Citatepedia^®.com

Attic

Its just an old moldy attic.
You'll not see anything crazy or dramatic.
Its all just a real mess.
Take it from me its all just a bunch of stress.
I have to clean it from bottom to top.
Everytime I look around me the work is just begging me to stop.
Its hard trying to decide what has to be given away.
Everything just disappears any way.
Box after box and I still did not find my drawings all day.

poem by Lyda Mery
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Stop Being So Dramatic

You tell me what you think and mean.
But why you don't,
Let it go!

When we're walking in the streets,
There's always a scene.
And under spotlight...
You begin your show.

Let it go.
Your past and those bitter things.
Let it go.
Why can't,
You let it go.

Does your happiness mean anything?
Then you've got to let stuff go!

Let it go.
Stop being so dramatic.

Let it go.
Stop being,
Those worst of fanatics.

Let it go.
Stop being so dramatic.
Let it go.
Stop being,
The worst of fanatics.

You spend your days fantasizing from your window.
Locked up tight without a social life.
And you tell 'me' I'm growing old.
But I'm not sitting with my eyes half closed.
Or watching my life pass by...
From a window.

Let it go.
Your past and those bitter things.
Let it go.
Why can't,
You let it go.

Let it go.
Stop being so dramatic.
Let it go.
Stop being,
The worst of fanatics.
Let it go.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Dont Mess Up This Good Thing

Dont mess up this good thing
Dont mess up this good thing
Dont mess up this good thing
Dont mess up this good thing
Well, I think youve had a long time
To get your act together
Its your move and I hope you do the right thing
You know I never wanna lose you
But you must learn to play the game by the rules
Show me how much my love means to you
Dont mess up this good thing
Dont mess up this good thing (what we have together)
Dont mess up, no baby
Well, forever may be
More time than anyone can offer
But all my time is spent in your corner
Heaven knows how much I love you
But if you think I can watch you play on me and understand it
Baby, youre taking far too much for granted
Dont mess up this good thing
Dont mess up this good thing (what we have together)
Dont mess up this good thing
Dont mess up this good thing (if you still believe)
Dont mess up this good thing
Dont mess up, baby (no one can love you better)
Dont mess up this good thing
Dont mess up this good thing
Got to find the right words to make you see
That you and I were meant to be
Dont mess up this good thing
Dont mess it up
Dont mess up this good thing
Well, forever may be
More time than anyone can offer
But all my time is spent in your corner
Heaven knows how much I love you
But if you think I can watch you play on me and understand it
Baby, youre taking far too much for granted
Dont mess up this good thing
Dont mess up this good thing (what we have together)
Dont mess up this good thing
Dont mess up this good thing (if you still believe)
Dont mess up this good thing (ooh dont mess it up baby)
Dont mess up this good thing (no one can love you better)
Dont mess up this good thing (sho dont mess it up)
Dont mess up this good thing (Ive got what you need)
Dont mess up this good thing
Dont mess up this good thing (what weve got together)
Dont mess up this good thing

song performed by Janet Jackson
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Any form of life was better than death

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw countless haplessly orphaned children; being viciously kicked into dustbins of malice; for ostensibly no reason or rhyme,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw the pricelessly innocuous female fetus; being brutally assassinated and aborted; right in the very depths of the unassailably godly womb,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw heartlessly cold-blooded men; ruthlessly felling innumerable a tree; using its blessed branches; trunk and roots; for evolving lifelessly wastrel commodities,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw demonically manipulating politicians; weigh the very essence of unconquerably righteous life; in terms of wantonly decrepit currency coin,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw innocently minor girls being brutally raped; by the diabolically idiosyncratic perversions of sadistic man,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw peerlessly impeccable blood being parasitically sucked from newborn forms; just in order to spuriously enrich and consecrate; the already blessed and bountiful human form,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw boundless wives and children reduced to a cadaverous carcass; as the man of the family simply refrained to budge an inch to earn; cannibalistically guzzling the last dropp of wine and vixen; to be found of planet earth,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw beautifully fructifying wildlife being emotionlessly beheaded; just in order to become the exuberant delicacy; of the already replenished palette,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw robustly ebullient organisms doing nothing but just endlessly gazing at fathomless sky; nonsensically proclaiming that their destiny would one day and eventually take them to the absolute epitome of cloud nine,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw one man derogatorily slaving and slavering for another man; wherein the Omnipotent Creator had created all symbiotically equal in the first place,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw millions of innocent being indiscriminately butchered; in the wrath and aftermath of barbarously thwarting bombardment and war,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw satanic terrorists launch an inconsolably pulverizing assault on one particular fraternity of mankind; in the name of sacrifice to the Omnipresent Lord,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw hordes of people blindfoldedly offering their last ounce of wealth to the Omnipotent deity of the Lord; who in the first place owned every speck of the unending Universe; and who wanted them to benevolently donate the same to all suffering living kind instead,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw school going girls and boys begging hoarsely on the obdurately chauvinistic streets; with their parents abhorrently using them to tickle the soft corner of the opulent society,
I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw women of all ages; right from the age of my daughter; to sister to mother; tawdrily selling their flesh to hedonistically dastardly men; just for securing those two quintessential morsels of food,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw limitless dying unattended on the freezing streets; because of unforgivably ghastly corruption; viciously infiltrating in every echelon of the government and society,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw impudently pretentious brats; telling their life-bestowing parents to clean the stagnating shit in their houses; whilst they themselves deliriously drowned themselves; into barrels of sinfully expensive wine and cigarette smoke,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw the most perpetually faithful of lovers salaciously separate like a miserably broken leaf; at the tiniest of objection from the sanctimoniously turgid society,

I felt like committing suicide there and then itself. Everytime I saw selfishly shriveled man; praying to God for solely impregnating his lungs with a countless breaths; instead of immortally sharing the same in perfect symbiosis with endless numbers of his own kind,

But when I was actually committing suicide. I felt that any form of life was better than death; as I approached my very last breath. For if at all I could endeavor my very best to ameliorate every fraternity of estranged and maliciously cannibalistic living kind; then by the grace of God it could be only while in undefeated life and not the slightest after stonily gory death…

poem by Nikhil Parekh
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

I Dont Stop Rappin

Dont stop
Dont stop that rap
Too short
And I dont stop rappin
Just dont stop
Too short
I dont stop rappin
Dont stop that rap
Well Im sir too short
The true mc
Fresh again with the brand new beat
The big bank roller, I know whats happening
I get on the mike and I dont stop rappin
Dont stop
Dont stop that rap
Too short
I dont stop rappin
My rap dont stop, you know it cant
I get on the mic and I make big bank
Unlike some rappers that I know
Trying to get no, but that dont go
Im that rapper, sir too short
I know youve heard my name before
And if you havent, now you have
Sir too short dont stop that rap
Dont stop
I dont stop rappin
Too short
Dont stop that rap
Im so rough so tough when I talk my stuff
I dont stop rappin cuz Im too tough
Telling you rappers what its all about
Most mcs are played out
But not too short, Im the best
You know too short is so so fresh
If thats not short, your mind is snapping
The best is fresh cause I dont stop rappin
Dont stop
Dont stop rappin
Too short
I dont stop rappin
Im sir too short, the rapping man
Im a cold mc and I know I am
Im the big time rapper from east oakland
Into music and making fans
I love young ladies who love my rhymes
Cuz what they say is right on time
The only mc with fresh hits
Its sir too short, he never quits
Thats so so true, what they say

[...] Read more

song performed by Too Short
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Unlock That Box Just For You

The key to feeling happy and free...
Unlock that box.
And walk away from it when you get out.
Experience what life is about.
It's not inside to keep up whining,
It's not inside to throw a tantrum and pout.

The key to feeling happy and free...
You've got to move your feet with direct speed.
You've got to unleash from guilt and pity.

The key to feeling happy and free...
You've got to accept what is there and care!
You can not wish for something you think is fair.

The key to feeling happy and free...
You've got to unload despair and grief.
You've got to move with faith and beliefs.

The key to feeling happy and free...
You've got to move your feet with direct speed.
You've got to unleash from guilt and pity.

The key to feeling happy and free...
You've got to accept what is there and care!
You can not wish for something you think is fair.

The key to feeling happy and free...
Unlock that box.
And walk away from it when you get out.
Experience what life is about.
It's not inside to keep up whining,
It's not inside to throw a tantrum and pout.

The key to feeling happy and free...
Unlock that box and get out.
Look around and see what your world's about.

The key to feeling happy and free...
Unlock that box and get out.
Look around and see what your world's about.

The key to feeling happy and free...
Unlock that box and get out.
Look around and see what your world's about.

The key to feeling happy and free...
Unlock that box and get out.
Unlock that box and get out.
Unlock that box and get out.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Cowboys & Kisses

Written by anastacia newkirk - jive - charlie pennachio
Cowboys and kisses
Cowboys and kisses
Gotta find myself everytime you go away
Baggy blue jeans and a box of magazines
Is all i have of you
Waitin' on the day you walk back in my life
Like a newborn child, you made me smile,
Then stole my heart away
We may be outta touch, but never out of time
(come back to me boy)
Come back to me boy
(cowboys and kisses)
Always seem to bring me down
You're like a weight in my pocket
Everytime you come around
Damn those cowboys and kisses
Gotta find myself everytime you go away
Holdin on to you like a pair of old shoes
That you never throw away
Every road still leads me back to you, yeah
Your little white lies and butterflies made me shed a tear
Still i'm prayin on the day that you'll be mine (mine)
Why do all these
(cowboys and kisses)
Always seem to bring me down (down)
You're like a weight in my pocket
Everytime you come around
(damn those) cowboys and kisses
Gotta find myself everytime you go away
Everytime, everytime baby
(cowboys and kisses)
(always seem to bring me down)
You're like a weight in my pocket
Everytime you come around
Damn those cowboys and kisses
Gotta find myself everytime you go away
Yeah
Why do i keep on holding you
When all you do is hurt me?
All my friends say i should let you go
So afraid that i might see
I can't keep on living life like this
Up and down in and out
I wonder, is this world just a cowboy and a kiss?
Or should i choose another?
(cowboys and kisses)
Always seem to bring me down
You're like a weight in my pocket
Everytime you come around

[...] Read more

song performed by Anastacia
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Cowboys Kisses

Written by anastacia newkirk - jive - charlie pennachio
Cowboys and kisses
Cowboys and kisses
Gotta find myself everytime you go away
Baggy blue jeans and a box of magazines
Is all I have of you
Waitin on the day you walk back in my life
Like a newborn child, you made me smile,
Then stole my heart away
We may be outta touch, but never out of time
(come back to me boy)
Come back to me boy
(cowboys and kisses)
Always seem to bring me down
Youre like a weight in my pocket
Everytime you come around
Damn those cowboys and kisses
Gotta find myself everytime you go away
Holdin on to you like a pair of old shoes
That you never throw away
Every road still leads me back to you, yeah
Your little white lies and butterflies made me shed a tear
Still Im prayin on the day that youll be mine (mine)
Why do all these
(cowboys and kisses)
Always seem to bring me down (down)
Youre like a weight in my pocket
Everytime you come around
(damn those) cowboys and kisses
Gotta find myself everytime you go away
Everytime, everytime baby
(cowboys and kisses)
(always seem to bring me down)
Youre like a weight in my pocket
Everytime you come around
Damn those cowboys and kisses
Gotta find myself everytime you go away
Yeah
Why do I keep on holding you
When all you do is hurt me?
All my friends say I should let you go
So afraid that I might see
I cant keep on living life like this
Up and down in and out
I wonder, is this world just a cowboy and a kiss?
Or should I choose another?
(cowboys and kisses)
Always seem to bring me down
Youre like a weight in my pocket
Everytime you come around

[...] Read more

song performed by Anastacia
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Brady Bunch

You can watch mr. rogers
You can watch threes company
And you can turn on fame or the nelywed game
Or the addams family
I say, you can watch barney miller
And you can watch your mtv
And you can watch till your eyes fall out of your head
Thatll be ok with me
And you can watch (tv)
You can watch johnny carson
You can watch phil donahue
And you can use tv guide to help you decide
With capsulized review
Say, you can watch 60 minutes
Even captain kangaroo
But theres only one set, so what ever you watch
Well, you know I gotta watch it too
Say, give it up, give it up, televisions taking its toll
Thats enought, thats enough, gimme the remote controll
I been nice, I been good, please dont do this to me
Turn it off, turn it off, I dont want to have to see
The brady bunch
Not the brady bunch
Well, the brady bunch
Yeah, the brady bunch
Its the story of a lovely lady
Who was bringing up three very lovely girls
All of them had hair of gold, like their mother
The youngest one in curls
Its a story of a man named brady
Who was busy with three boys of his own
They were four men living all together
Yeah, but they were all alone
Until the one day, one day when the lady met the fellow
And they knew, and they knew it was much more than a hunch
Then they knew this group must somehow form a family
Thats the way, thats the way, thats the way they all became
The brady bunch
Well, the brady bunch
Yeah, the brady bunch
Well, the brady bunch
Oh, its the brady bunch
Its the brady bunch
Oh, the brady bunch, yeah
Oh, the brady bunch
Its the brady bunch
Well, its the brady bunch
Well, its the brady bunch
Well, its the brady bunch
Its the brady bunch

song performed by Weird Al Yankovic
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Everytime

Everytime I hold you
I get that though and feeling all over me
And everytime I touch you honey,
Oh brings back those feeling And those memories.
Everytime I thinking you babe , I realice that hurt girl
That I catch you through but grab these love that is an answer
And I belive that's an answer here for me and you.
'cause everytime I feel my heart on fire I only want a have you love
'cause everytime I feel that warm desire only takes it just one kiss
and the girl I can't resist 'cause I just can stop this burning inside
Ohh!
'cause everytime I feel my heart on fire I only want a have you love
'cause everytime I feel that warm desire only takes it just one kiss
and the girl I can't resist 'cause I just can stop this burning inside
Ohh!
Everytime, everytime, everytime
I just want to tell you babe that nothing in this world
Can take the place from you in my life
You got you know that you are the answer
You got to know that you are the reason
for those wonder years
and those years and those holding on..
Everytime I look around I see (everytime)
everytime I look around I want you (everytime)
everytime I close my eyes (everytime)
Oh ! I realice, I realice (everytime)
You're my everything
You're all I ever wanted
Nobody, nobody

song performed by Lionel Richie
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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!

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Second Book

TIMES followed one another. Came a morn
I stood upon the brink of twenty years,
And looked before and after, as I stood
Woman and artist,–either incomplete,
Both credulous of completion. There I held
The whole creation in my little cup,
And smiled with thirsty lips before I drank,
'Good health to you and me, sweet neighbour mine
And all these peoples.'
I was glad, that day;
The June was in me, with its multitudes
Of nightingales all singing in the dark,
And rosebuds reddening where the calyx split.
I felt so young, so strong, so sure of God!
So glad, I could not choose be very wise!
And, old at twenty, was inclined to pull
My childhood backward in a childish jest
To see the face of't once more, and farewell!
In which fantastic mood I bounded forth
At early morning,–would not wait so long
As even to snatch my bonnet by the strings,
But, brushing a green trail across the lawn
With my gown in the dew, took will and way
Among the acacias of the shrubberies,
To fly my fancies in the open air
And keep my birthday, till my aunt awoke
To stop good dreams. Meanwhile I murmured on,
As honeyed bees keep humming to themselves;
'The worthiest poets have remained uncrowned
Till death has bleached their foreheads to the bone,
And so with me it must be, unless I prove
Unworthy of the grand adversity,–
And certainly I would not fail so much.
What, therefore, if I crown myself to-day
In sport, not pride, to learn the feel of it,
Before my brows be numb as Dante's own
To all the tender pricking of such leaves?
Such leaves? what leaves?'
I pulled the branches down,
To choose from.
'Not the bay! I choose no bay;
The fates deny us if we are overbold:
Nor myrtle–which means chiefly love; and love
Is something awful which one dare not touch
So early o' mornings. This verbena strains
The point of passionate fragrance; and hard by,
This guelder rose, at far too slight a beck
Of the wind, will toss about her flower-apples.
Ah–there's my choice,–that ivy on the wall,
That headlong ivy! not a leaf will grow

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Virginia's Story

Elizabeth Gates-Wooten is my Grand mom.

She was born in Canada with her father and brothers.
They owned a Barber Shoppe.
I don't remember exactly where in Canada.
I believe it was right over the border like Windsor or Toronto.
I never knew exactly where it was.

When she was old enough she got married.

First, she married a man by the name of Frank Gates.
He was from Madagascar.
He fathered my mom and her brother and sister.
The boy's name was Frank Gates, Jr.
Two girls name were Anna and Agnes.

Agnes was my mother.

Frank Gates went crazy after the war
He drank a lot and died
Then grandma Elizabeth married a man by the name of Mr. Wooten.
He had a German name, but I don't think he was German.
She took his last name after they got married.

Then they moved to West Virginia in the United States.

Their son, Frank Gates Jr. Became a delegate in the democratic party.
He use to get into a lot of trouble because he liked to fight.
He was a delegate from the 1940's to 1970's.
He died of gout in the 1970's.

Anna was a maid and cook.

She baked cakes and stuff for people as a side line.
She had a hump on her back (scoliosis) .
She had to walk with a cane.
She could cook good though.
She did this kind of work all of her life, just like her mom, Elizabeth

They were both good cooks

They had a lot of money because they had these skills
Especially when people had parties.
Because they would make all of this food and then they would have left-overs.
We got to eat a lot of stuff we normally wouldn't get because of that.
When they cooked, they didn't use no measuring stuff, they would just use there hand.

My moms name was Agnes Barrie Gates.

She married James Wright and moved to Cleveland.

[...] Read more

poem by Talile Ali
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Work To Make It Work

(r palmer)
Push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work if you want to improve it
Push it along
It's all there for you to feel it
Help your self to one that you can't deal with
Ain't no way that you could steal it
You misunderstand if you get greedy
Ah push
Work work work to make it work push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work if you want to improve
Don't confine your dreams to bed
You'll get scared if you get lazy
If you can't take enough to satisfy yourself
Then you'll go crazy
Wont do no good thinking
You got to do it
So it don't come easy the first time
Practice makes perfect, you know that i'll try hard
Use it or lose it
You got to put your heart and soul into it
Yeaheheh
Push it along
Work work work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work if you want to move it
Push it along
Work to make it work
Push it along
Work work work if you want to improve
It's all there for you to feel it
Help your self to one that you can't deal with
Ain't no way that you could steal it
You misunderstand if you get greedy forget wishful thinking
You can do it
You just need a push to make a start
If you don't succeed the first time
Try and try again
Use it or lose it
You got to put your back into it
Work work work to make it work
Push it along

[...] Read more

song performed by Robert Palmer
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

2 Steps

You know im the kind of guy that does a 9-5
Workin real hard cuz its the way I live my life
Back home just me and you girl all alone
With no one interrupting, switch off the phone
But I could be that other guy
Who comes home late at night and tells you lies
So why you trippin out on me girl all the time?
When everyday its only you thats on my mind
Everytime we take one step forward you take two steps back
Everytime its right you bring left back
Hey you really gotta think about it
cuz theres really no doubt about it
You know I've been there for you and thats the truth
Everytime we take one step forward you take two steps back
Everytime its right you bring left back
Hey you really gotta think about it
cuz theres really no doubt about it
You know I've been there for you and thats the truth
You know you're the kinda girl that doesn't need to front
Keep it real, let me know just what you want
Sometimes you just dont know when to stop
Your working so much over nothing
Your just losing what you got
Now cant you see there's no other girl
I think your the most beautiful woman in this world (yeah)
But you say I dont appreciate ya and I dont know how to treat ya
We dont do the same things we used to do nomore
Everytime we take one step forward you take two steps back
Everytime its right you bring left back
Hey you really gotta think about it
cuz there's really no doubt about it
You know ive been there for you and thats the truth
Everytime we take one step forward you take two steps back
Everytime its right you bring left back
Hey you really gotta think about it
cuz there's really no doubt about it
You know ive been there for you and thats the truth
Remember, it wasnt that long ago
You told me that you loved me so
Dont forget all the nights we shared when you told me girl just how much you cared
Remember, you can be led astray
But thats the way playas play
Im not that kinda man why cant you understand cuz I
Want you to trust in me, Babygirl cant you see
You're only gonna mess things up
You've done enough
Why cant you stop cuz
You're gonna lose whats good for you
And thats the last thing you wanna do
Won't find another like me

[...] Read more

song performed by Craig David
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!