The Birds and The Worrier
it is raining and as usual
the worrier is worried about the birds
they have no house of their own
and they may die in the cold she says
unknown to her the birds are happier
flying in the rain
chirping and catching all the prey
that are too worried
about where to stay
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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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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Afrikaans: Sterregordels, Stilsonjare, Tydsbroekspypdinge, Haarsliert
Sterregordels
Cosmology in Afrikaans is an ode to joy, the
terms form sing-song strings with delightful
sounds “ewigbewegende elektron”
continuously spinning electron
“elektron in die hart van die atoomkorrel”
electron in the centre of the atom particle
- what a song!
“Triljoene Melkwegstelsels waaromheen ons
Melkweg elke tweehonderdmiljoenjaar
wentel – ‘n mallemeule van sterregordels…”
“Dobberende patrone, mesone en elektrone,
'n konfigurasie van konvekse novae”…
- these terms are singing to me!
A merry-go-round of star systems
Quotes from Adriaan Snyman “Die Messias Kode” (The Messiah Code) pp.9,10
Bombardement Van Frekwensies (English Explanation)
Waarmee sal ek hierdie leë oomblikke,
ankerloos, betekenisloos; aan die ewigheid
vasmaak - die gevoelsruimte in my hart
Is leeg, alle gevoel en denke het gesamentlik
in die donker duisternis van my brein ingeval
‘n laserbrein wat die hologramwêreld
Self moet konsituteer uit ‘n bombardement
van betekenislose frekwensies – maar
vandag is die ligstraalfokus uit
My pendulumgedagtes swaai ongefokus rond
die opgerolde, ingevoude ses-en-twintig of
meer dimensies van die virtuele werklikheid
Wil nie vir my oopgaan nie…
All thought and feeling fell into the black hole in my brain and the twenty-six or more rolled-up frequencies of reality does not want to open for me today…
Geloof In Liefde - Faith In Love
[...] Read more
poem by Margaret Alice
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February Rain
To be the mud, the bog, the mire;
To soak the bones in February –
Eons from the autumn shower–
Even from a summer berry!
Sparrows chirp a desperate call,
Darting questions at the cows –
Oblivious to the dousing squall, they
Churn the sludge with pastern ploughs.
The crying air was lost in rhythm:
Drums incessant in the drops;
Not a chance for rainbow prism –
Even if the hammering stops!
Metallic chills entrap machines –
Tractors hushed within the shed.
Inside the house, a full cuisine
To bless with mead – and little said!
But out across the tiring field,
A sodden fox is hunting down
His prey of sorts – but nil of yield;
Perhaps he’ll starve; perhaps he’ll drown.
Still the clouds are hammering,
Hammering home their dreary aim –
A chatterbox in constant yammering,
Drenching all to make a claim.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010
[...] Read more
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Its Raining Men
Its raining men
The humiditys rising
The barometers getting low
According to all sources
The streets the place to go
Cause tonight for the first time
Just about half past ten
For the first time in history
Its gonna start raining men
Its raining men
Hallejulah
Its raining men
Hey hey hey
Its raining men
Hallejulah
Its raining men
Hey hey hey
The humiditys rising
The barometers getting low
According to all sources
The streets the place to go
Cause tonight for the first time
Just about half past ten
For the first time in history
Its gonna start raining men
Its raining men
Hallejulah
Its raining men
Hey hey hey
Im gonna go out
Im gonna get myself (yeh)
Absolutely soaking wet
Its rainin men
Hallejulah
Its raining men
Every specimen
Tall, blonde, dark and lean
Rough and tough and strong and mean
God bless mother nature
Shes a single woman too
She took over heaven
And she did what she had to do
She taught every angel
To rearrange the sky
So that each and every woman
Could find the perfect guy
Its raining men
Dont get yourself wet girl
I know you want to
I feel stormy weather moving in
[...] Read more
song performed by Geri Halliwell
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It Takes A Worried Man
Oh it takes a worried man, sing a worried song
Takes a worried man, come sing a little worried song
Well it takes a worried man to sing a worried song
Im worried now, wont be worried long
I went down to the riverside and I laid me down to sleep
Went down to the riverside, laid me down to sleep, lord
A-well I went down to the riverside, laid me down to sleep
When I woke up there were shackles on both-a my feet
Hit it!
(chorus)
It takes a worried man, to sing a worried song
It takes a worried man (come) to sing a worried song
Yeah, it takes a worried man, yeah, to sing a worried song
Im worried now but I wont be worried long
Worry for me!
(instrumental)
I said, judge (judge) judge, whats a-gonna be my fine?
I said, judge (judge) judge (judge) tell me whats gonna be my fine?
I said, judge (judge) judge (judge) tell me whats gonna be my fine?
He said, twenty-one years (oh) on that old rock island line
Oh well it takes a worried man, to sing a worried song
Takes a worried man, to sing a worried song
Yeah, it takes a worried man, to sing a worried song
Im worried now, but I wont be worried long
Sing it one more time!
It takes a worried man, to sing a worried song
It takes a worried man, to sing a worried song, my lord
It takes a worried man, to sing a worried song
Im worried now, but I wont be worried long
song performed by Van Morrison
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Love Island
House house, house house
House house, house house
House house, house house
House house, house house
House house, house house
House house, house house
House house, house house
House house, house house
House, house, house, house
House, house, house, house
House, house, house, house
House, house, house, house
House house house house, house house house house
House house house house, house house house house
House
House
House
song performed by Fatboy Slim
Added by Lucian Velea
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It's Raining Men
Humidity is rising
Barometer's getting low
According to our sources
The street's the place to go
Cause' tonight for the first time
Just about half past ten
For the first time in history
It's gonna start raining men
It's raining men
Hallejulah
It's raining men
Amen
It's raining men
Hallejulah
It's raining men
Amen
Humidity is rising
Barometer's getting low
According to our sources
The street's the place to go
Cause' tonight for the first time
Just about half past ten
For the first time in history
It's gonna start rainin men
It's raining men
Hallejulah
It's raining men
Amen
I'm gonna go out
I'm gonna let myself get
Absolutley soaking wet
It's rainin men
Hallejulah
It's raining men
Every special men
Tall blonde dark and lean
Rough and tough and strong and mean
God bless Mother Nature
She's a single woman too
She took over heaven
[...] Read more
song performed by Geri Halliwell from Scream If You Wanna Go Faster
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It's Raining Man
Thanks to jamez_blue@hotmail.com for these lyrics.
Humidity is rising
Barometer's getting low
According to our sources
The street's the place to go
Cause' tonight for the first time
Just about half past ten
For the first time in history
It's gonna start raining men
It's raining men
Hallejulah
It's raining men
Amen
It's raining men
Hallejulah
It's raining men
Amen
Humidity is rising
Barometer's getting low
According to our sources
The street's the place to go
Cause' tonight for the first time
Just about half past ten
For the first time in history
It's gonna start rainin men
It's raining men
Hallejulah
It's raining men
Amen
I'm gonna go out
I'm gonna let myself get
Absolutley soaking wet
It's rainin men
Hallejulah
It's raining men
Every special men
Tall blonde dark and lean
Rough and tough and strong and mean
God bless Mother Nature
She's a single woman too
She took over heaven
And she did what she had to do
She fought every Angel
To rearranged the sky
So that each and every woman
Could find the perfect guy
It's raining men
Don't get yourself Weather Girls
I know you want to
I feel stormy wheather moving in
[...] Read more
song performed by Geri Halliwell
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Annus Mirabilis, The Year Of Wonders, 1666
1
In thriving arts long time had Holland grown,
Crouching at home and cruel when abroad:
Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own;
Our King they courted, and our merchants awed.
2
Trade, which, like blood, should circularly flow,
Stopp'd in their channels, found its freedom lost:
Thither the wealth of all the world did go,
And seem'd but shipwreck'd on so base a coast.
3
For them alone the heavens had kindly heat;
In eastern quarries ripening precious dew:
For them the Idumaean balm did sweat,
And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew.
4
The sun but seem'd the labourer of the year;
Each waxing moon supplied her watery store,
To swell those tides, which from the line did bear
Their brimful vessels to the Belgian shore.
5
Thus mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long,
And swept the riches of the world from far;
Yet stoop'd to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong:
And this may prove our second Punic war.
6
What peace can be, where both to one pretend?
(But they more diligent, and we more strong)
Or if a peace, it soon must have an end;
For they would grow too powerful, were it long.
7
Behold two nations, then, engaged so far
That each seven years the fit must shake each land:
Where France will side to weaken us by war,
Who only can his vast designs withstand.
8
See how he feeds the Iberian with delays,
To render us his timely friendship vain:
And while his secret soul on Flanders preys,
He rocks the cradle of the babe of Spain.
9
Such deep designs of empire does he lay
[...] Read more
poem by John Dryden
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Raining Again
I never even stopped to dream and
That Id see anything and
The world is coming out so cold
Oh, and it's raining again
Light on your car light, bullets on tin
Oh, and its raining again
Open the door and pulling me in
Nothing here but nothing less
Cold heart is stuck in this
Couldn't say the kindest words we knew
Everything I tried to say but
no one listens anyway
I had to give up all that I knew
Oh, and it's raining again
Light on your car light, bullets on tin
Oh, and its raining again
Open the door and pulling me in
Oh, and it's raining
Raining again
Oh, and it's raining
Raining again
Nothing here but nothing less
Everything we both regret
Couldn't say the kindest words we knew
Cause it was winter time and
We wanted some more time and
We watched the girls try something knew
We didn't even stopped to see that
That It was breaking me and
the world is coming out so cold
What you want you couldn't get, you
Couldn't wait for something less, you
had to give up everything you knew
Oh, and it's raining again
Light on your car light, bullets on tin
Oh, and its raining again
Open the door and pulling me in
[2x]
Sadness like water raining down
Raining down, raining down, raining down
[5x]
Oh, and it's raining
Raining again
Oh, and it's raining
Raining again
song performed by Moby
Added by Lucian Velea
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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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VII. Pompilia
I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.
All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.
Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Cold Feet
There was a little boy once upon a time
Who in spite of his young age and small size knew his mind
For every copper penny and clover he would find
Make a wish for better days the end of hard times
For no more cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet
His clothes were always clean
His face was always scrubbed
There was food on the table enough to fill him up
His house was full of life - his house was full of love
But when winter days arrived
There was never money enough to shod his cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet
He grew up to be a worker determined to succeed
He made a life for himself, free from worldly wants or needs
But with nobody to share the life hed made
No body to keep him warm at night
When hed go to sleep hed sleep alone with his cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet
One night he walked the street looking to the heavens above
Searching for a shooting star a benevolent god
When a woman passing by brushed his arm
He turned and found love
He then wished for the courage to ask this stranger
Who she was to not have cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet
He thought shed like the party life and want the finer things
So he promised more than he could buy
And he promised her the sun and moon to not have cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet
He worked day and night his fingers to the bone
Hi worried mind guilty conscience drive him on
He cant give her what she needs
He wants to give her what he thinks she wants
Her sad-eyed face, his empty pockets drive him on and his cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet
Hed struggled all his life to be an honest man
Proud that the dirt on his palms was the soil of the land
But some guys he knew from high school days
Said they had a plan to get rich quick
And they could count him in if he dont have cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet
He thought about their offer accepted it without qualms
Dreamt about the life hed buy
The comfort that would come without cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet
He decided to tell his wife things would soon turn around
He said the little boy is dead
A man stands with you now without cold feet
Cold cold cold cold feet
[...] Read more
song performed by Tracy Chapman
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Rain,rain
Why am I here if youre there
So far away its not fair
To be without you like this
I miss you more than you know
The nights are long
The days slow
Without the warmth of your kiss
Wish you were back here with me
Cause out my window
All is see is
Rain , rain in the sky
Everywhere I look my eyes see
Rain , rain fallin down
Crying as it hits the ground
Rain , rain in my heart
Every day that were apart
Rain , rain
Falling rain , rain
Rain , rain
Only rain , rain
The sun is strong when youre near
But when youre gone it disappears
Behind an ocean of blue
The telephones not good enough
It cant reach out it cant touch
Me like the way you do
Wish you would knock at my door
Cause only you can stop the pouring
Rain , rain in the sky
Everywhere I look my eyes see
Rain , rain fallin down
Crying as it hits the ground
Rain , rain in my heart
Every day that were apart
Rain , rain
Falling rain , rain
Rain , rain
Only rain , rain
Maybe ill go outside
And walk beneath the clouds
Pretend its you thats watching over me
This isnt the only thing that comes
Between us now
Baby soon well be together
Oooo
( everywhere I look I see rain )
( everywhere I look I see rain )
Rain
( everywhere I look I see rain )
Everywhere I look I see rain
[...] Read more
song performed by Cher
Added by Lucian Velea
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Flying
Forever is ending
But you see a deer
Love isn't bending
It's gone with the beer
And I know that I am feeling better
Mary wants to love me so I'll let her
Chains and the irons
Have fallen off of me
I am much much lighter
Everyone can see
And I know that I am feeling better
Suzi wants to love me so I'll let her
I'm flying
I'm flying
Look at me
I'm flying
I'm flying higher than ever before
Ain't lying
No crying
Look at me
I'm flying
I'm flying higher than ever before
Singing so loudly
I'm drowning out the birds
Singing nothing special
Just any happy words
And I know that I'm feeling better
Sally wants to love me so I'll let her
I'm flying
I'm flying
Look at me
I'm flying
I'm flying higher than ever before
Ain't lying
No crying
Look at me
I'm flying
I'm flying higher than ever before
I'm gliding
I'm soaring
I'm riding
I'm sweeping
I'm flying high
I'm flying
And I know that I am feeling better
Mary wants to love me so I'll let her
I'm flying
I'm flying
Look at me
I'm flying
[...] Read more
song performed by Rick Springfield
Added by Lucian Velea
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Catching The Butterfly
As though you were born
As though you were born
And so you thought
And so you thought
The futures ours
The futures ours
To keep and hold
To keep and hold
A child within
A child within
Has healing ways
Has healing ways
It sees me through
It sees me through
My darkest days
My darkest days
Im gonna keep catching that butterfly
In that dream of mine
Im gonna keep catching that butterfly
Im gonna keep catching that butterfly
In that dream of mine
In that dream of mine
Im gonna keep catching that butterfly
In that dream of mine
In my lucid dreams
In my lucid dreams
In my lucid dreams
Something now? ? ? ?
In my lucid dreams
Through life no fun
I want to feel
I want to run
Something numb
Through life no fun
Im gonna keep catching that butterfly
I want to feel
In that dream of mine
I want to run
Im gonna keep catching that butterfly
In that dream of mine
Im gonna keep catching that butterfly
In my lucid dreams
In that dream of mine
In my lucid dreams
Im gonna keep catching that butterfly
In that dream of mine
Im gonna keep catching that butterfly
In that dream of mine
Keep catching that butterfly
In my lucid dreams
[...] Read more
song performed by Verve
Added by Lucian Velea
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Rain Drops
If the rain drops,
It doesn't fall on one man's head;
So, this poem is about to make you learn.
If the rain drops were sticks of cigarettes,
Many of us will smoke to death;
If the rain drops were bullets from heaven,
Many of us will dropp dead at once;
If the rain drops were roses of love,
Many of us will make love one night;
If the rain drops were trees,
Many of us will sleep on them;
If the rain drops were stones,
Many of us will be admitted in the hospitals;
If the rain drops were men,
Many women will fight for them;
If the rain drops were women,
Many men will kill for them;
If the rain drops were birds,
Many of us will learn to fly;
If the rain drops were acid,
Many of us will be admitted in hell;
If the rain drops were flowers,
Many of us will beautify our homes;
If the rain drops were spies,
Many of us will be exposed of our nakedness;
If the rain drops were guns,
Many of us will join the Third World War;
If the rain drops were teachers,
Many of us will be well educated;
If the rain drops were students,
Many of us will still roam the streets;
If the rain drops were parents,
Many of us will be at home;
If the rain drops were bicycles,
Many of the cars will be grounded;
If the rain drops were diamonds,
Many of the mines will be closed down;
If the rain drops were candies,
Many of us will visit the toilet;
If the rain drops were houses,
Many of us will not be homeless;
If the rain drops were Whites,
Many of the Blacks will not be seen;
If the rain drops were Blacks,
Many of the Whites will not be heard of;
If the rain drops were envelopes,
Many of the post offices will work overtime;
If the rain drops were Television Sets,
Many of us will be glued to them;
[...] Read more
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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A Song of Rain
Because a little vagrant wind veered south from China Sea;
Or else, because a sun-spot stirred; and yet again, maybe
Because some idle god in play breathed on an errant cloud,
The heads of twice two million folk in gratitude are bowed.
Patter, patter… Boolconmatta,
Adelaide and Oodnadatta,
Pepegoona, parched and dry
Laugh beneath a dripping sky.
Riverina's thirsting plain
Knows the benison of rain.
Ararat and Arkaroola
Render thanks with Tantanoola
For the blessings they are gaining,
And it's raining - raining - raining!
Because a heaven-sent monsoon the mists before it drove;
Because things happened in the moon; or else, because High Jove,
Unbending, played at waterman to please a laughing boy,
The hearts through all a continent are raised in grateful joy.
Weeps the sky at Wipipee
Far Farina's folk are dippy
With sheer joy, while Ballarat
Shouts and flings aloft its hat.
Thirsty Thackaringa yells;
Taltabooka gladly tells
Of a season wet and windy;
Men rejoice on Murrindindie;
Kalioota's ceased complaining;
For it's raining - raining - raining!
Because a poor bush parson prayed an altruistic prayer,
Rich with unselfish fellow-love that Heaven counted rare;
And yet, mayhap, because one night a meteor was hurled
Across the everlasting blue, the luck was with our world.
On the wilds of Winininnie
Cattle low and horses whinny,
Frolicking with sheer delight.
From Beltana to The Bight,
In the Mallee's sun-scorched towns,
In the sheds on Darling Downs,
In the huts at Yudnapinna,
Tents on Tidnacoordininna,
To the sky all heads are craning
For it's raining - raining - raining!
Because some strange, cyclonic thing has happened - God knows where
Men dream again of easy days, of cash to spend and spare.
[...] Read more
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Odyssey: Book 15
But Minerva went to the fair city of Lacedaemon to tell Ulysses' son
that he was to return at once. She found him and Pisistratus
sleeping in the forecourt of Menelaus's house; Pisistratus was fast
asleep, but Telemachus could get no rest all night for thinking of his
unhappy father, so Minerva went close up to him and said:
"Telemachus, you should not remain so far away from home any longer,
nor leave your property with such dangerous people in your house; they
will eat up everything you have among them, and you will have been
on a fool's errand. Ask Menelaus to send you home at once if you
wish to find your excellent mother still there when you get back.
Her father and brothers are already urging her to marry Eurymachus,
who has given her more than any of the others, and has been greatly
increasing his wedding presents. I hope nothing valuable may have been
taken from the house in spite of you, but you know what women are-
they always want to do the best they can for the man who marries them,
and never give another thought to the children of their first husband,
nor to their father either when he is dead and done with. Go home,
therefore, and put everything in charge of the most respectable
woman servant that you have, until it shall please heaven to send
you a wife of your own. Let me tell you also of another matter which
you had better attend to. The chief men among the suitors are lying in
wait for you in the Strait between Ithaca and Samos, and they mean
to kill you before you can reach home. I do not much think they will
succeed; it is more likely that some of those who are now eating up
your property will find a grave themselves. Sail night and day, and
keep your ship well away from the islands; the god who watches over
you and protects you will send you a fair wind. As soon as you get
to Ithaca send your ship and men on to the town, but yourself go
straight to the swineherd who has charge your pigs; he is well
disposed towards you, stay with him, therefore, for the night, and
then send him to Penelope to tell her that you have got back safe from
Pylos."
Then she went back to Olympus; but Telemachus stirred Pisistratus
with his heel to rouse him, and said, "Wake up Pisistratus, and yoke
the horses to the chariot, for we must set off home."
But Pisistratus said, "No matter what hurry we are in we cannot
drive in the dark. It will be morning soon; wait till Menelaus has
brought his presents and put them in the chariot for us; and let him
say good-bye to us in the usual way. So long as he lives a guest
should never forget a host who has shown him kindness."
As he spoke day began to break, and Menelaus, who had already risen,
leaving Helen in bed, came towards them. When Telemachus saw him he
put on his shirt as fast as he could, threw a great cloak over his
shoulders, and went out to meet him. "Menelaus," said he, "let me go
back now to my own country, for I want to get home."
And Menelaus answered, "Telemachus, if you insist on going I will
not detain you. not like to see a host either too fond of his guest or
too rude to him. Moderation is best in all things, and not letting a
man go when he wants to do so is as bad as telling him to go if he
would like to stay. One should treat a guest well as long as he is
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poem by Homer, translated by Samuel Butler
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The Hind And The Panther, A Poem In Three Parts : Part III.
Much malice, mingled with a little wit,
Perhaps may censure this mysterious writ;
Because the muse has peopled Caledon
With panthers, bears, and wolves, and beasts unknown,
As if we were not stocked with monsters of our own.
Let Æsop answer, who has set to view
Such kinds as Greece and Phrygia never knew;
And Mother Hubbard, in her homely dress,
Has sharply blamed a British lioness;
That queen, whose feast the factious rabble keep,
Exposed obscenely naked, and asleep.
Led by those great examples, may not I
The wonted organs of their words supply?
If men transact like brutes, 'tis equal then
For brutes to claim the privilege of men.
Others our Hind of folly will indite,
To entertain a dangerous guest by night.
Let those remember, that she cannot die,
Till rolling time is lost in round eternity;
Nor need she fear the Panther, though untamed,
Because the Lion's peace was now proclaimed;
The wary savage would not give offence,
To forfeit the protection of her prince;
But watched the time her vengeance to complete,
When all her furry sons in frequent senate met;
Meanwhile she quenched her fury at the flood,
And with a lenten salad cooled her blood.
Their commons, though but coarse, were nothing scant,
Nor did their minds an equal banquet want.
For now the Hind, whose noble nature strove
To express her plain simplicity of love,
Did all the honours of her house so well,
No sharp debates disturbed the friendly meal.
She turned the talk, avoiding that extreme,
To common dangers past, a sadly-pleasing theme;
Remembering every storm which tossed the state,
When both were objects of the public hate,
And dropt a tear betwixt for her own children's fate.
Nor failed she then a full review to make
Of what the Panther suffered for her sake;
Her lost esteem, her truth, her loyal care,
Her faith unshaken to an exiled heir,
Her strength to endure, her courage to defy,
Her choice of honourable infamy.
On these, prolixly thankful, she enlarged;
Then with acknowledgments herself she charged;
For friendship, of itself an holy tie,
Is made more sacred by adversity.
Now should they part, malicious tongues would say,
They met like chance companions on the way,
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poem by John Dryden
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