The Expense Spent On The Hype
Even after all of the performances are done.
And the expense spent on the hype,
Leaves no one in the audience excited.
Or feeling their appetites have been satisfied.
The curtain on the stage will come down.
And the spotlight will be turned off.
As reviews the next day will be read.
Prescriptions will be filled.
And medications will be taken.
Even after all of the performances are done.
No one will be convinced,
Their reality lived has been truthfully represented.
Or the expense spent on the hype,
Will deliver to anyone a dividend.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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I Get Excited
(tennant/lowe)
--------------
(excited)
(excited)
(excited excited excited excited)
(excited excited excited excited)
(i get excited)
(i get excited)
We're both in the gutter, that's no surprise
What does it matter, when i look in your eyes?
We've lost all our money, we're thrown out of bars
We're lying in the gutter, but we're looking at the stars
I get excited, you get excited too (excited) (i get excited)
I get excited, you get excited too (excited) (i get excited)
I hear the sound of the subway, the sigh of the heat
The click of the visitors' heels on the street
The rattle of the taxi, the scream of the cars
The clatter of the dustbin and the beat of my heart
I get excited, you get excited too (excited) (i get excited)
I get excited, you get excited too (excited) (i get excited)
I don't know why, i don't know why (i get excited)
I don't know why, i don't know why
(excited excited excited excited)
(excited excited excited excited)
You're in my soul
My body moves to your control
Baby, i've been thinking about you
All night long, and the neighbours are talking
I don't know why, i don't know why (excited) (i get excited)
I don't know why, i don't know why
(excited) (i get excited)
We're both in the gutter, that's no surprise
What does it matter, when i look in your eyes?
We've lost all our money, we're thrown out of bars
We're lying in the gutter, but we're looking at the stars
I get excited, you get excited too (excited) (i get excited)
I get excited, you get excited too (excited) (i get excited)
I don't know why, i don't know why (i get excited)
I don't know why, i don't know why
(excited excited excited excited)
(excited excited excited excited)
(ooooooooh)
I get excited, you get excited too (excited) (i get excited)
I get excited, you get excited too (excited) (i get excited)
I don't know why, i don't know why (i get excited)
I don't know why, i don't know why (i get excited)
I get excited, you get excited too
song performed by Pet Shop Boys
Added by Lucian Velea
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This Universe (They Have This Need)
Do not become fooled or tricked by them.
The ones who talk of both fear and sin.
Their way of observing life may be coming to its end.
But this Universe is full of abundance.
Perhaps for them there is this 'need' to believe...
What they have created has to be deflated!
There is this need for some to feel defeated.
As if it's up to them who lives to breathe!
There is this need for some to feel defeated.
As if it's up to them who stays and leaves.
And those who play God are on medications long outdated!
And those who play God are on medications long outdated!
And those who play God are on medications over-rated.
Do not become fooled or tricked by them.
The ones who talk of both fear and sin.
Their way of observing life may be coming to its end.
But this Universe is full of abundance.
Perhaps for them there is this 'need' to believe...
What they have created has to be deflated!
And those who play God are on medications long outdated!
And those who play God are on medications long outdated!
And those who play God are on medications over-rated.
(They have this need)
Those who play God are on medications long outdated!
(They have this need)
Those who play God are on medications long outdated!
(They have this need)
Those who play God are on medications long outdated!
And those who play God are on medications over-rated.
(They have this need)
Those who play God are on medications long outdated!
(They have this need)
Those who play God are on medications long outdated!
(They have this need)
Those who play God are on medications long outdated!
And those who play God are on medications over-rated.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The House Of Dust: Complete
I.
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.
'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.
We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .
Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.
Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.
Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.
II.
[...] Read more
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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I Get So Excited
(ian hunter)
I hear a thousand drums a million miles away
I feel the wembley rock I get a buzz off a big parade
I get the music
Everywhere
Get off on the music
If this is the end there I dont care
I get so excited
So excited
Call me a fan thats just what I am
I said I i I i I get
So excited
So excited
My nerves are alive
I feel like a knife
I said I get so excited
I hear a choir singing way up above the sea
I feel the sound a-changing as the night rocks a spell on me
I get the music
Everywhere
Get off on the music
If this is the end there I dont care I get
So excited
So excited
Ill throw you a line come far behind
I said I i I i I get
So excited
So excited
Its happening so fast
And the drummers a blast
I said I get so excited
By your mind oh yeah oh yeah
Excited by your warmth oh yeah oh yeah
Excited by your body oh yeah oh yeah
Excited by your...
Ha ha ha ha
Oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah right! I get
So excited
So excited
Band on the run just for the fun
I said I i I i I get
So excited
So excited
It lasts and it lasts
Get up off your past
I said I i I i I i I get
So excited
So excited
Call me a fan thats just what I am
I said I i I i I i I get
[...] Read more
song performed by Ian Hunter
Added by Lucian Velea
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Spotlight
(eric carmen)
Get my guitar
Get the car Im gonna take a little strip out of town
Gotta go do a show
Rock and roll until Im upside down
(I see the light) I see the light
Hear the crowd
Clappin loud, they want the show to start
Oh, and now the stage is dark
Mmm, I can feel my heart
Cant you feel your heart
Spotlight, lighting the stage
I gotta go a little crazy tonight
Spotlight, take me away
Im gonna rock till I feel alright
Here it comes
Feel the drums pound the rhythm of a jungle beat
And all around
Hear the sounds that go up and down the city street
(play that guitar) play that guitar
Play it hard
Open up and let it move your soul
Oh, Im goin out of control
Im goin out of control
Cant you feel it grow
Spotlight, lighting the stage
I gotta go a little crazy tonight
Spotlight, take me away
Im gonna rock till I feel alright
Spotlight, give me the heat
Im gonna burn like a star in the sky
Spotlight, Im gonna explode now
Im ready to go, Im ready to go
Alright
Spotlight, lighting the stage
I gotta go a little crazy tonight
Spotlight, take me away
Im gonna rock till I feel alright
Spotlight, give me the heat
I wanna burn like a star in the sky
Spotlight, I wanna explode now (yeah)
Im ready to go, Im ready to go
Alright, alright
Alright, alright
(give it to me)
Spotlight
Feel the drums pound the rhythm of a jungle beat
Spotlight
Cant you feel it, feel it, feel it, feel it
Spotlight
song performed by Eric Carmen
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
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Satisfied
I won't be satisfied (x2)
Going round in circles baby
Trying to think how I'm gonna get with you
I think about you all of the time
And you know that you're blowing my mind
I'm going crazy baby
Tell me just what I'm supposed to do
You got me going crazy
I don't know what to do girl
You're rocking my world
If you held me tonight
That would make things alright
Could you love me
If I held you tonight
I would make things alright
Could you trust me
Cause I'm telling you baby
Chorus:
I won't be satisfied till you're here with me tonight
I won't be satisfied till I hold you in my arms
You know you mesmerise when I look into your eyes
I won't be satisfied till you're here with me tonight
I'm not the kind of guy to fall in love
But baby I've fallen for you
I've fallen like an angel for real
It's the way that you're making me feel
Walking the streets all along
Thinking how much I'm gonna be true
To you
If you held me tonight
That would make things alright
Could you love me
Could you love me
If I held you tonight
I would make things alright
Could you trust me
Cause I'm telling you baby
Chorus
[...] Read more
song performed by Five
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Rosciad
Unknowing and unknown, the hardy Muse
Boldly defies all mean and partial views;
With honest freedom plays the critic's part,
And praises, as she censures, from the heart.
Roscius deceased, each high aspiring player
Push'd all his interest for the vacant chair.
The buskin'd heroes of the mimic stage
No longer whine in love, and rant in rage;
The monarch quits his throne, and condescends
Humbly to court the favour of his friends;
For pity's sake tells undeserved mishaps,
And, their applause to gain, recounts his claps.
Thus the victorious chiefs of ancient Rome,
To win the mob, a suppliant's form assume;
In pompous strain fight o'er the extinguish'd war,
And show where honour bled in every scar.
But though bare merit might in Rome appear
The strongest plea for favour, 'tis not here;
We form our judgment in another way;
And they will best succeed, who best can pay:
Those who would gain the votes of British tribes,
Must add to force of merit, force of bribes.
What can an actor give? In every age
Cash hath been rudely banish'd from the stage;
Monarchs themselves, to grief of every player,
Appear as often as their image there:
They can't, like candidate for other seat,
Pour seas of wine, and mountains raise of meat.
Wine! they could bribe you with the world as soon,
And of 'Roast Beef,' they only know the tune:
But what they have they give; could Clive do more,
Though for each million he had brought home four?
Shuter keeps open house at Southwark fair,
And hopes the friends of humour will be there;
In Smithfield, Yates prepares the rival treat
For those who laughter love, instead of meat;
Foote, at Old House,--for even Foote will be,
In self-conceit, an actor,--bribes with tea;
Which Wilkinson at second-hand receives,
And at the New, pours water on the leaves.
The town divided, each runs several ways,
As passion, humour, interest, party sways.
Things of no moment, colour of the hair,
Shape of a leg, complexion brown or fair,
A dress well chosen, or a patch misplaced,
Conciliate favour, or create distaste.
From galleries loud peals of laughter roll,
And thunder Shuter's praises; he's so droll.
Embox'd, the ladies must have something smart,
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Churchill
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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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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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Prozac
Stop as I drop this bomb
Blow up this place like another vietnam
Im heavy like a holyfield blow to the dome
Back up son, now give me room, give me room
I set it off like this, dont give it up (uh)
Im all up in you till you just cant get enough
Im real hard to the bone you want more
I sneak up on you like a sniper at your back door
Phat flavor for your brain you know the time
So check the wrath its for real cause Im gonna get mine
I roll up on you like eastwood
Im blowing up fifteens as Im riding through your neighborhood
I spreads butter like parkay
Real smooth with the flow and even when I parlay
Do what you feel and check the skill
Im in your grill, peep this - I got the raw deal
And in your jeep cherokee or land cruiser
When youre rolling through the hood I know youre gonna use a
Track like this all up in your eardrum
So pump the e.q. and let the speakers hum
We gets crazy like prozac
Hype enough to start a party and illy have a heart attack
We gets crazy like prozac
Hype enough to start a party and illy have a heart attack
We gets crazy like prozac
Hype enough to start a party and illy have a heart attack
We gets crazy like prozac
Hype enough to start a party and illy have a heart attack
Go and check it I think its time to wreck it
Here I come again with my stuff, so lets test it
Im cool like the ice, or vanilla, hear my flavor
Freezin up the mic, I hit you with somethin you can savor
No slippin, no stonein, I am gettin to the point
So hit the mad ism and light another joint
The easy like stylist with a kick when Im kicking
No tripping, Im hitting, so get a good grip in
Get with a style I be using, and theres no dissin
And heres a quick lesson - I carry a smith and wesson
Listen up close and therell be no confusion
Now youre addicted to mentally abusing
Word to the mother Im hear to tear it up
And if you cant get with it, I dont give a fu_k
So run to your crew and tell them I am hear
This here is for the people
We gets crazy like prozac
Hype enough to start a party and illy as a heart attack
We gets crazy like prozac
Hype enough to start a party and illy as a heart attack
We gets crazy like prozac
Hype enough to start a party and illy as a heart attack
[...] Read more
song performed by Vanilla Ice
Added by Lucian Velea
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Prozac
Stop as I drop this bomb
Blow up this place like another vietnam
Im heavy like a holyfield blow to the dome
Back up son, now give me room, give me room
I set it off like this, dont give it up (uh)
Im all up in you till you just cant get enough
Im real hard to the bone you want more
I sneak up on you like a sniper at your back door
Phat flavor for your brain you know the time
So check the wrath its for real cause Im gonna get mine
I roll up on you like eastwood
Im blowing up fifteens as Im riding through your neighborhood
I spreads butter like parkay
Real smooth with the flow and even when I parlay
Do what you feel and check the skill
Im in your grill, peep this - I got the raw deal
And in your jeep cherokee or land cruiser
When youre rolling through the hood I know youre gonna use a
Track like this all up in your eardrum
So pump the e.q. and let the speakers hum
We gets crazy like prozac
Hype enough to start a party and illy have a heart attack
We gets crazy like prozac
Hype enough to start a party and illy have a heart attack
We gets crazy like prozac
Hype enough to start a party and illy have a heart attack
We gets crazy like prozac
Hype enough to start a party and illy have a heart attack
Go and check it I think its time to wreck it
Here I come again with my stuff, so lets test it
Im cool like the ice, or vanilla, hear my flavor
Freezin up the mic, I hit you with somethin you can savor
No slippin, no stonein, I am gettin to the point
So hit the mad ism and light another joint
The easy like stylist with a kick when Im kicking
No tripping, Im hitting, so get a good grip in
Get with a style I be using, and theres no dissin
And heres a quick lesson - I carry a smith and wesson
Listen up close and therell be no confusion
Now youre addicted to mentally abusing
Word to the mother Im hear to tear it up
And if you cant get with it, I dont give a fu_k
So run to your crew and tell them I am hear
This here is for the people
We gets crazy like prozac
Hype enough to start a party and illy as a heart attack
We gets crazy like prozac
Hype enough to start a party and illy as a heart attack
We gets crazy like prozac
Hype enough to start a party and illy as a heart attack
[...] Read more
song performed by Vanilla Ice
Added by Lucian Velea
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VII. Pompilia
I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.
All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.
Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A Fable For Critics
Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade,
Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made,
For the god being one day too warm in his wooing,
She took to the tree to escape his pursuing;
Be the cause what it might, from his offers she shrunk,
And, Ginevra-like, shut herself up in a trunk;
And, though 'twas a step into which he had driven her,
He somehow or other had never forgiven her;
Her memory he nursed as a kind of a tonic,
Something bitter to chew when he'd play the Byronic,
And I can't count the obstinate nymphs that he brought over
By a strange kind of smile he put on when he thought of her.
'My case is like Dido's,' he sometimes remarked;
'When I last saw my love, she was fairly embarked
In a laurel, as _she_ thought-but (ah, how Fate mocks!)
She has found it by this time a very bad box;
Let hunters from me take this saw when they need it,-
You're not always sure of your game when you've treed it.
Just conceive such a change taking place in one's mistress!
What romance would be left?-who can flatter or kiss trees?
And, for mercy's sake, how could one keep up a dialogue
With a dull wooden thing that will live and will die a log,-
Not to say that the thought would forever intrude
That you've less chance to win her the more she is wood?
Ah! it went to my heart, and the memory still grieves,
To see those loved graces all taking their leaves;
Those charms beyond speech, so enchanting but now,
As they left me forever, each making its bough!
If her tongue _had_ a tang sometimes more than was right,
Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite.'
Now, Daphne-before she was happily treeified-
Over all other blossoms the lily had deified,
And when she expected the god on a visit
('Twas before he had made his intentions explicit),
Some buds she arranged with a vast deal of care,
To look as if artlessly twined in her hair,
Where they seemed, as he said, when he paid his addresses,
Like the day breaking through, the long night of her tresses;
So whenever he wished to be quite irresistible,
Like a man with eight trumps in his hand at a whist-table
(I feared me at first that the rhyme was untwistable,
Though I might have lugged in an allusion to Cristabel),-
He would take up a lily, and gloomily look in it,
As I shall at the--, when they cut up my book in it.
Well, here, after all the bad rhyme I've been spinning,
I've got back at last to my story's beginning:
Sitting there, as I say, in the shade of his mistress,
As dull as a volume of old Chester mysteries,
[...] Read more
poem by James Russell Lowell
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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.
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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IV. Tertium Quid
True, Excellency—as his Highness says,
Though she's not dead yet, she's as good as stretched
Symmetrical beside the other two;
Though he's not judged yet, he's the same as judged,
So do the facts abound and superabound:
And nothing hinders that we lift the case
Out of the shade into the shine, allow
Qualified persons to pronounce at last,
Nay, edge in an authoritative word
Between this rabble's-brabble of dolts and fools
Who make up reasonless unreasoning Rome.
"Now for the Trial!" they roar: "the Trial to test
"The truth, weigh husband and weigh wife alike
"I' the scales of law, make one scale kick the beam!"
Law's a machine from which, to please the mob,
Truth the divinity must needs descend
And clear things at the play's fifth act—aha!
Hammer into their noddles who was who
And what was what. I tell the simpletons
"Could law be competent to such a feat
"'T were done already: what begins next week
"Is end o' the Trial, last link of a chain
"Whereof the first was forged three years ago
"When law addressed herself to set wrong right,
"And proved so slow in taking the first step
"That ever some new grievance,—tort, retort,
"On one or the other side,—o'ertook i' the game,
"Retarded sentence, till this deed of death
"Is thrown in, as it were, last bale to boat
"Crammed to the edge with cargo—or passengers?
"'Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est!
"'Huc appelle!'—passengers, the word must be."
Long since, the boat was loaded to my eyes.
To hear the rabble and brabble, you'd call the case
Fused and confused past human finding out.
One calls the square round, t' other the round square—
And pardonably in that first surprise
O' the blood that fell and splashed the diagram:
But now we've used our eyes to the violent hue
Can't we look through the crimson and trace lines?
It makes a man despair of history,
Eusebius and the established fact—fig's end!
Oh, give the fools their Trial, rattle away
With the leash of lawyers, two on either side—
One barks, one bites,—Masters Arcangeli
And Spreti,—that's the husband's ultimate hope
Against the Fisc and the other kind of Fisc,
Bound to do barking for the wife: bow—wow!
Why, Excellency, we and his Highness here
Would settle the matter as sufficiently
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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First Book
OF writing many books there is no end;
And I who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine,–
Will write my story for my better self,
As when you paint your portrait for a friend,
Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it
Long after he has ceased to love you, just
To hold together what he was and is.
I, writing thus, am still what men call young;
I have not so far left the coasts of life
To travel inland, that I cannot hear
That murmur of the outer Infinite
Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep
When wondered at for smiling; not so far,
But still I catch my mother at her post
Beside the nursery-door, with finger up,
'Hush, hush–here's too much noise!' while her sweet eyes
Leap forward, taking part against her word
In the child's riot. Still I sit and feel
My father's slow hand, when she had left us both,
Stroke out my childish curls across his knee;
And hear Assunta's daily jest (she knew
He liked it better than a better jest)
Inquire how many golden scudi went
To make such ringlets. O my father's hand,
Stroke the poor hair down, stroke it heavily,–
Draw, press the child's head closer to thy knee!
I'm still too young, too young to sit alone.
I write. My mother was a Florentine,
Whose rare blue eyes were shut from seeing me
When scarcely I was four years old; my life,
A poor spark snatched up from a failing lamp
Which went out therefore. She was weak and frail;
She could not bear the joy of giving life–
The mother's rapture slew her. If her kiss
Had left a longer weight upon my lips,
It might have steadied the uneasy breath,
And reconciled and fraternised my soul
With the new order. As it was, indeed,
I felt a mother-want about the world,
And still went seeking, like a bleating lamb
Left out at night, in shutting up the fold,–
As restless as a nest-deserted bird
Grown chill through something being away, though what
It knows not. I, Aurora Leigh, was born
To make my father sadder, and myself
Not overjoyous, truly. Women know
The way to rear up children, (to be just,)
[...] Read more
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
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III. The Other Half-Rome
Another day that finds her living yet,
Little Pompilia, with the patient brow
And lamentable smile on those poor lips,
And, under the white hospital-array,
A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise
You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through again,
Alive i' the ruins. 'T is a miracle.
It seems that, when her husband struck her first,
She prayed Madonna just that she might live
So long as to confess and be absolved;
And whether it was that, all her sad life long
Never before successful in a prayer,
This prayer rose with authority too dread,—
Or whether, because earth was hell to her,
By compensation, when the blackness broke
She got one glimpse of quiet and the cool blue,
To show her for a moment such things were,—
Or else,—as the Augustinian Brother thinks,
The friar who took confession from her lip,—
When a probationary soul that moved
From nobleness to nobleness, as she,
Over the rough way of the world, succumbs,
Bloodies its last thorn with unflinching foot,
The angels love to do their work betimes,
Staunch some wounds here nor leave so much for God.
Who knows? However it be, confessed, absolved,
She lies, with overplus of life beside
To speak and right herself from first to last,
Right the friend also, lamb-pure, lion-brave,
Care for the boy's concerns, to save the son
From the sire, her two-weeks' infant orphaned thus,
And—with best smile of all reserved for him—
Pardon that sire and husband from the heart.
A miracle, so tell your Molinists!
There she lies in the long white lazar-house.
Rome has besieged, these two days, never doubt,
Saint Anna's where she waits her death, to hear
Though but the chink o' the bell, turn o' the hinge
When the reluctant wicket opes at last,
Lets in, on now this and now that pretence,
Too many by half,—complain the men of art,—
For a patient in such plight. The lawyers first
Paid the due visit—justice must be done;
They took her witness, why the murder was.
Then the priests followed properly,—a soul
To shrive; 't was Brother Celestine's own right,
The same who noises thus her gifts abroad.
But many more, who found they were old friends,
Pushed in to have their stare and take their talk
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Tale XXI
The Learned Boy
An honest man was Farmer Jones, and true;
He did by all as all by him should do;
Grave, cautious, careful, fond of gain was he,
Yet famed for rustic hospitality:
Left with his children in a widow'd state,
The quiet man submitted to his fate;
Though prudent matrons waited for his call,
With cool forbearance he avoided all;
Though each profess'd a pure maternal joy,
By kind attention to his feeble boy;
And though a friendly Widow knew no rest,
Whilst neighbour Jones was lonely and distress'd;
Nay, though the maidens spoke in tender tone
Their hearts' concern to see him left alone,
Jones still persisted in that cheerless life,
As if 'twere sin to take a second wife.
Oh! 'tis a precious thing, when wives are dead,
To find such numbers who will serve instead;
And in whatever state a man be thrown,
'Tis that precisely they would wish their own;
Left the departed infants--then their joy
Is to sustain each lovely girl and boy:
Whatever calling his, whatever trade,
To that their chief attention has been paid;
His happy taste in all things they approve,
His friends they honour, and his food they love;
His wish for order, prudence in affairs,
An equal temper (thank their stars!), are theirs;
In fact, it seem'd to be a thing decreed,
And fix'd as fate, that marriage must succeed:
Yet some, like Jones, with stubborn hearts and
hard,
Can hear such claims and show them no regard.
Soon as our Farmer, like a general, found
By what strong foes he was encompass'd round,
Engage he dared not, and he could not fly,
But saw his hope in gentle parley lie;
With looks of kindness then, and trembling heart,
He met the foe, and art opposed to art.
Now spoke that foe insidious--gentle tones,
And gentle looks, assumed for Farmer Jones:
'Three girls,' the Widow cried, 'a lively three
To govern well--indeed it cannot be.'
'Yes,' he replied, 'it calls for pains and care:
But I must bear it.'--'Sir, you cannot bear;
Your son is weak, and asks a mother's eye:'
'That, my kind friend, a father's may supply.'
[...] Read more
poem by George Crabbe
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Getting So Excited
(alan gruner)
Producer for bonnie: jim steinman
The rooms all set and the door bell is ringing
The first to arrive switch their dials to swinging
The lights are dim to match the conversation
Strangers grin that stoned expression
He looks so cool says a girl with a giggle
His handkerchief bulge slipping from the middle
Strokes his chin as his eyes refocus tonights victim smiles back
Hes gettin so excited
Theyre revving it up
Hes getting so excited
Excited
The musics dark begins to get blacker
People start to move towards each other
Some hold back some peel off the layers
The atmosphere erupts with the drunken liberators
Walls flare up with animated shadows as dancers jump like emancipated jackals
It wont be long till the first couples clich? she turns to him to say
Id do anything for love, but I wont do that!
Shes getting so excited
Theyre trashing it up
Shes getting so excited
Excited
The smoke mist clears to reveal drunken jimmy
Whose just turned up, seen his woman getting friendly
With a charmer boy in a second-hand leather
Lights go green theres gonna be danger with two great strides theres a push and scuffle
You cant make out through the naked muscle
A high pitched scream a broken bottle a ribbon of blood on the floor
Theyre getting so excited
But I want some more
Theyre getting so excited
Down on the floor
Theyre getting so excited
Excited, excited, excited
Theyre getting so excited
But Im getting bored, Im just getting bored... continue and fade
song performed by Bonnie Tyler
Added by Lucian Velea
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