Citatepedia^®.com

Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down within incredible swiftness.

quote by Faith Baldwin
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Minds of Those Like These

The escalation of a hatred,
By those accustomed to doing it...
Produces for them great sorrow.
And on borrowed time,
They proceed to show themselves...
Out of their minds with a choice to grieve.

Incredible.
Incredible...
Wh at people know.
What people know..
And find it,
Hard to believe.
And,
Incredible.
Incredible...
What people know.
What people know...
And find it,
Hard to conceive.

Self seekers enforcing to impose their will,
For the purpose to fulfill...
The prophesy of their demise.
So unwise are they who do not pay attention.
So unwise are they who do not listen!
As they forge ahead,
In disbelief of what has been 'envisioned'.
Or comprehend words to them said.
As they forge ahead,
Strickened by positions...
That restrict their minds to limited conditions.

Incredible.
Incredible...What people know.
What people know..
And find it,
Hard to believe.
And,
Incredible.
Incredible...
What people know.
What people know...
And find it,
Hard to conceive.

The escalation of a hatred,
By those accustomed to doing it...
Produces for them great sorrow.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Very Slowly

Tick tock
The moonlights hummin
My fingers on the button and my hob-nobs drummin
Slow down were moving too fast
Better wait a minute make the good times last
Ive learned something bout livin
You dont get nothing if you dont stop givin
We both know that we got so much but there aint no rush
Wanna love you slowly
When you slide on down
Wanna love you slowly turn that body round
You wont be able to control me
When your love slow down
Wanna love you slowly slowly slowly slowly
Slowly..
Hold tight
Love is all I need I guess its sweeter when its more than just a tease
Let me hold you close enough to stick
Love is an illusion lets play that trick
Slow hand moving down my back
If you get a chance u feel my heart attack
Real love has never been a crime
Wanna take my time
Wanna love you slowly
When you slide on down
Wanna love you slowly
And turn that body round
You wont be able to control me
When your love slow down
Wanna love you slowly slowly slowly slowly slowly...
Aah...oah...uah...
Slowly...aah...oah...uah...
Slowly... yeah...aah...oah...uah...
If you get a chance you feel my heart attack
Aah...oah...uah...
Real love has never been a crime
Wanna take my time
Wanna love you slowly
When you slide on down
Wanna love you slowly
And turn that body round
You wont be able to control me
When your love slow down
Wanna love you slowly slowly slowly slowly slowly...
Slowly...aah...oah...uah...slowly...aah...oah...uah...
Slowly... yeah...aah...oah...uah...aah...oah...uah...

song performed by Geri Halliwell
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Torn Apart

Well I went down to your house just the other day
Only to discover you had gone astray
Torn apart
Torn apart
Torn apart
Torn apart
Well I called you on the tele just the other day
Only to discover you had gone astray
Torn apart
Torn apart
Torn apart
Torn apart
Torn apart
Torn apart
Torn apart
Torn apart
Torn apart
Torn apart
Torn apart
Torn apart

song performed by Goo Goo Dolls
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Song Of Spring

The Spring comes slowly up this way,
Slowly, slowly,
Under a snood of hodden grey.

The black and white for her array,
Slowly, slowly,
The Spring comes slowly up this way.

Where is her green that was so gay?
Slowly, slowly,
The Spring comes slowly up this way.

Unto a world too sick for May,
Slowly, slowly,
The Spring comes slowly up this way.

Where are the lads that used to play?
Slowly, slowly,
The Spring comes slowly up this way.

She has no heart for holiday,
Slowly, slowly,
The Spring comes slowly up this way.

The trees are out in Heaven they say.
Slowly, slowly,
The Spring comes slowly up our way.

poem by Katharine Tynan
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Inertia Creeps

3d
Recollect me darling raise me to your lips
2 undernourished egos 4 rotating hips
Hold on to me tightly Im a sliding scale
Cant endure then you can inhale
Clearly out of body experience
Interferes and dreams of flying I fit nearly
Surrounds me though I get lonely
Slowly
Moving up slowly
Inertia keeps
Shes moving up slowly
Slowly
Moving up slowly
Interia creeps
Moving up slowly
She comes moving up slowly
She comes moving up slowly
Inertia creeps
Moving up slowly
She comes
Moving up slowly (x2)
In my home no chrome as clear as
See me now with my nearest dearest
Been there when Im over-careering
Room shifting is endearing
Between us is our kitchen
Where she finds my irritants itching
Been here before been here forever
Moving up slowly
Inertia keeps moving up slowly
Inertia creeps moving up slowly
Inertia keeps moving up slowly
She comes
Moving up slowly (x2)
She comes moving up slowly
Inertia creeps moving up slowly
She comes
There be no sound in my eiderdown
Awake I lie in the morning blue
Room is still my antenna in you
Nylon burns the bedspread with 2
Gravity zero see me stall
I bounce off the walls lose my footing and fall
It can be sweet though incomplete though
And the frames will freeze see me on all 4s
Its been a long time
She comes (x2)
Comes
I want to x you, she comes

[...] Read more

song performed by Massive Attack
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Slowly

Set the mood
light the candles
and bring the wine
I'm wantin you
Been havin this feelin
For sometime now
Come on in
Take off your coat
And stay a while
I Been waiting for this day
Just so we could make love slow

Slowly (I Know)
We'll be (Making Love)
Slowly (All Night Long)
Slowly (I Know)
We'll be (Making Love)
Slowly (All Night Long)

Slip it off yea
show big daddy what he's been missing
Tip it off tip it off
Want you to feel right
When I'm kissing when I'm kissing
Really really wanna take my time
With you pretty baby
If you don't mind
Love you all night long

Slowly (I Know)
We'll be (Making Love)
Slowly (All Night Long)
Slowly (I Know)
We'll be (Making Love)
Slowly (All Night Long)

Slowly (I Know)
We'll be (Making Love)
Slowly (All Night Long)
Slowly (I Know)
We'll be (Making Love)
Slowly (All Night Long)

Come on in
Close the door
Take off your clothes
Drink some more
Holding you close
Holding you tight
Makin love through the night

[...] Read more

song performed by Tank from Force Of Nature
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Victim to persecution

Then you talk a little more about your dreams,
How it involves your thought of rings,
a little more about your needs,
for i bit my tounge,
just for a feed,
for you drag me in the street,
ask me to forgive your mistakes,
put me in misery from your plea,
as i buckle from my knees,

It's slowly you drain my life,
It's slowly your evil consumes,
but what was it like?
It's slowly you drain my life,
It's slowly your evil consumes,

It's perjury on your arm,
that was put there by your soul,
your feeling sorry, for not achieving your goals,
tacking in your argument,
as you stated with your thought,
you bring me down,
and destroy my heart,

It's slowly you drain my life,
It's slowly your evil consumes,
but what was it like?
It's slowly you drain my life,
It's slowly your evil consumes,

Asking which way is out,
Asking which was not as hard,
Misdirected in your final mount,
as you shout,
cry your lungs out to stay afloat,
yet push me under,
strain to be felt,
pushing me down, holding my throat,
I started to feel the black,
and evil you call your safety boat,

It's slowly you drain my life,
It's slowly your evil consumes,
but what was it like?
It's slowly you drain my life,
It's slowly your evil consumes,

toss in the rope, pull it tight,
you might be something,
but what was it like?

[...] Read more

poem by Matthew Boisjolie
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Nature

Weather constantly changes.
No character, only dynamic.
Dull and dreary,
Or bitter and cold,
Or bright and shiny.
This is mother nature.
She is of this world.
She dictates the mood.
She affects mine.

Emotions, constantly changing.
Personality has dynamic,
But lacks character.
It is constantly changing.
Bitter and resentful,
Frustrated and annoyed
Happy & joyous.
This is human nature.
It is of this world.
It dictates our mood.
It affects another.

Mother nature cannot be controlled.
For she is not ours.
Yet mother nature controls me,
Though I am not hers.
Together, we must exist.
We must accept each as we both are.
Though one affects the other.
Based on emotion, not character.

During the storm,
The sky is still the sky,
The ground, is still the ground
The sun is still the sun.
This is the character of mother nature.
The snow may cover the ground,
But the ground remains.
The clouds may cover the sun,
But the sun remains.
Character is always constant.

Nature affects character.
Character is patience, kindness,
Compassion, empathy, forgiving.
Plain and simple,
Our character is love.
Human nature covers human character,
Although it might not be seen,
It still remains.

[...] Read more

poem by Ryan Lee Morris
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Drown Me Slowly

I've got a will this time don't care what you say
I've got a feeling this will all go away
It's in the wind this time it's in the southern sky
I can't walk on water yet won't even try
Chorus
So drown me slowly
Enclose me
Drown me slowly alright
Drown me slowly
Enfold me
Drown me slowly
All that I took with me was a bad taste in my mouth
Went all around the world just couldn't spit it out
Just like ground zero was the surface of the sun
That's a sickness I can't fix it not all at once
Chorus
So drown me slowly
Enclose me
Drown me slowly alright
Drown me slowly
Enfold me
Drown me slowly
Don't let them take you down
You'll leave a better world than you found
Don't let them take you down
You'll leave a better world than you found
Don't let them take you down
Don't let them take you down
Don't let them take you down
Don't let them take you down
Chorus
So drown me slowly
Enclose me
Drown me slowly alright
Drown me slowly
Enfold me
Drown me slowly
Drown me slowly
Drown me slowly
Drown me slowly

song performed by Audioslave
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Torn Butterfly

Torn butterfly torn butterfly
Seeing you there it makes me cry
Torn butterfly your wings they tore
From the weight that they bore
Torn butterfly it's plain to see
That you are just the same as me
Torn butterfly the world is tough
Hard as stones and just as rough
Torn butterfly I know your pain
And I don't want to know it again
Torn butterfly come join me now
And we'll regain our wings somehow
Torn butterfly it's sad but true
In death our wings become brand new
Torn butterfly just fade away
And we will fly this very day
Torn butterfly this note I send
And hope that you will cause your end
So we can fly in clear blue skies
Where no one hurts and no one cries
Torn butterfly with my last breath
I ask you to come join me in death

poem by Anonymous Ghurl
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

What Is A Hero

A hero is a Dad,
who carries your heart onto his with his unconditional love.

A hero is a Dad,
who builds your first pair of wings to enable you to fly on your own.

A hero is a Dad,
who builds your faith when all hope tumbles out from your heart.

A hero is a Dad,
who builds you a magical ladder to keep you high off the ground.

A hero is a Dad,
who builds your confidence so you make it through the wind and rain.

A hero is a Dad,
who builds your strength beyond his own when your life with pain collides.

A hero is a Dad,
who knows when he must step aside when another hero has come to carry your heart onto his.

A hero is a Dad,
who builds his strength of having to let go when walking his little girl down the aisle to place her heart onto the heart of another hero.

poem by Linda Patino
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Tattered & Torn

Tattered and torn
Tattered and torn
Thats where my soul is worn
Tattered and torn
Thats when I was born
Tattered and torn
I broke away from me
Tattered and torn
I knocked me to my knees
Tattered and torn
I drink my own cells
Tattered and torn
A decomposing well
Tattered and torn
Roaches in my head
Tattered and torn
I become the living dead
Tattered and torn
Tearing myself apart from the
Things that make me hurt

song performed by Slipknot
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Your Love Is Incredible

Uh
Oooh
Oh baby baby yeah
Baby baby
Listen

Girl I peeped you on the corner
So I rolled up on ya late one Saturday
You was peelin a banana
I was lookin at ya
Thinkin she freaky

(That night)
That night I gotta getcha
Gotcha Gucci underwear in my back pocket
Mmm and I can't get you outta my mind
Girl I can't get enough of it
Because

[CHORUS]
Your love is incredible
You can say it's unforgettable
Can't believe it's merely sexual
Cuz your love is incredible incredible
Said your love is incredible
You can say it's unforgettable
Can we make it more than sexual
Cuz your love is incredible incredible

I'm thinkin about the things that you did to me
I'magine your body movin like a centipede
I want ya to know that I'm ready to be
All over your body
(Baby you got all I need)

I like the way you got the softest lips
(Alright)
Infatuated by the way you kiss me
Oh girl I'm tellin you wit you is where I wanna be
You know you drive me crazy
Cuz

[CHORUS]

Break it down
Break it down
Ooooh
Baby
Oooh
Yeah

[...] Read more

song performed by Sisqo from Unleash The Dragon
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Berenice by edgar allan poe

MISERY is manifold. The wretchedness of earth is multiform. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow, its hues are as various as the hues of that arch, -as distinct too, yet as intimately blended. Overreaching the wide horizon as the rainbow! How is it that from beauty I have derived a type of unloveliness? -from the covenant of peace a simile of sorrow? But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of to-day, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been.

My baptismal name is Egaeus; that of my family I will not mention. Yet there are no towers in the land more time-honored than my gloomy, gray, hereditary halls. Our line has been called a race of visionaries; and in many striking particulars -in the character of the family mansion -in the frescos of the chief saloon -in the tapestries of the dormitories -in the chiselling of some buttresses in the armory -but more especially in the gallery of antique paintings -in the fashion of the library chamber -and, lastly, in the very peculiar nature of the library's contents, there is more than sufficient evidence to warrant the belief.

The recollections of my earliest years are connected with that chamber, and with its volumes -of which latter I will say no more. Here died my mother. Herein was I born. But it is mere idleness to say that I had not lived before -that the soul has no previous existence. You deny it? -let us not argue the matter. Convinced myself, I seek not to convince. There is, however, a remembrance of aerial forms -of spiritual and meaning eyes -of sounds, musical yet sad -a remembrance which will not be excluded; a memory like a shadow, vague, variable, indefinite, unsteady; and like a shadow, too, in the impossibility of my getting rid of it while the sunlight of my reason shall exist.

In that chamber was I born. Thus awaking from the long night of what seemed, but was not, nonentity, at once into the very regions of fairy-land -into a palace of imagination -into the wild dominions of monastic thought and erudition -it is not singular that I gazed around me with a startled and ardent eye -that I loitered away my boyhood in books, and dissipated my youth in reverie; but it is singular that as years rolled away, and the noon of manhood found me still in the mansion of my fathers -it is wonderful what stagnation there fell upon the springs of my life -wonderful how total an inversion took place in the character of my commonest thought. The realities of the world affected me as visions, and as visions only, while the wild ideas of the land of dreams became, in turn, -not the material of my every-day existence-but in very deed that existence utterly and solely in itself.

Berenice and I were cousins, and we grew up together in my paternal halls. Yet differently we grew -I ill of health, and buried in gloom -she agile, graceful, and overflowing with energy; hers the ramble on the hill-side -mine the studies of the cloister -I living within my own heart, and addicted body and soul to the most intense and painful meditation -she roaming carelessly through life with no thought of the shadows in her path, or the silent flight of the raven-winged hours. Berenice! -I call upon her name -Berenice! -and from the gray ruins of memory a thousand tumultuous recollections are startled at the sound! Ah! vividly is her image before me now, as in the early days of her light-heartedness and joy! Oh! gorgeous yet fantastic beauty! Oh! sylph amid the shrubberies of Arnheim! -Oh! Naiad among its fountains! -and then -then all is mystery and terror, and a tale which should not be told. Disease -a fatal disease -fell like the simoom upon her frame, and, even while I gazed upon her, the spirit of change swept, over her, pervading her mind, her habits, and her character, and, in a manner the most subtle and terrible, disturbing even the identity of her person! Alas! the destroyer came and went, and the victim -where was she, I knew her not -or knew her no longer as Berenice.

Among the numerous train of maladies superinduced by that fatal and primary one which effected a revolution of so horrible a kind in the moral and physical being of my cousin, may be mentioned as the most distressing and obstinate in its nature, a species of epilepsy not unfrequently terminating in trance itself -trance very nearly resembling positive dissolution, and from which her manner of recovery was in most instances, startlingly abrupt. In the mean time my own disease -for I have been told that I should call it by no other appelation -my own disease, then, grew rapidly upon me, and assumed finally a monomaniac character of a novel and extraordinary form -hourly and momently gaining vigor -and at length obtaining over me the most incomprehensible ascendancy. This monomania, if I must so term it, consisted in a morbid irritability of those properties of the mind in metaphysical science termed the attentive. It is more than probable that I am not understood; but I fear, indeed, that it is in no manner possible to convey to the mind of the merely general reader, an adequate idea of that nervous intensity of interest with which, in my case, the powers of meditation (not to speak technically) busied and buried themselves, in the contemplation of even the most ordinary objects of the universe.

To muse for long unwearied hours with my attention riveted to some frivolous device on the margin, or in the topography of a book; to become absorbed for the better part of a summer's day, in a quaint shadow falling aslant upon the tapestry, or upon the door; to lose myself for an entire night in watching the steady flame of a lamp, or the embers of a fire; to dream away whole days over the perfume of a flower; to repeat monotonously some common word, until the sound, by dint of frequent repetition, ceased to convey any idea whatever to the mind; to lose all sense of motion or physical existence, by means of absolute bodily quiescence long and obstinately persevered in; -such were a few of the most common and least pernicious vagaries induced by a condition of the mental faculties, not, indeed, altogether unparalleled, but certainly bidding defiance to anything like analysis or explanation.

Yet let me not be misapprehended. -The undue, earnest, and morbid attention thus excited by objects in their own nature frivolous, must not be confounded in character with that ruminating propensity common to all mankind, and more especially indulged in by persons of ardent imagination. It was not even, as might be at first supposed, an extreme condition or exaggeration of such propensity, but primarily and essentially distinct and different. In the one instance, the dreamer, or enthusiast, being interested by an object usually not frivolous, imperceptibly loses sight of this object in a wilderness of deductions and suggestions issuing therefrom, until, at the conclusion of a day dream often replete with luxury, he finds the incitamentum or first cause of his musings entirely vanished and forgotten. In my case the primary object was invariably frivolous, although assuming, through the medium of my distempered vision, a refracted and unreal importance. Few deductions, if any, were made; and those few pertinaciously returning in upon the original object as a centre. The meditations were never pleasurable; and, at the termination of the reverie, the first cause, so far from being out of sight, had attained that supernaturally exaggerated interest which was the prevailing feature of the disease. In a word, the powers of mind more particularly exercised were, with me, as I have said before, the attentive, and are, with the day-dreamer, the speculative.

My books, at this epoch, if they did not actually serve to irritate the disorder, partook, it will be perceived, largely, in their imaginative and inconsequential nature, of the characteristic qualities of the disorder itself. I well remember, among others, the treatise of the noble Italian Coelius Secundus Curio 'de Amplitudine Beati Regni dei'; St. Austin's great work, the 'City of God'; and Tertullian 'de Carne Christi, ' in which the paradoxical sentence 'Mortuus est Dei filius; credible est quia ineptum est: et sepultus resurrexit; certum est quia impossibile est' occupied my undivided time, for many weeks of laborious and fruitless investigation.

Thus it will appear that, shaken from its balance only by trivial things, my reason bore resemblance to that ocean-crag spoken of by Ptolemy Hephestion, which steadily resisting the attacks of human violence, and the fiercer fury of the waters and the winds, trembled only to the touch of the flower called Asphodel. And although, to a careless thinker, it might appear a matter beyond doubt, that the alteration produced by her unhappy malady, in the moral condition of Berenice, would afford me many objects for the exercise of that intense and abnormal meditation whose nature I have been at some trouble in explaining, yet such was not in any degree the case. In the lucid intervals of my infirmity, her calamity, indeed, gave me pain, and, taking deeply to heart that total wreck of her fair and gentle life, I did not fall to ponder frequently and bitterly upon the wonder-working means by which so strange a revolution had been so suddenly brought to pass. But these reflections partook not of the idiosyncrasy of my disease, and were such as would have occurred, under similar circumstances, to the ordinary mass of mankind. True to its own character, my disorder revelled in the less important but more startling changes wrought in the physical frame of Berenice -in the singular and most appalling distortion of her personal identity.

During the brightest days of her unparalleled beauty, most surely I had never loved her. In the strange anomaly of my existence, feelings with me, had never been of the heart, and my passions always were of the mind. Through the gray of the early morning -among the trellised shadows of the forest at noonday -and in the silence of my library at night, she had flitted by my eyes, and I had seen her -not as the living and breathing Berenice, but as the Berenice of a dream -not as a being of the earth, earthy, but as the abstraction of such a being-not as a thing to admire, but to analyze -not as an object of love, but as the theme of the most abstruse although desultory speculation. And now -now I shuddered in her presence, and grew pale at her approach; yet bitterly lamenting her fallen and desolate condition, I called to mind that she had loved me long, and, in an evil moment, I spoke to her of marriage.

And at length the period of our nuptials was approaching, when, upon an afternoon in the winter of the year, -one of those unseasonably warm, calm, and misty days which are the nurse of the beautiful Halcyon*, -I sat, (and sat, as I thought, alone,) in the inner apartment of the library. But uplifting my eyes I saw that Berenice stood before me.

*For as Jove, during the winter season, gives twice seven days of warmth, men have called this clement and temperate time the nurse of the beautiful Halcyon -Simonides.

Was it my own excited imagination -or the misty influence of the atmosphere -or the uncertain twilight of the chamber -or the gray draperies which fell around her figure -that caused in it so vacillating and indistinct an outline? I could not tell. She spoke no word, I -not for worlds could I have uttered a syllable. An icy chill ran through my frame; a sense of insufferable anxiety oppressed me; a consuming curiosity pervaded my soul; and sinking back upon the chair, I remained for some time breathless and motionless, with my eyes riveted upon her person. Alas! its emaciation was excessive, and not one vestige of the former being, lurked in any single line of the contour. My burning glances at length fell upon the face.

The forehead was high, and very pale, and singularly placid; and the once jetty hair fell partially over it, and overshadowed the hollow temples with innumerable ringlets now of a vivid yellow, and Jarring discordantly, in their fantastic character, with the reigning melancholy of the countenance. The eyes were lifeless, and lustreless, and seemingly pupil-less, and I shrank involuntarily from their glassy stare to the contemplation of the thin and shrunken lips. They parted; and in a smile of peculiar meaning, the teeth of the changed Berenice disclosed themselves slowly to my view. Would to God that I had never beheld them, or that, having done so, I had died!

The shutting of a door disturbed me, and, looking up, I found that my cousin had departed from the chamber. But from the disordered chamber of my brain, had not, alas! departed, and would not be driven away, the white and ghastly spectrum of the teeth. Not a speck on their surface -not a shade on their enamel -not an indenture in their edges -but what that period of her smile had sufficed to brand in upon my memory. I saw them now even more unequivocally than I beheld them then. The teeth! -the teeth! -they were here, and there, and everywhere, and visibly and palpably before me; long, narrow, and excessively white, with the pale lips writhing about them, as in the very moment of their first terrible development. Then came the full fury of my monomania, and I struggled in vain against its strange and irresistible influence. In the multiplied objects of the external world I had no thoughts but for the teeth. For these I longed with a phrenzied desire. All other matters and all different interests became absorbed in their single contemplation. They -they alone were present to the mental eye, and they, in their sole individuality, became the essence of my mental life. I held them in every light. I turned them in every attitude. I surveyed their characteristics. I dwelt upon their peculiarities. I pondered upon their conformation. I mused upon the alteration in their nature. I shuddered as I assigned to them in imagination a sensitive and sentient power, and even when unassisted by the lips, a capability of moral expression. Of Mad'selle Salle it has been well said, 'que tous ses pas etaient des sentiments, ' and of Berenice I more seriously believed que toutes ses dents etaient des idees. Des idees! -ah here was the idiotic thought that destroyed me! Des idees! -ah therefore it was that I coveted them so madly! I felt that their possession could alone ever restore me to peace, in giving me back to reason.

And the evening closed in upon me thus-and then the darkness came, and tarried, and went -and the day again dawned -and the mists of a second night were now gathering around -and still I sat motionless in that solitary room; and still I sat buried in meditation, and still the phantasma of the teeth maintained its terrible ascendancy as, with the most vivid hideous distinctness, it floated about amid the changing lights and shadows of the chamber. At length there broke in upon my dreams a cry as of horror and dismay; and thereunto, after a pause, succeeded the sound of troubled voices, intermingled with many low moanings of sorrow, or of pain. I arose from my seat and, throwing open one of the doors of the library, saw standing out in the antechamber a servant maiden, all in tears, who told me that Berenice was -no more. She had been seized with epilepsy in the early morning, and now, at the closing in of the night, the grave was ready for its tenant, and all the preparations for the burial were completed.

I found myself sitting in the library, and again sitting there alone. It seemed that I had newly awakened from a confused and exciting dream. I knew that it was now midnight, and I was well aware that since the setting of the sun Berenice had been interred. But of that dreary period which intervened I had no positive -at least no definite comprehension. Yet its memory was replete with horror -horror more horrible from being vague, and terror more terrible from ambiguity. It was a fearful page in the record my existence, written all over with dim, and hideous, and unintelligible recollections. I strived to decypher them, but in vain; while ever and anon, like the spirit of a departed sound, the shrill and piercing shriek of a female voice seemed to be ringing in my ears. I had done a deed -what was it? I asked myself the question aloud, and the whispering echoes of the chamber answered me, 'what was it? '

On the table beside me burned a lamp, and near it lay a little box. It was of no remarkable character, and I had seen it frequently before, for it was the property of the family physician; but how came it there, upon my table, and why did I shudder in regarding it? These things were in no manner to be accounted for, and my eyes at length dropped to the open pages of a book, and to a sentence underscored therein. The words were the singular but simple ones of the poet Ebn Zaiat, 'Dicebant mihi sodales si sepulchrum amicae visitarem, curas meas aliquantulum fore levatas.' Why then, as I perused them, did the hairs of my head erect themselves on end, and the blood of my body become congealed within my veins?

There came a light tap at the library door, and pale as the tenant of a tomb, a menial entered upon tiptoe. His looks were wild with terror, and he spoke to me in a voice tremulous, husky, and very low. What said he? -some broken sentences I heard. He told of a wild cry disturbing the silence of the night -of the gathering together of the household-of a search in the direction of the sound; -and then his tones grew thrillingly distinct as he whispered me of a violated grave -of a disfigured body enshrouded, yet still breathing, still palpitating, still alive!

He pointed to garments; -they were muddy and clotted with gore. I spoke not, and he took me gently by the hand; -it was indented with the impress of human nails. He directed my attention to some object against the wall; -I looked at it for some minutes; -it was a spade. With a shriek I bounded to the table, and grasped the box that lay upon it. But I could not force it open; and in my tremor it slipped from my hands, and fell heavily, and burst into pieces; and from it, with a rattling sound, there rolled out some instruments of dental surgery, intermingled with thirty-two small, white and ivory-looking substances that were scattered to and fro about the floor.

poem by Erie Morganmaples
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Tattered and Torn

Tattered and Torn
That's where my soul is worn
Tattered and Torn
That's when I was born
Tattered and Torn
I broke away from me
Tattered and Torn
I knocked me to my knees
Tattered and Torn
I drink my own cells
Tattered and Torn
A decomposing well
Tattered and Torn
Roaches in my head
Tattered and Torn
I become the living dead
Tattered and Torn
Tearing myself apart from the
things that make me hurt

song performed by Slipknot from Slipknot
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Loving You Forever

The sun is slowly setting.
The sunset is magnificent with the different shades of pink and red spread across the sky.
I touch your cheek and notice just how pale it really is.
The sun is slowly setting.
My smile falters as you hush my voice and murmur time is short.
My mind is telling me to leave, but my heart is pleading me to stay.
The sun is slowly setting.
You grab my hand and draw me close to you.
I look into your eyes, and search for something evil, but all I see is love.
The sun is slowly setting.
I lean my head against your chest and take in all your love.
You wrap your arms around me and tell me not to be afraid.
The sun is slowly setting.
Shadows are falling all around us, enclosing us in darkness.
An eerie breeze causes a chill to scurry up my spine.
The sun is slowly setting.
The time has come; you tilt my face up towards yours and tell me that you love me.
My heart is beating fast now as I say it in return.
The sun is slowly setting.
Your eyes are open and I see that they are masked with fear, and yet, love still shines through.
You smile and a flow of dawning realization rushes throughout my system.
The sun is slowly setting.
I try to scream, but my speech has been impaired.
I try to run, but my feet remain in place.
The sun is slowly setting.
You tell me not to worry, and that everything’s all right.
You take my hand in yours and move it to your heart.
The sun is slowly setting.
I feel myself relax as I tilt my head, allowing my neck to be vulnerable.
I feel a prick of pain against my neck, and then a rush of warmth and love overcomes me.
The sun is slowly setting.
The coldness is no longer my concern, for I feel no breeze against my pale skin.
Never will anything be my concern, for now we are together, for all eternity.
The sun is slowly setting.
At last the sun has subsided into the earth.
Above us, the sky is black, and at peace.

poem by Hyde
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Loving You Forever

The sun is slowly setting.
The sunset is magnificent with the different shades of pink and red spread across the sky.
I touch your cheek and notice just how pale it really is.
The sun is slowly setting.
My smile falters as you hush my voice and murmur time is short.
My mind is telling me to leave, but my heart is pleading me to stay.
The sun is slowly setting.
You grab my hand and draw me close to you.
I look into your eyes, and search for something evil, but all I see is love.
The sun is slowly setting.
I lean my head against your chest and take in all your love.
You wrap your arms around me and tell me not to be afraid.
The sun is slowly setting.
Shadows are falling all around us, enclosing us in darkness.
An eerie breeze causes a chill to scurry up my spine.
The sun is slowly setting.
The time has come; you tilt my face up towards yours and tell me that you love me.
My heart is beating fast now as I say it in return.
The sun is slowly setting.
Your eyes are open and I see that they are masked with fear, and yet, love still shines through.
You smile and a flow of dawning realization rushes throughout my system.
The sun is slowly setting.
I try to scream, but my speech has been impaired.
I try to run, but my feet remain in place.
The sun is slowly setting.
You tell me not to worry, and that everything’s all right.
You take my hand in yours and move it to your heart.
The sun is slowly setting.
I feel myself relax as I tilt my head, allowing my neck to be vulnerable.
I feel a prick of pain against my neck, and then a rush of warmth and love overcomes me.
The sun is slowly setting.
The coldness is no longer my concern, for I feel no breeze against my pale skin.
Never will anything be my concern, for now we are together, for all eternity.
The sun is slowly setting.
At last the sun has subsided into the earth.
Above us, the sky is black, and at peace

poem by Chidiebere Franklin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Character builds slowly but it can be torn down with incredible swiftness.

quote by Faith Baldwin
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy! | In Romanian