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After Nashville sushi and a long debate on Bob Dylan, we went into Woodland Studios at 10 pm that night for a look around, and jammed for 5 hours solid.

quote by Robyn Hitchcock
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Death of Daphnis

THYRSIS.
Sweet are the whispers of yon pine that makes
Low music o'er the spring, and, Goatherd, sweet
Thy piping; second thou to Pan alone.
Is his the horned ram? then thine the goat.
Is his the goat? to thee shall fall the kid;
And toothsome is the flesh of unmilked kids.

GOATHERD.
Shepherd, thy lay is as the noise of streams
Falling and falling aye from yon tall crag.
If for their meed the Muses claim the ewe,
Be thine the stall-fed lamb; or if they choose
The lamb, take thou the scarce less-valued ewe.

THYRSIS.
Pray, by the Nymphs, pray, Goatherd, seat thee here
Against this hill-slope in the tamarisk shade,
And pipe me somewhat, while I guard thy goats.

GOATHERD.
I durst not, Shepherd, O I durst not pipe
At noontide; fearing Pan, who at that hour
Rests from the toils of hunting. Harsh is he;
Wrath at his nostrils aye sits sentinel.
But, Thyrsis, thou canst sing of Daphnis' woes;
High is thy name for woodland minstrelsy:
Then rest we in the shadow of the elm
Fronting Priapus and the Fountain-nymphs.
There, where the oaks are and the Shepherd's seat,
Sing as thou sang'st erewhile, when matched with him
Of Libya, Chromis; and I'll give thee, first,
To milk, ay thrice, a goat-she suckles twins,
Yet ne'ertheless can fill two milkpails full;-
Next, a deep drinking-cup, with sweet wax scoured,
Two-handled, newly-carven, smacking yet
0' the chisel. Ivy reaches up and climbs
About its lip, gilt here and there with sprays
Of woodbine, that enwreathed about it flaunts
Her saffron fruitage. Framed therein appears
A damsel ('tis a miracle of art)
In robe and snood: and suitors at her side
With locks fair-flowing, on her right and left,
Battle with words, that fail to reach her heart.
She, laughing, glances now on this, flings now
Her chance regards on that: they, all for love
Wearied and eye-swoln, find their labour lost.
Carven elsewhere an ancient fisher stands
On the rough rocks: thereto the old man with pains
Drags his great casting-net, as one that toils

[...] Read more

poem by Theocritus
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How Does It Feel To Be Alone?

How does it feel to be alone
with no one round with whom you can
hang out, e-mail and telephone
now silent from your loverman?

How does it feel to get no kicks
from your beloved? Who is left,
for you to mix with, will you nix
your lovelife, loverman bereft?

Stone cold and lonely, lady, will
you roll, or will you gather moss?
On empty running, will you fill
your life again, make up your loss?

I knew that you were bound to fall
when first you fell for me. D’you feel
there’s someone else now you can call
and hope that you can make a deal?

With no direction home, is there,
d’you think, another man who’ll hold
you as I did, and if so, where
d’you think that like a stone he’s rolled?

Inspired by an article in the NYT by Adam Liptak on the use of lyrics by Bob Dylan in the Supreme Court (“The Chief Justice, Dylan and the Disappearing Double Negative, ” June 29,2008) :

The last chief justice liked light opera. The new one cites Bob Dylan. oour pages into his dissent on Monday in an achingly boring dispute between pay phone companies and long distance carriers, John G. Roberts Jr., the chief justice of the United States, put a song lyric where the citation to precedent usually goes. “The absence of any right to the substantive recovery means that respondents cannot benefit from the judgment they seek and thus lack Article III standing, ” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “ ‘When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.’ Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records 1965) .”
Alex B. Long, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and perhaps the nation’s leading authority on the citation of popular music in judicial opinions, said this was almost certainly the first use of a rock lyric to buttress a legal proposition in a Supreme Court decision. “It’s a landmark opinion, ” Professor Long said.
In the lower courts, according to a study Professor Long published in the Washington & Lee Law Review last year, Mr. Dylan is by far the most cited songwriter. He has been quoted in 26 opinions. Paul Simon is next, with 8 (12 if you count those attributed to Simon & Garfunkel) . Bruce Springsteen has 5.
But Mr. Dylan has only once before been cited as an authority on Article III standing, which concerns who can bring a lawsuit in federal court. His key contribution to legal discourse has been in another area.
“The correct rule on the necessity of expert testimony has been summarized by Bob Dylan: ‘You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, ’ ” a California appeals court wrote in 1981, citing “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Eighteen other decisions have cited that lyric.
Chief Justice Roberts’s predecessor, William H. Rehnquist, cited his beloved Gilbert & Sullivan in a 1980 dissent from a decision that the press had a constitutional right of access to court proceedings. He was still an associate justice, and he thought the court had made up the right out of whole cloth. In rebuttal, Justice Rehnquist relied on the Lord Chancellor in “Iolanthe” to rebuke the majority. “The Law is the true embodiment of everything that’s excellent, ” the Lord Chancellor says. “It has no kind of fault or flaw, and I, my Lords, embody the Law.”
That made Justice Rehnquist’s point pretty well. The Roberts citation is more problematic. On the one hand, he showed excellent taste. “Like a Rolling Stone, ” as Greil Marcus has written, is “the greatest record ever made, perhaps, or the greatest record that ever would be made.” On the other hand, Chief Justice Roberts gets the citation wrong, proving that he is neither an originalist nor a strict constructionist. What Mr. Dylan actually sings, of course, is, “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”
It’s true that many Web sites, including Mr. Dylan’s official one, reproduce the lyric as Chief Justice Roberts does. But a more careful Dylanist might have consulted his iPod. “It was almost certainly the clerks who provided the citation, ” Professor Long said. “I suppose their use of the Internet to check the lyrics violates one of the first rules they learned when they were all on law review: when quoting, always check the quote with the original source, not someone else’s characterization of what the source said.” The larger objection is that the citation is not true to the original point Mr. Dylan was making, which was about the freedom that having nothing conveys and not about who may sue a phone company. (See, e.g., “Me and Bobby McGee.”)

6/29/08

poem by Gershon Hepner
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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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Each Morning At The Breakfast Table

Who’ll stone you when you feel unable,
eating at the breakfast table,
to answer who’s the great composer,
implying that you are a loser?
Not my wife, though she’s most brainy;
on my creations never rainy,
she doesn’t let me feel alone,
rolling like a lonely stone.
Less than I a fan of Bob
on no occasions will she rob
me of my confidence. Sure, Dylan
to her appears to be a villain,
because of his association
with other forms of inspiration.
but she won’t stone me ever, that’s
why I won’t settle for ersatz.
She sees through masks, including mine,
but never stones the wearer, she
is morning coffee, evening wine,
and midnight she is ecstasy.
Not number twelve or thirty-five,
she’s number one, and helps me thrive
like Scarlett on the screen with Gable,
each morning at the breakfast table.

Inspired by Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women, #12 and 35, ” which he sang wwith a lot of other songs at Prospect Park Bandshell two days ago. Nate Chinen writes in the NYT, August 14,008 (“In Prospect Park, the Consequences of Love and a Shot of War”) :
In the final moments of his sold-out Celebrate Brooklyn concert at the Prospect Park Bandshell on Tuesday night, Bob Dylan struck a pose. He was standing at center stage, feet planted wide. Dressed in black from his hat on down, he faced outward, proud, flanked by stone-faced band members. Then he formed his hands into pistols — six-shooters, let’s say — and fired shot after shot, roguishly slaying the crowd. It was a pretty good illustration of what had been happening for the past two hours.
Mr. Dylan can be an inconstant performer, and sometimes an indifferent one. But here he was dynamic, enthusiastic, out for blood. His set list featured more than half a dozen irrefutable classics, starting with “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.” And he showed ironclad focus, commanding the same professionally gritty crew heard on his most recent album, “Modern Times” (Columbia) . As usual Mr. Dylan transformed his old songs, in some cases preserving only the lyrics. “Girl From the North Country” adopted some shadowy new harmonies, and “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) ” turned up with a Celtic-Appalachian lilt. “Blowin’ in the Wind, ” the civil rights anthem that put Mr. Dylan on the map roughly 45 years ago, underwent the most radical revision, riding a crisp backbeat and rhythm-guitar part that suggested the heyday of Muscle Shoals rhythm and blues. Necessity surely birthed some of these inventions: Mr. Dylan,67, now sings with a (more) limited range, and a coarse, throaty tone. (When he rasped, “Lay across my big brass bed, ” in “Lay Lady Lay, ” he sounded like the Big Bad Wolf entreating Little Red Riding Hood.) And he rarely plays guitar, instead favoring an organlike keyboard, and occasionally the harmonica. Rhythm is his asset, his best means of asserting control; the bassist Tony Garnier and the drummer George Receli dug in but followed his lead.
Mr. Dylan has a new edition of his popular Bootleg Series due out in October: “Tell Tales Signs” (Columbia/Legacy) , consisting of relatively recent recordings, many previously unreleased. Only one track from that package, “Lonesome Day Blues, ” crept into the show. (It can also be found on the 2001 album “Love and Theft.”) Meanwhile the five songs culled from “Modern Times” held up admirably. “The Levee’s Gonna Break, ” set at a hard-rollicking tempo, was especially strong. But the two most potent songs, in a show that often touched upon the consequences of love, had to do explicitly with war. One was “John Brown, ” an early protest song that Mr. Dylan never released on a studio album: its narrative, forcefully told, involves a shattered soldier returning to his chastened mother. The other was “Masters of War, ” a much more celebrated song from the same era, which draws its focus wide but sharp. Here Mr. Dylan enunciated unusually clearly, over a drone-haunted vamp. “I hope that you die, ” he snarled, leaving two bars of open space before the next line, “And your death will come soon.” But his peak of intensity came paired to something other than a death wish. “I can see through your masks, ” he wailed, stretching out the last word of the phrase for emphasis. He seemed to know firsthand about masks, and seeing through them.

8/14/08

poem by Gershon Hepner
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Imperialism: Happy Imperialistic FBI Valentine To A Sushi Agents

Do not look at me in the eyes...

FBI
sushi agent
cause,
you look a minimum
wage FBI sushi-chess-or cheese burger
No GDE,
No Connection, and
No emotional secure ground....So stop there
and happy valentine
to you...and all the FBI sushi minimum wage like you....and I still admire

the butt
dwelling free butt....unwatched....un-hijacked....nobody noticed it..shame
on the FBI...SUSHI BOSS....

if you are a PHD
Affiliated with FBI...
happy valentine too...

but, what your butt is doing

there watching out for the FBI....
with a PHD....are you....
a flip flap

double agent

double love
burned from the first round....with a russian in a russian roulette...

if so you are KJB....Puttin...and put it this way....this is
a crime against the nation....
and the valentine law....
to be double PHD

DOUBLE LIPS
DOUBLE BUTT
DOUBLE EVERYTHING

AND ON TOP
WHEN I AM ON TOP
OF MY HEAD
OR ON TOP OF YOU....

YOU WANT ME

[...] Read more

poem by Atef Ayadi
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The Dream

'TWAS summer eve; the changeful beams still play'd
On the fir-bark and through the beechen shade;
Still with soft crimson glow'd each floating cloud;
Still the stream glitter'd where the willow bow'd;
Still the pale moon sate silent and alone,
Nor yet the stars had rallied round her throne;
Those diamond courtiers, who, while yet the West
Wears the red shield above his dying breast,
Dare not assume the loss they all desire,
Nor pay their homage to the fainter fire,
But wait in trembling till the Sun's fair light
Fading, shall leave them free to welcome Night!

So when some Chief, whose name through realms afar
Was still the watchword of succesful war,
Met by the fatal hour which waits for all,
Is, on the field he rallied, forced to fall,
The conquerors pause to watch his parting breath,
Awed by the terrors of that mighty death;
Nor dare the meed of victory to claim,
Nor lift the standard to a meaner name,
Till every spark of soul hath ebb'd away,
And leaves what was a hero, common clay.

Oh! Twilight! Spirit that dost render birth
To dim enchantments; melting Heaven with Earth,
Leaving on craggy hills and rumning streams
A softness like the atmosphere of dreams;
Thy hour to all is welcome! Faint and sweet
Thy light falls round the peasant's homeward feet,
Who, slow returning from his task of toil,
Sees the low sunset gild the cultured soil,
And, tho' such radliance round him brightly glows,
Marks the small spark his cottage window throws.
Still as his heart forestals his weary pace,
Fondly he dreams of each familiar face,
Recalls the treasures of his narrow life,
His rosy children, and his sunburnt wife,

To whom his coming is the chief event
Of simple days in cheerful labour spent.
The rich man's chariot hath gone whirling past,
And those poor cottagers have only cast
One careless glance on all that show of pride,
Then to their tasks turn'd quietly aside;
But him they wait for, him they welcome home,
Fond sentinels look forth to see him come;
The fagot sent for when the fire grew dim,
The frugal meal prepared, are all for him;
For him the watching of that sturdy boy,

[...] Read more

poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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Robert of Lincoln

Merrily swinging on brier and weed,
Near to the nest of his little dame,
Over the mountain-side or mead,
Robert of Lincoln is telling his name.
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink,
Snug and safe is this nest of ours,
Hidden among the summer flowers.
Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln is gayly dressed,
Wearing a bright, black wedding-coat;
White are his shoulders, and white his crest,
Hear him call in his merry note,
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink,
Look what a nice, new coat is mine;
Sure there was never a bird so fine.
Chee, chee, chee.

Robert of Lincoln's Quaker wife,
Pretty and quiet, with plain brown wings,
Passing at home a patient life,
Broods in the grass while her husband sings,
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink,
Brood, kind creature, you need not fear
Thieves and robbers while I am here.
Chee, chee, chee.

Modest and shy as a nun is she;
One weak chirp is her only note;
Braggart, and prince of braggarts is he,
Pouring boasts from his little throat,
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink,
Never was I afraid of man,
Catch me, cowardly knaves, if you can.
Chee, chee, chee.

Six white eggs on a bed of hay,
Flecked with purple, a pretty sight:
There as the mother sits all day,
Robert is singing with all his might,
Bob-o'-link, bob-o'-link,
Spink, spank, spink,
Nice good wife that never goes out,
Keeping house while I frolic about.
Chee, chee, chee.

[...] Read more

poem by William Cullen Bryant
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Newpower Soul

2 the darkness - let there be light
2 the soundman - turn up my voice real tight
2 the n.p.g. - if u in this mother, scream
Show me how u all get down - 1 2 3, come on
Get freaky, let the head bob {x2}
We should all come 2gether 2 the newpower soul
Get freaky, let the head bob {x2} (come on, come on)
Itll make u feel much better - come on, baby, lets go!
Every while in a great once there comes 2 town a show
That lives up 2 all your funkspectation no matter how high or low
A reason 2 get your freak on in a way u never freaked before
Newpower soul lay claim 2 the booty - come on, lets go
(lemme see u get down)
Let the head bob
Get freaky, let the head bob (come on, come on)
We should all come 2gether 2 the newpower soul
(lemme see u get down)
Let the head bob
Get freaky, let the head bob {x2} (come on, come on)
Itll make u feel much better - come on, baby, lets go!
Every while in a day twice funky matters in our ear
As long as we keep our love strong, well never shed no tears
The brothas be threatenin 2 jump off buildings, newpowers what
They fear
Love 4 one another risin, newpower soul is here
(lemme see u get down)
Let the head bob
Get freaky, let the head bob (come on)
We should all come 2gether 2 the newpower soul (come
2gether)
(lemme see u get down)
Let the head bob
Get freaky, let the head bob (come on, come on)
Itll make u feel much better (feel better) - come on, baby, lets go!
Newpower soul
(we should all) {repeat sample}
Gemini rising on the 7th day
Makin mad sex, until ure in my arms, ok?
Cuz when u love somebody like that, its cool
U gots no need 4 the shoo-bed-ooh-bed-ooh
The good life, yeah, well be livin
Pushin up on every freak this side of heaven
Come on, come on, shake it, come on
U know I bes the one with the funky music, hon
And Im layin phat claims 2 the booty
Phat claims 2 the newpower booty
Keepin the crowd movin, yall, is my one and only duty, ooh wee!
With the newpower soul
Right on
We should all

[...] Read more

song performed by Prince
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Nashville

As I drive
From your pearly gates
I realize that I just cant stay
All those mountains
They kept you locked inside
And hid the truth
From my slighted eyes
I came to you with a half-open heart
Dreams upon my back
Illusions of a brand new start
Nashville
Cant I carry the load
Is it my fault that
I cant reap what I sow
Nashville
Did you give me half a chance
With your southern style
And your hidden dance away
You dance away
And you dance away
All these voices
They whisper through my walls
They talk of falling fast
They say Im losing it all
They say Im running blind
To love of my own
But Ill be walking proud
Im saving what I still own
I fell on my knees to kiss your land
But you are so far down
And I cant even see to stand
In nashville
You forgot the human race
You see with half a mind
What colors hide the face
Nashville
Id like to know your fate
Id like to stay a while
But Ive seen your lowered states today
Ive seen em today
Honey I swear Ive seen em today
Now Im leaving
Ive got all these debts to pay
You know we all have our dues
Ill pay em some other place
Ah I never ask that you pay me back
We all arrive with more
I left with less than I had
Your town is made for people passing through
A last chance for a cause

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song performed by Indigo Girls
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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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Lara

LARA. [1]

CANTO THE FIRST.

I.

The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain, [2]
And slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord —
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far chequering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted fagots' hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.

II.

The chief of Lara is return'd again:
And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main?
Left by his sire, too young such loss to know,
Lord of himself; — that heritage of woe,
That fearful empire which the human breast
But holds to rob the heart within of rest! —
With none to check, and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime;
Then, when he most required commandment, then
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern'd men.
It skills not, boots not, step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of its race;
Short was the course his restlessness had run,
But long enough to leave him half undone.

III.

And Lara left in youth his fatherland;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there;
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew
Cold in the many, anxious in the few.
His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name,
His portrait darkens in its fading frame,
Another chief consoled his destined bride,
The young forgot him, and the old had died;
"Yet doth he live!" exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear.

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poem by Byron
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Lara. A Tale

The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain,
And slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord--
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far chequering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted fagots' hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.

II.
The chief of Lara is return'd again:
And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main?
Left by his sire, too young such loss to know,
Lord of himself;--that heritage of woe,
That fearful empire which the human breast
But holds to rob the heart within of rest!--
With none to check, and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime;
Then, when he most required commandment, then
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern'd men.
It skills not, boots not, step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of its race;
Short was the course his restlessness had run,
But long enough to leave him half undone.

III.
And Lara left in youth his fatherland;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there;
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew
Cold in the many, anxious in the few.
His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name,
His portrait darkens in its fading frame,
Another chief consoled his destined bride,
The young forgot him, and the old had died;
'Yet doth he live!' exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear.
A hundred scutcheons deck with gloomy grace
The Laras' last and longest dwelling-place;
But one is absent from the mouldering file,
That now were welcome to that Gothic pile.

IV.
He comes at last in sudden loneliness,
And whence they know not, why they need not guess;

[...] Read more

poem by Byron
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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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Bob

SINGER of songs of the hills—
Dreamer, by waters unstirred,
Back in a valley of rills,
Home of the leaf and the bird!—
Read in this fall of the year
Just the compassionate phrase,
Faded with traces of tear,
Written in far-away days:
“Gone is the light of my lap
(Lord, at Thy bidding I bow),
Here is my little one’s cap,
He has no need of it now,
Give it to somebody’s boy—
Somebody’s darling”—she wrote.
Touching was Bob in his joy—
Bob without boots or a coat.

Only a cap; but it gave
Capless and comfortless one
Happiness, bright as the brave,
Beautiful light of the sun.
Soft may the sanctified sod
Rest on the father who led
Bob from the gutter, unshod—
Covered his cold little head!

Bob from the foot to the crown
Measured a yard, and no more—
Baby alone in the town,
Homeless, and hungry, and sore—
Child that was never a child,
Hiding away from the rain,
Draggled and dirty and wild,
Down in a pipe of the drain.

Poor little beggar was Bob—
Couldn’t afford to be sick,
Getting a penny a job,
Sometimes a curse and a kick.
Father was killed by the drink;
Mother was driven to shame;
Bob couldn’t manage to think—
He had forgotten their name.

God was in heaven above,
Flowers illumined the ground,
Women of infinite love
Lived in the palaces round—
Saints with the character sweet
Found in the fathers of old,

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poem by Henry Kendall
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Goldilocks And Goldilocks

It was Goldilocks woke up in the morn
At the first of the shearing of the corn.

There stood his mother on the hearth
And of new-leased wheat was little dearth.

There stood his sisters by the quern,
For the high-noon cakes they needs must earn.

“O tell me Goldilocks my son,
Why hast thou coloured raiment on?”

“Why should I wear the hodden grey
When I am light of heart to-day?”

“O tell us, brother, why ye wear
In reaping-tide the scarlet gear?

Why hangeth the sharp sword at thy side
When through the land ’tis the hook goes wide?”

“Gay-clad am I that men may know
The freeman’s son where’er I go.

The grinded sword at side I bear
Lest I the dastard’s word should hear.”

“O tell me Goldilocks my son,
Of whither away thou wilt be gone?”

“The morn is fair and the world is wide
And here no more will I abide.”

“O Brother, when wilt thou come again?”
“The autumn drought, and the winter rain,

The frost and the snow, and St. David’s wind,
All these that were time out of mind,

All these a many times shall be
Ere the Upland Town again I see.”

“O Goldilocks my son, farewell,
As thou wendest the world ’twixt home and hell!”

“O brother Goldilocks, farewell,
Come back with a tale for men to tell!”

So ’tis wellaway for Goldilocks,
As he left the land of the wheaten shocks.

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poem by William Morris
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Book I - Part 05 - Character Of The Atoms

Bodies, again,
Are partly primal germs of things, and partly
Unions deriving from the primal germs.
And those which are the primal germs of things
No power can quench; for in the end they conquer
By their own solidness; though hard it be
To think that aught in things has solid frame;
For lightnings pass, no less than voice and shout,
Through hedging walls of houses, and the iron
White-dazzles in the fire, and rocks will burn
With exhalations fierce and burst asunder.
Totters the rigid gold dissolved in heat;
The ice of bronze melts conquered in the flame;
Warmth and the piercing cold through silver seep,
Since, with the cups held rightly in the hand,
We oft feel both, as from above is poured
The dew of waters between their shining sides:
So true it is no solid form is found.
But yet because true reason and nature of things
Constrain us, come, whilst in few verses now
I disentangle how there still exist
Bodies of solid, everlasting frame-
The seeds of things, the primal germs we teach,
Whence all creation around us came to be.
First since we know a twofold nature exists,
Of things, both twain and utterly unlike-
Body, and place in which an things go on-
Then each must be both for and through itself,
And all unmixed: where'er be empty space,
There body's not; and so where body bides,
There not at an exists the void inane.
Thus primal bodies are solid, without a void.
But since there's void in all begotten things,
All solid matter must be round the same;
Nor, by true reason canst thou prove aught hides
And holds a void within its body, unless
Thou grant what holds it be a solid. Know,
That which can hold a void of things within
Can be naught else than matter in union knit.
Thus matter, consisting of a solid frame,
Hath power to be eternal, though all else,
Though all creation, be dissolved away.
Again, were naught of empty and inane,
The world were then a solid; as, without
Some certain bodies to fill the places held,
The world that is were but a vacant void.
And so, infallibly, alternate-wise
Body and void are still distinguished,
Since nature knows no wholly full nor void.
There are, then, certain bodies, possessed of power

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poem by Lucretius
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XI. Guido

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

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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The Four Seasons : Summer

From brightening fields of ether fair disclosed,
Child of the Sun, refulgent Summer comes,
In pride of youth, and felt through Nature's depth:
He comes attended by the sultry Hours,
And ever fanning breezes, on his way;
While, from his ardent look, the turning Spring
Averts her blushful face; and earth, and skies,
All-smiling, to his hot dominion leaves.
Hence, let me haste into the mid-wood shade,
Where scarce a sunbeam wanders through the gloom;
And on the dark-green grass, beside the brink
Of haunted stream, that by the roots of oak
Rolls o'er the rocky channel, lie at large,
And sing the glories of the circling year.
Come, Inspiration! from thy hermit-seat,
By mortal seldom found: may Fancy dare,
From thy fix'd serious eye, and raptured glance
Shot on surrounding Heaven, to steal one look
Creative of the Poet, every power
Exalting to an ecstasy of soul.
And thou, my youthful Muse's early friend,
In whom the human graces all unite:
Pure light of mind, and tenderness of heart;
Genius, and wisdom; the gay social sense,
By decency chastised; goodness and wit,
In seldom-meeting harmony combined;
Unblemish'd honour, and an active zeal
For Britain's glory, liberty, and Man:
O Dodington! attend my rural song,
Stoop to my theme, inspirit every line,
And teach me to deserve thy just applause.
With what an awful world-revolving power
Were first the unwieldy planets launch'd along
The illimitable void! thus to remain,
Amid the flux of many thousand years,
That oft has swept the toiling race of men,
And all their labour'd monuments away,
Firm, unremitting, matchless, in their course;
To the kind-temper'd change of night and day,
And of the seasons ever stealing round,
Minutely faithful: such the All-perfect hand!
That poised, impels, and rules the steady whole.
When now no more the alternate Twins are fired,
And Cancer reddens with the solar blaze,
Short is the doubtful empire of the night;
And soon, observant of approaching day,
The meek'd-eyed Morn appears, mother of dews,
At first faint-gleaming in the dappled east:
Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow;
And, from before the lustre of her face,

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poem by James Thomson
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Narrative And Dramatic The Wanderings Of Oisin

BOOK I

S. Patrick. You who are bent, and bald, and blind,
With a heavy heart and a wandering mind,
Have known three centuries, poets sing,
Of dalliance with a demon thing.

Oisin. Sad to remember, sick with years,
The swift innumerable spears,
The horsemen with their floating hair,
And bowls of barley, honey, and wine,
Those merry couples dancing in tune,
And the white body that lay by mine;
But the tale, though words be lighter than air.
Must live to be old like the wandering moon.

Caoilte, and Conan, and Finn were there,
When we followed a deer with our baying hounds.
With Bran, Sceolan, and Lomair,
And passing the Firbolgs' burial-motmds,
Came to the cairn-heaped grassy hill
Where passionate Maeve is stony-still;
And found On the dove-grey edge of the sea
A pearl-pale, high-born lady, who rode
On a horse with bridle of findrinny;
And like a sunset were her lips,
A stormy sunset on doomed ships;
A citron colour gloomed in her hair,

But down to her feet white vesture flowed,
And with the glimmering crimson glowed
Of many a figured embroidery;
And it was bound with a pearl-pale shell
That wavered like the summer streams,
As her soft bosom rose and fell.

S. Patrick. You are still wrecked among heathen dreams.

Oisin. 'Why do you wind no horn?' she said
'And every hero droop his head?
The hornless deer is not more sad
That many a peaceful moment had,
More sleek than any granary mouse,
In his own leafy forest house
Among the waving fields of fern:
The hunting of heroes should be glad.'

'O pleasant woman,' answered Finn,
'We think on Oscar's pencilled urn,
And on the heroes lying slain

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poem by William Butler Yeats
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The Four Seasons : Winter

See, Winter comes, to rule the varied year,
Sullen and sad, with all his rising train;
Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme,
These! that exalt the soul to solemn thought,
And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms,
Congenial horrors, hail! with frequent foot,
Pleased have I, in my cheerful morn of life,
When nursed by careless Solitude I lived,
And sung of Nature with unceasing joy,
Pleased have I wander'd through your rough domain;
Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure;
Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst;
Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brew'd,
In the grim evening sky. Thus pass'd the time,
Till through the lucid chambers of the south
Look'd out the joyous Spring, look'd out, and smiled.
To thee, the patron of her first essay,
The Muse, O Wilmington! renews her song.
Since has she rounded the revolving year:
Skimm'd the gay Spring; on eagle-pinions borne,
Attempted through the Summer-blaze to rise;
Then swept o'er Autumn with the shadowy gale;
And now among the wintry clouds again,
Roll'd in the doubling storm, she tries to soar;
To swell her note with all the rushing winds;
To suit her sounding cadence to the floods;
As is her theme, her numbers wildly great:
Thrice happy could she fill thy judging ear
With bold description, and with manly thought.
Nor art thou skill'd in awful schemes alone,
And how to make a mighty people thrive;
But equal goodness, sound integrity,
A firm, unshaken, uncorrupted soul,
Amid a sliding age, and burning strong,
Not vainly blazing for thy country's weal,
A steady spirit regularly free;
These, each exalting each, the statesman light
Into the patriot; these, the public hope
And eye to thee converting, bid the Muse
Record what envy dares not flattery call.
Now when the cheerless empire of the sky
To Capricorn the Centaur Archer yields,
And fierce Aquarius stains the inverted year;
Hung o'er the farthest verge of Heaven, the sun
Scarce spreads through ether the dejected day.
Faint are his gleams, and ineffectual shoot
His struggling rays, in horizontal lines,
Through the thick air; as clothed in cloudy storm,
Weak, wan, and broad, he skirts the southern sky;
And, soon-descending, to the long dark night,

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poem by James Thomson
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