A rooster crows only when it sees the light. Put him in the dark and he'll never crow. I have seen the light and I'm crowing.
quote by Muhammad Ali
Added by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
Happy Easter
Who wants to be a rooster,
Crowing before dawn everyday.
Who wants to be that rooster?
Who wants to be that rooster?
Who wants to be a rooster,
Crowing before dawn everyday.
Who wants to be that rooster?
Who wants to be that rooster?
To strut and cluck for someone sleeping,
To get up.
And do that if programmed before the dawn shows up.
And if that rooster gets into a rut...
Who will then do the clucking?
Or wake up,
To collect the eggs!
Who wants to be a rooster,
Crowing before dawn everyday.
Who wants to be that rooster?
Who wants to be that rooster?
Who wants to be a rooster,
Crowing before dawn everyday.
Who wants to be that rooster?
Who wants to be that rooster?
To strut and cluck for someone sleeping,
To get up.
And do that if programmed before the dawn shows up.
And if that rooster gets into a rut...
Who will then do,
The clucking?
Or wake up,
To collect the eggs!
'Happy Easter'
~Do you notice anything different about those eggs? ~
'Yeah!
They are colored.
Why? '
~They are for the Easter Egg Hunt.
Put them back.~
'Oh!
I must be dreaming.
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Saltbush Bill's Gamecock
'Twas Saltbush Bill, with his travelling sheep, was making his way to town;
He crossed them over the Hard Times Run, and he came to the Take 'Em Down;
He counted through at the boundary gate, and camped at the drafting yard:
For Stingy Smith, of the Hard Times Run, had hunted him rather hard.
He bore no malice to Stingy Smith -- 'twas simply the hand of Fate
That caused his waggon to swerve aside and shatter old Stingy's gate;
And being only the hand of Fate, it follows, without a doubt,
It wasn't the fault of Saltbush Bill that Stingy's sheep got out.
So Saltbush Bill, with an easy heart, prepared for what might befall,
Commenced his stages on Take 'Em Down, the station of Roostr Hall.
'Tis strange how often the men out back will take to some curious craft,
Some ruling passion to keep their thoughts away from the overdraft:
And Rooster Hall, of the Take 'Em Down, was widely known to fame
As breeder of champion fighting cocks -- his forte was the British Game.
The passing stranger within his gates that camped with old Rooster Hall
Was forced to talk about fowls all noght, or else not talk at all.
Though droughts should come, and though sheep should die, his fowls were his sole delight;
He left his shed in the flood of work to watch two game-cocks fight.
He held in scorn the Australian Game, that long-legged child of sin;
In a desperate fight, with the steel-tipped spurs, the British Game must win!
The Australian bird was a mongrel bird, with a touch of the jungle cock;
The want of breeding must find him out, when facing the English stock;
For British breeding, and British pluck, must triumph it over all --
And that was the root of the simple creed that governed old Rooster Hall.
'Twas Saltbush Bill to the station rode ahead of his travelling sheep,
And sent a message to Rooster Hall that wakened him out of his sleep --
A crafty message that fetched him out, and hurried him as he came --
"A drover has an Australian bird to match with your British Game."
'Twas done, and done in half a trice; a five-pound note a side;
Old Rooster Hall, with his champion bird, and the drover's bird untried.
"Steel spurs, of course?" said old Rooster Hall; "you'll need 'em, without a doubt!"
"You stick the spurs on your bird!" said Bill, "but mine fights best without."
"Fights best without?" said old Rooster Hall; "he can't fight best unspurred!
You must be crazy!" But Saltbush Bill said, "Wait till you see my bird!"
So Rooster Hall to his fowl-yard went, and quickly back he came,
Bearing a clipt and a shaven cock, the pride of his English Game;
With an eye as fierce as an eaglehawk, and a crow like a trumbet call,
He strutted about on the garden walk, and cackled at Rooster Hall.
Then Rooster Hall sent off a boy with a word to his cronies two,
McCrae (the boss of the Black Police) and Father Donahoo.
Full many a cockfight old McCrae had held in his empty Court,
With Father D. as the picker-up -- a regular all-round Sport!
They got the message of Rooster Hall, and down to his run they came,
Prepared to scoff at the drover's bird, and to bet on the English Game;
[...] Read more
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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I Choose To Be A Rooster
I can strut it like a rooster,
Recently freed from being locked up inside of a coop.
I can strut it like a rooster,
Recently freed.
I can strut it like a rooster,
To cluck as I please.
I can strut it like a rooster,
Recently freed from being locked up inside of a coop.
I can strut it like a rooster,
Recently freed.
I can strut it like a rooster,
To cluck as I please.
And before the dawn,
I can disturb your sleep.
And as the Sun arises,
You wont hear from me a peep.
Because,
I choose to be a rooster.
I can strut it like a rooster,
Recently freed.
I can strut it like a rooster,
To cluck as I please.
And before the dawn,
I can disturb your sleep.
And as the Sun arises,
You wont hear from me a peep.
Because,
I choose to be a rooster.
I can strut it like a rooster,
Recently freed from being locked up inside of a coop.
I can strut it like a rooster,
Recently freed.
I can strut it like a rooster,
To cluck as I please.
Because,
I choose to be a rooster.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Whistling In The Dark
A woman came up to me and said
Id like to poison your mind
With wrong ideas that appeal to you
Though I am not unkind
She looked at me, I looked at something
Written across her scalp
And these are the words that it faintly said
As I tried to call for help:
Theres only one thing that I know how to do well
And Ive often been told that you only can do
What you know how to do well
And thats be you,
Be what youre like,
Be like yourself,
And so Im having a wonderful time
But Id rather be whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Theres only one thing that I like
And that is whistling in the dark
A man came up to me and said
Id like to change your mind
By hitting it with a rock, he said,
Though I am not unkind.
We laughed at his little joke
And then I happily walked away
And hit my head on the wall of the jail
Where the two of us live today.
Theres only one thing that I know how to do well
And Ive often been told that you only can do
What you know how to do well
And thats be you,
Be what youre like,
Be like yourself,
And so Im having a wonderful time
But Id rather be whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Theres only one thing that I like
And that is whistling in the dark
Theres only one thing that I know how to do well
And Ive often been told that you only can do
What you know how to do well
And thats be you,
[...] Read more
song performed by They Might Be Giants
Added by Lucian Velea
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The House Of Dust: Complete
I.
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.
'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.
We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .
Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.
Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.
Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.
II.
[...] Read more
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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The Common Crow
The Common Crow, "Caw-Caw"—with its familiar sound
Is a harmless bird very adaptable on land
Almost all over the world it is invariably found
Except in South America, Antarctica and New Zealand.
It is of average size—in color—grey and black
And abounds, teems and thrives in many numbers
Where other birds' survival is considerably slack
As it is the most intelligent of its bird family members.
The Ravens, Magpies, Rooks, the Black-birds
And the Jays—all belong to the family of the crow
They are all hunting migratory birds
Who forage together like the crow.
It has shining black feathers, is clever and curious
It is omnivorous and the diet is very diverse
It eats grains, rodents, insects and is mischievous
And swoops down to grasp things from man's source.
It roosts in large trees high up
Each mating pair has its own nest
Which usually takes one to two weeks to build up
Gathering leaves, feathers, sticks and twigs best.
Baby crows stay in the nest
For up to two months before leaving
The mother crow guards them with zest
And the father crow feeds the family striving.
The young are flesh-colored and born blind
Their eyes open for the first time after five days
The young ones- the family together mind
The elder fledglings tend to help in their own ways.
In Hinduism it is customary to offer food
To the crow before taking the meal
And it is supposed during ‘Shraddha ‘expired ones would
Take food and offerings through the crow's feel.
The crow often lives together in large families
An assembly of crows called a ‘flock of murder'
Forge together and defend their territories
Even high up in the air and down under.
It caws and calls the other crows to its station
To take part of the food that is found
It shows signs of planning communication
Which man must consider and himself bound.
[...] Read more
poem by Chandra Thiagarajan
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The Loves of the Angels
'Twas when the world was in its prime,
When the fresh stars had just begun
Their race of glory and young Time
Told his first birth-days by the sun;
When in the light of Nature's dawn
Rejoicing, men and angels met
On the high hill and sunny lawn,-
Ere sorrow came or Sin had drawn
'Twixt man and heaven her curtain yet!
When earth lay nearer to the skies
Than in these days of crime and woe,
And mortals saw without surprise
In the mid-air angelic eyes
Gazing upon this world below.
Alas! that Passion should profane
Even then the morning of the earth!
That, sadder still, the fatal stain
Should fall on hearts of heavenly birth-
And that from Woman's love should fall
So dark a stain, most sad of all!
One evening, in that primal hour,
On a hill's side where hung the ray
Of sunset brightening rill and bower,
Three noble youths conversing lay;
And, as they lookt from time to time
To the far sky where Daylight furled
His radiant wing, their brows sublime
Bespoke them of that distant world-
Spirits who once in brotherhood
Of faith and bliss near ALLA stood,
And o'er whose cheeks full oft had blown
The wind that breathes from ALLA'S throne,
Creatures of light such as still play,
Like motes in sunshine, round the Lord,
And thro' their infinite array
Transmit each moment, night and day,
The echo of His luminous word!
Of Heaven they spoke and, still more oft,
Of the bright eyes that charmed them thence;
Till yielding gradual to the soft
And balmy evening's influence-
The silent breathing of the flowers-
The melting light that beamed above,
As on their first, fond, erring hours,-
Each told the story of his love,
The history of that hour unblest,
When like a bird from its high nest
[...] Read more
poem by Thomas Moore
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Little Red Rooster
All right, listen now. at this time I would like to introduce a friend of ours,
A very talented guy named john sebastian. come on man.
Man, thats what I call a new york joint, man!
You can pick your teeth with a new york joint!
Well, Im the little red rooster
Too lazy to crow the day.
Little red rooster
Too lazy to crow the day.
Keep everything in the barnyard
Upset in every way.
Dogs begin to bark
The hounds begin to howl.
Dogs begin to bark and
The hounds begin to howl.
Look out strange cat people
The roosters on the prowl.
Yeah, dogs begin to bark
The hounds begin to howl.
Dogs begin to bark
The hounds begin to howl.
Look out strange cat people
Yeah, the roosters on the prowl.
If you see my rooster
Come on man, drive him home.
See my rooster, babe
Come on man, drive him home.
Aint been no peace in the barnyard
Since my little red rooster been gone.
Well, Im the little red rooster, babe
Too lazy to crow the day.
Well, Im the little red rooster, babe
Too lazy to crow the day.
Keep everything in the barnyard
Upset in every way.
song performed by Doors
Added by Lucian Velea
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Death of Dusk
The sun resigns,
bleeds out the vestiges –
remnants of the day.
Exsanguination edges into twilight:
red-brown hangs;
upwards darkens:
blue-brown,
blue-black,
death-black,
disquiet – furtive,
like ghoul-ridden fog.
A sombre moon assumes its role,
gushing silver-white lymph upon the muted scape –
a prequel of supernatural undertones
to chill the scene,
ice the spine,
kill the brain –
we have unnerved the very firmament.
But now a shadow closing down the globe:
dinosaurian cloud shrouds the moon glaze,
claims the late hour –
declared in a dying crow caw.
I, the hidden owl
– nemesis of claustrophobic minds –
awake! for mammal flesh –
fresh, jerking out its warmth in dance of death.
Rock-still I perch in sculptured oneness
with my crooked night-tree,
emanating nocturnal allure.
Together we scowl
together we play the dark
upon the land and sky
and mind
while you lie as dead in your box.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010
[...] Read more
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Light In My Darkness
as the day gets closeri ponder on what i told her she sees the light in my darkness as i wonder what she has caressed and she sees my poteintial as i am hororendously altered to what i am yet to be and she sees me for who i truely am as i slam my fist into this door a crippleing blow i should say as i lay here wondering why she sees light in my dark ness
as light filter through a darkness that is so true we wander thy dark wood wondering how to find our fate not to hate the one ho put us through wondering pondering why she sees the light filter through a darkness that is so true
as light penitrates my dark and wounded heart paying no mind to what it has healed as i seal my fate of which i take and it to claims me as a true dark but light finds my soul and she sees the light in my darkness that is so true
i am not as dark as i seem to be cuase she sees the light in me and i see the light in her which i truely pefer
and as i ponder on which i have said and i have sped down the road of life which is truely darkand she has saved me because she sees the light in my darkness of which i may contort due to the light she sees
as the darkness is contorted to see optimistically of all this strife as this knife drops to the floor as the darkness begins to contort
with this life i shall change as li lay me down to sleep i pray my soul the lord to keep if i die before i wke i pray my soul the lord to take as i partake in this in a heavenly manner i believe i see the light in my darkness as i see ture the beloved i shoved all my grief down the drain and she sees the light in my darkness as do i
hate is a fate that we we all can partake as we see the key to life as the kife is droped to the floor as the door slams into its jam life is contorted and then altered as we all can falter as the slaughter of man takes place as an ace is droped on the table as we all can tell this is a fable to be heard as a hearse takes your friend to her grave and she told me to say this that you are gay like the fey folk al i sasy this life flies by as shooting star and the i drive my car off a cliff into a tidal rift and float to the very end as i send a message to those who dont have hope and then i float to the land of the dead to spread this hate as we partake in the slaughter of man as i pretend the light was never spread and as i am beheaded by the beast with three heads as a hockey puck goes throgh a staind glass window as she is made a widow because of the war of the worlds and the darkness is once more contorted to her will and she sees me and the light in the darkness
forsay to end this fable i say to thee my life is a creed of which to be fallowed as i swallow the waters of the holyto souly depend on her to see tme for who i am truely am and thy light with in me thierein lies the secret of life which we all pass and not see as light filters through allof the dark and not lighted as my foresight is met light and dark meet for one last battle as life begins to contort and falter
then again life is always contorting to her will and the light spreads through a darkeness so trueonce more she sees the light in me in order to see the doves fly for her love for me cause she sees light in me and as i weave a tread so thin i send a message of hope in order to cope with the sin of man as i tan the hide of the beast so fierce that has dieed due to the light she brought me cuz she sees the light with in me
poem by Andy Pierce
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The Undying One- Canto III
'THERE is a sound the autumn wind doth make
Howling and moaning, listlessly and low:
Methinks that to a heart that ought to break
All the earth's voices seem to murmur so.
The visions that crost
Our path in light--
The things that we lost
In the dim dark night--
The faces for which we vainly yearn--
The voices whose tones will not return--
That low sad wailing breeze doth bring
Borne on its swift and rushing wing.
Have ye sat alone when that wind was loud,
And the moon shone dim from the wintry cloud?
When the fire was quench'd on your lonely hearth,
And the voices were still which spoke of mirth?
If such an evening, tho' but one,
It hath been yours to spend alone--
Never,--though years may roll along
Cheer'd by the merry dance and song;
Though you mark'd not that bleak wind's sound before,
When louder perchance it used to roar--
Never shall sound of that wintry gale
Be aught to you but a voice of wail!
So o'er the careless heart and eye
The storms of the world go sweeping by;
But oh! when once we have learn'd to weep,
Well doth sorrow his stern watch keep.
Let one of our airy joys decay--
Let one of our blossoms fade away--
And all the griefs that others share
Seem ours, as well as theirs, to bear:
And the sound of wail, like that rushing wind
Shall bring all our own deep woe to mind!
'I went through the world, but I paused not now
At the gladsome heart and the joyous brow:
I went through the world, and I stay'd to mark
Where the heart was sore, and the spirit dark:
And the grief of others, though sad to see,
Was fraught with a demon's joy to me!
'I saw the inconstant lover come to take
Farewell of her he loved in better days,
And, coldly careless, watch the heart-strings break--
Which beat so fondly at his words of praise.
She was a faded, painted, guilt-bow'd thing,
Seeking to mock the hues of early spring,
When misery and years had done their worst
[...] Read more
poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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The Idols
An Ode
Luce intellettual, piena d' amore
Prelude
Lo, the spirit of a pulsing star within a stone
Born of earth, sprung from night!
Prisoned with the profound fires of the light
That lives like all the tongues of eloquence
Locked in a speech unknown!
The crystal, cold and hard as innocence,
Immures the flame; and yet as if it knew
Raptures or pangs it could not but betray,
As if the light could feel changes of blood and breath
And all--but--human quiverings of the sense,
Throbs of a sudden rose, a frosty blue,
Shoot thrilling in its ray,
Like the far longings of the intellect
Restless in clouding clay.
Who has confined the Light? Who has held it a slave,
Sold and bought, bought and sold?
Who has made of it a mystery to be doled,
Or trophy, to awe with legendary fire,
Where regal banners wave?
And still into the dark it sends Desire.
In the heart's darkness it sows cruelties.
The bright jewel becomes a beacon to the vile,
A lodestar to corruption, envy's own:
Soiled with blood, fought for, clutched at; this world's prize,
Captive Authority. Oh, the star is stone
To all that outward sight,
Yet still, like truth that none has ever used,
Lives lost in its own light.
Troubled I fly. O let me wander again at will
(Far from cries, far from these
Hard blindnesses and frozen certainties!)
Where life proceeds in vastness unaware
And stirs profound and still:
Where leafing thoughts at shy touch of the air
Tremble, and gleams come seeking to be mine,
Or dart, like suddenly remembered youth,
Like the ache of love, a light, lost, found, and lost again.
Surely in the dusk some messenger was there!
But, haunted in the heart, I thirst, I pine.--
Oh, how can truth be truth
Except I taste it close and sweet and sharp
As an apple to the tooth?
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Laurence Binyon
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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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The Crow and The Butterfly
Ever wonder why the Crow chases the Butterfly?
Have you ever heard the Crow let out it's cry?
I think I found out why...
It's quite the interesting story, I had to pry..
The Butterfly's beauty, the Crow's will never match.
The Crow's life is nothing compared the the Butterfly's since it's first hatch.
If you are good enough to get a Butterfly, that is quite a catch.
Get a Crow somehow and it gets thrown right back out to the patch.
The Crow has had it so much easier than the Butterfly.
Straight jealousy from the Crow because they have to share the sky.
The Butterfly's flight is reason to stare, the Crow's just reason to cry.
Everyone stops to get a glance of a Buttflies, a few Crows and people pass by.
So if you ever hear a Crow cry,
Or see a Butterfly being chased by a Crow,
Just think how bad that Crow wants to be a Butterfly.....
poem by Joe Gosart
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Venus and Adonis
Even as the sun with purple-colour'd face
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek'd Adonis tried him to the chase;
Hunting he lov'd, but love he laugh'd to scorn;
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold-fac'd suitor 'gins to woo him.
'Thrice fairer than myself,' thus she began,
'The field's chief flower, sweet above compare,
Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,
More white and red than doves or roses are;
Nature that made thee, with herself at strife,
Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.
'Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed,
And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;
If thou wilt deign this favour, for thy meed
A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:
Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses;
And being set, I'll smother thee with kisses:
'And yet not cloy thy lips with loath'd satiety,
But rather famish them amid their plenty,
Making them red and pale with fresh variety;
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty:
A summer's day will seem an hour but short,
Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.'
With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,
The precedent of pith and livelihood,
And, trembling in her passion, calls it balm,
Earth's sovereign salve to do a goddess good:
Being so enrag'd, desire doth lend her force
Courageously to pluck him from his horse.
Over one arm the lusty courser's rein
Under her other was the tender boy,
Who blush'd and pouted in a dull disdain,
With leaden appetite, unapt to toy;
She red and hot as coals of glowing fire
He red for shame, but frosty in desire.
The studded bridle on a ragged bough
Nimbly she fastens;--O! how quick is love:--
The steed is stalled up, and even now
To tie the rider she begins to prove:
Backward she push'd him, as she would be thrust,
And govern'd him in strength, though not in lust.
So soon was she along, as he was down,
Each leaning on their elbows and their hips:
Now doth she stroke his cheek, now doth he frown,
And 'gins to chide, but soon she stops his lips;
And kissing speaks, with lustful language broken,
'If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open.'
He burns with bashful shame; she with her tears
Doth quench the maiden burning of his cheeks;
[...] Read more
poem by William Shakespeare (1593)
Added by Dan Costinaş
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Venus and Adonis
'Vilia miretur vulgus; mihi flavus Apollo
Pocula Castalia plena ministret aqua.'
To the right honorable Henry Wriothesly, Earl of Southampton, and Baron of Tichfield.
Right honorable.
I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden only, if your honour seem but pleased, I account myself highly praised, and vow to take advantage of all idle hours, till I have honoured you with some graver labour. But if the first heir of my invention prove deformed, I shall be sorry it had so noble a god-father, and never after ear so barren a land, for fear it yield me still so bad a harvest. I leave it to your honourable survey, and your honour to your heart's content; which I wish may always answer your own wish and the world's hopeful expectation.
Your honour's in all duty.
Even as the sun with purple-colour'd face
Had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn,
Rose-cheek'd Adonis hied him to the chase;
Hunting he loved, but love he laugh'd to scorn;
Sick-thoughted Venus makes amain unto him,
And like a bold-faced suitor 'gins to woo him.
'Thrice-fairer than myself,' thus she began,
'The field's chief flower, sweet above compare,
Stain to all nymphs, more lovely than a man,
More white and red than doves or roses are;
Nature that made thee, with herself at strife,
Saith that the world hath ending with thy life.
'Vouchsafe, thou wonder, to alight thy steed,
And rein his proud head to the saddle-bow;
If thou wilt deign this favour, for thy meed
A thousand honey secrets shalt thou know:
Here come and sit, where never serpent hisses,
And being set, I'll smother thee with kisses;
'And yet not cloy thy lips with loathed satiety,
But rather famish them amid their plenty,
Making them red and pale with fresh variety,
Ten kisses short as one, one long as twenty:
A summer's day will seem an hour but short,
Being wasted in such time-beguiling sport.'
With this she seizeth on his sweating palm,
The precedent of pith and livelihood,
And trembling in her passion, calls it balm,
Earth's sovereign salve to do a goddess good:
Being so enraged, desire doth lend her force
Courageously to pluck him from his horse.
Over one arm the lusty courser's rein,
Under her other was the tender boy,
Who blush'd and pouted in a dull disdain,
With leaden appetite, unapt to toy;
She red and hot as coals of glowing fire,
He red for shame, but frosty in desire.
The studded bridle on a ragged bough
Nimbly she fastens:--O, how quick is love!--
The steed is stalled up, and even now
To tie the rider she begins to prove:
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poem by William Shakespeare
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Old Jim Crow
Ron vander groef, jackie alper, nina simone
Old jim crow
Where you been baby
Down mississippi and back again
Old jim crow dont you know
Its all over now
Old jim crow
Whats wrong with you
It aint your name
Its the things you do
Old jim crow dont you know
Its all over now
Old jim crow
Youve been around too long
Gotta work the devil
til your dead and gone
Old jim crow
Yes, dont you know
Its all over now
Its all over now
Old jim crow
You know its true
When you hurt my brother
You hurt me too
Old jim crow dont you know
Its all over now
Old jim crow
I thought I had you beat
Now I see you walkin
And talkin up and down my street
Old jim crow dont you know
Its all over now
Old jim crow
Youve been around too long
Gotta work the devil
til your dead and gone
Old jim crow dont you know
Its all over
All over
Oh lord, its all over
All over
Its all over
Its all over
Its all over now.
song performed by Nina Simone
Added by Lucian Velea
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Thurso’s Landing
I
The coast-road was being straightened and repaired again,
A group of men labored at the steep curve
Where it falls from the north to Mill Creek. They scattered and hid
Behind cut banks, except one blond young man
Who stooped over the rock and strolled away smiling
As if he shared a secret joke with the dynamite;
It waited until he had passed back of a boulder,
Then split its rock cage; a yellowish torrent
Of fragments rose up the air and the echoes bumped
From mountain to mountain. The men returned slowly
And took up their dropped tools, while a banner of dust
Waved over the gorge on the northwest wind, very high
Above the heads of the forest.
Some distance west of the road,
On the promontory above the triangle
Of glittering ocean that fills the gorge-mouth,
A woman and a lame man from the farm below
Had been watching, and turned to go down the hill. The young
woman looked back,
Widening her violet eyes under the shade of her hand. 'I think
they'll blast again in a minute.'
And the man: 'I wish they'd let the poor old road be. I don't
like improvements.' 'Why not?' 'They bring in the world;
We're well without it.' His lameness gave him some look of age
but he was young too; tall and thin-faced,
With a high wavering nose. 'Isn't he amusing,' she said, 'that
boy Rick Armstrong, the dynamite man,
How slowly he walks away after he lights the fuse. He loves to
show off. Reave likes him, too,'
She added; and they clambered down the path in the rock-face,
little dark specks
Between the great headland rock and the bright blue sea.
II
The road-workers had made their camp
North of this headland, where the sea-cliff was broken down and
sloped to a cove. The violet-eyed woman's husband,
Reave Thurso, rode down the slope to the camp in the gorgeous
autumn sundown, his hired man Johnny Luna
Riding behind him. The road-men had just quit work and four
or five were bathing in the purple surf-edge,
The others talked by the tents; blue smoke fragrant with food
and oak-wood drifted from the cabin stove-pipe
And slowly went fainting up the vast hill.
Thurso drew rein by
a group of men at a tent door
And frowned at them without speaking, square-shouldered and
heavy-jawed, too heavy with strength for so young a man,
He chose one of the men with his eyes. 'You're Danny Woodruff,
[...] Read more
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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You, the Dark
Dark, She is the mind of yours.
Icy chill of thought becomes
A steely shimmer.
Behold a glimmer in the black -
A flash of grey, that even glows
In show against the hallowed dark of you.
And that is why you scream in jarring tones
'I have no heart for joy!
My white and brittle bones have died'
You cried in dark and fractured moans.
So now the Queen of Black you writhe,
Whence from dark of shade
That honed an evil form afar;
In curse of me you bade:
'I, the wave shall rape the shore!
Violence will there be in glares I'll throw
At all who prey, and more:
A dark and fetid sea I'll bleed.'
And now, the bitter tinge
And bleak of waste
That eyed the death of once your soul
Will here forever be!
Indeed you tell:
'The cramping pain is here!
Eternal spasm, infinite chasm,
The Devil's chaplain plays!
We'll climax in a tortured glee
As all my love decays.'
Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009
Dark dark dark dark dark dark dark
Dark dark dark dark dark dark
Dark dark dark dark dark
Dark dark dark dark
Dark dark dark
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
Added by Poetry Lover
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Peter Bell, A Tale
PROLOGUE
There's something in a flying horse,
There's something in a huge balloon;
But through the clouds I'll never float
Until I have a little Boat,
Shaped like the crescent-moon.
And now I 'have' a little Boat,
In shape a very crescent-moon
Fast through the clouds my boat can sail;
But if perchance your faith should fail,
Look up--and you shall see me soon!
The woods, my Friends, are round you roaring,
Rocking and roaring like a sea;
The noise of danger's in your ears,
And ye have all a thousand fears
Both for my little Boat and me!
Meanwhile untroubled I admire
The pointed horns of my canoe;
And, did not pity touch my breast,
To see how ye are all distrest,
Till my ribs ached, I'd laugh at you!
Away we go, my Boat and I--
Frail man ne'er sate in such another;
Whether among the winds we strive,
Or deep into the clouds we dive,
Each is contented with the other.
Away we go--and what care we
For treasons, tumults, and for wars?
We are as calm in our delight
As is the crescent-moon so bright
Among the scattered stars.
Up goes my Boat among the stars
Through many a breathless field of light,
Through many a long blue field of ether,
Leaving ten thousand stars beneath her:
Up goes my little Boat so bright!
The Crab, the Scorpion, and the Bull--
We pry among them all; have shot
High o'er the red-haired race of Mars,
Covered from top to toe with scars;
Such company I like it not!
[...] Read more
poem by William Wordsworth
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