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When I began listening to saxophones, I was first attracted to Coleman Hawkins.

quote by Gerry Mulligan
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Saxophones

Saxophones
By: jimmy buffett
1974
I cut my teeth on gumbo rock, benny stillman and dr. john
Sweet erma thomas and frogman henry
Used to boogie woogie all night long
Though I love rock n roll the acoustic guitar
Was the only way I had of becomin a star
Im doin really nice and travellin around
But they wont play my record in my old home town
Chorus:
But if I had saxophones
Yeah, big baritone cleanin up the muddy breaks
If I had saxophones
I could get some recognition from that mobile, alabama d.j.
Livin by the ocean, sometimes I get the notion
To take my janey downtown
We hang out in a funky little bar
They call it the shipwreck lounge
Well we get kind of drunk and we play rock n roll
Grabbin everybody right down in his soul
When we get to cookin somethins still wrong
Theres still somethin missin from them good ole songs
Chorus:
But if we had saxophones
Big baritone cleanin up the muddy breaks
If we had saxophones
I could make that joint shimmy like a big california earthquake
Yeah if we had saxophones
Yeah, big baritone cleanin up the muddy breaks
If we had saxophones
I could get some recognition from that mobile, alabama d.j.

song performed by Jimmy Buffett
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Sade Hawkins Dance

All the girls in the bathroom talkin
who they gonna take to the Sadie Hawkins
My ears are burnin but I kept on walkin
smile on my face and an air guitar rockin
The Sadie Hawkins Dance
in my khaki pants
There's nothin better
oh oh oh
The girls ask the guys
it's always a surprise
There's nothin better
baby do you like my sweater?
Sittin in the back of my next class nappin
gotta give a speech then bow to the clappin
Told a funny joke got the whole class laughin
think I got a tan from the light which I was baskin
The Sadie Hawkins Dance
in my khaki pants
There's nothin better
oh oh oh
The girls ask the guys
it's always a surprise
There's nothin better
baby do you like my sweater?
Scan the cafeteria for some good seating
I found a good spot by the cheerleaders eating
The quarterback asked me if I'd like a beating
I said that's one thing I won't be needing
And since I'm rather smart and cunning
I took off down the next hall running
Only to get stopped by a girl so stunning
only to get stopped by a girl so stunning?
She said, "You're smooth, and good with talkin.
You go with me to the Sadie Hawkins"
The Sadie Hawkins Dance
in my khaki pants
There's nothin better
oh oh oh
The girls ask the guys
it's always a surprise
There's nothin better
baby do you like my sweater?
The Sadie Hawkins Dance
in my khaki pants
There's nothin better
oh oh oh
The girls ask the guys
it's always a surprise
There's nothin better
baby do you like my sweater

song performed by Relient K
Added by Lucian Velea
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Broadway Song

Like to thank all you people for showing up tonight
Sorry about the weather
Let's have a big hand for my long time accompianist
Manfred Gooseberry
Hey Goose
Take a bow, relax
Be comfortable
Have a cocktail on the Poo Poo Lounge
And let us entertain you
I'd like to sing you a Broadway song
I hope that you'll all sing along
A little dancing and some sentiment to put your mind at ease
I'd like to play you something low and sexy
look at our dancers they're so young and pretty, hi Olga
And when we start to groove you can hear the saxophones blow
Ah, show business is just a wonderful thing
All I want is to get down on my knees and sing for you
And let the saxophones blow
blow baby blow
I'd like to sing you a Broadway song
I hope that you'll all sing along
A little dancing and some sentiment to put your mind at ease
I wanna bring a tear to your eye, oh
good old Poe don't he make you cry
Ain't it great the way he writes about the mysteries of life
Ah, show business is just a wonderful thing
All I want is to get down on my knees and sing for you
And let the saxophones blow
Blow baby blow
Ah, show business is just a wonderful thing
All I want is to get down on my knees and sing for you
And let the saxophones blow
blow baby blow baby blow baby blow
Go Goose go

song performed by Lou Reed
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0008 A Ghazal

I lie awake as the light night-rain falls, listening
to its irregularities, listening

as the breeze blows it now and then
against the window and the curtain flutters; listening

and wondering if I can hear
the rain listening

to itself, as if – I sometimes think I hear this –
there’s a moment just before it stops as if listening

to its own decision to stop, as if it sighs,
thinks, that’s enough; it could be listening

to the gratitude of the closed flowers, the wet earth,
the ecstasy of roots which are themselves listening

to the flowers sleeping, sighing in their sleep.
But do you wonder why I’m listening

instead of sleeping, this warm rainy night?
What’s so important that it needs my listening?

It was the rain that woke me; and as I turned, sighed,
it was the thought of you last night here next to me, listening

not to me, but to your own dreams – which I may never share;
though I may share you in my listening

to your sweet sleep’s breath, felt faintly on my shoulder;
and so, there’s a question in my listening –

did you awake at the same night rain, you so far away,
awake, sigh, and in your half-awakened listening

know that I too, thought of you?
Sighed that sweet thought, of our shared, single listening? …

As the perfume of a rose may be more evocative than the rose,
So sweeter, steadier than thought, dream, memory – the listening!

[A ghazal has a rhyme scheme aa ba ca da >]

poem by Michael Shepherd
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The Listening Week

This is the listening week of the year
Listening-in.
A-cock and alert is the national ear
Listening-in.
All over the land in the country towns,
From the back of the Leeuwin to Darling Downs,
Layers of 'quids' or the odd half-crowns,
They are listening-in.

On the far-flung farms they are round each set,
Listening-in.
The work and the worry they all forget,
Listening-in.
Wherever an aerial soars in space
To the Cup, or the Oaks or the Steeplechase,
To the roar of the ring and the lure of the race
They are listening-in.

In the far outback there are sun-tanned men,
Listening-in.
Where the woolshed stands by the drafting pen
Listening-in.
Old Dad's come in from the Ninety Mile;
He scored on the Cup and he wears a smile,
And he 'reckons this game is well worth while'
So he's listening in.

To the edge of the desert the sound-waves go;
And, listening-in,
Ned of the Overland, Saltbush Joe
Listening-in
Recall the giants of years long past,
And the loneliness of these spaces vast;
But they reckon that life's worth living at last
With this listening-in.

poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Hopeful Hawkins

Hawkins wasn't in the swim at all in Dingo Flat,
And to bait him was our chiefest form of bliss;
But, in justice, be it said that he had a business head.
(That's why I'm standing here and telling this.)

He was trav'ling for a company, insuring people's lives;
And stayed about a month in Dingo Flat;
But his biz was rather dull, and we took him for a gull,
An amazing simple-minded one at that.

He was mad, he was, on mining and around about the town
Prospected every reef. But worse than that
He'd talk for half a day, in a most annoying way,
On 'The mineral resources of the Flat.'

He swore that somewhere nigh us was a rich gold-bearing red,
If a fellow only had the luck to strike it;
And he only used to laugh when the boys began to chaff,
And seemed, in fact, to rather sort of like it.

Well, we stood him for a month until he well nigh drove us mad.
And as jeering couldn't penetrate his hide
We fixed a little scheme for to dissipate his dream,
And sicken him of mining till he died.

We got a likely-looking bit of quartz and faked it up
With dabs of golden paint; then called him in.
Oh, he went clean off his head; it was gold for sure, he said.
And if we'd sell our claim he'd raise the tin.

But we weren't taking any-not at least till later on;
For we reckoned that we'd string him on a while.
When he wanted information of the reef's exact location
We would meet him with a knowing sort of smile.

At last we dropped a hint that set him pegging out a claim,
And we saw that we were coming in for sport;
For the next account we heard was when Hawkins passed the word
He was fetching up an expert to report.

When we heard that expert's verdict we were blown clean out of time,
And absorbed the fact that we had fallen in.
The gold, he said, would run 'bout four ounces to the ton;
With traces, too, of copper, zinc and tin.

Old Hawkins he was jubilant, and up at Peter's store
A lovely lot of specimens was showing;
And we gazed at them and groaned, for the truth had to be owned:
We had put him on a pile without our knowing.

[...] Read more

poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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Just Walk Away

When you've given all you've got...
Just walk away.
Don't you dare to get uptight.
Just walk away.
If someone does not act right.
Just walk away.

Don't argue or defend,
When no one there is listening.

When you've given all you've got...
Just walk away.
Don't you dare to get uptight.
Just walk away.
If someone does not act right.
Just walk away.

Just walk away.
When no one there is listening.
Just walk away.
When no one there is listening.
Just walk away.

Don't argue or defend,
When no one there is listening.

Just walk away.
When no one there is listening.
Just walk away.
When no one there is listening.
Just walk away.

When you've given all you've got...
Just walk away.
Don't you dare to get uptight.
Just walk away.
If someone does not act right.
Just walk away.

Don't argue or defend,
When no one there is listening.

Just walk away.
When no one there is listening.
Just walk away.
When no one there is listening.
Do you just walk away.
Just walk away.
Just-walk-away.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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S.O.S.

Is anybody listening?
Can they hear me when I call?
I'm shooting signals in the air
'Cause I need somebody's help
I can't make it on my own
So I'm giving up myself
Is anybody listening
Listening
I'll be standing here and I'm miles away
Making signals hoping they'd save me
I lock myself inside these walls
'Cause out there I'm always wrong
I don't think I'm gonna make it
So while I'm sitting here
On the eve of my death bed
I'll write this letter and hope it saves me
Is anybody listening?
Can they hear me when I call?
Shooting signals in the air
'Cause I need somebody's help
I can't make it on my own
So I'm giving up myself
Is anybody listening
Listening
I'm stuck in my own head and I'm oceans away
Would anybody notice if I chose to stay?
I'll send and SOS tonight
Wonder if I will survive
How in the hell did I get so far away this time
So now I'm sitting here
The time of my departure's near
I say a prayer
Please someone save me
Is anybody listening?
Can they hear me when I call?
Shooting signals in the air
'Cause I need somebody's help
I can't make it on my own
So I'm giving up myself
Is anybody listening
Listening
I'm lost here
I can't make it on my own
I don't wanna die alone
I'm so scared
Drowning now
Reaching out
Holding on to everything I love
Crying out
Dying now

[...] Read more

song performed by Good Charlotte
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Listening

Your skin attached this fragile cliche
Of my broken heart attack
You should swallow your teeth and hang out
Stay for a while
If your heart's still beating it must be the blood
If your lungs are still working it must be the mud
If its still light out than a kick in the ribs
today's worth living
I don't see anything now
So just say what you wanna say
It's kind of funny how I'm not listening anyway
Lights out, I can't stand to hear you scream
While we were making love I was fast asleep
and the night sky better give something up (give something up)
I don't see anything now
So just say what you wanna say
It's kind of funny how I'm not listening anyway
[x2]
Lights out, lights out, lights out, lights out...
Lights out! I can't stand to hear you scream
While we were making love I was fast asleep
If your heart's still beating it must be the blood
If your lungs are still working it must be the mud
If its still light out than a kick in the ribs
And today's worth living, it probably is
I don't see anything now
So just say what you wanna say
It's kind of funny how I'm not listening anyway
[x2]
I'm not listening anyway
I'm not listening anyway
I'm not listening
Listening, I'm not listening
I'm not listening
I'm not listening
I'm not listening

song performed by Used
Added by Lucian Velea
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Until We have Faces (2)

I told Ellen that I had to go,
an old friend was in need.
Barbra, my former fiancée,
sounded quite distraught indeed.

Grandma Coleman died that day,
Her Grandpa was fading fast.
He shook from late stage Parkinson's
and clearly would not last.

The funeral home on Fordham Road
was packed with kith and kin.
Indeed, until last summer,
I believed me one of them.

James Coleman Higgins greeted me
without any trace of rancor
He'd thought we got engaged too young.
He'd been right upon that score.

Barbra and her sisters
were seated on one side
James Higgins never had a son,
but as for daughters he had five.

His daughters' skin was sun kissed brown,
their mother hailed from Spain.
(I was glad to see his wife had come,
though they were long estranged.)

I knelt beside the casket there
and offered up a prayer
For this brave old Irish woman
who had suffered much, the dear..

Barbra and I went for a walk outside.
The night was warm and clear.
Upon the face she turned to me
was the dried river bed of tears.

Barbra was despondent with
silly talk of suicide.
Our romance had ended badly,
and now Grandma had died.

I assured her that another, better, love
would take the place of mine.
That she must embrace the future,
that sweetness comes with time..

[...] Read more

poem by John F. McCullagh
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Old Mans Rubble

Are you living in an old mans rubble,
Are you listening to the father of lies?
Are you walking with unnecessary burdens,
Are you trying to take them upon yourself?
If you are, then youre living in bondage,
And you know thats bad for your spiritual health.
And are you trying to live by your emotions,
Are you putting your faith in what you feel and see?
Then youre living just to satisfy your passions,
And you better be careful cause youre being deceived.
Are you living in an old mans rubble,
Are you listening to the father of lies?
If you are then youre headed for trouble;
If you listen too long youll eventually die.
Are you living in an old mans rubble,
Are you listening to the father of lies?
If you are then youre headed for trouble;
If you listen too long youll eventually die.
Are you puzzled by the way that youre behaving,
Do you wonder why you do the things you do?
And are you troubled by your lack of resistance,
Do you feel that somethings got a hold on you?
Well deep within you, theres a spiritual balance;
Theres a voice of the darkness and a voice of the light.
And just by listening, you have made a decision,
cause the voice you hear is gonna win the fight.
Are you living in an old mans rubble,
Are you listening to the father of lies?
If you are then youre headed for trouble;
If you listen too long youll eventually die.
If youre living as a new creation,
If youre listening to the father of light,
Then youre living in a mighty fortress,
And youre gonna be clothed in power and might.
But are you living in an old mans rubble,
Are you listening to the father of lies?
If you are then youre headed for trouble;
If you listen too long youll eventually die.
If youre living as a new creation,
If youre listening to the father of light,
Then youre living in a mighty fortress,
And youre gonna be clothed in power and might.
But are you living in an old mans rubble,
Are you listening to the father of lies?
If you are then youre headed for trouble;
If you listen too long youll eventually die.
But if youre living as a new creation,
If youre listening to the father of light,
Then youre living in a mighty fortress,
And youre gonna be clothed in power and might.

song performed by Amy Grant
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Hind And The Panther, A Poem In Three Parts : Part III.

Much malice, mingled with a little wit,
Perhaps may censure this mysterious writ;
Because the muse has peopled Caledon
With panthers, bears, and wolves, and beasts unknown,
As if we were not stocked with monsters of our own.
Let Æsop answer, who has set to view
Such kinds as Greece and Phrygia never knew;
And Mother Hubbard, in her homely dress,
Has sharply blamed a British lioness;
That queen, whose feast the factious rabble keep,
Exposed obscenely naked, and asleep.
Led by those great examples, may not I
The wonted organs of their words supply?
If men transact like brutes, 'tis equal then
For brutes to claim the privilege of men.
Others our Hind of folly will indite,
To entertain a dangerous guest by night.
Let those remember, that she cannot die,
Till rolling time is lost in round eternity;
Nor need she fear the Panther, though untamed,
Because the Lion's peace was now proclaimed;
The wary savage would not give offence,
To forfeit the protection of her prince;
But watched the time her vengeance to complete,
When all her furry sons in frequent senate met;
Meanwhile she quenched her fury at the flood,
And with a lenten salad cooled her blood.
Their commons, though but coarse, were nothing scant,
Nor did their minds an equal banquet want.
For now the Hind, whose noble nature strove
To express her plain simplicity of love,
Did all the honours of her house so well,
No sharp debates disturbed the friendly meal.
She turned the talk, avoiding that extreme,
To common dangers past, a sadly-pleasing theme;
Remembering every storm which tossed the state,
When both were objects of the public hate,
And dropt a tear betwixt for her own children's fate.
Nor failed she then a full review to make
Of what the Panther suffered for her sake;
Her lost esteem, her truth, her loyal care,
Her faith unshaken to an exiled heir,
Her strength to endure, her courage to defy,
Her choice of honourable infamy.
On these, prolixly thankful, she enlarged;
Then with acknowledgments herself she charged;
For friendship, of itself an holy tie,
Is made more sacred by adversity.
Now should they part, malicious tongues would say,
They met like chance companions on the way,

[...] Read more

poem by John Dryden
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Black Bruises II

I can ponder upon the blackness,
the garrulous of silence
placated by benign solitude
I can endure the ostracizing
listening to lulling lullabies,
listening to trembling metals,
listening to enraptured echoes,
listening to a soundless shattering,
listening to nothingness,
listening to guffawing crows,
listening to diffident clocks,
listening to the waning time;
but am I the only one listening
to these black bruised whispers?

poem by Norman Santos
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Turn Off The World

Got to pull it up
Got to pull it out
Got to survive
Got to stay calm
Got to think fast
Dont want to burn
Searching for a door
Searching for a way
Out of this thing
I dont know whats wrong
Dont know what to do
Im out of control
Nothing I can do
Nothing seems to work
Im barely alive
Got to slow it down
Got to do something
Or give in
Watching us fall
Trying everything
Fighting for life
Running out of time
I dont have a choice
Im riding it in
Im inside and Im trying to get out
Im inside and Im screaming for some help
And everythings gone wrong
Im listening to the sound of my own fear
Im listening to the sound of someones tears
Im listening to me
This is the fear
This is nothing like
You could believe
Panic in my heart
Like a cold hand
Pulling at strings
Ill do anything
Even pray to god
Just let me out
Turn off the machine
Turn off all the noise
Turn off the world
Im inside and Im trying to get out
Im inside and Im screaming for some help
And everythings gone wrong
Im listening to the sound of my own fear
Im listening to the sound of someones tears
Im listening to me
Im inside and Im trying to get out
Im inside and Im screaming for some help

[...] Read more

song performed by Gary Numan
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That Was Part One. Maybe Part Two Needs Review

In the meantime,
Save up all your nickles and dimes...
And make yourself that charity case.
Goodbye.
Good luck.
This enviroment I'm in,
Needs to be replaced.

And in the meantime,
You can stop that whining you sigh...
And lift yourself over hurdles that appear.
My leaving you will help you find,
What's been missing for years...
Between both of your ears.

You chose to booze up when you wanted to.
You chose to do what you wanted to do.
You choose to eliminate a listening to hear.
Now you think I want you close...
Although distant when I wish you near?

That was part one.
Maybe part two needs review!

You chose to booze up when you wanted to.
You chose to do what you wanted to do.
You choose to eliminate a listening to hear.
Now you think I want you close...
Although distant when I wish you near?

'Come here.
You don't have to say it twice.
Come here,
I know what you need and like.'

Oh no,
I'm not attracted to defeat.
I know...
How to stand on my own two feet.
And I,
Wish not to ever repeat...
Being alone while you roam the streets.

Oh no,
I'm not attracted to defeat.
I know...
How to stand on my own two feet.
And I,
Wish not to ever repeat...
Being alone while you roam the streets.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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VII. Pompilia

I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.

All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Odyssey: Book 12

"After we were clear of the river Oceanus, and had got out into
the open sea, we went on till we reached the Aeaean island where there
is dawn and sunrise as in other places. We then drew our ship on to
the sands and got out of her on to the shore, where we went to sleep
and waited till day should break.
"Then, when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, I
sent some men to Circe's house to fetch the body of Elpenor. We cut
firewood from a wood where the headland jutted out into the sea, and
after we had wept over him and lamented him we performed his funeral
rites. When his body and armour had been burned to ashes, we raised
a cairn, set a stone over it, and at the top of the cairn we fixed the
oar that he had been used to row with.
"While we were doing all this, Circe, who knew that we had got
back from the house of Hades, dressed herself and came to us as fast
as she could; and her maid servants came with her bringing us bread,
meat, and wine. Then she stood in the midst of us and said, 'You
have done a bold thing in going down alive to the house of Hades,
and you will have died twice, to other people's once; now, then,
stay here for the rest of the day, feast your fill, and go on with
your voyage at daybreak tomorrow morning. In the meantime I will
tell Ulysses about your course, and will explain everything to him
so as to prevent your suffering from misadventure either by land or
sea.'
"We agreed to do as she had said, and feasted through the livelong
day to the going down of the sun, but when the sun had set and it came
on dark, the men laid themselves down to sleep by the stern cables
of the ship. Then Circe took me by the hand and bade me be seated away
from the others, while she reclined by my side and asked me all
about our adventures.
"'So far so good,' said she, when I had ended my story, 'and now pay
attention to what I am about to tell you- heaven itself, indeed,
will recall it to your recollection. First you will come to the Sirens
who enchant all who come near them. If any one unwarily draws in too
close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children
will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and
warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. There is a great
heap of dead men's bones lying all around, with the flesh still
rotting off them. Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your
men's ears with wax that none of them may hear; but if you like you
can listen yourself, for you may get the men to bind you as you
stand upright on a cross-piece half way up the mast, and they must
lash the rope's ends to the mast itself, that you may have the
pleasure of listening. If you beg and pray the men to unloose you,
then they must bind you faster.
"'When your crew have taken you past these Sirens, I cannot give you
coherent directions as to which of two courses you are to take; I will
lay the two alternatives before you, and you must consider them for
yourself. On the one hand there are some overhanging rocks against
which the deep blue waves of Amphitrite beat with terrific fury; the
blessed gods call these rocks the Wanderers. Here not even a bird

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poem by Homer, translated by Samuel Butler
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Palamon And Arcite; Or, The Knight's Tale. From Chaucer. In Three Books. Book III.

The day approached when Fortune should decide
The important enterprise, and give the bride;
For now the rivals round the world had sought,
And each his number, well appointed, brought.
The nations far and near contend in choice,
And send the flower of war by public voice;
That after or before were never known
Such chiefs, as each an army seemed alone:
Beside the champions, all of high degree,
Who knighthood loved, and deeds of chivalry,
Thronged to the lists, and envied to behold
The names of others, not their own, enrolled.
Nor seems it strange; for every noble knight
Who loves the fair, and is endued with might,
In such a quarrel would be proud to fight.
There breathes not scarce a man on British ground
(An isle for love and arms of old renowned)
But would have sold his life to purchase fame,
To Palamon or Arcite sent his name;
And had the land selected of the best,
Half had come hence, and let the world provide the rest.
A hundred knights with Palamon there came,
Approved in fight, and men of mighty name;
Their arms were several, as their nations were,
But furnished all alike with sword and spear.

Some wore coat armour, imitating scale,
And next their skins were stubborn shirts of mail;
Some wore a breastplate and a light juppon,
Their horses clothed with rich caparison;
Some for defence would leathern bucklers use
Of folded hides, and others shields of Pruce.
One hung a pole-axe at his saddle-bow,
And one a heavy mace to stun the foe;
One for his legs and knees provided well,
With jambeux armed, and double plates of steel;
This on his helmet wore a lady's glove,
And that a sleeve embroidered by his love.

With Palamon above the rest in place,
Lycurgus came, the surly king of Thrace;
Black was his beard, and manly was his face
The balls of his broad eyes rolled in his head,
And glared betwixt a yellow and a red;
He looked a lion with a gloomy stare,
And o'er his eyebrows hung his matted hair;
Big-boned and large of limbs, with sinews strong,
Broad-shouldered, and his arms were round and long.
Four milk-white bulls (the Thracian use of old)
Were yoked to draw his car of burnished gold.

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poem by John Dryden
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The Book of Urizen

PRELUDIUM TO THE [FIRST] BOOK OF URIZEN

Of the primeval Priests assum'd power,
When Eternals spurn'd back his religion;
And gave him a place in the north,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.
Eternals I hear your call gladly,
Dictate swift winged words, & fear not
To unfold your dark visions of torment.

Chap: I

1. Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific!
Self-closd, all-repelling: what Demon
Hath form'd this abominable void
This soul-shudd'ring vacuum? — Some said
"It is Urizen", But unknown, abstracted
Brooding secret, the dark power hid.

2. Times on times he divided, & measur'd
Space by space in his ninefold darkness
Unseen, unknown! changes appeard
In his desolate mountains rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation

3. For he strove in battles dire
In unseen conflictions with shapes
Bred from his forsaken wilderness,
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent & element
Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud.

4. Dark revolving in silent activity:
Unseen in tormenting passions;
An activity unknown and horrible;
A self-contemplating shadow,
In enormous labours occupied

5. But Eternals beheld his vast forests
Age on ages he lay, clos'd, unknown
Brooding shut in the deep; all avoid
The petrific abominable chaos

6. His cold horrors silent, dark Urizen
Prepar'd: his ten thousands of thunders
Rang'd in gloom'd array stretch out across
The dread world, & the rolling of wheels
As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds
In his hills of stor'd snows, in his mountains

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poem by William Blake (1794)
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Confessio Amantis. Explicit Liber Septimus

Incipit Liber Octavus

Que favet ad vicium vetus hec modo regula confert,
Nec novus e contra qui docet ordo placet.
Cecus amor dudum nondum sua lumina cepit,
Quo Venus impositum devia fallit iter.

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The myhti god, which unbegunne
Stant of himself and hath begunne
Alle othre thinges at his wille,
The hevene him liste to fulfille
Of alle joie, where as he
Sit inthronized in his See,
And hath hise Angles him to serve,
Suche as him liketh to preserve,
So that thei mowe noght forsueie:
Bot Lucifer he putte aweie,
With al the route apostazied
Of hem that ben to him allied,
Whiche out of hevene into the helle
From Angles into fendes felle;
Wher that ther is no joie of lyht,
Bot more derk than eny nyht
The peine schal ben endeles;
And yit of fyres natheles
Ther is plente, bot thei ben blake,
Wherof no syhte mai be take.
Thus whan the thinges ben befalle,
That Luciferes court was falle
Wher dedly Pride hem hath conveied,
Anon forthwith it was pourveied
Thurgh him which alle thinges may;
He made Adam the sexte day
In Paradis, and to his make
Him liketh Eve also to make,
And bad hem cresce and multiplie.
For of the mannes Progenie,
Which of the womman schal be bore,
The nombre of Angles which was lore,
Whan thei out fro the blisse felle,
He thoghte to restore, and felle
In hevene thilke holy place
Which stod tho voide upon his grace.
Bot as it is wel wiste and knowe,
Adam and Eve bot a throwe,
So as it scholde of hem betyde,
In Paradis at thilke tyde
Ne duelten, and the cause why,
Write in the bok of Genesi,

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poem by John Gower
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