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Works of art make rules; rules do not make works of art.

quote by Claude Debussy
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An Essay on Criticism

Part I

INTRODUCTION. That it is as great a fault to judge ill as to write ill, and a more dangerous one to the public. That a true Taste is as rare to be found as a true Genius. That most men are born with some Taste, but spoiled by false education. The multitude of Critics, and causes of them. That we are to study our own Taste, and know the limits of it. Nature the best guide of judgment. Improved by Art and rules, which are but methodized Nature. Rules derived from the practice of the ancient poets. That therefore the ancients are necessary to be studied by a Critic, particularly Homer and Virgil. Of licenses, and the use of them by the ancients. Reverence due to the ancients, and praise of them.

'Tis hard to say if greater want of skill
Appear in writing or in judging ill;
But of the two less dangerous is th'offence
To tire our patience than mislead our sense:
Some few in that, but numbers err in this;
Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss;
A fool might once himself alone expose;
Now one in verse makes many more in prose.

'Tis with our judgments as our watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
In Poets as true Genius is but rare,
True Taste as seldom is the Critic's share;
Both must alike from Heav'n derive their light,
These born to judge, as well as those to write.
Let such teach others who themselves excel,
And censure freely who have written well;
Authors are partial to their wit, 'tis true,
But are not Critics to their judgment too?

Yet if we look more closely, we shall find
Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind:
Nature affords at least a glimm'ring light;
The lines, tho' touch'd but faintly, are drawn right:
But as the slightest sketch, if justly traced,
Is by ill col'ring but the more disgraced,
So by false learning is good sense defaced:
Some are bewilder'd in the maze of schools,
And some made coxcombs Nature meant but fools:
In search of wit these lose their common sense,
And then turn Critics in their own defence:
Each burns alike, who can or cannot write,
Or with a rival's or an eunuch's spite.
All fools have still an itching to deride,
And fain would be upon the laughing side.
If Mævius scribble in Apollo's spite,
There are who judge still worse than he can write.

Some have at first for Wits, then Poets pass'd;
Turn'd Critics next, and prov'd plain Fools at last.
Some neither can for Wits nor Critics pass,
As heavy mules are neither horse nor ass.
Those half-learn'd witlings, numerous in our isle,
As half-form'd insects on the banks of Nile;
Unfinish'd things, one knows not what to call,

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poem by Alexander Pope
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Love Rules

Evry day you pass her in the hall
You just pretend that you dont see her at all
You wanna tell her how much you care
You wanna call her but you just dont dare
Love rules, ooo love rules
Out in the parking lot with all the guys
Dont ever let em see the tears in your eyes
Shes got a date tonight and it aint you
So you go out there and you get one too
Love rules, ooo love rules
Love rules, yeah love rules
You wish you didnt have so much to feel
Its much too scary and its all too real
All your friends are out havin fun
Sometimes you think that youre the only one
That love rules, ooo love rules
While everybodys out makin time
You cant help thinkin youre the last in line
Shes the finest thing youve ever seen
You wrap your arms around her in your dreams
When she smiles it brings you to your knees
You wanna tell her but you always freeze
Shes in the back seat but youre much too shy
Youd give the world to be an older guy
Love rules, ooo love rules
Love rules, yeah love still rules
Love rules, ooo love rules
Love rules, love rules love rules
Love rules

song performed by Don Henley
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Kinja Rules

Lorna
Mista paper, senator pullman he just call.
He ask how come ya don need no watah
Norman
Dont need water!
Lorna
Well, you let the barge go by
He comin to talk to you
Norman
Who is senator pullman anyway?
Why do I have to signal the barge?
Iris
Welcome to the caribbean, put on a shirt at least.
The big enchilada is on his way
Senator pullman
Mr. norman paperman, I presume?
Joinin us in kinja for de tourist boom?
Norman
Norman paperman at your service.
Meeting the kingpin, Im slightly nervous
Pullman
Mr. paperman, I here to be your friend
But theres just certain rules here we can not bend
Paperman how about the water? my cisterns flat.
Pullman
Why sure, I come to take care of dat
Chorus
But you gotta play by kinja rules
Forget about da tings you learned in school
We use a different box of tools
And you gotta play by kinja rules
Pullman
Now dis alien aint bonded for no gondolier
Hes bonded for gardener-dat why he here
De chief of immigration a power in dis town
Chief find out-your hotel close down
Paperman
Hereafter gardenings all hell do I didnt know, I swear to you
Pullman
Doan hoross yourself, its okay mister
De chief of immigration-shes my sister
Chorus
But you gotta play by kinja rules
Forget about that civics course you learned in school
We aint city folks, but we aint fools
And you gotta play by kinja rules
Pullman
Stop!
Paperman
How about my water?

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song performed by Jimmy Buffett
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She Works Hard For The Money

She works hard for the money
so hard for it honey
she works hard for the money
so you better treat her right

She works hard for the money
so hard for it honey
she works hard for the money
so you better treat her right

Onetta there in the corner stand
and wonders where she is and
it's strange to her
some people seem to have everything

Nine a.m. on the hour hand
and she's waiting for the bell
and she's looking real pretty
just wait for her clientele

She works hard for the money
so hard for it honey
she works hard for the money
so you better treat her right

She works hard for the money
so hard for it honey
she works hard for the money
so you better treat her right

Twenty five years have
come and gone
and she' seen a lot of tears
of the ones who come in
they really seem to need her there

It's a sacrifice working day to day
for little money just tips for pay
But it's worth it all
just to hear them say that they care

She works hard for the money
so hard for it honey
she works hard for the money
so you better treat her right

She already knows
she's seen her bad times
she already knows
these are the good times

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song performed by Donna Summer from The Donna Summer Anthology
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The Task: Book V. -- The Winter Morning Walk

‘Tis morning; and the sun, with ruddy orb
Ascending, fires the horizon; while the clouds,
That crowd away before the driving wind,
More ardent as the disk emerges more,
Resemble most some city in a blaze,
Seen through the leafless wood. His slanting ray
Slides ineffectual down the snowy vale,
And, tinging all with his own rosy hue,
From every herb and every spiry blade
Stretches a length of shadow o’er the field.
Mine, spindling into longitude immense,
In spite of gravity, and sage remark
That I myself am but a fleeting shade,
Provokes me to a smile. With eye askance
I view the muscular proportion’d limb
Transform’d to a lean shank. The shapeless pair
As they design’d to mock me, at my side
Take step for step; and as I near approach
The cottage, walk along the plaster’d wall,
Preposterous sight! the legs without the man.
The verdure of the plain lies buried deep
Beneath the dazzling deluge; and the bents
And coarser grass, upspearing o’er the rest,
Of late unsightly and unseen, now shine
Conspicuous, and in bright apparel clad,
And fledged with icy feathers, nod superb.
The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence
Screens them, and seem half petrified to sleep
In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait
Their wonted fodder; not like hungering man,
Fretful if unsupplied; but silent, meek,
And patient of the slow-paced swain’s delay.
He from the stack carves out the accustom’d load,
Deep plunging, and again deep plunging oft,
His broad keen knife into the solid mass:
Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,
With such undeviating and even force
He severs it away: no needless care,
Lest storms should overset the leaning pile
Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight.
Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern’d
The cheerful haunts of man; to wield the axe
And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear,
From morn to eve his solitary task.
Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears
And tail cropp’d short, half lurcher and half cur,
His dog attends him. Close behind his heel
Now creeps he slow; and now, with many a frisk
Wide scampering, snatches up the driften snow
With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout;

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poem by William Cowper
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The Believer's Jointure : Chapter II.

Containing the Marks and Characters of the Believer in Christ; together with some further privileges and grounds of comfort to the Saints.

Sect. I.

Doubting Believers called to examine, by marks drawn from their love to Him and his presence, their view of his glory, and their being emptied of Self-Righteousness, &c.

Good news! but, says the drooping bride,
Ah! what's all this to me?
Thou doubt'st thy right, when shadows hide
Thy Husband's face from thee.

Though sin and guilt thy spirit faints,
And trembling fears thy fate;
But harbour not thy groundless plaints,
Thy Husband's advent wait.

Thou sobb'st, 'O were I sure he's mine,
This would give glad'ning ease;'
And say'st, Though wants and woes combine,
Thy Husband would thee please.

But up and down, and seldom clear,
Inclos'd with hellish routs;
Yet yield thou not, nor foster fear:
Thy Husband hates thy doubts.

Thy cries and tears may slighted seem,
And barr'd from present ease;
Yet blame thyself, but never dream
Thy Husband's ill to please.

Thy jealous unbelieving heart
Still droops, and knows not why;
Then prove thyself to ease thy smart,
Thy Husband bids the try.

The following questions put to the
As scripture-marks, may tell
And shew, what'er thy failings be,
Thy Husband loves thee well.

MARKS.

Art thou content when he's away?
Can earth allay thy pants?
If conscience witness, won't it say,
Thy Husband's all thou wants?

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poem by Ralph Erskine
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The Library

When the sad soul, by care and grief oppress'd,
Looks round the world, but looks in vain for rest;
When every object that appears in view
Partakes her gloom and seems dejected too;
Where shall affliction from itself retire?
Where fade away and placidly expire?
Alas! we fly to silent scenes in vain;
Care blasts the honours of the flow'ry plain:
Care veils in clouds the sun's meridian beam,
Sighs through the grove, and murmurs in the stream;
For when the soul is labouring in despair,
In vain the body breathes a purer air:
No storm-tost sailor sighs for slumbering seas,-
He dreads the tempest, but invokes the breeze;
On the smooth mirror of the deep resides
Reflected woe, and o'er unruffled tides
The ghost of every former danger glides.
Thus, in the calms of life, we only see
A steadier image of our misery;
But lively gales and gently clouded skies
Disperse the sad reflections as they rise;
And busy thoughts and little cares avail
To ease the mind, when rest and reason fail.
When the dull thought, by no designs employ'd,
Dwells on the past, or suffer'd or enjoy'd,
We bleed anew in every former grief,
And joys departed furnish no relief.
Not Hope herself, with all her flattering art,
Can cure this stubborn sickness of the heart:
The soul disdains each comfort she prepares,
And anxious searches for congenial cares;
Those lenient cares, which with our own combined,
By mix'd sensations ease th' afflicted mind,
And steal our grief away, and leave their own

behind;
A lighter grief! which feeling hearts endure
Without regret, nor e'en demand a cure.
But what strange art, what magic can dispose
The troubled mind to change its native woes?
Or lead us willing from ourselves, to see
Others more wretched, more undone than we?
This BOOKS can do;--nor this alone; they give
New views to life, and teach us how to live;
They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they

chastise,
Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise:
Their aid they yield to all: they never shun
The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone:

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poem by George Crabbe
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Intrigue

THOU art my love
And thou art the peace of sundown
When the blue shadows soothe
And the grasses and the leaves sleep
To the song of the little brooks
Woe is me.

Thou art my love,
And thou art a storm
That breaks black in the sky
And, sweeping headlong,
Drenches and cowers each tree
And at the panting end
There is no sound
Save the melancholy cry of a single owl
Woe is me!

Thou art my love
And thou art a tinsel thing
And I in my play
Broke thee easily
And from the little fragments
Arose my long sorrow
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art a weary violet
Drooping from sun-caresses.
Answering mine carelessly
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art the ashes of other men's love
And I bury my face in these ashes
And I love them
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art the beard
On another man's face
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art a temple
And in this temple is an altar
And on this altar is my heart
Woe is me.

Thou art my love
And thou art a wretch.

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poem by Stephen Crane
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No Rules

Say its alright
If you really love me
Its my life
And I really wanted you that night
Was about to break
So we had to just take a chance
Time is not to waste
We couldnt let it slide through our hands
When my heart called
You answered me
Baby, when I was falling
You were there for me
Theres no rules in love
Cant you see?
No rules in love
For you and me
No rules in love
Walking through the streets
The echo of our footsteps in time
In between the beats
Tell me that youll always be mine
So baby can I trust you
Like Im ready to?
Ive waited so long
And I never refused
Theres no rules in love
Cant you see?
No rules in love
For you and me
Theres no rules in love
Our hearts are free
No rules in love
For you and me
No rules in love
All my life, been living on the same dreams
Sometimes they seemed so real
All my love I held deep inside me
I wanted to feel
I wanted to feel
Baby, now I wonder
What youre doing tonight
I can see you laughing, boy
As I closed my eyes
Theres no rules in love
Cant you see?
No rules in love
For you and me
Theres no rules in love
Cant you see?
No rules in love

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song performed by Tiffany
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Fifth Book

AURORA LEIGH, be humble. Shall I hope
To speak my poems in mysterious tune
With man and nature,–with the lava-lymph
That trickles from successive galaxies
Still drop by drop adown the finger of God,
In still new worlds?–with summer-days in this,
That scarce dare breathe, they are so beautiful?–
With spring's delicious trouble in the ground
Tormented by the quickened blood of roots.
And softly pricked by golden crocus-sheaves
In token of the harvest-time of flowers?–
With winters and with autumns,–and beyond,
With the human heart's large seasons,–when it hopes
And fears, joys, grieves, and loves?–with all that strain
Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh
In a sacrament of souls? with mother's breasts,
Which, round the new made creatures hanging there,
Throb luminous and harmonious like pure spheres?–
With multitudinous life, and finally
With the great out-goings of ecstatic souls,
Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame,
Their radiant faces upward, burn away
This dark of the body, issuing on a world
Beyond our mortal?–can I speak my verse
So plainly in tune to these things and the rest,
That men shall feel it catch them on the quick,
As having the same warrant over them
To hold and move them, if they will or no,
Alike imperious as the primal rhythm
Of that theurgic nature? I must fail,
Who fail at the beginning to hold and move
One man,–and he my cousin, and he my friend,
And he born tender, made intelligent,
Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides
Of difficult questions; yet, obtuse to me,–
Of me, incurious! likes me very well,
And wishes me a paradise of good,
Good looks, good means, and good digestion!–ay,
But otherwise evades me, puts me off
With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness,–
Too light a book for a grave man's reading! Go,
Aurora Leigh: be humble.
There it is;
We women are too apt to look to one,
Which proves a certain impotence in art.
We strain our natures at doing something great,
Far less because it's something great to do,
Than, haply, that we, so, commend ourselves
As being not small, and more appreciable
To some one friend. We must have mediators

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

The Learned Boy

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

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

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poem by George Crabbe
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Sohrab and Rustum

And the first grey of morning fill'd the east,
And the fog rose out of the Oxus stream.
But all the Tartar camp along the stream
Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep;
Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long
He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed;
But when the grey dawn stole into his tent,
He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword,
And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent,
And went abroad into the cold wet fog,
Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's tent.

Through the black Tartar tents he pass'd, which stood
Clustering like bee-hives on the low flat strand
Of Oxus, where the summer-floods o'erflow
When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere
Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low strand,
And to a hillock came, a little back
From the stream's brink--the spot where first a boat,
Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land.
The men of former times had crown'd the top
With a clay fort; but that was fall'n, and now
The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent,
A dome of laths, and o'er it felts were spread.
And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood
Upon the thick piled carpets in the tent,
And found the old man sleeping on his bed
Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms.
And Peran-Wisa heard him, though the step
Was dull'd; for he slept light, an old man's sleep;
And he rose quickly on one arm, and said:--

"Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn.
Speak! is there news, or any night alarm?"

But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said:--
"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I.
The sun is not yet risen, and the foe
Sleep; but I sleep not; all night long I lie
Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee.
For so did King Afrasiab bid me seek
Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son,
In Samarcand, before the army march'd;
And I will tell thee what my heart desires.
Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan first
I came among the Tartars and bore arms,
I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown,
At my boy's years, the courage of a man.
This too thou know'st, that while I still bear on
The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world,

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poem by Matthew Arnold (1853)
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The Growth of Love

1
They that in play can do the thing they would,
Having an instinct throned in reason's place,
--And every perfect action hath the grace
Of indolence or thoughtless hardihood--
These are the best: yet be there workmen good
Who lose in earnestness control of face,
Or reckon means, and rapt in effort base
Reach to their end by steps well understood.
Me whom thou sawest of late strive with the pains
Of one who spends his strength to rule his nerve,
--Even as a painter breathlessly who stains
His scarcely moving hand lest it should swerve--
Behold me, now that I have cast my chains,
Master of the art which for thy sake I serve.

2
For thou art mine: and now I am ashamed
To have uséd means to win so pure acquist,
And of my trembling fear that might have misst
Thro' very care the gold at which I aim'd;
And am as happy but to hear thee named,
As are those gentle souls by angels kisst
In pictures seen leaving their marble cist
To go before the throne of grace unblamed.
Nor surer am I water hath the skill
To quench my thirst, or that my strength is freed
In delicate ordination as I will,
Than that to be myself is all I need
For thee to be most mine: so I stand still,
And save to taste my joy no more take heed.

3
The whole world now is but the minister
Of thee to me: I see no other scheme
But universal love, from timeless dream
Waking to thee his joy's interpreter.
I walk around and in the fields confer
Of love at large with tree and flower and stream,
And list the lark descant upon my theme,
Heaven's musical accepted worshipper.
Thy smile outfaceth ill: and that old feud
'Twixt things and me is quash'd in our new truce;
And nature now dearly with thee endued
No more in shame ponders her old excuse,
But quite forgets her frowns and antics rude,
So kindly hath she grown to her new use.

4

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poem by Robert Seymour Bridges
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Paradise Lost: Book 03

Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven firstborn,
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear"st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? before the sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest ***
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,
Escap'd the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare: Thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt,
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
So were I equall'd with them in renown,
Thy sovran command, that Man should find grace;
Blind Thamyris, and blind Maeonides,
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

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poem by John Milton
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God Rules Alway

Into the world's most high and holy places
Men carry selfishness, and graft and greed.
The air is rent with warring of the races;
Loud Dogmas drown a brother's cry of need.
The Fleet-of-Creeds, upon Time's ocean lurches;
And there is mutiny upon her decks;
And in the light of temples, and of churches,
Against life's shores drift wrecks and derelicts.
(God rules, God rules alway.)

Right in the shadow of the lofty steeple,
Which crowns some costly edifice of faith,
Behold the throngs of hungry, unhoused people;
The 'Bread Line,' flanked by charity and death.
See yonder Churchman, opulently doing
Unnumbered deeds, which gladden and resound;
The while his thrifty tenant is pursuing
The white slave trade on sacred, untaxed ground.
(God rules, God rules alway.)

For these are but the outward signs of fever;
Those flaunting signs, which through delirium burn;
And the clear-seeing eye of each Believer
Can note the coming crisis. It will turn,
For it has reached its summit. Convalescing,
The sick world shall arise to strength and peace,
And earth shall bloom, with each and every blessing
Life waits to give, when wars and conflicts cease.
(God rules, God rules alway.)

This is a mighty hour. No sounds of drumming,
No flying flags, no heralds do appear;
No Wise Men of the East proclaim His coming;
Yet He is coming-nay, our Christ is here!
And man shall leave his fever dreams behind him;
Those dreams of avarice, and lust, and sin,
And seek his Lord; yea, he shall seek and find Him,
In his own soul, where He has always been.
(God rules, God rules alway.)

Man longs for God. Before the Christ we wot of,
With His brief mighty message, came to earth,
Before His life, or creed, or cross were thought of,
The love of love within man's breast had birth.
But blindly, through his carnal senses reaching,
He plucked dead fruit, and nothing has sufficed;

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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Added by Poetry Lover
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Idea Track

Dear Hugh Miller
Ive thought it through for a while but it doesnt get any easier
And three months on in this bad design wont make it feel any easier
Your grave, its your grave
Dear Hugh Miller
Its four months now from when we started and nothing feels much easier.
I sit and stare in a cork tiled room and it doesnt get much easier.
Your grave, its your grave
Pretend it works a while, its transmitted live
Pretend it works a while (you dont try)
Pretend it works a while, its transmitted live
Pretend it works a while (dont try)
Dear Hugh Miller,
its four months now from when we started and nothing feels much easier.
I sit and stare in a cork tiled room and it doesnt get much easier.
Your grave, its your grave
Pretend it works a while, its transmitted live
Pretend it works a while (you dont try)
Pretend it works a while, its transmitted live
Pretend it works a while (dont try)
Your grave, its your grave
Pretend it works a while, its transmitted live
Pretend it works a while (you dont try)
Pretend it works a while, its transmitted live
Pretend it works a while (dont try)
I dont care if I dont have an idea track, its an idea track, its an idea
I dont care if I dont have an idea track, its an idea track, its an idea
Your grave, its your grave.

song performed by Idlewild
Added by Lucian Velea
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Poor Paddy

[the pogues version]
-----------------------------------------
In eighteen hundred and forty-one
The corduroy breeches I put on
Me corduroy breeches I put on
To work upon the railway, the railway
Im weary of the railway
Poor paddy works on the railway
In eighteen hundred and forty-two
From hartlepool I moved to crewe
Found myself a job to do
A working on the railway
I was wearing corduroy breeches
Digging ditches, pulling switches
Dodging pitches, as I was
Working on the railway
In eighteen hundred and forty-three
I broke the shovel across me knee
I went to work for the company
On the leeds to selby railway
I was wearing corduroy breeches
Digging ditches, pulling switches
Dodging pitches, as I was
Working on the railway
In eighteen hundred and forty-four
I landed on the liverpool shore
My belly was empty me hands were raw
With working on the railway, the railway
Im sick to my guts of the railway
Poor paddy works on the railway
In eighteen hundred and forty-five
When daniel oconnell he was alive
When daniel oconnell he was alive
And working on the railway
I was wearing corduroy breeches
Digging ditches, pulling switches
Dodging pitches, as I was
Working on the railway
In eighteen hundred and forty-six
I changed my trade to carrying bricks
I changed my trade to carrying bricks
To work upon the railway
I was wearing corduroy breeches
Digging ditches, pulling switches
Dodging pitches, as I was
Working on the railway
In eighteen hundred and forty-seven
Poor paddy was thinking of going to heaven
The old bugger was thinking of going to heaven
To work upon the railway, the railway

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song performed by Pogues
Added by Lucian Velea
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Faith And Works. A Tale.

Good Dan and Jane were man and wife,
And lived a loving kind of life.
One point, however, they disputed
And each by turns his mate confuted.
'Twas Faith and Works, this knotty question,
They found not easy of digestion.
While Dan for Faith alone contended,
Jane equally Good Works defended.
'They are not Christians, sure, but Turks,
Who build on Faith and scoff at Works,'
Quoth Jane; while eager Dan replied,
'By none but Heathens Faith's denied.
I'll tell you, wife,' one day quoth Dan,
'A story of a right good man:
A Patriarch sage, of ancient days,
A man of Faith whom all must praise;
In his own country he possess'd
Whate'er can make a wise man blest,
His was the flock, the field, the spring,
In short, a little rural king.
Yet pleas'd he quits his native land,
By Faith in the Divine command.
God bade him go; and he, content,
Went forth, not knowing where he went:
He trusted in the promise made,
And, undisputing, straight obey'd.
The heavenly word he did not doubt,
But proved his Faith by going out.'
Jane answer'd with some little pride:
'I've an example on my side;
And though my tale be somewhat longer,
I trust you'll find it vastly stronger.
I'll tell you, Daniel, of a man,
The holiest since the world began
Who now God's favour is receiving,
For prompt
obeying
, not believing.
One only son this man possess'd,
In whom his righteous age was blest;
And more to mark the grace of heaven
This son by miracle was given.
And from this child, the word Divine,
Had promised an illustrious line.
When lo! at once a voice he hears,
Which sounds like thunder in his ears!
God says, 'Go sacrifice thy son!'
'This moment, Lord, it shall be done.'
He goes, and instantly prepares,
To slay this child of many pray'rs,

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poem by Hannah More
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Paradise Regained

THE FIRST BOOK

I, WHO erewhile the happy Garden sung
By one man's disobedience lost, now sing
Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.
Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence 10
By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,
And bear through highth or depth of Nature's bounds,
With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in secret done,
And unrecorded left through many an age:
Worthy to have not remained so long unsung.
Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice
More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried
Repentance, and Heaven's kingdom nigh at hand 20
To all baptized. To his great baptism flocked
With awe the regions round, and with them came
From Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed
To the flood Jordan--came as then obscure,
Unmarked, unknown. But him the Baptist soon
Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore
As to his worthier, and would have resigned
To him his heavenly office. Nor was long
His witness unconfirmed: on him baptized
Heaven opened, and in likeness of a Dove 30
The Spirit descended, while the Father's voice
From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son.
That heard the Adversary, who, roving still
About the world, at that assembly famed
Would not be last, and, with the voice divine
Nigh thunder-struck, the exalted man to whom
Such high attest was given a while surveyed
With wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage,
Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air
To council summons all his mighty Peers, 40
Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved,
A gloomy consistory; and them amidst,
With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake:--
"O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World
(For much more willingly I mention Air,
This our old conquest, than remember Hell,
Our hated habitation), well ye know
How many ages, as the years of men,

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poem by John Milton
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Canto the Fourth

I.

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O’er the far times when many a subject land
Looked to the wingèd Lion’s marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!

II.

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was; her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

III.

In Venice, Tasso’s echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone - but beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade - but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

IV.

But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city’s vanished sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away -
The keystones of the arch! though all were o’er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

V.

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poem by Byron from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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