Now, I've never flown in space; but the folks who have say that on landing day, you know, you've just spent maybe a week and a half, sometimes two weeks in orbit and you're used to the things happening slowly in space.
quote by Duane G. Carey
Added by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
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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That Joke Isnt Funny Anymore
Park the car at the side of the road
You should know
Times tide will smother you
And I will too
When you laugh about people who feel so
Very lonely
Their only desire is to die
Well, Im afraid
It doesnt make me smile
I wish I could laugh
But that joke isnt funny anymore
Its too close to home
And its too near the bone
Its too close to home
And its too near the bone
More than youll ever know ...
Kick them when they fall down
Kick them when they fall down
You kick them when they fall down
Kick them when they fall down
You kick them when they fall down
Kick them when they fall down
You kick them when they fall down
Kick them when they fall down
It was dark as I drove the point home
And on cold leather seats
Well, it suddenly struck me
I just might die with a smile on my
Face after all
Ive seen this happen in other peoples
Lives
And now its happening in mine
Ive seen this happen in other peoples
Lives
And now its happening in mine
Ive seen this happen in other peoples
Lives
And now its happening in mine
Ive seen this happen in other peoples
Lives
And now its happening in mine
Oh ...
Ive seen this happen in other peoples
Lives
Oh ...
And now its happening in mine
Happening in mine
Happening in mine
Happening in mine
Happening in mine
[...] Read more
song performed by Smiths
Added by Lucian Velea
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Would You Stop It? !
Would you let that love that's happening...
Be for you that fills a need?
Or would you stop it,
From not happening.
Would you stop it from not happening?
Would you let that love that's happening,
Be for you that fills a need?
Or would you block it,
From not happening.
Could you block it from not happening?
Conflicting feelings...
Bring on its own pain.
When one turns down what's needed
And they can't admit the needing.
Conflict of feelings,
Is...
What no one needs.
Not a conflict that has meaning,
With some feelings felt unseen.
When one turns down what is needed
And they can't admit the need.
Would you let that love that's happening...
Be for you that fills a need?
Or...
Would you block it,
From not happening?
Would you stop it from not happening,
If we both admit the need...
And let it happen.
Would you let that love that's happening...
Be for us what we need.
Or would you let that love that's happening...
Not to be seen.
Would you let that love that's happening...
Be for you that fills a need?
Or would you block it...
From not happening.
Or would you stop it from not happening.
Not to be ever seen.
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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8 Weeks
8 weeks to live
8 weeks to die
8 weeks is all they had
8 weeks to do the things they never did
8 weeks of fighting
8 weeks of trying to fit everything in
8 weeks of pain, suffering, and confusion
8 weeks of faking a smile
8 weeks of repetition
8 weeks of knowing they were nearing the end
8 weeks of love from friends and family
8 weeks…the shortest/longest, most hurtful/helpful weeks of their lives
8 weeks later…knowing they’ll never be able to do the things they’ve always wanted to
8 weeks later…now realizing he’ll never see her walk, at graduation nor down the aisle
8 weeks later…close friends and family now in shambles
8 weeks later…close friends and family never closer
8 weeks later…here we are
poem by Anthony Martello
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Song of Wink Star
The Song of Wink Star
a happy story for children of all ages
story and text © Raj Arumugam, June 2008
☼ ☼
☼ Preamble
Come…children all, children of all ages…sit close and listen…
Come and listen to this happy story of the stars and of life…
Come children of the universe, children of all nations and of all races, and of all climates and of all kinds of space and dimensions and universes…
Come, dearest children of all beings of the living universe, come and listen to The Song of Wink Star…
Come and listen to this story, this happy story…listen, as the story itself sings to you…
Sit close then, and listen to the story that was not made by any, or written by a poet, or fashioned by grandfathers and grandmothers warming themselves at the fire of burning stars…
O dearest children all, come and listen to the story that lives
of itself, and that glows bright and happy….
Come…children all, children of all ages, come and listen to this happy story, the story so natural and smooth as life, as it sings itself to you….
☼ The Song of Wink Star
a happy story for children of all ages
☼ 1
Night Child, always so light and gentle, slept on a flower.
And every night, before he went to sleep, he would look up at the sky.
He would look at the eastern corner, five o’clock.
And there he would see all the stars in near and distant galaxies that were only visible to the People of Star Eyes.
Night Child was one of the People of Star Eyes. And so he could see the stars. And of all the stars he could see, he loved to watch Wink Star.
Wink Star twinkled and winked and laughed.
Every night Wink Star did that. Winked and laughed.
[...] Read more
poem by Raj Arumugam
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South Carolina
The other day my neighbor has a dented bike
Second day he called me from intensive care
Says he needs a picture of the dented bike
For the evidence of what a wreck he had
Accident
Accident
Lift that fork, eat that snail
Garcon summoned, have a new cocktail
Lift that fork, eat that snail
Garcon summoned, have a new cocktail
Crash my bicycle
Crash my bicycle
In a big south carolina wreck
I crash my bicyle
Crash my bicycle
Crash my bicycle
In a big south carolina wreck
I crash my bicyle
And I won some damages and they were punitive
By which I mean the punishment was damaging
It crushed my head
It crushed my head
Garcon, wheres my drink?
Wreck!
Observe the front wheel spinning upside down
Wreck!
The red reflector fragments strewn around
Wreck!
The back wheels o is now a letter d
Wreck!
I was an i and now I am a v
Lift that fork, eat that snail
Garcon summoned, have a new cocktail
Lift that fork, eat that snail
Garcon summoned, have a new cocktail
Crash my bicycle
Crash my bicycle
In a big south carolina wreck
I crash my bicyle
Crash my bicycle
Crash my bicycle
In a big south carolina wreck
I crash my bicyle
If I had to do it all again, buy* bicycle
If I had to do it, I would crash my bicycle
Id crush my head
Collect the bread
Crash my bicycle
Move along folks
Push her back there, move along
[...] Read more
song performed by They Might Be Giants
Added by Lucian Velea
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society
Epigraph
Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.
I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.
You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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End Of The Week
I get out of work
And then I throw away all of my cares
I get out of work
And then I wash the week out my hair
Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday
Its hard as could be
But by old friday evening
Were free, were free, were free
End of the week
The weekend started
Been working so hard to play
End of the week
Its time to party
End of the week
End of the week
End of the week
Youre tasting freedom
No one to push you around
End of the week
And life has a reason
End of the week
End of the week
End of the week
Street are alive
You know everybodys going somewhere
You put on the slide
You gotta beat the crowd just everywhere
And all the music all the dancing
Get you so high
And all that sweet romancing
Oh my, oh my, oh my
End of the week
The weekend started
Working so hard to play
End of the week
Its time to party
End of the week
End of the week
End of the week
Feels good now
Feels good now
End of the week
End of the week
Its real good now
Real good now
End of the week
End of the week
End of the week
song performed by Donna Summer
Added by Lucian Velea
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The House Of Dust: Complete
I.
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.
'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.
We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .
Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.
Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.
Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.
II.
[...] Read more
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Very Slowly
Tick tock
The moonlights hummin
My fingers on the button and my hob-nobs drummin
Slow down were moving too fast
Better wait a minute make the good times last
Ive learned something bout livin
You dont get nothing if you dont stop givin
We both know that we got so much but there aint no rush
Wanna love you slowly
When you slide on down
Wanna love you slowly turn that body round
You wont be able to control me
When your love slow down
Wanna love you slowly slowly slowly slowly
Slowly..
Hold tight
Love is all I need I guess its sweeter when its more than just a tease
Let me hold you close enough to stick
Love is an illusion lets play that trick
Slow hand moving down my back
If you get a chance u feel my heart attack
Real love has never been a crime
Wanna take my time
Wanna love you slowly
When you slide on down
Wanna love you slowly
And turn that body round
You wont be able to control me
When your love slow down
Wanna love you slowly slowly slowly slowly slowly...
Aah...oah...uah...
Slowly...aah...oah...uah...
Slowly... yeah...aah...oah...uah...
If you get a chance you feel my heart attack
Aah...oah...uah...
Real love has never been a crime
Wanna take my time
Wanna love you slowly
When you slide on down
Wanna love you slowly
And turn that body round
You wont be able to control me
When your love slow down
Wanna love you slowly slowly slowly slowly slowly...
Slowly...aah...oah...uah...slowly...aah...oah...uah...
Slowly... yeah...aah...oah...uah...aah...oah...uah...
song performed by Geri Halliwell
Added by Lucian Velea
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IV. Tertium Quid
True, Excellency—as his Highness says,
Though she's not dead yet, she's as good as stretched
Symmetrical beside the other two;
Though he's not judged yet, he's the same as judged,
So do the facts abound and superabound:
And nothing hinders that we lift the case
Out of the shade into the shine, allow
Qualified persons to pronounce at last,
Nay, edge in an authoritative word
Between this rabble's-brabble of dolts and fools
Who make up reasonless unreasoning Rome.
"Now for the Trial!" they roar: "the Trial to test
"The truth, weigh husband and weigh wife alike
"I' the scales of law, make one scale kick the beam!"
Law's a machine from which, to please the mob,
Truth the divinity must needs descend
And clear things at the play's fifth act—aha!
Hammer into their noddles who was who
And what was what. I tell the simpletons
"Could law be competent to such a feat
"'T were done already: what begins next week
"Is end o' the Trial, last link of a chain
"Whereof the first was forged three years ago
"When law addressed herself to set wrong right,
"And proved so slow in taking the first step
"That ever some new grievance,—tort, retort,
"On one or the other side,—o'ertook i' the game,
"Retarded sentence, till this deed of death
"Is thrown in, as it were, last bale to boat
"Crammed to the edge with cargo—or passengers?
"'Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est!
"'Huc appelle!'—passengers, the word must be."
Long since, the boat was loaded to my eyes.
To hear the rabble and brabble, you'd call the case
Fused and confused past human finding out.
One calls the square round, t' other the round square—
And pardonably in that first surprise
O' the blood that fell and splashed the diagram:
But now we've used our eyes to the violent hue
Can't we look through the crimson and trace lines?
It makes a man despair of history,
Eusebius and the established fact—fig's end!
Oh, give the fools their Trial, rattle away
With the leash of lawyers, two on either side—
One barks, one bites,—Masters Arcangeli
And Spreti,—that's the husband's ultimate hope
Against the Fisc and the other kind of Fisc,
Bound to do barking for the wife: bow—wow!
Why, Excellency, we and his Highness here
Would settle the matter as sufficiently
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi
Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,—
So things disguise themselves,—I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face
And know it again. Answer you? Then that means
Tell over twice what I, the first time, told
Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe,
Fronting you same three in this very room,
I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,
Who then … nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,
As good as laugh, what in a judge we style
Laughter—no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!
Only,—I think I apprehend the mood:
There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,
"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
"Well, he can say no other than what he says.
"We have been young, too,—come, there's greater guilt!
"Let him but decently disembroil himself,
"Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,—
"We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!
And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast
As if I were a phantom: now 't is—"Friend,
"Collect yourself!"—no laughing matter more—
"Counsel the Court in this extremity,
"Tell us again!"—tell that, for telling which,
I got the jocular piece of punishment,
Was sent to lounge a little in the place
Whence now of a sudden here you summon me
To take the intelligence from just—your lips!
You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,—
That she I helped eight months since to escape
Her husband, was retaken by the same,
Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,—
(I being disallowed to interfere,
Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,
For you and law were guardians quite enough
O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)—
And that he has butchered her accordingly,
As she foretold and as myself believed,—
And, so foretelling and believing so,
We were punished, both of us, the merry way:
Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?
Pompilia is only dying while I speak!
Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?
My masters, there's an old book, you should con
For strange adventures, applicable yet,
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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It Doesn't Seem It But Believe
It doesn't seem it but believe,
The time has flown so fast.
It doesn't seem it but believe,
The time has flown so fast.
One minute we are wiping a nose.
And the next second...
It seems,
We're now all old.
It doesn't seem that the time has flown away so fast.
It doesn't seem it but believe the time has flown so fast.
It doesn't seem it but believe the time has flown so fast.
Was it yesterday we said hello,
To the one we wanted to do that...good rock and roll.
It doesn't seem that the time has flown away so fast.
It doesn't seem it,
But believe...
The time has flown so fast.
It doesn't seem it,
But believe...
Some thoughts we have we should let pass.
You cain't change a game played when it's over.
Nor can you redefine a lover who has gone to another.
Yes as cruel as it can be,
To see a time we lived to see flee fast.
From a rocking seat!
Yes as cruel as it can be,
To see a time we lived to see flee fast.
It doesn't seem it but believe it that the time has flown so fast
From a rocking seat!
You cain't change a game played when it's over.
Nor can you redefine a lover who has gone to another.
It doesn't seem that the time has flown away so fast.
From a rocking seat!
It doesn't seem that the time has flown away so fast.
It doesn't seem it,
But believe...
The time has flown so fast.
From a rocking seat!
It doesn't seem it,
But believe...
Some thoughts we should have let go pass.
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Third Book
'TO-DAY thou girdest up thy loins thyself,
And goest where thou wouldest: presently
Others shall gird thee,' said the Lord, 'to go
Where thou would'st not.' He spoke to Peter thus,
To signify the death which he should die
When crucified head downwards.
If He spoke
To Peter then, He speaks to us the same;
The word suits many different martyrdoms,
And signifies a multiform of death,
Although we scarcely die apostles, we,
And have mislaid the keys of heaven and earth.
For tis not in mere death that men die most;
And, after our first girding of the loins
In youth's fine linen and fair broidery,
To run up hill and meet the rising sun,
We are apt to sit tired, patient as a fool,
While others gird us with the violent bands
Of social figments, feints, and formalisms,
Reversing our straight nature, lifting up
Our base needs, keeping down our lofty thoughts,
Head downward on the cross-sticks of the world.
Yet He can pluck us from the shameful cross.
God, set our feet low and our forehead high,
And show us how a man was made to walk!
Leave the lamp, Susan, and go up to bed.
The room does very well; I have to write
Beyond the stroke of midnight. Get away;
Your steps, for ever buzzing in the room,
Tease me like gnats. Ah, letters! throw them down
At once, as I must have them, to be sure,
Whether I bid you never bring me such
At such an hour, or bid you. No excuse.
You choose to bring them, as I choose perhaps
To throw them in the fire. Now, get to bed,
And dream, if possible, I am not cross.
Why what a pettish, petty thing I grow,–
A mere, mere woman,–a mere flaccid nerve,-
A kerchief left out all night in the rain,
Turned soft so,–overtasked and overstrained
And overlived in this close London life!
And yet I should be stronger.
Never burn
Your letters, poor Aurora! for they stare
With red seals from the table, saying each,
'Here's something that you know not.' Out alas,
'Tis scarcely that the world's more good and wise
[...] Read more
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Poor Folks Town
The work is hard and the hours are long
The money aint much but we get along
Were rich in things can give
That cant be bought with a dollar bill
So, come on down
Have a look around
Rich folks livin in a poor folks town
We got no money but were rich in love
Thats one thing that weve got a-plenty of
So come on down have a look around
At rich folks livin in a poor folks town
We got no carpets on the floor
Weve got wall to wall love
Who could ask for more
We got no big fine things to show
Just a place to watch our children grow
We got no big fine fancy car to drive
And no fancy clothes to keep in style
What weve got were payin on
But its mostly love that were livin on
So, come on down
Have a look around
Rich folks livin in a poor folks town
We got no money but were rich in love
Thats one thing that weve got a-plenty of
So come on down have a look around
At rich folks livin in a poor folks town
Weve got a little simple church nearby
And the promise of a mansion in the sky
A heart of gold a million dollar smile
And a one way ticket to paradise
So, come on down
Have a look around
Rich folks livin in a poor folks town
We got no money but were rich in love
Thats one thing that weve got a-plenty of
So come on down have a look around
At rich folks livin in a poor folks town
So, come on down
Have a look around
Rich folks livin in a poor folks town
We got no money but were rich in love
Thats one thing that weve got a-plenty of
So come on down have a look around
At rich folks livin in a poor folks town
song performed by Dolly Parton
Added by Lucian Velea
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Slow Folks
Slow folks...
Seem to stir up all the troubles.
And they poke up...
To mope around hope.
The slow folks...
Would like to borrow buttered biscuits,
And then lick 'em...
Like their crackin' on dope!
Those slow folks...
Can getchu outta line!
Those slow folks...
I've seen that all the time!
Those slow folks...
Will get quick in your face.
But you gotta say,
Hell no!
I'm not that joke you want provoked.
Slow folks...
Seem to stir up all the troubles.
And they poke up...
To mope around hope.
Oh,
Slow folks...
Seem to stir up all the troubles.
And they poke up...
To mope around hope.
The slow folks...
Would like to borrow buttered biscuits,
And then lick 'em...
Like their crackin' on dope!
Those slow folks...
Will get quick in your face.
But you gotta say,
Hell no!
I'm not that joke you want provoked.
By those slow folks...
A butt end of a joke.
By those slow folks.
Provoked or demoted,
By those slow folks.
Or turn into a joke!
By those slow folks.
They can getchu outta line!
Those slow folks...
I've seen that all the time!
Those slow folks...
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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V. Count Guido Franceschini
Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of … why, 't is wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate … aie, aie, aie,
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all's over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short, I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I' the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O' the Franceschini's once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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
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Virginia's Story
Elizabeth Gates-Wooten is my Grand mom.
She was born in Canada with her father and brothers.
They owned a Barber Shoppe.
I don't remember exactly where in Canada.
I believe it was right over the border like Windsor or Toronto.
I never knew exactly where it was.
When she was old enough she got married.
First, she married a man by the name of Frank Gates.
He was from Madagascar.
He fathered my mom and her brother and sister.
The boy's name was Frank Gates, Jr.
Two girls name were Anna and Agnes.
Agnes was my mother.
Frank Gates went crazy after the war
He drank a lot and died
Then grandma Elizabeth married a man by the name of Mr. Wooten.
He had a German name, but I don't think he was German.
She took his last name after they got married.
Then they moved to West Virginia in the United States.
Their son, Frank Gates Jr. Became a delegate in the democratic party.
He use to get into a lot of trouble because he liked to fight.
He was a delegate from the 1940's to 1970's.
He died of gout in the 1970's.
Anna was a maid and cook.
She baked cakes and stuff for people as a side line.
She had a hump on her back (scoliosis) .
She had to walk with a cane.
She could cook good though.
She did this kind of work all of her life, just like her mom, Elizabeth
They were both good cooks
They had a lot of money because they had these skills
Especially when people had parties.
Because they would make all of this food and then they would have left-overs.
We got to eat a lot of stuff we normally wouldn't get because of that.
When they cooked, they didn't use no measuring stuff, they would just use there hand.
My moms name was Agnes Barrie Gates.
She married James Wright and moved to Cleveland.
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poem by Talile Ali
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The Lawyer’s Second Tale: Christian
A highland inn among the western hills,
A single parlour, single bed that fills
With fisher or with tourist, as may be;
A waiting-maid. as fair as you can see,
With hazel eyes, and frequent blushing face,
And ample brow, and with a rustic grace
In all her easy quiet motions seen,
Large of her age, which haply is nineteen,
Christian her name, in full a pleasant name,
Christian and Christie scarcely seem the same;
A college fellow, who has sent away
The pupils he has taught for many a day,
And comes for fishing and for solitude,
Perhaps a little pensive in his mood,
An aspiration and a thought have failed,
Where he had hoped, another has prevailed,
But to the joys of hill and stream alive,
And in his boyhood yet, at twenty-five.
A merry dance, that made young people meet,
And set them moving, both with hands and feet;
A dance in which he danced, and nearer knew
The soft brown eyes, and found them tender too.
A dance that lit in two young hearts the fire,
The low soft flame, of loving sweet desire,
And made him feel that he could feel again;
The preface this, what follows to explain.
That night he kissed, he held her in his arms,
And felt the subtle virtue of her charms;
Nor less bewildered on the following day,
He kissed, he found excuse near her to stay,
Was it not love? And yet the truth to speak,
Playing the fool for haply half a week,
He yet had fled, so strong within him dwelt
The horror of the sin, and such he felt
The miseries to the woman that ensue.
He wearied long his brain with reasonings fine,
But when at evening dusk he came to dine,
In linsey petticoat and jacket blue
She stood, so radiant and so modest too,
All into air his strong conclusions flew.
Now should he go. But dim and drizzling too,
For a night march, to-night will hardly do,
A march of sixteen weary miles of way.
No, by the chances which our lives obey,
No, by the Heavens and this sweet face, he’ll stay.
A week he stayed, and still was loth to go,
But she grew anxious and would have it so.
Her time of service shortly would be o’er,
And she would leave; her mistress knew before.
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poem by Arthur Hugh Clough from Mari Magno or Tales on Board
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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