoted with prejudice...
Find they've been dismissed.
And...
Changing dimensions seen.
Changing dimensions seen.
People sharing with a caring.
Changing dimensions seen.
And racists are considered sick.
Changing dimensions seen.
Changing dimensions seen.
A consciousness has been uplifted.
Changing dimensions seen.
And gone are all those flaws abhorred.
Changing dimensions seen.
Those bigoted with prejudice...
Find they've been dismissed and quick!
Changing dimensions seen.
Changing dimensions seen.
And...
No retracting to step back.
Changing dimensions seen.
The past is gone and that's a fact.
Changing dimensions seen.
That peace resisted over-rules,
And those who cling to hate are fools.
Changing dimensions seen.
And...
Changing dimensions seen.
And...
Changing dimensions seen.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
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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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Cool, Cool Water
Coolin so coolin coolin me
Coolin so coolin coolin me
Have some cool clear water
(drink a little drip drip drip drip drink a little)
(water coolin me)
Have some cool clear water
(drink a little drip drip drip drip drink a little)
(water coolin me)
Have some cool clear water
Have some cool clear water
Have some cool clear water
(drink a little drip drip drip drip drink a little)
Have some water
Coolin so coolin coolin me
Coolin so coolin coolin me
Have some cool clear water
(drink a little drip drip drip drip drink a little)
(water coolin me)
Have some cool clear water
Have some cool clear water
(drink a little drip drip drip drip drink a little)
Have some cool clear water
Have some cool clear water
(drink a little drip drip drip drip drink a little)
Have some water
Water water water water water water
Now now-now-now-now
Now now-now-now-now
Now now-now-now-now
Now now-now-now-now
Now now-now-now-now
Now now-now-now-now
Now now-now-now-now
Ah ah ah ah
Wa ah ah wa ah oo oo oo oo ah ah
Coolin so cool coolin me
Coolin so cool coolin me
(drip drip drip drip drink a little drip drip drip drip)
Coolin so cool coolin me
(drip drip drip drip drink a little drip drip drip drip)
Coolin so cool coolin me
(drip drip drip drip drink a little drip drip drip drip)
Coolin so cool coolin me
(drip drip drip drip drink a little drip drip drip drip)
When the heats got you down
Heres what you oughta
Get yourself in that cool cool water
(coolin so cool coolin me)
Cool cool water
Get yourself in that cool cool water
[...] Read more
song performed by Beach Boys
Added by Lucian Velea
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Nothing To Be Desired
Nothing to be desired
It leaves nothing to be desired
Nothing
Theres nothing to be desired
Nothing to be desired
Nothing to be desired any more
Mind changing
Mind changing
Mind changing
Change your
Mind changing
Mind changing
Change your mind changing
Mind changing
Stand by
Mind changing
Mind changin
Stand by
Mind changing
Mind changing
And theres nothing to be desired
Nothing to be desired
Nothing
Certainly not ?
Nothing to be desired
Nothing
Nothing to be desired
Its not mind changing
Mind changing
Change your mind changing
Mind changing
Change your mind changing
Mind changing
Change your mind changing
Mind changing
Change your mind changing
Mind change
Change your mind change
Appearances
Nothing to be desired appeared on
song performed by David Bowie
Added by Lucian Velea
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XI. Guido
You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Georgics
GEORGIC I
What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star
Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod
Or marry elm with vine; how tend the steer;
What pains for cattle-keeping, or what proof
Of patient trial serves for thrifty bees;-
Such are my themes.
O universal lights
Most glorious! ye that lead the gliding year
Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild,
If by your bounty holpen earth once changed
Chaonian acorn for the plump wheat-ear,
And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift,
The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns
To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns
And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing.
And thou, for whose delight the war-horse first
Sprang from earth's womb at thy great trident's stroke,
Neptune; and haunter of the groves, for whom
Three hundred snow-white heifers browse the brakes,
The fertile brakes of Ceos; and clothed in power,
Thy native forest and Lycean lawns,
Pan, shepherd-god, forsaking, as the love
Of thine own Maenalus constrains thee, hear
And help, O lord of Tegea! And thou, too,
Minerva, from whose hand the olive sprung;
And boy-discoverer of the curved plough;
And, bearing a young cypress root-uptorn,
Silvanus, and Gods all and Goddesses,
Who make the fields your care, both ye who nurse
The tender unsown increase, and from heaven
Shed on man's sowing the riches of your rain:
And thou, even thou, of whom we know not yet
What mansion of the skies shall hold thee soon,
Whether to watch o'er cities be thy will,
Great Caesar, and to take the earth in charge,
That so the mighty world may welcome thee
Lord of her increase, master of her times,
Binding thy mother's myrtle round thy brow,
Or as the boundless ocean's God thou come,
Sole dread of seamen, till far Thule bow
Before thee, and Tethys win thee to her son
With all her waves for dower; or as a star
Lend thy fresh beams our lagging months to cheer,
Where 'twixt the Maid and those pursuing Claws
A space is opening; see! red Scorpio's self
His arms draws in, yea, and hath left thee more
Than thy full meed of heaven: be what thou wilt-
For neither Tartarus hopes to call thee king,
[...] Read more