The least pain in our little finger gives us more concern and uneasiness than the destruction of millions of our fellow-beings.
quote by William Hazlitt
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Related quotes
Quintetto
[To the tune of "Turning, turning, turning, as wheel goes round."]
RECITATIVE. MR. PAPERSTAMP:
Jack Horner's CHRISTMAS PIE my learned nurse
Interpreted to mean the public purse.
From thence a plum he drew. O happy Horner!
Who would not be ensconced in thy snug corner
THE FIVE:
While round the public board all eagerly we linger,
for what we can get we will try, try, try:
And we'll all have a finger, a finger, a finger,
We'll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
MR. FEATHERNEST:
By my own poetic laws, I'm a dealer in applause
For those who don't deserve it, but will buy, buy
So round the court I linger, and thus I get a finget
A finger, finger, finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
THE FIVE:
And we'll all have a finger, a finger, a finger,
We'll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
MR. VAMP:
My share of pie to win, I will dash through thick and thin
And philosophy and liberty shall fly, fly, fly:
And truth and taste shall know, that their eve Iasting foe
Has a finger, finger, finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
THE FIVE:
And we'll all have a finger, a finger, a finger,
We'll all have a finger in the CHRISTMAS PIE.
MR. KILLTHEDEAD:
I'll make my verses rattle with the din of war and battle,
[...] Read more
poem by Thomas Love Peacock
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September on Jessore Road
Millions of babies watching the skies
Bellies swollen, with big round eyes
On Jessore Road--long bamboo huts
Noplace to shit but sand channel ruts
Millions of fathers in rain
Millions of mothers in pain
Millions of brothers in woe
Millions of sisters nowhere to go
One Million aunts are dying for bread
One Million uncles lamenting the dead
Grandfather millions homeless and sad
Grandmother millions silently mad
Millions of daughters walk in the mud
Millions of children wash in the flood
A Million girls vomit & groan
Millions of families hopeless alone
Millions of souls nineteenseventyone
homeless on Jessore road under grey sun
A million are dead, the million who can
Walk toward Calcutta from East Pakistan
Taxi September along Jessore Road
Oxcart skeletons drag charcoal load
past watery fields thru rain flood ruts
Dung cakes on treetrunks, plastic-roof huts
Wet processions Families walk
Stunted boys big heads don't talk
Look bony skulls & silent round eyes
Starving black angels in human disguise
Mother squats weeping & points to her sons
Standing thin legged like elderly nuns
small bodied hands to their mouths in prayer
Five months small food since they settled there
on one floor mat with small empty pot
Father lifts up his hands at their lot
Tears come to their mother's eye
Pain makes mother Maya cry
Two children together in palmroof shade
Stare at me no word is said
Rice ration, lentils one time a week
Milk powder for warweary infants meek
[...] Read more
poem by Allen Ginsberg
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It's Summer and The People Choose to Feel Loose
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Until the people say they've had quite enough.
Just keep it up and finger poppin'.
Turn the heat up and let them burn the rug.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Don't stop the beat,
When the feet cranks up the fever.
It's Summer and the people choose to feel loose.
With flavor tasted to shake loose a caboose.
And groping sweaty bodies with whomever they choose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Until the people say they've had quite enough.
Just keep it up and finger poppin'.
It's Summer and the people choose to feel loose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
With flavor tasted to shake loose a caboose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Don't stop the beat,
When the feet cranks up the fever.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Do not stop it when it's rockin'.
It's Summer and the people choose to feel loose.
With flavor tasted to shake loose a caboose.
And groping sweaty bodies with whomever they choose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
It's Summer and the people choose to feel loose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
It's Summer and the people choose to feel loose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
It's Summer and the people choose to feel loose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
It's Summer and the people choose to feel loose.
Keep it up and finger poppin'.
Do not stop it when it's rockin'.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Ordinary Pain
When by the phone
In vain you sit
You very soon in your mind realize that its not just
An ordinary pain in your heart
When you by chance
Go knock on her door
Walkin away youre convinced that its much more
Than just an ordinary pain in your heart
Its more than just
An ordinary pain in your heart
When you catch up
But she says goodbye
Hold back your tears and before you start to cry
Say you feel unnecessary pain in your heart
Tell her youre glad
Its over in fact
Can she take with her the pain she brought you back
Takin that ordinary pain from your heart
Its more than just
An ordinary pain from your heart
Dont fool yourself
But tell no one else
That its more than just
An ordinary pain
In your heart
In your heart
In your heart
Part ii
Youre just a masachistic fool
Because you knew my love was cruel
You never listened when they said
Dont let that girl go to your head
But like a play boy you said no
Or*di*nary pain
This little girl mind you will blow
Or*di*nary pain
But then I blew you out the box
Or*di*nary pain
When I put my stuff on key and lock
Or*di*nary pain
It makes me feel kind of sick
Or*di*nary pain
To know love put you in a trick
Or*di*nary pain
I knew our love would have to end
Or*di*nary pain
The day I made it with your friend
Or*di*nary pain
Giving your love to one unreal
Or*di*nary pain
[...] Read more
song performed by Stevie Wonder
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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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Weapons of Mass Destruction
The Holy Roman Empire and Alexander The Great
Exterminate the globe, with extreme prejudice,
A Weapon of Mass Destruction
The European Inquisition, A Weapon of Mass Destruction
The Holy Christian Crusades, A Weapon of Mass Destruction
The Manifest Destiny and land expansion, A Weapon of Mass Destruction
Globalization and commercialization of the many rain forests,
A Weapon of Mass Destruction
Comprehensive sanctions is economic violence,
A Weapon of Mass Destruction
The procreation of religion and God, A Weapon of Mass Destruction
Democratizing the whole world, A Weapon of Mass Destruction
The extermination of The Iroquois Confederation, A Weapon of Mass Destruction
World domination the salvation of, A Weapon of Mass Destruction
War, is the greatest Weapon of Mass Destruction
The justification for annihilation of, The Constitution
The constitution of retribution, the absolution of, A Weapon of Mass Destruction.
poem by Josephine DixonBanks
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Tibetan Prayer
'om mani padme hung,
om mani padme hung...'
may all beings be freed from suffering.
may all beings breathe as one.
may all beings live in peace.
may all beings learn to give.
may all beings walk in unity.
may all beings walk in forgiveness.
may all beings lay down their weapons.
may all beings be fed and have shelter.
may all beings know they are loved.
may all beings join hands.
may all beings live in awareness.
may all beings be freed from suffering.
'om mani padme hung,
om mani padme hung...'
poem by Eric Cockrell
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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
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Millions of water drops
drops of water
millions of drops
Falling down the rocks
Millions of water drops
Glittering in the sun
Shining like pearls
Millions of water drops
Ending as a river
Finding way to ocean
Millions of water drops
Creating childrens happiness
Laughter and joyfullness
Millions of water drops
Soon will tide reach
White long shores
Millions of water drops
Animating Waves
into forming caves
Millions of water drops
splittering from above
till reaching top of the hill
Millions of water drops
Without them no sound
No whispers of the living
Millions of water drops
Watch the clearness
From crest to earth
Millions of water drops
For tribe’s best
Beware of waste
Millions of water drops
Treasured should they be
As belonging to all humanity
(march 2008, Switzerland)
poem by Morhardt Carmen Mencita Monoi Angel
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Neuromancer
Age of destruction
Age of oblivion
Age of destruction
Age of oblivion
Discovered love,
In the rancid days of ruin
My bodys sweatin toxins,
Of my own demise
Only from space, can you see
How much earth is burning
Smokin out the innocense inside
The child
Its the age of destruction
In a world of corruption
Its the age of destruction
And they hand us oblivion
Neuromancer and Im trancing
Im the neuromancer--and Im trancing
Man wallows in his insatiable greed
More in the answer that sweats
From desparate palms
Turn on the lies, the secrets,
Of our desolation,
Or be smothered, by the red hot core
Its the age of destruction,
In a world of corruption
Its the age of destruction
And they hand us oblivion
The neuromancer and Im trancing
Im the neuromancer and Im trancing
Im the neuromancer--Im trancing
Trancing
Trancing
And Im trancing
Denied love in the age of ruin
Suicide toxins of my own demise
In cyberspace, you know how much
The earth aint learning
Smoking out the man, inside the child--yeah
Its the age of destruction
In a world of corruption
Its the age of destruction
And they hand us oblivion
The neuromancer and Im trancing
Im the neuromancer and Im trancing
Neuromancer--trancing
Neuromancer--trancing
Neuromancer--trancing
Neuromancer
Age of destruction
[...] Read more
song performed by Billy Idol
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Canto the Eighth
I
Oh blood and thunder! and oh blood and wounds!
These are but vulgar oaths, as you may deem,
Too gentle reader! and most shocking sounds:
And so they are; yet thus is Glory's dream
Unriddled, and as my true Muse expounds
At present such things, since they are her theme,
So be they her inspirers! Call them Mars,
Bellona, what you will -- they mean but wars.
II
All was prepared -- the fire, the sword, the men
To wield them in their terrible array.
The army, like a lion from his den,
March'd forth with nerve and sinews bent to slay, --
A human Hydra, issuing from its fen
To breathe destruction on its winding way,
Whose heads were heroes, which cut off in vain
Immediately in others grew again.
III
History can only take things in the gross;
But could we know them in detail, perchance
In balancing the profit and the loss,
War's merit it by no means might enhance,
To waste so much gold for a little dross,
As hath been done, mere conquest to advance.
The drying up a single tear has more
Of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.
IV
And why? -- because it brings self-approbation;
Whereas the other, after all its glare,
Shouts, bridges, arches, pensions from a nation,
Which (it may be) has not much left to spare,
A higher title, or a loftier station,
Though they may make Corruption gape or stare,
Yet, in the end, except in Freedom's battles,
Are nothing but a child of Murder's rattles.
V
And such they are -- and such they will be found:
Not so Leonidas and Washington,
Whose every battle-field is holy ground,
Which breathes of nations saved, not worlds undone.
How sweetly on the ear such echoes sound!
While the mere victor's may appal or stun
The servile and the vain, such names will be
A watchword till the future shall be free.
[...] Read more
poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
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Paradise Lost: Book 02
High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth or Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence; and, from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with Heaven; and, by success untaught,
His proud imaginations thus displayed:--
"Powers and Dominions, Deities of Heaven!--
For, since no deep within her gulf can hold
Immortal vigour, though oppressed and fallen,
I give not Heaven for lost: from this descent
Celestial Virtues rising will appear
More glorious and more dread than from no fall,
And trust themselves to fear no second fate!--
Me though just right, and the fixed laws of Heaven,
Did first create your leader--next, free choice
With what besides in council or in fight
Hath been achieved of merit--yet this loss,
Thus far at least recovered, hath much more
Established in a safe, unenvied throne,
Yielded with full consent. The happier state
In Heaven, which follows dignity, might draw
Envy from each inferior; but who here
Will envy whom the highest place exposes
Foremost to stand against the Thunderer's aim
Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share
Of endless pain? Where there is, then, no good
For which to strive, no strife can grow up there
From faction: for none sure will claim in Hell
Precedence; none whose portion is so small
Of present pain that with ambitious mind
Will covet more! With this advantage, then,
To union, and firm faith, and firm accord,
More than can be in Heaven, we now return
To claim our just inheritance of old,
Surer to prosper than prosperity
Could have assured us; and by what best way,
Whether of open war or covert guile,
We now debate. Who can advise may speak."
He ceased; and next him Moloch, sceptred king,
Stood up--the strongest and the fiercest Spirit
That fought in Heaven, now fiercer by despair.
His trust was with th' Eternal to be deemed
Equal in strength, and rather than be less
Cared not to be at all; with that care lost
Went all his fear: of God, or Hell, or worse,
He recked not, and these words thereafter spake:--
[...] Read more
poem by John Milton
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Pain Pain by cedrick dennis
Pain Pain over here pain over there Pain in my heart pain in my soul Pain in my mind Pain in my skin pain in my bones Pain being caused left and right Pain being caused till the heart bleeds red Pain being caused till the skin and bone rip Pain being caused till you break into tears Pain at school Pain at home Pain in my head, pain in my heart Pain in my mind, pain in my soul Pain happening in my sleep Pain happening in my thoughts Pain happening when I’m alone Pain happening in the shower, in my room, in my bed, in my house where I’m all alone Pain happening every hour, every minute, every second of my life Pain caused by anger and hate Pain caused by hurt Pain caused by greed Pain caused by sorrow and depression Pain caused by grief and confusion Pain caused by your family and friends Pain caused by the world Pain caused by people you love Pain driving me crazy Causing me to take pills till it fills up my veins I go to sleep never to wake up and see that light The light that will end my pain for good
poem by Cedrick Dennis
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That Millions Do Live In Poverty
That millions do live in poverty should never be seen as okay
The gap between the haves and the have nots keeps getting bigger by the day
Everyone should have the chance to live happy a home to live in and enough for to eat
There never should be slums and ghettos and never a poverty street,
That millions are born to live in poverty and to end their hard lives in despair
Only tells us if there's a god that god favours the wealthy and that god is not very fair
To leave millions homeless and dying of malnutrition the people condemned to die poor and young
In the refugee camps of the World live the displaced, the poor and unsung,
In the age of celebrity worship the poor in millions multiply
Why millions are destined to be poor don't ask me I wouldn't know why
Even in the World's wealthiest Countries poor people are no longer rare
And millions and millions of have nots in the bigger World out there
And millions are dying of hunger and millions are doing it tough
And millions are displaced and homeless and as refugees living it rough.
poem by Francis Duggan
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VIII. Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator
Ah, my Giacinto, he's no ruddy rogue,
Is not Cinone? What, to-day we're eight?
Seven and one's eight, I hope, old curly-pate!
—Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,
Amo-as-avi-atum-are-ans,
Up to -aturus, person, tense, and mood,
Quies me cum subjunctivo (I could cry)
And chews Corderius with his morning crust!
Look eight years onward, and he's perched, he's perched
Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair,
Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?
—Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case
Like this, papa shall triturate full soon
To smooth Papinianian pulp!
It trots
Already through my head, though noon be now,
Does supper-time and what belongs to eve.
Dispose, O Don, o' the day, first work then play!
—The proverb bids. And "then" means, won't we hold
Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast,
Cinuolo's birth-night, Cinicello's own,
That makes gruff January grin perforce!
For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth
Escaping from so many hearts at once—
When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,
Jokes the hale grandsire,—such are just the sort
To go off suddenly,—he who hides the key
O' the box beneath his pillow every night,—
Which box may hold a parchment (someone thinks)
Will show a scribbled something like a name
"Cinino, Ciniccino," near the end,
"To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,
"Estates, tenements, hereditaments,
"When I decease as honest grandsire ought."
Wherefore—yet this one time again perhaps—
Shan't my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!
Then, uncles, one or the other, well i' the world,
May—drop in, merely?—trudge through rain and wind,
Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint
There's cookery in a certain dwelling-place!
Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,
Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,
And so find door, put galligaskin off
At entry of a decent domicile
Cornered in snug Condotti,—all for love,
All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!
Well,
Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp!
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Put The Finger On You
I put the finger on you
My hands all out of control
I cant stop it getting down on you
Its moving on its own accord
Yes, Ive got fire in my finger tips
Radiating onto you
I cant control it, cant even hold it
Its knocking on your door
And you know what its for
Chorus:
I put the finger right on you
I put the finger right on you
You put your finger on me too
Then I put the finger, I put the finger
Yeah I put the finger, I put the finger
I put the finger on you for sure
Its the key to unlocking your door, dont you know
Ive broken through your security
My hands aint tied no more, you better watch out
I cant control it, cant even hold it
Speaking up for pleasure
You can feel it on your ankle
Feel it on your knee
Feel it on your thigh
Can you feel me?
Chorus
I cant control it, cant even hold it
Sneaking up on your front door
You can feel it on your ankle
Feel it on your knee
Feel it on your thigh
Can you feel me?
Put it - right on you
Ill do it if you want me to
Can I put it?
I put the finger on you
I hit the spot
song performed by AC-DC
Added by Lucian Velea
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Love Is In Control
(finger on the trigger)
(Ive) hung around with big shots
Never knew love was in the sights
I guess I missed the target
Caught up in a different line of fire
But I know since Ive been aiming
For the sweetness in your soul
Your name is on the bullet
And its gettin ready to explode
Theres been a change inside my life
And I just wanna let you know
Ive got my finger on the trigger
Love is in control
Ive got my finger on the trigger
I aint lettin go
Bass line:
Baby, lets have some fun
A wont cha be my, my
Number one
Mama used to tell me
Girl, you better load your gun up right
She said ya, ya gotta come out smokin
Hit it with your best shot every time
Well I didnt understand her
til you walked right into range
I saw your love at twenty paces
And I new Id won the game
You better raise your heart up high
Or love will blow you right away
Ive got my finger on the trigger
Love is in control
Ive got my finger on the trigger
I aint lettin go
Ive got my finger on the trigger
Love is in control
Ive got my finger on the trigger
I aint lettin go
Leave off that safety catch
There aint no risk
Were gonna have some fun
Ive got cha, loves begun
So stay with me
Until the mornin sun
Youre superbullet number one
Bass line:
Baby, lets have some fun
A wont cha be my, my
Number one
Theres been a change inside
My life
[...] Read more
song performed by Donna Summer
Added by Lucian Velea
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Canto the Fourth
I
Nothing so difficult as a beginning
In poesy, unless perhaps the end;
For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning
The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend,
Like Lucifer when hurl'd from heaven for sinning;
Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend,
Being pride, which leads the mind to soar too far,
Till our own weakness shows us what we are.
II
But Time, which brings all beings to their level,
And sharp Adversity, will teach at last
Man, -- and, as we would hope, -- perhaps the devil,
That neither of their intellects are vast:
While youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel,
We know not this -- the blood flows on too fast;
But as the torrent widens towards the ocean,
We ponder deeply on each past emotion.
III
As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow,
And wish'd that others held the same opinion;
They took it up when my days grew more mellow,
And other minds acknowledged my dominion:
Now my sere fancy "falls into the yellow
Leaf," and Imagination droops her pinion,
And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk
Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.
IV
And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
'T is that I may not weep; and if I weep,
'T is that our nature cannot always bring
Itself to apathy, for we must steep
Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's spring,
Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep:
Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx;
A mortal mother would on Lethe fix.
V
Some have accused me of a strange design
Against the creed and morals of the land,
And trace it in this poem every line:
I don't pretend that I quite understand
My own meaning when I would be very fine;
But the fact is that I have nothing plann'd,
Unless it were to be a moment merry,
A novel word in my vocabulary.
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poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Don Juan: Canto The Fourth
Nothing so difficult as a beginning
In poesy, unless perhaps the end;
For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning
The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend,
Like Lucifer when hurl'd from heaven for sinning;
Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend,
Being pride, which leads the mind to soar too far,
Till our own weakness shows us what we are.
But Time, which brings all beings to their level,
And sharp Adversity, will teach at last
Man,- and, as we would hope,- perhaps the devil,
That neither of their intellects are vast:
While youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel,
We know not this- the blood flows on too fast;
But as the torrent widens towards the ocean,
We ponder deeply on each past emotion.
As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow,
And wish'd that others held the same opinion;
They took it up when my days grew more mellow,
And other minds acknowledged my dominion:
Now my sere fancy 'falls into the yellow
Leaf,' and Imagination droops her pinion,
And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk
Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.
And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
'T is that I may not weep; and if I weep,
'T is that our nature cannot always bring
Itself to apathy, for we must steep
Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's spring,
Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep:
Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx;
A mortal mother would on Lethe fix.
Some have accused me of a strange design
Against the creed and morals of the land,
And trace it in this poem every line:
I don't pretend that I quite understand
My own meaning when I would be very fine;
But the fact is that I have nothing plann'd,
Unless it were to be a moment merry,
A novel word in my vocabulary.
To the kind reader of our sober clime
This way of writing will appear exotic;
Pulci was sire of the half-serious rhyme,
Who sang when chivalry was more Quixotic,
And revell'd in the fancies of the time,
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Canto the Second
I
Oh ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,
It mends their morals, never mind the pain:
The best of mothers and of educations
In Juan's case were but employ'd in vain,
Since, in a way that's rather of the oddest, he
Became divested of his native modesty.
II
Had he but been placed at a public school,
In the third form, or even in the fourth,
His daily task had kept his fancy cool,
At least, had he been nurtured in the north;
Spain may prove an exception to the rule,
But then exceptions always prove its worth -—
A lad of sixteen causing a divorce
Puzzled his tutors very much, of course.
III
I can't say that it puzzles me at all,
If all things be consider'd: first, there was
His lady-mother, mathematical,
A—never mind; his tutor, an old ass;
A pretty woman (that's quite natural,
Or else the thing had hardly come to pass);
A husband rather old, not much in unity
With his young wife—a time, and opportunity.
IV
Well—well, the world must turn upon its axis,
And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails,
And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails;
The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us,
The priest instructs, and so our life exhales,
A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame,
Fighting, devotion, dust,—perhaps a name.
V
I said that Juan had been sent to Cadiz -—
A pretty town, I recollect it well -—
'T is there the mart of the colonial trade is
(Or was, before Peru learn'd to rebel),
And such sweet girls—I mean, such graceful ladies,
Their very walk would make your bosom swell;
I can't describe it, though so much it strike,
Nor liken it—I never saw the like:
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poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!