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Sometimes there is no darker place than our thoughts, the moonless midnight of the mind.

quote by Dean Koontz
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The Great Curve

Sometimes the world has a load of questions
Seems like the world knows nothing at all
The world is near but its out of reach
Some people touch it...but they cant hold on.
She is moving to describe the world
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
She has messages for everyone
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
She is moving by remote control
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
Hands that move her are invisible
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
The world has a way of looking at people
Sometimes it seems that the world is wrong
She loves the world, and all the people in it
She shakes em up when she start to walk.
She is only party human being
Divine, to define, she is moving to define, so say so, so say so
She defines the possibilities
Divine, to define, she is moving to define, so say so, so say so
Holding on for an eternity
Divine, to define, she is moving to define, so say so, so say so
Gone...ending without finishing
Divine, to define, she is moving to define, so say so, so say so
The world moves on a womans hips
The world moves and it swivels and bops
The world moves on a womans hips
The world moves and it bounces and hopsu
A world of light...shes gonna open our eyes up
A world of light...shes gonna open our eyes up
Shes gonna hold/it move/it hold it/move it hold/it move it hold/
It move it
A world of light...shes gonna open out eyes up
She is moving to describe the world
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
She has messages for everyone
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
She is moving by remote control
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
Hands that move her are invisible
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
Divine, to define, she is moving to define, so say so
Night must fall now-darker, darker.
She...has got to move the world...to move the world...to move
The world
A world of light...shes gonna open our eyes up
A world of light...shes gonna open our eyes up
Shes gonna hold/it move/it hold it/move it hold/it move it hold/
It move it
A world of light...shes gonna open out eyes up

[...] Read more

song performed by Talking Heads
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Midnight Star

I was waiting in the express lane with my twelve items or less
At the checkout counter at the local grocery store
I was only passin by
But a paper caught my eye
And I learend a few things I mever knew before
It said your pet may be an extra terrestrial
It said the ghost of elvis is living in my den
You can learn to cope with stress
You can beat the irs
And the incredible frog boy is on the loose again
Oh, mignight star
Its in the weekly midnight star
Aliens from outer space are sleeping in my car
Midnight star, I wanna know, I wanna know
Eat jelly donuts and lose twenty pounds a day
Hear the story of the man born without a head
And top psychics all agree
That the telephone company
Will have a brand new service that lets you talk to the dead
Oh, midnight star
You can believe it if you read it in the weekly mignight star
Theyre keeping hitlers brain alive inside a jar
Midnight star, I wanna know, I wanna know
Tell me, tell me, tell me how to make my bust-line grow
Midnight star, I wanna know
Oh, midnight star
Well, dont you know that I read it, I read it in the weekly midnight star
The ufos have landed and well tell you where they are
Midnight star, I wanna know, I wanna know
Midnight star
Well, you can read all about in in the weekly midnight star
You can use you esp to learn to play guitar
Midnight star I wanna know, I wanna know
(ah, midnight star) I wanna know, I wanna know
(ah, midnight star) I wanna know, I wanna know
(ah, midnight star) I wanna know, I wanna know
(ah, midnight star) inquiring minds like mine wanna know
(you can read it {x5}, midnight star {x2}) (ah, midnight star) I wanna know, I wanna know
(you can read it {x5}, midnight star {x2}) (ah, midnight star) I wanna know, I wanna know
(you can read it {x5}, midnight star {x2}) (ah, midnight star) I wanna know, I wanna know
(you can read it {x5}, midnight star {x2}) (ah, midnight star) I wanna know, I wanna know
(you can read it {x5}, midnight star {x2}) (ah, midnight star) I wanna know, I wanna know
(you can read it {x5}, midnight star {x2}) (ah, midnight star) I wanna know, I wanna know

song performed by Weird Al Yankovic
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Working The Midnight Shift

Im just a working girl, just earning a living
When the citys waking up, Im going home
Working the midnight shift
While my friends are all out
Theyve all gone out dancing
Theyre out having fun
Working that midnight shift
For that extra little something
The things that are out of my reach
I need so bad
So bad, so bad
Seems like Im always leaving
When all the others arrive
My body still carries on
But Im dying inside
Working the midnight shift
While my friends are all out
Theyve all gone out dancing
Theyre out having fun
Working that midnight shift
For that extra little something
The things that are out of my reach
I need so bad
I need so bad, need so bad
Midnight shift, midnight shift
Midnight shift, midnight shift
Midnight shift, midnight shift
Im just a working girl
Just earning a living
When the citys waking up
Im going home
Working the midnight shift
While my friends are all out
Theyve all gone out dancing
Midnight shift, midnight shift
Midnight shift, midnight shift
Midnight shift, midnight shift
Midnight shift, midnight shift
Midnight shift, midnight shift
Midnight shift, midnight shift

song performed by Donna Summer
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Midnight At The Lost And Found

Hey Ricky, now mine is empty
How about one for you
We could set it out together
Seems tomorrow's overdue
Captain Video, done went home
One pilot laid to rest
And dragon ladies talk that talk
About who loves who - who loves best
Silver bullets in the jukebox
Spin another round
Everybody at the back of the line
It's midnight at the lost and found
Midnight at the lost and found
Lost souls in the hunting ground
A remedy for all your ills
At the lost and found
Midnight at the lost and found
Midnight...
Have a double it's gettin' late
You'll get home home, just rely on fate
Place just finally came alive
Good old boys just arrived
Stools keep changin' faces
And the night just slips away
And like a long distance love affair
Soon you've got to pay
Silver bullets in the jukebox
Spin another round
Everybody at the back of the line
It's midnight at the lost and found
Midnight at the lost and found
Lost souls in the hunting ground
A remedy for all your ills
At the lost and found
Midnight at the lost and found
Midnight...
Hangin' on barely, hitch a ride away
Belly up and bury, boy, all the hurt you feel today
Hangin' on barely, hitch a ride away
Belly up and bury, boy, all the hurt you feel today
Silver bullets in the jukebox
Spin another round
Everybody get back in line
Last call for the lost and found
Midnight at the lost and found
Lost souls in the hunting ground
A remedy for all your ills
At the lost and found
Midnight at the lost and found
Lost souls in the hunting ground

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song performed by Meat Loaf
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Moanin At Midnight

( recording of july 28 1966, san francisco )
Moanin at midnight
Moanin at midnight, yeah
Moanin at midnight, baby
Moanin at midnight, baby
Moanin at midnight, baby, yeah
Moanin at midnight
Moanin at midnight, baby
Moanin at midnight
Moanin at midnight, baby, whew-ew
Well, well, well, well, well, well
Somebodys knockin on my door
Somebodys knockin
Somebodys knockin
Somebodys knockin on my door
I dont want you to go and tell me to come on, hey come on right out
Well, well, well, well, well, well
Somebody told me Im gonna fall
Somebody told me, somebody told me Im gonna fall
Hey wont someone tell me now whats goin on
Well, well, well, well
Somebody please
Well
Somebody please
Somebody please
Somebody please
Somebody please
Somebody please
Somebody please
Somebody please
Somebody, somebody please
Somebody, somebody please
Tell me please
Somebody please
Somebody please
Somebody please
Somebody please
Moanin at midnight, baby
Moanin at midnight, baby
Moanin at midnight, baby
Moanin at midnight, baby
Moanin at midnight, baby
Moanin, I said moanin
At midnight
I said moanin at midnight
Moanin
Midnight
Moanin
Midnight
Moanin

[...] Read more

song performed by Janis Joplin
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Its Midnight & Im Not Famous Yet

Its midnight and Im not famous yet
By: jimmy buffett, steve goodman
1981
For barry hanah
Catch the elevator from the penthouse suite
And take it down to the casino
The god-almighty sound of money movin round
Can be heard all the way to reno
Chorus:
Well its midnight and Im not famous yet
Tryin to win it all with one more bet
Nothin can stop my thirty-two hop
Or my ten dollar yo yo yo
Its midnight, Im just gettin ready to roll
(midnight)
Now lester polyester signs another marker
Like the high rollers do
Seven come eleven
His brand new baby needs gucci shoes
Chorus:
Well its midnight shes not famous yet
Tryin to break the bank with one more bet
Nothin can stop my thirty-two hop
Or my ten dollar yo yo yo
Its midnight, lesters gettin ready to roll
Midnight (midnight)
Midnight
(instrumental)
(midnight)
Theyre pagin someone we know, lester hits a keno
Hes not leavin yet
Vacuum cleaners hummin lounge act still is strummin
Its their twenty-fourth set
Well its midnight theyre not famous yet
Tryin to win it all with one more bet
Nothin can stop my thirty-two hop
Or my ten dollar yo yo yo
Its midnight, got nowhere to go (oh oh)
Midnight (midnight)
(oh oh oh)
Midnight (midnight)
(oh oh oh, midnight)
(oh oh oh, midnight)
(oh oh oh, midnight)
(oh oh oh)
- notes:
Lead guitar by josh leo

song performed by Jimmy Buffett
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Canto the Fourth

I.

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O’er the far times when many a subject land
Looked to the wingèd Lion’s marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!

II.

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was; her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

III.

In Venice, Tasso’s echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone - but beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade - but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

IV.

But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city’s vanished sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away -
The keystones of the arch! though all were o’er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

V.

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818)
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The Forest Sanctuary - Part I.

I.
The voices of my home!-I hear them still!
They have been with me through the dreamy night-
The blessed household voices, wont to fill
My heart's clear depths with unalloy'd delight!
I hear them still, unchang'd:-though some from earth
Are music parted, and the tones of mirth-
Wild, silvery tones, that rang through days more bright!
Have died in others,-yet to me they come,
Singing of boyhood back-the voices of my home!

II.
They call me through this hush of woods, reposing
In the grey stillness of the summer morn,
They wander by when heavy flowers are closing,
And thoughts grow deep, and winds and stars are born;
Ev'n as a fount's remember'd gushings burst
On the parch'd traveller in his hour of thirst,
E'en thus they haunt me with sweet sounds, till worn
By quenchless longings, to my soul I say-
Oh! for the dove's swift wings, that I might flee away,

III.
And find mine ark!-yet whither?-I must bear
A yearning heart within me to the grave.
I am of those o'er whom a breath of air-
Just darkening in its course the lake's bright wave,
And sighing through the feathery canes -hath power
To call up shadows, in the silent hour,
From the dim past, as from a wizard's cave!-
So must it be!-These skies above me spread,
Are they my own soft skies?-Ye rest not here, my dead!

IV.
Ye far amidst the southern flowers lie sleeping,
Your graves all smiling in the sunshine clear,
Save one!-a blue, lone, distant main is sweeping
High o'er one gentle head-ye rest not here!-
'Tis not the olive, with a whisper swaying,
Not thy low ripplings, glassy water, playing
Through my own chesnut groves, which fill mine ear;
But the faint echoes in my breast that dwell,
And for their birth-place moan, as moans the ocean-shell.

V.
Peace!-I will dash these fond regrets to earth,
Ev'n as an eagle shakes the cumbering rain
From his strong pinion. Thou that gav'st me birth,
And lineage, and once home,-my native Spain!
My own bright land-my father's land-my child's!

[...] Read more

poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

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

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

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

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poem by Robert Browning (1871)
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Change Your Mind

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

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song performed by Neil Young
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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,

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poem by Byron
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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)
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Book III - Part 03 - The Soul is Mortal

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

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

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

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poem by Lucretius
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The Idols

An Ode
Luce intellettual, piena d' amore

Prelude
Lo, the spirit of a pulsing star within a stone
Born of earth, sprung from night!
Prisoned with the profound fires of the light
That lives like all the tongues of eloquence
Locked in a speech unknown!
The crystal, cold and hard as innocence,
Immures the flame; and yet as if it knew
Raptures or pangs it could not but betray,
As if the light could feel changes of blood and breath
And all--but--human quiverings of the sense,
Throbs of a sudden rose, a frosty blue,
Shoot thrilling in its ray,
Like the far longings of the intellect
Restless in clouding clay.

Who has confined the Light? Who has held it a slave,
Sold and bought, bought and sold?
Who has made of it a mystery to be doled,
Or trophy, to awe with legendary fire,
Where regal banners wave?
And still into the dark it sends Desire.
In the heart's darkness it sows cruelties.
The bright jewel becomes a beacon to the vile,
A lodestar to corruption, envy's own:
Soiled with blood, fought for, clutched at; this world's prize,
Captive Authority. Oh, the star is stone
To all that outward sight,
Yet still, like truth that none has ever used,
Lives lost in its own light.

Troubled I fly. O let me wander again at will
(Far from cries, far from these
Hard blindnesses and frozen certainties!)
Where life proceeds in vastness unaware
And stirs profound and still:
Where leafing thoughts at shy touch of the air
Tremble, and gleams come seeking to be mine,
Or dart, like suddenly remembered youth,
Like the ache of love, a light, lost, found, and lost again.
Surely in the dusk some messenger was there!
But, haunted in the heart, I thirst, I pine.--
Oh, how can truth be truth
Except I taste it close and sweet and sharp
As an apple to the tooth?

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Laurence Binyon
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Midnight Train

(instrumental intro)
Oh my darling will you come to me
Shaking now just like a willow tree
So tell me whats the story
This track well ride to glory
Coming home
Pretty karla and her russian clothes
Clapboard house and a different nose
Love keeps a candle burning
These steel wheels are turning
Back for home
Come in out of the rain
Come out of the night
Out on the midnight train
Midnight train
Come out of the light
Come out of the rain
Riding the midnight train
Midnight train
Moscow lights, well they dim and glow
The taste is sweeter than its driven snow
So tell me whats the story
This track to ride to glory
Coming home
Come out of the rain, come out of the lights,
Out on the midnight train, midnight train
Come out of the lights, come out in the rain,
Riding the midnight train, midnight train
(instrumental)
Oh my darling will you come to me
Shaking now just like a willow tree
Come out of the lights, come out in the rain,
Riding the midnight train, midnight train
Out of the rain, live again, riding the midnight train, midnight train
Come of the lights, into the rain, riding the midnight train, midnight train
One little strange, come back again
(instrumental fade out)

song performed by Ufo
Added by Lucian Velea
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The darkness of my soul

My soul is dark.
Darker than the night sky on a moonless night.
Darker than my room on a moonless night.
If I shall die on this moonless night.
My soul shall rise nor fall within the darkness of the night.
Without any light in the sky of this moonless night.

poem by Charles Howard
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Book III - Part 02 - Nature And Composition Of The Mind

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

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poem by Lucretius
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Childe Harold's Pilgrimage: A Romaunt. Canto IV.

I.
I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Look'd to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, thron'd on her hundred isles!

II.
She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was; her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she rob'd, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increas'd.

III.
In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone -- but Beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade -- but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

IV.
But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city's vanish'd sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away --
The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er,
For us repeopl'd were the solitary shore.

V.
The beings of the mind are not of clay;
Essentially immortal, they create
And multiply in us a brighter ray
And more belov'd existence: that which Fate
Prohibits to dull life, in this our state

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poem by Byron
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The Cenci : A Tragedy In Five Acts

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Count Francesco Cenci.
Giacomo, his Son.
Bernardo, his Son.
Cardinal Camillo.
Orsino, a Prelate.
Savella, the Pope's Legate.
Olimpio, Assassin.
Marzio, Assassin.
Andrea, Servant to Cenci.
Nobles, Judges, Guards, Servants.
Lucretia, Wife of Cenci, and Step-mother of his children.
Beatrice, his Daughter.

The Scene lies principally in Rome, but changes during the Fourth Act to Petrella, a castle among the Apulian Apennines.
Time. During the Pontificate of Clement VIII.

ACT I

Scene I.
-An Apartment in the Cenci Palace.
Enter Count Cenci, and Cardinal Camillo.

Camillo.
That matter of the murder is hushed up
If you consent to yield his Holiness
Your fief that lies beyond the Pincian gate.-
It needed all my interest in the conclave
To bend him to this point: he said that you
Bought perilous impunity with your gold;
That crimes like yours if once or twice compounded
Enriched the Church, and respited from hell
An erring soul which might repent and live:-
But that the glory and the interest
Of the high throne he fills, little consist
With making it a daily mart of guilt
As manifold and hideous as the deeds
Which you scarce hide from men's revolted eyes.

Cenci.
The third of my possessions-let it go!
Ay, I once heard the nephew of the Pope
Had sent his architect to view the ground,
Meaning to build a villa on my vines
The next time I compounded with his uncle:
I little thought he should outwit me so!

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poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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