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Records became much cruder in the last 20 years. Let's put it that way.

quote by Art Garfunkel
Added by Lucian Velea
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Daily Records

This could be suffering
This could be suffering
This could be pleasure
This could be pleasure
Im unaware of any difference
Im unaware of any difference
My head is aging
My head is aging
My balls are aching
My balls are aching
But Im not looking for deliverence
But Im not looking for deliverence
This could be letting on
This could be letting on
This could be highly cut
This could be highly cut
Im unaware of ~any difference
Im unaware of ~any difference
One says it cant be done
One says it cant be done
Then somebody does it - but
Then somebody does it - but
Im not watching for equivalents.
Im not watching for equivalents.
I just dont quite know how to wear my hair no more
I just dont quite know how to wear my hair no more
No sooner cut it than they cut it even more
No sooner cut it than they cut it even more
Got to admit that I created private worlds
Got to admit that I created private worlds
Cold sex and booze dont impress my little girls
Cold sex and booze dont impress my little girls
Daily records
Daily records
Just want to be making daily records
Just want to be making daily records
Try to avoid the bad news in the letters
Try to avoid the bad news in the letters
Just wanna be making records
Just wanna be making records
Play in - play out - fade in - fade out
Play in - play out - fade in - fade out
Making records day in - day out
Making records day in - day out
And they say its just a stage in life
And they say its just a stage in life
But I know by now the problem is a stage
But I know by now the problem is a stage
And they say just take your time and itll go away
And they say just take your time and itll go away

[...] Read more

song performed by Who
Added by Lucian Velea
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Old Dans Records

Get out old dans records
Get out old dans records
We will dance the whole night long
Its fun to play the old time songs
If old dan could see us now
I know hed be so proud
Bring out old dans records
Bring out old dans records
I remember my aunt bea
Shed dance with dan till two or three
If old dan could see he now
I know hed shout out loud
Dig out old dans records
Bring out old dans records
Were all here, weve all got dates
Well dance all night to the seventy-eights
If old dan could see us now
I know hed be so proud
If old dan were with us still
I know hed come around
Get out old dans records
Dig out old dans records
Back to nineteen thirty-five
The foxtrot, jitterbug n jive
If old dan could see us now
I know hed be so proud
Get out old dans records
Bring out old dans records
High above the fireplace
Theres a smile on old dans face
If old dan could see us now
I know hed be so proud
If old dan were with us still
I know hed come around

song performed by Gordon Lightfoot
Added by Lucian Velea
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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
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Old Records Never Die

(ian hunter)
Sometimes you realize
That there is an end to life.
Yesterday I heard them say
A heros blown away.
And its so hard to lose
Someone whos close to you.
Oh me, I did not see
The danger every day.
But musics something in the air,
So he can play it anywhere.
Old records never die.
Get youre healing from a song,
Just when everything goes wrong.
Play it right
Through the night
Till morning brings you light.
And if some folk laugh at you
Let em all laugh they never knew.
Oh all those scenes, to me it seems
Some folk never dream.
? ? , I feel a force
Rebel with some other cause.
Old records never die.
Old records never die.
You can watch the waves roll by.
You can see it in their eyes.
Old records never die.
Old records never die.
You can watch the waves roll by.
? ?
Old records never die.
I can hear you
And I know why
Old records never die.

song performed by Ian Hunter
Added by Lucian Velea
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Up Yours

(E. Stefani)
Mmmm I'll put up with you in the morning
And I'll put up with you in the night
I'll put up with you anytime
Oh being with you's such a delight
I'll put up with you and your boyfriends
And I'll put up with you and your family
I'll put up with you and the inlaws
If they can put up with me
I'll put up with your complaining
And I'll put up with your needs
I'll put up with you messin' around
You can go but once more with me (?)
I'll put up with you and your smoking
And I'll put up with you and your dirty deeds
I'll put up with you and your cussin'
You don't know how happy you would make me
I want you sugar yeah hey woo hoo hoo hoo
And baby I got to - I know I have to
I put my love around you honey (?)
(?)
I want you need you so bad
Oh you put up with me (?)
Ooh I'll put up
I'll put up, I'll put up, I'll put up
I'll put up with your last name
And I'll put up with you and not kiss my lips
I'll put up with you not missin' me
Though down deep inside I wish you would change
Though down deep inside I wish you would change
Though down deep inside I wish you would change
Though down deep inside I wish you would change

song performed by No Doubt
Added by Lucian Velea
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VIII. Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator

Ah, my Giacinto, he's no ruddy rogue,
Is not Cinone? What, to-day we're eight?
Seven and one's eight, I hope, old curly-pate!
—Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,
Amo-as-avi-atum-are-ans,
Up to -aturus, person, tense, and mood,
Quies me cum subjunctivo (I could cry)
And chews Corderius with his morning crust!
Look eight years onward, and he's perched, he's perched
Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair,
Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?
—Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case
Like this, papa shall triturate full soon
To smooth Papinianian pulp!

It trots
Already through my head, though noon be now,
Does supper-time and what belongs to eve.
Dispose, O Don, o' the day, first work then play!
—The proverb bids. And "then" means, won't we hold
Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast,
Cinuolo's birth-night, Cinicello's own,
That makes gruff January grin perforce!
For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth
Escaping from so many hearts at once—
When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,
Jokes the hale grandsire,—such are just the sort
To go off suddenly,—he who hides the key
O' the box beneath his pillow every night,—
Which box may hold a parchment (someone thinks)
Will show a scribbled something like a name
"Cinino, Ciniccino," near the end,
"To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,
"Estates, tenements, hereditaments,
"When I decease as honest grandsire ought."
Wherefore—yet this one time again perhaps—
Shan't my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!
Then, uncles, one or the other, well i' the world,
May—drop in, merely?—trudge through rain and wind,
Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint
There's cookery in a certain dwelling-place!
Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,
Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,
And so find door, put galligaskin off
At entry of a decent domicile
Cornered in snug Condotti,—all for love,
All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!

Well,
Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp!

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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II. Half-Rome

What, you, Sir, come too? (Just the man I'd meet.)
Be ruled by me and have a care o' the crowd:
This way, while fresh folk go and get their gaze:
I'll tell you like a book and save your shins.
Fie, what a roaring day we've had! Whose fault?
Lorenzo in Lucina,—here's a church
To hold a crowd at need, accommodate
All comers from the Corso! If this crush
Make not its priests ashamed of what they show
For temple-room, don't prick them to draw purse
And down with bricks and mortar, eke us out
The beggarly transept with its bit of apse
Into a decent space for Christian ease,
Why, to-day's lucky pearl is cast to swine.
Listen and estimate the luck they've had!
(The right man, and I hold him.)

Sir, do you see,
They laid both bodies in the church, this morn
The first thing, on the chancel two steps up,
Behind the little marble balustrade;
Disposed them, Pietro the old murdered fool
To the right of the altar, and his wretched wife
On the other side. In trying to count stabs,
People supposed Violante showed the most,
Till somebody explained us that mistake;
His wounds had been dealt out indifferent where,
But she took all her stabbings in the face,
Since punished thus solely for honour's sake,
Honoris causâ, that's the proper term.
A delicacy there is, our gallants hold,
When you avenge your honour and only then,
That you disfigure the subject, fray the face,
Not just take life and end, in clownish guise.
It was Violante gave the first offence,
Got therefore the conspicuous punishment:
While Pietro, who helped merely, his mere death
Answered the purpose, so his face went free.
We fancied even, free as you please, that face
Showed itself still intolerably wronged;
Was wrinkled over with resentment yet,
Nor calm at all, as murdered faces use,
Once the worst ended: an indignant air
O' the head there was—'t is said the body turned
Round and away, rolled from Violante's side
Where they had laid it loving-husband-like.
If so, if corpses can be sensitive,
Why did not he roll right down altar-step,
Roll on through nave, roll fairly out of church,
Deprive Lorenzo of the spectacle,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Restoration Of The Works Of Art In Italy

LAND of departed fame! whose classic plains
Have proudly echo'd to immortal strains;
Whose hallow'd soil hath given the great and brave
Daystars of life, a birth-place and a grave;
Home of the Arts! where glory's faded smile
Sheds lingering light o'er many a mouldering pile;
Proud wreck of vanish'd power, of splendour fled,
Majestic temple of the mighty dead!
Whose grandeur, yet contending with decay,
Gleams through the twilight of thy glorious day;
Though dimm'd thy brightness, riveted thy chain,
Yet, fallen Italy! rejoice again!
Lost, lovely realm! once more 'tis thine to gaze
On the rich relics of sublimer days.

Awake, ye Muses of Etrurian shades,
Or sacred Tivoli's romantic glades;
Wake, ye that slumber in the bowery gloom
Where the wild ivy shadows Virgil's tomb;
Or ye, whose voice, by Sorga's lonely wave,
Swell'd the deep echoes of the fountain's cave,
Or thrill'd the soul in Tasso's numbers high,
Those magic strains of love and chivalry:
If yet by classic streams ye fondly rove,
Haunting the myrtle vale, the laurel grove;
Oh ! rouse once more the daring soul of song,
Seize with bold hand the harp, forgot so long,
And hail, with wonted pride, those works revered
Hallow'd by time, by absence more endear'd.

And breathe to Those the strain, whose warrior-might
Each danger stemm'd, prevail'd in every fight;
Souls of unyielding power, to storms inured,
Sublimed by peril, and by toil matured.
Sing of that Leader, whose ascendant mind
Could rouse the slumbering spirit of mankind:
Whose banners track'd the vanquish'd Eagle's flight
O'er many a plain, and dark sierra's height;
Who bade once more the wild, heroic lay
Record the deeds of Roncesvalles' day;
Who, through each mountain-pass of rock and snow,
An Alpine huntsman chased the fear-struck foe;
Waved his proud standard to the balmy gales,
Rich Languedoc ! that fan thy glowing vales,
And 'midst those scenes renew'd the achievements high,
Bequeath'd to fame by England's ancestry.

Yet, when the storm seem'd hush'd, the conflict past,
One strife remain'd–the mightiest and the last!
Nerved for the struggle, in that fateful hour

[...] Read more

poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Added by Poetry Lover
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The Motown Song

(larry john mcnally)
Bring over some of your old motown records
Well put the speakers in the window and well go
On the roof and listen to the miracles
Echo to the alley down below
Lets dance together just for the night
Lets dont worry about the future or nothin else
cause just like the musics sayin you gotta take chances
Go ahead just do it and trust yourself
Theres a soul in the city
Watching over us tonight
Theres a soul in the city
Saying everythings gonna be all right
So bring over some of your old motown records
Well put the speakers in the window and well go
On the roof and listen to the miracles
Echo to the alley down below
They wish us luck
But they think were just dreaming
Lets prove them wrong baby
cause you know what luck is
Luck is believing youre lucky
Thats all and showing just a little bit of faith
Theres a soul in the city
Watching over us I swear
Theres a soul in the city
Theres a whole world waiting out there
Listen
I got plans for us
Playing like a skip on a record
Through my head all night long
But when we walk that darkened stairway
And step out on the roof
I know what were feeling cant be wrong
Bring over some of your old motown records
Well put the speakers in the window and well go
On the roof and listen to the miracles
Echo to the alley down below
Bring over some of your old motown records
Well put the speakers in the window and well go
On the roof and listen to the miracles
Echo to the alley down below
let the temptations sing it one time
Bring over some of you old motown records
Well put the speakers in the window and well go
On the roof and listen to the miracles
Echo to the alley down below

song performed by Rod Stewart
Added by Lucian Velea
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The four Monarchyes, the Assyrian being the first, beginning under Nimrod, 131. Years after the Floo

When time was young, & World in Infancy,
Man did not proudly strive for Soveraignty:
But each one thought his petty Rule was high,
If of his house he held the Monarchy.
This was the golden Age, but after came
The boisterous son of Chus, Grand-Child to Ham,
That mighty Hunter, who in his strong toyles
Both Beasts and Men subjected to his spoyles:
The strong foundation of proud Babel laid,
Erech, Accad, and Culneh also made.
These were his first, all stood in Shinar land,
From thence he went Assyria to command,
And mighty Niniveh, he there begun,
Not finished till he his race had run.
Resen, Caleh, and Rehoboth likewise
By him to Cities eminent did rise.
Of Saturn, he was the Original,
Whom the succeeding times a God did call,
When thus with rule, he had been dignifi'd,
One hundred fourteen years he after dy'd.
Belus.
Great Nimrod dead, Belus the next his Son
Confirms the rule, his Father had begun;
Whose acts and power is not for certainty
Left to the world, by any History.
But yet this blot for ever on him lies,
He taught the people first to Idolize:
Titles Divine he to himself did take,
Alive and dead, a God they did him make.
This is that Bel the Chaldees worshiped,
Whose Priests in Stories oft are mentioned;
This is that Baal to whom the Israelites
So oft profanely offered sacred Rites:
This is Beelzebub God of Ekronites,
Likewise Baalpeor of the Mohabites,
His reign was short, for as I calculate,
At twenty five ended his Regal date.
Ninus.
His Father dead, Ninus begins his reign,
Transfers his seat to the Assyrian plain;
And mighty Nineveh more mighty made,
Whose Foundation was by his Grand-sire laid:
Four hundred forty Furlongs wall'd about,
On which stood fifteen hundred Towers stout.
The walls one hundred sixty foot upright,
So broad three Chariots run abrest there might.
Upon the pleasant banks of Tygris floud
This stately Seat of warlike Ninus stood:
This Ninus for a God his Father canonized,
To whom the sottish people sacrificed.

[...] Read more

poem by Anne Bradstreet
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Canto the First

I
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.

II
Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
And fill'd their sign posts then, like Wellesley now;
Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk,
Followers of fame, "nine farrow" of that sow:
France, too, had Buonaparté and Dumourier
Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.

III
Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,
Were French, and famous people, as we know:
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,
With many of the military set,
Exceedingly remarkable at times,
But not at all adapted to my rhymes.

IV
Nelson was once Britannia's god of war,
And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd;
There's no more to be said of Trafalgar,
'T is with our hero quietly inurn'd;
Because the army's grown more popular,
At which the naval people are concern'd;
Besides, the prince is all for the land-service,
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.

V
Brave men were living before Agamemnon
And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;
But then they shone not on the poet's page,
And so have been forgotten:—I condemn none,
But can't find any in the present age
Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);
So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan.

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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XI. Guido

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Dont Put Me Out

Baby now I realize
All of those times I told you I loved you
I just didnt show it
Im sorry
Dont put me out
Dont put me out
Dont put me out
Dont put me out
Dont put me out
Dont put me out
Dont put me out
Dont put me out
Dont put me out
Dont put me out
I remember when you said to me
Dont talk about it be about it
I should have felt you when you said
To me that you were all alone
I act like I was doin a favor
For you cuz you were wit me
Something let me thinking that whatever happens
This would be my home
But I was wrong (I was wrong)
How could I have been so low
(how could I have been so low)
I wrote a song all about it
(took a pen and wrote a song)
Wanna hear it, here it go, from now on
1 - i wont talk about lovin you
Cuz Im gonna be about lovin you
I wont talk about comin home
Cuz Im gonna be about comin home
I wont talk about both of us
Cuz Im gonna be about both of us
I wont talk about makin sweet love
Cuz Im gonna be about makin sweet love
Now I remember when we used the crib in studio 12a
Clothes and pallets on the floor makin sweet love night till day
Used to say I wanna have a baby boy and call him man
But now its all gone up in smoke and baby I dont understand
All I know that is I was wrong
(dead wrong, yeah)
How could I have stooped so low
(how could I have stooped so low)
I wrote a song about it
(wrote a song)
Wrote about it, here it go, from now on
Repeat 1
Now all the money in the world couldnt add up to what you did
Cuz when I was down and out you took the burden off of me

[...] Read more

song performed by R. Kelly
Added by Lucian Velea
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Inside The Puppet Head

As your body floats down third street
With the burn-smell factory closing up
Yes its sad to say you will romanticize
All the things youve known before
It was not not not so great
It was not not not so great
And as you take a bath in that beaten path
Theres a pounding at the door
Well its a mighty zombie talking of some love and posterity
He says the good old days never say good-bye
If you keep this in your mind:
You need some lo-lo-loving arms
You need some lo-lo-loving arms
And as you fall from grace the only words you say are
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside
Put your hand inside
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Ads up in the subway are the work of someone
Trying to please their boss
And though the guys a pig we all know what he wants
Is just to please somebody else
If the pu-pu-puppet head
Was only bu-bu-busted in
It would be a better thing for everyone involved
And we wouldnt have to cry
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside
Put your hand inside
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Memo to myself: do the dumb things I gotta do
Touch the puppet head
Quit my job down at the carwash
Didnt have to write no-one a good-bye note
That said, the checks in the mail, and
Ill see you in church, and dont you ever change
If the pu-pu-puppet head
Was only bu-bu-busted in
Ill see you after school
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside
Put your hand inside
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside
Put your hand inside

[...] Read more

song performed by They Might Be Giants
Added by Lucian Velea
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Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head

As your body floats down third street
With the burn-smell factory closing up
Yes its sad to say you will romanticize
All the things youve known before
It was not not not so great
It was not not not so great
And as you take a bath in that beaten path
Theres a pounding at the door
Well its a mighty zombie talking of some love and posterity
He says the good old days never say good-bye
If you keep this in your mind:
You need some lo-lo-loving arms
You need some lo-lo-loving arms
And as you fall from grace the only words you say are
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside
Put your hand inside
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Ads up in the subway are the work of someone
Trying to please their boss
And though the guys a pig we all know what he wants
Is just to please somebody else
If the pu-pu-puppet head
Was only bu-bu-busted in
It would be a better thing for everyone involved
And we wouldnt have to cry
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside
Put your hand inside
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Memo to myself: do the dumb things I gotta do
Touch the puppet head
Quit my job down at the carwash
Didnt have to write no-one a good-bye note
That said, the checks in the mail, and
Ill see you in church, and dont you ever change
If the pu-pu-puppet head
Was only bu-bu-busted in
Ill see you after school
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside
Put your hand inside
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside the puppet head
Put your hand inside
Put your hand inside

[...] Read more

song performed by They Might Be Giants
Added by Lucian Velea
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IV. Tertium Quid

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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Put Your Foot On the Pedal

No ember that you've struck...
Could heat up a fire burning out.
And no engine that is cool...
Should keep ready,
For a driver who ain't behind the wheel.
Or thinking that a boost,
Is not needed to get started.

You gotta give up,
Mo' steam.
And get up offa that...
Low self-esteem.

You gotta give up,
Mo' steam.
And get up offa that,
Low self-esteem.

Put your foot on the pedal,
And steer me to all your needs.
Put your foot on the pedal.
Put the pedal to the metal.

Put your foot on the pedal,
And steer me to all your needs.
Put your foot on the pedal.
Put the pedal to the metal.

Put that pedal to the metal,
If you wanna get with me.
Put your foot on the pedal.
Put that pedal to the metal.

Put your foot on the pedal,
And steer me to all your needs.
Put your foot on the pedal.
Put the pedal to the metal.

No ember that you've struck...
Could heat up a fire burning out.
And no engine that is cool...
Should keep ready,
For a driver who ain't behind the wheel.
Or thinking that a boost,
Is not needed to get started.

You gotta give up,
Mo' steam.
And get up offa that...
Low self-esteem.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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III. The Other Half-Rome

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

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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Parish Register - Part III: Burials

THERE was, 'tis said, and I believe, a time
When humble Christians died with views sublime;
When all were ready for their faith to bleed,
But few to write or wrangle for their creed;
When lively Faith upheld the sinking heart,
And friends, assured to meet, prepared to part;
When Love felt hope, when Sorrow grew serene,
And all was comfort in the death-bed scene.
Alas! when now the gloomy king they wait,
'Tis weakness yielding to resistless fate;
Like wretched men upon the ocean cast,
They labour hard and struggle to the last;
'Hope against hope,' and wildly gaze around
In search of help that never shall be found:
Nor, till the last strong billow stops the breath,
Will they believe them in the jaws of Death!
When these my Records I reflecting read,
And find what ills these numerous births succeed;
What powerful griefs these nuptial ties attend;
With what regret these painful journeys end;
When from the cradle to the grave I look,
Mine I conceive a melancholy book.
Where now is perfect resignation seen?
Alas! it is not on the village-green: -
I've seldom known, though I have often read,
Of happy peasants on their dying-bed;
Whose looks proclaimed that sunshine of the breast,
That more than hope, that Heaven itself express'd.
What I behold are feverish fits of strife,
'Twixt fears of dying and desire of life:
Those earthly hopes, that to the last endure;
Those fears, that hopes superior fail to cure;
At best a sad submission to the doom,
Which, turning from the danger, lets it come.
Sick lies the man, bewilder'd, lost, afraid,
His spirits vanquish'd, and his strength decay'd;
No hope the friend, the nurse, the doctor lend -
'Call then a priest, and fit him for his end.'
A priest is call'd; 'tis now, alas! too late,
Death enters with him at the cottage-gate;
Or time allow'd--he goes, assured to find
The self-commending, all-confiding mind;
And sighs to hear, what we may justly call
Death's common-place, the train of thought in all.
'True I'm a sinner,' feebly he begins,
'But trust in Mercy to forgive my sins:'
(Such cool confession no past crimes excite!
Such claim on Mercy seems the sinner's right!)
'I know mankind are frail, that God is just,
And pardons those who in his Mercy trust;

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poem by George Crabbe
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Five Years

Pushing thru the market square, so many mothers sighing
News had just come over, we had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us, earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet, then I knew he was not lying
I heard telephones, opera house, favourite melodies
I saw boys, toys electric irons and t.v.s
My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare
I had to cram so many things to store everything in there
And all the fat-skinny people, and all the tall-short people
And all the nobody people, and all the somebody people
I never thought Id need so many people
A girl my age went off her head, hit some tiny children
If the black hadnt a-pulled her off, I think she would have killed them
A soldier with a broken arm, fixed his stare to the wheels of a cadillac
A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest, and a queer threw up at the sight of that
I think I saw you in an ice-cream parlour, drinking milk shakes cold and long
Smiling and waving and looking so fine, dont think
You knew you were in this song
And it was cold and it rained so I felt like an actor
And I thought of ma and I wanted to get back there
Your face, your race, the way that you talk
I kiss you, youre beautiful, I want you to walk
Weve got five years, stuck on my eyes
Five years, what a surprise
Weve got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, thats all weve got
Weve got five years, what a surprise
Five years, stuck on my eyes
Weve got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, thats all weve got
Weve got five years, stuck on my eyes
Five years, what a surprise
Weve got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, thats all weve got
Weve got five years, what a surprise
Weve got five years, stuck on my eyes
Weve got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, thats all weve got
Five years
Five years
Five years
Five years

song performed by David Bowie
Added by Lucian Velea
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