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The fact that the Arctic, more than any other populated region of the world, requires the collaboration of so many disciplines and points of view to be understood at all, is a benefit rather than a burden.

quote by Bruce Jackson
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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)
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Soboba

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poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
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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

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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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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The Guilt

I still look upon the stars
They're still forever changing and rearranging.
A musical collaboration.
A fantastic sensation and it is with out you.

Oh how I wish I could undo the things I have said and done to you.
It's all my fault.
I'll take all the blame hand to god.
Every time you cried I claim it as my own.
And now I'm living a shallow life all alone.
Their is some things you just can't condone.

I still look upon the stars
They're still forever changing and rearranging.
A musical collaboration.
A fantastic sensation and it is with out you.

To move on is so hard.
Love has retarded all my movements.
Slow has slow can be.
A distinguished defeat.
A gallant retreat.
Is never full of such deceit.

I still look upon the stars
They're still forever changing and rearranging.
A musical collaboration.
A fantastic sensation and it is with out you.

The people have spoken.
Capital punishment for a capital crime.
Maybe not in your eyes.
But most certainly in mine.
Grinding the steel down to tip so fine.
A brutal way to inflict the pain.
I do this to myself in your name.

I still look upon the stars
They're still forever changing and rearranging.
A musical collaboration.
A fantastic sensation and it is with out you.

How can I defend my actions.
How could I have walk down this road of hate and rage.
How can I claim to even be a poet of this day and age.
Mere ramblings that now feel so fake.
Everyone I've written was for her sake.
Everyone was just another page of mistakes.

I still look upon the stars

[...] Read more

poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
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Lay It All Down

Written by bob welch.
Let me retell
A story of old
About a man named moses
Who lived long ago
He prophicied good
He prophicied bad
And now that prophecys
Coming to pass
Let all your sons, and your daughters
Of the golden calf
Lay down your burden of sorrow
Lay down your burden of hurt
Lay it all down, for paradise here on earth
A whole lot of people, including myself
Thought the story of moses was just a tall tale
But all of the things that we see going on
Are just what moses set down
Let all your sons, and your daughters
Of the golden-yeah
Lay down your burden of sorrow
Lay down your burden of hurt
Lay it all down, for paradise here on earth
Let me retell
A story I know
About a man named moses
Who lived long ago
He prophicied good
He prophicied bad
And now that prophecys
Coming to pass
Let all your sons, and your daughters
Of the golden-yeah
Lay down your burden of sorrow
Lay down your burden of hurt
Lay down your burden of sorrow
Lay down your burden of hurt
Lay down your burden of sorrow
Lay down your burden of hurt
I just cant imagine a reason for sorrow
Just cant imagine the hurt
Youve got to lay it down
Youve got to lay it down
Youve got to lay it down
Youve got to lay it down
I said lay down your burden of sorrow
Lay down your burden of hurt
Lay down your burden of sorrow
Theres just no reason to hurt
Youve got to lay down your burden of sorrow

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song performed by Fleetwood Mac
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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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I. The Ring and the Book

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

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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Two Points Of View

You, always making promises
Who gets the blame for your mistakes
You, made a game of politics
Now fear and guilt on your face
But I cant feel your pain
And I wont share your shame
All I know is what I feel
Music sets me free
I dont mind walking in the rain
Ooh, tears of heaven soothe my pain
Love is the sound that makes me sing
I love to play a melody
But you cant hear the sound
But you cant, you cant feel the beat
All I know is what I feel
Music sets me free
I dont mind walking in the rain
Ooh, tears of heaven soothe my pain
Love is the sound that makes me sing
I love to play a melody
But you cant hear the sound
But you cant, you cant feel the beat
All I know is what I feel
Music sets me free
Two points of view
Two points of view
Two points of view
One for me, and one for you
But you cant hear the sound
But you cant, you cant feel the beat
All I know is what I feel
Music sets me free
Two points of view
Two points of view
Two points of view
One for me and one for you
Two points of view
Two points of view

song performed by Santana
Added by Lucian Velea
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Vision Of Columbus - Book 5

Columbus hail'd them with a father's smile,
Fruits of his cares and children of his toil;
With tears of joy, while still his eyes descried
Their course adventurous o'er the distant tide.
Thus, when o'er deluged earth her Seraph stood,
The tost ark bounding on the shoreless flood,
The sacred treasure claim'd his guardian view,
While climes unnoticed in the wave withdrew.
He saw the squadrons reach the rising strand,
Leap from the wave and share the joyous land;
Receding forests yield the heroes room,
And opening wilds with fields and gardens bloom.
Fill'd with the glance extatic, all his soul
Now seems unbounded with the scene to roll,
And now, impatient, with retorted eye,
Perceives his station in another sky.
Waft me, O winged Angel, waft me o'er,
With those blest heroes, to the happy shore;
There let me live and die–but all appears
A fleeting vision; these are future years.
Yet grant in nearer view the climes may spread,
And my glad steps may seem their walks to tread;
While eastern coasts and kingdoms, wrapp'd in night,
Arise no more to intercept the sight.
The hero spoke; the Angel's powerful hand
Moves brightening o'er the visionary land;
The height, that bore them, still sublimer grew,
And earth's whole circuit settled from their view:
A dusky Deep, serene as breathless even,
Seem'd vaulting downward, like another heaven;
The sun, rejoicing on his western way,
Stamp'd his fair image in the inverted day:
Sudden, the northern shores again drew nigh,
And life and action fill'd the hero's eye.
Where the dread Laurence breaks his passage wide,
Where Missisippi's milder currents glide,
Where midland realms their swelling mountainsheave,
And slope their champaigns to the distant wave,
On the green banks, and o'er the extended plain,
Rise into sight the happiest walks of man.
The placid ports, that break the billowing gales,
Rear their tall masts and stretch their whitening sails;
The harvests wave, the groves with fruitage bend,
And bulwarks heave, and spiry domes ascend;
Fair works of peace in growing splendor rise,
And grateful earth repays the bounteous skies.
Till war invades; when opening vales disclose,
In moving crouds, the savage tribes of foes;
High tufted quills their painted foreheads press,
Dark spoils of beasts their shaggy shoulders dress,

[...] Read more

poem by Joel Barlow
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Satan Absolved

(In the antechamber of Heaven. Satan walks alone. Angels in groups conversing.)
Satan. To--day is the Lord's ``day.'' Once more on His good pleasure
I, the Heresiarch, wait and pace these halls at leisure
Among the Orthodox, the unfallen Sons of God.
How sweet in truth Heaven is, its floors of sandal wood,
Its old--world furniture, its linen long in press,
Its incense, mummeries, flowers, its scent of holiness!
Each house has its own smell. The smell of Heaven to me
Intoxicates and haunts,--and hurts. Who would not be
God's liveried servant here, the slave of His behest,
Rather than reign outside? I like good things the best,
Fair things, things innocent; and gladly, if He willed,
Would enter His Saints' kingdom--even as a little child.

[Laughs. I have come to make my peace, to crave a full amaun,
Peace, pardon, reconcilement, truce to our daggers--drawn,
Which have so long distraught the fair wise Universe,
An end to my rebellion and the mortal curse
Of always evil--doing. He will mayhap agree
I was less wholly wrong about Humanity
The day I dared to warn His wisdom of that flaw.
It was at least the truth, the whole truth, I foresaw
When He must needs create that simian ``in His own
Image and likeness.'' Faugh! the unseemly carrion!
I claim a new revision and with proofs in hand,
No Job now in my path to foil me and withstand.
Oh, I will serve Him well!
[Certain Angels approach. But who are these that come
With their grieved faces pale and eyes of martyrdom?
Not our good Sons of God? They stop, gesticulate,
Argue apart, some weep,--weep, here within Heaven's gate!
Sob almost in God's sight! ay, real salt human tears,
Such as no Spirit wept these thrice three thousand years.
The last shed were my own, that night of reprobation
When I unsheathed my sword and headed the lost nation.
Since then not one of them has spoken above his breath
Or whispered in these courts one word of life or death
Displeasing to the Lord. No Seraph of them all,
Save I this day each year, has dared to cross Heaven's hall
And give voice to ill news, an unwelcome truth to Him.
Not Michael's self hath dared, prince of the Seraphim.
Yet all now wail aloud.--What ails ye, brethren? Speak!
Are ye too in rebellion? Angels. Satan, no. But weak
With our long earthly toil, the unthankful care of Man.

Satan. Ye have in truth good cause.

Angels. And we would know God's plan,
His true thought for the world, the wherefore and the why
Of His long patience mocked, His name in jeopardy.

[...] Read more

poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Benefit Of The Doubt

What became of us
In the night light
Turn to touch your hand
Hands dont understand
Whats a right from wrong
When I think of all the things weve done
Never made the rules
But counting one to ten was easy
Its always happening - slowly, surely happening
Could have been another way
It looked bad from the start
Wont you give me, give me benefit of the doubt
Could have been another day for pulling the plug
On my heart wont you give me, give me benefit of the doubt
Oh well here we go again acting like old friends
Its hard to compromise
When loves locked in your eyes
Always out to stay then twice as hard to go
But what you reap I sew
And counting one to ten was easy
Its always happening - slowly, surely happening
Could have been another way
It looked bad from the start
Wont you give me, give me benefit of the doubt
Could have been another day
For pulling the plug on my heart
Wont you give me, give me benefit of the doubt
Wont you give me, give me benefit of the doubt
Wont you give me, give me benefit of the doubt
Could have been another day
For pulling the plug on my heart - ouch!
Wont you give me, give me benefit of the doubt
Could have been another way
It looked bad from the start - ouch!
Wont you give me, give me benefit of the doubt
Could have been another day
For pulling the plug on my heart
Oh, wont you give. me give me benefit of the doubt
Could have been another way
It looked bad from the start
Wont you give me, give me benefit of the
Could have been another day
For pulling the plug on my heart
Wont you give me, give me benefit of the doubt

song performed by Haircut 100
Added by Lucian Velea
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Bishop Blougram's Apology

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

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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from Men and Women (1855)
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The Columbiad: Book I

The Argument

Natives of America appear in vision. Their manners and characters. Columbus demands the cause of the dissimilarity of men in different countries, Hesper replies, That the human body is composed of a due proportion of the elements suited to the place of its first formation; that these elements, differently proportioned, produce all the changes of health, sickness, growth and decay; and may likewise produce any other changes which occasion the diversity of men; that these elemental proportions are varied, not more by climate than temperature and other local circumstances; that the mind is likewise in a state of change, and will take its physical character from the body and from external objects: examples. Inquiry concerning the first peopling of America. View of Mexico. Its destruction by Cortez. View of Cusco and Quito, cities of Peru. Tradition of Capac and Oella, founders of the Peruvian empire. Columbus inquires into their real history. Hesper gives an account of their origin, and relates the stratagems they used in establishing that empire.

I sing the Mariner who first unfurl'd
An eastern banner o'er the western world,
And taught mankind where future empires lay
In these fair confines of descending day;
Who sway'd a moment, with vicarious power,
Iberia's sceptre on the new found shore,
Then saw the paths his virtuous steps had trod
Pursued by avarice and defiled with blood,
The tribes he foster'd with paternal toil
Snatch'd from his hand, and slaughter'd for their spoil.

Slaves, kings, adventurers, envious of his name,
Enjoy'd his labours and purloin'd his fame,
And gave the Viceroy, from his high seat hurl'd.
Chains for a crown, a prison for a world
Long overwhelm'd in woes, and sickening there,
He met the slow still march of black despair,
Sought the last refuge from his hopeless doom,
And wish'd from thankless men a peaceful tomb:
Till vision'd ages, opening on his eyes,
Cheer'd his sad soul, and bade new nations rise;
He saw the Atlantic heaven with light o'ercast,
And Freedom crown his glorious work at last.

Almighty Freedom! give my venturous song
The force, the charm that to thy voice belong;
Tis thine to shape my course, to light my way,
To nerve my country with the patriot lay,
To teach all men where all their interest lies,
How rulers may be just and nations wise:
Strong in thy strength I bend no suppliant knee,
Invoke no miracle, no Muse but thee.

Night held on old Castile her silent reign,
Her half orb'd moon declining to the main;
O'er Valladolid's regal turrets hazed
The drizzly fogs from dull Pisuerga raised;
Whose hovering sheets, along the welkin driven,
Thinn'd the pale stars, and shut the eye from heaven.
Cold-hearted Ferdinand his pillow prest,
Nor dream'd of those his mandates robb'd of rest,
Of him who gemm'd his crown, who stretch'd his reign
To realms that weigh'd the tenfold poise of Spain;
Who now beneath his tower indungeon'd lies,
Sweats the chill sod and breathes inclement skies.

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poem by Joel Barlow
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As A Matter Of Fact

Written by s. garrett & d. boyette
Blow daddy, aww, yeah
Here we are, standing at the hard line
We made it last this long
The two of us, together since the first time
And I believe our love is still strong
Seems love has a funny way
Well, it can come or go or it can choose to stay
But love says what it has to say
(chorus)
Matter of fact (ooh, as a matter of fact)
I love you (oh, as a matter of fact)
And I love that you love me back
As a matter of fact (ooh, as a matter, a matter)
Some said we wouldnt make it this far
But they dont talk no more (no more)
The love we share is precious as a big star
And what we haves what others hope for
Seems love has a funny way
Well, it can come or go or it can choose to stay
But love says what it has to say
(chorus)
Matter of fact (ooh, as a matter of fact)
I need you (oh, as a matter of fact)
And Im glad that you need me back
As a matter of fact (ooh, as a matter, a matter)
Mm, matter of fact, yeah (ooh as a matter of fact)
I want you (yeah, as a matter of fact)
And I cant tell you more than that
As a matter of fact, (ooh, as a matter) yeah (matter)
Aww, blow, daddy
Musical interlude
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Seems love has a funny way
Well, it can come and go or it can choose to stay
But love says what it has to say
(repeat chorus)
Matter of fact (ooh, as a matter of fact)
I love you (oh, as a matter of fact)
Yeah and I love that you love me back
As a matter of fact (ooh, as a matter of fact)
Ooh, ooh, baby
Matter of fact (ooh, as a matter of fact)
I need you (yeah, as a matter of fact)
And Im glad that you need me right back
As a matter of fact
(ooh, as a matter) yeah (a matter)

song performed by Natalie Cole
Added by Lucian Velea
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Vision Of Columbus - Book 9

Now, round the yielding canopy of shade,
Again the Guide his heavenly power display'd.
Sudden, the stars their trembling fires withdrew,
Returning splendors burst upon the view;
Floods of unfolding light the skies adorn,
And more than midday glories grace the morn.
So shone the earth, as all the starry train,
Broad as full suns, had sail'd the ethereal plain;
When no distinguish'd orb could strike the sight,
But one clear blaze of all-surrounding light
O'erflow'd the vault of heaven. For now, in view
Remoter climes and future ages drew;
While deeds of happier fame, in long array,
Call'd into vision, fill the new-born day.
Far as the Angelic Power could lift the eye,
Or earth, or ocean bend the yielding sky;
Or circling suns awake the breathing gale,
Drake lead the way, or Cook extend the sail;
All lands, all seas, that boast a present name,
And all that unborn time shall give to fame,
Around the chief in fair expansion rise,
And earth's whole circuit bounds the level'd skies.
He saw the nations tread their different shores,
Ply their own toils and claim their local powers.
He mark'd what tribes still rove the savage waste,
What happier realms the sweets of plenty taste;
Where arts and virtues fix their golden reign,
Or peace adorns, or slaughter dyes the plain.
He saw the restless Tartar, proud to roam,
Move with his herds, and spread his transient home;
Thro' the vast tracts of China's fixt domain,
The sons of dull contentment plough the plain;
The gloomy Turk ascends the blood-stain'd car,
And Russian banners shade the plains of war;
Brazilia's wilds and Afric's burning sands
With bickering strife inflame the furious bands;
On blest Atlantic isles, and Europe's shores,
Proud wealth and commerce heap their growing stores,
While his own western world, in prospect fair,
Calms her brave sons, now breathing from the war,
Unfolds her harbours, spreads the genial soil,
And welcomes freemen to the cheerful toil.
When thus the Power. In this extended view,
Behold the paths thy changing race pursue.
See, thro' the whole, the same progressive plan,
That draws, for mutual succour, man to man,
From friends to tribes, from tribes to realms ascend,
Their powers, their interests and their passions blend;
Adorn their manners, social virtues spread,
Enlarge their compacts and extend their trade;

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poem by Joel Barlow
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From Womb To Grave

Arctic terns
Born in the ice-cradle
Never see an abode
In the Arctic
Arctic terns
Travel only to find
The summers and day
Not the winter chill and darkness
Arctic terns
A bird destined to travel
And to seek the apple orchards
To nest, breed and leave
To fly to the flowering summer
Of the west, the banks of Volga's
To meet the cranes of Siberia
And to flock and flee
To the unknown
And the unfamiliar
With no concern
Over how to seek
A branch to nest
Nor did Arctic terns
Care to quench the thirst
To fill the belly.
Arctic terns
Live as lord Jesus told
To live with no concern
For the uncertain tomorrow.
Arctic terns
Live only under sun
Not under the moon
And not under thick dark
They travel with no stop
Just not to miss the day light
And wish to live and die
In flowery summer
And the beaming sun
Not so scorching
But smooth and soothing
And they spend the span
On migrating
From continent to continent
Until the curtain
Is lowered and they leave!

poem by Vadakkumpurath Ramesan
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Magpie, My Keeper, Is Flying - Upon Freeing the Gift of Creativity Turned Inward

.
for Elaine Bellezza, Beloved Anima-as-Fate

'There is only one real deprivation, I decided this morning, and that is not to be able to give one's gift to those one loves most...The gift turned inward, unable to be given, becomes a heavy burden, even sometimes a kind of poison. It is as though the flow of life were backed up.' - May Sarton, Journal of a Solitude

This afternoon while still somewhat hungover from last night's rich meal and several glasses of strong red wine, I stumbled as one does when hungover, only today without feet but with eyes, upon the above quote by May Sarton. I had awakened this morning with fragments of a dream, repetitive of other dreams the past few months, where I am carrying something precious and just cannot put it down in any old place or upon just any available surface. I cannot put it down until I find the right surface and location.

These dreams are full of torrential flood waters, or backed up, stagnant water, toilets full of filth and pungent bright orange dark urine days old and fermenting. I cannot unhand the burden even though the urge to pee or flee or drive a car away or into flood waters is strong. I must not put down the burden odd as it is; it is my laptop carrying case made of canvas. It is large enough to carry not only my laptop but also many books with which I cannot, will not be parted from as they are the must-have-with-me-always 'bread', my staple and stability in a given to me world out of balance.

I have understood the dreams only a little - something within the psyche is flooding up, over-spilling or has already, has not been adequately canalized, channeled, streamed and guided, shaped and formed. Or flushed. I knew that eventually, as dreams do when one sits consciously, patiently, persistently with them, they would yield their messages to me, and upon revelation these must be obeyed, brought out into the world, Carl Jung having said that one has a moral responsibility to dreams once they are kenned and must be conscientiously acted upon in the outer world. Just dreaming is not enough. Everyone dreams but not very many know to dream them out into the world, to let their messages unfurl, flood and flow to bring forth new consciousness, to reshape old forms no longer adequate to self, place and time into symbol and their sense, usually not literal.

And thus, only just now, upon opening up haphazardly in a book about Dostoevsky and his struggle with addictions which mirror the profound compulsion to create at any cost perhaps beyond one's capacities to renew oneself, I find May Sarton's quote and suddenly the dreams clarify and sharpen into focus; I understand them as the burden of creativity too long turned inward, the burden of writing, the burden of poetry which I have carried heavily for most of my life since middle school when I was 11 or 12 years old when books became my lifeline, my link to existence that I could live on in spite of not wanting to do so. Written words, books, kept me from disappearing though I was and remain a mostly invisible word.

And thus the floods. One cannot ignore them. Alphabets tumble and roil. One dare not ignore them. One must see them without a choice to not see them. In them I am suddenly made visible, bright orange p*ss pots and all. I am both appalled and pleased. My burden is upon my knees.

The backed up water, the urine, is creativity. A somewhat odd symbol of creativity, there is more than enough evidence that urination is symbolic of self expression which is creativity. In ancient Rome the highly valued dirt from the urinals of boys' schools was collected to be used as a cosmetic in order to restore youthful energy and looks. A young boy, or puer in Latin, is an archetypal symbol of ongoing creativity and inspiration, the puer aeternas, the eternal youth, well springs of ongoing creativity still imaged in solid fountains of the world where eternal waters flow from the peni of cherubic youth.

I have struggled my entire life with a strong urge to create, to write, to express in words that creative daemon within which torments no matter the completion of a poem or essay, a lecture, a psalm. And now my dreams have had me consciously, urgently seeking a place to put the burden down, to perhaps come to it anew. I imagine that landing the burden means bringing it down to earth, manifesting creativity all the more by bringing my efforts to others for the strongest part of the compulsive urge in my creativity has been to contribute one good thing, one good poem or piece of writing which in some way might further the culture even if only by a flea's leg length.

The dreams urge me to let the urine flow, to let the flood waters indeed flood over, to be less self conscious of what I write and say but to have at it all and to say my say. And to let whatever waves there are crest and break upon ever receptive banks and shores whose duty it is to allow what may come from motion without complaint, the more compliant toward as yet to be fully formed purposes as yet to be scored.

Synchronistically, a few days ago I listened to a lecture by poet Allen Ginsberg about Walt Whitman and his imitators, those who were goodly influenced by his effulgent, self indulgent style, his garrulous poems which presumed to express the very expansiveness of the North American continent over-flooded by a plague of itinerant, persistent poachers and prophets from Europe to Eastern disembarkation and then inland and Westward, compelled to overtake land and native peoples in their possessed, pushed wake. Ginsberg imagined himself to be a timely extension of this unruly school, as savage as the projected upon land and justly-resistant, resident humanity stretched beyond known bounds and sounds. Blood drowned and pounded the god-hounded land even now is flooded by unleashed mighty rivers seeking, if rivers seek at all, to undo and renew in horse shoe and other shapes the crimes of consciousness compelled to overtake while leaving it up to human souls to repent and repair, to prepare for more powerful insurgencies of land and Self ever seeking new and nower expressions of dirt and deity. There's enough history beneath layers to support the scarp and scrape of momentary yet monumental motions finally given mouths to utter what lies both beneath and within the heaping huzzahs of here here here full and deep. As in my dream, it is hard to steer in such surpassing tides and currents. Still, I am searching for holy campground that I may lay my burden down.

I have no wish to imitate Whitman nor Ginsberg - though both are easily imitated since they did so themselves, an occupational hazard for writers - but only to be obedient to the daemon, that urgent, emergent, creative force within. It rushes within and against me. No matter whether derived of the grandiose American continent and the even more grandiose sky or not, I have all too successfully braced against it in fear of failure, reprisal or, worse, complete indifference from others. My dreams now urge floods and resultant coagulations, they bring creative splurges to ground from hand to the hard world. And Nature, too, is indifferent but begs none the less and all the more to be given utterance and response.

Respondeo ergo sum. I respond, therefore I am. I respond, therefore the other, earth, all her ants, is as long as there are eyes, ears, and scanning minds to acknowledge and touch, wrestle, caress, shape - some in scansions - outer from inner, inner from outer, landscapes to be all too quickly discarded in time for what is sung just ahead. And seen. Or hoped, all praise to telescopes. We would be they, so addicted to horizons, to bring them close.

Something there is needs completion via coagulation, forming, shaping, and sharing with whomever may be open to clods delivered. If not, rivers will, as they will without reason, continue to overrun their banks and insist upon covering designated previous cultivations. Let then excess of creativity have its say, play out, and leave the critical post-considerations to others. I will surely sit and ponder spent what spills forth, to shape, to edit, to discard. And watch my little yard sink beneath needed and needy floods.

I will have done with deprivation and bring myself, what I have shaped and misshapen, to the world. These things, this burden, have I most loved and felt responsible for, have born the shame of. I have fought and have failed utterly again and again though my attempts have been, and still are, sincere though not blameless. Fear has been my encampment, a longing beneath knowing feet in secret cellars just beyond reach of contracted hands forever spelling hunger. I know open bastion doors and windows to now fling beyond embankments what has been wrung out of my floes and woes though hands wither from too much turning against and inward. What a relief to burst beyond boundaries too long successfully restraining.

I recently wrote a poem about much too too solid bastions of self, of forceful puer energy ramming through and over and into long buried storms and petrified forms, of passion mangling the delusion of 'norms' ignoring too sensitive alarms. Given May Sarton's May revelation this morning I now understand that the poem is about more than eros, it is about that powerful creative/destructive force, the daemon/tyro that ever urges outward intent on making and staking Self in new land and at least one aging man wrenched and rendered from dried and calcified encrustations. I am, to borrow from the insistent dream image, beginning to leak. And to break open.

Archeology - What The Stele Says 'Upon Taking A Much Younger Lover'

That this old ground yields to plow stuns.
What begins to be, earth swell, breaks
root-room open to blood means.

Old skeins tear upon what is new terrain,
hunger worn, long appended. There is
no blame for pain is the blessing.

All hurt now stings twilight quaked into being.
Your breath falls upon me now, taut, sinew,
bruising hand, purple inside flares warrior nerves

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poem by Warren Falcon
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IX. Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus

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

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

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Wanderer: A Vision: Canto V

We left the cave. Be Fear (said I) defy'd!
Virtue (for thou art Virtue) is my guide.

By time-worn steps a steep ascent we gain,
Whose summit yields a prospect o'er the plain.
There, bench'd with turf, an oak our seat extends,
Whose top, a verdant, branch'd pavilion bends.
Vistas, with leaves, diversify the scene,
Some pale, some brown, and some of lively green.

Now, from the full-grown day a beamy show'r
Gleams on the lake, and gilds each glossy flow'r.
Gay insects sparkle in the genial blaze,
Various as light, and countless as its rays:
They dance on every stream, and pictur'd play,
'Till, by the wat'ry racer, snatch'd away.

Now, from yon range of rocks, strong rays rebound,
Doubling the day on flow'ry plains around:
King-cups beneath far-striking colours glance,
Bright as th' etherial glows the green expanse.
Gems of the field!-the topaz charms the sight,
Like these, effulging yellow streams of light.
From the same rocks, fall rills with soften'd force,
Meet in yon mead, and well a river's source.
Thro' her clear channel, shine her finny shoals,
O'er sands, like gold, the liquid crystal rolls.
Dimm'd in yon coarser moor, her charms decay,
And shape, thro' rustling reeds, a ruffled way.
Near willows short and bushy shadows throw:
Now lost, she seems thro' nether tracts to flow;
Yet, at yon point, winds out in silver state,
Like Virtue from a labyrinth of fate.
In length'ning rows, prone from the mountains, run
The flocks:-their fleeces glist'ning in the sun;
Her streams they seek, and, 'twixt her neighb'ring trees,
Recline in various attitudes of ease.
Where the herds sip, the little scaly fry,
Swift from the shore, in scatt'ring myriads fly.

Each liv'ry'd cloud, that round th' horizon glows,
Shifts in odd scenes, like earth, from whence it rose.
The bee hums wanton in yon jasmine bow'r,
And circling settles, and despoils the flow'r.
Melodious there the plumy songsters meet,
And call charm'd Echo from her arch'd retreat.

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poem by Richard Savage
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