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I never imagined it wouldn't work out for me. I had that absolute certainty in myself that has seen me through, I think, and my parents were absolutely behind me all the way.

quote by Ewan McGregor
Added by Lucian Velea
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Work To Make It Work

(r palmer)
Push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work if you want to improve it
Push it along
It's all there for you to feel it
Help your self to one that you can't deal with
Ain't no way that you could steal it
You misunderstand if you get greedy
Ah push
Work work work to make it work push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work if you want to improve
Don't confine your dreams to bed
You'll get scared if you get lazy
If you can't take enough to satisfy yourself
Then you'll go crazy
Wont do no good thinking
You got to do it
So it don't come easy the first time
Practice makes perfect, you know that i'll try hard
Use it or lose it
You got to put your heart and soul into it
Yeaheheh
Push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work if you want to move it
Push it along
Work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work if you want to improve
It's all there for you to feel it
Help your self to one that you can't deal with
Ain't no way that you could steal it
You misunderstand if you get greedy forget wishful thinking
You can do it
You just need a push to make a start
If you don't succeed the first time
Try and try again
Use it or lose it
You got to put your back into it
Work work work to make it work
Push it along

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song performed by Robert Palmer
Added by Lucian Velea
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Payment

A tortuous path of neurons arced a call: ‘Awake! ’
I did; in rising, peering, stretching, bearing,
Pained anticipation saw it all:
Foretold, another filthy day.

I drew the drape: diluvian lay the ground
Beneath a lazy leaden cloud – apissing out
The puddles; irksome on the roof –
The drumming drops of bitter glee
Were hounding out a hapless me –
Reinforcing doubt that I am sound.

I left the house
to go to work
to earn a crust
without a perk
then on to bust
another straining vessel.

Trudging on thro’ mud and clay, I pondered:
‘Why a drought of happy times?
Auspicious climes were
Old and fusty books
Atop a dusty shelf
Inside a morgue-of-a-room,
Somewhere in a long-forgotten library
Down a lane without a way.’

I thought again: ‘And still I pay.’

Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Fundamental of Liar Chapter XCVIII: Absolutely Relative

Expensive is absolute, cheap is relative
Far is absolute, near is relative
Ugly is absolute, beauty is relative
Weird is absolute, crazy is relative
Stubborn is absolute, brave is relative
Stupid is absolute, smart is relative
Weak is absolute, strong is relative
Old is absolute, mature is relative
Lose is absolute, win is relative
Rich is absolute, poor is relative
Sad is absolute, happy is relative
Misfortune is absolute, lucky is relative
Safe is absolute, fear is relative
Love is absolute, hate is relative
Important is absolute, forgotten is relative
Easy is absolute, difficult is relative
Wrong is absolute, right is relative
Bad is absolute, good is relative
Lie is absolute, truth is relative

poem by Maria Sudibyo
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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:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Work To Make It Work 99

Push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work if you want to improve it
Push it along
Its all there for you to feel it
Help your self to one that you cant deal with
Aint no way that you could steal it
You misunderstand if you get greedy
Ah push
Work work work to make it work push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work if you want to improve
Dont confine your dreams to bed
Youll get scared if you get lazy
If you cant take enough to satisfy yourself
Then youll go crazy
Wont do no good thinking
You got to do it
So it dont come easy the first time
Practice makes perfect, you know that Ill try hard
Use it or lose it
You got to put your heart and soul into it
Yeaheheh
Push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work if you want to move it
Push it along
Work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work if you want to improve
Its all there for you to feel it
Help your self to one that you cant deal with
Aint no way that you could steal it
You misunderstand if you get greedy forget wishful thinking
You can do it
You just need a push to make a start
If you dont succeed the first time
Try and try again
Use it or lose it
You got to put your back into it
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work if you want to move it

[...] Read more

song performed by Robert Palmer
Added by Lucian Velea
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Imagined

Imagined the world described as heaven
Imagined the world all is even
Imagined everywhere without evil
Imagined the absence of soldier only civil

Imagined a quest between good nature existence
Imagined people, place and body with no cause for defence
Imagined air, love, soul and all virtues show their face
Imagined the extinction of all the different race

Imagined we always praise him who live above
Imagined nature ruffs all calm like pure dove
Imagined that you are not imagining
But all this is happening

poem by Kemurl Fofanah
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What Parents When Old, Want From Their Children …

When you were small, a helpless kid,
Just imagine what parents did,
From feeding to keeping you clean –
A routine that had always been!

And now when parents are quite aged,
They feel like birds both that are caged;
Just give them half the love they gave;
Don’t lose your temper / misbehave!

When you were small and could not bathe,
Mom bathed you with towel to swathe,
And wiped you dry and combed your hair,
All your mischief, she had to bear!

When parents are now pretty old,
Or have a fever, catch a cold,
Should not the children care for them,
And treat them for each new problem?

When you were just a little child,
And parents scolded you so mild,
To show you what was wrong and right,
And chalk a future that was bright!

And now when parents have gone weak,
To walk, your assistance, they seek,
Oblige them with a heart all glad:
Old age is less happy, much sad!

When you were craving for good food,
Your mother cooked it as she should,
And heaved a sigh of great relief,
When you’d slept, in disbelief!

And now, when parents ask something,
Be kind and courteously do bring,
They cannot buy whatev’r they feel;
They cannot run or walk or kneel!

When you’d joined school for the first time,
And could not say even a rhyme,
Your mom had taught you how to write,
And sang a ‘lullaby’ at night!

And now when parents cannot read,
And reached a stage, they cannot feed,
Shouldn’t children help them with these chores,
And see that they don’t get bed-sores?

[...] Read more

poem by John Celes
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Work, Sleep, Work, Sleep, Work

Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work:

Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work.

Oh free me please with gentle ease
From work, sleep, work, sleep, work!
This odium, pounding tedium
Of my work, sleep, work, sleep, work.

Just whisk me off to lands afar
From work, sleep, work, sleep, work -
That grinding train of rhythmic pain
Called ‘Work, sleep, work, sleep, work.’

Poor neural circuits fizzle and pop
In work, sleep, work, sleep, work,
In trying to make some sense of all this
Work, sleep, work, sleep, work.

But Hark! I see a golden gleam -
A saving spirit of hope:
‘You’re fired! ’ He screams. What news to bear,
This wondrous hangman’s rope!

So now I’m free, released from all this
Work, sleep, work, sleep, work -
Eternal peace and rest for me, no
Work, sleep, work, sleep, work.

poem by Mark R Slaughter
Added by Poetry Lover
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Third Book

'TO-DAY thou girdest up thy loins thyself,
And goest where thou wouldest: presently
Others shall gird thee,' said the Lord, 'to go
Where thou would'st not.' He spoke to Peter thus,
To signify the death which he should die
When crucified head downwards.
If He spoke
To Peter then, He speaks to us the same;
The word suits many different martyrdoms,
And signifies a multiform of death,
Although we scarcely die apostles, we,
And have mislaid the keys of heaven and earth.

For tis not in mere death that men die most;
And, after our first girding of the loins
In youth's fine linen and fair broidery,
To run up hill and meet the rising sun,
We are apt to sit tired, patient as a fool,
While others gird us with the violent bands
Of social figments, feints, and formalisms,
Reversing our straight nature, lifting up
Our base needs, keeping down our lofty thoughts,
Head downward on the cross-sticks of the world.
Yet He can pluck us from the shameful cross.
God, set our feet low and our forehead high,
And show us how a man was made to walk!

Leave the lamp, Susan, and go up to bed.
The room does very well; I have to write
Beyond the stroke of midnight. Get away;
Your steps, for ever buzzing in the room,
Tease me like gnats. Ah, letters! throw them down
At once, as I must have them, to be sure,
Whether I bid you never bring me such
At such an hour, or bid you. No excuse.
You choose to bring them, as I choose perhaps
To throw them in the fire. Now, get to bed,
And dream, if possible, I am not cross.

Why what a pettish, petty thing I grow,–
A mere, mere woman,–a mere flaccid nerve,-
A kerchief left out all night in the rain,
Turned soft so,–overtasked and overstrained
And overlived in this close London life!
And yet I should be stronger.
Never burn
Your letters, poor Aurora! for they stare
With red seals from the table, saying each,
'Here's something that you know not.' Out alas,
'Tis scarcely that the world's more good and wise

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Absolutely Everybody

Absolutely everybody,
Everybody needs a little loving,
Everybody needs somebody thinking of them.
Everybody needs a little respect,
And whatever it takes,
Im gonna get it.
Everybody needs a hand to hold,
Someone to cling to
When the nights are getting cold.
Im no different,
I am just the same,
A player in the game.
Absolutely everybody,
Everybody, everybody.
Absolutely everybody
In the whole wide world.
Absolutely everybody,
Every boy and every girl,
Absolutely everybody.
Everybody needs a human touch.
I cant live without it,
It means too much to me.
Everybody needs one true friend,
Someone wholl be there til the very end.
And absolutely everybody breathes,
And everybody, everybody bleeds.
Were no different,
Were all the same,
Players in the game.
Absolutely, everybody,
Everybody, everybody.
Absolutely everybody
In the whole wide world.
Everybody breathes,
And everybody needs.
Absolutely everybody.
Absolutely everybody.
Every boy and girl,
Every woman and child.
Every father and son.
I said now everyone,
Yes now everyone.
Everybody needs a human touch.
Everybody, everybody needs love.
Im no different,
I am just the same,
A player in the game.
Absolutely everybody.
Dream dealers pty ltd
Transistor music australia pty ltd

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song performed by Vanessa Amorosi
Added by Lucian Velea
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Got To Go To Work

gotta go to work
work work work wok work work work work work work work
gotta go to work
work work work work work work work work work work work
12697566846748857455848
work work work work work
gotta go to work
work work work work wok work
136498368574934
gotta go to work
repeatedly, until u want to stop
By: Ashley jones

poem by Ashley Jones
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III. The Other Half-Rome

Another day that finds her living yet,
Little Pompilia, with the patient brow
And lamentable smile on those poor lips,
And, under the white hospital-array,
A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise
You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through again,
Alive i' the ruins. 'T is a miracle.
It seems that, when her husband struck her first,
She prayed Madonna just that she might live
So long as to confess and be absolved;
And whether it was that, all her sad life long
Never before successful in a prayer,
This prayer rose with authority too dread,—
Or whether, because earth was hell to her,
By compensation, when the blackness broke
She got one glimpse of quiet and the cool blue,
To show her for a moment such things were,—
Or else,—as the Augustinian Brother thinks,
The friar who took confession from her lip,—
When a probationary soul that moved
From nobleness to nobleness, as she,
Over the rough way of the world, succumbs,
Bloodies its last thorn with unflinching foot,
The angels love to do their work betimes,
Staunch some wounds here nor leave so much for God.
Who knows? However it be, confessed, absolved,
She lies, with overplus of life beside
To speak and right herself from first to last,
Right the friend also, lamb-pure, lion-brave,
Care for the boy's concerns, to save the son
From the sire, her two-weeks' infant orphaned thus,
And—with best smile of all reserved for him—
Pardon that sire and husband from the heart.
A miracle, so tell your Molinists!

There she lies in the long white lazar-house.
Rome has besieged, these two days, never doubt,
Saint Anna's where she waits her death, to hear
Though but the chink o' the bell, turn o' the hinge
When the reluctant wicket opes at last,
Lets in, on now this and now that pretence,
Too many by half,—complain the men of art,—
For a patient in such plight. The lawyers first
Paid the due visit—justice must be done;
They took her witness, why the murder was.
Then the priests followed properly,—a soul
To shrive; 't was Brother Celestine's own right,
The same who noises thus her gifts abroad.
But many more, who found they were old friends,
Pushed in to have their stare and take their talk

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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We Can Work It Out

Now that I know your name and U know mine
Ain't it just about time that we got 2gether?
We should make such beautiful music 4ever
Oh, 2gether 4ever
Put your trust in me, I'll never let U down
Cuz I know I can count on U 2 help me make it
Ain't no doubt about it
We can work it out, work it out
I know we can work it out
Work it out, work it out
Ooh wee!
CHORUS:
Hope we work it out, I hope we work it out
(Everybody sing) Hope we work it out, I hope we work it out
Hope we work it out, I hope we work it out
(Everybody sing) Hope we work it out, I hope we work it out
Makin' music naturally, me and W.B. (CHORUS)
Music 4 the young and old, music bound 2 be gold
Work it out
Hope we work it out, I hope we work it out {x2}
Hope we work it out, I hope we work it out (Can we work it out?)
Hope we work it out, I hope we work it out (I want 2 work it out)
Hope we work it out, I hope we work it out
(Everybody sing) Hope we work it out, I hope we work it out
Hope we work it out, I hope we work it out
(Everybody sing) Hope we work it out, I hope we work it out
Hope we work it out, I hope we work it out
(Everybody sing) Hope we work it out, I hope we work it out
Makin' music naturally, me and W.B

song performed by Prince
Added by Lucian Velea
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IV. Tertium Quid

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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Four Letter 'Work' Song

Work me up, work me out, work me flip side down.
Work me here, work me there, work me with renown.
Work me hot, work me greedy,
work me through and through.
Work me to the very marrow,
work me just like I'd work you.
Work me proud, work me late,
work me do not hesitate.
Won't you let me work for you?
Work me til I'm black and blue.
Work me steady, work me needy, work me to a lather.
Work me til my backbone breaks, and the buzzards gather.
Work me in, work me under, work me til I bleed,
Work me over red hot coals, work me like a boss in need.
Work me nasty, work me silly, work me through the clover.
Up down, 'n' in between, into a slipknot sweet Jehovah.
Work me, work me, go ahead.
Work me, work me, til I'm dead.

Buddy Bee Anthony

poem by Buddy Bee Anthony
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Law[Earthing On Fire]

I dont want knowledge, I want certainty
I dont want knowledge, I want certainty
I dont want knowledge, I want certainty
In the street a man shouts out loud
A wallet drops and money flies into the midday sun
With the sound, with the sound, with the sound of the ground
With the sound, with the sound, with the sound of the ground
With the sound, with the sound, with the sound of the ground
Oh I get a little bit afraid
Sometimes
Earthlings on fire
Earthlings on fire
With the sound, with the sound, with the sound of the ground
With the sound, with the sound, with the sound of the ground
With the sound, with the sound, with the sound of the ground
Sure I get a little bit afraid
Sometimes
Earthlings on fire
Earthlings on fire
Earthlings on fire
Earthlings on fire
I dont want knowledge, I want certainty
I dont want knowledge, I want certainty
In a house a man drops dead
As he hits the floor he sighs
What a morning
With the sound, with the sound, with the sound of the ground
With the sound, with the sound, with the sound of the ground
With the sound, with the sound, with the sound of the ground
Sure I get a little bit afraid
With the sound, with the sound, with the sound of the ground
With the sound, with the sound, with the sound of the ground
With the sound, with the sound, with the sound of the ground
Sure I get a little bit afraid
Sometimes
Earthlings on fire
Earthlings on fire
Earthlings on fire
Earthlings on fire
Oh I get a little bit afraid
Sometimes
Earthlings on fire
Earthlings on fire
Earthlings on fire (I dont want knowledge, I want certainty)
Earthlings on fire (I dont want knowledge, I want certainty)
Sometimes
Earthlings (I dont want knowledge, I want certainty)
I dont want knowledge

song performed by David Bowie
Added by Lucian Velea
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Second Book

TIMES followed one another. Came a morn
I stood upon the brink of twenty years,
And looked before and after, as I stood
Woman and artist,–either incomplete,
Both credulous of completion. There I held
The whole creation in my little cup,
And smiled with thirsty lips before I drank,
'Good health to you and me, sweet neighbour mine
And all these peoples.'
I was glad, that day;
The June was in me, with its multitudes
Of nightingales all singing in the dark,
And rosebuds reddening where the calyx split.
I felt so young, so strong, so sure of God!
So glad, I could not choose be very wise!
And, old at twenty, was inclined to pull
My childhood backward in a childish jest
To see the face of't once more, and farewell!
In which fantastic mood I bounded forth
At early morning,–would not wait so long
As even to snatch my bonnet by the strings,
But, brushing a green trail across the lawn
With my gown in the dew, took will and way
Among the acacias of the shrubberies,
To fly my fancies in the open air
And keep my birthday, till my aunt awoke
To stop good dreams. Meanwhile I murmured on,
As honeyed bees keep humming to themselves;
'The worthiest poets have remained uncrowned
Till death has bleached their foreheads to the bone,
And so with me it must be, unless I prove
Unworthy of the grand adversity,–
And certainly I would not fail so much.
What, therefore, if I crown myself to-day
In sport, not pride, to learn the feel of it,
Before my brows be numb as Dante's own
To all the tender pricking of such leaves?
Such leaves? what leaves?'
I pulled the branches down,
To choose from.
'Not the bay! I choose no bay;
The fates deny us if we are overbold:
Nor myrtle–which means chiefly love; and love
Is something awful which one dare not touch
So early o' mornings. This verbena strains
The point of passionate fragrance; and hard by,
This guelder rose, at far too slight a beck
Of the wind, will toss about her flower-apples.
Ah–there's my choice,–that ivy on the wall,
That headlong ivy! not a leaf will grow

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Peace!

A dark parody of Edwin Starr's War
Meant as satire only!

Peace! Huh-Yeah!
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Uh-huh

Peace! Huh-Yeah!
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it again y'all

Peace! Huh-Good God!
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me...

Ohhh....Peace!
I despise
Because it means no innocent lives lost
Not one single one
Damn!

Peace means joy in thousands of mother's eyes
When their sons get to stay home
Don't have to fight our war
Staying alive
What the hell fun is that
If there's no war to watch on my tv tonight

I said-peace! Huh-Good God y'all
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Say it again

Peace! Whoa, Lord
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing
Listen to me...

Peace! It ain't nothing but a party wrecker
Peace! It ain't no friend at all to this undertaker
Peace! It's an enemy to all in my line of work
The thought of peace makes me wanna take a gun and blow my brains way
Yeah! It does!

Peace has caused happiness in the younger generation
No induction
No destruction

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poem by Ramona Thompson
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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

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Bishop Blougram's Apology

No more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk.
A final glass for me, though: cool, i' faith!
We ought to have our Abbey back, you see.
It's different, preaching in basilicas,
And doing duty in some masterpiece
Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart!
I doubt if they're half baked, those chalk rosettes,
Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere;
It's just like breathing in a lime-kiln: eh?
These hot long ceremonies of our church
Cost us a little—oh, they pay the price,
You take me—amply pay it! Now, we'll talk.

So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs.
No deprecation—nay, I beg you, sir!
Beside 't is our engagement: don't you know,
I promised, if you'd watch a dinner out,
We'd see truth dawn together?—truth that peeps
Over the glasses' edge when dinner's done,
And body gets its sop and holds its noise
And leaves soul free a little. Now's the time:
Truth's break of day! You do despise me then.
And if I say, "despise me"—never fear!
1 know you do not in a certain sense—
Not in my arm-chair, for example: here,
I well imagine you respect my place
(Status, entourage, worldly circumstance)
Quite to its value—very much indeed:
—Are up to the protesting eyes of you
In pride at being seated here for once—
You'll turn it to such capital account!
When somebody, through years and years to come,
Hints of the bishop—names me—that's enough:
"Blougram? I knew him"—(into it you slide)
"Dined with him once, a Corpus Christi Day,
All alone, we two; he's a clever man:
And after dinner—why, the wine you know—
Oh, there was wine, and good!—what with the wine . . .
'Faith, we began upon all sorts of talk!
He's no bad fellow, Blougram; he had seen
Something of mine he relished, some review:
He's quite above their humbug in his heart,
Half-said as much, indeed—the thing's his trade.
I warrant, Blougram's sceptical at times:
How otherwise? I liked him, I confess!"
Che che, my dear sir, as we say at Rome,
Don't you protest now! It's fair give and take;
You have had your turn and spoken your home-truths:
The hand's mine now, and here you follow suit.

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poem by Robert Browning from Men and Women (1855)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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