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The gentleman puts me in mind of an old hen which persists in setting after her eggs are taken away.

quote by Fisher Ames
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Hen laid eggs

Hen laid an eggs, between legs two,
No small, no big but not in zoo,
Ran after those who made slight dig,
Dog, cat and crow planned very big,
Hen laid eggs……

Hen becomes heroin when find egg,
With big noise run after with one leg,
Even scare pig and allow near no body,
How to protect eggs that is only worry?
Hen laid eggs……

Make no fun when she may have kitten,
Beautiful scene seen when run in garden,
Children love to see and catch with fun,
Prefer little kitten and make gentle run,
Hen laid eggs……

Small kids ask, what will be her task?
How to protect them, by putting a mask?
Often they look at them and draw on page,
night take them all to stay in simple cage,
hen laid eggs……

Papa and mummy, where from kittens came?
Who laid an eggs and how she played game?
Simply they observe and ask funny questions
Why kitten become cock and not small hen?
Hen laid eggs....

What a lovely fun? I couldn’t answer one?
It was more confusing than work undone?
Answered few more questions but not in full,
Avoided by telling you may get it from school
Hen laid eggs.....

How to answer questions? When faced many?
Simple they may look but nature seems funny,
better not answer question any more,
It may not be ending but more and feel bore,
Hen laid eggs......

It is not the hen but cock steals show,
People get irritation when shouts crow,
Kittens and children happy and steadily grow,
Cock serve as alarm when mighty voice blow
Hen laid eggs......

Cocks find preference and first depart,
When runs after hen even looks smart,

[...] Read more

poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
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Gentleman

Gentleman!
I am the type of guy,
That picks you up in a Bens,
I am the type of man that'll always represent.
I am the type of freak,
That calls you seven days a week.
You don't believe it?
You gotta understand.
You wouldn't call me gentleman,
If you only knew my plan.
You wouldn't take the chance to dance with dinamite,
Are you ready to explore with me tonight?
I'm a gentleman!
I send you flowers,
What's yours is ours.
I wanna tell ya that I care.
You think I'm gentle,
So sentimental.
You dont believe it but you gotta understand.
You wouldn't call me gentleman,
If you only knew my plan.
You wouldn't take the chance to dance with dinamite,
Are you ready to explore with me tonight?
I'm your man,
Yes I am.
I'm your man,
Yes I am.
I send you e mails,
With nasty details,
I wanna tell ya that I care.
You think I'm gentle,
So sentimental,
You dont believe it but you've gotta understand.
I'm a gentleman.
You wouldn't call me gentleman,
If you only knew my plan.
You wouldn't take the chance to dance with dinamite,
Are you ready to explore with me tonight?
Ladies, fasten your seatbelts,
Switch on your electronic devices,
And pump up the volume.
Let me know if we could flow like a river,
It's my quest baby,
To warm you up when you shiver.
I'm extra gentle,
Super duper sentimental,
I'm the man that understands.
You wouldnt, you wouldn't ,
You wouldn't call me gentleman,
If you only knew my plan.

[...] Read more

song performed by Lou Bega
Added by Lucian Velea
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Bagh-e-dil! ! !

Bagh e dil pur bahaar rakhtay hen
khud pe hum aitbaar rakhtay hen

wusaten aasman ki chhoo na saken
hum wo oonchha waqar rakhtay hen

wo hen kum zarf jo khizan me bhi
aarzuey bahaar rakhtay hen

kitnay nayaab hen jo dunia me
khwahishon pr mohaar rakhtay hen

be-panaah zarf he gulaabon ka
apnay daaman me khaar rakhtay hen

kitnay nadaan hen wo bashar jo sada
dil sar-e-rahguzaar rakhtay hen....

poem by Shahzia Batool
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The Hen and the Wren

The lovely, laying hen said to the itsy-bitsy wren.

'Good morning. It's nice to see you now and then.'

The itsy-bitsy wren said, 'Thank you Mrs. Hen.

I haven't seen you for awhile and don't remember when.'

The laying hen said to the itsy-bitsy wren, 'If you recall,

The last time we were together was a bit before last fall.'

The wren smiled and said, 'Oh yes I should have guessed.

It's spring again so I'm back to build another nest.'

The hen said, 'Soon we both will be sitting on our eggs.

Not long after that there'll be babies ‘neath our legs.'

The itsy-bitsy wren said, 'I wish my eggs weren't so small.

Your eggs are so large that your babies will be tall.'

Well the lovely laying hen said, 'Your eggs are just right.

And that song you sing brings everyone delight.'

From spring to fall wherever hens and wrens reside,

There'll be nests, eggs and babies chirping far and wide.

poem by Gregory Huyette
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Loving You Forever

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

poem by Hyde
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Loving You Forever

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

poem by Chidiebere Franklin
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The Auld Wife

PART I

The auld wife sat at her ivied door,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
A thing she had frequently done before;
And her spectacles lay on her apron’d knees.

The piper he pip’d on the hill-top high,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
Till the cow said, “I die,” and the goose asked “Why?”
And the dog said nothing, but search’d for fleas.

The farmer he strode through the square farmyard;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
His last brew of ale was a trifle hard,
The connection of which with the plot one sees.

The farmer’s daughter hath frank blue eyes;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies,
As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas.

The farmer’s daughter hath ripe red lips;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
If you try to approach her away she skips
Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.

The farmer’s daughter hath soft brown hair;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And I met with a ballad, I can’t say where,
Which wholly consisted of lines like these.

PART II

She sat with her hands ’neath her dimpled cheeks,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And spake not a word. While a lady speaks
There is hope, but she did n’t even sneeze.

She sat with her hands ’neath her crimson cheeks;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
She gave up mending her father’s breeks,
And let the cat roll in her best chemise.

She sat with her hands ’neath her burning cheeks,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And gaz’d at the piper for thirteen weeks;
Then she follow’d him out o’er the misty leas.

Her sheep follow’d her, as their tails did them,

[...] Read more

poem by Charles Stuart Calverley
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Change Your Mind

When you get weak, and you need to test your will
When lifes complete, but theres something missing still
Distracting you from this must be the one you love
Must be the one whose magic touch can change your mind
Dont let another day go by without the magic touch
Distracting you (change your mind)
Supporting you (change your mind)
Embracing you (change your mind)
Convincing you (change your mind)
When youre confused and the world has got you down
When you feel used and you just cant play the clown
Protecting you from this must be the one you love
Must be the one whose magic touch can change your mind
Dont let another day go by without the magic touch
Protecting you (change your mind)
Restoring you (change your mind)
Revealing you (change your mind)
Soothing you (change your mind)
You hear the sound, you wait around and get the word
You see the picture changing everything youve heard
Destroying you with this must be the one you love
Must be the one whose magic touch can change your mind
Dont let another day go by without the magic touch
Destroying you (change your mind)
Embracing you (change your mind)
Protecting you (change your mind)
Confining you (change your mind)
Distracting you (change your mind)
Supporting you (change your mind)
Distorting you (change your mind)
Controlling you (change your mind)
Change your mind (change your mind)
Change your mind, change your mind (change your mind)
Change your mind (change your mind)
The morning comes and theres an odor in the room
The scent of love, more than a million roses bloom
Embracing you with this must be the one you love
Must be the one whose magic touch can change your mind
Dont let another day go by without the magic touch
Embracing you (change your mind)
Concealing you (change your mind)
Protecting you (change your mind)
Revealing you (change your mind)
Change your mind, change your mind (change your mind)
Change your mind (change your mind)
Change your mind, change your mind (change your mind)
Change your mind (change your mind)
Change your mind, change your mind
Change your mind
Change your mind, change your mind

[...] Read more

song performed by Neil Young
Added by Lucian Velea
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Kabootar Se Computer Tak!

Kabhi esa bhi hota tha
Baharen jb bhi aati thiin
Tou apne sath jazbon ki nai faslen ugaati thiin
Hawaen geet gaati thiin
Fazaen muskuraati thiin
Wohi lamhaat hote thay
K jb ghamgeen nigaahon se jo dard aamez behte jam aate thay
Kabootar kaam aatay thay
Naey paigham laatay thay
Inhi lamhaat mein pinhaan hua krti thiin sub khushian …! ! !
Ab esa daur aya he
K sub k sub sada hr waqt hi log on rehte hen
Aur internet pe hr dm use laakhon phone hote hen
Dalail mein Faraz o Faiz o Ghalib note hote hen
Yaheen pr keats or Shelley k naghmay quote hote hen
Dilon pr kuchh naey jazbaat download hote hen
Ajab yeh khail hota hey
Gilay E-mail hote hen
Kabhi akhtar shumaari thi
Kabhi aankhon mein raaten thiin
Kabhi taaron se baaten thiin
Ab MSN pe chatting he
Kabhi FB pe tagging he
Kabhi qaasid k nakhray thay
Ab internet pe messengers ki taaza baharein hen
Magar ab kuchh bhi ho jaey
Zaraaey change ho jaen
Wisaal o hijr k naghmaat jis bhi rang, jis aahang mein ubhren
Kabootar ho ya computer
qareenay guftgu k jis shakal mein bhi badal jaen
yehi mehsoos hota he
muhabbat km nhi ho gi
muhabbat km nhi ho gi...! ! ! .

poem by Shahzia Batool
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Canto the Second

I
Oh ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,
It mends their morals, never mind the pain:
The best of mothers and of educations
In Juan's case were but employ'd in vain,
Since, in a way that's rather of the oddest, he
Became divested of his native modesty.

II
Had he but been placed at a public school,
In the third form, or even in the fourth,
His daily task had kept his fancy cool,
At least, had he been nurtured in the north;
Spain may prove an exception to the rule,
But then exceptions always prove its worth -—
A lad of sixteen causing a divorce
Puzzled his tutors very much, of course.

III
I can't say that it puzzles me at all,
If all things be consider'd: first, there was
His lady-mother, mathematical,
A—never mind; his tutor, an old ass;
A pretty woman (that's quite natural,
Or else the thing had hardly come to pass);
A husband rather old, not much in unity
With his young wife—a time, and opportunity.

IV
Well—well, the world must turn upon its axis,
And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails,
And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails;
The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us,
The priest instructs, and so our life exhales,
A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame,
Fighting, devotion, dust,—perhaps a name.

V
I said that Juan had been sent to Cadiz -—
A pretty town, I recollect it well -—
'T is there the mart of the colonial trade is
(Or was, before Peru learn'd to rebel),
And such sweet girls—I mean, such graceful ladies,
Their very walk would make your bosom swell;
I can't describe it, though so much it strike,
Nor liken it—I never saw the like:

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Meditations Upon An Egg

1.

The egg's no chick by falling from the hen;
Nor man a Christian, till he's born again.
The egg's at first contained in the shell;
Men, afore grace, in sins and darkness dwell.
The egg, when laid, by warmth is made a chicken,
And Christ, by grace, those dead in sin doth quicken.
The egg, when first a chick, the shell's its prison;
So's flesh to the soul, who yet with Christ is risen.
The shell doth crack, the chick doth chirp and peep,
The flesh decays, as men do pray and weep.
The shell doth break, the chick's at liberty,
The flesh falls off, the soul mounts up on high
But both do not enjoy the self-same plight;
The soul is safe, the chick now fears the kite.

2.

But chicks from rotten eggs do not proceed,
Nor is a hypocrite a saint indeed.
The rotten egg, though underneath the hen,
If crack'd, stinks, and is loathsome unto men.
Nor doth her warmth make what is rotten sound;
What's rotten, rotten will at last be found.
The hypocrite, sin has him in possession,
He is a rotten egg under profession.

3.

Some eggs bring cockatrices; and some men
Seem hatch'd and brooded in the viper's den.
Some eggs bring wild-fowls; and some men there be
As wild as are the wildest fowls that flee.
Some eggs bring spiders, and some men appear
More venom'd than the worst of spiders are.[16]
Some eggs bring piss-ants, and some seem to me
As much for trifles as the piss-ants be.
Thus divers eggs do produce divers shapes,
As like some men as monkeys are like apes.
But this is but an egg, were it a chick,
Here had been legs, and wings, and bones to pick.

poem by John Bunyan
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A Fable For Critics

Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade,
Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made,
For the god being one day too warm in his wooing,
She took to the tree to escape his pursuing;
Be the cause what it might, from his offers she shrunk,
And, Ginevra-like, shut herself up in a trunk;
And, though 'twas a step into which he had driven her,
He somehow or other had never forgiven her;
Her memory he nursed as a kind of a tonic,
Something bitter to chew when he'd play the Byronic,
And I can't count the obstinate nymphs that he brought over
By a strange kind of smile he put on when he thought of her.
'My case is like Dido's,' he sometimes remarked;
'When I last saw my love, she was fairly embarked
In a laurel, as _she_ thought-but (ah, how Fate mocks!)
She has found it by this time a very bad box;
Let hunters from me take this saw when they need it,-
You're not always sure of your game when you've treed it.
Just conceive such a change taking place in one's mistress!
What romance would be left?-who can flatter or kiss trees?
And, for mercy's sake, how could one keep up a dialogue
With a dull wooden thing that will live and will die a log,-
Not to say that the thought would forever intrude
That you've less chance to win her the more she is wood?
Ah! it went to my heart, and the memory still grieves,
To see those loved graces all taking their leaves;
Those charms beyond speech, so enchanting but now,
As they left me forever, each making its bough!
If her tongue _had_ a tang sometimes more than was right,
Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite.'

Now, Daphne-before she was happily treeified-
Over all other blossoms the lily had deified,
And when she expected the god on a visit
('Twas before he had made his intentions explicit),
Some buds she arranged with a vast deal of care,
To look as if artlessly twined in her hair,
Where they seemed, as he said, when he paid his addresses,
Like the day breaking through, the long night of her tresses;
So whenever he wished to be quite irresistible,
Like a man with eight trumps in his hand at a whist-table
(I feared me at first that the rhyme was untwistable,
Though I might have lugged in an allusion to Cristabel),-
He would take up a lily, and gloomily look in it,
As I shall at the--, when they cut up my book in it.

Well, here, after all the bad rhyme I've been spinning,
I've got back at last to my story's beginning:
Sitting there, as I say, in the shade of his mistress,
As dull as a volume of old Chester mysteries,

[...] Read more

poem by James Russell Lowell
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Balbus

I'll tell you the story of Balbus,
You know, him as builded a wall;
I'll tell you the reason he built it,
And the place where it happened an' all.

This 'ere Balbus, though only a Tackler,
Were the most enterprising of men;
He'd heard Chicken Farms were lucrative,
So he went out and purchased a hen.

'Twere a White Wyandot he called Mabel,
At laying she turned out a peach,
And her eggs being all double-yoked ones
He reckoned they'd fetch twopence each.

When he took them along to the market
And found that the eggs that sold best
Were them as came over from China
He were vexed, but in no ways depressed.

For Balbus, though only a Tackler,
In business were far from a dunce,
So he packed Mabel up in a basket
And started for China at once.

When he got there he took a small holding,
And selecting the sunniest part,
He lifted the lid of the basket
And said "Come on, lass... make a start!"

The 'en needed no second biddin',
She sat down and started to lay;
She'd been saving up all the way over
And laid sixteen eggs, straight away.

When the Chinamen heard what had happened
Their cheeks went the colour of mud,
They said it were sheer mass production
As had to be nipped in the bud.

They formed themselves in a committee
And tried to arrive at some course
Whereby they could limit the output
Without doing harm to the source.

At the finish they came to t' conclusion
That the easiest road they could take
Were to fill the 'en's nest up wi' scrap-iron
So as fast as she laid eggs they'd break.

[...] Read more

poem by Marriott Edgar
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Book III - Part 02 - Nature And Composition Of The Mind

First, then, I say, the mind which oft we call
The intellect, wherein is seated life's
Counsel and regimen, is part no less
Of man than hand and foot and eyes are parts
Of one whole breathing creature. But some hold
That sense of mind is in no fixed part seated,
But is of body some one vital state,-
Named "harmony" by Greeks, because thereby
We live with sense, though intellect be not
In any part: as oft the body is said
To have good health (when health, however, 's not
One part of him who has it), so they place
The sense of mind in no fixed part of man.
Mightily, diversly, meseems they err.
Often the body palpable and seen
Sickens, while yet in some invisible part
We feel a pleasure; oft the other way,
A miserable in mind feels pleasure still
Throughout his body- quite the same as when
A foot may pain without a pain in head.
Besides, when these our limbs are given o'er
To gentle sleep and lies the burdened frame
At random void of sense, a something else
Is yet within us, which upon that time
Bestirs itself in many a wise, receiving
All motions of joy and phantom cares of heart.
Now, for to see that in man's members dwells
Also the soul, and body ne'er is wont
To feel sensation by a "harmony"
Take this in chief: the fact that life remains
Oft in our limbs, when much of body's gone;
Yet that same life, when particles of heat,
Though few, have scattered been, and through the mouth
Air has been given forth abroad, forthwith
Forever deserts the veins, and leaves the bones.
Thus mayst thou know that not all particles
Perform like parts, nor in like manner all
Are props of weal and safety: rather those-
The seeds of wind and exhalations warm-
Take care that in our members life remains.
Therefore a vital heat and wind there is
Within the very body, which at death
Deserts our frames. And so, since nature of mind
And even of soul is found to be, as 'twere,
A part of man, give over "harmony"-
Name to musicians brought from Helicon,-
Unless themselves they filched it otherwise,
To serve for what was lacking name till then.
Whate'er it be, they're welcome to it- thou,
Hearken my other maxims.

[...] Read more

poem by Lucretius
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Book III - Part 03 - The Soul is Mortal

Now come: that thou mayst able be to know
That minds and the light souls of all that live
Have mortal birth and death, I will go on
Verses to build meet for thy rule of life,
Sought after long, discovered with sweet toil.
But under one name I'd have thee yoke them both;
And when, for instance, I shall speak of soul,
Teaching the same to be but mortal, think
Thereby I'm speaking also of the mind-
Since both are one, a substance interjoined.

First, then, since I have taught how soul exists
A subtle fabric, of particles minute,
Made up from atoms smaller much than those
Of water's liquid damp, or fog, or smoke,
So in mobility it far excels,
More prone to move, though strook by lighter cause
Even moved by images of smoke or fog-
As where we view, when in our sleeps we're lulled,
The altars exhaling steam and smoke aloft-
For, beyond doubt, these apparitions come
To us from outward. Now, then, since thou seest,
Their liquids depart, their waters flow away,
When jars are shivered, and since fog and smoke
Depart into the winds away, believe
The soul no less is shed abroad and dies
More quickly far, more quickly is dissolved
Back to its primal bodies, when withdrawn
From out man's members it has gone away.
For, sure, if body (container of the same
Like as a jar), when shivered from some cause,
And rarefied by loss of blood from veins,
Cannot for longer hold the soul, how then
Thinkst thou it can be held by any air-
A stuff much rarer than our bodies be?

Besides we feel that mind to being comes
Along with body, with body grows and ages.
For just as children totter round about
With frames infirm and tender, so there follows
A weakling wisdom in their minds; and then,
Where years have ripened into robust powers,
Counsel is also greater, more increased
The power of mind; thereafter, where already
The body's shattered by master-powers of eld,
And fallen the frame with its enfeebled powers,
Thought hobbles, tongue wanders, and the mind gives way;
All fails, all's lacking at the selfsame time.
Therefore it suits that even the soul's dissolved,
Like smoke, into the lofty winds of air;

[...] Read more

poem by Lucretius
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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,

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Fourth Book

THEY met still sooner. 'Twas a year from thence
When Lucy Gresham, the sick semptress girl,
Who sewed by Marian's chair so still and quick,
And leant her head upon the back to cough
More freely when, the mistress turning round,
The others took occasion to laugh out,–
Gave up a last. Among the workers, spoke
A bold girl with black eyebrows and red lips,–
'You know the news? Who's dying, do you think?
Our Lucy Gresham. I expected it
As little as Nell Hart's wedding. Blush not, Nell,
Thy curls be red enough without thy cheeks;
And, some day, there'll be found a man to dote
On red curls.–Lucy Gresham swooned last night,
Dropped sudden in the street while going home;
And now the baker says, who took her up
And laid her by her grandmother in bed,
He'll give her a week to die in. Pass the silk.
Let's hope he gave her a loaf too, within reach,
For otherwise they'll starve before they die,
That funny pair of bedfellows! Miss Bell,
I'll thank you for the scissors. The old crone
Is paralytic–that's the reason why
Our Lucy's thread went faster than her breath,
Which went too quick, we all know. Marian Erle!
Why, Marian Erle, you're not the fool to cry?
Your tears spoil Lady Waldemar's new dress,
You piece of pity!'
Marian rose up straight,
And, breaking through the talk and through the work,
Went outward, in the face of their surprise,
To Lucy's home, to nurse her back to life
Or down to death. She knew by such an act,
All place and grace were forfeit in the house,
Whose mistress would supply the missing hand
With necessary, not inhuman haste,
And take no blame. But pity, too, had dues:
She could not leave a solitary soul
To founder in the dark, while she sate still
And lavished stitches on a lady's hem
As if no other work were paramount.
'Why, God,' thought Marian, 'has a missing hand
This moment; Lucy wants a drink, perhaps.
Let others miss me! never miss me, God!'

So Marian sat by Lucy's bed, content
With duty, and was strong, for recompense,
To hold the lamp of human love arm-high
To catch the death-strained eyes and comfort them,
Until the angels, on the luminous side

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poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

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poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Interpretation of Nature and

I.

MAN, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.


II.

Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions.

III.

Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.

IV.

Towards the effecting of works, all that man can do is to put together or put asunder natural bodies. The rest is done by nature working within.

V.

The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all (as things now are) with slight endeavour and scanty success.

VI.

It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.

VII.

The productions of the mind and hand seem very numerous in books and manufactures. But all this variety lies in an exquisite subtlety and derivations from a few things already known; not in the number of axioms.

VIII.

Moreover the works already known are due to chance and experiment rather than to sciences; for the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented; not methods of invention or directions for new works.

IX.

The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this -- that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.

X.

The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding; so that all those specious meditations, speculations, and glosses in which men indulge are quite from the purpose, only there is no one by to observe it.

XI.

As the sciences which we now have do not help us in finding out new works, so neither does the logic which we now have help us in finding out new sciences.

XII.

The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search after truth. So it does more harm than good.

XIII.

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poem by Sir Francis Bacon
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Obstacle 1

I wish I could eat the salt off of your lost faded lips
We can cap the old times, make playing only logical harm
We can cap the old lines, make playing that nothing else will change
But she can ray, she can ray, she can ray, she can ray, she's bad
She can ray, she can ray, she can ray, she's bad
Oh, she's bad
But it's different now that I'm poor and aging, I'll never see this face again
You go stabbing yourself in the neck
And we can find new ways of living make playing only logical harm
And we can top the old times, clay-making that nothing else will change
But she can ray, she can ray, she can ray, she can ray, she's bad
She can ray, she can ray, she can ray, she's bad
Oh, she's bad
It's different now that I'm poor and aging, I'll never see this place again
You go stabbing yourself in the neck
But it's different now that I'm poor and aging, I'll never see this place again
And you go stabbing yourself in the neck
It's in the way that she posed, it's in the things that she puts in my head
Her stories are boring and stuff, she's always calling my bluff
She puts, she puts the weights into my little heart
And she gets in my room and she takes it apart
She puts the weights into my little heart
I said she puts the weights into my little heart
She packs it away
It's in the way that she walks
Her heaven is never enough
She puts the weights in my heart
She puts, oh she puts the weights into my little heart

song performed by Interpol
Added by Lucian Velea
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