Citatepedia^®.com

No Tricks (feat. Betty Wright)

No tricks
Up my sleeve
I kicked the downs
And now I'm clean
No shakes
Up my spine
I beat the speed and I
Dumped the wine
No tracks
That was yesterday
I changed my style
The way I play
(Don't you believe it)
No blues
No depression
No more panic
Or obsession
Don't you believe
Anything he said
All them junkies talk that way
It's just as bad as it was before
I see the man knockin' at his back door
... this kid's straight
And put on ice
The street corner deals at any price
Come on and check my veins
And check my eyes
No tracks
That was yesterday
I changed my style
The way I play
(Don't you believe it)
No blues
No depression
No more panic
Or obsession
Some tricks
Just go away
And other tricks
They're here to stay
(Oh don't you know me)
Sometimes my spirit's willin'
The flesh is weak and
That's what's killin'
Don't you believe
Anything he said
All them junkies talk that way
It's just as bad as it was before
I see the man knockin' at his back door
Hey now this kid's straight

[...] Read more

song performed by Alice Cooper
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Style

(style) style, uh!
(yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)
Style, dig it
(style) style, come on
Uh, style
Style is not something that comes in a bottle
Style is more like jackie o. when she was doin aristotle
Style is not a logo that sticks 2 the roof of ones ass
Style is like a second cousin 2 class
U got it! - style, come on
U got it! - style, say what?
U got it! - style, come on
U got it! - style, check it
Style aint sittin court side with the owner of the team
Style is owning the court and charging em all a fee
Style is not lusting after someone because theyre cool
Style is loving yourself til everyone else does 2
U got it! - style, come on
U got it! - style, maybe
U got it! - style, well well
U got it! - style
Bridge:
Style dont get drunk on a saturday night
Try 2 dress up every sunday mornin bright
Style dont get married then break the vow in a year
Style is keepin a promise
Raise your hand yall if u hear me
(style) {x2}
Style is not biting style when u cant find the funk
Style is the face u make on a michael jordon dunk
Style aint the jeep u bought when u know your broke ass got bills
Style is lettin your lover drive while u talk on the phone and chill
U got it! - style
U got it! - style, maybe
U got it! - style, come on
U got it! - style
Bridge:
Style is a gold-tooth smile with an attitude
Style is a peaceful wild postin the rude
Style is growing your own food
Style is a non-violent march
Style is an accurate account of whats inside every heart (style)
Style is not a lie
Style is a man that cries
Style is the glow in a pregnant womans eyes
(style) {x4}
U got it! - style, come on
U got it! - style, do that, do that
U got it! - style, got it?
U got it! - style, mad, come on

[...] Read more

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

Knockin On Heavens Door

Mama take this badge off of me
I cant wear it anymore
Its getting too dark, too dark to see
And I feel like im
Feel Im knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
I feel like, I feel like im
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
I said i, I feel im
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Mama mama mama
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Oh
Take these guns and put em to the ground
I cant, I cant, I cant
I just cant shoot them anymore
Theres a long black cloud
Theres a long black cloud
You know its a, its a comin down
I feel i, I feel i, I feel im
I feel Im knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Now I said mama mama
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Oh now
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Oh
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Wipe this blood from my face
I cant see through the walls
Six white horses coming to carry me away
I feel Im knockin on heavens door
Im
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Gonna take me, gonna take me, gonna take me now
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Wipe this, wipe this, wipe this, wipe this
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Oh mama im
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Mama take these chains off of me
Cause I dont, I dont want them anymore
Theyre getting too damn heavy
And Im crawling across the floor
I feel like, I feel like Im knockin on heavens door
Oh mama
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Ah mama mama mama
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Gonna take me, gonna take me, gonna take me

[...] Read more

song performed by Indigo Girls
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Knockin On Heavens Door

Mama take this badge off of me
I cant use it any more
Its gettin dark, too dark to see
I feel like Im knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Mama, wipe the blood from my face
Im sick and tired of the war
[...]
I feel like Im knockin on heaves door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door
Knock, knock, knockin on heavens door

song performed by George Harrison
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

XI. Guido

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock

[...] Read more

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

Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

V. Count Guido Franceschini

Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of … why, 't is wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate … aie, aie, aie,
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all's over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short, I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I' the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O' the Franceschini's once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!

[...] Read more

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

VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,—
So things disguise themselves,—I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face
And know it again. Answer you? Then that means
Tell over twice what I, the first time, told
Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe,
Fronting you same three in this very room,
I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,
Who then … nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,
As good as laugh, what in a judge we style
Laughter—no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!
Only,—I think I apprehend the mood:
There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,
"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
"Well, he can say no other than what he says.
"We have been young, too,—come, there's greater guilt!
"Let him but decently disembroil himself,
"Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,—
"We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!
And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast
As if I were a phantom: now 't is—"Friend,
"Collect yourself!"—no laughing matter more—
"Counsel the Court in this extremity,
"Tell us again!"—tell that, for telling which,
I got the jocular piece of punishment,
Was sent to lounge a little in the place
Whence now of a sudden here you summon me
To take the intelligence from just—your lips!
You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,—
That she I helped eight months since to escape
Her husband, was retaken by the same,
Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,—
(I being disallowed to interfere,
Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,
For you and law were guardians quite enough
O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)—
And that he has butchered her accordingly,
As she foretold and as myself believed,—
And, so foretelling and believing so,
We were punished, both of us, the merry way:
Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?
Pompilia is only dying while I speak!
Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?
My masters, there's an old book, you should con
For strange adventures, applicable yet,

[...] Read more

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

Knockin On Every Door

Hey now honey
You got to face the floor
You headed for the heart
But you couldnt find the door, could you?
Could you?
Well, Im standing in the sun
But Im living in the rain
I got to get a-whirlin like a human hurricane over you
Over you
Now youre looking like a fox on the run
And youre faster than a shot from a gun
Im pointing at you, oh you
Talking bout you, hey you
I thought we had love in store
You keep on knockin on every door
Babe, Ive seen it all before
You keep on knockin on every door
Aint no lovin you ignore
You keep on knockin on every door
Keep keep knock knockin on every door
You keep on knockin on every door
Hey now honey
Time is all youve spent
You moved into the bed
But you couldnt pay the rent, could you?
Could you?
In the twinkle of an eye
You electrify
I got to get a-shootin like a rocket in the sky, bye bye
Goodbye
Now youre burning like youre hot on the scene
Dont you love to steal a part of my dream?
Im looking at you, oh you
Talking bout you, yea you
I thought we had love in store
You keep on knockin on every door
Babe, Ive seen it all before
You keep on knockin on every door
Aint no lovin you ignore
You keep on knockin on every door
Keep keep knock knockin on every door
You keep on knockin on every door
I thought we used to have love in store
You keep knock knockin on every door
Hey babe, dont run around here no more
You keep on knockin on every door
Aint no sugar you ignore
You keep on knockin on every door
Keep keep knock knockin on every door
You keep on knockin on every door

[...] Read more

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

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Lancelot And Elaine

Elaine the fair, Elaine the loveable,
Elaine, the lily maid of Astolat,
High in her chamber up a tower to the east
Guarded the sacred shield of Lancelot;
Which first she placed where the morning's earliest ray
Might strike it, and awake her with the gleam;
Then fearing rust or soilure fashioned for it
A case of silk, and braided thereupon
All the devices blazoned on the shield
In their own tinct, and added, of her wit,
A border fantasy of branch and flower,
And yellow-throated nestling in the nest.
Nor rested thus content, but day by day,
Leaving her household and good father, climbed
That eastern tower, and entering barred her door,
Stript off the case, and read the naked shield,
Now guessed a hidden meaning in his arms,
Now made a pretty history to herself
Of every dint a sword had beaten in it,
And every scratch a lance had made upon it,
Conjecturing when and where: this cut is fresh;
That ten years back; this dealt him at Caerlyle;
That at Caerleon; this at Camelot:
And ah God's mercy, what a stroke was there!
And here a thrust that might have killed, but God
Broke the strong lance, and rolled his enemy down,
And saved him: so she lived in fantasy.

How came the lily maid by that good shield
Of Lancelot, she that knew not even his name?
He left it with her, when he rode to tilt
For the great diamond in the diamond jousts,
Which Arthur had ordained, and by that name
Had named them, since a diamond was the prize.

For Arthur, long before they crowned him King,
Roving the trackless realms of Lyonnesse,
Had found a glen, gray boulder and black tarn.
A horror lived about the tarn, and clave
Like its own mists to all the mountain side:
For here two brothers, one a king, had met
And fought together; but their names were lost;
And each had slain his brother at a blow;
And down they fell and made the glen abhorred:
And there they lay till all their bones were bleached,
And lichened into colour with the crags:
And he, that once was king, had on a crown
Of diamonds, one in front, and four aside.
And Arthur came, and labouring up the pass,
All in a misty moonshine, unawares

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Knockin On Heavens Door

I remember playin my guitar in the projects
Playin in the pjs
A product of the environment
Pour some liquor for those who passed away
I told my mom ima get up out of da hood
Mama
My dad taught me the american dream, baby
You can be anything that you wanna be
If I did it yall could do it
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Mama, take these guns away from here
Mama, I cant shoot them anymore
Cease fire
I feel a dark cloud coming over
So poor, so dark
It feels like Im knockin on the heavens door
To biggie smalls and tupac
Knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
Hip hop
To freaky ty and big heavy
Lost boy
Knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
Yeah
And to the princess aaliyah
Were knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
To my brother big pun
Terror squad
Were knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
Oh lord, oh lord
Would someone take these guns away from here
Take these guns from the street, lord
I cant shoot my brothers anymore
I seen a thug cry
I feel a dark cloud coming over me
Over me
It feels like
It feels like Im knockin on the heavens door
So sing along street children
Were knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
And to my daddy that passed away
Rest in peace
Knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
To the god, fred jordan, were
And put the fugees on
Knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
To my people doin time
Were
Locked up
Knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
Crypts and bloods, latin peace

[...] Read more

song performed by Wyclef Jean
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Knockin On Heavens Door

I remember playin my guitar in the projects
Playin in the pjs
A product of the environment
Pour some liquor for those who passed away
I told my mom ima get up out of da hood
Mama
My dad taught me the american dream, baby
You can be anything that you wanna be
If I did it yall could do it
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Mama, take these guns away from here
Mama, I cant shoot them anymore
Cease fire
I feel a dark cloud coming over
So poor, so dark
It feels like Im knockin on the heavens door
To biggie smalls and tupac
Knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
Hip hop
To freaky ty and big heavy
Lost boy
Knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
Yeah
And to the princess aaliyah
Were knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
To my brother big pun
Terror squad
Were knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
Oh lord, oh lord
Would someone take these guns away from here
Take these guns from the street, lord
I cant shoot my brothers anymore
I seen a thug cry
I feel a dark cloud coming over me
Over me
It feels like
It feels like Im knockin on the heavens door
So sing along street children
Were knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
And to my daddy that passed away
Rest in peace
Knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
To the god, fred jordan, were
And put the fugees on
Knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
To my people doin time
Were
Locked up
Knock, knock, knockin on the heavens door
Crypts and bloods, latin peace

[...] Read more

song performed by Wyclef Jean
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Beat It

Written & composed by michael jackson.
1st verse
They told him dont you ever come around here
Dont wanna see your face, you better disappear
The fires in their eyes and their words are really clear
So beat it, just beat it
2nd verse
You better run, you better do what you can
Dont wanna see no blood, dont be a macho man
You wanna be tough, better do what you can
So beat it, but you wanna be bad
Chorus
Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin how funky strong is your fighter
It doesnt matter whos wrong or right
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
3rd verse
Theyre out to get you, better leave while you can
Dont wanna be a boy, you wanna be a man
You wanna stay alive, better do what you can
So beat it, just beat it
4th verse
You have to show them that youre really not scared
Youre playin with your life, this aint no truth or dare
Theyll kick you, then they beat you,
Then theyll tell you its fair
So beat it, but you wanna be bad
Chorus
Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin how funky strong is your fighter
It doesnt matter whos wrong or right
Chorus
Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin how funky strong is your fighter
It doesnt matter whos wrong or right
Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
Chorus
Beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated
Showin how funky strong is your fighter
It doesnt matter whos wrong or right
Chorus
Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it
No one wants to be defeated

[...] Read more

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

Fifth Book

AURORA LEIGH, be humble. Shall I hope
To speak my poems in mysterious tune
With man and nature,–with the lava-lymph
That trickles from successive galaxies
Still drop by drop adown the finger of God,
In still new worlds?–with summer-days in this,
That scarce dare breathe, they are so beautiful?–
With spring's delicious trouble in the ground
Tormented by the quickened blood of roots.
And softly pricked by golden crocus-sheaves
In token of the harvest-time of flowers?–
With winters and with autumns,–and beyond,
With the human heart's large seasons,–when it hopes
And fears, joys, grieves, and loves?–with all that strain
Of sexual passion, which devours the flesh
In a sacrament of souls? with mother's breasts,
Which, round the new made creatures hanging there,
Throb luminous and harmonious like pure spheres?–
With multitudinous life, and finally
With the great out-goings of ecstatic souls,
Who, in a rush of too long prisoned flame,
Their radiant faces upward, burn away
This dark of the body, issuing on a world
Beyond our mortal?–can I speak my verse
So plainly in tune to these things and the rest,
That men shall feel it catch them on the quick,
As having the same warrant over them
To hold and move them, if they will or no,
Alike imperious as the primal rhythm
Of that theurgic nature? I must fail,
Who fail at the beginning to hold and move
One man,–and he my cousin, and he my friend,
And he born tender, made intelligent,
Inclined to ponder the precipitous sides
Of difficult questions; yet, obtuse to me,–
Of me, incurious! likes me very well,
And wishes me a paradise of good,
Good looks, good means, and good digestion!–ay,
But otherwise evades me, puts me off
With kindness, with a tolerant gentleness,–
Too light a book for a grave man's reading! Go,
Aurora Leigh: be humble.
There it is;
We women are too apt to look to one,
Which proves a certain impotence in art.
We strain our natures at doing something great,
Far less because it's something great to do,
Than, haply, that we, so, commend ourselves
As being not small, and more appreciable
To some one friend. We must have mediators

[...] Read more

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

Under Pressures

Stuck under pressures...
I have learned,
I should...
Release.

And under pressures...
I have learned,
I must...
See ceased.

I finally realized,
I was my own...
Enemy.

I finally realized,
This was not meant to be!
Not for me.

And off my back they've been dumped.
Right off my back they've been dumped.
Off my back they've been dumped.
Right off my back they've been dumped.

Stuck under pressures...
I have learned,
I should...
Release.

And under pressures...
I have learned,
I must...
See ceased.

I finally realized,
I was my own...
Enemy.
Those demons had to be freed.

And off my back they've been dumped.
Right off my back they've been dumped.
And off my back they've been dumped.
Right off my back they've been dumped.

And under pressures...
I finally realized,
I was my own...
Enemy.
Those demons had to be freed.

And off my back they've been dumped.

[...] Read more

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

Sir Peter Harpdon's End

In an English Castle in Poictou. Sir Peter Harpdon, a Gascon knight in the English service, and John Curzon, his lieutenant.

John Curzon

Of those three prisoners, that before you came
We took down at St. John's hard by the mill,
Two are good masons; we have tools enough,
And you have skill to set them working.

Sir Peter

So-
What are their names?

John Curzon

Why, Jacques Aquadent,
And Peter Plombiere, but-

Sir Peter

What colour'd hair
Has Peter now? has Jacques got bow legs?

John Curzon

Why, sir, you jest: what matters Jacques' hair,
Or Peter's legs to us?

Sir Peter

O! John, John, John!
Throw all your mason's tools down the deep well,
Hang Peter up and Jacques; they're no good,
We shall not build, man.

John Curzon

going.

Shall I call the guard
To hang them, sir? and yet, sir, for the tools,
We'd better keep them still; sir, fare you well.

[...] Read more

poem by William Morris
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

VII. Pompilia

I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.

All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—

[...] Read more

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

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
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

People Panic

Tripped out,
Over their finances.
Doubts begin to cloud their minds...
With a suggestion to breathe deeply.
To prevent a panic to exist.
And if they don't breathe deeply,
That's exactly what they'll find!
That's exactly what they'll get...
Panic!

But do people listen?
No!
Is common sense from them missing?
Well...
I don't want to pass,
That as harrassment.
But if I'm allowed,
I would choose to brag.

I don't want to pass,
That as harrassment.
But people seem to get,
Just what they ask!

And everywhere you go,
You'll see them in their stubbornness to give!
In 'fits' like spoiled little kids.
And everywhere you go,
You'll see them in their stubbornness to give!
In 'fits' like spoiled little kids.

But do people listen?
No!
Is common sense from them missing?
Well...
I don't want to pass,
That as harrassment.
But if I'm allowed,
I would choose to brag.

Tripped out,
Over their finances.
Doubts begin to cloud their minds...
With a suggestion to breathe deeply.
To prevent a panic to exist.
And if they don't breathe deeply,
That's exactly what they'll find!
That's exactly what they'll get...
Panic!

[...] Read more

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

The Ballad of the White Horse

DEDICATION

Of great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night--
Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light?

Where seven sunken Englands
Lie buried one by one,
Why should one idle spade, I wonder,
Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder
To smoke and choke the sun?

In cloud of clay so cast to heaven
What shape shall man discern?
These lords may light the mystery
Of mastery or victory,
And these ride high in history,
But these shall not return.

Gored on the Norman gonfalon
The Golden Dragon died:
We shall not wake with ballad strings
The good time of the smaller things,
We shall not see the holy kings
Ride down by Severn side.

Stiff, strange, and quaintly coloured
As the broidery of Bayeux
The England of that dawn remains,
And this of Alfred and the Danes
Seems like the tales a whole tribe feigns
Too English to be true.

Of a good king on an island
That ruled once on a time;
And as he walked by an apple tree
There came green devils out of the sea
With sea-plants trailing heavily
And tracks of opal slime.

Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;
His days as our days ran,
He also looked forth for an hour
On peopled plains and skies that lower,
From those few windows in the tower
That is the head of a man.

But who shall look from Alfred's hood

[...] Read more

poem by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!