Citatepedia^®.com

Those who have expressed doubts and misgivings about their ability to live this kind of life shouldn't try, because being a musician is not something you chose to be, it is something you are.

quote by Billy Joel
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Bishop Blougram's Apology

No more wine? then we'll push back chairs and talk.
A final glass for me, though: cool, i' faith!
We ought to have our Abbey back, you see.
It's different, preaching in basilicas,
And doing duty in some masterpiece
Like this of brother Pugin's, bless his heart!
I doubt if they're half baked, those chalk rosettes,
Ciphers and stucco-twiddlings everywhere;
It's just like breathing in a lime-kiln: eh?
These hot long ceremonies of our church
Cost us a little—oh, they pay the price,
You take me—amply pay it! Now, we'll talk.

So, you despise me, Mr. Gigadibs.
No deprecation—nay, I beg you, sir!
Beside 't is our engagement: don't you know,
I promised, if you'd watch a dinner out,
We'd see truth dawn together?—truth that peeps
Over the glasses' edge when dinner's done,
And body gets its sop and holds its noise
And leaves soul free a little. Now's the time:
Truth's break of day! You do despise me then.
And if I say, "despise me"—never fear!
1 know you do not in a certain sense—
Not in my arm-chair, for example: here,
I well imagine you respect my place
(Status, entourage, worldly circumstance)
Quite to its value—very much indeed:
—Are up to the protesting eyes of you
In pride at being seated here for once—
You'll turn it to such capital account!
When somebody, through years and years to come,
Hints of the bishop—names me—that's enough:
"Blougram? I knew him"—(into it you slide)
"Dined with him once, a Corpus Christi Day,
All alone, we two; he's a clever man:
And after dinner—why, the wine you know—
Oh, there was wine, and good!—what with the wine . . .
'Faith, we began upon all sorts of talk!
He's no bad fellow, Blougram; he had seen
Something of mine he relished, some review:
He's quite above their humbug in his heart,
Half-said as much, indeed—the thing's his trade.
I warrant, Blougram's sceptical at times:
How otherwise? I liked him, I confess!"
Che che, my dear sir, as we say at Rome,
Don't you protest now! It's fair give and take;
You have had your turn and spoken your home-truths:
The hand's mine now, and here you follow suit.

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from Men and Women (1855)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

XI. Guido

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

[...] Read more

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

Victor Should Have Been A Jazz Musician

I went to a concert, to see nina, simone,
The concert was over, there was still a band playing, the rap up,
The booguh played with his hands, I close my eyes, and look at him,
Victor should have been a jazz musician,
I said to myself, victor should have been a jazz musician,
I looked at his face, and I saw victor, looked at his smile, and I saw victor,
I looked at his hair, and thought,
Victor should have been a jazz musician,
Victor should have been a jazz musician,
And the people dancing on the floor, dancing on the floor, were so high,
You should have seen victor smile, you should have seen victor smile,
As they danced all the while all around on the floor, and he laughed,
Victor should have been a jazz musician,
Oh, victor should have been a jazz musician,
He was playing so nice, the jazz musician,
Ah, ah,
Hes living in a fast beat, in a city thats hot,
Telling all the latinos and puerto ricans, victor seems happy, but he doesnt even know himself, hes gotta look inside to know his first love,
Victor was a jazz musician, he was playing so nice, victor was a jazz musician, (? ) victor was a jazz musician,
Victor loves his music, he loves his music, somewhere, he plays his music, somewhere,
Victor is a jazz musician,
Jazz.

song performed by Grace Jones
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Live 4 Love

{last words from the cockpit}
Lauch procedure commence
Countdown start
10,9,8,7,6,5,4
Keep goin
Acceleration into temporal space continuum now begins...
30,000 feet and still-a-counting (live 4 love)
The attack on my plane is steadily mounting (live 4 love)
They killed my buddy, but Im supposed to feel nothing (live 4 love)
How can I live 4 love? Im calling...
Live 4 love
Live 4 love - Im calling...
Live 4 love - Im calling...
Live 4 love
Kicked out of my home at 17 (live 4 love) ((get outta here))
A real family,
Now what does that mean (what does that mean) (live 4 love)
Dont nobody know the trouble Ive seen (live 4 love)
How can I live 4 love? Im calling...
Live 4 love
Live 4 love
Live 4 love - calling, Im calling
Live 4 love
My mission, so they said, was just 2 drop the bombs
Acceleration into temporal space continuum now begins...
Just like I got no conscience, just like I got no qualms
Alpha 7, acknowledge
Now what does that mean?
Go tommy go, go tommy go
Go tommy go, go tommy go
Go tommy go, go tommy go
Go tommy go, go tommy go
So here, my target is approaching
The angel on my shoulder starts coaching
Live 4 love, without love u dont live
Boom - I take a deep breath
Is it boom - life?
Is it boom - death?
(live 4 love)
Maybe I was better off staying in school (live 4 love)
But everybody said flying planes was cool (live 4 love)
Its so easy 4 them 2 say
Cuz they never have to go through
How can I live 4 love? (live 4 love) Im calling
Live 4 love - Im calling
Live 4 love - Im calling
Live 4 love
Live 4 love (live 4 love)
Live 4 love
Live 4 love

[...] Read more

song performed by Prince
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

[9] O, Moon, My Sweet-heart!

O, Moon, My Sweet-heart!
[LOVE POEMS]

POET: MAHENDRA BHATNAGAR

POEMS

1 Passion And Compassion / 1
2 Affection
3 Willing To Live
4 Passion And Compassion / 2
5 Boon
6 Remembrance
7 Pretext
8 To A Distant Person
9 Perception
10 Conclusion
10 You (1)
11 Symbol
12 You (2)
13 In Vain
14 One Night
15 Suddenly
16 Meeting
17 Touch
18 Face To Face
19 Co-Traveller
20 Once And Once only
21 Touchstone
22 In Chorus
23 Good Omens
24 Even Then
25 An Evening At ‘Tighiraa’ (1)
26 An Evening At ‘Tighiraa’ (2)
27 Life Aspirant
28 To The Condemned Woman
29 A Submission
30 At Midday
31 I Accept
32 Who Are You?
33 Solicitation
34 Accept Me
35 Again After Ages …
36 Day-Dreaming
37 Who Are You?
38 You Embellished In Song

[...] Read more

poem by Mahendra Bhatnagar
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Victories Of Love. Book II

I
From Jane To Her Mother

Thank Heaven, the burthens on the heart
Are not half known till they depart!
Although I long'd, for many a year,
To love with love that casts out fear,
My Frederick's kindness frighten'd me,
And heaven seem'd less far off than he;
And in my fancy I would trace
A lady with an angel's face,
That made devotion simply debt,
Till sick with envy and regret,
And wicked grief that God should e'er
Make women, and not make them fair.
That he might love me more because
Another in his memory was,
And that my indigence might be
To him what Baby's was to me,
The chief of charms, who could have thought?
But God's wise way is to give nought
Till we with asking it are tired;
And when, indeed, the change desired
Comes, lest we give ourselves the praise,
It comes by Providence, not Grace;
And mostly our thanks for granted pray'rs
Are groans at unexpected cares.
First Baby went to heaven, you know,
And, five weeks after, Grace went, too.
Then he became more talkative,
And, stooping to my heart, would give
Signs of his love, which pleased me more
Than all the proofs he gave before;
And, in that time of our great grief,
We talk'd religion for relief;
For, though we very seldom name
Religion, we now think the same!
Oh, what a bar is thus removed
To loving and to being loved!
For no agreement really is
In anything when none's in this.
Why, Mother, once, if Frederick press'd
His wife against his hearty breast,
The interior difference seem'd to tear
My own, until I could not bear
The trouble. 'Twas a dreadful strife,
And show'd, indeed, that faith is life.
He never felt this. If he did,
I'm sure it could not have been hid;
For wives, I need not say to you,

[...] Read more

poem by Coventry Patmore
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

IX. Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus

Had I God's leave, how I would alter things!
If I might read instead of print my speech,—
Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower
Refuses obstinate to blow in print,
As wildings planted in a prim parterre,—
This scurvy room were turned an immense hall;
Opposite, fifty judges in a row;
This side and that of me, for audience—Rome:
And, where yon window is, the Pope should hide—
Watch, curtained, but peep visibly enough.
A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd,
Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff,
Up comes an usher, louts him low, "The Court
"Requires the allocution of the Fisc!"
I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause
O'er the hushed multitude: I count—One, two—

Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law,—
When it may hap some painter, much in vogue
Throughout our city nutritive of arts,
Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,
And manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Afford my lords their Holy Family,—
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How such a painter sets himself to paint?
Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe
A-journeying to Egypt, prove the piece:
Why, first he sedulously practiseth,
This painter,—girding loin and lighting lamp,—
On what may nourish eye, make facile hand;
Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so)
From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk
Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves,—
This Luca or this Carlo or the like.
To him the bones their inmost secret yield,
Each notch and nodule signify their use:
On him the muscles turn, in triple tier,
And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man
"Familiarize thee with our play that lifts
"Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm and foot!"
—Ensuring due correctness in the nude.
Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know!
He,—to art's surface rising from her depth,—
If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found,
May simulate a Joseph, (happy chance!)—
Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow,
Loseth no involution, cheek or chap,
Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives!
Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse

[...] Read more

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

Wake Up & Live

One, two, three, four!
Wake up and live, yall,
Wake up and live!
Wake up and live now!
Wake up and live!
Life is one big road with lots of signs,
So when you riding through the ruts, dont you complicate your mind:
Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy!
Dont bury your thoughts; put your vision to reality, yeah!
All together now:
Wake up and live (wake up and live, yall),
Wake up and live (wake up and live),
Wake up and wake up and live, yeah! (wake up and live now),
Wake up and (wake up and live) - wake up and live!
Rise ye mighty people, ye-ah!
Theres work to be done,
So lets do it-a little by little:
Rise from your sleepless slumber! yes, yeah! yes, yeah!
Were more than sand on the seashore,
Were more than numbers.
All together now:
Wake up and live now, yall!
(wake up and live) wake up and live!
Wake up and live, yall!
(wake up and live) wake up and live now!
You see, one - one cocoa full a basket,
Whey they use you live big today: tomorrow you buried in-a casket.
One - one cocoa full a basket, yeah, yes!
Whey they use you live big today: tomorrow you bury in-a casket.
Wall together now:
(wake up and live now!) wake up and live! oh! yeah-eah!
(wake up and live!) uh!
(wake up and live now!) wake up and live!
(wake up and live) keep on playin!
(wake up and live, yall) uh! yeah! yeah!
(wake up and live!)
(wake up and live now!)
(wake up and live!) break it down!
---
/saxophone solo/
Come on, man!
How is it feelin over there?
(wake up and live now) all right!
(wake up and live!) yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh!
Come on, man!
You gotta wake up and live!
---
Life is one big road with lots of signs, yes!
So when you riding through the ruts, dont you complicate your mind:

[...] Read more

song performed by Bob Marley
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Your Girl Chose Me

J-Boog:
Hey Yo your girl chose me (chose me)
you know the name of the game(game)
(B2 B2k)
Hey yo your girl chose me (chose me)
you know the name of the game (game)
(B2 B2K)
Hey Yo your girl chose me (chose me)
you know the name of the game (game)
(B2 B2k)
Hey yo your girl chose me (chose me)
you know the name of the game (game)
(B2 B2K)

Omarion:
When I met her she said to me yo I really like your style
She said Let's go somewhere that
we can be alone for a while
I didn't even know it (didn't even know it)
That she had a boyfriend (maybe had a boyfriend)
But that's the way it is when you do it like me
It's only why you mad at me

Chorus:
So I saw her
you trippin' cuz I had took her
I didn't even know her
But the name of the game is your girl chose me
Didn't know her and all I wanna do is uh uh uh uh uh uh
Cuz I'm the kind of player there ain't no stoppin no way
And your girl chose me

J-Boog:
Hey yo your girl chose me
(chose me)
you know the name of the game (game)
(B2 B2k)

Omarion:
You win some lose some it's just exactly what the game's about
So why you buggin bout' some chick who tried to play you out (play you out)
It ain't like I'm in love with her
she's just another girl on my list (my list)
So you can have her
and I'll leave If you don't what's gonna make her stop acting like this

Chorus:3x

Omarion:
I'm just a player there ain't nothing I can say and if she really

[...] Read more

song performed by B2K from B2K
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sophia

Sophia:
Affirmations and Meditations for a Positive and Meaningful Life

By Uriah Lee Hamilton

1. The universe seeks to treat you kindly like a friend. The stars shine for you in the dreamy midnight air. Doors are opening to you to enter in and find the love of your life, the joy of your being. Garden paths are beneath your feet to gaze affectionately upon every flower. The fountains of wine flow abundantly for you to imbibe the spirits of desire and happiness. Accept your destiny as gods and goddesses in the mystical realm of innocence.
2. Your eyes are open and there is nothing you cannot see or perceive with translucent vision of understanding. Every mystery is discernible and arrayed in magnificent and colorful robes of light. Every day is a magical journey of discovery and especially self-discovery. Find your important place in the happy scheme of this life, your intricate functioning with every other soul.
3. Your song is being played and you’re invited to sing along and join the dance. No longer think in terms of withdrawal and alienation. Think in terms of participation. There is nothing to fear and no one to impress. Just enjoy your every experience, they’re yours to possess. When you open yourself to joy, joy finds you and reminds you life is beautiful and brief.
4. More people love you than you will ever know. Prayers congregate in the heart of God for you like stars swimming in the night. People you have nearly forgotten have not forgotten you. Your impression continues to linger and leave a kind feeling in the hearts of those you’ve touched and they are every moment sending you powerful karma that rushes to your aid in the hour of need. Trust the thoughts that seek to uplift you.
5. You have the power to overcome any difficult situation. With every stressful development in your life there is an equal reserve of strength and determination to resist and conquer the armies of the negative and harmful. The human will is boundless and will not accept defeat but will lift you up until you are the victor over every power of darkness that assaults you.
6. Every mistake you have made is in the past. To linger on any mistake with regret or judgment serves no purpose. Today is a clean slate, a new beginning. Forgive yourself, accept forgiveness, and never judge yourself or anyone else unkindly. Every moment you become more enlightened.
7. If you can remember love when you’re abandoned in the rain and the universe is in tears, you can pull yourself through any sadness. Love is the reality of the soul and the desire of everyone’s inner being. Love is the strength that sustains us when we're weary and seemingly at the end of our rope, dangling at the edge of the cliff of despair. Love is the nature of divinity shared with humanity and will not leave us to wither like waterless flowers. Remember love when you have forgotten everything else.
8. Forget the sound of unkind words and don’t repeat them. Remember how you felt when someone hurt you or treated you insensitively and be determined to never make anyone feel that way. The smile you leave on someone’s face will fill your own heart with joy and return your own smile back to you.
9. The best way to appreciate your own unique godliness is to appreciate and praise the unique godliness of others. When you perceive others as special and angelic, you will understand you have arrived at the shore of humanity from the same sea of divinity. We are here at this stage of our journey to find God in others and offer others the kindness of God that exists within ourselves.
10. Respect the dignity of everyone. This is enlightenment. Never suppose that you are superior or inferior to anyone. You are unique and your neighbor is unique. Our differences make the human experience beautiful and mysterious. Learn to appreciate the differences in everyone and the glorious variety this offers. Everyone compliments everyone and when any soul departs this plane we have all lost someone and something precious.
11. Live the power of kindness. When you’re kind, you respect yourself. When you know that you have helped someone else, you feel the presence of angels and God surrounding you. You can live without an abundance of money and possessions but you cannot live without confronting yourself as a human. If someone judges you unjustly and negatively, that hurts but never as much as judging yourself and knowing the truth about whom you are if you’re not a good and kind person. Jesus said if someone asks you to walk one mile, walk two. Go the added distance to know you are a compassionate human being. If by chance there is no God and no final judgment, if the last judgment is nothing more than the last time you look yourself in the mirror, don’t fail that judgment.
12. You are eternal in spirit. Your essence is from the beginning and is unending. You originate in the heartbeat of God and eventually were sent to earth as a hopeful song. Sing your song to every receptive ear. Allow the universe to partake in your melody of joy. You can make your life a gift to everyone; you are a flower in the human bouquet. One day, you will return happily to God. Let the world know today you’re here and partake of your bliss and happiness.
13. Godliness is your nature, divinity your true personality. Maybe the world has labeled you a prostitute or a thief, a police officer or a lawyer, but your real soul is the essence of God, the substance of eternity, the DNA of spiritual greatness. Never accept restricting labels, never define your dreams with other people’s language of defeat. Birth has opened every possibility, and every second is a new rebirth. Begin now whatever dream and path you choose.
14. Live in the moment. Experience the present. Breathe in the perfume of freshly bloomed flowers. Be conscious of the poetry of existence all around you. Compose your poems on trees and rocks and flower petals. Be the poem, be the flower. Compose your poems on human souls that will live in the heart of God for eternity. You’ve never had anything but this moment, perceive it as beautiful and make it more beautiful.
15. Never live in the past. The past is only a collection of memories that become sad overtime even if they were happy memories to begin with. The past is either defeat or forgotten glories. The present is your opportunity to shape the future in a positive manner. A few souls have lived their lives in such joy and kindness as to become spirits of the future. The future is about joy, acceptance, dreams accomplished, ideas realized, and the end of suffering. Every positive thought and action of today will transform tomorrow. Believe.
16. Celebrate the music of existence. The sparrow dawns, the symphonic engine hum of the highway, the locust afternoons of high summer, the angelic chatter of beautiful conversations, church bell Sunday mornings, the autumn chimes carried in by a cool breeze. Everything is music if you’re willing to listen and to rejoice.
17. In your life show kindness, express friendliness, make others feel comfortable in your presence and in their own. The karmic return for being a positive human being is receiving the eternal and universal goodwill of the divine; it is reaching that place where you see yourself in a beautiful and self-accepting mirror.
18. Find the true religion. The true religion is happiness, the welcoming, friendly smile, the exuberant heart. Most religious people throughout the human experience have embraced religion with a sad face for the purposes of judgment and condemnation, but hatred and cruelty must no longer have any place at the spiritual table, punishing one’s self for being human must cease. Love is the true religion and it is expressed with joy. Make laughing and dancing your greatest rituals.
19. Learn perspective and endurance. If you fail today, you are stronger tomorrow. If you fall today, you will soar tomorrow. A boxer has lost every round to eventually win the fight. He throws his bruised body into the pummeling of the opponent, his eyes are closed with blood and sweat but still looking for his opportunity until he lands the knockout punch. Life is a struggle but your heart must never be vanquished. Push forward in everything you do to make your existence meaningful. A hundred falls and a thousand mistakes will never define your being but your dogged determination to resist and succeed.
20. The past is a casket of despair, a realm of old ideas that embraced sadness and toil and dreams defeated. If you linger in the valley of regrets, there is only a bleak future of hopelessness to discover. If you abandon the unhappiness of history and embrace your child-like hopefulness, then the future is the home of ever unfolding potential where love is always waiting around the corner. In fact, you are love and you are no longer waiting, you have arrived. Your love is emanating like spring flowers in the sunlit day and you can waft your perfume for the world to breathe in and rejoice.
21. The life you are given at this moment should be heaven and can be heaven. If you accept unhappiness and loneliness and suffering to place your bet on the next lifetime, you will miss your opportunity to appreciate this lifetime. If the life you are living is hell, exchange it for heaven and exchange it now while you are breathing and not as a promise for the grave or reincarnation. Accept this life as your garden, as your paradise, as your heaven. Find something small in your life to appreciate until you can appreciate everything about your life. Do not practice rejection. Do not call the world evil or your life evil or believe that anything is evil. Practice acceptance and believe in the good. Accept everything as good and as a means to the eventual actualization of your real and lasting happiness.
22. You are god-like when you accept yourself, the qualities and tendencies that make up your unique personality. You are angry and pleasant, sad and happy, beautiful and ugly. You cannot divorce yourself anymore than God can divide or divorce himself. If you try to abandon or throw away half of yourself, you will lose all of yourself. Self-acceptance and self-love is the way of godliness and the means to loving and appreciating the beauty and uniqueness of others. It takes one lifetime at least if not innumerable lifetimes to learn who you are and it will never happen if you do not accept yourself for the entire all-encompassing creation you are.
23. Become everything and understand everything. Absorb the laughter of a child, the excitement of a bride, the sadness of a funereal, the love of a mother giving birth, the pride of a father at a child’s graduation, the fear of death, the pain of loneliness. Feel everything. Understand everything. Celebrate and commiserate with the world you live in as a human being and become life-positive and not life-negative. There is not joy without sadness; there is not laughter without tears. You will have them both. Learn from them both and then embrace your life with gratitude.
24. When a truly happy, dancing spirit ventures upon the scene, it attracts love and affection. Joy and happiness are magnets drawing our attention, our interests, and our passionate desire. The world has been so sad with terrible suffering and unhappiness and so many teachers have arisen to manipulate the fears and disappointments of the masses to instill hatred and judgment. The genuine happy person is rare, almost unheard of. The world is yours if you can harness your happiness and spiritual and psychological well-being. What do you have to lose? If you become happy and dancing and you’re happy and dancing alone in the world, you still have achieved more than every other soul. Claim your happiness, it is not selfish to do so because your happiness can only expand and become contagious. May your happiness become an ecstatic epidemic.
25. Be whole in all your thoughts and completely embrace all the various facets of your life. Don’t try to deny the child within who wants to play beneath the sun, to laugh and to run rather than be sequestered into some adult room where you’re not allowed to smile. There’s a place for responsibility and sacrifice, for noble thoughts and placing others first but if you try to occupy this place consistently and permanently, you will wither away like an autumn leaf, you will be a shell of the human promise that was given to you at birth. Enjoy your body, relish your desires, and laugh with ecstasy when the spirit moves you. Don’t be sad or stoic forever, return to the merry-go-round you loved in your youth.
26. When you depart your mother’s body to begin your own journey, the path begins with your initial tears, the cry that accompanies existence. It then becomes easy to cry for a lifetime, to feel fear and abandonment, to know nothing but sorrow and despair, but there is joy and the goal is to learn to laugh. Laugh from the heart and make your way through the world cheerfully. It won’t happen in a moment or a single day, but you can turn your life into a dance that sways to the rhythm of laughter and happiness.
27. Enjoy lazy afternoons. Sit in the cricket grass in the summer sunlight. Gaze at the pattern of the leaves beneath shaded trees. One only finds his soul in stillness, not in much activity. When people are too busy, they are hiding from themselves. You have to find your real self before you cease to exist else you may have to wait a prolonged time before your next incarnation allows you a new opportunity of self-discovery. When you find yourself, then you learn what the heart needs for true happiness and communion with the eternal.
28. Life is a dream and the future unfolds in the hands of imagination. Dream your future in bright beautiful colors; make your landscapes lavish and rich and dazzling. Don’t be timid with your dreams, your aspirations, and your hopes of self-realization. With a single thought you may revolutionize all thinking; you may touch hundreds or thousands of lives and leave a lasting and meaningful impression. The power to transcend becoming a statistic is yours. You are not required to be an unknown entity or live in shadows. Walk out into the sunlight of a positive life that is waiting like a circus clown’s balloon for you to form it into a lovely shape that brings a smile.
29. In a time of war, one is taught to suppress his desires and his needs, to sacrifice for the cause until the victory is won. The battle now is for the soul of your happiness, and the battle will not be won by sacrifice and suppression, it will not be gained by self-coercion and intense rejection. Only by realizing what you want in the core of your being and granting yourself permission to pursue it unhindered by guilt will you win this victory. Grant yourself the right to be yourself, appreciate yourself, and pursue your joy. The long sleep will endure forever for the happy and the sad; it is your time to be happy if you choose it.
30. If you have followed a path or a plan that has led you to a loveless place, then take stock of yourself, evaluate your life-choices and begin anew. If your hands are empty, there is nothing to be lost in opening them and turning them over. To remain on the path you’re on and refuse to make any changes can only reinforce the status quo of your loneliness and unhappiness. You have been a stunted tree too long. Become a new person and begin to flower. At whatever age you are it is not too late to experience rebirth. Become a stranger to the alienated person you were in the past when you find your destiny in joyfulness. You can become a new creation in the blink of an eye.
31. Attain God in your own room where the candles pray in the moonlight that seeps through the window blinds at night. God is the silent compassion that ever surrounds you and finds you when you’re sad. You’re success in perceiving the presence of God is not dependent upon rules of religion or great moral feats and ascetic accomplishments but on your child-like desire to perceive that reality of love. God is your heartbeat when your kind to others and to yourself. Listen to your heartbeat and you will find God. Most of the world never finds God because they’re looking under every religious rock instead of looking inwardly for the God within.
32. Beginning today, I’ve become my ally and no longer my opponent. I will trust my instincts and my desires and no longer view them as separate from my spiritual being, my eternal soul. When I tell myself yes and no, I pursue my own personal civil war. For now on there is only yes. Yes to self-love, yes to confidence, yes to friendship, yes to health, yes to joy, yes to success. To everything positive and life-affirming there is nothing but yes. Denial and suppression and negative opinion has ceased. The doubting and judgmental man has vanished and will not be seen again.
33. To become a happy human being dancing in the soft summer moonlight is not easily done in the world of manipulative guilt. You may have to dance alone if everyone you know will only sing a dirge. If everyone has a sad face and a melancholy heart, resort to friendship with scattered roadside flowers and happy stray dogs. Eventually your joy will become infectious and pleasantly contaminate existence with the smile they’ve been waiting to express. It is never wrong to offer someone your cheerfulness. Practice charity of the spirit.
34. The soul is deathless and enters the spirit world where every fear has vanished in the sunlight of love. There is a heavenly wine creating communion with the divine. Everyone is a psychic essence connected to each other. The secrets of non-violence are intuitively imparted and the heart will not be wounded again. The meaning of God is the embrace of all existence in joyous celebration.
35. The bright light illuminating true happiness flickers through time from ancient corridors of spiritual history and revelation. Some sainted madman playing a flute in the moonlight in the background hush of lakeside and the tune drifted into all future souls. Everyone has the melody of joy and tranquility encoded mystically into their DNA. Learn to access the songbook of your higher self that has all the answers to every difficult question pressing the spirit at the perfect time when you need them most.
36. It is difficult but meaningful to live life in the beauty of contradiction. To have a peaceful mind in the midst of turmoil and upheaval; to have an innocent heart engaged in romantic and intricate relationships of desire, to have a pure soul in the midst of thieves and cutthroats, to have the candlelight of your spiritual awareness burn steady amidst the storm of everyday confusion and societal manipulation. One can passionately embrace all of the world’s creatures both gentle and wild without ever forsaking his higher self of elevated ideals and inner truths.
37. Thousands of years of history, of wars and plagues and famines document the human will to survive and thrive and ever evolve to higher emotional and spiritual enlightenment. Poets and prophets slowly teach the way of joy and gentleness, the path to becoming a passionate soul that completely embraces his existence to the maximum potential of happiness. The day has arrived to believe in one’s own strength to completely express and possess his compassion and love under all circumstances. Completely loving on the battlefield or in the work place, at home or walking summer city streets, never separating the spiritual from the physical, the soul from the body, ever maintaining the highest goals of self-realization during all moments of his being.
38. The source of life and all knowledge of spiritual perfection emanates from your hidden God within. Every soul is an essence fragment of the One Soul. We live and move and find our destiny in eventually attaining communion with the One. The bliss is real and the ecstasy is true and indescribable. There is no death and our true self is ever peaceful. Find yourself in the tranquility of the God within.
39. The bondage of the soul by the chains of unhappiness is a delusion of false perceptions. No liberation movement is required. The soul is free and true reality is the awareness of bliss. Abandon false perceptions and definitions of unhappiness and accept the natural state of being one with everything positive and powerful. The true nature of the human spirit is divine with all the attributes and characteristics of divinity to lay claim to. Tranquility and joyfulness is always present and all one needs to do is open the eyes of the mind and perceive reality in the cosmic design of the eternal good.
40. Discard vain books outside the window, toss the directionless compass into the trash, abandon every previous form of knowledge and trust your intuition. Within your soul knowledge supreme is kept, you are part and parcel of the Over-Soul, the one truth established in eternity. Intuition is imperishable and not restricted by boundaries of time. Intuition is the instant flash of insight that dawns without hesitation or explanation. Intuition is your God within guiding your steps into the light. Trust the light that surrounds you, the light that comes from you and belongs to you.
41. There is no knowledge greater than the knowledge of the self. Most people remain alienated strangers from whom they really are. A lifetime of not knowing their own spiritual personality and then the grave. Too busy to quietly sit in the summer grass and gaze calmly into the mirror of their soul. Only in meditation is intuition discovered and realized. Not knowing yourself is the cause of loneliness and the sense of immense meaninglessness. No real connection with another human being can ever be made until a connection is made with the self. Find yourself in meditation and intuition.
42. As the spiritual life increases, the appetite for strife and struggle decreases, an inner sweetness is manifested and lovely new music is heard. As you recede into your true self, the desire for objects of unhappiness and lust for possessions of discontent fall away and leave a genuine beauty behind. This beauty is love and it must first be planted and nurtured before harvested. You are the seed, the sewer, and the harvest. Indeed, you are the love you have always sought.
43. Attain awareness through non-concern, gain knowledge by not seeking it, find trust by trusting yourself; everything worthwhile already belongs to you when you cease to pursue that which is outside yourself, when you find the quiet place within your soul and allow all doubts and fears to subside. God provides for every sparrow and arrays the flowers of the fields with immense beauty. God will also seek your good if you believe you are part and parcel of the compassionate heart of God.
44. There is no becoming; there is no fulfilled desire waiting to dawn; there is no completed destination at the end of the journey. You have become and are divine; you are the realization of beautiful desire at this very moment and forever; the journey and the destination are one in the same: you have arrived and always were present in your mystical soul reality.
45. One day, love will carry the heart to God. Love to love will be united, mystical soul will embrace sacred spiritual destination. Friendships never cease but find expression on eternal shores where there is no suffering or disease nor accidental cruelty by otherwise gentle and compassionate people. We live in beauty and offer the world beauty and finally become nothing but beauty. We are the hands of love, the clothes of love, the agents of love, the heart of love and love transports us to God to rest forever in his sanctuary of love.

[...] Read more

poem by Uriah Hamilton
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Bad Side Of The Moon

(bernie taupin/elton john)
Published by songs of polygram international - bmi
Seems as though Ive lived my life on the bad side of the moon
To stir your dregs, and sittin still, without a rustic spoon
Now come on people, live with me, where the light has never shone
And the harlots flock like hummingbirds, speakin in a foreign tongue
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
It seems as though Ive lived my life on the bad side of the moon
To stir your dregs, and sittin still, without a rustic spoon
Now come on people, live with me, where the light has never shone
And the harlots flock like hummingbirds, speakin in a foreign tongue
Im a light world away, from the people who make me stay
Sittin on the bad side of the moon
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
There aint no need for watchdogs here, to justify our ways
We lived our lives in manacles, the main cause of our stay
And exiled here from other worlds, my sentence comes to soon
Why should I be made to pay on the bad side of the moon
Im a light world away, from the people who make me stay
Sittin on the bad side of the moon
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life
This is my life, this is my life, this is my life, my life

song performed by April Wine
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Live

Clear out your mind
Look to your past and see what you can find
Stole soul afraid
Of the prophets perfect picture falls away
Is this the life that we choose to live
Or is this the life that has been giving
Now is the time to see what my life should be
What is mine!?
We live in Shangri La now!
We live in!
We live in!
We live in Shangri La now
We live in!
We live in!
It's a timeless rage
For many people praying to be saved
Truth is so strong
It needs lights to guide it so it can carry on
I've seen blood on my hands
Am I dead or is this where it begins
I feel the shame
For my friend who put a bullet in his brain!
We live in Shangri La now!
We live in!
We live in!
We live in Shangri La now
We live in!
We live in!
I've got
You've got
We've got
Something to die for
I've got
You've got
We've got
Something to die for
I've got
You've got
We've got
Something to die for
I've got
You've got
We've got
Something to die for
We live in Shangri La now!
We live in!
We live in!
We live in Shangri La now
We live in!
We live in!

[...] Read more

song performed by Zug Izland
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Canto the Third

I.

Is thy face like thy mother’s, my fair child!
Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart?
When last I saw thy young blue eyes, they smiled,
And then we parted, - not as now we part,
But with a hope. -
Awaking with a start,
The waters heave around me; and on high
The winds lift up their voices: I depart,
Whither I know not; but the hour’s gone by,
When Albion’s lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.

II.

Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider. Welcome to their roar!
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe’er it lead!
Though the strained mast should quiver as a reed,
And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,
Still must I on; for I am as a weed,
Flung from the rock, on Ocean’s foam, to sail
Where’er the surge may sweep, the tempest’s breath prevail.

III.

In my youth’s summer I did sing of One,
The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;
Again I seize the theme, then but begun,
And bear it with me, as the rushing wind
Bears the cloud onwards: in that tale I find
The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears,
Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind,
O’er which all heavily the journeying years
Plod the last sands of life - where not a flower appears.

IV.

Since my young days of passion - joy, or pain,
Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string,
And both may jar: it may be, that in vain
I would essay as I have sung to sing.
Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling,
So that it wean me from the weary dream
Of selfish grief or gladness - so it fling
Forgetfulness around me - it shall seem
To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme.

V.

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Three Women

My love is young, so young;
Young is her cheek, and her throat,
And life is a song to be sung
With love the word for each note.

Young is her cheek and her throat;
Her eyes have the smile o' May.
And love is the word for each note
In the song of my life to-day.

Her eyes have the smile o' May;
Her heart is the heart of a dove,
And the song of my life to-day
Is love, beautiful love.

Her heart is the heart of a dove,
Ah, would it but fly to my breast
Where love, beautiful love,
Has made it a downy nest.

Ah, would she but fly to my breast,
My love who is young, so young;
I have made her a downy nest
And life is a song to be sung.

1
I.
A dull little station, a man with the eye
Of a dreamer; a bevy of girls moving by;
A swift moving train and a hot Summer sun,
The curtain goes up, and our play is begun.
The drama of passion, of sorrow, of strife,
Which always is billed for the theatre Life.
It runs on forever, from year unto year,
With scarcely a change when new actors appear.
It is old as the world is-far older in truth,
For the world is a crude little planet of youth.
And back in the eras before it was formed,
The passions of hearts through the Universe stormed.

Maurice Somerville passed the cluster of girls
Who twisted their ribbons and fluttered their curls
In vain to attract him; his mind it was plain
Was wholly intent on the incoming train.
That great one eyed monster puffed out its black breath,
Shrieked, snorted and hissed, like a thing bent on death,

[...] Read more

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A Romaunt. Canto III.

I.
Is thy face like thy mother's, my fair child!
Ada! sole daughter of my house and heart?
When last I saw thy young blue eyes they smiled,
And then we parted,--not as now we part,
But with a hope.--
Awaking with a start,
The waters heave around me; and on high
The winds lift up their voices: I depart,
Whither I know not; but the hour's gone by,
When Albion's lessening shores could grieve or glad mine eye.

II.
Once more upon the waters! yet once more!
And the waves bound beneath me as a steed
That knows his rider. Welcome, to their roar!
Swift be their guidance, wheresoe'er it lead!
Though the strain'd mast should quiver as a reed,
And the rent canvas fluttering strew the gale,
Still must I on; for I am as a weed,
Flung from the rock, on Ocean's foam, to sail
Where'er the surge may sweep, or tempest's breath prevail.

III.
In my youth's summer I did sing of One,
The wandering outlaw of his own dark mind;
Again I seize the theme then but begun,
And bear it with me, as the rushing wind
Bears the cloud onwards: in that Tale I find
The furrows of long thought, and dried-up tears,
Which, ebbing, leave a sterile track behind,
O'er which all heavily the journeying years
Plod the last sands of life,--where not a flower appears.

IV.
Since my young days of passion--joy, or pain,
Perchance my heart and harp have lost a string,
And both may jar: it may be, that in vain
I would essay as I have sung to sing.
Yet, though a dreary strain, to this I cling;
So that it wean me from the weary dream
Of selfish grief or gladness--so it fling
Forgetfulness around me--it shall seem
To me, though to none else, a not ungrateful theme.

V.
He, who grown aged in this world of woe,
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,
So that no wonder waits him; nor below
Can love, or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife,

[...] Read more

poem by Byron
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Solomon on the Vanity of the World, A Poem. In Three Books. - Power. Book III.

The Argument

Solomon considers man through the several stages and conditions of life, and concludes, in general, that we are all miserable. He reflects more particularly upon the trouble and uncertainty of greatness and power; gives some instances thereof from Adam down to himself; and still concludes that All Is Vanity. He reasons again upon life, death, and a future being; finds human wisdom too imperfect to resolve his doubts; has recourse to religion; is informed by an angel what shall happen to himself, his family, and his kingdom, till the redemption of Israel; and, upon the whole, resolves to submit his inquiries and anxieties to the will of his Creator.

Come then, my soul: I call thee by that name,
Thou busy thing, from whence I know I am;
For, knowing that I am, I know thou art,
Since that must needs exist which can impart:
But how thou camest to be, or whence thy spring,
For various of thee priests and poets sing.

Hearest thou submissive, but a lowly birth,
Some secret particles of finer earth,
A plain effect which Nature must beget,
As motion orders, and as atoms meet,
Companion of the body's good or ill,
From force of instinct more than choice of will,
Conscious of fear or valour, joy or pain,
As the wild courses of the blood ordain;
Who, as degrees of heat and cold prevail,
In youth dost flourish, and with age shalt fail,
Till, mingled with thy partner's latest breath,
Thou fliest, dissolved in air and lost in death.

Or, if thy great existence would aspire
To causes more sublime, of heavenly fire
Wert thou a spark struck off, a separate ray,
Ordain'd to mingle with terrestrial clay,
With it condemn'd for certain years to dwell,
To grieve its frailties, and its pains to feel,
To teach it good and ill, disgrace or fame,
Pale it with rage, or redden it with shame,
To guide its actions with informing care,
In peace to judge, to conquer in the war;
Render it agile, witty, valiant, sage,
As fits the various course of human age,
Till, as the earthly part decays and falls,
The captive breaks her prison's mouldering walls,
Hovers awhile upon the sad remains,
Which now the pile or sepulchre contains,
And thence, with liberty unbounded, flies,
Impatient to regain her native skies?

Whate'er thou art, where'er ordain'd to go,
(Points which we rather may dispute than know)
Come on, thou little inmate of this breast,
Which for thy sake from passions'l divest
For these, thou say'st, raise all the stormy strife,

[...] Read more

poem by Matthew Prior
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Amazing Grace

'Live, live with me, and thou shalt see
The pleasures I'll prepare for thee:
What sweets the country can afford
Shall bless thy bed, and bless thy board.'
So Robert Herrick's poetry
has written yet his words may be
as nought compared to all that's poured
in soul-song here for my adored.

'Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
Or woods or steepy mountain yield.' -
Though Marlowe's maid as hand and glove
swain fain would fit her heart to move,
his verse is but an empty shield
compared to all I'd have revealed.

'But Time drives flocks from field to fold;
When rivers rage and rocks grow cold;
And Philomel becometh dumb;
The rest complains of cares to come.'
Thus Walter Raleigh mocks, shortsold,
the love whose span cannot be told
no empty write I'd write, hymn's hum -
no strings save mandolin to strum.

'For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait,
That fish, that is not catched thereby,
Alas, is wiser far than I.'
John Donne declaimed - admire his feat -
as none could e'er exaggerate
your angel wings, your beauty's eye,
your heart whose depth none chart, your sigh!

'Care on thy maiden brow shall put
A wreath of wrinkles, and thy foot
Be shod with pain: not silken dress
But toil shall tire thy loveliness.'
Day-Lewis says, - bride's white turns soot
with high ideals crushed underfoot -
yet my heart feel the years' duress
must only add to happiness.

'Come, live with us and be our cook,
And we will all the whimsies brook
That German, Irish, Swede, and Slav
And all the dear domestics have.'
Says F.P.A. - beyond my book

[...] Read more

poem by Jonathan Robin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Paradise Lost: Book 09

No more of talk where God or Angel guest
With Man, as with his friend, familiar us'd,
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast; permitting him the while
Venial discourse unblam'd. I now must change
Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,
And disobedience: on the part of Heaven
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery
Death's harbinger: Sad talk!yet argument
Not less but more heroick than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd;
Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long
Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son:

If answerable style I can obtain
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplor'd,
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse:
Since first this subject for heroick song
Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by nature to indite
Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroick deem'd chief mastery to dissect
With long and tedious havock fabled knights
In battles feign'd; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroick martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast
Serv'd up in hall with sewers and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,
Not that which justly gives heroick name
To person, or to poem. Me, of these
Nor skill'd nor studious, higher argument
Remains; sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing
Depress'd; and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.
The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring

[...] Read more

poem by John Milton
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!