The greater the ignorance the greater the dogmatism.
quote by William Osler
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Plain Truth and Blind Ignorance
Truth
'God speed you, ancient father,
And give you a good daye;
What is the cause, I praye you,
So sadly here you staye?
And that you keep such gazing
On this decayed place,
The which, for superstition,
Good princes down did raze?'
Ignorance
'Chill tell thee, by my vazen,
That zometimes che have knowne
A vair and goodly abbey
Stand here of bricke and stone;
And many a holy vrier,
As ich may say to thee,
Within these goodly cloysters
Che did full often zee.'
Truth.
'Then I must tell thee, father,
In truthe and veritie,
A sorte of greater hypocrites
Thou couldst not likely see;
Deceiving of the simple
With false and feigned lies:
But such an order truly
Christ never did devise.'
Ignorance.
'Ah! ah! che zmell the enow, man;
Che know well what thou art;
A vellow of mean learning,
Thee was not worth a vart;
Vor when we had the old lawe,
A merry world was then,
And every thing was plenty
Among all zorts of men.'
Truth.
'Thou givest me an answer,
As did the Jewes sometimes
Unto the prophet Jeremye,
When he accus'd their crimes:
' 'Twas mercy,' sayd the people,
'And joyfull in our rea'me,
When we did offer spice-cakes
Unto the queen of hea'n.''
[...] Read more
poem by Anonymous Olde English
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The Interpretation of Nature and
I.
MAN, being the servant and interpreter of Nature, can do and understand so much and so much only as he has observed in fact or in thought of the course of nature: beyond this he neither knows anything nor can do anything.
II.
Neither the naked hand nor the understanding left to itself can effect much. It is by instruments and helps that the work is done, which are as much wanted for the understanding as for the hand. And as the instruments of the hand either give motion or guide it, so the instruments of the mind supply either suggestions for the understanding or cautions.
III.
Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.
IV.
Towards the effecting of works, all that man can do is to put together or put asunder natural bodies. The rest is done by nature working within.
V.
The study of nature with a view to works is engaged in by the mechanic, the mathematician, the physician, the alchemist, and the magician; but by all (as things now are) with slight endeavour and scanty success.
VI.
It would be an unsound fancy and self-contradictory to expect that things which have never yet been done can be done except by means which have never yet been tried.
VII.
The productions of the mind and hand seem very numerous in books and manufactures. But all this variety lies in an exquisite subtlety and derivations from a few things already known; not in the number of axioms.
VIII.
Moreover the works already known are due to chance and experiment rather than to sciences; for the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented; not methods of invention or directions for new works.
IX.
The cause and root of nearly all evils in the sciences is this -- that while we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind we neglect to seek for its true helps.
X.
The subtlety of nature is greater many times over than the subtlety of the senses and understanding; so that all those specious meditations, speculations, and glosses in which men indulge are quite from the purpose, only there is no one by to observe it.
XI.
As the sciences which we now have do not help us in finding out new works, so neither does the logic which we now have help us in finding out new sciences.
XII.
The logic now in use serves rather to fix and give stability to the errors which have their foundation in commonly received notions than to help the search after truth. So it does more harm than good.
XIII.
[...] Read more
poem by Sir Francis Bacon
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Gotham - Book III
Can the fond mother from herself depart?
Can she forget the darling of her heart,
The little darling whom she bore and bred,
Nursed on her knees, and at her bosom fed;
To whom she seem'd her every thought to give,
And in whose life alone she seem'd to live?
Yes, from herself the mother may depart,
She may forget the darling of her heart,
The little darling whom she bore and bred,
Nursed on her knees, and at her bosom fed,
To whom she seem'd her every thought to give,
And in whose life alone she seem'd to live;
But I cannot forget, whilst life remains,
And pours her current through these swelling veins,
Whilst Memory offers up at Reason's shrine;
But I cannot forget that Gotham's mine.
Can the stern mother, than the brutes more wild,
From her disnatured breast tear her young child,
Flesh of her flesh, and of her bone the bone,
And dash the smiling babe against a stone?
Yes, the stern mother, than the brutes more wild,
From her disnatured breast may tear her child,
Flesh of her flesh, and of her bone the bone,
And dash the smiling babe against a stone;
But I, (forbid it, Heaven!) but I can ne'er
The love of Gotham from this bosom tear;
Can ne'er so far true royalty pervert
From its fair course, to do my people hurt.
With how much ease, with how much confidence--
As if, superior to each grosser sense,
Reason had only, in full power array'd,
To manifest her will, and be obey'd--
Men make resolves, and pass into decrees
The motions of the mind! with how much ease,
In such resolves, doth passion make a flaw,
And bring to nothing what was raised to law!
In empire young, scarce warm on Gotham's throne,
The dangers and the sweets of power unknown,
Pleased, though I scarce know why, like some young child,
Whose little senses each new toy turns wild,
How do I hold sweet dalliance with my crown,
And wanton with dominion, how lay down,
Without the sanction of a precedent,
Rules of most large and absolute extent;
Rules, which from sense of public virtue spring,
And all at once commence a Patriot King!
But, for the day of trial is at hand,
And the whole fortunes of a mighty land
Are staked on me, and all their weal or woe
Must from my good or evil conduct flow,
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Churchill
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No Greater Love
The angels can sing, but they don't know it all.
Heaven may have, streets made of gold,
But they don't have you like I have you to hold.
And like a prayer, you're everywhere!
That's how I know there's
No greater love!
When it's just you and me
That's how it's meant to be, and I know
There's no greater love!
We'll always be together,
On both sides of forever, I know
There's no greater love!
Ohhh Oh Oh
The touch of your fingers, on my skin,
I want to lay down beside you again.
The taste of your lips, pressed against mine,
Lost in this moment, way beyond time.
And like a prayer, you're everywhere!
That's how I know there's
No greater love!
When it's just you and me,
That's how it's meant to be, and I know
There's no greater love!
We'll always be together,
On both sides of forever I know
There's no greater love!
I would lay down my life for you,
And you would do the same for me,
I know it's true.
With every breath I breathe,
Baby, I believe,
There's no greater love!
When it's just you and me,
That's how it's meant to be and I know
There's no greater love!
We'll always be together,
On both sides of forever, I know
There's no greater love!
No greater love.
song performed by Lonestar
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The Teares of the Muses
Rehearse to me ye sacred Sisters nine:
The golden brood of great Apolloes wit,
Those piteous plaints and sorrowful sad tine,
Which late ye powred forth as ye did sit
Beside the siluer Springs of Helicone,
Making your musick of hart-breaking mone.
For since the time that Phoebus foolish sonne
Ythundered through Ioues auengefull wrath,
For trauersing the charret of the Sunne
Beyond the compasse of his pointed path,
Of you his mournfull Sisters was lamented,
Such mournfull tunes were neuer since inuented.
Nor since that faire Calliope did lose
Her loued Twinnes, the dearlings of her ioy,
Her Palici, whom her vnkindly foes
The fatall Sisters, did for spight destroy,
Whom all the Muses did bewaile long space;
Was euer heard such wayling in this place.
For all their groues, which with the heauenly noyses,
Of their sweete instruments were wont to sound,
And th' hollow hills, from which their siluer voyces
Were wont redoubled Echoes to rebound,
Did now rebound with nought but rufull cries,
And yelling shrieks throwne vp into the skies.
The trembling streames, which wont in chanels cleare
To romble gently downe with murmur soft,
And were by them right tunefull taught to beare
A Bases part amongst their consorts oft;
Now forst to ouerflowe with brackish teares,
With troublous noyse did dull their daintie eares.
The ioyous Nymphes and lightfoote Faeries
Which thether came to heare their musick sweet,
And to the measure of their melodies
Did learne to moue their nimble shifting feete;
Now hearing them so heauily lament,
Like heauily lamenting from them went.
And all that els was wont to worke delight
Through the diuine infusion of their skill,
And all that els seemd faire and fresh in sight,
So made by nature for to serue their will,
Was turned now to dismall heauinesse,
Was turned now to dreadfull vglinesse.
Ay me, what thing on earth that all thing breeds,
Might be the cause of so impatient plight?
[...] Read more
poem by Edmund Spenser
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Holding On With Wishes To Experience This
Altrhough...
They're slipping with a gripping,
To a bottomless pit.
With an ignorance addicted unresisted.
And,
Holding on and wishing to experience it...
Are the ones who practice posing,
In a darkened abyss.
With a proving that an ignorance for them is bliss.
The people of today...
Are crazed with beliefs.
And refusing to release,
All delusions they've been feeding.
The people of today...
Are crazed with beliefs,
That the only life to live,
Is the one of deceit.
Holding on with wishes to experience this,
Darkened abyss...
With a proving that an ignorance for them is bliss.
Holding on with wishes to experience this,
Darkened abyss...
With a proving that an ignorance for them is bliss.
The people of today...
Are crazed with beliefs.
And refusing to release,
All delusions they've been feeding.
The people of today...
Are crazed with beliefs,
That the only life to live,
Is the one of deceit.
Holding on with wishes to experience this,
Darkened abyss...
With a proving that an ignorance for them is bliss.
They keep on holding onto to wishes to experience this,
Darkened abyss...
With a proving that an ignorance for them is bliss.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Intelligence We Serve
Repercussions will come rushing,
To repay for our own actions.
To react as if it doesn't,
Is that ignorance we lust.
Repercussions will come rushing,
To repay for our own actions.
To react as if it doesn't,
Is that ignorance we lust.
To believe we live for nothing,
Without 'something' that is near.
Knowing everything we do.
And,
IT hears.
Is the ignorance existing in us,
That separates the Universe.
When we are a part of IT...
But thinking the reverse.
We are the mix,
Not the bowl...
In a hold that grows.
And whipped up like ingredients,
To serve a great intelligence.
We are that mix,
Not the bowl...
In a hold that grows.
And whipped up like ingredients,
To serve a great intelligence.
Repercussions will come rushing,
To repay for our own actions.
To react as if it doesn't,
Is that ignorance we lust.
Repercussions will come rushing,
To repay for our own actions.
When we wake up to see this...
Conflicts we'll quit!
Whipped up like ingredients,
To serve a great intelligence.
We are not the bowl,
Just stirred in the mix.
Repercussions will come rushing,
As we're stirred up in this mix.
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Farewell XXVIII
And now it was evening.
And Almitra the seeress said, "Blessed be this day and this place and your spirit that has spoken."
And he answered, Was it I who spoke? Was I not also a listener?
Then he descended the steps of the Temple and all the people followed him. And he reached his ship and stood upon the deck.
And facing the people again, he raised his voice and said:
People of Orphalese, the wind bids me leave you.
Less hasty am I than the wind, yet I must go.
We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.
Even while the earth sleeps we travel.
We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered.
Brief were my days among you, and briefer still the words I have spoken.
But should my voice fade in your ears, and my love vanish in your memory, then I will come again,
And with a richer heart and lips more yielding to the spirit will I speak.
Yea, I shall return with the tide,
And though death may hide me, and the greater silence enfold me, yet again will I seek your understanding.
And not in vain will I seek.
If aught I have said is truth, that truth shall reveal itself in a clearer voice, and in words more kin to your thoughts.
I go with the wind, people of Orphalese, but not down into emptiness;
And if this day is not a fulfillment of your needs and my love, then let it be a promise till another day. Know therefore, that from the greater silence I shall return.
The mist that drifts away at dawn, leaving but dew in the fields, shall rise and gather into a cloud and then fall down in rain.
And not unlike the mist have I been.
In the stillness of the night I have walked in your streets, and my spirit has entered your houses,
And your heart-beats were in my heart, and your breath was upon my face, and I knew you all.
Ay, I knew your joy and your pain, and in your sleep your dreams were my dreams.
And oftentimes I was among you a lake among the mountains.
[...] Read more
poem by Khalil Gibran
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Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.
quote by Bertrand Russell
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Idealism, alas, does not protect one from ignorance, dogmatism, and foolishness.
quote by Sidney Hook
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Ignorance
Ignorance is a dreadful enemy
A malady like psychosis
An ailment with scary prognosis
A disease every human must avoid
Ignorance is lunacy
It is a disease of the brain
Holding the mind captive
Blinding its subject from the truth,
Jaundicing the views of its client
Ignorance is an albatross
Brain behind poor decision making
Culprit for derisorily defective reasoning
Rendering its host a nuisance
A liability in useful debates and discussions
From ignorance we must be free.
Ignorance we must strive to banish
To enable us to be accomplished,
Partakers in discussions,
And assets to finding solutions.
poem by Emmanuel Oduro
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A Poet's Voice XV
Part One
The power of charity sows deep in my heart, and I reap and gather the wheat in bundles and give them to the hungry.
My soul gives life to the grapevine and I press its bunches and give the juice to the thirsty.
Heaven fills my lamp with oil and I place it at my window to direct the stranger through the dark.
I do all these things because I live in them; and if destiny should tie my hands and prevent me from so doing, then death would be my only desire. For I am a poet, and if I cannot give, I shall refuse to receive.
Humanity rages like a tempest, but I sigh in silence for I know the storm must pass away while a sigh goes to God.
Human kinds cling to earthly things, but I seek ever to embrace the torch of love so it will purify me by its fire and sear inhumanity from my heart.
Substantial things deaden a man without suffering; love awakens him with enlivening pains.
Humans are divided into different clans and tribes, and belong to countries and towns. But I find myself a stranger to all communities and belong to no settlement. The universe is my country and the human family is my tribe.
Men are weak, and it is sad that they divide amongst themselves. The world is narrow and it is unwise to cleave it into kingdoms, empires, and provinces.
Human kinds unite themselves one to destroy the temples of the soul, and they join hands to build edifices for earthly bodies. I stand alone listening to the voice of hope in my deep self saying, "As love enlivens a man's heart with pain, so ignorance teaches him the way of knowledge." Pain and ignorance lead to great joy and knowledge because the Supreme Being has created nothing vain under the sun.
Part Two
I have a yearning for my beautiful country, and I love its people because of their misery. But if my people rose, stimulated by plunder and motivated by what they call "patriotic spirit" to murder, and invaded my neighbor's country, then upon the committing of any human atrocity I would hate my people and my country.
I sing the praise of my birthplace and long to see the home of my children; but if the people in that home refused to shelter and feed the needy wayfarer, I would convert my praise into anger and my longing to forgetfulness. My inner voice would say, "The house that does not comfort the need is worthy of naught by destruction."
I love my native village with some of my love for my country; and I love my country with part of my love for the earth, all of which is my country; and I love the earth will all of myself because it is the haven of humanity, the manifest spirit of God.
Humanity is the spirit of the Supreme Being on earth, and that humanity is standing amidst ruins, hiding its nakedness behind tattered rags, shedding tears upon hollow cheeks, and calling for its children with pitiful voice. But the children are busy singing their clan's anthem; they are busy sharpening the swords and cannot hear the cry of their mothers.
Humanity appeals to its people but they listen not. Were one to listen, and console a mother by wiping her tears, other would say, "He is weak, affected by sentiment."
Humanity is the spirit of the Supreme Being on earth, and that Supreme Being preaches love and good-will. But the people ridicule such teachings. The Nazarene Jesus listened, and crucifixion was his lot; Socrates heard the voice and followed it, and he too fell victim in body. The followers of The Nazarene and Socrates are the followers of Deity, and since people will not kill them, they deride them, saying, "Ridicule is more bitter than killing."
Jerusalem could not kill The Nazarene, nor Athens Socrates; they are living yet and shall live eternally. Ridicule cannot triumph over the followers of Deity. They live and grow forever.
Part Three
Thou art my brother because you are a human, and we both are sons of one Holy Spirit; we are equal and made of the same earth.
You are here as my companion along the path of life, and my aid in understanding the meaning of hidden Truth. You are a human, and, that fact sufficing, I love you as a brother. You may speak of me as you choose, for Tomorrow shall take you away and will use your talk as evidence for his judgment, and you shall receive justice.
[...] Read more
poem by Khalil Gibran
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Ignorance Has Died
Why are they so gloomy?
Sitting and dressed as if for mourning?
'They have been there for a few days,
Sitting in a vigil.
Praying over the demise of ignorance.'
LOL...
You can not be serious.
Why don't you tell them,
Ignorance has yet to pass.
'Are you kidding?
Do you realize how long it took me,
To devise some kind of a plan...
That would keep them quiet.'
So how long you think they will sit like that?
'I don't know.
I paid some kids a few dollars,
If for two weeks they would walk up and down the streets...
Carrying school books and talking loudly,
About their Math and English classes.
I'm on a roll,
So I'm pulling out all stops to see what happens next.'
But it is still Summer.
All the kids are on vacation.
'When I told those children sitting in that room,
That 'ignorance' has died.
I was joking.
I thought they knew it was a joke.
They have been sitting like that for at least two days.'
And that's why you pay the other kids?
'Yeah.
Do you know how much I've spent on cellphones,
Video games, iPods and 3-D Tv's?
To get those kids nagging off my back.
And all I had to say...
Was 'ignorance' has died? '
I don't believe it!
'You?
I've been trying to find something totally ridiculous to say,
To get them to clean up their rooms.
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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She Just Wants To Be
Its not that she walked away,
Her world got smaller.
All the usual places, the same destinations,
Only somethings changed.
Its not that she wasnt rewarded
With pomegranate afternoons
And mingus, chet baker and chess.
Its not the stampede and fortune
Of prim affectations
Shes off on a right and she knows now
Its greater than the whole
Of the past
Its greater
And now she knows.
She just wants to be somewhere
She just wants to be.
She just wants to be somewhere
She just wants to be.
Its not that the transparency
Of earlier incarnations
Now were back on, were enriched
And loaded
With beautiful vulnerability
And now she knows.
Now is greater
And she knows that.
She just wants to be somewhere
She just wants to be.
She just wants to be somewhere
She just wants to be.
Now is greater
Now is greater
And she knows that
She just wants to be somewhere
She just wants to be.
She just wants to be somewhere
She just wants to be.
Its not like the angels
Could truly look down
Stir up the trappings
And light on the ground.
Remind us of what, when,
Why or who?
The hows up to us, me and you
And now is greater than the whole
Of the past
Is greater and now she knows that.
Now she knows.
song performed by REM
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The Greater Love Unanswered
The greater love unanswered; it could only end this way,
a star without planets shining into the inhuman solitude
that receives everything without distinction or caste
like mountains toppling into the valleys that shadowed their rising
or the luminous myriads of the night
into the visionary cauldron of the dawn
that drowns them in their own beginnings, an excess of light
that drew too near to read the fading scrawl
of disenfranchised love letters
from a god fashionably unfaced. And I have seen birds
disappearing into the quiescent dusk like prayers
that fold their wings in an unknown grove
to wait for a morning that rarely comes, a song
that would hurl them back into the light, redeemed,
because the greater love unanswered,
it could only end this way. This world, a scintillance of dust
in the gaping darkness of implacable aeons
whose indifference to mind and matter alike
is worse than any judgment, grows lonelier with the truth.
A smile and a wound, one heart nudged toward another
in the frenzy of mad water
drawn out by the poultice of the moon, life is a cannibal
that wolfs its own, eats the candle and the flame
to pursue a scheme of persistence
shuffling the portfolios of proven minerals
to maximize the largesse of its living issue
with intensified affinities of blood and vision.
Bless the modern man who has sloughed his life
like a skin of chrome for an aimless longevity
that cannot grow older than the eternity he is.
The greater love unanswered; it could only end this way.
He passes away like a pore on the cheek
of someone he never met.
Without going anywhere everything passes,
spring buds on the branches and Jupiter
flashing its tiny plinths of lightning
at the cradles of the elm in the upper boughs
sweeping the sky of stars,
and love, and friendship, and family,
and arrayed in the veils of its own enigma, beauty,
the only acceptable apology
for the serial distortions of time.
Transformations of the orthodoxy I call myself
keep turning the mirror inside out
so that one word of enlightenment
might be poised on my tongue when I die, but
until then, I am bound by a serpent of doubt
to drink from its fountains of fire
a martyr to my own desire. The greater love unanswered;
it could only end this way, a creature
[...] Read more
poem by Patrick White
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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)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Four Ages of Man
1.1 Lo now! four other acts upon the stage,
1.2 Childhood, and Youth, the Manly, and Old-age.
1.3 The first: son unto Phlegm, grand-child to water,
1.4 Unstable, supple, moist, and cold's his Nature.
1.5 The second: frolic claims his pedigree;
1.6 From blood and air, for hot and moist is he.
1.7 The third of fire and choler is compos'd,
1.8 Vindicative, and quarrelsome dispos'd.
1.9 The last, of earth and heavy melancholy,
1.10 Solid, hating all lightness, and all folly.
1.11 Childhood was cloth'd in white, and given to show,
1.12 His spring was intermixed with some snow.
1.13 Upon his head a Garland Nature set:
1.14 Of Daisy, Primrose, and the Violet.
1.15 Such cold mean flowers (as these) blossom betime,
1.16 Before the Sun hath throughly warm'd the clime.
1.17 His hobby striding, did not ride, but run,
1.18 And in his hand an hour-glass new begun,
1.19 In dangers every moment of a fall,
1.20 And when 'tis broke, then ends his life and all.
1.21 But if he held till it have run its last,
1.22 Then may he live till threescore years or past.
1.23 Next, youth came up in gorgeous attire
1.24 (As that fond age, doth most of all desire),
1.25 His Suit of Crimson, and his Scarf of Green.
1.26 In's countenance, his pride quickly was seen.
1.27 Garland of Roses, Pinks, and Gillyflowers
1.28 Seemed to grow on's head (bedew'd with showers).
1.29 His face as fresh, as is Aurora fair,
1.30 When blushing first, she 'gins to red the Air.
1.31 No wooden horse, but one of metal try'd:
1.32 He seems to fly, or swim, and not to ride.
1.33 Then prancing on the Stage, about he wheels;
1.34 But as he went, death waited at his heels.
1.35 The next came up, in a more graver sort,
1.36 As one that cared for a good report.
1.37 His Sword by's side, and choler in his eyes,
1.38 But neither us'd (as yet) for he was wise,
1.39 Of Autumn fruits a basket on his arm,
1.40 His golden rod in's purse, which was his charm.
1.41 And last of all, to act upon this Stage,
1.42 Leaning upon his staff, comes up old age.
1.43 Under his arm a Sheaf of wheat he bore,
1.44 A Harvest of the best: what needs he more?
1.45 In's other hand a glass, ev'n almost run,
1.46 This writ about: This out, then I am done.
1.47 His hoary hairs and grave aspect made way,
1.48 And all gave ear to what he had to say.
1.49 These being met, each in his equipage
1.50 Intend to speak, according to their age,
[...] Read more
poem by Anne Bradstreet
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Part V
It is the young man shatters silence first.
"Well, my lord—for indeed my lord you are,
I little guessed how rightly—this last proof
Of lordship-paramount confounds too much
My simple head-piece! Let's see how we stand
Each to the other! how we stood i' the game
Of life an hour ago,—the magpies, stile
And oak-tree witnessed. Truth exchanged for truth—
My lord confessed his four-years-old affair—
How he seduced and then forsook the girl
Who married somebody and left him sad.
My pitiful experience was—I loved
A girl whose gown's hem had I dared to touch
My finger would have failed me, palsy-fixed;
She left me, sad enough, to marry—whom?
A better man,—then possibly not you!
How does the game stand? Who is who and what
Is what, o' the board now, since an hour went by?
My lord's 'seduced, forsaken, sacrificed'—
Starts up, my lord's familiar instrument,
Associate and accomplice, mistress-slave—
Shares his adventure, follows on the sly,
—Ay, and since 'bag and baggage' is a phrase—
Baggage lay hid in carpet-bag belike,
Was but unpadlocked when occasion came
For holding council, since my back was turned,
On how invent ten thousand pounds which, paid,
Would lure the winner to lose twenty more,
Beside refunding these! Why else allow
The fool to gain them? So displays herself
The lady whom my heart believed—oh, laugh!
Noble and pure: whom my heart loved at once,
And who at once did speak truth when she said
'I am not mine now but another's'—thus
Being that other's! Devil's-marriage, eh?
'My lie weds thine till lucre us do part?'
But pity me the snobbish simpleton,
You two aristocratic tip-top swells
At swindling! Quits, I cry! Decamp content
With skin I'm peeled of: do not strip bones bare—
As that you could, I have no doubt at all!
O you two rare ones! Male and female, Sir!
The male there smirked, this morning, 'Come, my boy—
Out with it! You've been crossed in love, I think:
I recognize the lover's hangdog look;
Make a clean breast and match my confidence,
For, I'll be frank, I too have had my fling,
Am punished for my fault, and smart enough!
Where now the victim hides her head, God knows!'
Here loomed her head, life-large, the devil knew!
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Inn Album (1875)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Tired
No not to-night, dear child; I cannot go;
I'm busy, tired; they knew I should not come;
you do not need me there. Dear, be content,
and take your pleasure; you shall tell me of it.
There, go to don your miracles of gauze,
and come and show yourself a great pink cloud.
So, she has gone with half a discontent;
but it will die before her curls are shaped,
and she'll go forth intent on being pleased,
and take her ponderous pastime like the rest--
patient delightedly, prepared to talk
in the right voice for the right length of time
on any thing that anybody names,
prepared to listen with the proper calm
to any song that anybody sings;
wedged in their chairs, all soberness and smiles,
one steady sunshine like an August day:
a band of very placid revellers,
glad to be there but gladder still to go.
She like the rest: it seems so strange to me,
my simple peasant girl, my nature's grace,
one with the others; my wood violet
stuck in a formal rose box at a show.
Well, since it makes her happier. True I thought
the artless girl, come from her cottage home
knowing no world beyond her village streets,
come stranger into our elaborate life
with such a blithe and wondering ignorance
as a young child's who sees new things all day,
would learn it my way and would turn to me
out of the solemn follies "What are these?
why must we live by drill and laugh by drill;
may we not be ourselves then, you and I?"
I thought she would have nestled here by me
"I cannot feign, and let me stay with you."
I thought she would have shed about my life
the unalloyed sweet freshness of the fields
pure from your cloying fashionable musks:
but she "will do what other ladies do"--
my sunburnt Madge I saw, with skirts pinned up,
carrying her father's dinner where he sat
to take his noon-day rest beneath the hedge,
and followed slowly for her clear loud song.
And she did then, she says, as others did
who were her like. 'Tis logical enough:
as every woman lives, (tush! as we all,
following such granted patterns for our souls
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poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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Religio Laici
(OR A LAYMAN'S FAITH)
Dim, as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wand'ring travellers,
Is reason to the soul; and as on high,
Those rolling fires discover but the sky
Not light us here; so reason's glimmering ray
Was lent not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as those nightly tapers disappear
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere
So pale grows reason at religion's sight:
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.
Some few, whose lamp shone brighter, have been led
From cause to cause, to Nature's secret head;
And found that one first principle must be:
But what, or who, that Universal He;
Whether some soul incompassing this ball
Unmade, unmov'd; yet making, moving all;
Or various atoms' interfering dance
Leapt into form (the noble work of chance
Or this great all was from eternity;
Not even the Stagirite himself could see;
And Epicurus guess'd as well as he:
As blindly grop'd they for a future state;
As rashly judg'd of Providence and Fate:
But least of all could their endeavours find
What most concern'd the good of human kind.
For happiness was never to be found;
But vanish'd from 'em, like enchanted ground.
One thought content the good to be enjoy'd:
This, every little accident destroy'd:
The wiser madmen did for virtue toil:
A thorny, or at best a barren soil:
In pleasure some their glutton souls would steep;
But found their line too short, the well too deep;
And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep.
Thus anxious thoughts in endless circles roll,
Without a centre where to fix the soul:
In this wild maze their vain endeavours end:
How can the less the greater comprehend?
Or finite reason reach infinity?
For what could fathom God were more than He.
The Deist thinks he stands on firmer ground;
Cries [lang g]eur{-e}ka[lang e] the mighty secret's found:
God is that spring of good; supreme, and best;
We, made to serve, and in that service blest;
If so, some rules of worship must be given;
Distributed alike to all by Heaven:
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poem by John Dryden
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