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You get whatever accomplishment you are willing to declare.

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Sleeping In The Flowers

I got a crush
Copy shop clerk
But she wont look up at me
Dont want to be known as the freak
Who just comes around to catch her eye
We could be sleeping in the flowers
We could sleep all afternoon
Youd proclaim that youre an island
Id proclaim that Im one too
Then we float into the harbor
With just piers and boats around
I declare that I am england
You declare that I have drowned
I got a ride
Home with a drunk guy
How ungrateful I must have seemed
He showed me how
To spin my head round and round
We could be sleeping in the flowers
We could sleep all afternoon
Youd proclaim that youre an island
Id proclaim that Im one too
Then we float into the harbor
With just piers and boats around
I declare that I am england
You declare that I have drowned
We could be sleeping in the flowers
We could sleep all afternoon
Youd proclaim that youre an island
Id proclaim that Im one too
Then we float into the harbor
With just piers and boats around
I declare that I am england
You declare that I have drowned
Well be sleeping in the flowers
Tell my boss that Ive been fired
Well be sleeping in the flowers
Tell my boss that Ive been fired
Well be sleeping in the flowers
Tell my boss Im fired
Well be sleeping in the flowers
Tell my boss Im fired
Notes
The dial-a-song lyrics are unclear. the following is the best guess at this time.
Dogs masters stay off em
Bugs stay off em
Dogs masters stay off em
Bugs stay off em
Now were sleeping in the flowers
And well sleep all afternoon

[...] Read more

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Declaration Of Faith

This man you love, this boy you hate
The hills are his in all embrace
Enchanted and not soon lost
This man you call with lovers draw
So coarse in kind it cant be sought
For leaving is what I do
I declare myself
Declare myself of faith
I declare myself
Declare myself of faith
Ever wonder why they kill the weak ones, baby
Theres no one here to care
Someone always thought a good reason, baby
Just why were really here
Affirm my power to spend my dollars, to get us home, yeah
Ive got no money, got no secrets
Maybe we were born to kiss another
Maybe we were born to run forever
Or maybe we were born to come together, or whatever
Kiss me alone
This boy you chance, this man youll find
Will dry the tears behind your eyes
So stop laughing and play the muse
This heartache rots that which spills
From my heart into your will
So give in to the rivers wind
I declare myself
Declare myself of faith
I declare myself
Declare myself of faith
Every wonder why they kill the weak ones, baby
So they can to testify
For every single ghost on that freeway, baby
Has got to give a mild holler to spend my dollars
Weve got to get away
Ive got no money, got no secrets
Maybe we were born to love each other
Maybe we were born to run forever
Or maybe we were born to come together, or whatever
Kiss me alone
Kiss me alone
Kiss me alone
Kiss me alone
Maybe we were born to love
Maybe we were born to love
Maybe we were born to love
Maybe we were born to love each other
Kiss me alone
Kiss me alone
Kiss me alone

[...] Read more

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Pearl

Pearl of delight that a prince doth please
To grace in gold enclosed so clear,
I vow that from over orient seas
Never proved I any in price her peer.
So round, so radiant ranged by these,
So fine, so smooth did her sides appear
That ever in judging gems that please
Her only alone I deemed as dear.
Alas! I lost her in garden near:
Through grass to the ground from me it shot;
I pine now oppressed by love-wound drear
For that pearl, mine own, without a spot.

2
Since in that spot it sped from me,
I have looked and longed for that precious thing
That me once was wont from woe to free,
To uplift my lot and healing bring,
But my heart doth hurt now cruelly,
My breast with burning torment sting.
Yet in secret hour came soft to me
The sweetest song I e'er heard sing;
Yea, many a thought in mind did spring
To think that her radiance in clay should rot.
O mould! Thou marrest a lovely thing,
My pearl, mine own, without a spot.

3
In that spot must needs be spices spread
Where away such wealth to waste hath run;
Blossoms pale and blue and red
There shimmer shining in the sun;
No flower nor fruit their hue may shed
Where it down into darkling earth was done,
For all grass must grow from grains that are dead,
No wheat would else to barn be won.
From good all good is ever begun,
And fail so fair a seed could not,
So that sprang and sprouted spices none
From that precious pearl without a spot.

4
That spot whereof I speak I found
When I entered in that garden green,
As August's season high came round
When corn is cut with sickles keen.
There, where that pearl rolled down, a mound
With herbs was shadowed fair and sheen,
With gillyflower, ginger, and gromwell crowned,
And peonies powdered all between.

[...] Read more

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John Dryden

The Hind And The Panther, A Poem In Three Parts : Part II.

“Dame,” said the Panther, “times are mended well,
Since late among the Philistines you fell.
The toils were pitched, a spacious tract of ground
With expert huntsmen was encompassed round;
The inclosure narrowed; the sagacious power
Of hounds and death drew nearer every hour.
'Tis true, the younger lion 'scaped the snare,
But all your priestly calves lay struggling there,
As sacrifices on their altars laid;
While you, their careful mother, wisely fled,
Not trusting destiny to save your head.
For, whate'er promises you have applied
To your unfailing Church, the surer side
Is four fair legs in danger to provide;
And whate'er tales of Peter's chair you tell,
Yet, saving reverence of the miracle,
The better luck was yours to 'scape so well.”
“As I remember,” said the sober Hind,
“Those toils were for your own dear self designed,
As well as me; and with the selfsame throw,
To catch the quarry and the vermin too,—
Forgive the slanderous tongues that called you so.
Howe'er you take it now, the common cry
Then ran you down for your rank loyalty.
Besides, in Popery they thought you nurst,
As evil tongues will ever speak the worst,
Because some forms, and ceremonies some
You kept, and stood in the main question dumb.
Dumb you were born indeed; but, thinking long,
The test, it seems, at last has loosed your tongue:
And to explain what your forefathers meant,
By real presence in the sacrament,
After long fencing pushed against a wall,
Your salvo comes, that he's not there at all:
There changed your faith, and what may change may fall.
Who can believe what varies every day,
Nor ever was, nor will be at a stay?”
“Tortures may force the tongue untruths to tell,
And I ne'er owned myself infallible,”
Replied the Panther: “grant such presence were,
Yet in your sense I never owned it there.
A real virtue we by faith receive,
And that we in the sacrament believe.”
“Then,” said the Hind, “as you the matter state,
Not only Jesuits can equivocate;
For real, as you now the word expound,
From solid substance dwindles to a sound.
Methinks, an Æsop's fable you repeat;
You know who took the shadow for the meat:
Your Church's substance thus you change at will,

[...] Read more

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Just a Speck Dismissed

I declare it,
Erased!
Hatred.
Madness.
And the empty opportunities...
Believed by mentalities like these,
Can stir up by fantasies.
To create and make.

I declare it,
Erased!
Heartache.
Homelessness.
And those becoming hollowed,
With nothing to eat on barren plates.

I declare it,
Erased!
Every kind of sadness,
Appearing on anyone's face.

I declare this erased.
And for truth to take its proper place.
Before denial slaughters...
With a divine everlasting affect.
That has grown tired,
Of the foolishness 'IT' can no longer accept!

I declare it,
Erased!
Hatred.
Madness.
And the empty opportunities...
Believed by mentalities like these,
Can stir up by fantasies.
To create and make.
When the Almighty has lost patience.
And can not wait...
For a massive awakening,
To take place.
In the eternal heavens.

It will be just a speck dismissed...
From the eternal heavens.
Just a speck dismissed...
From the eternal heavens.
It will be just a speck dismissed.

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Come With Me

I am a poet
searcher of truth
I am a poet
searcher of dream
I declare
I declare.

Lucky signs ahead
I declare
Come with me
for world welfare.

You won the war
A true lifewar
You may declare.

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Those Lips Poked Out

Today I declare mine.
No complaint will I find...
Or spend my time whining.

Today I declare mine.
And the rays of Sun,
Will shine on me.
And I will smile all day,
Happily.

And today I declare,
I am fine as can be.
Unaccepted is the frowning,
From those lips poked out people...
Who are not going to upset or bother me.

I declare war against those who are sore losers.
Those who have chosen to see themselves miserable...
Enjoying defeat and pity!

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William Butler Yeats

The Tower

SAILING TO BYZANTIUM
I

THAT is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
-- Those dying generations -- at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out Of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

WHAT shall I do with this absurdity --
O heart, O troubled heart -- this caricature,
Decrepit age that has been tied to me
As to a dog's tail?
Never had I more
Excited, passionate, fantastical
Imagination, nor an ear and eye
That more expected the impossible --
No, not in boyhood when with rod and fly,
Or the humbler worm, I climbed Ben Bulben's back
And had the livelong summer day to spend.
It seems that I must bid the Muse go pack,
Choose Plato and Plotinus for a friend
Until imagination, ear and eye,

[...] Read more

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I Got To Find My Baby

I'm gonna search this town,
From door to door.
The love i crave
I can't find no more.
I got to find my baby,
I declare there ain't no lie.
I ain't had no real good loving
Since that woman said goodbye.
You know i hate to see the sun
Sinking to the west,
'cos i know my whole life's
Gonna be one solid mess.
I got to find my baby,
I declare there ain't no lie.
I ain't had no real good loving
Since that woman said goodbye.
Well ever since the day
That she said we were through,
I've been nervous
And shook up too.
I got to find my baby,
I declare there ain't no lie.
I had no real good loving
Since that woman said goodbye.
Well i don't care if the last thing
I ever do in my life,
Is to find that little woman
Make her my wife.
I got to find my baby,
I declare there ain't no lie.
I had no real good loving
Since that woman said goodbye.

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Refresh, Revive, Renew

Refresh, revive, renew...
And declare yourself,
You!
Detached and removed,
From a confusing deprivation.
Blocked and unlocked from it!
You can not return...
To burn.
To learn from consequences,
You alone earned.

Refresh, revive, renew...
And declare yourself,
You!
Back from a lack of confidence.
Unstrapped from incidents.
Caused by hasty indeciveness...
Rushing to prevent any form of movement.
Condoned and now done with it.

Refresh, revive, renew...
And declare yourself,
You!
If done now...
Your future becomes even brighter.
Even the light held you hold,
Can be held even higher.
Higher
Higher
Higher still!

Refresh, revive, renew...
And declare yourself,
You!
You are that spark,
Igniting to glow.
Show more of it!

Refresh, revive, renew...
You.

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Amy Lowell

The Great Adventure Of Max Breuck

1

A yellow band of light upon the street
Pours from an open door, and makes a wide
Pathway of bright gold across a sheet
Of calm and liquid moonshine. From inside
Come shouts and streams of laughter, and a snatch
Of song, soon drowned and lost again in mirth,
The clip of tankards on a table top,
And stir of booted heels. Against the patch
Of candle-light a shadow falls, its girth
Proclaims the host himself, and master of his shop.


2

This is the tavern of one Hilverdink,
Jan Hilverdink, whose wines are much esteemed.
Within his cellar men can have to drink
The rarest cordials old monks ever schemed
To coax from pulpy grapes, and with nice art
Improve and spice their virgin juiciness.
Here froths the amber beer of many a brew,
Crowning each pewter tankard with as smart
A cap as ever in his wantonness
Winter set glittering on top of an old yew.


3

Tall candles stand upon the table, where
Are twisted glasses, ruby-sparked with wine,
Clarets and ports. Those topaz bumpers were
Drained from slim, long-necked bottles of the Rhine.
The centre of the board is piled with pipes,
Slender and clean, the still unbaptized clay
Awaits its burning fate. Behind, the vault
Stretches from dim to dark, a groping way
Bordered by casks and puncheons, whose brass stripes
And bands gleam dully still, beyond the gay tumult.


4

'For good old Master Hilverdink, a toast!'
Clamoured a youth with tassels on his boots.
'Bring out your oldest brandy for a boast,
From that small barrel in the very roots
Of your deep cellar, man. Why here is Max!
Ho! Welcome, Max, you're scarcely here in time.

[...] Read more

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Rembrandt to Rembrandt

(AMSTERDAM, 1645)


And there you are again, now as you are.
Observe yourself as you discern yourself
In your discredited ascendency;
Without your velvet or your feathers now,
Commend your new condition to your fate,
And your conviction to the sieves of time.
Meanwhile appraise yourself, Rembrandt van Ryn,
Now as you are—formerly more or less
Distinguished in the civil scenery,
And once a painter. There you are again,
Where you may see that you have on your shoulders
No lovelier burden for an ornament
Than one man’s head that’s yours. Praise be to God
That you have that; for you are like enough
To need it now, my friend, and from now on;
For there are shadows and obscurities
Immediate or impending on your view,
That may be worse than you have ever painted
For the bewildered and unhappy scorn
Of injured Hollanders in Amsterdam
Who cannot find their fifty florins’ worth
Of Holland face where you have hidden it
In your new golden shadow that excites them,
Or see that when the Lord made color and light
He made not one thing only, or believe
That shadows are not nothing. Saskia said,
Before she died, how they would swear at you,
And in commiseration at themselves.
She laughed a little, too, to think of them—
And then at me.… That was before she died.

And I could wonder, as I look at you,
There as I have you now, there as you are,
Or nearly so as any skill of mine
Has ever caught you in a bilious mirror,—
Yes, I could wonder long, and with a reason,
If all but everything achievable
In me were not achieved and lost already,
Like a fool’s gold. But you there in the glass,
And you there on the canvas, have a sort
Of solemn doubt about it; and that’s well
For Rembrandt and for Titus. All that’s left
Of all that was is here; and all that’s here
Is one man who remembers, and one child
Beginning to forget. One, two, and three,
The others died, and then—then Saskia died;
And then, so men believe, the painter died.

[...] Read more

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Let us celebrate

Celebration means rejoicing
An achievement
An advancement
A successful accomplishment
A commemoration

In all these
There were efforts
Struggles against odds and
Challenges
Greater the effort
Tougher the struggle
Grander the celebration
Examine the celebrations
We launch normally

We celebrate birthdays
Wedding days
Marriages
An elevation in social or professional status
An acquisition of property
Nationally or politically important events
A range of festivals depending on the faiths we tag on

How many of them
Deserve being celebrated

You will come to know
Some of them, if not many
Need no celebration
As there were no efforts of ours
And there were no struggles

Then why do we celebrate
We celebrate because
Others do so or
We can afford to do so

Time has come
Where there is a limitation on resources
Resources here mean
Those we are endowed by nature
Not those that are man made
And available at a price

Many celebrations denude nature
Of its priceless resources
And we consume these non-renewable and
Non-replenishable resources
Just to show we can do that

[...] Read more

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Work or Reflection

Now, I always have preserved a certain attitude
Quite definite in reference to Work
('Tis futility concealing
That I have the Weary Feeling
And tendency perennial to shirk)
Still, I always strive to recognise the principle
That earnest, steady toil is ever best;
So that, having recognised it,
Not to say idealised it,
I would fain lay down my pen and take a rest.

For, you understand, to recognise a principle
Is patently a virtue in itself.
After that you have the option,
Of its strenuous adoption,'
Or the placing of it gently on a shelf.
For myself, I'm forced to own that though my theory's
A thing of beauty, even in the rough,
Dearth of cash supplies good reasons,
With the Passing of the seasons,
That this simple recognition's not enough.

For it's Work - Toil - Graft
It's accomplishment that matters in the end;
And the act of recognition,
Even by a politician,
Has not ever yet been known to make or mend.
And the man who holds a lamp-post up without much fret or fuss,
He may 'recognise a principle', and feel quite virtuous.

We have read about the lives, in ancient history,
Of the Doers back in ev'ry age and clime;
And their method of reforming
Was reflecting and performing,
More especially the latter, every time.
But the man who sat and recognised the principles,
And calmly left accomplishment to Fate,
May have won a reputation,
As a saviour of the nation,
But his name has been suppressed, at any rate.

This has clearly been the rule since far antiquity:
Before a thing is done a man must act;
And all progress lay in knowing
What to do, and straightway going
And just working till reform became a fact.
But to stand on distant nodding terms with principle
Has been a most unprofitable trick.
You may scan historic pages,
And right down throughout the ages

[...] Read more

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The Abnormal Is Not Courage

The Poles rode out from Warsaw against the German
Tanks on horses. Rode knowing, in sunlight, with sabers,
A magnitude of beauty that allows me no peace.
And yet this poem would lessen that day. Question
The bravery. Say it's not courage. Call it a passion.
Would say courage isn't that. Not at its best.
It was impossib1e, and with form. They rode in sunlight,
Were mangled. But I say courage is not the abnormal.
Not the marvelous act. Not Macbeth with fine speeches.
The worthless can manage in public, or for the moment.
It is too near the whore's heart: the bounty of impulse,
And the failure to sustain even small kindness.
Not the marvelous act, but the evident conclusion of being.
Not strangeness, but a leap forward of the same quality.
Accomplishment. The even loyalty. But fresh.
Not the Prodigal Son, nor Faustus. But Penelope.
The thing steady and clear. Then the crescendo.
The real form. The culmination. And the exceeding.
Not the surprise. The amazed understanding. The marriage,
Not the month's rapture. Not the exception. The beauty
That is of many days. Steady and clear.
It is the normal excellence, of long accomplishment.

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Demands of Accomplishment

How great is the feeling of accomplishment?
When the application of dedication,
Has seldom strayed from those sacrifices made.
And one has given undeniable time...
When time itself had seemed uselessly spent.
Is a sensation one can not explain,
To anyone who sits without a purpose...
Trying to comprehend what to them makes sense.

With wishes to have dreams delivered,
And not a finger to lift.
Or hesitant to make a stand,
To place a step forward...
With a footprint made the best one can.

People like that would not understand,
The demands of accomplishment!
Or what it means to one who beams,
After living through experiences,
One sometimes laments.
And with those experiences one has lived...
Motivating as they do to continue making attempts,
To accomplish through pain and feeling of loneliness.

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Touched As Wished

Perceive and feel any accomplishment wished.
The beating and removing of weeds...
On a path,
May slow...
But don't let a mind that is fixed,
To accomplish...
Drift.

Mistakes are made.
But one must allow this...
If a feeling of success,
Is going to be touched as wished.

Stay away from those with negativity to grind.
People like that are weak in initiative...
Are also seeking to validate,
Their insecurities in other minds.

Misery loves company.
A lot of it and that's a fact.
And emotions shown that go unprotected...
Are used as traps to hold folks back.

'I understand exactly how you are feeling.
Come and sit with me.
I have time to waste to listen with a comforting done,
To every one of your complaints.
Don't hold back.
I am here for you and I want you to know that.'

Misery loves company.
A lot of it and that's a fact.
And emotions shown that go unprotected...
Are used as traps to hold folks back.

To achieve and acquire success...
One must work at it constantly.
Often without being understood.
Often without sleep.
Or getting little rest.
But blessings come as rewards for those tests.

Perceive and feel any accomplishment wished.
The beating and removing of weeds...
On a path,
May slow...
But don't let a mind that is fixed,
To accomplish...
Drift.

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V. Count Guido Franceschini

Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of … why, 't is wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate … aie, aie, aie,
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all's over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short, I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I' the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O' the Franceschini's once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!

[...] Read more

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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,—

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XI. Guido

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock

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