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I never question what to do, it tells me what to do. The photographs make themselves with my help.

quote by Ruth Bernhard
Added by Lucian Velea
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Help Me Ronda

Well since she put me down I 've been out doin' in my head
Come in late at night and in the mornin' I just lay in bed
Well, Ronda you look so fine (look so fine)
And I know it wouldn't take much time
For you to help me Ronda
Help me get her out of my heart
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda yeah
Get her out of my heart
She was gonna be my wife
And I was gonna be her man
But she let another guy come between us
And it ruined our plan
Well, Ronda you caught my eye (caught my eye)
And I can give you lotsa reasons why
You gotta help me Ronda
Help me get her out of my heart
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda yeah
Get her out of my heart
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda
Help me Ronda
Help, help me Ronda

[...] Read more

song performed by Beach Boys
Added by Lucian Velea
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Help Me, Rhonda

Well since she put me down Ive been out doin in my head
Come in late at night and in the mornin I just lay in bed
Well, rhonda you look so fine (look so fine)
And I know it wouldnt take much time
For you to help me rhonda
Help me get her out of my heart
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda yeah
Get her out of my heart
She was gonna be my wife
And I was gonna be her man
But she let another guy come between us
And it ruined our plan
Well, rhonda you caught my eye (caught my eye)
And I can give you lotsa reasons why
You gotta help me rhonda
Help me get her out of my heart
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda yeah
Get her out of my heart
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda
Help, help me rhonda

[...] Read more

song performed by Beach Boys
Added by Lucian Velea
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Help Me

Tell me how it feels
What you're going though
It's like a little too real
A little too real
Take another breath
Take another day
Get a little sad
Let it fade away

Help me heal
The way you feel
Everything you conceal
Let me see
How it feels
Like a waterfall
You know you can have it all
Take my hand

Help me help you
Help me help you
Help me help you
Help me when you're blue

Make another plan
Feel a different sun
Set another sea
And make it start again
Take another look
Play a different game
Fly a different flag
And throw the past away

Help me heal
The way you feel
Everthing you conceal
Let me see
How it feels
Like a waterfall
You know you can have it all
Take my hand

Help me help you
Help me help you
Help me help you
Help me when you're blue

Help me help you
Help me help you
Help me help you
Help me

[...] Read more

song performed by Holly Valance from Footprints
Added by Lucian Velea
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Help Me Help You

Tell me how it feels
What youre going though
Its like a little too real
A little too real
Take another breath
Take another day
Get a little sad
Let it fade away
Help me heal
The way you feel
Everything you conceal
Let me see
How it feels
Like a waterfall
You know you can have it all
Take my hand
Help me help you
Help me help you
Help me help you
Help me when youre blue
Make another plan
Feel a different sun
Set another sea
And make it start again
Take another look
Play a different game
Fly a different flag
And throw the past away
Help me heal
The way you feel
Everthing you conceal
Let me see
How it feels
Like a waterfall
You know you can have it all
Take my hand
Help me help you
Help me help you
Help me help you
Help me when youre blue
Help me help you
Help me help you
Help me help you
Help me
Wouldnt that be cool
You will be free someday
The pain will go away
Just leave it in the past
Youre already on your way
You know you can have it all

[...] Read more

song performed by Holly Valance
Added by Lucian Velea
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13 Question Method

(chuck berry)
Now, the thirteen question method is the one to use
Listen to me!
Thirteen question method is the one to use
Im saying that the thirteen question method is the one you gotta use
If you wanna have some fun
cause the thirteen question method is the one to use
Uhn!
Question number one: you wanna have fun, uh hun
Question number two: what to do ?
Lets see!
Question number three: wanna go out and eat burger with me ?
God almighty!
For the thirteen question method is the one to use
Now the question number five: dont give me no jive this morning
Question number six: dont try no tricks, this evening
Question number seven: Ill pick you up at a quarter to eleven, baby
And question number eight: its a date
Thats question number nine: where to dine, this evening ?
Question number ten: ah, can we get in ?
Question number eleven: gonna be just like heaven ?
God almighty!
Question number twelve: we get by ourselves ?
cause the thirteen question method is the one to use
The thirteen question method is the one to use
Now the thirteen question method is the one gotta use if you wanna...
The thirteen question method is the one to use
And she says ah...
She says...
The thirteen question method is the one to use
The thirteen question method is the one to use
Now the thirteen question method is the one gotta use if you wanna have some fun
cause the...

song performed by Ry Cooder
Added by Lucian Velea
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,—
So things disguise themselves,—I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face
And know it again. Answer you? Then that means
Tell over twice what I, the first time, told
Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe,
Fronting you same three in this very room,
I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,
Who then … nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,
As good as laugh, what in a judge we style
Laughter—no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!
Only,—I think I apprehend the mood:
There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,
"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
"Well, he can say no other than what he says.
"We have been young, too,—come, there's greater guilt!
"Let him but decently disembroil himself,
"Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,—
"We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!
And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast
As if I were a phantom: now 't is—"Friend,
"Collect yourself!"—no laughing matter more—
"Counsel the Court in this extremity,
"Tell us again!"—tell that, for telling which,
I got the jocular piece of punishment,
Was sent to lounge a little in the place
Whence now of a sudden here you summon me
To take the intelligence from just—your lips!
You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,—
That she I helped eight months since to escape
Her husband, was retaken by the same,
Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,—
(I being disallowed to interfere,
Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,
For you and law were guardians quite enough
O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)—
And that he has butchered her accordingly,
As she foretold and as myself believed,—
And, so foretelling and believing so,
We were punished, both of us, the merry way:
Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?
Pompilia is only dying while I speak!
Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?
My masters, there's an old book, you should con
For strange adventures, applicable yet,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Heaven Help Us All

There're some people
There're some people
Heaven help the child who never had a home
Heaven help the girl who walks the streets alone (walks the streets alone, yeah)
Heaven help the roses when the bombs begin to fall
Lord heaven help us all
Heaven help the black man if he struggles one more day
Heaven help the white man if he turns his back away (turns his back away, yeah)
Heaven help the man who kicks the man who has to crawl
Lord heaven help us all
Heaven help us all
Help us all
Heaven help us all
Help us all
Heaven help us all
Heaven help us all
Hear our call when we call
Help us all
Heaven help the child who won't reach twenty-one (won't reach twenty-one)
Heaven help the man who gave that child a gun, bang bang
Heaven help the people with their backs against the wall
Lord heaven help us all
Help us all, yeah, alright, alright
Heaven help us all
Help us all
Heaven help us all
Help us all
Heaven help us all
Hear our call when we call
Where I, where I belong
Now I lay me down before I go to sleep
In these troubled days I pray the lord to keep
Keep hatred from the mighty, and the mighty from the small
Heaven help us all
Heaven help us all
Heaven help us all
Heaven help us all
I need somebody
I need somebody
Help us
Heaven help us all
Help us all

song performed by Wet Wet Wet
Added by Lucian Velea
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Soul Surfing

Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack up, jack up
Jack up, jack up
Jack up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack it up, jack up
Jack up, jack up
With your help, turn you on
With your help, turn you on
With your help, turn you on
With your help, turn you on
With your help, turn you on
With your help, turn you on
With your help, turn you on
With your help, with your help, with your with your with your help
With your help, turn you on
With your help, turn you on
With your help, turn you on

[...] Read more

song performed by Fatboy Slim
Added by Lucian Velea
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Heaven Help Me

If you want it you can have it
Thats what you said
But I dont want the things that you leave behind
Take the pictures, take the windows and the walls
But baby wont you leave me my peace of mind
Oh such a waste of time
Oh such a waste
I still want you baby
Heaven help me heaven help me
Talk to strangers talk to strangers
Heaven help me
Over you
Help me over you
I cant seem to take these changes
Everything reminds my heart of you
Thought the first time was the last time
Of being apart
Now I find Im having to search again
Itll happen
Its gotta happen
Come together
I just wish somebody would tell me when
Oh such a waste of time
Oh such a waste
I still want you baby
(chorus)
Heaven help heaven help
Heaven, heaven heaven help me
Heaven help heaven help
Heaven, heaven heaven help me
(repeat chorus twice)
Heaven help heaven help
Heaven, heaven heaven help me
Heaven help heaven help
Heaven, heaven heaven help me
Heaven help heaven help
Heaven, heaven heaven help me
Heaven help heaven help
Heaven, heaven heaven help me
Youre someone elses lady
So sad without you darlin
The gods of love cant help me now
Heaven help heaven help
Heaven, heaven heaven help me

song performed by George Michael
Added by Lucian Velea
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After Berlin

Just like a young boy running down the road
Im singing out the same old song
Cant go back the way I started from
The road goes on and on
Wont you help me, help me, help me, help me,
Help me, help me, help me, help me,
Make my way on home
Help me make my way on home
After berlin.
Lights are shining in the german sky
Clouds make walls between the moon and i
Dont know where I started from
So wont you take me, take me, take me, take me,
Take me, take me, take me, take me,
Just the way I am
Ah, take me, just the way I am
After berlin.
Ill be cruising down the corridor
Seeing things I never seen before
Tomorrow morning in old berlin
Where they lock you out or lock you in
Wont you save me, save me, save me, save me,
Save me, save me, save me, save me,
From the final day
Save me from the final day
After berlin.
Just like a young boy running down the road
Im singing out the same old song
I cant go back the way I used to go
The road goes on and on
Wont you help me, help me, help me, help me,
Help me, help me, help me, help me,
Find my way back home
Wont you help me make my way on home
After berlin.
Help me, help me, help me, help me.
Help me, help me, help me, help me.

song performed by Neil Young
Added by Lucian Velea
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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:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Cry For Help

(rick astley/rob fisher)
Shes taken my time.
Convince me shes fine.
But when she leaves Im not so sure.
Its always the same.
Shes playing her game.
And when she goes I feel to blame.
Why wont she say she needs me?
I know shes not as strong as she seems.
Why dont I see her cry for help?
Why dont I feel her cry for help?
Why dont I hear her cry for help?
I wandered around
The streets of this town
Trying to find sense of it all.
The rain on my face,
It covers the trace
Of all the tears Id had to waste.
Why must we hide emotions?
Why must we never break down and cry?
All that I need is to cry for help.
Somebody please hear me cry for help.
All I can do is cry for help.
No need to feel ashamed. release the pain. cry for help.
Cry for help is all I need.
All I need is a cry for help.
Cry for help is all I need.
All I need is a cry for help.
Why must we hide emotions?
Why cant we ever break down and cry?
All that I need is to cry for help.
I will be there when you cry for help.
Why dont I hear her cry for help?
All that I need is to cry for help.
Somebody please hear me cry for help.
All I can do is cry for help.
All that I need is to cry for help.
I will be there when you cry for help.
Is it so hard to cry for help?
(cry for help is all I need.) no need to feel ashamed.
(all I need is a cry for help.) come on and release the pain.
(cry for help is all I need.) put your trust in me.
(all I need is a cry for help.) my love is gonna set you free.
Woooooooooooooo.

song performed by Rick Astley
Added by Lucian Velea
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Help Me Rhonda

The beach boys
Well since she put me down I ve been out doin in my head
I come in late at night and in the mornin I just lay in bed
Well, rhonda you look so fine (look so fine)
And I know it wouldnt take much time
For you to help me rhonda, help me get her out of my heart
Help me rhonda. help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda, help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda, help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda, help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda, help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda, help, help me rhonda
Help me rhonda yeah, get her out of my heart
She was gonna be my wife, and I was gonna be her man (oh rhonda)
But she let another guy come between us, and it shattered our plans, (oh rhonda)
Well, rhonda you caught my eye (caught my eye)
And I can give you lotsa reasons why
You gotta help me rhonda, help me get her out of my heart
Help me rhonda yeah,get her out of my heart

song performed by Roy Orbison
Added by Lucian Velea
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Every Face Tells A Story

Look at the man in the corner, hes sitting all alone
His blankets are made out of cardboard,
His pillows are made out of stone
Every face tells a story it never tells a lie
Every face tells a story it never tells a lie
See the man walking on the water, see the light in his eyes
He came into the world with a message to tell,
He came into the world to die
Every face tells a story it never tells a lie
Every face tells a story it never tells a lie
Youre always telling stories, youre always telling me lies
Youre always telling stories, why?
So think of yourself in the water, seeing your days flashing by
Its too late to see what you wanted to be,
Youve spent all your time, you must die
Every face tells a story it never tells a lie
Every face tells a story it never tells a lie
Step down
And make it work out right
Im trying to get to you with my warning
Been there
For nearly half the night
Look its nearly four in the morning

song performed by Cliff Richard
Added by Lucian Velea
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Heaven Help Us

Heaven help the child who never had a home,
Heaven help the girl who walks the street alone
Heaven help the roses if the bombs begin to fall,
Heaven help us all.
Heaven help the black man if he struggles one more day,
Heaven help the white man if he turns his back away,
Heaven help the man who kicks the man who has to crawl,
Heaven help us all.
Heaven help us all, heaven help us all, help us all.
Heaven help us, Lord, hear our call when we call
Oh, yeah!
Heaven help the boy who won't reach twenty-one,
Heaven help the man who gave that boy a gun.
Heaven help the people with their backs against the wall,
Lord, Heaven help us all.
Heaven help us all, heaven help us all, heaven help us all, help us all.
Heaven help us, Lord, hear our call when we call.
Now I lay me down before I go to sleep.
In a troubled world, I pray the Lord to keep, keep hatred from the mighty,
And the mighty from the small,
Heaven help us all.
Oh, oh, oh, yeah!
Heaven help us all.

song performed by Bon Jovi
Added by Lucian Velea
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Heaven Help Us All

Heaven help the child who never had a home,
Heaven help the girl who walks the street alone
Heaven help the roses if the bombs begin to fall,
Heaven help us all.
Heaven help the black man if he struggles one more day,
Heaven help the white man if he turns his back away,
Heaven help the man who kicks the man who has to crawl,
Heaven help us all.
Heaven help us all, heaven help us all, help us all.
Heaven help us, lord, hear our call when we call
Oh, yeah!
Heaven help the boy who wont reach twenty-one,
Heaven help the man who gave that boy a gun.
Heaven help the people with their backs against the wall,
Lord, heaven help us all.
Heaven help us all, heaven help us all, heaven help us all, help us all.
Heaven help us, lord, hear our call when we call.
Now I lay me down before I go to sleep.
In a troubled world, I pray the lord to keep, keep hatred from the mighty,
And the mighty from the small,
Heaven help us all.
Oh, oh, oh, yeah!
Heaven help us all.

song performed by Stevie Wonder
Added by Lucian Velea
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Mendocino County Line (feat. Willie Nelson)

(Willie Nelson and Lee Ann Womack)
Counted the stars on the 4th of July
Wishing they were rockets bursting into the sky
Talking about redemption and leaving things behind
As the sun sank west of the Mendocino County Line
As fierce as Monday morning feeling washed away
Our orchestrated paradise couldn't make you stay
You dance with the horses through the sands of time
As the sun sinks west of the Mendocino County Line
I have these pictures and I keep these photographs
To remind me of a time
These pictures and these photographs
Let me know I'm doin' fine
I used to make you happy once upon a time
But the sun sank west of the Mendocino County Line
The two of us together felt nothin' but right
Feeling you near immortal every Friday night
Lost in our convictions left stained with wine
As the sun sank west of the Mendocino County Line
I have these pictures and I keep these photographs
To remain me of a time
These pictures and these photographs
Let me know I'm doin' fine
I used to make you happy once upon a time
But the sun sank west of the Mendocino County Line
I don't talk to you too much these days
I just thank the lord pictures don't fade
I spent time with an angel just passing through
Now all that's left is this image of you
Counted the stars on the 4th of July
Wishing we were rockets bursting in the sky
Talking about redemption and leaving things behind
I have these pictures and I keep these photographs
To remind me of a time
These pictures and these photographs
Let me know I'm doin' fine
We used to be so happy once upon a time
Once upon a time
But the sun sank west of the Mendocino County Line-acap

song performed by Lee Ann Womack
Added by Lucian Velea
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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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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

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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I. The Ring and the Book

Do you see this Ring?
'T is Rome-work, made to match
(By Castellani's imitative craft)
Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn,
After a dropping April; found alive
Spark-like 'mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots
That roof old tombs at Chiusi: soft, you see,
Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There's one trick,
(Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device
And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold
As this was,—such mere oozings from the mine,
Virgin as oval tawny pendent tear
At beehive-edge when ripened combs o'erflow,—
To bear the file's tooth and the hammer's tap:
Since hammer needs must widen out the round,
And file emboss it fine with lily-flowers,
Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear.
That trick is, the artificer melts up wax
With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold
With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both,
Effects a manageable mass, then works:
But his work ended, once the thing a ring,
Oh, there's repristination! Just a spirt
O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face,
And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume;
While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains,
The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness,
Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:
Prime nature with an added artistry—
No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.
What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say;
A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.

Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss
I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about
By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since?
Examine it yourselves! I found this book,
Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just,
(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,
Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,
One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,
Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths,
Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time,
Toward Baccio's marble,—ay, the basement-ledge
O' the pedestal where sits and menaces
John of the Black Bands with the upright spear,
'Twixt palace and church,—Riccardi where they lived,
His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.

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