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When would you know?

When Im gone.
Would you know?
Would you realise?
Maybey your be curious.
Or even wonder why.

Was it of natrual cuases?
Then you already knew.
it was not natrual.
It was of my own doing.

This time would you know?
No you wouldnt.
I made sure
You wouldnt be there

poem by Amy Louise Kerswell
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I Have A Woman Inside My Soul

I have a woman inside my soul,
Her eyes sombre and sad.
She waves her hand to try to reach me,
But I cant hear what she says.
I wish I knew what she says,
I wish I knew what she wants,
I wish I knew what she says to me,
I wish I knew what she means to me.
I see an asphalt road inside my soul,
Its pale even in a warm summers day.
It stretches into the mist and calls me,
But I dont know what it takes.
I wish I knew what it takes, (I wish I knew)
I wish I knew what it gives, (I wish I knew)
I wish I knew what it says to me, (I wish I knew)
I wish I knew what it means to me. (I wish I knew)
I see a tombstone inside my soul,
Its old and mossy, covered in dead leaves.
It stands with an engraving on it surface,
But I dont know what it reads.
I wish I knew what it reads, (I wish I knew)
I wish I knew what it says, (I wish I knew)
I wish I knew what it says to me, (I wish I knew)
I wish I knew what it means to me. (I wish I knew)
(yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, hey)
I feel snow covering inside my soul,
Its hard and shining in shades of grey.
No footsteps ever made their marks,
And I dont know when it melts.
I wish I knew when it melts, (I wish I knew)
I wish I knew when it happens, (I wish I knew)
I wish I knew if it happens at all, (I wish I knew)
I wish I knew what it means to me. (I wish I knew)
I hear a stream running inside my soul,
Its cold and clear and carries a tune.
But I dont know what it sings and tells,
I dont know where it goes.
I wish I knew what it sings,
I wish I knew where it goes,
I wish I knew what it sings, (I wish I knew)
I wish I knew where it goes, (I wish I knew)
I wish I knew what it sings. (I wish I knew)
(I wish I knew)
(I wish I knew) (yeah!)
(I wish I knew)
(I wish I knew)

song performed by Yoko Ono
Added by Lucian Velea
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Wouldnt You Like To Know Me

Ive been lonely but I feel alright
You got another baby, hold him tight, you know
You been pushin and you wont get me tonight
Ive been your lover, but Im not your fool
You wanna to teach me but Im not in school, you know
You been pushin and you wont get me tonight
You come a-crawlin, but youre much too late
Youve got the key, but babe I locked the gate
I tried to call you when you were not home
Nobody likes to spend the nights alone
Wouldnt you like to know me
And wouldnt you like to show me you care
Wouldnt you like to take me
And wouldnt you like to make me, whoo yeah
Youre good lookin so you get your way
You been lucky, baby, not today, because
You been pushin and you dont get me tonight
You come a-crawlin, but youre much too late
Youve got the key, but babe I locked the gate
I tried to call you when you were not home
Nobody likes to spend the nights alone
Wouldnt you like to know me
And wouldnt you like to show me you care
Wouldnt you like to take me
And wouldnt you like to make me, whoo yeah
Lets go
Wouldnt you like to know me
And wouldnt you like to show me you care
Wouldnt you like to take me
And wouldnt you like to make me, whoo yeah
Wouldnt you like to know me
And wouldnt you like to show me you care
Wouldnt you like to take me
And wouldnt you like to make me, whoo yeah
Wouldnt you like to know me
And wouldnt you like to

song performed by Kiss
Added by Lucian Velea
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Avon's Harvest

Fear, like a living fire that only death
Might one day cool, had now in Avon’s eyes
Been witness for so long of an invasion
That made of a gay friend whom we had known
Almost a memory, wore no other name
As yet for us than fear. Another man
Than Avon might have given to us at least
A futile opportunity for words
We might regret. But Avon, since it happened,
Fed with his unrevealing reticence
The fire of death we saw that horribly
Consumed him while he crumbled and said nothing.

So many a time had I been on the edge,
And off again, of a foremeasured fall
Into the darkness and discomfiture
Of his oblique rebuff, that finally
My silence honored his, holding itself
Away from a gratuitous intrusion
That likely would have widened a new distance
Already wide enough, if not so new.
But there are seeming parallels in space
That may converge in time; and so it was
I walked with Avon, fought and pondered with him,
While he made out a case for So-and-so,
Or slaughtered What’s-his-name in his old way,
With a new difference. Nothing in Avon lately
Was, or was ever again to be for us,
Like him that we remembered; and all the while
We saw that fire at work within his eyes
And had no glimpse of what was burning there.

So for a year it went; and so it went
For half another year—when, all at once,
At someone’s tinkling afternoon at home
I saw that in the eyes of Avon’s wife
The fire that I had met the day before
In his had found another living fuel.
To look at her and then to think of him,
And thereupon to contemplate the fall
Of a dim curtain over the dark end
Of a dark play, required of me no more
Clairvoyance than a man who cannot swim
Will exercise in seeing that his friend
Off shore will drown except he save himself.
To her I could say nothing, and to him
No more than tallied with a long belief
That I should only have it back again
For my chagrin to ruminate upon,
Ingloriously, for the still time it starved;

[...] Read more

poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson
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I Am Curious

(carole pope / kevan staples)
Im curious, I wanna know
Im an idealist, Ill let it show
Im curious with myself
Im delirious from wanting
The noise that announces a seduction
Im a volcano
In a state of eruption
I live life with a wild intensity
Need to be aroused
To the point of intimacy
What are your motives?
I got to know
Im doing research
I got to know
What are your motives?
I got to know
Tell me your motives, oh, oh
cause Im curious, I wanna know
Im an idealist, Ill let it show
Im curious with myself
Im delirious from wanting
The fusing, the melting of two bodies
Im addicted to lethal sexuality
I live life on the edge of ecstasy
Need to be desired
Nothing else fulfils me
What are your motives?
I got to know
Im doing research
I got to know
What are your motives?
I got to know
Tell me your motives, ooh, ooh
Im curious, I wanna know
Im an idealist, Ill let it show
Im curious with myself
Im delirious from wanting
Im curious, I wanna know
Im an idealist, Ill let it show
Im curious with myself
Im delirious from wanting
Yes, Im curious, I wanna know
Im an idealist, Ill let it show
I am curious with myself
Too delirious from singing
cause Im curious, I wanna know
Im an idealist, Ill let it show
Im curious with myself
Im delirious from wanting

song performed by Dusty Springfield
Added by Lucian Velea
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A Room For Everything

Oooooh...
You were looking away from me
Western skies calling you
Colors spilling, running, dazzling you
I was looking the other way
Voices call from the east
I saw my roots of the trees there, planted at my feet
It could be Im searching
For a place so small
With room for everything
Where worlds on worlds revolve
But how can we wait?
I wouldnt hold you
No, I wouldnt hold you
I wouldnt hold you back
Suppose I was the clever one
And words came easy to me
I could say I was writing a song
About you, you and me
Maybe that verse is yet to be found
But waits inside of me
A secret room, a tangled web
To unweave
It could be Im searching
For a place so small
With room for everything
Where worlds on worlds revolve
But how can we wait
Knowing our way
How can we hold on
Still, you know its not too late
I wouldnt hold you
No, I wouldnt hold you
I wouldnt hold you back
I wouldnt hold you
No, I wouldnt hold you
I wouldnt hold you back
I wouldnt hold you
No, I wouldnt hold you
I wouldnt hold you back
I wouldnt hold you
No, I wouldnt hold you
I wouldnt hold you back

song performed by 10000 Maniacs
Added by Lucian Velea
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Curious

Straight as a dye
On us we rely
Yet watch how my head is turning
Distracting my eye
Its no reflection on you, yet who would believe me
Troubled by the thought of it, I cant deny
That Im curious, never meant to hurt you
Just curious, I cant deny
That Im curious, never have decieved you
Just curious, I cannot lie
Give me a reason
Ill hide my delight
Shamelessly Ill seize the moment
Just my needs in sight
Its no reflection on you, yet who would believe me
Troubled by the thought of it, I cant deny
That Im curious, never meant to hurt you
Just curious, I cant deny
That Im curious, never have decieved you
Just curious, I cannot lie
Its no reflection on you, yet who would believe me
Troubled by the thought of it, I cant deny
That Im curious, never meant to hurt you
Just curious, I cant deny
That Im curious, never have decieved you
Just curious, I cannot lie

song performed by Olive
Added by Lucian Velea
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I Wouldnt Wanna Be You

(randy sharp, jeff silbar)
You dont have a clue
Youre so far gone
Hes got you dancin to
A sirens song
I wouldnt wanna be you right now
I wouldnt wanna be
I wouldnt wanna be you right now
I wouldnt wanna be, I wouldnt wanna be
Youre not the first hes drawn
To his flame
He means to do you wrong
He has no shame
I wouldnt wanna be you right now
I wouldnt wanna be
I wouldnt wanna be you right now
I wouldnt wanna be, I wouldnt wanna be you
Its easy to understand
How you could fall so hard
Youre not the only one
Hes taken in and torn apart
Wont say I told you so
But Im afraid its true
Youre about to go
What I went through
I wouldnt wanna be you right now
I wouldnt wanna be
I wouldnt wanna be you right now
I wouldnt wanna be, I wouldnt wanna be you

song performed by Reba Mcentire
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Escape of the Old Grey Squirrel

Old Grey Squirrel might have been
Almost anything -
Might have been a soldier, sailor,
Tinker, tailor
(Never a beggar-man, though, nor thief).
Might have been, perhaps, a king,
Or an Indian chief.

He remained a City clerk
Doubled on a great high stool,
Totting up, from dawn to dark,
Figures, figures, figures, figures,
Red ink, black ink, double rule,
Tot-tot-totting with his pen,
Up and down and round again -
Curious Old Grey Squirrel.

No one ever really knew
What he did at night,
In his room so near the roof,
Up those steep and narrow stairs.
Old Grey Squirrel wasn't quite
The same as other men.
What he said was always true;
He was like a little child
In a thousand things.
Something shy and delicate,
Cold and grave and undefiled,
Seemed to keep him quite aloof.
You could never call him lonely,
Though he lived with memory there.

When he knelt beside his bed
He had nothing much to say
But the simplest little prayer
Learned in childhood, long ago,
And he didn't know or care
Whether Calvinists might call it
Praying for the dead.

Father, mother, sister, brother -
Memories clear as evening bells;
Yes, the very sort of thing
All your clever little scribblers
Love to satirize and sting,
So let's talk of something else.
He collected stamps, you know,
Commonplace Old Squirrel.

Ah, but could you see him there,

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Noyes
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Song of the Dardanelles

The Wireless tells and the cable tells
How our boys behaved by the Dardanelles.
Some thought in their hearts “Will our boys make good?”
We knew them of old and we knew they would!
Knew they would—
Knew they would;
We were mates of old and we knew they would.
They laughed and they larked and they loved likewise,
For blood is warm under Southern skies;
They knew not Pharoah (’tis understood),
And they got into scrapes, as we knew they would.
Knew they would—
Knew they would;
And they got into scrapes, as we knew they would.

They chafed in the dust of an old dead land
At the long months’ drill in the scorching sand;
But they knew in their hearts it was for their good,
And they saw it through as we knew they would.
Knew they would—
Knew they would;
And they saw it through as we knew they would.

The Coo-ee called through the Mena Camp,
And an army roared like the Ocean’s tramp
On a gale-swept beach in her wildest mood,
Till the Pyramids shook as we knew they would.
Knew they would—
Knew they would.
(And the Sphinx woke up as we knew she would.)

They were shipped like sheep when the dawn was grey;
(But their officers knew that no lambs were they).
They squatted and perched where’er they could,
And they “blanky-ed” for joy as we knew they would.
Knew they would—
Knew they would;
They “blanky-ed” for joy as we knew they would.

The sea was hell and the shore was hell,
With mine, entanglement, shrapnel and shell,
But they stormed the heights as Australians should,
And they fought and they died as we knew they would.
Knew they would—
Knew they would;
They fought and they died as we knew they would.

From the southern hills and the city lanes,
From the sandwaste lone and the Blacksoil Plains;
The youngest and strongest of England’s brood!—

[...] Read more

poem by Henry Lawson
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Black Coffee

Night Swimming
Beach walking
Always silent
Never talking
Then you call my name
And I know inside I love you

Sail away
I miss you more
Until you see the shore
There I will be waiting
Anticipating

Each moment is new
Freeze the moment
Each moment is cool
Freeze the moment

I wouldnt wanna be
Anywhere else but... here
I wouldnt wanna change
Anything at all
(Anything oh I..)

I wouldnt wanna take
Everything out on... you
Though I know I do
(Although I know I do)
Everytime I fall

Day dreaming
Chain smoking
Always laughin
Always jokin
I remain the same
Did I tell you that I love you

Brush your teeth
And pour a cup of black coffee out
I love to watch you do that every day
The little things that you do

Each moment is new
Freeze the moment
Each moment is cool
Freeze the moment

I wouldnt wanna be
Anywhere else but... here
I wouldnt wanna change

[...] Read more

song performed by All Saints from Saints & Sinners
Added by Lucian Velea
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Curious Thing

There was this guy, he was down on his luck
He was truly povertys child
Well, he had no home and he had no car
And he wore a weary smile
Moved out to l.a., knocked around for awhile
But he was getting nowhere
Then he did this movie and it did really well
Now hes a millionaire
See, life is a curious thing
Life, ooh life is a curious thing
I know a man who could paint the town red
Had a college degree in fun
till the doorbell rang and a long lost flame said
This little boy is your son
Gave him a suitcase and a bear
Left em in a cloud of dust
Now hes checking out schools and driving carpools
Learning to adjust
He says life is a curious thing
Life, ooh life is a curious thing
Well, I know that it can be demanding
I know that it can be unkind
I dont really understand it
But lord sure knows I try
Life is a curious thing
Life, ooh life is a curious thing
Let me tell you bout a kid I knew
A pudgy girl back in school
She had greasy hair and geeky glasses
Object of ridicule
The other day in the check out line
They were ringing up my rice and beans
There she was, a pretty little face
On the cover of a magazine
And I said life is a curious thing
Life, ooh life is a curious thing
(chorus)
Just goes to show that you never know
Just what tomorrow may bring
But Ill tell you this that what it is
Is seldom what it seems
cause life is a curious thing
Life, ooh life is a curious thing. . .

song performed by Amy Grant
Added by Lucian Velea
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A Time To Feel Forlorn and Reconstruct What's Torn

There's a designated time in the universe for everything:

A time to limit, a time to expand.
A time to rise, time to lower and lend a hand.

A time to maintain, a time to abandon.
A time to develop, a time to rest at random.

A time to communicate, a time for silence.
A time to kiss your enemy, a time to concede wins.

A time to spite, a time to please.
A time for respite, a time to tease.

A time to process, a time to confess.
A time to do more. A time to do less.

A time to dominate. A time to captivate.
A time to plunge. A time to resurface straight.

A time to maximise. A time to minimise.
A time to diminish. A time to optimise.

A time to sacrifice. time to insist on rights.
A time to be selfish. A time to be concerned about plights.

A time to be big. A time to be small.
A time to care for a special one. A time to love all.

A time to add dimension. A time to simplify.
A time to advocate egalitarianism.
A time to exult.
A time to default.
A time to be accepting of imperfect humanism.

A time to enhance. A time to simplify.
A time to criticise. A time to dignify.

A time to produce. A time to use.
A time to relent. A time to refuse.

A time to demand. A time to give.
A time to die. a time to live.

A time to survive. A time to admit defeat.
A time to lie. A time to walk on your feet.

A time to compete. A time to not.
A time to remember. A time to concede you forgot.

[...] Read more

poem by Hercolena Oliver
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Curious

Welcome to the great unknown
Take a journey into the O zone
Feed your fire, feel the burn
And I'm learning the thing that you learn
Let's play the game
And I'm sure that you'll be so glad that you came
You never know till you let go
And discover your potential
There's nothing wrong with being curious
Adventurous
Step out of your mind
If something inside makes you curious
Then free it up
Initiation begins
When you jump right in
This is the end, let's begin
Lose your fear like you're shedding your skin
Nothing's lost when all is won
So I'm do all the things that you done
Feel the sound
And try to write a simple rhyme of spinning round
Before I leave, you ought to know
The more you scream, the faster that you go
There's nothing wrong with being curious
Adventurous
Step out of your mind
If something inside makes you curious
Then free it up
Initiation begins
Free up your inside
You're gonna like what you will find
You're never gonna know until you try
There's nothing wrong with being curious
Adventurous
Step out of your mind
If something inside makes you curious
Then free it up
Initiation begins
There's nothing wrong with being curious
Adventurous
Step out of your mind
If something inside makes you curious
Then free it up
Initiation begins
When you jump right in
There's nothing wrong with being curious
Adventurous
Step out of your mind
If something inside makes you curious
Then free it up

[...] Read more

song performed by Holly Valance
Added by Lucian Velea
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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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Im So Curious

So curious
So curious
Im so curious about our love
I dont understand
Why don;t you take my hand
And tell me you care (u care)
I see all the signs
But if u wanna be mine
Dont leave me up in the air.
Oh baby
U better let your love show
Heres what Im telling you
Let me know
Let me go
Chorus:
Im so curious
Do u love me?
Do u wonder the way I do? (I do)
Im so curious
What do u think of me] (of me)
Boy, am I just a game
Or do u feel the same way as I do?
So curious
So curious
Im so curious about our love
If its make believe
Why dont u set my heart free
And tell me goodbye? (goodbye)
But if its for real
Tell me u feel for me
Way deep down inside
Oh baby
Is it goodbye or hello?
Herez what Im telling you
Let me know
Let me go
(repeat chorus)
So curious
Yea, yea
All day and night I just dream of you (of you)
I think about all the things that we could do
Im dying for and Im feeling for the day
When you could open up and say
You feel the same
You feel like I do (yeah)
(repeat chorus)
(repeat chorus)

song performed by Britney Spears
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Bride's Prelude

“Sister,” said busy Amelotte
To listless Aloÿse;
“Along your wedding-road the wheat
Bends as to hear your horse's feet,
And the noonday stands still for heat.”
Amelotte laughed into the air
With eyes that sought the sun:
But where the walls in long brocade
Were screened, as one who is afraid
Sat Aloÿse within the shade.
And even in shade was gleam enough
To shut out full repose
From the bride's 'tiring-chamber, which
Was like the inner altar-niche
Whose dimness worship has made rich.
Within the window's heaped recess
The light was counterchanged
In blent reflexes manifold
From perfume-caskets of wrought gold
And gems the bride's hair could not hold,
All thrust together: and with these
A slim-curved lute, which now,
At Amelotte's sudden passing there,
Was swept in somewise unaware,
And shook to music the close air.
Against the haloed lattice-panes
The bridesmaid sunned her breast;
Then to the glass turned tall and free,
And braced and shifted daintily
Her loin-belt through her côte-hardie.
The belt was silver, and the clasp
Of lozenged arm-bearings;
A world of mirrored tints minute
The rippling sunshine wrought into 't,
That flushed her hand and warmed her foot.
At least an hour had Aloÿse—
Her jewels in her hair—
Her white gown, as became a bride,
Quartered in silver at each side—
Sat thus aloof, as if to hide.
Over her bosom, that lay still,
The vest was rich in grain,
With close pearls wholly overset:
Around her throat the fastenings met
Of chevesayle and mantelet.
Her arms were laid along her lap
With the hands open: life
Itself did seem at fault in her:
Beneath the drooping brows, the stir
Of thought made noonday heavier.

[...] Read more

poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

FLOOD-TIDE below me! I watch you face to face;
Clouds of the west! sun there half an hour high! I see you also face
to face.

Crowds of men and women attired in the usual costumes! how curious
you are to me!
On the ferry-boats, the hundreds and hundreds that cross, returning
home, are more curious to me than you suppose;
And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence, are more to
me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose.

The impalpable sustenance of me from all things, at all hours of the
day;
The simple, compact, well-join'd scheme--myself disintegrated, every
one disintegrated, yet part of the scheme:
The similitudes of the past, and those of the future;
The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings--on
the walk in the street, and the passage over the river;
The current rushing so swiftly, and swimming with me far away; 10
The others that are to follow me, the ties between me and them;
The certainty of others--the life, love, sight, hearing of others.

Others will enter the gates of the ferry, and cross from shore to
shore;
Others will watch the run of the flood-tide;
Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the
heights of Brooklyn to the south and east;
Others will see the islands large and small;
Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half
an hour high;
A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others
will see them,
Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the flood-tide, the falling
back to the sea of the ebb-tide.

It avails not, neither time or place--distance avails not; 20
I am with you, you men and women of a generation, or ever so many
generations hence;
I project myself--also I return--I am with you, and know how it is.

Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt;
Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd;
Just as you are refresh'd by the gladness of the river and the bright
flow, I was refresh'd;
Just as you stand and lean on the rail, yet hurry with the swift
current, I stood, yet was hurried;
Just as you look on the numberless masts of ships, and the thick-
stem'd pipes of steamboats, I look'd.

[...] Read more

poem by Walt Whitman
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

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poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Canto the Second

I
Oh ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,
It mends their morals, never mind the pain:
The best of mothers and of educations
In Juan's case were but employ'd in vain,
Since, in a way that's rather of the oddest, he
Became divested of his native modesty.

II
Had he but been placed at a public school,
In the third form, or even in the fourth,
His daily task had kept his fancy cool,
At least, had he been nurtured in the north;
Spain may prove an exception to the rule,
But then exceptions always prove its worth -—
A lad of sixteen causing a divorce
Puzzled his tutors very much, of course.

III
I can't say that it puzzles me at all,
If all things be consider'd: first, there was
His lady-mother, mathematical,
A—never mind; his tutor, an old ass;
A pretty woman (that's quite natural,
Or else the thing had hardly come to pass);
A husband rather old, not much in unity
With his young wife—a time, and opportunity.

IV
Well—well, the world must turn upon its axis,
And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails,
And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails;
The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us,
The priest instructs, and so our life exhales,
A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame,
Fighting, devotion, dust,—perhaps a name.

V
I said that Juan had been sent to Cadiz -—
A pretty town, I recollect it well -—
'T is there the mart of the colonial trade is
(Or was, before Peru learn'd to rebel),
And such sweet girls—I mean, such graceful ladies,
Their very walk would make your bosom swell;
I can't describe it, though so much it strike,
Nor liken it—I never saw the like:

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poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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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