Beauty of a Poem
The beauty of a poem where lies?
Is it in its rythm or its rhyme?
Should it be long, should it be short?
Or should it be in florid words?
In words it should and short need be;
but long in thought in entirety
A poem's beauty in nowhere lies;
it is but all in the readers mind
poem by Pacific Hernandez
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The Rhythm (feat. Ice-T, Donald D & Diva)
The rythm is both the songs manicle and it's demonic charge charge
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
I'm Everlast born to be a caucassion but it makes no difference what persuasion you are
As long as you know how to get up on the floor and start workin' a sweat
To a musical measure that makes you move as soon as the needle drops into the groove
So get up and dance to the gift I'm giving, forget about your troubles get into the rhythm
Talking 'bout the rhythm (all we need is rhythm)
Talking 'bout the rhythm (all we need is rhythm)
Talking 'bout the rhythm (all we need is rhythm)
Talking 'bout the rhythm (all we need is rhythm)
Talking 'bout the rhythm (all we need is rhythm)
Talking 'bout the rhythm (all we need is rhythm)
Talking 'bout the rhythm (all we need is rhythm)
Talking 'bout the rhythm (all we need is rhythm)
Talking 'bout the rhythm (all we need is rhythm)
Talking 'bout the rhythm (all we need is rhythm)
Yo, yo, you know what the world needs...we need peace, rhythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
The rythm
You linger for the rap singer, when Donald D brings the party to the deal my presence is felt world wide
You don't dance to this it's suicide
Put your hands into the air on, the M.C. cop, the girlies are pipen' hot
Natorious Lama is how I'm livin' don't step to me step to the rhythm
[...] Read more
song performed by Everlast
Added by Lucian Velea
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She Said
One - two - three - four - five - six - seven -
Eight - nine - ten - eleven - twelve - yes!
Yeeah! yeeah! yeeah! yeah! yeah! yeah! yeah! yeah! yeah! yeah! yeah!
She said move, move, move to the rythm!
She said move, move, move to the rythm!
She said move, move, move to the rythm!
She said move, move, move to the rythm!
She said move to the rhythm!
Get down!
She said move!
Allright!
Im just rocking to the, rocking to the rythm of a groovy,
Rocking to the, rocking to the beat i, beat i,
Rocking to the, rocking to the, rocking to the beat i,
Rocking to the rythm of a groovy beat, beat, beat, beat,
Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat.
Rocking to the, rocking to the beat i, beat i,
Rocking to the, rocking to the, rocking to the beat i,
Rocking to the rythm of a groovy beat, beat, beat, beat,
Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat.
Im just rocking to the, rocking to the rythm of a groovy,
Rocking to the, rocking to the beat i, beat i,
Rocking to the, rocking to the, rocking to the beat i,
Rocking to the rythm of a groovy beat, beat, beat, beat,
Beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat, beat.
She said move, move, move to the rythm!
She said move, move, move to the rythm!
She said move to the rythm!
Get down!
She said move!
Shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it,
Shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it!
Shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it,
Shake it, shake it, shake it, shake it!
She said move, move, move to the rythm!
She said move, move, move to the rythm!
She said move to the rythm!
She said move!
Are there any questions?
song performed by Scooter
Added by Lucian Velea
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Catholic Contradictions
This Poem will speak to Peter,
Of the priest and the folly,
This poem doubts not the sincerity of true worshipers,
It will speak to the cult, the club, their Peter, the images of idolatry
This poem will address the indoctrination, the assumptions and contradictions,
This poem will expose and explode,
This poem will speak of the council of Valencia and the “forbidden book”
This poem will speak of the mass “hoc est enim corpus meum'
And the continuous re-enactment of the Death of Jesus
This poem will smite the conscience, rend the hearts, and heal the willing
This poem will speak of purgatory
Of priesthood
Of indulgences
Of penance
Of confessions and the “confessors”
Of papal decrees
And of the mortal and venial sins,
This Poem, this poem will speak of the “Virgin Mary” and the harlot,
This poem will confirm the marriage of Christ’s Peter
Of the Roman Universal contradictions and papal infallibility
This poem will speak of the assurance of salvation
And the curse of the Council of Trent
This poem will speak of the “Arian heresy”
Of “Cyprian and the lapsed”
Of the works of “Athanasius Contra Mundum”
Of Athanasius to the Bishop of Egypt
This poem will speak of the incarnation of the divine word
Orations against the Arians and against Apollinaris
This poem will speak of John Chrysostom, (golden mouth)
This poem will speak of his ethical applications and the trouble with the emperor’s wife
This poem will speak of Augustine and his forgotten works,
“In the spirit and the letter”, “Confession”, the “city of God “
The battle against the “Donatist” “Manichean” The “Arians” the “Pelagians”
This poem will speak of the Theology of “Anselm”
Of “Thomas Aquinas” and the Sum of Theology
This poem will talk of the “council of Nicea”
This poem will speak of Constantine and his cross of battle
The grandeur of “St Peter’s Basilica” the glory of man void of God’s presence
This poem will speak of the “Patriarchal City” and the protagonist
This poem will be persecuted, burnt, torn and ridiculed
This poem will never be read by Catholics,
It will not be verified to see the deception of Rome and the Pope,
This poem can read your mind, how you think Pope can never do wrong
This poem sees your bent determination to resist Truth
This poem will talk of Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin
This poem will be rejected by America, Britain, France, Russian, and Africa
This poem must be hated, by worshiper of Dead Mary and his statue
This poem will be scorned and attacked
This poem will bring shame to the writer; he will be sick or insane in the mind of the readers
This poem will not be read in Jerusalem, Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch,
[...] Read more
poem by Macaulay Akinbami
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Sola Christos, Sola Scriptura, Sola Gracious, Sola Fide' and the Priesthood
This Poem will speak to Peter,
Of the priest and the folly,
This poem doubts not the sincerity of true worshipers,
It will speak to the cult, the club, their Peter, the images of idolatry
This poem will address the indoctrination, the assumptions and contradictions,
This poem will expose and explode,
This poem will speak of the council of Valencia and the “forbidden book”
This poem will speak of the mass “hoc est enim corpus meum'
And the continuous re-enactment of the Death of Jesus
This poem will smite the conscience, rend the hearts, and heal the willing
This poem will speak of purgatory
Of priesthood
Of indulgences
Of penance
Of confessions and the “confessors”
Of papal decrees
And of the mortal and venial sins,
This Poem, this poem will speak of the “Virgin Mary” and the harlot,
This poem will confirm the marriage of Christ’s Peter
Of the Roman Universal contradictions and papal infallibility
This poem will speak of the assurance of salvation
And the curse of the Council of Trent
This poem will speak of the “Arian heresy”
Of “Cyprian and the lapsed”
Of the works of “Athanasius Contra Mundum”
Of Athanasius to the Bishop of Egypt
This poem will speak of the incarnation of the divine word
Orations against the Arians and against Apollinaris
This poem will speak of John Chrysostom, (golden mouth)
This poem will speak of his ethical applications and the trouble with the emperor’s wife
This poem will speak of Augustine and his forgotten works,
“In the spirit and the letter”, “Confession”, the “city of God “
The battle against the “Donatist” “Manichean” The “Arians” the “Pelagians”
This poem will speak of the Theology of “Anselm”
Of “Thomas Aquinas” and the Sum of Theology
This poem will talk of the “council of Nicea”
This poem will speak of Constantine and his cross of battle
The grandeur of “St Peter’s Basilica” the glory of man void of God’s presence
This poem will speak of the “Patriarchal City” and the protagonist
This poem will be persecuted, burnt, torn and ridiculed
This poem will never be read by Catholics,
It will not be verified to see the deception of Rome and the Pope,
This poem can read your mind, how you think Pope can never do wrong
This poem sees your bent determination to resist Truth
This poem will talk of Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin
This poem will be rejected by America, Britain, France, Russian, and Africa
This poem must be hated, by worshiper of Dead Mary and his statue
This poem will be scorned and attacked
This poem will bring shame to the writer; he will be sick or insane in the mind of the readers
This poem will not be read in Jerusalem, Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch,
[...] Read more
poem by Macaulay Akinbami
Added by Poetry Lover
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Short Rap
Short rap (echo)
Repeat x2
Short rap, is everything
Its what I think, its what I sing
Cause Im a rapper, who lets you know
When it comes to music, I will grow
Rap more raps than any mc
Your rap aint rap cause your rap aint me
Short rap, is what you find
The mastermind, short rap that rhyme
Too short baby, thats the name
When I rap my rap I rap that game
I tell it to you like you always knew
Short raps not fake, its always true
Its me, its you, short rap is life
Its everyday and every night
And I dont just say its this and that
Its everything, its what short raps
Short rap (echo)
Itz what?
Short rap(echo)
Fresh
Short rap(echo)
Short rap(echo)
Short rap(echo)
S-h-o-r-t-r-a-p
Short rap is what I call this beat
Rap that rap like no one else
Im sir too short all by myself
I make fresh raps without your help
And all I want is fame and wealth
Smooth in the game, just like that
And all you hear me say is rap
Short (echo)
Short rap, is way to hard
Every I stop, its time to start
Cause what you find, when I say rhymes
Is a non-stop rap, right on time
Im the kind of person you always thought
Couldnt make a record that would be bought
Sir too short, it couldnt be
Short rap, whats that, short rap is me
Short rap(echo)
Short rap(echo)
So so fresh
I like tenders, young and hot
You never hear short say baby why not?
Im sir too short, Im so down
Mc rapper from the oakland town
You better get up, short raps a song
[...] Read more
song performed by Too Short
Added by Lucian Velea
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Z. Comments
CRYSTAL GLOW
Madhur Veena Comment: Who is she? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ....You write good!
Margaret Alice Comment: Beautiful, it stikes as heartfelt words and touches the heart, beautiful sentiments, sorry, I repeat myself, but I am delighted. Your poem is like the trinkets I collect to adorn my personal space, pure joy to read, wonderful! Only a beautiful mind can harbour such sentiments, you have a beautiful mind. I am glad you have found someone that inspires you to such heights and that you share it with us, you make the world a mroe wonderful place.
Margaret Alice Comment: Within the context set by the previous poem, “Cosmic Probe”, the description of a lover’s adoration for his beloved becomes a universal ode sung to the abstract values of love, joy and hope personified by light, colours, fragrance and beauty, qualities the poet assigns to his beloved, thus elevating her to the status of an uplifting force because she brings all these qualities to his attention. The poet recognises that these personified values brings him fulfilment and chose the image of a love relationship to illustrate how this comes about; thus a love poem becomes the vehicle to convey spiritual epiphany.
FRAGRANT JASMINE
Margaret Alice Comment: Your words seem to be directed to a divine entity, you seem to be addressing your adoration to a divinity, and it is wonderful to read of such sublime sentiments kindled in a human soul. Mankind is always lifted up by their vision and awareness of divinity, thank you for such pure, clear diction and sharing your awareness of the sublime with us, you have uplifted me so much by this vision you have created!
Margaret Alice Comment: The poet’s words seem to be directed to a divine entity, express adoration to a divinity who is the personification of wonderful qualities which awakens a sense of the sublime in the human soul. An uplifting vision and awareness of uplifting qualities of innocence represented by a beautiful person.
I WENT THERE TO BID HER ADIEU
Kente Lucy Comment: wow great writing, what a way to bid farewell
Margaret Alice Comment: Sensory experience is elevated by its symbolical meaning, your description of the scene shows two souls becoming one and your awareness of the importance of tempory experience as a symbol of the eternal duration of love and companionship - were temporary experience only valid for one moment in time, it would be a sad world, but once it is seen as a symbol of eternal things, it becomes enchanting.
I’M INCOMPLETE WITHOUT YOU
Margaret Alice Comment: You elevate the humnan experience of longing for love to a striving for sublimity in uniting with a beloved person, and this poem is stirring, your style of writing is effective, everything flows together perfectly.
Margaret Alice Comment:
'To a resplendent glow of celestial flow
And two split halves unite never to part.'
Reading your fluent poems is a delight, I have to tear myself away and return to the life of a drudge, but what a treasure trove of jewels you made for the weary soul who needs to contemplate higher ideals from time to time!
IN CELESTIAL WINGS
Margaret Alice Comment: When you describe how you are strengthened by your loved one, it is clear that your inner flame is so strong that you need not fear growing old, your spirit seems to become stronger, you manage to convey this impression by your striking poetry. It is a privilege to read your work.
Obed Dela Cruz Comment: wow.... i remembered will shakespeare.... nice poem!
Margaret Alice Comment: The poet has transcended the barriers of time and space by becoming an image of his beloved and being able to find peace in the joy he confers to his beloved.
'You transcend my limits, transcend my soul, I forget my distress in your thoughts And discover my peace in your joy, For, I’m mere image of you, my beloved.'
Margaret Alice Comment: You are my peace and solace, I know, I am, yours too; A mere flash of your thoughts Enlivens my tired soul And fills me with light, peace and solace, A giant in new world, I become, I rise to divine heights in celestial wings. How I desire to reciprocate To fill you with light and inner strength raise you to divine heights; I must cross over nd hold you in arms, light up your soul, Fill you with strength from my inner core, Wipe away your tears burst out in pure joy How I yearn to instill hope and confidence in you we never part And we shall wait, till time comes right. the flame in my soul always seeks you, you transcend my limits, transcend my soul, I forget my distress in your thoughts And discover my peace in your joy, For, I’m mere image of you, my beloved.
RAGING FIRE
[...] Read more
poem by Praveen Kumar
Added by Poetry Lover
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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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An Essay On The Different Stiles Of Poetry
To Henry, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke.
I hate the Vulgar with untuneful Mind,
Hearts uninspir'd, and Senses unrefin'd.
Hence ye Prophane, I raise the sounding String,
And Bolingbroke descends to hear me sing.
When Greece cou'd Truth in Mystick Fable shroud,
And with Delight instruct the list'ning Crowd,
An ancient Poet (Time has lost his Name)
Deliver'd Strains on Verse to future Fame.
Still as he sung he touch'd the trembling Lyre,
And felt the Notes a rising Warmth inspire.
Ye sweet'ning Graces in the Musick Throng,
Assist my Genius, and retrieve the Song
From dark Oblivion. See, my Genius goes
To call it forth. 'Twas thus the Poem rose.
Wit is the Muses Horse, and bears on high
The daring Rider to the Muses Sky:
Who, while his strength to mount aloft he tries,
By Regions varying in their Nature, flies.
At first he riseth o'er a Land of Toil,
A barren, hard, and undeserving Soil,
Where only Weeds from heavy Labour grow,
Which yet the Nation prune, and keep for show.
Where Couplets jingling on their Accent run,
Whose point of Epigram is sunk to Pun.
Where Wings by Fancy never feather'd fly,
Where Lines by measure form'd in Hatchets lie;
Where Altars stand, erected Porches gape,
And Sense is cramp'd while Words are par'd to shape;
Where mean Acrosticks labour'd in a Frame,
On scatter'd Letters raise a painful Scheme;
And by Confinement in their Work controul
The great Enlargings of the boundless Soul.
Where if a Warriour's elevated Fire
Wou'd all the brightest Strokes of Verse require,
Then streight in Anagram a wretched Crew
Will pay their undeserving Praises too;
While on the rack his poor disjointed Name
Must tell its Master's Character to Fame.
And (if my Fire and Fears aright presage)
The lab'ring Writers of a future Age
Shall clear new ground, and Grotts and Caves repair,
To civilize the babbling Ecchoes there.
Then while a Lover treads a lonely Walk,
His Voice shall with its own Reflection talk,
[...] Read more
poem by Thomas Parnell
Added by Poetry Lover
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Canto the First
I
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.
II
Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
And fill'd their sign posts then, like Wellesley now;
Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk,
Followers of fame, "nine farrow" of that sow:
France, too, had Buonaparté and Dumourier
Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.
III
Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,
Were French, and famous people, as we know:
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,
With many of the military set,
Exceedingly remarkable at times,
But not at all adapted to my rhymes.
IV
Nelson was once Britannia's god of war,
And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd;
There's no more to be said of Trafalgar,
'T is with our hero quietly inurn'd;
Because the army's grown more popular,
At which the naval people are concern'd;
Besides, the prince is all for the land-service,
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.
V
Brave men were living before Agamemnon
And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;
But then they shone not on the poet's page,
And so have been forgotten:—I condemn none,
But can't find any in the present age
Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);
So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan.
[...] Read more
poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Now I Need You
You parting words still echo clear on the day you left me
If you need me Ill be there, you said youd always help me
Now l need you, l need you, l need you, l need you
L need you, l need you right now
Now l need you, l need you, l need you, l need you
L need you, l need you right now
L cant seem to satisfy anyone around me
You hold my hand and see me through
All the things that bound me
Now l need you, l need you, l need you, l need you
L need you, l need you right now
Now l need you, l need you, l need you, l need you
L need you, l need you right now
Now l need you, l need you, l need you, l need you
L need you, l need you right now
Now l need you, l need you, l need you, l need you
L need you, l need you right now
Im calling you now (oh now I need you)
Calling you now (oh how I need you)
Please come to me now
I need you
I need you (oh how l need you)
I need you (oh how I need you)
I need you (oh how I need you)
I need you (oh how I need you)
Oh how I need you, oh how I need you
Having learned to live with you
Its hard to live without you
You always said if I were down,
To cheer me you would be around
Now l need you, l need you, l need you, l need you
L need you, l need you right now
Now l need you, l need you, l need you, l need you
L need you, l need you right now
Now l need you, l need you, l need you, l need you
L need you, l need you right now
Now l need you, l need you, l need you, l need you
L need you, l need you right now
Im calling you now
(oh how I need you)
Calling you now
(oh how I need you)
Please come to me now
(oh how I need you)
Please come to me now
(oh how I need you) I need you now
(oh how I need you)
song performed by Donna Summer
Added by Lucian Velea
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Let It Happen
Let it happen
Honey dont you live on the edge of your life
Let it happen
Honey dont you live on the edge of a sigh
Let it happen
Honey dont you live on the edge of a smile
Let it happen
Honey dont you live on the edge of your time
Baby all you got to do
Is let the rythm get to you
Baby all you got to do
Is let the rythm get to you
Let it happen
Honey take a ride on the wheel of life
Let it happen
Open up your heart to the wheel of life
Let it happen
You can put your trust to the wheel of life
Let it happen
Throw away your fear on the wheel of life
Baby all you got to do
Is let the rythm get to you
Baby all you got to do
Is let the rythm get to you
[interlude]
Let it happen
All you need is love on the wheel of life let it happen
All you need is love on the wheel of life
Let it happen
All you need is love on the wheel of life
Let it happen
All you need is love on the wheel of life
Baby all you got to do
Is let the rythm get to you
Baby all you got to do
Is let the rythm get to you
Let it happen
All you need is love on the wheel of life
Let it happen
All you need is love on the wheel of life
All you need is love on the wheel of life
All you need is love on the wheel of life
All you need is love on the wheel of life
All you need is love on the wheel of life
All you need is love on the wheel of life
song performed by Vangelis
Added by Lucian Velea
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XI. Guido
You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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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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This Is Not A Confessionam Poem
This is not a confessional poem
I confess that I have written this
Not a romantic poem
Under the watch of the archangel of Blake’s vision
A l=a=n=g=u=a=g=e= p=o=e=m=
A loaf Of poem a gallon Of words a pint Of letters
A so-so go for broke poem
So so son and so said
An acrostic poem
None near Aim to be called
Mindfully toward the Eternity of the thing
An epitaph poem
He lays David E. Patton
Never one to believe in heaven
So when he dies he did spy
A free verse poem
A sonnet poem
A know it all poem for the masses
This is not a minute poem
A didactic poem
A tongue poem
A villanelle poem
A sestina poem
An epic poem
A quinzaine poem
A rondelet poem
This is not a rondel poem
A cascade poem
A trijan refrain poem
A tanka poem
A taridet poem
A quatrain poem
If I lie this is not a list poem
To pin upon the sky
Set before the poet’s eye
I confess that I have written this
But this is not written to deceived anything but what is desired by the greediness of the eyes
This is not the growth of breath focused on the words with their mindful meaning stalled by the stack of sounds held in the syllables
This is not a sijo poem from the land of the morning calm
I confess that I know not what this is but all that it is not of what it would be forgot in the mispronounced want of the bony wants of the skin bag of my self
This is not the not of a poem trying to be born from the keyboard’s click and the memory of my hands
This is not an every man poem to understand it dose not caters to the common man
This is not a poem about Gods caught up in my mentioning of them they have taken their holy toys and gone home till the kingdom will come only the prelists priests are left to protest their secret order for getting into a heaven where nothing changes nothing like the rot of earth that feed upon the rotting of the living
This is not a this is not poem all that I have said can be washed away with the rain of your brain this poem can not save can not heal can not trill you into action
This is not a solitary crowed poem a cut-up poem feeding off itself
I have written it but it will not tell me what kind of poem it seem to be
This is not a poem to make you rough or pure or proud or increate your intellect to beguile the world with its new found wisdom
This is not a poem to set you free from the common drudgery of your day to day life it can not fend or feed you with the not of its substance can not set you to dance naked beneath the full moon can not fill you up with the pleasure of the pen
This is not a poem that seeks to befriend it has no mouth to consume you no hands to caress you no tongue to lick the words from your tears
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poem by David E. Patton
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English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: A Satire
'I had rather be a kitten, and cry mew!
Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers'~Shakespeare
'Such shameless bards we have; and yet 'tis true,
There are as mad, abandon'd critics too,'~Pope.
Still must I hear? -- shall hoarse Fitzgerald bawl
His creaking couplets in a tavern hall,
And I not sing, lest, haply, Scotch reviews
Should dub me scribbler, and denounce my muse?
Prepare for rhyme -- I'll publish, right or wrong:
Fools are my theme, let satire be my song.
O nature's noblest gift -- my grey goose-quill!
Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,
Torn from thy parent bird to form a pen,
That mighty instrument of little men!
The pen! foredoom'd to aid the mental throes
Of brains that labour, big with verse or prose,
Though nymphs forsake, and critics may deride,
The lover's solace, and the author's pride.
What wits, what poets dost thou daily raise!
How frequent is thy use, how small thy praise!
Condemn'd at length to be forgotten quite,
With all the pages which 'twas thine to write.
But thou, at least, mine own especial pen!
Once laid aside, but now assumed again,
Our task complete, like Hamet's shall be free;
Though spurn'd by others, yet beloved by me:
Then let us soar today, no common theme,
No eastern vision, no distemper'd dream
Inspires -- our path, though full of thorns, is plain;
Smooth be the verse, and easy be the strain.
When Vice triumphant holds her sov'reign sway,
Obey'd by all who nought beside obey;
When Folly, frequent harbinger of crime,
Bedecks her cap with bells of every clime;
When knaves and fools combined o'er all prevail,
And weigh their justice in a golden scale;
E'en then the boldest start from public sneers,
Afraid of shame, unknown to other fears,
More darkly sin, by satire kept in awe,
And shrink from ridicule, though not from law.
Such is the force of wit! but not belong
To me the arrows of satiric song;
The royal vices of our age demand
A keener weapon, and a mightier hand.
[...] Read more
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,
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poem by James Russell Lowell
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The Idols
An Ode
Luce intellettual, piena d' amore
Prelude
Lo, the spirit of a pulsing star within a stone
Born of earth, sprung from night!
Prisoned with the profound fires of the light
That lives like all the tongues of eloquence
Locked in a speech unknown!
The crystal, cold and hard as innocence,
Immures the flame; and yet as if it knew
Raptures or pangs it could not but betray,
As if the light could feel changes of blood and breath
And all--but--human quiverings of the sense,
Throbs of a sudden rose, a frosty blue,
Shoot thrilling in its ray,
Like the far longings of the intellect
Restless in clouding clay.
Who has confined the Light? Who has held it a slave,
Sold and bought, bought and sold?
Who has made of it a mystery to be doled,
Or trophy, to awe with legendary fire,
Where regal banners wave?
And still into the dark it sends Desire.
In the heart's darkness it sows cruelties.
The bright jewel becomes a beacon to the vile,
A lodestar to corruption, envy's own:
Soiled with blood, fought for, clutched at; this world's prize,
Captive Authority. Oh, the star is stone
To all that outward sight,
Yet still, like truth that none has ever used,
Lives lost in its own light.
Troubled I fly. O let me wander again at will
(Far from cries, far from these
Hard blindnesses and frozen certainties!)
Where life proceeds in vastness unaware
And stirs profound and still:
Where leafing thoughts at shy touch of the air
Tremble, and gleams come seeking to be mine,
Or dart, like suddenly remembered youth,
Like the ache of love, a light, lost, found, and lost again.
Surely in the dusk some messenger was there!
But, haunted in the heart, I thirst, I pine.--
Oh, how can truth be truth
Except I taste it close and sweet and sharp
As an apple to the tooth?
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Laurence Binyon
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The Growth of Love
1
They that in play can do the thing they would,
Having an instinct throned in reason's place,
--And every perfect action hath the grace
Of indolence or thoughtless hardihood--
These are the best: yet be there workmen good
Who lose in earnestness control of face,
Or reckon means, and rapt in effort base
Reach to their end by steps well understood.
Me whom thou sawest of late strive with the pains
Of one who spends his strength to rule his nerve,
--Even as a painter breathlessly who stains
His scarcely moving hand lest it should swerve--
Behold me, now that I have cast my chains,
Master of the art which for thy sake I serve.
2
For thou art mine: and now I am ashamed
To have uséd means to win so pure acquist,
And of my trembling fear that might have misst
Thro' very care the gold at which I aim'd;
And am as happy but to hear thee named,
As are those gentle souls by angels kisst
In pictures seen leaving their marble cist
To go before the throne of grace unblamed.
Nor surer am I water hath the skill
To quench my thirst, or that my strength is freed
In delicate ordination as I will,
Than that to be myself is all I need
For thee to be most mine: so I stand still,
And save to taste my joy no more take heed.
3
The whole world now is but the minister
Of thee to me: I see no other scheme
But universal love, from timeless dream
Waking to thee his joy's interpreter.
I walk around and in the fields confer
Of love at large with tree and flower and stream,
And list the lark descant upon my theme,
Heaven's musical accepted worshipper.
Thy smile outfaceth ill: and that old feud
'Twixt things and me is quash'd in our new truce;
And nature now dearly with thee endued
No more in shame ponders her old excuse,
But quite forgets her frowns and antics rude,
So kindly hath she grown to her new use.
4
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Seymour Bridges
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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
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Tamar
I
A night the half-moon was like a dancing-girl,
No, like a drunkard's last half-dollar
Shoved on the polished bar of the eastern hill-range,
Young Cauldwell rode his pony along the sea-cliff;
When she stopped, spurred; when she trembled, drove
The teeth of the little jagged wheels so deep
They tasted blood; the mare with four slim hooves
On a foot of ground pivoted like a top,
Jumped from the crumble of sod, went down, caught, slipped;
Then, the quick frenzy finished, stiffening herself
Slid with her drunken rider down the ledges,
Shot from sheer rock and broke
Her life out on the rounded tidal boulders.
The night you know accepted with no show of emotion the little
accident; grave Orion
Moved northwest from the naked shore, the moon moved to
meridian, the slow pulse of the ocean
Beat, the slow tide came in across the slippery stones; it drowned
the dead mare's muzzle and sluggishly
Felt for the rider; Cauldwell’s sleepy soul came back from the
blind course curious to know
What sea-cold fingers tapped the walls of its deserted ruin.
Pain, pain and faintness, crushing
Weights, and a vain desire to vomit, and soon again
die icy fingers, they had crept over the loose hand and lay in the
hair now. He rolled sidewise
Against mountains of weight and for another half-hour lay still.
With a gush of liquid noises
The wave covered him head and all, his body
Crawled without consciousness and like a creature with no bones,
a seaworm, lifted its face
Above the sea-wrack of a stone; then a white twilight grew about
the moon, and above
The ancient water, the everlasting repetition of the dawn. You
shipwrecked horseman
So many and still so many and now for you the last. But when it
grew daylight
He grew quite conscious; broken ends of bone ground on each
other among the working fibers
While by half-inches he was drawing himself out of the seawrack
up to sandy granite,
Out of the tide's path. Where the thin ledge tailed into flat cliff
he fell asleep. . . .
Far seaward
The daylight moon hung like a slip of cloud against the horizon.
The tide was ebbing
From the dead horse and the black belt of sea-growth. Cauldwell
seemed to have felt her crying beside him,
[...] Read more
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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