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There once was a man from Torquay
Who suffered from bites from a flea;
So he called for a nurse
But things turned for the worse:
He was stung by a ruddy great bee.

(Written Oct 2012)

limerick by John Carter Brown
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Love Bites

Do you know what a vampire is?
Whoa! love bites, love bites,
Love bites, love bites,
Love bites, love bites.
Come live forever with me, or transpire,
A flame alone, on a funeral pire,
Well build an empire, if we so desire,
Travel the world, and set it on fire!
Bite me babe, set my soul on fire!
Bite me babe, set my soul on fire!
Come taste my love baby,
Blood makes me hard to resist,
My soul burns like fire,
Kiss my hungry lips vampire!
Love bites, love bites,
Love bites, love bites,
Love bites, love bites.
Blood turns cold for mortals who wait,
Your coils unwinding, now choose you fate,
A flame alone on a funeral pire,
Or eternal life as my vampire!!
Bite me babe, set my soul on fire!
Bite me babe, set my soul on fire!
Come taste my love baby,
Blood makes me hard to resist,
My sould burns like fire,
Kiss my hungry lips vampire!
Love bites, love bites,
Love bites, love bites, [loves bites!],
Love bites, love bites, [my vampire].
Deep into the, deep into the, deep into the, night!
Deep into the, deep into the, deep into the, night! [love bites],
Deep into the, deep into the, deep into the, night!
Deep into the, deep into the, deep into the, night! [love bites].
[demonic laughing!].
Blood turns cold for mortals who wait,
Your coils unwinding, now choose you fate.
Love bites, love bites,
Love bites, love bites, [loves bites!],
Love bites, love bites, [my vampire],
Deep into the, deep into the, deep into the, night!
[...repeat & fade...].

song performed by Grace Jones
Added by Lucian Velea
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I Got Stung

Holy smokes land sakes alive I never thought this would happen to me
Ah-ha, yeah, ah-ha yeah
I got stung by a sweet honey bee
What a feelin came over me
Well it started in my eyes, crept up to my head
Flew into my arms, til I was stung dead
Im done, ah-ha, I got stung
Hum ah-ha, yeah ah-ha, yeah
She had all that I wanted and more
Ive never seen honey bees before
Well she started through my ears, buzzing in my brain
Got stung all over but I feel no pain
Im done, ah-ha, I got stung
Well dont think Im complainin
Because Im might pleased that we met
cause you gimme just one little peck on the back of my neck
And I break out in a cold cold sweat
If I live to a hundred and two
I wont let nobody sting me but you
Ill be buzzin round your hive
Evry day at five and Im never gonna leave once I arrive
Im done, ah-ha, I got stung
I got stung yeah, I got stung yeah
Well dont think Im complainin
Cause Im might pleased that we met
cause you gimme just one little peck on the back of my neck
And I break out in a cold cold sweat
If I live to a hundred and two
I wont let nobody sting me but you
Ill be buzzin round your hive
Evry day at five and Im never gonna leave once I arrive
Im done, ah-ha, I got stung, yeah
Im done, ah-ha, I got stung, yeah
Because Im done, ah-ha, I got stung
Hey, ah-ha, yeah
Ah-ha, yeah
Ah-ha, yeah
I got stung, yeah
I got stung, yeah
I got stung, yeah
I got stung, yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah
I got stung, yeah
I got stung, stung, stung yeah, yeah ... yeah
I got stung, stung, stung yeah, yeah ... yeah
I got yeah, yeah, yeah

song performed by Paul McCartney
Added by Lucian Velea
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Beautiful Torquay

All ye lovers of the picturesque, away
To beautiful Torquay and spend a holiday
'Tis health for invalids for to go there
To view the beautiful scenery and inhale the fragrant air,
Especially in the winter and spring-time of the year,
When the weather is not too hot, but is balmy and clear.

Torquay lies in a very deep and well-sheltered spot,
And at first sight by strangers it won't be forgot;
'Tis said to be the mildest place in ah England,
And surrounded by lofty hills most beautiful and grand.

Twas here that William of Orange first touched English ground,
And as he viewed the beautiful spot his heart with joy did rebound;
And an obelisk marks the spot where he did stand,
And which for long will be remembered throughout England.

Torquay, with its pier and its diadem of white,
Is a moat beautiful and very dazzling sight,
With its white villas glittering on the sides of its green hills,
And as the tourist gases thereon with joy his heart fills.

The heights around Torquay are most beautiful to be seen,
Especially when the trees and shrubberies are green,
And to see the pretty houses under the cliff is a treat,
And the little town enclosed where two deep valleys meet.

There is also a fine bathing establishment near the pier,
Where the tourist can bathe without any fear;
And as the tourists there together doth stroll,
I advise them to visit a deep chasm called Daddy's Hole.

Then there's Bablicome, only two miles from Torquay,
Which will make the stranger's heart feel gay,
As he stands on the cliff four hundred feet above the sea,
Looking down,'tis sure to fill his heart with ecstasy.

The lodging-houses at Bablicome are magnificent to be seen,
And the accommodation there would suit either king or queen,
And there's some exquisite cottages embowered in the woodland,
And sloping down to the sea shore, is really very grand.

You do not wonder at Napoleon's exclamation
As he stood on the deck of the "Bellerophon," in a fit of admiration,
When the vessel was lying to windbound,
He exclaimed - "Oh, what a beautiful country!" his joy was profound.

And as the tourist there in search of beautiful spots doth rove,
Let them not forget to enquire for Anstey's Cove,
And there they will see a beautiful beach of milky white,

[...] Read more

poem by William Topaz McGonagall
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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:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Ælla, A Tragical Interlude - Act I

SCENE I.
CELMONDE, att BRYSTOWE.
Before yonne roddie sonne has droove hys wayne
Throwe halfe hys joornie, dyghte yn gites of goulde,
Mee, happeless mee, hee wylle a wretche behoulde,
Mieselfe, and al that's myne, bounde ynn myschaunces chayne.
Ah! Birtha, whie dydde Nature frame thee fayre?
Whie art thou all thatt poyntelle canne bewreene ?
Whie art thou nott as coarse as odhers are?--
Butte thenn thie soughle woulde throwe thy vysage sheene,
Yatt shemres onn thie comelie semlykeene,
Lyche nottebrowne cloudes, whann bie the sonne made redde,
Orr scarlette, wythe waylde lynnen clothe ywreene ,
Syke would thie spryte uponn thie vysage spredde.
Thys daie brave Ælla dothe thyne honde and harte
Clayme as hys owne to be, whyche nee from hys moste parte.
And cann I lyve to see herr wythe anere?
Ytt cannotte, muste nott, naie, ytt shalle not bee.
Thys nyghte I'll putte stronge poysonn ynn the beere,
And hymm, herr, and myselfe, attenes wyll slea.
Assyst mee, Helle! lett Devylles rounde mee tende,
To slea mieself, mie love, & eke mie doughtie friende.

SCENE II.
ÆLLA, BIRTHA.
ÆLLA.
Notte, whanne the hallie prieste dyd make me knyghte,
Blessynge the weaponne, tellynge future dede,
Howe bie mie honde the prevyd Dane should blede,
Howe I schulde often bee, and often wynne, ynn fyghte;
Notte, whann I fyrste behelde thie beauteous hue,
Whyche strooke mie mynde, and rouzed mie softer soule;
Nott, whann from the barbed horse yn fyghte dyd viewe
The flying Dacians oere the wyde playne roule,
Whan all the troopes of Denmarque made grete dole,
Dydd I fele joie wyth syke reddoure as nowe,
Whan hallie preest, the lechemanne of the soule,
Dydd knytte us both ynn a caytysnede vowe:
Now hallie Ælla's selynesse ys grate;
Shap haveth nowe ymade hys woes for to emmate .
BIRTHA.
Mie lorde, and husbande, syke a joie ys myne;
Botte mayden modestie moste ne soe saie,
Albeytte thou mayest rede ytt ynn myne eyne,
Or ynn myne harte, where thou shalte be for aie;
Inne sothe, I have butte meeded oute thie faie;
For twelve tymes twelve the mone hathe bin yblente,
As manie tymes hathe vyed the Godde of daie,
And on the grasse her lemes of sylverr sente,
Sythe thou dydst cheese mee for thie swote to bee,

[...] Read more

poem by Thomas Chatterton
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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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Give Your Heart To The Hawks

1 he apples hung until a wind at the equinox,

That heaped the beach with black weed, filled the dry grass

Under the old trees with rosy fruit.

In the morning Fayne Fraser gathered the sound ones into a

basket,

The bruised ones into a pan. One place they lay so thickly
She knelt to reach them.

Her husband's brother passing
Along the broken fence of the stubble-field,
His quick brown eyes took in one moving glance
A little gopher-snake at his feet flowing through the stubble
To gain the fence, and Fayne crouched after apples
With her mop of red hair like a glowing coal
Against the shadow in the garden. The small shapely reptile
Flowed into a thicket of dead thistle-stalks
Around a fence-post, but its tail was not hidden.
The young man drew it all out, and as the coil
Whipped over his wrist, smiled at it; he stepped carefully
Across the sag of the wire. When Fayne looked up
His hand was hidden; she looked over her shoulder
And twitched her sunburnt lips from small white teeth
To answer the spark of malice in his eyes, but turned
To the apples, intent again. Michael looked down
At her white neck, rarely touched by the sun,
But now the cinnabar-colored hair fell off from it;
And her shoulders in the light-blue shirt, and long legs like a boy's
Bare-ankled in blue-jean trousers, the country wear;
He stooped quietly and slipped the small cool snake
Up the blue-denim leg. Fayne screamed and writhed,
Clutching her thigh. 'Michael, you beast.' She stood up
And stroked her leg, with little sharp cries, the slender invader
Fell down her ankle.

Fayne snatched for it and missed;

Michael stood by rejoicing, his rather small

Finely cut features in a dance of delight;

Fayne with one sweep flung at his face

All the bruised and half-spoiled apples in the pan,

[...] Read more

poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Honey Bee

Honey
Honey bee
Honey bee
Honey bee
Honey
Honey
Youre my honey bee [youre my honey bee, baby]
Come on and sting me [your love is sweet as can be]
Youre my honey bee [youre my honey bee, baby]
Come on and sting me [your love is sweet as can be]
Youre always so busy
Workin on loves honeycomb
Chalk full of sugar down your sweet mouth
Every time you kiss me, boy, really turns me on
Youre always buzzin, buzzin, buzzin
Love is in the air
Theres nothin like your lovin
Boy, its beyond compare, yeah
Youre my honey bee [youre my honey bee, baby]
Come on and sting me [your love is sweet as can be]
Youre my honey bee, yeah [youre my honey bee, baby]
Come on and sting me [your love is sweet as can be]
Theres so much love power
In everything you bring to me
Whenever Im snuggled in your arms
The love you bring makes my heart sing
You know love is where you are
Theres where I want to be
When its cold outside
Youre honey loves so good to me
Youre my honey bee, oh, yeah [youre my honey bee, baby]
Come on and sting me, oh [your love is sweet as can be]
Youre my honey bee [youre my honey bee, baby]
Come on and sting me, ah [your love is sweet as can be], ow
Ah
Youre my honey bee [youre my honey bee, baby]
Come on and sting me, yeah [your love is sweet as can be]
Youre my honey bee [youre my honey bee, baby]
Sweet love, oh [your love is sweet as can be]
Honey, honey, honey [youre my honey bee, baby]
Honey bee [your love is sweet as can be]
Sweet love [youre my honey bee, baby]
Sweet love, give it to me [your love is sweet as can be]
Got to have it, need your love, ah, yeah [youre my honey bee, baby]
Sweet honey bee, yeah [your love is sweet as can be]
Sweet [youre my honey bee, baby] love, ah
[your love is sweet as can be]
Youre my honey bee

song performed by Gloria Gaynor
Added by Lucian Velea
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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,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Would you ever believe

WOULD YOU EVER believe if I called a nondescript table of teakwood; as a vivacious bird soaring high in the sky,

Would you ever believe if I called a ruffled sheet of paper; as a chunk of glittering gold,

Would you ever believe if I called a grandiloquent watch embodied with diamonds; as a lump of bedraggled stone,

Would you ever believe if I called a mountain of compacted mud; as a switchboard of pugnacious electricity,

Would you ever believe if I called a resplendent rainbow in the sky; as a broomstick with incongruous bristles,

Would you ever believe if I called a rusty canister of dilapidated iron; as a mesmerizing rose growing in the garden,

Would you ever believe if I called a pink tablet of luxury soap; as a mosquito hovering acrimoniously in the cloistered room,

Would you ever believe if I called a boat rollicking merrily on the undulating waves; as a rustic jungle spider,

Would you ever believe if I called a valley profusely embedded with snow; as an unscrupulous dog on the street,

Would you ever believe if I called a pair of luscious lips; as a disdainfully fetid shoe,

Would you ever believe if I called a fluorescent rod of light; as a jagged bush of cactus growing in the sweltering desert,

Would you ever believe if I called the blazing sun; as a pudgy bar of delectable chocolate,
Would you ever believe if I called an angular sculptured bone; as acid bubbling in a swanky bottle,

Would you ever believe if I called a scintillating oyster; as an inarticulate matchstick coated with lead,

Would you ever believe if I called a cluster of bells jingling from the ceiling; as a sordid cockroach philandering beside the lavatory seat,

Would you ever believe if I called a fruit of succulent coconut; as a dead mans morbid tooth,

Would you ever believe If I called a steaming cup of filter coffee; as gaudily colored water emanating from the street fountains,

Would you ever believe if I called the majestic statue of a revered historian; as a slab of tangy peanut butter,

Would you ever believe if I called a vibrant shirt; as a protuberant pigeon discerningly pecking its beak at grains scattered on the floor,

Would you ever believe if I called a flocculent bud of cotton; as a camouflaged lizard transgressing through wild projections of grass,

Would you ever believe if I called a photograph depicting the steep gorges; as a gutter inundated with obnoxious sewage,

Would you ever believe if I called a lanky giraffe; as a convict nefariously lurking through solitary streets of the city,

Would you ever believe if I called a pair of flamboyant sunglasses; as a weird tattoo to be adhered to the chest,

Would you ever believe if I called a chicken’s egg; as logs of sooty charcoal abundantly stashed in the colossal warehouse,

Would you ever believe if I called a biscuit replete with golden honey; as a ominously slithering reptile in the jungles,

Would you ever believe if I called a bald man possessing a profoundly tonsured scalp; as a gas balloon floating in insipid air,

[...] Read more

poem by Nikhil Parekh
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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,

[...] Read more

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Ælla, A Tragical Interlude - Act III

SCENE I.
BRISTOWE.
BIRTHA.
Gentle Egwina, do notte preche me joie;
I cannotte joie ynne anie thynge botte weere .
Oh! yatte aughte schulde oure selynesse destroie,
Floddynge the face wythe woe, and brynie teare!
EGWINA.
You muste, you muste endeavour for to cheere
Youre harte unto somme cherisaunied reste.
Youre loverde from the battelle wylle appere,
Ynne honnoure, and a greater love, be dreste:
Botte I wylle call the mynstrelles roundelaie;
Perchaunce the swotie sounde maie chase your wiere awaie.

MYNSTRELLES SONGE.
O! synge untoe mie roundelaie,
O! droppe the blynie teare wythe mee,
Daunce ne moe atte hallie daie,
Lycke a reyneynge ryver bee;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys death-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Blacke hys cryne as the wynter nyghte,
Whyte hys rode as the sommer snowe,
Rodde hys face as the morning lyghte,
Cale he lyes ynne the grave belowe;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys death-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
Swote hys tynge as the throstles note,
Quycke ynn daunce as thoughte canne bee,
Defte hys taboure, codgelle stote,
O! hee lyes bie the wyllowe tree:
Mie love ys dedde,
Gonne to hys deathe-bedde,
Alle underre the wyllowe tree.
Harke! the ravenne flappes hys wynge,
In the briered delle belowe;
Harke! the dethe-owle loude dothe synge,
To the nyghte-mares as heie goe;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gonne to hys deathe-bedde,
Al under the wyllowe tree.
See! the whyte moone sheenes onne hie;
Whyterre ys mie true loves shroude;
Whyterre yanne the mornynge skie,
Whyterre yanne the evenynge cloude;
Mie love ys dedde,
Gon to hys deathe-bedde,

[...] Read more

poem by Thomas Chatterton
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II. Half-Rome

What, you, Sir, come too? (Just the man I'd meet.)
Be ruled by me and have a care o' the crowd:
This way, while fresh folk go and get their gaze:
I'll tell you like a book and save your shins.
Fie, what a roaring day we've had! Whose fault?
Lorenzo in Lucina,—here's a church
To hold a crowd at need, accommodate
All comers from the Corso! If this crush
Make not its priests ashamed of what they show
For temple-room, don't prick them to draw purse
And down with bricks and mortar, eke us out
The beggarly transept with its bit of apse
Into a decent space for Christian ease,
Why, to-day's lucky pearl is cast to swine.
Listen and estimate the luck they've had!
(The right man, and I hold him.)

Sir, do you see,
They laid both bodies in the church, this morn
The first thing, on the chancel two steps up,
Behind the little marble balustrade;
Disposed them, Pietro the old murdered fool
To the right of the altar, and his wretched wife
On the other side. In trying to count stabs,
People supposed Violante showed the most,
Till somebody explained us that mistake;
His wounds had been dealt out indifferent where,
But she took all her stabbings in the face,
Since punished thus solely for honour's sake,
Honoris causâ, that's the proper term.
A delicacy there is, our gallants hold,
When you avenge your honour and only then,
That you disfigure the subject, fray the face,
Not just take life and end, in clownish guise.
It was Violante gave the first offence,
Got therefore the conspicuous punishment:
While Pietro, who helped merely, his mere death
Answered the purpose, so his face went free.
We fancied even, free as you please, that face
Showed itself still intolerably wronged;
Was wrinkled over with resentment yet,
Nor calm at all, as murdered faces use,
Once the worst ended: an indignant air
O' the head there was—'t is said the body turned
Round and away, rolled from Violante's side
Where they had laid it loving-husband-like.
If so, if corpses can be sensitive,
Why did not he roll right down altar-step,
Roll on through nave, roll fairly out of church,
Deprive Lorenzo of the spectacle,

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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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The Ballad of the White Horse

DEDICATION

Of great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night--
Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light?

Where seven sunken Englands
Lie buried one by one,
Why should one idle spade, I wonder,
Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder
To smoke and choke the sun?

In cloud of clay so cast to heaven
What shape shall man discern?
These lords may light the mystery
Of mastery or victory,
And these ride high in history,
But these shall not return.

Gored on the Norman gonfalon
The Golden Dragon died:
We shall not wake with ballad strings
The good time of the smaller things,
We shall not see the holy kings
Ride down by Severn side.

Stiff, strange, and quaintly coloured
As the broidery of Bayeux
The England of that dawn remains,
And this of Alfred and the Danes
Seems like the tales a whole tribe feigns
Too English to be true.

Of a good king on an island
That ruled once on a time;
And as he walked by an apple tree
There came green devils out of the sea
With sea-plants trailing heavily
And tracks of opal slime.

Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;
His days as our days ran,
He also looked forth for an hour
On peopled plains and skies that lower,
From those few windows in the tower
That is the head of a man.

But who shall look from Alfred's hood

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poem by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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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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I. The Ring and the Book

Do you see this Ring?
'T is Rome-work, made to match
(By Castellani's imitative craft)
Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn,
After a dropping April; found alive
Spark-like 'mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots
That roof old tombs at Chiusi: soft, you see,
Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There's one trick,
(Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device
And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold
As this was,—such mere oozings from the mine,
Virgin as oval tawny pendent tear
At beehive-edge when ripened combs o'erflow,—
To bear the file's tooth and the hammer's tap:
Since hammer needs must widen out the round,
And file emboss it fine with lily-flowers,
Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear.
That trick is, the artificer melts up wax
With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold
With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both,
Effects a manageable mass, then works:
But his work ended, once the thing a ring,
Oh, there's repristination! Just a spirt
O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face,
And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume;
While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains,
The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness,
Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:
Prime nature with an added artistry—
No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.
What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say;
A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.

Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss
I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about
By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since?
Examine it yourselves! I found this book,
Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just,
(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,
Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,
One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,
Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths,
Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time,
Toward Baccio's marble,—ay, the basement-ledge
O' the pedestal where sits and menaces
John of the Black Bands with the upright spear,
'Twixt palace and church,—Riccardi where they lived,
His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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The Tower Beyond Tragedy

I
You'd never have thought the Queen was Helen's sister- Troy's
burning-flower from Sparta, the beautiful sea-flower
Cut in clear stone, crowned with the fragrant golden mane, she
the ageless, the uncontaminable-
This Clytemnestra was her sister, low-statured, fierce-lipped, not
dark nor blonde, greenish-gray-eyed,
Sinewed with strength, you saw, under the purple folds of the
queen-cloak, but craftier than queenly,
Standing between the gilded wooden porch-pillars, great steps of
stone above the steep street,
Awaiting the King.
Most of his men were quartered on the town;
he, clanking bronze, with fifty
And certain captives, came to the stair. The Queen's men were
a hundred in the street and a hundred
Lining the ramp, eighty on the great flags of the porch; she
raising her white arms the spear-butts
Thundered on the stone, and the shields clashed; eight shining
clarions
Let fly from the wide window over the entrance the wildbirds of
their metal throats, air-cleaving
Over the King come home. He raised his thick burnt-colored
beard and smiled; then Clytemnestra,
Gathering the robe, setting the golden-sandaled feet carefully,
stone by stone, descended
One half the stair. But one of the captives marred the comeliness
of that embrace with a cry
Gull-shrill, blade-sharp, cutting between the purple cloak and
the bronze plates, then Clytemnestra:
Who was it? The King answered: A piece of our goods out of
the snatch of Asia, a daughter of the king,
So treat her kindly and she may come into her wits again. Eh,
you keep state here my queen.
You've not been the poorer for me.- In heart, in the widowed
chamber, dear, she pale replied, though the slaves
Toiled, the spearmen were faithful. What's her name, the slavegirl's?
AGAMEMNON Come up the stair. They tell me my kinsman's
Lodged himself on you.
CLYTEMNESTRA Your cousin Aegisthus? He was out of refuge,
flits between here and Tiryns.
Dear: the girl's name?
AGAMEMNON Cassandra. We've a hundred or so other
captives; besides two hundred
Rotted in the hulls, they tell odd stories about you and your
guest: eh? no matter: the ships
Ooze pitch and the August road smokes dirt, I smell like an
old shepherd's goatskin, you'll have bath-water?
CLYTEMNESTRA
They're making it hot. Come, my lord. My hands will pour it.

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Paradise Regained

THE FIRST BOOK

I, WHO erewhile the happy Garden sung
By one man's disobedience lost, now sing
Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.
Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence 10
By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,
And bear through highth or depth of Nature's bounds,
With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in secret done,
And unrecorded left through many an age:
Worthy to have not remained so long unsung.
Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice
More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried
Repentance, and Heaven's kingdom nigh at hand 20
To all baptized. To his great baptism flocked
With awe the regions round, and with them came
From Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed
To the flood Jordan--came as then obscure,
Unmarked, unknown. But him the Baptist soon
Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore
As to his worthier, and would have resigned
To him his heavenly office. Nor was long
His witness unconfirmed: on him baptized
Heaven opened, and in likeness of a Dove 30
The Spirit descended, while the Father's voice
From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son.
That heard the Adversary, who, roving still
About the world, at that assembly famed
Would not be last, and, with the voice divine
Nigh thunder-struck, the exalted man to whom
Such high attest was given a while surveyed
With wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage,
Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air
To council summons all his mighty Peers, 40
Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved,
A gloomy consistory; and them amidst,
With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake:--
"O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World
(For much more willingly I mention Air,
This our old conquest, than remember Hell,
Our hated habitation), well ye know
How many ages, as the years of men,

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poem by John Milton
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The Tournament. An Interlude

HERAWDE
THE Tournament begynnes; the hammerrs sounde;
The courserrs lysse about the mensuredd fielde;
The shemrynge armoure throws the sheene arounde;
Quayntyssed fons depictedd onn eche sheelde.
The feerie heaulmets, wythe the wreathes amielde ,
Supportes the rampynge lyoncell orr bear;
Wythe straunge depyctures , Nature maie nott yeelde,
Unseemelie to all orderr doe appere,
Yett yatte
Makes knowen thatt the phantasies unryghte.
of her joies,
Muste swythen goe to yeve the speeres around;
Wythe advantayle & borne I meynte emploie,
Who withoute mee woulde fall untoe the grounde.
Soe the tall oake the ivie twysteth rounde;
Soe the neshe flowerr grees ynne the woodeland shade.
The woride bie diffraunce ys ynne orderr founde;
Wydhoute unlikenesse nothynge could bee made.
As ynn the bowke nete alleyn cann bee donne,
Syke ynn the weal of kynde all thynges are partes of onne.

Herawde , bie heavenne these tylterrs staie too long.
Mie phantasie ys dyinge forr the fyghte.
The mynstrelles have begonne the thyrde warr songe,
Yett notte a speere of hemm hath grete mie syghte.
I feere there be ne manne wordhie mie myghte.
I lacke a Guid , a Wyllyamm to entylte.
To reine anente a fele embodiedd knyghte,
Ytt getts ne rennome gyff hys blodde bee spylte.
Bie heavenne & Marie ytt ys tyme they're here;
I lyche nott unthylle thus to wielde the speare.
HERAWDE
Methynckes I heare yer slugghornes dynn fromm farre.
BOURTONNE
Ah! swythenn mie shielde & tyltynge launce bee bounde .
Eftsoones beheste mie Squyerr to the warre.

HERAWDE
Thie valourous actes woulde meinte of menne astounde;
Harde bee yer shappe encontrynge thee ynn fyghte;
Anenst all menne thou berest to the grounde,
Lyche the hard hayle dothe the tall roshes pyghte .
As whanne the mornynge sonne ydronks the dew,
Syche dothe thie valourous actes drocke eche knyghte's hue.
THE LYSTES. THE KYNGE. SYRR SYMONNE DE BOURTONNE, SYRR HUGO FERRARIS, SYRR RANULPH NEVILLE, SYRR LODOVICK DE CLYNTON, SYRR JOHAN DE BERGHAMME, AND ODHERR KNYGHTES, HERAWDES, MYNSTRELLES, AND SERVYTOURS .
KYNGE
The barganette ; yee mynstrelles tune the strynge,
Somme actyonn dyre of auntyante kynges now synge.
MYNSTRELLES.

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poem by Thomas Chatterton
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