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Cured yesterday of my disease, I died last night of my physician.

quote by Matthew Prior
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Otho The Great - Act V

SCENE I.

A part of the Forest.
Enter CONRAD and AURANTHE.
Auranthe. Go no further; not a step more; thou art
A master-plague in the midst of miseries.
Go I fear thee. I tremble every limb,
Who never shook before. There's moody death
In thy resolved looks Yes, I could kneel
To pray thee far away. Conrad, go, go
There! yonder underneath the boughs I see
Our horses!
Conrad. Aye, and the man.
Auranthe. Yes, he is there.
Go, go, no blood, no blood; go, gentle Conrad!
Conrad. Farewell!
Auranthe. Farewell, for this Heaven pardon you.
[Exit AURANTHE,
Conrad. If he survive one hour, then may I die
In unimagined tortures or breathe through
A long life in the foulest sink of the world!
He dies 'tis well she do not advertise
The caitiff of the cold steel at his back.
[Exit CONRAD.
Enter LUDOLPH and PAGE.
Ludolph. Miss'd the way, boy, say not that on your peril!
Page. Indeed, indeed I cannot trace them further.
Ludolph. Must I stop here? Here solitary die?
Stifled beneath the thick oppressive shade
Of these dull boughs, this oven of dark thickets,
Silent, without revenge? pshaw! bitter end,
A bitter death, a suffocating death,
A gnawing silent deadly, quiet death!
Escaped? fled? vanish'd? melted into air?
She's gone! I cannot clutch her! no revenge!
A muffled death, ensnar'd in horrid silence!
Suck'd to my grave amid a dreamy calm!
O, where is that illustrious noise of war,
To smother up this sound of labouring breath,
This rustle of the trees!
[AURANTHE shrieks at a distance.
Page. My Lord, a noise!
This way hark!
Ludolph. Yes, yes! A hope! A music!
A glorious clamour! How I live again! [Exeunt.

SCENE II. Another part of the Forest,
Enter ALBERT (wounded).
Albert. O for enough life to support me on
To Otho's feet

[...] Read more

poem by John Keats
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Song of Wink Star

The Song of Wink Star
a happy story for children of all ages
story and text © Raj Arumugam, June 2008

☼ ☼

☼ Preamble

Come…children all, children of all ages…sit close and listen…
Come and listen to this happy story of the stars and of life…
Come children of the universe, children of all nations and of all races, and of all climates and of all kinds of space and dimensions and universes…
Come, dearest children of all beings of the living universe, come and listen to The Song of Wink Star…

Come and listen to this story, this happy story…listen, as the story itself sings to you…

Sit close then, and listen to the story that was not made by any, or written by a poet, or fashioned by grandfathers and grandmothers warming themselves at the fire of burning stars…

O dearest children all, come and listen to the story that lives
of itself, and that glows bright and happy….

Come…children all, children of all ages, come and listen to this happy story, the story so natural and smooth as life, as it sings itself to you….

☼ The Song of Wink Star
a happy story for children of all ages

☼ 1

Night Child, always so light and gentle, slept on a flower.
And every night, before he went to sleep, he would look up at the sky.
He would look at the eastern corner, five o’clock.

And there he would see all the stars in near and distant galaxies that were only visible to the People of Star Eyes.

Night Child was one of the People of Star Eyes. And so he could see the stars. And of all the stars he could see, he loved to watch Wink Star.

Wink Star twinkled and winked and laughed.
Every night Wink Star did that. Winked and laughed.

[...] Read more

poem by Raj Arumugam
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The Golden Legend: Prologue & 1.

THE SPIRE OF STRASBURG CATHEDRAL.

Night and storm. LUCIFER, with the Powers of the
Air, trying to tear down the Cross.

_Lucifer._ HASTEN! hasten!
O ye spirits!
From its station drag the ponderous
Cross of iron, that to mock us
Is uplifted high in air!

_Voices._ O, we cannot!
For around it
All the Saints and Guardian Angels
Throng in legions to protect it;
They defeat us everywhere!

_The Bells._ Laudo Deum verum
Plebem voco!
Congrego clerum!

_Lucifer._ Lower! lower!
Hover downward!
Seize the loud, vociferous bells, and
Clashing, clanging, to the pavement
Hurl them from their windy tower!

_Voices._ All thy thunders
Here are harmless!
For these bells have been anointed,
And baptized with holy water!
They defy our utmost power.

_The Bells. Defunctos ploro!
Pestem fugo!
Festa decoro!

_Lucifer._ Shake the casements!
Break the painted
Panes that flame with gold and crimson!
Scatter them like leaves of Autumn,
Swept away before the blast!

_Voices._ O, we cannot!
The Archangel
Michael flames from every window,
With the sword of fire that drove us
Headlong, out of heaven, aghast!

_The Bells._ Funera plango!

[...] Read more

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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100 STD's 10,000 MTD's

There are STD's, sexually transmitted diseases.
and then there are MTD's, meat transmitted diseases.

The latter take a lot more lives.

*********

In Animal Flesh: Blood Sweat Tears as well as Carcinogens Cholesterol Colon Bacteria

Animal products kill more people annually in the US than
tobacco, alcohol, traffic accidents, war, domestic violence,
guns, and drugs combined. USAMRID wrote that consumption of pig flesh caused the world's most lethal pandemic in WW1,
euphemistically called flu. Anthrax
used to be called wool sorters'
disease. Smallpox used to be called
cow pox or kine pox because of
its origin in animal flesh.
.

WHAT'S IN A BURGER? BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS (AS WELL AS BIOTERRORISM)

POISONS IN ANIMAL AND FISH FLESH... A PARTIAL LIST

a partial list in alphabetical order

acidification diseases
addiction (to trioxypurines)
adrenalin (secreted by terrorized
animals before and during slaughter)

ANTIBIOTICS (too many to list) (crowded factory farm animals standing in their own feces are often infected)

BACTERIA
creiophilic bacteria survive
the freezing of animal flesh
thermophilic bacteria survive
the baking boiling and roasting

bacteriophages (viruses FDA allows to
be injected)
blood
colon bacteria.. euphemistically
called ecoli animals defecate
all over themselves in terror
John Harvey Kellogg MD studied
the exponential rate into the billions

BSE DISEASES, PRIONS IN SPECIES FROM GELATIN (JELLO ETC)
Mad Chicken

[...] Read more

poem by O. Anna Niemus
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Aruba Is for Many Out Of Reach

Life once had us running to the bank.
Banking on the prospect,
That investments in a future...
Would produce security.
Security fantasized,
To feed those whims and needs...
Afforded to please.

We believed that banking,
Was then a safe direction...
For a quality of life,
Respected to protect..
In quality ease!

If this was yesterday...
It would be okay,
To think about Aruba...
And snoozing on the beach.

If 'this' was yesterday...
We'd put our dimes away.
But unlike those yesterdays...
Today pinching dimes,
Gets rent timely paid!

If this was yesterday,
It would be okay...
To think about Aruba!
Just to snooze on the beach.
And...
Oiling heated skin,
Rubbing sand off our feet.

If 'this' was yesterday...
We'd put our dimes away.
But unlike those yesterdays...
A rent that's needed to be paid,
Is just a pinch away.

And today Aruba,
Is for many out of reach.

Because today Aruba,
Is a dream hard to keep!

If this was yesterday,
It would be okay...
To think about Aruba!
Just to snooze on the beach.
And...

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Lazy In Aruba

Life once had us running to the bank.
Banking on the prospect,
That investments in a future...
Would produce security.
Security fantasized,
To feed those whims and needs...
Afforded to please.

We believed that banking,
Was then a safe direction...
For a quality of life,
Respected to protect..
In quality ease!

If this was yesterday...
It would be okay,
To think about Aruba...
And snoozing on the beach.

If 'this' was yesterday...
We'd put our dimes away.
But unlike those yesterdays...
Today pinching dimes,
Gets rent timely paid!

If this was yesterday,
It would be okay...
To think about Aruba!
Just to snooze on the beach.
And...
Oiling heated skin,
Rubbing sand off our feet.

If 'this' was yesterday...
We'd put our dimes away.
But unlike those yesterdays...
A rent that's needed to be paid,
Is just a pinch away.

And today Aruba,
Is for many out of reach.

Because today Aruba,
Is a dream hard to keep!

If this was yesterday,
It would be okay...
To think about Aruba!
Just to snooze on the beach.
And...

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Sir Eustace Grey

Scene: --A MADHOUSE.

Persons: --VISITOR, PHYSICIAN, AND PATIENT.

VISITOR.

I'll know no more;--the heart is torn
By views of woe we cannot heal;
Long shall I see these things forlorn,
And oft again their griefs shall feel,
As each upon the mind shall steal;
That wan projector's mystic style,
That lumpish idiot leering by,
That peevish idler's ceaseless wile,
And that poor maiden's half-form'd smile,
While struggling for the full-drawn sigh! -
I'll know no more.

PHYSICIAN.

Yes, turn again;
Then speed to happier scenes thy way,
When thou hast view'd, what yet remain,
The ruins of Sir Eustace Grey,
The sport of madness, misery's prey:
But he will no historian need,
His cares, his crimes, will he display,
And show (as one from frenzy freed)
The proud lost mind, the rash-done deed.

That cell to him is Greyling Hall: -
Approach; he'll bid thee welcome there;
Will sometimes for his servant call,
And sometimes point the vacant chair:
He can, with free and easy air,
Appear attentive and polite;
Can veil his woes in manners fair,
And pity with respect excite.

PATIENT.

Who comes?--Approach!--'tis kindly done: -
My learn'd physician, and a friend,
Their pleasures quit, to visit one
Who cannot to their ease attend,
Nor joys bestow, nor comforts lend,
As when I lived so blest, so well,
And dreamt not I must soon contend
With those malignant powers of hell.

[...] Read more

poem by George Crabbe
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Yesterday, When I Was Mad

Yesterday (yesterday yesterday)
Yesterday (yesterday yesterday)
Yesterday (yesterday yesterday) when i was mad
Yesterday (yesterday yesterday) when i was mad
Darling, you were wonderful, you really were quite good
I enjoyed it, though, of course, no one understood
A word of what was going on, they didn't have a clue
They couldn't understand your sense of humour like i do
You're much too kind
I smiled with murder on my mind
Yesterday, when i was mad
And quite prepared to give up everything
Admitting, i don't believe
In anyone's sincerity, and that's what's really got to me
Yesterday (yesterday yesterday)
Yesterday (yesterday yesterday) when i was mad

song performed by Pet Shop Boys
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Today is better than Yesterday

Yesterday

Yesterday, I was running with to feet
Yesterday, I was playing with kids
Yesterday, I was kicking the ball
Yesterday, I had it all, all was mine.

Yesterday, I was growing well,
Yesterday, I had it all undercover
Yesterday was my day
Yesterday, my days were

Yesterday, I had a lover, ‘true lover’
Yesterday, promises were made
Yesterday, promises were not kept
Yesterday, I was happy.

Yesterday, I gave him everything
Yesterday, I sacrificed everything
Yesterday, I was a fool
Yesterday, I was dying

Today

Today, I am lying in bed
Today, I am watching hopeless kids
Today, I can hardly move
Today, everything is falling

Today, I am dying in bed
Today, it is all wrong
Today, is not my day
Today, my days are not

Today, I have no one
Today, promises are broken
Today, promises are not
Today, I have no hope

Today, I long for myself
Today, I cry over spilled milk
Today, I am wise
Today, I live

Whatever happened yesterday is not
Whatever was, is not
Whatever was broken can be fixed
Whatever wound are, can be healed
Just need the Perfect Healer

[...] Read more

poem by Sbonelo C Ngcobo
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VII. Pompilia

I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.

All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Disease Of Conceit

Theres a whole lot of people suffering tonight from the disease of conceit
Theres a whole lot of people struggling tonight with the disease of conceit
Comes right down the highway, straight down the line
Rips into your senses, through your body and your mind
Nothing about it thats sweet
The disease of conceit
Theres a whole lot of hearts breaking tonight from the disease of conceit
Theres a whole lot of hearts shaking tonight from the disease of conceit
Steps into your room, eats into your soul
Over your senses you have no control
Aint nothing too discreet
About the disease of conceit
Theres a whole lot of people dying tonight from the disease of conceit
Theres a whole lot of people crying tonight from the disease of conceit
Comes right outta nowhere and youre down for the count
From the outside world the pressure will mount
Turn you into a piece of meat
The disease of conceit
Conceit is a disease but the doctors got no cure
They done a lot of research on it but what it is theyre still not sure
Theres a whole lot of people in trouble tonight from the disease of conceit
Theres a whole lot of people seein double tonight from the disease of conceit
If your delusions of grandeur and an evil eye
Give you the idea that youre too good to die
Then they bury you from your head to your feet
From the disease of conceit

song performed by Bob Dylan
Added by Lucian Velea
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So Yesterday

you can change your life (if you wanna)
you can change your clothes(if you wanna)
if you change your mind
well thats the way it goes
but im gonna keep your jeans
and your old black hat ( cause i wanna)
they look good on me
your never gonna get them back
at least not today not today not today cause
if its over let it go and
come tomorrow it will seem so yesterday
so yesterday
im just a bird thats already flown away
laugh it off let it go and
when you wake up it will seem so yesterday
so yesterday
haven't you heard that im gonna be okay
(okay)
you can say you're bored (if u wanna)
you can act real tough (if u wanna)
you can say you're torn
but i've heard enough
(thank you) You've made my mind up for me
when you started to ignore me
do you seen a single tear
it isn't gonna happen here
at least not today not today not today
cause
if its over let it go and
come tomorrow it will seem so yesterday
so yesterday
i'm just a bird thats already flown away
laugh it off
let it go and
when you wake up it will seem so yesterday
so yesterday
haven't you heard that im gonna be okay
if you're over me i'm already over you
if it's all been done what is left to do
how can you hang up if the line is dead
if you wanna walk i'm a step ahead
if you're movin on i'm already gone
if the light is off then it isn't on
at least not today not today not today
cause
if its over let it go and
come tomorrow it will seem so yesterday
so yesterday
i'm just a bird thats already flown away
laugh it off let it go and when you wake up

[...] Read more

song performed by Hilary Duff
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The City of Dreadful Night

Per me si va nella citta dolente.

--Dante

Poi di tanto adoprar, di tanti moti
D'ogni celeste, ogni terrena cosa,
Girando senza posa,
Per tornar sempre la donde son mosse;
Uso alcuno, alcun frutto
Indovinar non so.

Sola nel mondo eterna, a cui si volve
Ogni creata cosa,
In te, morte, si posa
Nostra ignuda natura;
Lieta no, ma sicura
Dell' antico dolor . . .
Pero ch' esser beato
Nega ai mortali e nega a' morti il fato.

--Leopardi

PROEM

Lo, thus, as prostrate, "In the dust I write
My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears."
Yet why evoke the spectres of black night
To blot the sunshine of exultant years?
Why disinter dead faith from mouldering hidden?
Why break the seals of mute despair unbidden,
And wail life's discords into careless ears?

Because a cold rage seizes one at whiles
To show the bitter old and wrinkled truth
Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles,
False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth;
Because it gives some sense of power and passion
In helpless innocence to try to fashion
Our woe in living words howe'er uncouth.

Surely I write not for the hopeful young,
Or those who deem their happiness of worth,
Or such as pasture and grow fat among
The shows of life and feel nor doubt nor dearth,
Or pious spirits with a God above them
To sanctify and glorify and love them,
Or sages who foresee a heaven on earth.

For none of these I write, and none of these
Could read the writing if they deigned to try;

[...] Read more

poem by James Thomson
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The Death Of Adolf Hitler’s Personal Physician

Why was Hilter’s personal physician
sentenced to death Daddy Daddy?

What did he do Daddy Daddy?

Karl Brant Hilter’s personal physician
was sentenced to death by the U.S.
War Crime Tribunal in August 1947!

Brandt was indicted with 22 other Nazi
SS doctors and SS officers! Brandt was
Reich Commissioner for Health and Sanitation!

Brandt was charged found guilty on all four
counts! Brandt was charged with conspiracy:
conspiracy in war crimes, aggressive wars,

membership in the criminal SS organization,
crimes against humanity, criminal acts
including participating in and consenting to

the use of concentration camp inmates;
to be used as test subjects in medical
experiments, including experiments on

women children without any anesthetic,
vivisection cutting up live people
without an anesthetic to reduce raw pain.

SS Medical Corp wore a serpent crest
on the collar patches of SS unit insignia.
From1935 to 1938 SS Medical Corps

began to serve a far more sinister purpose.
SS doctors serving in concentration camps
engaging in human medical experiments.

In 1936 SS doctors strengthen the master
race, culling the mentally disabled and
physically handicapped, vital work to assist

purification in Nazi Race Euthanasia Program.

By 1941 elite Waffen-SS doctors were highly
trained both in medical skills and combat
tactics, many receiving high combat awards.

SS doctors achieved such heights through
human medical experiments, notorious
experiments, at Aushwitz and Dachau

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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Disease

Feels like you made a mistake
You made somebodys heart break
But now I have to let you go
I have to let you go
You left a stain
On every one of my good days
But I am stronger than you know
I have to let you go
No ones ever turned you over
No ones tried
To ever let you down,
Beautiful girl
Bless your heart
I got a disease
Deep inside me
Makes me feel uneasy baby
I cant live without you
Tell me what I am supposed to do about it
Keep your distance from it
Dont pay no attention to me
I got a disease
Feels like youre making a mess
Youre hell on wheels in a black dress
You drove me to the fire
And left me there to burn
Every little thing you do is tragic
All my life, oh was magic
Beautiful girl
I cant breathe
I got a disease
Deep inside me
Makes me feel uneasy baby
I cant live without you
Tell me what I am supposed to do about it
Keep your distance from it
Dont pay no attention to me
I got a disease
I think that Im sick
But leave me be while my world is coming down on me
You taste like honey, honey
Tell me can I be your honey
Be, be strong
Keep telling myself it that wont take long till
Im free of my disease
Yeah well free of my disease
Free of my disease
I got a disease
Deep inside me
Makes me feel uneasy baby
I cant live without you

[...] Read more

song performed by Matchbox Twenty
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Died

I could climb until I reach where angels reside
Ask around to find out where the junkies applied
You just up and left me on this rock all alone
Its my fault for knowing now what I should have known
Ohhhh oh oh
My heart is tired of beating slow
Ohh ohh
Its been depleating since you died
Died
Since you died
You died
I could drop until I touch the sinister side
Visit all attractions flippin back and aside
Still you leave me rotting on this rock all alone
Its my fault for knowing not what I should have known
Ohhhh oh oh
My heart is tired of beating slow
Ohh ohh
Its been depleating since you died
Died
Since you died
You died
Ohhh oh oh
My heart is tired of beating slow
Uhh ohh
Its been depleating since you died
Died
Since you died
You died
I could climb until I reach where angels reside
I could drop until I touch the sinister side
Ohhhh oh
My heart is tired of beating slow
Uhh ohh
Its been depleating since you died
Died
Since you died
You died
Died
You died
Died
You died

song performed by Alice In Chains
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Paper Doll

Written by stevie nicks.
You like a man with a future
You like a woman with a past
Well do you really believe that
She said to faces in the crowd
(yesterday I was facinated by somebody else)
Yesterday I was fascinated by somebody else
(yesterday I was fascinated by somebody else)
Yesterday I was fascinated by somebody else
And even if you did miss me
You never let me know
You prefer to be just a little bit
In and out of love with me
And not to scream and shout
You prefer to be just a little bit
In and out of agony
(yesterday I was facinated by somebody else)
Yesterday I was fascinated by somebody else
(yesterday I was fascinated by somebody else)
Yesterday I was fascinated by somebody else
Come on now, let the sad winds blow down
As the rain came, she refused to wear her coat
But deep in her heart she knew, that the song must go on
He says well I have forgotten you
And your beautiful eyes
We were off the wall
We were mirrors of our former selves
Well you could have said no
You could have said well I just cant
Whoa we were off the wall
We were mirrors of each other
Passing by
(yesterday I was facinated by somebody else)
Yesterday I was fascinated by somebody else
(yesterday I was fascinated by somebody else)
Yesterday I was fascinated by somebody else
Repeat
Well I was your paper doll
(yesterday I was fascinated by somebody else)
Paper doll
(yesterday I was fascinated by somebody else)
Well I was you paper doll
(yesterday I was fascinated by somebody else)
Paper doll
And it doesnt even matter
(I was fascinated by somebody else)
It was a real clear answer
(I was fascinated by somebody else)
I was fascinated by somebody else
(I was fascinated by somebody else)

song performed by Fleetwood Mac
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Parish Register - Part III: Burials

THERE was, 'tis said, and I believe, a time
When humble Christians died with views sublime;
When all were ready for their faith to bleed,
But few to write or wrangle for their creed;
When lively Faith upheld the sinking heart,
And friends, assured to meet, prepared to part;
When Love felt hope, when Sorrow grew serene,
And all was comfort in the death-bed scene.
Alas! when now the gloomy king they wait,
'Tis weakness yielding to resistless fate;
Like wretched men upon the ocean cast,
They labour hard and struggle to the last;
'Hope against hope,' and wildly gaze around
In search of help that never shall be found:
Nor, till the last strong billow stops the breath,
Will they believe them in the jaws of Death!
When these my Records I reflecting read,
And find what ills these numerous births succeed;
What powerful griefs these nuptial ties attend;
With what regret these painful journeys end;
When from the cradle to the grave I look,
Mine I conceive a melancholy book.
Where now is perfect resignation seen?
Alas! it is not on the village-green: -
I've seldom known, though I have often read,
Of happy peasants on their dying-bed;
Whose looks proclaimed that sunshine of the breast,
That more than hope, that Heaven itself express'd.
What I behold are feverish fits of strife,
'Twixt fears of dying and desire of life:
Those earthly hopes, that to the last endure;
Those fears, that hopes superior fail to cure;
At best a sad submission to the doom,
Which, turning from the danger, lets it come.
Sick lies the man, bewilder'd, lost, afraid,
His spirits vanquish'd, and his strength decay'd;
No hope the friend, the nurse, the doctor lend -
'Call then a priest, and fit him for his end.'
A priest is call'd; 'tis now, alas! too late,
Death enters with him at the cottage-gate;
Or time allow'd--he goes, assured to find
The self-commending, all-confiding mind;
And sighs to hear, what we may justly call
Death's common-place, the train of thought in all.
'True I'm a sinner,' feebly he begins,
'But trust in Mercy to forgive my sins:'
(Such cool confession no past crimes excite!
Such claim on Mercy seems the sinner's right!)
'I know mankind are frail, that God is just,
And pardons those who in his Mercy trust;

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poem by George Crabbe
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The House Of Dust: Complete

I.

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.

'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.

We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .

Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.

Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.

Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.

II.

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poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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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!

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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