Citatepedia^®.com

Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.

quote by Douglas Adams
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Illusion Of Power

What is it that turns you on to the illusion of power,
This thing that grabs you by the heart and makes you want to tear things down.
There is no reason why I should need all this power, but if you cross me now,
Im gonna tear your whole world down.
The illusion of power, things I feel, seem so real,
The illusion of power.
I cant get the emotional thing straight in my head,
Everything I love dies too soon, or is already dead.
Dont stand too close I spit and breathe fire,
Anything Ive got now you cannot desire.
You want to be my friend, I promise you nothing.
Nothing I can give you, nothing I can do for you,
Im being chased by the sins of my past and its killing me now,
Killing me now.
The illusion of power, things I feel, seem so real,
The illusion of power.
The illusion of power, its already set signed and sealed,
The illusion of power.
Fool, youre caught in a complex catacomb of your own inadequcies and pitiful weaknesses,
Your soul secretes insecurity.
So you live on the reflection side of the mirror; youre terrified of true power.
You fear
I can tell you stories of my
Shaded past and I can drag you down into the depths of my soul.
The illusion of power, things I feel, seem so real,
The illusion of power.
The illusion of power, its already set signed and sealed,
The illusion of power.
Why dont you come closer, promise a story I will tell, yeah,
Ill save you from your dreams, yeah
Ill save you from your dreams.

song performed by Black Sabbath
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Time To Feel Forlorn and Reconstruct What's Torn

There's a designated time in the universe for everything:

A time to limit, a time to expand.
A time to rise, time to lower and lend a hand.

A time to maintain, a time to abandon.
A time to develop, a time to rest at random.

A time to communicate, a time for silence.
A time to kiss your enemy, a time to concede wins.

A time to spite, a time to please.
A time for respite, a time to tease.

A time to process, a time to confess.
A time to do more. A time to do less.

A time to dominate. A time to captivate.
A time to plunge. A time to resurface straight.

A time to maximise. A time to minimise.
A time to diminish. A time to optimise.

A time to sacrifice. time to insist on rights.
A time to be selfish. A time to be concerned about plights.

A time to be big. A time to be small.
A time to care for a special one. A time to love all.

A time to add dimension. A time to simplify.
A time to advocate egalitarianism.
A time to exult.
A time to default.
A time to be accepting of imperfect humanism.

A time to enhance. A time to simplify.
A time to criticise. A time to dignify.

A time to produce. A time to use.
A time to relent. A time to refuse.

A time to demand. A time to give.
A time to die. a time to live.

A time to survive. A time to admit defeat.
A time to lie. A time to walk on your feet.

A time to compete. A time to not.
A time to remember. A time to concede you forgot.

[...] Read more

poem by Hercolena Oliver
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Grand Illusion

I saw you in a dream, it hit me like a bright light
Flashing on a screen, visions of my whole life.
I used to chase the moment of desire
Back to when my young heart burned like a fire.
It was just a, nothing but a grand illusion.
Heart was quicker than the eye.
Nothing but a grand illusion,
Legend in my own mind.
I held you in my arms till the other side of midnight.
Kept you in my mind, you got me through some long nights.
Standing on the threshold of desire,
Caught between the madness and the fire.
Chorus
It was all a grand illusion.
Hand was quicker than the eye.
Nothing but a grand illusion,
Legends in our own minds.
I used to chase the moments of desire
Back to when my young heart burned like a fire.
It was just a, nothing but a, it was all a grand illusion.
Nothing but a grand illusion.
It was all a grand illusion,
Legend in my own mind.
It was just a grand illusion.
Nothing but a grand illusion.
It was just a grand illusion,
Legend in our own mind.

song performed by Eric Clapton
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A Romaunt. Canto IV.

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
Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, thron'd 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
Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she rob'd, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increas'd.

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 vanish'd 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 repeopl'd were the solitary shore.

V.
The beings of the mind are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray
And more belov'd existence: that which Fate
Prohibits to dull life, in this our state

[...] Read more

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

Every Illusion Is Catered

Trapped and confined.
With unbalanced queasy feelings...
Felt in these times out of alignment.
And trying too hard to fit in we do!
Is this the fate one chooses to keep?
Are people too amazed,
By the speed of it increased?
As many pursue youth...
With a refusal of aging to beat!

Every illusion is catered,
But peace.
Every illusion is rated,
But peace.

On knees or on one's feet,
No peace is peeled then eaten.
It's fed and felt from the heart,
And then released.

Like a soothing breeze of air to breathe.

Every illusion is catered,
But peace.
Every illusion is rated,
But peace.

On knees or on one's feet,
No peace is peeled then eaten.
It's fed and felt from the heart,
And then released.

Like a soothing breeze of air to breathe.

Trapped and confined.
With unbalanced queasy feelings...
Felt in these times out of alignment.
And trying too hard to fit in we do!
Is this the fate one chooses to keep?
Are people too amazed,
By the speed of it increased?
As many pursue youth...
With a refusal of aging to beat!

Every illusion is catered,
But peace.
Every illusion is rated,
But peace.

On knees or on one's feet,

[...] Read more

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

Religion And Magic

Who are these fellows?
Religion - Magic
Are they siblings who seem remarkably similar?
Are they identical twins - fantastically alike in all things?
Are they but two sides of the same coin - the coin of illusion?
Which came first - religion or magic?
The answer remains shrouded in the dim mists
Of our early steps on the stage of our existence
Magic - creator of illusion masked as reality
Religion - creator of illusion from reality
Both create illusion - purvey the same mask
Magic and religion present illusion as truth
This is my view
Another may be for you
Yet know this - If you believe illusion be truth or truth illusion
The result is the same.

Claude H Oliver II
4/28/2012

poem by Claude H Oliver II
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Turn! Turn! Turn!

Pete seeger
To everything, turn, turn, turn
There is a season, turn, turn, turn
And a time for every purpose under heaven
A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep
A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing
A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time of love, a time of hate
A time of peace, I swear its not too late
Original source
To every thing there is a season, and a time
To every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time
To plant, and a time to pluck up that which is
Planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to
Break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time
To mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to
Gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a
Time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to
Keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to
Keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of
War, and a time of peace.

song performed by Nina Simone
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Doubly Good To You

If you see the moon,
Rising gently on your fields.
If the wind blows softly on your face.
If the sunset lingers,
While cathedral bells peal,
And the moon has risen to her place,
You can thank the father
For the things that he has done.
And thank him for the things hes yet to do.
And if you find a love thats tender,
If you find someone whos true,
Then thank the lord --
Hes been doubly good to you.
If you look in the mirror,
At the end of a hard day,
And you know in your heart you have not lied.
And if you gave love freely,
If you earned an honest wage,
And if youve got jesus by your side,
You can thank the father
For the things that he has done.
And thank him for the things hes yet to do.
And if you find a love thats tender,
If you find someone whos true,
Thank the lord --
Hes been doubly good to you.
You can thank the father
For the things that he has done.
And thank him for the things hes yet to do.
And if you find a love thats tender,
If you find someone whos true,
Thank the lord --
Hes been doubly good to you....
Thank the lord --
Hes been doubly good to you.

song performed by Amy Grant
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

This Time

Lookin back on my life
Lookin back on my life
You know that all I see
You know that all I see
Are things I couldve changed
Are things I couldve changed
I should have done
I should have done
Where did the good times go?
Where did the good times go?
Good times so hard to hold
Good times so hard to hold
This time, this time
This time, this time
This time Im gonna find
This time Im gonna find
Lookin back on my life
You know that all I see
Lookin back on my life
Are things I couldve changed
You know that all I see
I could have done
Are things I couldve changed
No time for sad lament
I could have done
A wasted life is bitter spent
No time for sad lament
A wasted life is bitter spent
So rise into the light
In or out of time
Gonna rise straight through the light
So rise into the light
In or out of time
In or out of time
Gonna rise straight through the light
Woke up one other day
In or out of time
The pain wont go away
I am growing
In peculiar ways
Woke up one other day
Into a light I pass
The pain wont go away
Another dream, another trance
I am growing
This time, this time
In peculiar ways
This time Im gonna rise into the light
Into a light I pass
In or out of time

[...] Read more

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

The Primordial One

The Primordial One is immanent, while He’s never transcendent
And this existent world, at the beginning, was only His vision.
The Lord has Being to create his vision-world without lightweight
For this real world of Becoming, with His meticulous precision.

At the beginning, we were His imagination; we were a reason for creation
And, only for being with Him, He made us, in time, to become so real.
Tower of Babel wasn’t an illusion, when people suffered tongues confusion,
God isn’t an illusion in our perfection, when His plans He wants to reveal.

We are in our Apollinian illusion, when we think that God means confusion
And our own perfectionism we try to reach in the mean time.
But in the reality of our Apollinian confusion, God is no longer an illusion.
In this ache of Being and in this agony of Becoming, He’s sublime.

To reach our perfection we sing a hymn, we need to be with Him,
Because when we are not with Him, we are in the illusion of Being.
Without transmogrifying us, to transfigure Him, sometimes, we have a whim,
Because we need to understand our illusory own perfection in wellbeing.

We try to put ourselves in His place, in order to understand His grace
We need the Dionysian illusion of Being to experience the world we know.
In both Dionysian and Apolllinian illusions, we jump to our conclusions.
We are illusory Primordial Beings creating our Apollinian powerful show.

I am this person staring back from His mirror at me, I want existent to be.
I want to identify this image with myself and to realize who I really am.
Because of my sins I lost my serenity, I have a sense of my mistaken identity.
I was His dream, I am His child and for saving me He sent me His lamb.

Everyone is dreaming, but it seems that no one really believes in dreams.
One by one we need to wake up out of our own illusions of self.
The world of minds is the God's mental projection, it has interconnection.
Without this major pervasive reality, the world is not existent in itself.

The sufferings of people can be for some an illusory space, having no grace,
And they live in their own world of solely material realities without restricts.
Others believe in the world, which is non-physical and it's essentially spiritual,
They need a mental, spiritual and moral dimension to life, without conflicts.

poem by Marieta Maglas
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

There Is No Time

This is no time for celebration
This is no time for shaking heads
This is no time for backslapping
This is no time for marching bands
This is no time for optimism
This is no time for endless thought
This is no time for my country right or wrong
Remember what that brought
There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
This is no time for congratulations
This is no time to turn your back
This is no time for circumlocution
This is no time for learned speech
This is no time to count your blessings
This is no time for private gain
This is no time to put up or shut up
It wont no time to come back this way again
There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
This is no time to swallow anger
This is no time to ignore hate
This is no time to be acting frivolous
Because the time is getting late
This is no time for private vendettas
This is no time to not know who you are
Self knowledge is a dangerous thing
The freedom of who you are
This is no time to ignore warnings
This is no time to clear the plate
Lets not be sorry after the fact
And let the past become out fate
There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
There is no time
This is no time to turn away and drink
Or smoke some vials of crack
This is a time to gather force
And take dead aim and attack
This is no time for celebration
This is no time for saluting flags
This is no time for inner searchings
The future is at head
This is no time for phony rhetoric
This is no time for political speech

[...] Read more

song performed by Lou Reed
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Black Illusion

You load the dice and paint the smile upon your face
With fingers crossed you switch the perfume with the mace
What kind of dreams to you enjoy inside your bed
I'll face the lies and shake the evil from your head

Black Illusion
Is all I ever see
Black Illusion
I bring you misery
oh yeah
yeah

You always seem to know the answer to it all
You seem to cheat the truth and never take the fall
Your life is hollow and you simply the rules
The time will come when you will join the other fools

Black Illusion
Is all I ever see
Black Illusion
I bring you misery
oh yeah
yeah

I load the dice and fake a smile upon my face
With fingers crossed I switch the perfume with the mace
What kind of dreams do I enjoy inside my bed
You'll face the lies and shake the evil from my head

Black Illusion
Is all I ever see
Black Illusion
I bring you misery
oh yeah
yeah

song performed by Ozzy Osbourne from Down To Earth
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sweet Illusions

Let me go I'm only letting you down
I 've got nothing to say to you now
I lose the feelings that are weighing me down
When I'm safe
It's turning morning all the birds sing
I'm not complicating anything
I'll have another then I'll go to bed
But I'll dream of you
Cause it's almost over
And it's almost gone
And I can feel the sweet illusion, coming
Sweet confusion, honey
Sweet illusion coming down
And I ain't got nothing but love for you now
You and I used to shine like a jewel
But times been nothing to us but cruel
So play it out and never played the fool
Cause you'll lose every time
We were nothing, we were only the past
Hard times like that don't last
I've been forgiven, I've been surpassed
By my heart
Have you?
Cause it's almost over
Yeah it's almost gone
And I can feel the Sweet Illusion coming
Sweet Confusion, honey
Sweet Illusion coming down
And I ain't got nothing but love for you
Love for you I can't use
And lonely nights multiplied by the blues
That I can't resolve
You never knew me but I did my best
I'm just lonely inside I guess
You gave me everything you really tried
Thanks....
If we were nothing and we're only the past
Then I'm just living in a dream I guess
A long black dream that takes me down the river to you
Where it's almost over
And we're almost gone
And I can feel the Sweet Illusion coming
Sweet Confusion, honey
Sweet Illusion coming down
And I ain't got nothing but love for you now

song performed by Ryan Adams
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Decline of Truth

The smoldering embers of a tree
Once shinning the life of men
Remind the story of the sad illusion
That was to be the decline of truth.
Taken by the fire of madness
Stoked by the anger within,
The clear ponds reflected the brave knight
The hero of truth
The bringer of illusion.
Stricken by the light of darkness
The sky is forever in chaos
As the light that once gave it color
Was devoured by the demon of madness.
The leaves that flew in the winds
Now rest by the embers reflecting illusion
And the smoldering heat of truth
Became apparent as the hero trapped in illusion
Sauntered beneath the chaos sky
And as the demon devoured illusion
The truth became apparent
And the hero that never was,
Defeated by truth
Faded to the embers of sad illusion
And added to the decline of truth.

poem by Mario Gonzalez
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Urban Time vs. Rural Time

3 am:
Urban time: Alarm clocks, hoots and toots
Rural time: Cocks crow, cows moo and weavers beaker

4 am:
Urban time: Whoever snoozed the alarm? Dress up… very scarcely
Rural time: Dust the mat; grab yesterday’s very hard ugali and into overall

5 am:
Urban time: Marikiti and Gikomba beat traffic – rush hour
Rural time: Milking and feeding; early bird catches the worm

6 am:
Urban time: Office not open, tarts hover at Koinange zonked with sleep
Rural time: Coffee farm supervisor calls out names – mine missing

7 am:
Urban time: Offspring sings national anthem in academy playfully
Rural time: Sibling barefoot sings “Yesu anipenda” without blasphemy

8 am:
Urban time: Yaaaawn! Hate work before it even begins – so monotonous
Rural time: Tea baskets at back, yard stick in hand, water jar on head

9 am:
Urban time: What took company tea so long? Was tea boy fired or what?
Rural time: Sing Mary oh, sing Mary oh… Market women return with empty baskets

10 am:
Urban time: Finally the tea is here… (Chit chat) I love this job!
Rural time: The sun’s scorching – take a breath beneath shade

11 am:
Urban time: Silence and whispered gossip, functional smiles and fake hugs
Rural time: Shout greeting from ridge to ridge and insults from bush to bush

12 pm:
Urban time: Yaaaaaawn! Bad date - fear the approach of the next hour
Rural time: Any one with a watch? The sun has hid beneath the cloud

1 pm:
Urban time: Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures – am dieting…
Rural time: Carry produce to factory, take a nap in the wilderness, and water the livestock

2 pm:
Urban time: Oh how I hate this! Parliament session on, but ethics dictate TV without volume
Rural time: Women plot today’s chama as men discuss the local barmaid’s “possessions”

3 pm:
Urban time: Who tampered with the office clock? I can see some hawkers outside…

[...] Read more

poem by David Munene wa Kimberly
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: A Satire

'I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew!
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers'~Shakespeare

'Such shameless bards we have; and yet 'tis true,
There are as mad, abandon'd critics too,'~Pope.

Still must I hear? -- shall hoarse Fitzgerald bawl
His creaking couplets in a tavern hall,
And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch reviews
Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my muse?
Prepare for rhyme -- I'll publish, right or wrong:
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.

O nature's noblest gift -- my grey goose-quill!
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,
Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen,
That mighty instrument of little men!
The pen! foredoom'd to aid the mental throes
Of brains that labour, big with verse or prose,
Though nymphs forsake, and critics may deride,
The lover's solace, and the author's pride.
What wits, what poets dost thou daily raise!
How frequent is thy use, how small thy praise!
Condemn'd at length to be forgotten quite,
With all the pages which 'twas thine to write.
But thou, at least, mine own especial pen!
Once laid aside, but now assumed again,
Our task complete, like Hamet's shall be free;
Though spurn'd by others, yet beloved by me:
Then let us soar today, no common theme,
No eastern vision, no distemper'd dream
Inspires -- our path, though full of thorns, is plain;
Smooth be the verse, and easy be the strain.

When Vice triumphant holds her sov'reign sway,
Obey'd by all who nought beside obey;
When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime,
Bedecks her cap with bells of every clime;
When knaves and fools combined o'er all prevail,
And weigh their justice in a golden scale;
E'en then the boldest start from public sneers,
Afraid of shame, unknown to other fears,
More darkly sin, by satire kept in awe,
And shrink from ridicule, though not from law.

Such is the force of wit! but not belong
To me the arrows of satiric song;
The royal vices of our age demand
A keener weapon, and a mightier hand.

[...] Read more

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

VII. Pompilia

I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.

All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Race

Shout! (shout!)
Count on me Im gonna win the race
Count on me Im gonna win the race
Room-dah-bee-boom the whippering dong
Room-dah-bee-boom the whippering dong
Now shut the door keep down to south
Shut the door keep down to south
Shut the door keep down to south
Not any track is turning but the race is in my head
Im attacking the illusion but the stopping drives me mad
Time is running out and the illusion fades away
Time is running out another day is on its way
Another sun was shining and he knew he wasnt great
He didnt ever talk about he knew he couldnt wait
Are you ever gonna push me let me run and let me do
I need it and Im ready and I havent got a clue
Not any track is turning but the race is in my head
Im attacking the illusion but the stopping drives me mad
Fire away!
This is the race!
Why?
Burn!
Shout!
Lies!
Give me the race!
Another sun was shining and he knew he wasnt great
He didnt ever talk about he knew he couldnt wait
I need this race!
Are you ever gonna push me let me run and let me do
I need it and Im ready and I havent got a clue
Any track is turning but the race is in my head
Im attacking the illusion but the stopping drives me mad
Fire away!
Time is running out and the illusion fades away
Time is running out another day is on its way
This is the race!
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen
This is billy mckloski from palm springs reporting for nbc sports of
America
Twenty seconds to the start of the thirty-first formula race on a hot
Sunny afternoon here in california
On the fast lane of the street Im driving
Sometimes, somewhere, Im arriving
Every day and every night
Why?
I need this race!
Count on me Im gonna win the race
Count on me Im gonna win the race
Room-dah-bee-boom the whippering dong
Room-dah-bee-boom the whippering dong

[...] Read more

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