Fragment of a fallen star!
Middle of the night
When a star burns in the sky
A street child not sleep yet
with the infested scabies
And he counts slowly
One, two, three and four etc.,
Gazing at the far away building
He thinks deeply!
When he enrolls that College
To count all the stars quickly
And do they ask my runaway parents immediately?
*To Mr.M.F.Hussain (1915-2011) Picasso of India who passed away on 9th, Thursday, June in a London Hospital.He was 95 and may his soul be a painting in the sky!
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Related quotes
Song of Wink Star
The Song of Wink Star
a happy story for children of all ages
story and text © Raj Arumugam, June 2008
☼ ☼
☼ Preamble
Come…children all, children of all ages…sit close and listen…
Come and listen to this happy story of the stars and of life…
Come children of the universe, children of all nations and of all races, and of all climates and of all kinds of space and dimensions and universes…
Come, dearest children of all beings of the living universe, come and listen to The Song of Wink Star…
Come and listen to this story, this happy story…listen, as the story itself sings to you…
Sit close then, and listen to the story that was not made by any, or written by a poet, or fashioned by grandfathers and grandmothers warming themselves at the fire of burning stars…
O dearest children all, come and listen to the story that lives
of itself, and that glows bright and happy….
Come…children all, children of all ages, come and listen to this happy story, the story so natural and smooth as life, as it sings itself to you….
☼ The Song of Wink Star
a happy story for children of all ages
☼ 1
Night Child, always so light and gentle, slept on a flower.
And every night, before he went to sleep, he would look up at the sky.
He would look at the eastern corner, five o’clock.
And there he would see all the stars in near and distant galaxies that were only visible to the People of Star Eyes.
Night Child was one of the People of Star Eyes. And so he could see the stars. And of all the stars he could see, he loved to watch Wink Star.
Wink Star twinkled and winked and laughed.
Every night Wink Star did that. Winked and laughed.
[...] Read more
poem by Raj Arumugam
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The Holocaust Files & Other Theme Poems
Theme: Love Poems (various forms of love,10 poems only)
*any theme category may be extended upon reader interest and requests
A Family Blessing
Changing Scene
For Our Loved Ones
Look Across Time
Memory Of A Lover
My Love
Single Red Ribbon
Snowpowder
Song Of My Love
True Love
The Holocaust Files: (32 poems) are a work in process and this reference will be removed upon completion. This is a collection of holocaust related poems to give voice to the 12 million killed, tortured and enslaved by the SS during World War II. The Poles, Romani and Slavic victims who are sometimes overlooked in brief reviews or marginalized, will hopefully have a poem as their voice by the completion of this project. The poems will ease into and out of the full extent of this horror, to contrast kaleidoscopic images of the holocaust in tribute to the slaughtered, and may provide a differing overview of Nazi Ideology to address succinct examples of how and why in historical perspective. (Historical optional background notes, have been added below some poems to assist in this purpose.)
The cruelty of topic material in some of the main poems may shock or offend innocent readers. Looking up pictorial images of these events is not advised for children.
The poems should be read in the order listed below: -
A Vibrant Life 18.5.2010
Appeasement For Adolf Hitler 15&16.10.2010
Indomitable Will To Survive 12.7.2010
Holocaust Latvia Begins 30.5.2012
Nazi Death Squads Enter Eastern Europe 29.5.2012
SS Single Shot Executioners 28.5.2012
Legal Genocide Committed On Industrial Scale 16.10.2010
Stone Cross Prologue 85 87
Stone Cross 85 87
Hitler's Holocaust Product Of A Demonic Mind 1987
When Satanic Power Ruled A Third Reich 1987
Blind Neo-Nazi Nationalism Hitler's New World Order 1987
How Evil Regenerates Perpetuates 1987
Nazi Evolution Vile Carbon Monoxide Gas To Zyklon-B 1987
Indictment Against Entire Nations 1987
An Image Of The Beast Rules
Fallen Nation Transformation 1987
Cartoon Caricature Of The Master Race 17.5.2010
The SS Who Will You Kill 17.5.2010
Classic Dance Steps 17.2.1989
Peaked Cap; Skull-And-Crossbones Badge 17&18.3.2010
A Moral Civilized World 17.3.2010
The Death Of Adolf Hitler's Personal Physican 17.5.2010
Dagmar Topf A Defence Of Family Ovens 17&18.3.2010
Not To Be Written 7.5.2010
Struck Down With A Thunderbolt 20.4.2010
Love Has Rewards Worth Attaining 19.5.2010
SS Demons 15.12.2010
How Did You Kill Me?
They Did It All Before You 18.5.2010
'Angel Of Death' A Demonic Nazi Doctor 9.3.2011
Proclaiming Retrofit New World Order 9&10.3.2011
[...] Read more
poem by Terence George Craddock
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Runaway Jim
I had a dog.
His name was Jim
(Runaway, runaway, runaway)
Took all of my old clothes with him.
(Runaway, runaway, runaway)
Whoa-ooooooooooooooo oh Runaway Jim
Whoa-ooooooooooooooo oh Runaway Jim
He was twelve years old when his trip began,
(Runaway, runaway, runaway)
Hauling down the highway in my old sedan.
(Runaway, runaway, runaway.)
Whoa-ooooooooooooooo oh Runaway Jim
Whoa-ooooooooooooooo oh Runaway Jim
Now I wish someone'd tell me where old Jim went,
(Runaway, runaway, runaway)
'Cause he took all the money that I saved for rent.
(Runaway, runaway, runaway)
Whoa-ooooooooooooooo oh Runaway Jim
Whoa-ooooooooooooooo oh Runaway Jim
By the time he came home he was seventeen.
(Runaway, runaway, runaway)
That's a hundred nineteen to you and me.
(Runaway, runaway, runaway)
Whoa-ooooooooooooooo oh Runaway Jim
Whoa-ooooooooooooooo oh Runaway Jim
Now I'm gonna go up to the mountain.
(Runaway, runaway, runaway)
Singing for Jim who's swimming in the fountain.
(Runaway, runaway, runaway)
Whoa-ooooooooooooooo oh Runaway Jim
Whoa-ooooooooooooooo oh Runaway Jim
"By the time he came home..."
before the 1st break, and comes out of it with:
He ran away again on the night he died
(Runaway, runaway, runaway)
'Cause I knew I would miss him from the other side *
(Runaway, runaway, runaway)*
or
"Cause I knew I'd be with him on the other side
song performed by Phish
Added by Lucian Velea
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Wake! Asia! Wake! (Part One)
Part One
It is night yet in the West
and the planes land between listlessly burning tarmac lamps
stealthy fingers scurrying through diadems of neons halogens and amber
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!
The cowherds' bare blistered feet already trample yesterday's dust into mud
and cartwheels strain in crusted fissures where rains only once or twice fell
while dreams fester in cosy centrally-heated silken beds in luxury flats
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!
Tomorrow is yesteryear's planned strikes
buses trains taxis office machines lie soundlessly asleep
and will not wake until the battle over psychic comfort comes to an end
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!
For You there is no respite no pause
no tea-breaks with cheese biscuits or croissants
there's only the last container to crane over the dock in unpaid overtime
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!
Your eyes will hurt in the twilight's hazy glimmer
no time to brush your teeth nor shave in hot and cold running water
nor the right to flush a toilet nor heedlessly course through in cosy tubes to work
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!
The sirens rave through boulevards in broad night-light
rushing hypertensic cardiac cases from their delight-full beds
cholestrol and diabetic cane sugar within reach of every child in supermarkets
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!
Let those who succeeded their former masters
sip their sweet sweatless porto before the hors-d'oeuvres
and flap their tabliers hiding their secret shame under cabalistic arms
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!
Wake! there's little time left for your own bickering differences to fester
the dawn signals the tasks that lie ahead unfinished
and the carrion hunters trained in their old master's image club together
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!
Wake! and see the extent to which you're still enslaved
enslaved by your own kind who hanker after conditioning platitudes
the clubby comfort of secretly oath-taking power cliques
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!
Remember! Remember Haidar Ali his son Tipu and Akbar
remember Sivaji and Chandra Bose and Kattapomman and Asoka
remember O! remember the one and only Mahatma
[...] Read more
poem by T. Wignesan
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Count Me Out
Count me out
Count me out
Fellas want to hang
And save tonight just
For the gang
But youll have to count me
Out this time
If I cant bring my girl
Dont look surprised
When I tell you that
Gotta spend some time
With my baby, yes
So if that means
Were gonna rain on
Your parade
Youll have to count me out
Youre gonna have to count me
Out
Youll have to count me out
I wanna be with my girlfriend
Youll have to count me out
This time
Youll have to count me out
When she asked me please
Could I say no and feel at
Ease
If you count me out tonight
Shes gonna be with me wherever
I go
Shes got a sweet personality
She saves her kisses just for me
So if that means were gonna rain on
Your parade
Youll have to count me out
Youre gonna have to count
Me out
Youll have to count me out
Im saving kisses for my baby
Youll have to count me out
This time
Youll have to count me out
Youll have to count me out
Youre gonna have to count
Me out
Youll have to count me out
My baby wants to be with me
Youll have to count me out
Thats the way its gonna be
Youll have to count me out
Count me out
[...] Read more
song performed by New Edition
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
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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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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
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Nestling
When to summon the sky
Little nestling?
When to summon the sky?
And suffer the risk - abscond in dread -
The knowledge of sort that you'll be dead
Upon a calamitous fall;
Or taken in flight - a hawkish pounce -
Demolished as prey; your fate pronounce
You gone, and to never recall.
O when to summon the sky
Little nestling?
When to summon the sky?
Aborting a den with
Feathered bed,
Unwavering mother who
Saw you fed -
Surrendering all so
You may spread
Your reach of tentative wings!
‘Tis only instinct -
E'er the reason -
Forging life:
The Nesting Season
And the trials it brings.
So up and summon the sky
Little nestling,
Up! and summon the sky!
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2011
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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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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Runaway Child
Runaway Child, don’t have to take it anymore
Runaway Child, just walk out of that door
Runaway Child, no more chances to take
Runaway Child, it’s your choice to make
Runaway Child, aren’t you sick and tired of the pain
Runaway Child, here there’s nothing to gain
Runaway Child, you get treated like dirt
Runaway Child, get away from the hurt
Runaway Child, here it’s no use
Runaway Child, get away from the abuse
Runaway Child, you don’t have 9 lives
Runaway Child, take that step or dive
Runaway Child, why are you still there
Runaway Child, how much pain can you bear
Runaway Child, you don’t have to say goodbye
Runaway Child, say goodbye, when they DIE!
poem by Patrick Harris
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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,
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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India
India, India, India
India, India, clarified butter from the holy cow
India, India, India
I'm a pauper bereft of spiritual vision
Looking for a guru such a decision
India, India, India
Clarified butter from the holy cow
India, India, India
I'm a conscious consumer
but there's nothing to consume
Lotus flowers are still in bloom in
India, India, India
India, India, clarified butter from the holy cow
India, India, India
India, India
India, India
song performed by X-Ray Spex
Added by Lucian Velea
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Sixth Book
THE English have a scornful insular way
Of calling the French light. The levity
Is in the judgment only, which yet stands;
For say a foolish thing but oft enough,
(And here's the secret of a hundred creeds,–
Men get opinions as boys learn to spell,
By re-iteration chiefly) the same thing
Shall pass at least for absolutely wise,
And not with fools exclusively. And so,
We say the French are light, as if we said
The cat mews, or the milch-cow gives us milk:
Say rather, cats are milked, and milch cows mew,
For what is lightness but inconsequence,
Vague fluctuation 'twixt effect and cause,
Compelled by neither? Is a bullet light,
That dashes from the gun-mouth, while the eye
Winks, and the heart beats one, to flatten itself
To a wafer on the white speck on a wall
A hundred paces off? Even so direct,
So sternly undivertible of aim,
Is this French people.
All idealists
Too absolute and earnest, with them all
The idea of a knife cuts real flesh;
And still, devouring the safe interval
Which Nature placed between the thought and act,
They threaten conflagration to the world
And rush with most unscrupulous logic on
Impossible practice. Set your orators
To blow upon them with loud windy mouths
Through watchword phrases, jest or sentiment,
Which drive our burley brutal English mobs
Like so much chaff, whichever way they blow,–
This light French people will not thus be driven.
They turn indeed; but then they turn upon
Some central pivot of their thought and choice,
And veer out by the force of holding fast.
–That's hard to understand, for Englishmen
Unused to abstract questions, and untrained
To trace the involutions, valve by valve,
In each orbed bulb-root of a general truth,
And mark what subtly fine integument
Divides opposed compartments. Freedom's self
Comes concrete to us, to be understood,
Fixed in a feudal form incarnately
To suit our ways of thought and reverence,
The special form, with us, being still the thing.
With us, I say, though I'm of Italy
My mother's birth and grave, by father's grave
And memory; let it be,–a poet's heart
[...] Read more
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
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The Sale of Saint Thomas
A quay with vessels moored
Thomas
To India! Yea, here I may take ship;
From here the courses go over the seas,
Along which the intent prows wonderfully
Nose like lean hounds, and tack their journeys out,
Making for harbours as some sleuth was laid
For them to follow on their shifting road.
Again I front my appointed ministry. --
But why the Indian lot to me? Why mine
Such fearful gospelling? For the Lord knew
What a frail soul He gave me, and a heart
Lame and unlikely for the large events. --
And this is worse than Baghdad! though that was
A fearful brink of travel. But if the lots,
That gave to me the Indian duty, were
Shuffled by the unseen skill of Heaven, surely
That fear of mine in Baghdad was the same
Marvellous Hand working again, to guard
The landward gate of India from me. There
I stood, waiting in the weak early dawn
To start my journey; the great caravan's
Strange cattle with their snoring breaths made steam
Upon the air, and (as I thought) sadly
The beasts at market-booths and awnings gay
Of shops, the city's comfortable trade,
Lookt, and then into months of plodding lookt.
And swiftly on my brain there came a wind
Of vision; and I saw the road mapt out
Along the desert with a chalk of bones;
I saw a famine and the Afghan greed
Waiting for us, spears at our throats, all we
Made women by our hunger; and I saw
Gigantic thirst grieving our mouths with dust,
Scattering up against our breathing salt
Of blown dried dung, till the taste eat like fires
Of a wild vinegar into our sheathèd marrows;
And a sudden decay thicken'd all our bloods
As rotten leaves in fall will baulk a stream;
Then my kill'd life the muncht food of jackals. --
The wind of vision died in my brain; and lo,
The jangling of the caravan's long gait
Was small as the luting of a breeze in grass
Upon my ears. Into the waiting thirst
Camels and merchants all were gone, while I
Had been in my amazement. Was this not
A sign? God with a vision tript me, lest
Those tall fiends that ken for my approach
[...] Read more
poem by Lascelles Abercrombie
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V. Count Guido Franceschini
Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of … why, 't is wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate … aie, aie, aie,
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all's over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short, I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I' the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O' the Franceschini's once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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11 Star
STAR:
'FOLLOW THE SAME STAR'
The truth we see;
How small a part
Of that lovely light
Ever reaches our heart?
If you're looking for the light,
There is a star shining bright,
A dawn to this dark night,
A candle burning bright.
Long ago, a star
Sent forth its light from afar.
And now, no matter how far,
We will follow the same star.
Lost sailors used stars
To calculate their course
Whenever the wind and waves took
Them with their force.
Let truth transform you;
It will make your heart and mind new.
If you're not faithful, your heart's in denial;
Take it from me - it's worth your while.
So forget this world with all its cares,
For troubled dreams turn into nightmares.
You have to leave this world behind
If you want to keep what you find.
The stars haven't always been there,
But the love of our Lord is everywhere.
The devil appears as an angel of light;
He does his best work in the night.
One day you'll leave this world of ours,
Taking your place among the stars.
Shine bright with light, my star;
Show the world who you are.
'SHARE THE SAME STAR'
I'm looking at this star tonight,
But will my wish come true?
I can't help wondering,
If you can see the same star too?
Do you see what I see,
As we stand in its light?
Does darkness overwhelm you,
When you look up there tonight?
I am dreaming in the darkness,
[...] Read more
poem by Daniel Cobb
Added by Poetry Lover
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Tracking Down A Runaway
Call out the dogs and the National Guard.
My baby got away and I'm taking it hard.
I slipped the border and I jumped the train,
I'll do anything to get her back again.
Tracking down a runaway, down a runaway,
Down a runaway, I'm following the trail of broken hearts.
Who's that sneaking like an alley cat,
I've got the jump on you baby, can't do me like that,
I'm a love hound honey and I've got your scent,
I'm a wild crazy dog and I'm hell bent.
Tracking down a runaway, down a runaway,
Down a runaway, I'm following the trail of broken hearts.
No where to run, yeah, nowhere to hide,
No where to run, nowhere to hide, to hide, yeah, hey.
Well the midnight stars in the midnight sky,
They look down on me and they wonder why,
She may get far but she won't get away, huh,
I'm gonna run her to the ground every night and day.
Tracking down a runaway, tracking down a runaway,
Down a runaway, I'm following the trail of broken hearts.
Tracking down a runaway, down a runaway, yeah,
Down a runaway, yeah, yeah, down a runaway.
Look out baby, groove baby.
I see you baby, you won't get far, I got you on my mind,
I'm on your trail baby and love on my mind.
I'm tracking down a runaway, tracking down a runaway,
Down a runaway, following the trail of broken hearts.
song performed by Bad Company
Added by Lucian Velea
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Gareth And Lynette
The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent,
And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring
Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine
Lost footing, fell, and so was whirled away.
'How he went down,' said Gareth, 'as a false knight
Or evil king before my lance if lance
Were mine to use--O senseless cataract,
Bearing all down in thy precipitancy--
And yet thou art but swollen with cold snows
And mine is living blood: thou dost His will,
The Maker's, and not knowest, and I that know,
Have strength and wit, in my good mother's hall
Linger with vacillating obedience,
Prisoned, and kept and coaxed and whistled to--
Since the good mother holds me still a child!
Good mother is bad mother unto me!
A worse were better; yet no worse would I.
Heaven yield her for it, but in me put force
To weary her ears with one continuous prayer,
Until she let me fly discaged to sweep
In ever-highering eagle-circles up
To the great Sun of Glory, and thence swoop
Down upon all things base, and dash them dead,
A knight of Arthur, working out his will,
To cleanse the world. Why, Gawain, when he came
With Modred hither in the summertime,
Asked me to tilt with him, the proven knight.
Modred for want of worthier was the judge.
Then I so shook him in the saddle, he said,
"Thou hast half prevailed against me," said so--he--
Though Modred biting his thin lips was mute,
For he is alway sullen: what care I?'
And Gareth went, and hovering round her chair
Asked, 'Mother, though ye count me still the child,
Sweet mother, do ye love the child?' She laughed,
'Thou art but a wild-goose to question it.'
'Then, mother, an ye love the child,' he said,
'Being a goose and rather tame than wild,
Hear the child's story.' 'Yea, my well-beloved,
An 'twere but of the goose and golden eggs.'
And Gareth answered her with kindling eyes,
'Nay, nay, good mother, but this egg of mine
Was finer gold than any goose can lay;
For this an Eagle, a royal Eagle, laid
Almost beyond eye-reach, on such a palm
As glitters gilded in thy Book of Hours.
And there was ever haunting round the palm
A lusty youth, but poor, who often saw
[...] Read more
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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In The Middle
Don't cross the street in the middle in the middle
In the middle in the middle in the middle of the block
Don't cross the street in the middle in the middle
In the middle in the middle in the middle of the block
Use your eyes to look up
Use your ears to hear
Walk up to the corner when the coast is clear
And wait
And wait
Until you see the light turn green
Don't cross the street in the middle in the middle
In the middle in the middle in the middle of the block
Don't cross the street in the middle in the middle
In the middle in the middle in the middle of the block
Don't cross the street in the middle in the middle
In the middle in the middle in the middle of the block
Use your eyes to look up
Use your ears to hear
Walk up to the corner when the coast is clear
And wait
And wait
Until you see the light turn green
Don't cross the street in the middle in the middle
In the middle in the middle in the middle of the block
Don't cross the street in the middle in the middle
In the middle in the middle in the middle of the block
song performed by They Might Be Giants
Added by Lucian Velea
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