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Sonnet: The Teacher

The Teacher isn’t a source of mere knowledge;
Neither is he a passive transmitter;
He frees the creative bird from the hedge,
And makes his students face their lives fitter.

The Teacher helps the student’s mind to grow,
In optimal a way, that’s possible;
The students needn’t the Teacher’s line just tow;
Curiosity that’s born is sensible.

His teaching methods must well suit young minds;
The doubts of students must be respected;
By introspection, every student finds
His strengths and weaknesses/ what’s expected?

Well, Teachers remove society’s evils,
Harnessing creativity of pupils.

poem by John Celes
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Sociology Assignment

THE APPLICATION OF SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION IN CLASSROOM TEACHING

INTRODUCTION
Sociology of education, as defined by Pavalko (1976) , is the scientific analysis of the social processes and patterns involved in the educational system. It is concerned with educational aims, methods, and institutions in relation to social and cultural forces of the society in which they function. This assumes that education is a combination of social acts and it deals with human interaction. In the education of the individual, it concerns the influence of social life and social relationships on the development of personality. Sociology of education is very significant as it introduces a teacher to a collection of techniques that are required in classroom teaching. Such techniques include; understanding and applying interaction in the classroom, the disposition of norms to the students by the teachers, understanding teacher-student relationship and communication, provision of career guidance and finally understanding social roles of teachers and students. This essay, therefore, discusses how we, as teachers to be, can apply the above sociological techniques in classroom teaching in secondary schools.

INTERACTION
A classroom, like any other social group, requires all the members to participate and interact with each other for a common goal. A teacher as a leader in the classroom can make sure that there is interaction among his/her students by forming study groups or circles. In these study circles there is mutual influence and benefit among students since students can participate in the discussions that the group undertakes. Interaction in these groups can be cooperative and competitive among students (Ottaway,1960) .

In these groups members are in face to face interaction with each other and there are a small number of participants, this encourages the students to speak out their minds on a given topic. This is so because in a small group every student is given a chance to express himself/herself as compared to the whole class. This gives a chance to some students who can not express themselves fully when there are many people around them. This helps students to build self confidence since their views can be heard by their peers. It also builds a habit of doing things together as a result there is unity among members of the group (Ashley et. al.,1970) .

In this case, the teacher as a leader in the classroom does not dominate in the classroom activities but rather just controls the thoughts and behaviour of his pupils and sets the tone of the interaction patterns in the classroom. The teacher is also there to facilitate in the discussions. However, a teacher needs not to always be present in these groups since some students may not interact fully in the presence of their teacher than their peers. In this case, indirect control from a teacher may be more effective than direct (Ottaway,1960) .

NORMS
Sociology of education analyzes the sociological processes that have a bearing in the education system. One of such sociological processes is the disposition of norms that a teacher imparts in his/her students through interaction in class. The students’ awareness of these norms facilitates the teaching process, on the part of the teacher, and the learning process on the part of students. The impartation of norms on the students is referred to as the hidden curriculum because it is not included on the formal curriculum. Though not included on paper, the students are supposed to know these norms because the way they conduct themselves in class (morally) will affect the teaching and learning processes either positively or negatively. For instance, some students may choose not to cooperate in taking assignments. This tendency may be triggered by the students’ lack of proper direction in their behavior that departs from the values and norms that guide the society. Such students if not handled professionally by the teacher may cause havoc in class. This is where sociology of education becomes vital to classroom management in secondary schools. In sociology of education a teacher learns how to manage students, both those who are morally upright and those morally decayed.

Sociology of education also instructs teachers to be exemplary. The teaching ethics are also very clear on this point as Ashley et al. (1970) declare that teaching professional training emphasizes moral virtues and exemplary behavior on the part of teachers. They have to behave, dress and speak as role models. True to that proverb that says “action speaks louder than words”, teacher’s behavior will have a great impact on the conduct of his/her students. If the teacher is not morally upright the students are likely to be like him/her in their conduct. One other point that may help curb indiscipline in students is through the provision of enough work to keep the students busy. This is helpful because when the students are idle they tend to misbehave (Abromitis,2009) .

TEACHER-STUDENT RELATIONSHIP AND COMMUNICATION
The maintenance of a harmonious social relationship between a teacher and those undergoing socialization (students) , is one of the applications of sociology of education in a classroom. The social interaction within the classroom will help teachers understand the psychological variables that affect the social behaviour of students. For instance, a student’s performance may be affected by poverty and funeral at home among other things. This stresses that each individual is a member of a wide family and gets influenced by social and cultural factors as well. A teacher, therefore, is supposed to identify those students who are not doing well in class as expected and try to find the source of their problems and counsel them accordingly. For instance, sociology of education enables a teacher to establish the real cause of impoliteness in some students that even cause destructions during classes. A teacher does this through inquiries that he/she makes about the naughty students’ back ground that sometimes may be responsible for the students’ bad behavior.

The teacher’s awareness of such backgrounds will enable him/her to know where to start the intervention of shaping the behavior of students. When the good behavior of once ill-mannered students is restored, the teaching and learning processes go smoothly. This suggests that there should be a good communication and interaction between teachers and students. However, Zeleny (1948) as cited in Pavalko (1976) warns that the teacher should not be too friendly with the students. This is because it will be very difficult to provide counseling to them and eventually fail to induce changed behaviour when they go wrong.
CAREER GUIDANCE
A school as a social institution is expected to produce people who are reliable for continuity of a society as far as leadership and management of social institutions is concerned. In view of this, we can say it is important for teachers to include lessons in decision-making and career guidance. Though career guidance is over looked by many schools, it plays an important role. Harris (1999) says career guidance helps students to identify the work-related competences they are developing through the various school subjects and relate them to their career planning. In short, career guidance acts as an advocate for students in establishing their career ladders.

Career guidance needs enforcement because not all students are aware of the different job opportunities that are in the corporate world. For instance, asking children from rural areas about their ambitions, most of them will talk about nursing and teaching as opposed to those from urban areas who will talk of becoming, a pilot, an accountant, a lawyer and many more. This is due to parents’ or guardians’ ‘level of education and children’s exposure to media or other sources of information. Therefore, a teacher should not take it for granted that all students are aware about careers.

A teacher can impart career lessons through different ways. First of all, a teacher needs to include in his or her curriculum a special time at least 20 to 30 minutes per week for career lessons (Harris,1999) . In a classroom, a teacher may use personal approach, where he or she can ask students of their ambitions and provide information on the requirements and the institution(s) that offer(s) them. Secondly, a teacher can use interactive and experimental exercises, where he or she can put students into groups and ask them to interview different personnel on their professions and how they managed to achieve them. Afterwards students can present their findings to a class. Apart from motivating students, this method can also promote interaction between students and the community.

SOCIAL ROLES OF TEACHERS AND STUDENTS
Social role is among the five basic concepts in the sociology of education. A social role is a behavior appropriate to a particular position in a social group. A classroom as a sub-social system has actors and participants, who are teachers and students respectively. Sociology of education enables a teacher to realize his/her role and at the same time helps the students realize theirs. The teacher playing his/her role has to teach and encourage the students to learn. The role of a teacher is really a combination of sub-roles which the skillful teacher fits to produce a useful pattern of teaching. One of these sub-roles includes, being an instructor, whereby the teacher gives instructions and shows the students in a classroom how to learn and answer questions. This is the role the teacher prepares for, explicitly and directly. On the other hand, the students on their part have to listen, attend classes, submit assignments regularly and take examinations. Cooperation demands high degree of predictability of conduct and requires that individuals should make personal sacrifices in favour of societal expectations. In other words, where a teacher’s personal interests or commitments are in conflict with his or her role as a teacher, his/her personal interests have to give way to his/her teaching role (Ezewu,1983) .

There is a social and a personal aspect of every role that is significant to an individual. For instance, a person learns the expected and rewarded behaviour for each role. Students learn when to give priority to a particular role. In a classroom situation, the students learn to take the role of a pupil most of the time rather than the role of a playmate. (Havighurst et al.,1963) .

CONCLUSION
After discussing the above sociological techniques we have the audacity to conclude that Sociology of education adds to the teacher’s kit of intellectual tools. In this case, a set of sociological insights and concepts that will allow him/her to take account in his decision-making organization, cultural and interpersonal factors at work in his/her environment. Therefore, Sociology of education is essential as it equips teachers with great knowledge on how to socialize their students in a classroom situation in secondary schools.

LIST OF REFERENCES.

Abromitis, B. (2009, Feb 27) .Teachers Creating an effective learning Environment in a
monitored Classroom; Sociology of Education. www.google.com.

Ashley, J.B., Cohen, S.H., & Slatter, R.G. (1970) . An Introduction to the Sociology of
Education. Macmillan and Co Ltd: London & Basingstoke, pp.117-139

Ezewu, E.B.A. (1983) . Sociology of Education. Longman: London, pp.13-14

Harris, S. (1999) . Careers education: contesting policy and practice. Sage

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poem by Innocent Masina Nkhonyo
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The Impact Of Poverty On Education

THE IMPACT OF POVERTY ON EDUCATION.

INTRODUCTION

There are so many different tools that have been thought relevant in people’s developmental projects both at individual and societal levels. Education is one of such practical tools. Importantly to note, there are also various meanings that denote the broad term ‘education’. In this essay, however, we are mainly interested in defining formal education since our discussion will dwell much on it. According to Nwomonoh (1998) , formal education is the process of gaining knowledge, attitudes, information and skills during the course of life especially at school.

Though education is said to be so instrumental in human development but also in the revamping of world economies, it is very unfortunate that education systems, world wide, are being held to ransom all because of poverty at both governmental and household levels. According to Thibault (2009) , poverty means the shortage of common things such as food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, all of which determine our quality of life. It may also include lack of access to opportunities like education and employment which aid the escape of poverty.

Problems in our society are interconnected in one way or the other, just like poverty and personal family problems affect a student’s capability to learn. Improving education entails improving the living conditions of students. Having in mind that education is basically responsible for the development of many countries including Malawi, as the back ground suggests, we cannot afford to bypass such a vital element without a mention. Considering also the fact that poverty is one of the forces that come in the way; blocking the success of education, we feel it rational to look at how the two realities, education and poverty, affect each other both positively and negatively. That is also why we are convinced that this topic is worth studying. Our awareness of this source, poverty, and its impact on education will enable us devise some proper measures of intervention with the hope of minimizing the negative impact of poverty on education. This point, in short, explains the purpose of our investigation and why we are so passionate in getting into this research. During the whole discussion we are being guided by two questions thus, ‘does poverty really affect education? And if it does, what points do we have on the positive and negative impacts of poverty on education? ’

METHODOLOGY

The study was basically qualitative in approach because of the nature of the issue that was being addressed. This was the case because the issue of how poverty affects education, both positively and negatively is particularly very difficult to predict the conclusions without penetrating into the core of the issue. For instance, one may unreasonably rush into concluding that poverty affects education negatively only and we cannot even dare to speak of poverty affecting education positively. The study was conducted in three schools namely; Mulunguzi, Masongola and Chirunga Private Secondary schools in Zomba district between 24th April and 3rd May. In this research we used both government and private funded schools to have a more balanced result on how poverty affects formal education in these different institutions. The information required for the study was collected through group interviews of form three students and individual interviews with teachers using semi-structured interview schedules. We opted to use these interviews in the first place because we felt books are more theoretical whereas a field research is practical and it involves real life experiences. Nevertheless, we still used desk research as a supplementary source of information and for clarity in some areas.

RESULTS

Positive impacts of poverty on education
To begin with, poverty encourages one to get educated and of course work hard in class. This is because the problems faced due to poverty are very serious and therefore students who are from poverty stricken families strive to end the problems and one of the best solutions is through education. That is to say, if a person, for instance, due to poverty, is taking just a meal in a day instead of three meals, and again if he/she is sometimes sleeping on an empty stomach, he/she will resort to education bearing in mind that if he/she gets educated they will secure formal employment and eventually be able to make ends meet for themselves as well as fending for their families.

Not only does poverty encourage one to get educated, but also it helped in the introduction of free primary education. In Malawi, for instance, when Bakili Muluzi became president, he introduced free primary education and he had eliminated the requirements for school uniform forthwith (Kadzamira & Rose,2001) . This had increased the access to education dramatically as those pupils who were coming from less privileged families were also given access to this free primary education. It should also be noted that the free primary education system was not only implemented to fulfill an electoral pledge but also bearing in mind that some families were not able to send their children to school due to poverty. Free primary education was there to deal with illiteracy by reducing families’ direct costs of education. Again due to the influx in the number of pupils in primary schools; there was a lack of teachers. Sonani (2002) , testifies that the Ministry of Education re-employed all retired teachers below the age of 65. This also meant that the once retired teachers got back to their source of income which helped them support their families as well as hauling the economy of the country. The implementation of free primary education system in Malawi forced the government to provide infrastructures so as to accommodate the large number of pupils in these schools. Simply put, poverty had led to the introduction of free primary education which means that more children are going to school, and again more teachers are being trained and getting employed and finally the construction of school blocks culminating into infrastructural development, all these branching from poverty.

We may also look at poverty from a positive angle bearing in mind that when a country is poor more funds and donations come into it. These funds and donations are also given to the education sector to build new infrastructures and in the maintenance of already existing ones in the sector. These privileged countries also provide learning materials to schools that are poor as a result students in these less privileged schools perform well in accordance with the amount and quality of the learning materials that they have been provided with. For instance, a United States based non governmental organization known as “Water for People” handed over 44 water toilets they built to Chimwankhunda primary school. The school toilet facilities had been vandalized 11 years ago but because of poverty the school could not renovate them (Gausi,2007) .

In addition, these funds and donations help more people to get educated. This is so because people can use funds as school fees, pocket money and buy stationery. The donations may include library books, chairs and writing materials. These can make a conducive environment for one to learn since there will be enough facilities at the school. For instance, with funding from the “United States Agency for International Development” (USAID) ,3,300 needy Malawian primary school girls are being funded. They are being provided with food, clothing, school supplies and hygienic products like soap and body lotion (Muhaliwa,2005) . Likewise,500 pupils at Katoto primary school in Mzuzu no longer sit on the floors during lessons courtesy of Southern Bottlers Limited and Lions Club of Limbe. Before these funds and donations, pupils used to sit on the floor due to scarcity of desks. These donations improved the pupils’ school attendance in such a way that pupils have started going to school regularly.

In the same line, a needy student can be given a scholarship to go further with his/her education. In this case the scholarship is given to the person just because he/she cannot manage to pay school fees on her own. This in turn benefits the needy person and the community at large. In this situation poverty has assisted in the development of education in an area by beckoning funds and donations from rich countries and organisations.

Further more; in most cases poverty facilitates one’s ambitions to attain formal education. It becomes easier for a poor child to put much of his concentration on education as compared to a rich child. This is because a poverty stricken student will have less destructive materials for entertainment. He/she will also have less or no money to indulge him/herself in activities that require spending a lot of money for instance, drinking beer. Sometimes even if the child can find money he/she can buy basic needs and not just spending it anyhow. Contrast to this a rich child may obtain things like ipods, mp3s, games for entertainment. These things in most cases destruct the concentration of students in their studies. As a result, one’s class performance is negatively affected since most of his/her time is being spent on entertainment.

Negative impacts of poverty on education

Just as a coin has got two sides, a head and a tail, poverty also, apart from having positive impacts on education, it does have negative impacts on the same. We have talked much about the positive face of poverty on education. We shall surely do ourselves injustice if we do not look at the negative part. In spite of the fact that poverty has an impact on education that is worth complimenting, we cannot afford in this discussion to overlook the point that so many students have been forced to leave the corridors of learning institutions due to the same poverty. One of the reasons that force some students leave the learning institutions prematurely is pregnancy, which in most cases, come because of poverty. It is almost common knowledge that a good number of students who come from poor families wish they could be sailing in the same boat with those who come from well to do families as far as luxurious life is concerned. The poor students constantly feel that there is something missing at the core psychologically. With this feeling in their minds, they tend to regard themselves as incomplete and not accepted socially. Consequently, they envy the rich students and squarely want to posses the things that are associated with the rich students. Very unfortunate that the poor students’ parents cannot afford to fulfill their children’s desires like what the rich parents would provide. Because the pull towards recognition is too strong for the poor students to resist, they end up in indulging themselves into prostitution in their search for money. Pity indeed that instead of recreating, as anticipated, their promiscuous behavior sees most of them getting pregnant and for some very unfortunate ones get even HIV and other STIs. From this discussion, commonsense convinces us that this school dropp out due to pregnancy is one of the negative impacts of poverty on education.

Adding more flesh to this discussion, we can also appreciate that hunger has been so instrumental in bringing down the standards of education world wide, in general, and Malawi, in particular. Frankly speaking, there are very few students if not none, who concentrate on their studies on empty stomachs. Food is one of the basic needs that every person is obliged to have if he/she is to survive. It is not surprising, therefore, to see some students performing miserably in class simply because they have not taken enough food or they have taken none altogether. The question of hunger finds its way into the education system because the government has failed to provide adequate food in most of its boarding schools. This is poverty at governmental level. There are also some students who are not boarders but still endure the hostile reality of hunger right in their homes. This is due to poverty at household level. It is sad that poverty, both at governmental and household level, has helped in engineering the deteriorating of education standards in Malawi.

Bearing in mind that it is only the eagle that can tell us the real whisper of a cloud, we visited Masongola Secondary school with the hope of getting first hand information from the students and their teachers since they are the ones who mostly benefit or get destructed by poverty. The Masongola secondary school students and their teacher, Mr. Enock Abraham, testified to us during an interview that government’s inability to provide extra food, apart from the usual beans that the institution offers, has seen many students developing ulcers. It would sound bizarre to reason that one can attend classes whilst he/she is on a hospital bed battling with ulcers. The Masongola students further testified that most poor students who have ulcers just bow down out of the race of learning because they cannot afford to buy extra food whenever the institution is serving the students beans.

This pitiful development goes beyond the boundaries of Masongola secondary school. Mulunguzi secondary school as Mr……the head teacher at the institution testifies, has not been spared from the scourge of school dropp outs simply because the school has not been able to provide extra or adequate food to students who cannot take what their friends take on health grounds. Needless to say this leaves the education standards in Malawi vacillating. It is a pity that though we have wrestled with this question of poverty a dozen times, we have not been successful in the battle. At one point in time, the government attempted to minimize the chances of school dropout in primary schools through its provision of porridge to pupils in the junior section. This attempt was in itself a good gesture but the government has failed to implement the initiative further in other schools that up to now have not benefited from the program.

It may not sound an exaggeration if we may say poverty has also forced a good number of students to give up their hopes of getting educated simply because they find it so difficult traveling to and from their respective schools. Lack of transport means, in short, has pushed them well towards the blink of despair as far as attaining formal education is concerned. This point speaks for itself how poverty can sometimes work on the education’s disadvantage.

As we go further with this discussion, we also appreciate the fact that the problem that mostly hinders a student’s success is inadequate resources that include; few teachers and learning materials. It must be highlighted that these problems are not only in developing countries but they may also find their way in reasonably developed countries like South Africa. In a developing country like Malawi, the education system encounters these problems because of the government’s failure to look into problems of infrastructure, capacity and availability of teaching and learning materials (Nkawike,2005) . The Muluzi government did a little if any; in as far as infrastructure is concerned. Lack of school blocks facilitated by a large number of pupils due to the introduction of the free primary education in 1994, forced pupils to have lessons under trees. In 2003, for example, lack of school blocks resulted in a tragedy at Nkomachi in Lilongwe when a tree fell onto an outdoor class, resulting in injury and deaths of pupils (Mvula & Chanika,2004) . This problem of learning materials continues till date, in all levels of the education system. According to Abraham (2009) , the school has always had shortage of learning blocks to an extent that the Physical Science and Biology laboratories are used as classrooms. There is also great shortage of books in all departments, and some departments like the technical department needs new equipment and current books which are very expensive. With this unfortunate situation we cannot anticipate good performance from Masongola secondary school.

In order to deal with these issues, the Muluzi government thought it wise to disregard the provision of learning materials in schools. Instead the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) pass mark was reduced to ensure the success of students in their examinations. Even the director of Basic Education, Nelson Kaperemera admitted that funds intended for learning materials were servicing the debts of government at the expense of improving quality education. Instead of reducing the pass mark, the government and other stake holders should strive to improve quality of education, improve teacher salaries, and provide adequate materials and train teachers properly (Malawi News,2006) .

In developing countries like Malawi, the schools are understaffed (teaching personnel) and they tend to be handling a large number of students for long hours. Furthermore, the teachers are subjected to meager salaries, which are even made late. The government does not seem to have the welfare of teachers at heart, for instance the education Manager for Phalombe, Enoch Ali says the district is facing a dire shortage of teachers, a situation that is contributing to low education standards. The teacher pupil ratio in Phalombe is 1: 120, whilst the recommended ratio is 1: 60 (The Nation,2006) . Due to low pay teachers resort to organizing part time classes, which demand an extra amount of money on top of the normal fees. These changes clearly affect those students who come from very poor families, as they do not receive adequate studies because of lack of money.
This does not only occur in secondary schools, but it also happens in universities. As the academic staff of the Universities go on strike because of the government’s reluctance to increase their salaries. One considers how this is supposed to retain staff in the University. As a result lecturers spend more time doing consultancies; instead of preparing lectures and doing University mandated research. If we are serious about fighting poverty, formal education is the hub of ideas to fight these problems by improving its standards (Kapasula,2008) .
Child labour is one of the major problems that contribute to school dropp out. The majority of child labour victims are children who are living in poverty. This is so because they lack basic needs, for this reason they are forced even against their will to do any kind of work in order to gain financial wealth. This, therefore, affects school attendance. Evidence of school dropp out due to child labour is found in central region where most children are being employed in estates. This region has high tobacco production. Since this crop demands a lot of work, children are at high demand because they do not claim high wages compared to adults. Research, therefore, showed that the percentage of children attending schools is lower compared to that of northern and southern region (Nyirongo,2004) . We have the case of two brothers aged between 12 and 15 who were forced to work at a tobacco farm at Mpherembe in Kasungu district, where they were receiving 150 kwacha a day due to poverty (Namangale,2005) . We can see that child labour has a great impact on education because through it, a lot of children are being deprived of their right to education as they spend most of their time working.

In addition to that, Chirwa (2003) found out that child labour is also taking place in people’s houses. In this case children are forced to dropp out of school either by parents or on their own, to work in neighbouring homes. Here one of the victims is a 12 year old girl Elizabeth Chalimba, who left school when she was in standard six to work as a nanny in order to support her siblings. Children from low income families are at risk because though school is their only hope for a better future, they dropp out because their parents are failing to provide them with basic needs. Apart from child labour, psychological problems due to poverty is also another cause of school dropp outs. Research shows that the impact of poverty is greater on children as opposed to adults. Firstly, the problem arises due to the environment in which these children are raised. These environments being impoverished, they are intellectually unstimulating, and lack of stimulation results in impaired intellectual development of a child. This in turn contributes to failure in class which can later on lead to school dropp out.

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poem by Innocent Masina Nkhonyo
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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)
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That warm island submerged -那 一 座 温 暖 的 岛 沉 没 了

Translation:

[ That warm island submerged ]那 一 座 温 暖 的 岛 沉 没 了 - mulberry grove has done to 2001.10.24 13: 39 starseven0starseven0 Feng Wen the Shu

The black wave is pursuing that white-feathered bird. The white-feathered bird is unable to eliminate the terror the air, white-feathered bird's chest soon submerges in disappointed jet black Tao. That warm incomparable island, eternal submersion. That most beautiful island -- she is the brown black hair, in the eye has the children is candid -- newly passes the spring the Tai Qing breath -- blue green grass such clear fragrant candidness. This island gold and greens, most lovable island -- she is white-feathered bird's mother. That is noble, loves to the tree, the bird, the insect happy song white-feathered bird. Deep move these small lives' white-feathered birds. Now the black wave is dreadful, wants to swallow the white-feathered bird perishes. A poisonous snake, soon embezzles the lamb which goes all out to struggle. Goes all out the white-feathered bird which revolts, the forehead soon submerges in cold bone black Tao.

Suddenly, the big detonation, the big detonation, the black wave has put out the white-feathered bird. Most loves mother's son has been saved, in the world the best youth has been saved, the thunderclap writings, the electricity sword anxious thorn, compared to a steel and iron stronger was black wave to crush, was saved compared to a rose more enchanting white-feathered bird. The happiest music was saved. Is any magic weapon, has avoided your eternal submersion -- dear white-feathered bird, ' is the weapon, is the invincible spirit with the weapon which loves -- is truth this invincible weapon, arouses the white-feathered bird to give birth the courage, vigor -- this courage, the vigor, formidable to the death, truth mercy granting, turned into the startling thunderclap, the fire dodged the weapon, the scrap compared to a steel and iron stronger has been black wave, has rescued bird's arrogant -- this world non- price valuable -- that the white-feathered bird which is seized by the poisonous snake.' This truth is any, the dear white-feathered bird, forever arrived the life land center white-feathered bird, asks you to tell me to tell me. ' After I am seized by the dark night wave a while, the truth wants me, must exactly I crazily shout, I must exactly, have exactly.

Suddenly my tears flow copiously, heart rat-a-tat, from poisonous snake's stomach, rebound my chest. When my affection exhaling, I love you, I have loved has hated all people, I love you, after my tree grass flower-and-bird insect, suddenly rises the giant which is indomitable spirit, I broken am unable to withstand in mind ruins. The giant lifts up high the thunder, the hand grasps the electricity sword. I tremble am trembling for a very long time, in the strong winds small leaf is trembling. By now the truth bestowed for mine love heat flow 周 留 whole body,1,100 loves ropes -- silver light glistens the love rope, recaptures me from the black wave mouth, recaptures from poisonous Shekou, when the black wave is nipping me once more, by now my body was revolving, was revolving, was revolving. That meteor sends out the sun immediately glory, the rise, the rise, The rise, is revolving, is revolving, is revolving, likes all around oneself revolving. The brightest star winks focuses, revolves around the sun.' The white-feathered bird sings like this. Listens, ' was the great truth has rescued me, did not have the truth, I could submerge. The truth helped me to defeat the death. Restored me free and infinite is carefree. Is the truth bestows for me this lovable little darling.' Is the white-feathered bird in Le Chang. Quickly looks, that beaming white-feathered bird, brings to be saved young man's little darling, in the day is hovering, tornado same liking, sings from this to hit departs, departs, surely a pigeon, departs from the sunlight deep place, hovers, hovers, the dear white-feathered bird, my heart turned into surely a pigeon, hovers in March blue day white clouds

[ Runs away marriage ] the early morning to listen to that to the cuckoo, in field jetty head Qi Huanjiao. A pair of magpie commended the cuckoo said, ' gathers the cordiality in the bird the bird, is willing you to grow old together.' Afternoon listens to that to the magpie bird, climbs Qi Huanjiao in the bamboo grove. Then to the cuckoo commended the magpie said, ' gathers the cordiality in the bird the bird, is willing you to grow old together.' The father, why do you have to lose me this deceased person pit, my poor sentiment elder brother setting up around this my this cane, sentiment elder brother is in each province youth's youth, why are you called the militiaman to detain me with the gun to enter your gate. Living disperses the cane tree family booklet. Why do you have to lose me this deceased person pit. Compels me to remarry for Chou the wealthy person living corpse.

The mother, you quite cruel-heartedly does obeisance the view world sound like the pilgrim, your soft knife has killed daughter's heart, you just knelt under the daughter foot, daughter's hurried to help up mother, the daughter to see mother the eye class water splash to be a go-between the line. The daughter foot one is soft, the heart trembles, the daughter also horse glances flows the water splash to be a go-between the line. Sentiment elder brother, my mother along daddy's wish, I is not willing to see mother's sadness, has to be suitable mother's wish, has to usher in this Chou wealthy person's courtyard by the daddy. The early morning listens to that to the cuckoo, in field jetty head Qi Huanjiao. A pair of magpie commended the cuckoo said, ' gathers the cordiality in the bird the bird, is willing you to grow old together.' This wealth host family is not the person day, this wealth host family's money 800 years cannot use up, but this wealthy person does not have the sentiment, you knew the younger sister most treasures your affection. How is called the younger sister to manage, how manages. My daddy is does not get up the gambling debt, changed money with me the account also.

My daddy life is concerned about face-saving, is concerned about face-saving, unexpectedly in order to own good reputation ruin the daughter. Afternoon listens to that to the magpie bird, climbs Qi Huanjiao in the bamboo grove. Then to the cuckoo commended the magpie said, ' gathers the cordiality in the bird the bird, is willing you to grow old together.' The younger sister sees that to fall in love to the cuckoo intimate, remembered the before younger sister to enter the bamboo grove to climb, selected the small oil lamp to meet you to go me home. The at that time I the daddy like you, day in day out every one with a your group. The at that time I the daddy have not stained gamble this abuse. At that time younger sister arrogant, is merry, this black 水 寨 person who doesn't praise, who doesn't praise your me is an inborn pair of phoenix. The early morning listens to that to the cuckoo, in field jetty head Qi Huanjiao. A pair of magpie commended the cuckoo said, ' gathers the cordiality in the bird the bird, is willing you to grow old together.'

Afternoon listens to that to the magpie bird, climbs Qi Huanjiao in the bamboo grove. Then to the cuckoo commended the magpie said, ' gathers the cordiality in the bird the bird, is willing you to grow old together.' The cuckoo, I did not dare to want to get down, did not dare to want to get down. How do I to result in me sentiment elder brother, how do I have a face see me sentiment elder brother. The magpie, my daddy is pig iron, what wants to make to have to make what, who also pulls this pig iron not curved. My daddy in order to gamble on defends the credit, is living disperses daughter's family booklet, my daddy was considered as emperor which on gambled. At that time younger sister arrogant, is merry, this black 水 寨 person who doesn't praise, who doesn't praise your me is an inborn pair of phoenix. I like hating to occur simultaneously, like hating daddy any matter all to want to struggle first. Right, the cuckoo, my daddy does gambles this misdemeanor works as first, before my daddy likes helping the person also to work as first. The early morning listens to that to the cuckoo, in field jetty head Qi Huanjiao.

A pair of magpie commended the cuckoo said, ' gathers the cordiality in the bird the bird, is willing you to grow old together.' Otherwise before how is my daddy sure to specially to like me sentiment elder brother. At that time younger sister arrogant, is merry, this black 水 寨 person who doesn't praise, who doesn't praise your me is an inborn pair of phoenix. At that time younger sister arrogant, is merry, this black 水 寨 person who doesn't praise, who doesn't praise your me is an inborn pair of phoenix. I inherited my daddy to like struggling the first temperament, I loved me mother in 远 远 近 近 the border, I was in the loyal son daughter first. The early morning listens to that to the cuckoo, in field jetty head Qi Huanjiao.

A pair of magpie commended the cuckoo said, ' gathers the cordiality in the bird the bird, is willing you to grow old together.' Afternoon listens to that to the magpie bird, climbs Qi Huanjiao in the bamboo grove. Then to the cuckoo commended the magpie said, ' gathers the cordiality in the bird the bird, is willing you to grow old together. Cuckoo, when I was thinking when I have been suitable mother's heart, my heart extremely is happy, therefore I hear your Qi Huanming. When I thought I brought to sentiment elder brother to be obsolete, I heard your uneven wail. You said how is called me to manage, how manages, sometimes I as soon as was thinking my mother, the daddy, I alone on with fantasy in mother, the daddy speaks. Sometimes I as soon as was thinking my sentiment elder brother, I alone on speaks with fantasy in sentiment elder brother. At that time younger sister arrogant, is merry, this black 水 寨 person who doesn't praise, who doesn't praise your me is an inborn pair of phoenix. Who doesn't praise your me is an inborn pair of phoenix. This black 水 寨 person who doesn't praise, at that time younger sister arrogant, merry, at that time younger sister arrogant, is merry, this black 水 寨 person who doesn't praise, who doesn't praise your me is an inborn pair of phoenix. Has very many times, I on the life in the fantasy, that wealthy person came back me not to know. That wealthy person after is common I in to speak, often puts out a hand the daddy which pulls in my illusion, mother, pulls in my illusion sentiment elder brother, for this my sober Bai Xingai that wealthy person - 活 阎 王 many ear and the area around it, 活 阎 王 said I intentionally pay no attention to his this household head. 活 阎 王 meets the person to say my brain malfunctioned.

I meet the martial arts, that 活 阎 王 hits only me, asks the person to aim at my chest with the gun, bundled me gets up. The early morning listens to that to the cuckoo, in field jetty head Qi Huanjiao. A pair of magpie commended the cuckoo said, ' gathers the cordiality in the bird the bird, is willing you to grow old together.' The younger sister sees that to fall in love to the cuckoo intimate, remembered the before younger sister to enter the bamboo grove to climb, selected the small oil lamp to meet you to go me home. I just rubbed broke the bunch of my rope, you looked I am hit cut and bruised, I had to escape this living hell. In this world, I am do not dare to go home see my mother, sees me to injury like this, my mother does not irritate also fine the big sickness. My wound also is flowing the blood, I have already spread haemostatics to the wound. I already should suffer the evil person hungry three nights which is cut to pieces three days.

Endures, endures, if not were thinking must implicate me the daddy and mother, I really want to put a flare this living hell 烧 完 . Endures, endures, endures this wonderful huge shame, that incessant sea cannot clean in my mind the shame. Quickly runs away, quickly runs away, in the sky has resounded the startling thunderclap, weakly to extremely me, suddenly cheered the storm to rip open has imprisoned me the jail. I have become god of god of freedom the freedom, quick, quickly runs away to mine sentiment elder brother, quick, quick, quick, quick, quickly overtakes the footsteps which that fire dodges, listens, listens, the angry thunder greatly exploded in the sky, I have thrown down and broken in this room all antiques jade carving, the rumour suddenly in each place sound, the fire glistened more and more quickly, in my wilderness 逃 奔 , the cloud layer, was jumping over the pressure to be lower, suddenly a big thunderclap greatly exploded in the top of the head, free, the liberation joyful thunder greatly exploded in my mind, The big detonation, my heart finally lived, my heart thump rat-a-tat jumped not good frightens very much, in my wilderness was dashing, the electric light dashed about wildly on Ono.

The storm comes, the storm comes, listens, the might invincible storm has swayed all, the earth also had to swing as if by the storm turns. At that time younger sister arrogant, is merry, this black 水 寨 person who doesn't praise, who doesn't praise your me is an inborn pair of phoenix. At that time younger sister arrogant, is merry, this black 水 寨 person who doesn't praise, who doesn't praise your me is an inborn pair of phoenix. At that time younger sister arrogant, is merry, this black 水 寨 person who doesn't praise, who doesn't praise your me is an inborn pair of phoenix. I barefoot, in the lightning is running, the bang rumble, in the big detonation thunderclap is running, excited, trembles, also happy fears my crazy corona head, my positive image is escaping the reins the wild horse, dashes about wildly, dashes about wildly, dashes about wildly to that chaotic rain in dark deep place, god of the my this freedom is holding the mood which takes the blame and to infinite is happy crazily yearned for, flew this hump under, I was making a pilgrimage to a famous mountain temple fly, in that storm had a lamp, I knew that was a lamp which my sentiment elder brother selected, my sentiment elder brother was looking at the written thing.

My this rain person, is flying to mine sentiment elder brother, flies, flies, I am shouting loudly, I am shouting loudly, I 悲 喜 交 加 the tear, I 悲 喜 交 加 the tear, collected into the delightful storm, collected into the delightful storm, my unprecedented love was bringing complete universe calm wild with joy, was bringing throughout history calm wild with joy, my unprecedented love, was bringing complete universe calm wild with joy, was bringing throughout history calm wild with joy, my this rain person, was flying to mine sentiment elder brother, flew,

Flies the first draft to 2,002,11,4,4 finalizes a manuscript to 2002,11,4,7, [ 牛 郎 and 织 女 ] narrative poem Feng Wen the Shu - mulberry grove makes the first draft to 2,007, the Yuan,9,11,40 finalizes a manuscript to 2007, the Yuan,10,5,12

If commits suicide by fire the phoenix regenerates from the ashes, your that if the katydid, the blue cicada, the cuckoo trembles the heart to confuse the soul singing sound, causes me regenerates from pain and in the lonely grave. Expels the cold eternal universe dark night fiery dawn positive -- your this 织 女 , just and your six elder sisters swim in the lake, either the leap or steps on, pursues the entertainment, you and eldest sister water play. That mysterious water buffalo teaches I steals 织 女 clothes, very quick, I want 织 女 to throw embroider the ball to me, very quick, my this poor king had found 织 女 , may the stabbing pain young girls heart, cover the young girls not to be able to look my non- Qian Wushi. By now, my heart crazily jumped awfully, the blood has caught fire, I had to leap the universe to be wild with joy 绝 顶 , I went out the flowering shrubs which that hid, under the shore weeping willow's thick patch of grass which the dynasty swayed fly, stole 织 女 Bai Ruxue women's clothing. Let me stretch out the arms, Russia 织 女 the hug, I vainly hoped for I with 织 女 , 男 耕 女 织 am good. I must arrive outside Wan Zhongshan the Qingshui Jiang to go immediately, when - 织 女 swims while God most my daughter, steals its upper and lower garments, causes it to be unable the great power, then tries moves 织 女 the heart of a young woman.

That mysterious water buffalo only then tells me, said the God seven females, Chang Yong in that continually Qingshui Jiang's big lake, but this time roll of thunder, cloud burst, but who can know, in this moment my mind pain startling thunderclap, also must 凶 猛 than the space startling thunderclap, this beautiful hope is my weekend, arouses in my mind the long crazy painful startling thunderclap, wants the scrap as if my chest, I calm endure am dying to my big bombing. '

The revenge, the revenge, I must to your this pain revenge, ' in I dazzling electric light roar. I seized in my mind to spit 连 珠 the great thunder tiger's tail, ' now you must repay owe my debt, this debt -- was you has given me to die with deeply grieved, this moment, you had to turn heavy Gan Mi immediately the huge life and are happy, otherwise, I had to hang you on the universe big tree show the audiences '. I very good have used painful this great thing, with mine infinite pain, heavily created 蜜 甜 to be able to press turns the great ship the happy song, waits for big lake which I found 织 女 swims, after has stolen 织 女 the clothing, 织 女 was unable to fly the heavenly palace, by now I had to use this happy happy song moved 织 女 looking upon with favor, this time, after I recited this songer, my eye turned has burst into tears the spring, my mind 转 流 tear spring. ' This I intend to have by no means with the dark cloud female celestial match rain, truly is my revelry and proud, turned into the bead tears immediately, leaves my eye, the mind, has been in flood the universe, is more vast than the storm. After I create mine boundless pain distress Cheng Zheizhi to be happy heavily to Taishan's this happy song, by now, I got a light from another light dodge the female celestial to say like this. The thunder sound writings, unceasingly the big storm, three days, this might king's anger has not rested, although the beautiful hope has taken to me 1,000 deaths, but I still was longing for mystical distant place Gan Huang 织 女 , hopes to spin 织 女 very quickly becomes my forever mandarin duck companion wild goose partner's forever home to return to, the forever affiliation consoles, listens to the water buffalo to say, 织 女 was best, is beautiful 丽 都 , lively, temperate female celestial, my heart has flown black Wan Zhongshan, is inquiring to that day in star 织 女 arrives the world in the big lake to swim for a long time.

I have dreamed of by now heavily happy 织 女 , I have seized the smooth element arm which runs swiftly 织 女 , lets me lie down in your bosom, after I just like this said, the sudden dream broke, after happy has had the new pain, by now in my mind, was born a new painful tiger, this painful tiger, continued puts out the new 连 珠 great thunder, in that universe the thunderclap, the storm has not stopped, this, compared to in the nature big thunder also 凶 猛 my mind pain thunder, formerly also wanted wild 凶 猛 than, inexhaustible death, Has seized my mind, a wolf has seized a lamb as if, my mind, calm is enduring the inexhaustible death to my big bombing. By now, I longed for dissipated immediately surpasses me to endure patiently the limit the pain, but I 无 计 可 施 , only easily to use sang to summon me 织 女 , ' 织 女 , 织 女 ...... '

With the similar tonality, my lover's fine reputation is a strongman as if, can lift the body which I pitiful not helps, causes it not to submerge in the universe bottomless misery abyss, I on use to sing like this to summon my lover -- 织 女 , 织 女 ...... By now my lover's fine reputation was happy, the mysterious medicinal ointment, pastes in the mind which I broken is unable to withstand, the beautiful paper-cut window decoration pastes on the glass, reduced my pain, I on use to sing like this to summon my lover -- 织 女 , 织 女 ...... My lover 甘 美 the mysterious fine reputation, pastes in the mind which I broken is unable to withstand, the beautiful paper-cut window decoration pastes on the glass, reduced my pain, I on like this continuous with sing to summon my lover -- 织 女 , 织 女 ...... Had not known for a long time, that beautiful mercy small dream god has closed my eye, I had forgotten I receive painful this capital punishment, hovers in is peaceful, tranquil, delightful dream god state, the white pigeon hovers in the blue sky. New day has come, after the storm opens expands the heart the most beautiful weather, Lin Yejian the bird calls happily, is cheerful, may everywhere have the flowered tree to hang the tear, sighs woefully own many children, has been taken away by the storm the life. I ran swiftly that broken old thatched hut, I happy was calling, ' I free, I was free, That has gone into seclusion to in the earth under rock fire to dodge, comes out in a big hurry, I must use the fire to dodge make the place to ride, I must fly immediately to me 织 女 the side go, by now, I faced under the earth the rock loudly to yell, tend sheep the female dynasty pure white flock of sheep loudly to yell. My water buffalo is carrying me and my son, flew upwards, flies upwards that Baihe River's big wave to block the way, might the water buffalo Russia Russia get sick by now, was unable to fly a wave to inundate the cloud the Milky Way, cried, cried, I loudly wept bitterly, tear Tao collected into roars the milky way, let the milky way be more majestic. Listens, listens, could not open tearful eyes me which feels pain, by now heard to swing the soul happy immortal to be happy - ' comes, to let us be Liang for you, helped your fathers and sons to go to the heavenly palace to see 织 女 , ' surely only glistened the silver light green green magpie simultaneous like this sprinkled to me 甘 美 yelling, the timely rain. ' Lives, lives, ' I loudly cheer, under was the wave which the anger eats delicacies, I am pulling the son which just the academic society walked, in feather soft, was warm can run on the horse-drawn vehicle happy magpie bridge to front, to front, to front.

Acrobat in steel wire to front, to front, to front, ' Lingers with the heavenly palace compares, between my spouse, the world also has many misery, pitiful, alone, unfortunate person, I must arrive the world to help the distressed. The love is not a matter which my life only must do, ' by now, I 织 女 like this said to flower month equally sweet E. ' I lift both hands to approve you greatly rescue the misery the enterprise, ' opens the mouth nine to smile 织 女 said like this with the thrush bird sweet voice. ' Thank you to help me to frustrate your father, your father wanted me to become lost, but you gave my chicken feather, the change big cockerel, in each road fork, in each road fork, referred to the road for me, enable me to return to your side, your father deceived on me the danger danger Pine height thousand feet, the result I has not plunged to death and starves to death, was you beforehand gives my cloth to do 软 梯 , helped me to get down the tree, your father put the fire, had to burn me dies, you which had the foreknowledge gives me a big crab, Was this big crab has dug a water pool, I hid in the water pool, I have not only then thrown oneself burn down die. ' I to 织 女 said. ' Don't such said that, rescues you rescues I, ' 织 女 this soft and gentle words are bringing thousand barrels honey as if, took root in on my mind earth, 枸 tree's seed, took root on the earth, how do you speak, sing are also sweeter than ours honey, the envy honeybee said like this to me, ' the present, we might be loaf, looked, our this honeybee family, already yours speech and the song, collected in our spatial honey barrel, regarded as the match honey. We do not need in the wind to come in again the rain, when is severely cold or the intense summer heat, is the pollen, is tired out from the press.' '

Is I is flawless 织 女 , gives the sacred infinite sentiment I, this infinite sentiment and 织 女 thousand time of loves delight, in my mind, turned a super honeybee, therefore, my speech and the song honey has only then died you, lets you regenerate in the servant dream - you wants to be my family the servant. Really strange, is really strange, is not really has this matter.' After I said like this, honeybee queen and her subjects nods in abundance. I and 织 女 am charmed am not having to the high benevolent nature, the mystical nature has given me the life by the significance, the wisdom and the inexhaustible creativity is my spirit eternal life strut, is my first propelling force. ' With the nature compared to, your father too was small 渺 . You to my value, exceed your father's royal crown, but congealed your my painstaking care my happy song, exceeds the world all royal crowns.' I sit facing each other in front of ours thatched hut window 织 女 said like this. I 织 女 long live, I 织 女 long live, after I cheer like this, to 织 女 , around that Lin Niaoye sends out happy calls, that fog locks in the mountain valley newly passes cuckoo miserable crying out in grief. ' I am forming in one's mind to give to the beautiful nature the song, lets us arrive nature there to sojourn for a long time. ' I to am loving 织 女 said. ' Right, I also like this thought, on the belt you newly do the song makes the gift, gives to the nature.' I and 织 女 pray for heavenly blessing the nature, hopes the nature forever freely, the health, is cheerful happy Makes the lamp oil - god lamp with yours belief Feng Wen the Shu - mulberry grove does ' Selects the lamp to come, makes the lamp oil with yours belief, the hope which the enthusiasm and conquers the lamp lights, that swing which opens to your body inside is weeping and wailing don't again in the wave crest heavy load sad ship, ' lives in seclusion under the earth bursts into tears in the spring prophet to shout like this with the rock magma stress. ' lamp comes, makes the lamp oil with yours belief, the hope which the enthusiasm and conquers the lamp lights, that swing which opens to your body inside is weeping and wailing don't again in the wave crest heavy load sad ship, ' lives in seclusion under the earth bursts into tears in the spring prophet to shout like this with the rock magma stress. ' lamp comes, makes the lamp oil with your immortal belief, the hope which the enthusiasm and conquers the lamp lights, looked, but also does not need that rigid steel fork on the waist to hang all over the cask to patrol the sea green eyebrow 狼 眼 demon to break your chest to pull out your heart to make the food and wine, looked, you both do not have the shield and not to have the copper hammer the heart to expose in front of the demon eye, that demon face up is drinking, then just put in compared to a earth on mountain peak bigger demon the hand the space in the star kingdom, picked 99 stars sea equally big eyes to drink, This demon disliked food and wine insufficient, your 103 despair heart weeping and wailing, waits on the child compared to on liquor to smile without doubt shouted can cause the demon murderous intention, that just drank the next 108 barrels liquors the eye to shut hits the sleepy demon to approach as if own 100 that to sit the eye 103 hearts which finally forcefully opened arrow of on the desire inflamed cries to feel pain, the situation extremely was dangerous, by now, that demon picture grasped a peanut equally to grasp 103 hearts which the angry glare looked at each other, put on inside the gold table white jade plate, This demon unexpectedly must set up a tablet, will commemorate must make the food and wine in a moment 103 hearts, this demon will be grinding ink, by now ' went out bursts into tears the spring prophet to say like this, suddenly will draw out a pen from the sleeve, will out to kill the demon to that darkness in which loudly will roar to throw, will throw like the youth David's stone to giant song advantage Asia, only will see in an instant the thunderclap writings, will have the household utensils to bump the garrulous sound, this pen unexpectedly will change to makes the copper hammer which 103 shields and 103 pairs will glisten, will appear in the numerous hearts hand, this moment, will kill the sound writings, Suddenly,1,000 凶 恶 bigger demons rush, the demon is every time overthrown by the copper hammer, has the new 100 demons to come to reenforce, By now, was killing in the inextricably involved universe battlefield Russia 甫 to transmit the intense armed force drum sound, accompanied majestically is shocking hills the thunderclap, the more exciting armed force bugle call, that crazy dance fire dodged on the combat tank suddenly rolled down for the numerous hearts increase strength swings the chest the aid stress - ' to select the lamp to come, made the lamp oil with your immortal belief, the hope which the enthusiasm and conquered the lamp lights, and had to win the will with the desperately spirit to make your lamp the spirit, 话 音 刚 落 , that decision victory and defeat already 103 lamp bowls which lights, Illuminates this dark vast boundless battlefield, in each lamp suddenly jumps out the invincible wise brave warrior which 10,000 grasps the thunderclap, originally the will which and had to win the oneself desperately spirit compels into on the very 凶 猛 numerous hearts the lamp bowl, compelled into like Sun Wukong 昊 昊 the magical powers secret inside own memory rock, in each lamp suddenly jumped out the invincible wise brave warrior which 10,000 grasped the thunderclap, originally by now obtained brave warrior's aid on the very 凶 猛 numerous hearts which in the god lamp jumped out, simply was like the tiger adds the wing, by now, Only sees 1.03 million great is identical when to the demon chest throws, likes athlete's discus to throw after the hill, only sees at the same time which the dazzling electric light as soon as dodges,1.03 million big detonations great identical time scrap 1.03 million demons chests, the thunderclap rumbling rumbling has been disturbing the earth, throws oneself the rosefinch star by the thunder vibration sea water alienation, the Xuanwu star, the black dragon star, the white tiger star... This time, calmly carefreely and the brave warriors has changed in the grand fight holiday numerous hearts - has changed big -- with giant is same than numerous hearts the demon and the brave warrior compares, that demons simply are the ant equally diminutive ant - and the brave warrior compare with the giant same numerous hearts, By now, the war already was near the end, is killed by the copper hammer the demon, at least some 90,000, then by the great thunder scrap demon, some 9.27 million, only some several demons runs away to that twilight horizon, was having the demon which 90,000 fears trembled to kneel is lifting both hands to the numerous hearts and the brave warriors surrenders, some hearts closely pursued the demon which that ran away, Selects the lamp to come, makes the lamp oil with yours belief

poem by Starseven0 Starseven0
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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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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,—
So things disguise themselves,—I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face
And know it again. Answer you? Then that means
Tell over twice what I, the first time, told
Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe,
Fronting you same three in this very room,
I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,
Who then … nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,
As good as laugh, what in a judge we style
Laughter—no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!
Only,—I think I apprehend the mood:
There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,
"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
"Well, he can say no other than what he says.
"We have been young, too,—come, there's greater guilt!
"Let him but decently disembroil himself,
"Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,—
"We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!
And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast
As if I were a phantom: now 't is—"Friend,
"Collect yourself!"—no laughing matter more—
"Counsel the Court in this extremity,
"Tell us again!"—tell that, for telling which,
I got the jocular piece of punishment,
Was sent to lounge a little in the place
Whence now of a sudden here you summon me
To take the intelligence from just—your lips!
You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,—
That she I helped eight months since to escape
Her husband, was retaken by the same,
Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,—
(I being disallowed to interfere,
Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,
For you and law were guardians quite enough
O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)—
And that he has butchered her accordingly,
As she foretold and as myself believed,—
And, so foretelling and believing so,
We were punished, both of us, the merry way:
Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?
Pompilia is only dying while I speak!
Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?
My masters, there's an old book, you should con
For strange adventures, applicable yet,

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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V. Count Guido Franceschini

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

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Fifth Book

AURORA LEIGH, be humble. Shall I hope
To speak my poems in mysterious tune
With man and nature,–with the lava-lymph
That trickles from successive galaxies
Still drop by drop adown the finger of God,
In still new worlds?–with summer-days in this,
That scarce dare breathe, they are so beautiful?–
With spring's delicious trouble in the ground
Tormented by the quickened blood of roots.
And softly pricked by golden crocus-sheaves
In token of the harvest-time of flowers?–
With winters and with autumns,–and beyond,
With the human heart's large seasons,–when it hopes
And fears, joys, grieves, and loves?–with all that strain
Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh
In a sacrament of souls? with mother's breasts,
Which, round the new made creatures hanging there,
Throb luminous and harmonious like pure spheres?–
With multitudinous life, and finally
With the great out-goings of ecstatic souls,
Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame,
Their radiant faces upward, burn away
This dark of the body, issuing on a world
Beyond our mortal?–can I speak my verse
So plainly in tune to these things and the rest,
That men shall feel it catch them on the quick,
As having the same warrant over them
To hold and move them, if they will or no,
Alike imperious as the primal rhythm
Of that theurgic nature? I must fail,
Who fail at the beginning to hold and move
One man,–and he my cousin, and he my friend,
And he born tender, made intelligent,
Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides
Of difficult questions; yet, obtuse to me,–
Of me, incurious! likes me very well,
And wishes me a paradise of good,
Good looks, good means, and good digestion!–ay,
But otherwise evades me, puts me off
With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness,–
Too light a book for a grave man's reading! Go,
Aurora Leigh: be humble.
There it is;
We women are too apt to look to one,
Which proves a certain impotence in art.
We strain our natures at doing something great,
Far less because it's something great to do,
Than, haply, that we, so, commend ourselves
As being not small, and more appreciable
To some one friend. We must have mediators

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poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
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Christmas-Eve

I.
OUT of the little chapel I burst
Into the fresh night air again.
I had waited a good five minutes first
In the doorway, to escape the rain
That drove in gusts down the common’s centre,
At the edge of which the chapel stands,
Before I plucked up heart to enter:
Heaven knows how many sorts of hands
Reached past me, groping for the latch
Of the inner door that hung on catch,
More obstinate the more they fumbled,
Till, giving way at last with a scold
Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled
One sheep more to the rest in fold,
And left me irresolute, standing sentry
In the sheepfold’s lath-and-plaster entry,
Four feet long by two feet wide,
Partitioned off from the vast inside—
I blocked up half of it at least.
No remedy; the rain kept driving:
They eyed me much as some wild beast,
The congregation, still arriving,
Some of them by the mainroad, white
A long way past me into the night,
Skirting the common, then diverging;
Not a few suddenly emerging
From the common’s self thro’ the paling-gaps,—
—They house in the gravel-pits perhaps,
Where the road stops short with its safeguard border
Of lamps, as tired of such disorder;—
But the most turned in yet more abruptly
From a certain squalid knot of alleys,
Where the town’s bad blood once slept corruptly,
Which now the little chapel rallies
And leads into day again,—its priestliness
Lending itself to hide their beastliness
So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason),
And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on
Those neophytes too much in lack of it,
That, where you cross the common as I did,
And meet the party thus presided,
“Mount Zion,” with Love-lane at the back of it,
They front you as little disconcerted,
As, bound for the hills, her fate averted
And her wicked people made to mind him,
Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him.

II.
Well, from the road, the lanes or the common,

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poem by Robert Browning
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Third Book

'TO-DAY thou girdest up thy loins thyself,
And goest where thou wouldest: presently
Others shall gird thee,' said the Lord, 'to go
Where thou would'st not.' He spoke to Peter thus,
To signify the death which he should die
When crucified head downwards.
If He spoke
To Peter then, He speaks to us the same;
The word suits many different martyrdoms,
And signifies a multiform of death,
Although we scarcely die apostles, we,
And have mislaid the keys of heaven and earth.

For tis not in mere death that men die most;
And, after our first girding of the loins
In youth's fine linen and fair broidery,
To run up hill and meet the rising sun,
We are apt to sit tired, patient as a fool,
While others gird us with the violent bands
Of social figments, feints, and formalisms,
Reversing our straight nature, lifting up
Our base needs, keeping down our lofty thoughts,
Head downward on the cross-sticks of the world.
Yet He can pluck us from the shameful cross.
God, set our feet low and our forehead high,
And show us how a man was made to walk!

Leave the lamp, Susan, and go up to bed.
The room does very well; I have to write
Beyond the stroke of midnight. Get away;
Your steps, for ever buzzing in the room,
Tease me like gnats. Ah, letters! throw them down
At once, as I must have them, to be sure,
Whether I bid you never bring me such
At such an hour, or bid you. No excuse.
You choose to bring them, as I choose perhaps
To throw them in the fire. Now, get to bed,
And dream, if possible, I am not cross.

Why what a pettish, petty thing I grow,–
A mere, mere woman,–a mere flaccid nerve,-
A kerchief left out all night in the rain,
Turned soft so,–overtasked and overstrained
And overlived in this close London life!
And yet I should be stronger.
Never burn
Your letters, poor Aurora! for they stare
With red seals from the table, saying each,
'Here's something that you know not.' Out alas,
'Tis scarcely that the world's more good and wise

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poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
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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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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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The Aeneid of Virgil: Book 12

WHEN Turnus saw the Latins leave the field,
Their armies broken, and their courage quell’d,
Himself become the mark of public spite,
His honor question’d for the promis’d fight;
The more he was with vulgar hate oppress’d, 5
The more his fury boil’d within his breast:
He rous’d his vigor for the last debate,
And rais’d his haughty soul to meet his fate.
As, when the swains the Libyan lion chase,
He makes a sour retreat, nor mends his pace; 10
But, if the pointed jav’lin pierce his side,
The lordly beast returns with double pride:
He wrenches out the steel, he roars for pain;
His sides he lashes, and erects his mane:
So Turnus fares; his eyeballs flash with fire, 15
Thro’ his wide nostrils clouds of smoke expire.
Trembling with rage, around the court he ran,
At length approach’d the king, and thus began:
“No more excuses or delays: I stand
In arms prepar’d to combat, hand to hand, 20
This base deserter of his native land.
The Trojan, by his word, is bound to take
The same conditions which himself did make.
Renew the truce; the solemn rites prepare,
And to my single virtue trust the war. 25
The Latians unconcern’d shall see the fight;
This arm unaided shall assert your right:
Then, if my prostrate body press the plain,
To him the crown and beauteous bride remain.”
To whom the king sedately thus replied: 30
“Brave youth, the more your valor has been tried,
The more becomes it us, with due respect,
To weigh the chance of war, which you neglect.
You want not wealth, or a successive throne,
Or cities which your arms have made your own: 35
My towns and treasures are at your command,
And stor’d with blooming beauties is my land;
Laurentum more than one Lavinia sees,
Unmarried, fair, of noble families.
Now let me speak, and you with patience hear, 40
Things which perhaps may grate a lover’s ear,
But sound advice, proceeding from a heart
Sincerely yours, and free from fraudful art.
The gods, by signs, have manifestly shown,
No prince Italian born should heir my throne: 45
Oft have our augurs, in prediction skill’d,
And oft our priests, a foreign son reveal’d.
Yet, won by worth that cannot be withstood,
Brib’d by my kindness to my kindred blood,
Urg’d by my wife, who would not be denied, 50

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poem by Publius Vergilius Maro
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Anything Is Possible

Anything is possible
If you put your mind to it
Anything is possible
Just put your mind to it
Anything is possible
If you put your mind to it
Anything....
Is possible
Verse 1:
Thought I couldnt slow him down
Long enough to look my way
Thought he was out of my league
Wouldnt give me time of day
Thought he was like all the rest
Love her, leave her, no remorse
But I guess that I misjudged
And this thing just ran its course
He taught me
Chorus:
Anything is possible
If you put your mind to it
Anything is possible...
Just put your mind to it
Anything is possible
If you put your mind to it
Anything is possible
Break it down now.....
No matter what it is, its possible
Say, anything is possible
(anything...) no matter what it is, its possible
Say, anything is possible
(anything...) no matter what it is, its possible
Say, anything is possible
(anything...) no matter what it is, its possible
Say, anything is possible
Verse 2:
Much to my surprise I felt
A warm, not cold vibe
When he looked in my eyes
(oh yeah, its possible)
His bad boy front not charm
Was his disguise
Oh whoa whoa
(let me tell ya)
He read so much into me
Listened so attentively
He liked me, I rest my case
Wasnt just a pretty face
Bridge:
If you set your mind

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song performed by Debbie Gibson
Added by Lucian Velea
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Three Women

My love is young, so young;
Young is her cheek, and her throat,
And life is a song to be sung
With love the word for each note.

Young is her cheek and her throat;
Her eyes have the smile o' May.
And love is the word for each note
In the song of my life to-day.

Her eyes have the smile o' May;
Her heart is the heart of a dove,
And the song of my life to-day
Is love, beautiful love.

Her heart is the heart of a dove,
Ah, would it but fly to my breast
Where love, beautiful love,
Has made it a downy nest.

Ah, would she but fly to my breast,
My love who is young, so young;
I have made her a downy nest
And life is a song to be sung.

1
I.
A dull little station, a man with the eye
Of a dreamer; a bevy of girls moving by;
A swift moving train and a hot Summer sun,
The curtain goes up, and our play is begun.
The drama of passion, of sorrow, of strife,
Which always is billed for the theatre Life.
It runs on forever, from year unto year,
With scarcely a change when new actors appear.
It is old as the world is-far older in truth,
For the world is a crude little planet of youth.
And back in the eras before it was formed,
The passions of hearts through the Universe stormed.

Maurice Somerville passed the cluster of girls
Who twisted their ribbons and fluttered their curls
In vain to attract him; his mind it was plain
Was wholly intent on the incoming train.
That great one eyed monster puffed out its black breath,
Shrieked, snorted and hissed, like a thing bent on death,

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poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Door Of Humility

ENGLAND
We lead the blind by voice and hand,
And not by light they cannot see;
We are not framed to understand
The How and Why of such as He;

But natured only to rejoice
At every sound or sign of hope,
And, guided by the still small voice,
In patience through the darkness grope;

Until our finer sense expands,
And we exchange for holier sight
The earthly help of voice and hands,
And in His light behold the Light.

I

Let there be Light! The self-same Power
That out of formless dark and void
Endued with life's mysterious dower
Planet, and star, and asteroid;

That moved upon the waters' face,
And, breathing on them His intent,
Divided, and assigned their place
To, ocean, air, and firmament;

That bade the land appear, and bring
Forth herb and leaf, both fruit and flower,
Cattle that graze, and birds that sing,
Ordained the sunshine and the shower;

That, moulding man and woman, breathed
In them an active soul at birth
In His own image, and bequeathed
To them dominion over Earth;

That, by whatever is, decreed
His Will and Word shall be obeyed,
From loftiest star to lowliest seed;-
The worm and me He also made.

And when, for nuptials of the Spring
With Summer, on the vestal thorn
The bridal veil hung flowering,
A cry was heard, and I was born.

II

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poem by Alfred Austin
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IX. Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus

Had I God's leave, how I would alter things!
If I might read instead of print my speech,—
Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower
Refuses obstinate to blow in print,
As wildings planted in a prim parterre,—
This scurvy room were turned an immense hall;
Opposite, fifty judges in a row;
This side and that of me, for audience—Rome:
And, where yon window is, the Pope should hide—
Watch, curtained, but peep visibly enough.
A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd,
Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff,
Up comes an usher, louts him low, "The Court
"Requires the allocution of the Fisc!"
I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause
O'er the hushed multitude: I count—One, two—

Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law,—
When it may hap some painter, much in vogue
Throughout our city nutritive of arts,
Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,
And manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Afford my lords their Holy Family,—
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How such a painter sets himself to paint?
Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe
A-journeying to Egypt, prove the piece:
Why, first he sedulously practiseth,
This painter,—girding loin and lighting lamp,—
On what may nourish eye, make facile hand;
Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so)
From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk
Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves,—
This Luca or this Carlo or the like.
To him the bones their inmost secret yield,
Each notch and nodule signify their use:
On him the muscles turn, in triple tier,
And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man
"Familiarize thee with our play that lifts
"Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm and foot!"
—Ensuring due correctness in the nude.
Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know!
He,—to art's surface rising from her depth,—
If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found,
May simulate a Joseph, (happy chance!)—
Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow,
Loseth no involution, cheek or chap,
Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives!
Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Running Away Doesn't Free

Deciding to come out of hiding,
To run away...
From what's inside,
Kept still denied.
But then...
Why does one keep believing,
Running from something...
Frees.

Deciding to come out of hiding,
To run away...
From what's inside,
Kept still denied.
But then...
Why does one keep believing,
Running from something...
Frees.

So many do it thinking...
Running from something frees.
And keep a pace believed...
A running from something frees.
To only feel defeated,
By a running with no relief.
So many do it thinking...
Running from something frees.
And keep a pace believed...
A running from something frees.
To only feel defeated,
By a running with no relief.

Deciding to come out of hiding,
To run away...
From what's inside,
Kept still denied.
But then...
Why does one keep believing,
Running from something...
Frees.

So many do it thinking...
Running from something frees.
And keep a pace believed...
A running from something frees.
To only feel defeated,
By a running with no relief.
So many do it thinking...
Running from something frees.
And keep a pace believed...
A running from something frees.

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poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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VIII. Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator

Ah, my Giacinto, he's no ruddy rogue,
Is not Cinone? What, to-day we're eight?
Seven and one's eight, I hope, old curly-pate!
—Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,
Amo-as-avi-atum-are-ans,
Up to -aturus, person, tense, and mood,
Quies me cum subjunctivo (I could cry)
And chews Corderius with his morning crust!
Look eight years onward, and he's perched, he's perched
Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair,
Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?
—Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case
Like this, papa shall triturate full soon
To smooth Papinianian pulp!

It trots
Already through my head, though noon be now,
Does supper-time and what belongs to eve.
Dispose, O Don, o' the day, first work then play!
—The proverb bids. And "then" means, won't we hold
Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast,
Cinuolo's birth-night, Cinicello's own,
That makes gruff January grin perforce!
For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth
Escaping from so many hearts at once—
When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,
Jokes the hale grandsire,—such are just the sort
To go off suddenly,—he who hides the key
O' the box beneath his pillow every night,—
Which box may hold a parchment (someone thinks)
Will show a scribbled something like a name
"Cinino, Ciniccino," near the end,
"To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,
"Estates, tenements, hereditaments,
"When I decease as honest grandsire ought."
Wherefore—yet this one time again perhaps—
Shan't my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!
Then, uncles, one or the other, well i' the world,
May—drop in, merely?—trudge through rain and wind,
Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint
There's cookery in a certain dwelling-place!
Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,
Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,
And so find door, put galligaskin off
At entry of a decent domicile
Cornered in snug Condotti,—all for love,
All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!

Well,
Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp!

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Easter-Day

HOW very hard it is to be
A Christian! Hard for you and me,
—Not the mere task of making real
That duty up to its ideal,
Effecting thus complete and whole,
A purpose or the human soul—
For that is always hard to do;
But hard, I mean, for me and you
To realise it, more or less,
With even the moderate success
Which commonly repays our strife
To carry out the aims of life.
“This aim is greater,” you may say,
“And so more arduous every way.”
—But the importance of the fruits
Still proves to man, in all pursuits,
Proportional encouragement.
“Then, what if it be God’s intent
“That labour to this one result
“Shall seem unduly difficult?”
—Ah, that’s a question in the dark—
And the sole thing that I remark
Upon the difficulty, this;
We do not see it where it is,
At the beginning of the race:
As we proceed, it shifts its place,
And where we looked for palms to fall,
We find the tug’s to come,—that’s all.

II.
At first you say, “The whole, or chief
“Of difficulties, is Belief.
“Could I believe once thoroughly,
“The rest were simple. What? Am I
“An idiot, do you think? A beast?
“Prove to me only that the least
“Command of God is God’s indeed,
“And what injunction shall I need
“To pay obedience? Death so nigh
“When time must end, eternity
“Begin,—and cannot I compute?
“Weigh loss and gain together? suit
“My actions to the balance drawn,
“And give my body to be sawn
“Asunder, hacked in pieces, tied
“To horses, stoned, burned, crucified,
“Like any martyr of the list?
“How gladly,—if I made acquist,
“Through the brief minutes’ fierce annoy,
“Of God’s eternity of joy.”

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning
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Two birds on the same tree

Two birds rest on the same tree;
their eyes are bright;

they look alike; yet one
is the Teacher; one the Student;

the Student tastes all the many fruits
upon that tree; the Teacher sits, just watches,

filled with love and pride;
the eyes of both are bright;

when the Student has tasted all,
the Teacher asks what has been learnt; for

only the Teacher knows within their heart:
that now the Student is the teacher;

the Teacher listens as a student;
the Student speaks now as a teacher

who has learned this of themself;
the Teacher’s eyes are bright:

knowing that to live it through
shows the knowledge to be true;

the Student is teaching the Teacher now, of
how to teach; the Teacher glows to know

the Student may surpass the Teacher;
knowledge shines from both their eyes;

who is the more glorious of these two
who share both the same name?

who rejoice to need the other;
who rejoice to be the other;

now they are silent; now the tree’s rejoicing too;
Its roots above; its fruits below;

its leaves, a shelter;
its branches, home.

*

[ Leaning on a poem of Kabir: Indian readers will be familiar with
'two birds in a tree' as a metaphor for acting with detachment; Kabir takes this further, into knowledge gained from wise action...]

poem by Michael Shepherd
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