031310 Life Is Struggle
across the street is harris teeter
where i buy groceries and painkiller
they have a card that gives discount
it helps, it surely saves a little amount
bread that is about to expire is 50%
for wines, spirits and fish not a cent
at twilight when i don't like to cook
i settle with bread and vegetable soup
sit with my friends, listen to their stories
watch them race their grocery carts
to their waiting cars at parking lot
where their children doing homework
life is so hectic, a struggle
how parents do the juggle
time of work and children
happening at same scene
it is tiring close to depression
it is love, determination to go on
poem by Manonton Dalan
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Related quotes
Oxymoron
Oxymoron:
fresh fish
*********
JBO:
'The beach at Sanibel... an Arlington Cemetery of shells.'
*
Every suffocated or strangled fish is first given
waterboarding sensations.
*
Fishes more frequently than
mammals or birds are cut open
alive, while their eyes watch
the knifing of others and their
gills struggle for absent air.
Fish cannot scream.
Greed for suffocated fish flesh causes seals to be clubbed in Canada, Norway, S Africa etc., dolphins to be knifed in Japan, whales to be murdered by
Norwegian Japanese Icelandic and American Inuit fishermen, bears
to be murdered in Alaska, untold thousands of fishermen to
be lost in tsunamis,700 Bangladesh fishermen lost in just 1 storm, Thai fishermen working for slave wages, tens of millions around
the world to die of stomach cancer, food poisoning etc.**
What's in fish? unreported Mad Fish
Disease, nuclear toxins a million
times more concentrated than in
sea water, AIDS from unprocessed
human waste dumped into
the oceans, hepatitis, anaphylactic shock, ecoli,
and other food poisoning,
throat, stomach and other cancers,
mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, pbb's, pcb's, thousands
of carcinogenic industrial waste products, and heavy metal sired
brain damage, pfiesteria (red tide) which poisons the fishes
FISH CAN'T SCREAM, FISH TOXINS, FISH STORIES
Are all anglers stranglers?
Dick Gregory: Eating fish liver oil is like eating the filter out of a car.
[...] Read more
poem by O. Anna Niemus
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Make Me Rich
Purchase purchase buy buy
Purchase purchase buy buy
Purchase purchase buy buy
Purchase purchase buy buy.
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
'Horns and tambourines'
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
'Congas'
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
Make me rich
(Purchase purchase buy buy)
' And to the bridge'
Purchase purchase buy buy
Purchase purchase buy buy
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Settle Down
Album: Eternal (2001)
[Chorus]
Do you think you're ready
To settle down, settle down babe
Do you think you're ready
To settle down with me babe
Do you think you're ready
To settle down, settle down with me babe
Settle down with me, babe
Settle down
Would you like a house on the hill
Overlooking the ocean side
Tell me, would you like that baby
Or how about a high-rise apartment
In Manhattan on the east side
If that's what you need
I'm here to please
Won't you settle down with me, baby
[Chorus]
We could take a jet plane all the way to Spain
Just to buy you a wedding ring
Tell me, would you like that baby
Oh, talk to me girl
We could get married on Christmas day
On the shores of Montego Bay
If that's what you need
I'm here to please
Won't you settle down with me
If you're ready
Only if you're ready
To settle down, settle down babe
Tell me if you're ready, ready yeah
To settle down with me babe
Do you think you're ready
To settle down, settle down with me babe
Settle down, settle down
Settle down
I'm not trying to buy your love
Money ain't in it
You can't put a rpice on love
Tell me if I'm worthy of
Worthy of you're hand
Girl let's start making plans
You're shining like a star above
You're the light of my life
Oh girl, be my wife
Settle down baby
Oh but first
Do you think you're ready
To settle down, settle down babe
[...] Read more
song performed by Isley Brothers
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Jubilate Agno: Fragment B, Part 2
LET PETER rejoice with the MOON FISH who keeps up the life in the waters by night.
Let Andrew rejoice with the Whale, who is array'd in beauteous blue and is a combination of bulk and activity.
Let James rejoice with the Skuttle-Fish, who foils his foe by the effusion of his ink.
Let John rejoice with Nautilus who spreads his sail and plies his oar, and the Lord is his pilot.
Let Philip rejoice with Boca, which is a fish that can speak.
Let Bartholomew rejoice with the Eel, who is pure in proportion to where he is found and how he is used.
Let Thomas rejoice with the Sword-Fish, whose aim is perpetual and strength insuperable.
Let Matthew rejoice with Uranoscopus, whose eyes are lifted up to God.
Let James the less, rejoice with the Haddock, who brought the piece of money for the Lord and Peter.
Let Jude bless with the Bream, who is of melancholy from his depth and serenity.
Let Simon rejoice with the Sprat, who is pure and innumerable.
Let Matthias rejoice with the Flying-Fish, who has a part with the birds, and is sublimity in his conceit.
Let Stephen rejoice with Remora -- The Lord remove all obstacles to his glory.
Let Paul rejoice with the Scale, who is pleasant and faithful!, like God's good ENGLISHMAN.
Let Agrippa, which is Agricola, rejoice with Elops, who is a choice fish.
Let Joseph rejoice with the Turbut, whose capture makes the poor fisher-man sing.
Let Mary rejoice with the Maid -- blessed be the name of the immaculate CONCEPTION.
Let John, the Baptist, rejoice with the Salmon -- blessed be the name of the Lord Jesus for infant Baptism.
Let Mark rejoice with the Mullet, who is John Dore, God be gracious to him and his family.
Let Barnabus rejoice with the Herring -- God be gracious to the Lord's fishery.
Let Cleopas rejoice with the Mackerel, who cometh in a shoal after a leader.
Let Abiud of the Lord's line rejoice with Murex, who is good and of a precious tincture.
Let Eliakim rejoice with the Shad, who is contemned in his abundance.
Let Azor rejoice with the Flounder, who is both of the sea and of the river,
Let Sadoc rejoice with the Bleak, who playeth upon the surface in the Sun.
[...] Read more
poem by Christopher Smart
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Five Visions Of Captain Cook
I
COOK was a captain of the Admiralty
When sea-captains had the evil eye,
Or should have, what with beating krakens off
And casting nativities of ships;
Cook was a captain of the powder-days
When captains, you might have said, if you had been
Fixed by their glittering stare, half-down the side,
Or gaping at them up companionways,
Were more like warlocks than a humble man—
And men were humble then who gazed at them,
Poor horn-eyed sailors, bullied by devils' fists
Of wind or water, or the want of both,
Childlike and trusting, filled with eager trust—
Cook was a captain of the sailing days
When sea-captains were kings like this,
Not cold executives of company-rules
Cracking their boilers for a dividend
Or bidding their engineers go wink
At bells and telegraphs, so plates would hold
Another pound. Those captains drove their ships
By their own blood, no laws of schoolbook steam,
Till yards were sprung, and masts went overboard—
Daemons in periwigs, doling magic out,
Who read fair alphabets in stars
Where humbler men found but a mess of sparks,
Who steered their crews by mysteries
And strange, half-dreadful sortilege with books,
Used medicines that only gods could know
The sense of, but sailors drank
In simple faith. That was the captain
Cook was when he came to the Coral Sea
And chose a passage into the dark.
How many mariners had made that choice
Paused on the brink of mystery! 'Choose now!'
The winds roared, blowing home, blowing home,
Over the Coral Sea. 'Choose now!' the trades
Cried once to Tasman, throwing him for choice
Their teeth or shoulders, and the Dutchman chose
The wind's way, turning north. 'Choose, Bougainville!'
The wind cried once, and Bougainville had heard
The voice of God, calling him prudently
Out of a dead lee shore, and chose the north.
The wind's way. So, too, Cook made choice,
Over the brink, into the devil's mouth,
With four months' food, and sailors wild with dreams
Of English beer, the smoking barns of home.
So Cook made choice, so Cook sailed westabout,
So men write poems in Australia.
II
[...] Read more
poem by Kenneth Slessor
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Talk Soup
I dated siamese twins
I slept with bigfoot, too
Get me on sally jesse
Put me on donahue
cause I wanna tell the world about it
Right now
My dogs a narcoleptic
My moms a circus freak
I gotta get a spot on
Geraldos show this week
cause I wanna tell the world about it
Right now
Im just an anorexic codependant bingo addict
Stripper born without a chin
And Im only comfortable talking about it
When the whole wide world is listening in
Talk soup... talk soup
Listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me
My wife ran off with elvis
My boss shaved off my hair
Ive got a thing for poodles
And rubber underwear
And I wanna tell the world about it
Right now
I had a close encounter
I never chew my food
I got eleven nose jobs
I yodel in the nude
And I wanna tell the world about it
Right now
Im just a cross-dressin alcoholic neo-nazi
Porno star, as you may have guessed
And Im really gonna feel a whole lot better
If you let me get this thing off my chest
Talk soup... talk soup
Listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me
Im just your average schizophrenic nymphomaniac
Albino go-go dancer, you see
Nothin so bad that I cant share it
With a billion friends on national tv, whoa...
I have no genitalia
I sold my kids for cheese
I love my blow up doll, so
Bring out those cameras, please
cause I wanna tell the world about it
Right now
Talk soup... talk soup
Listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me
Talk soup... talk soup
Listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me, (listen to me) listen to me
[...] Read more
song performed by Weird Al Yankovic
Added by Lucian Velea
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V. Count Guido Franceschini
Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of … why, 't is wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate … aie, aie, aie,
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all's over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short, I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I' the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O' the Franceschini's once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Painkiller
Faster than a bullet
Terrifying scream
Enraged and full of anger
He's half man and half machine
Rides the Metal Monster
Breathing smoke and fire
Closing in with vengeance soaring high
He is the Painkiller
This is the Painkiller
Planets devastated
Mankind's on its knees
A saviour comes from out the skies
In answer to their pleas
Through boiling clouds of thunder
Blasting bolts fo steel
Evils going under deadly wheels
He is the Painkiller
This is the Painkiller
Faster than a lazer bullet
Louder than an atom bomb
Chromium plated boiling metal
Brighter than a thousand suns
Flying high on rapture
Stronger free and brave
Nevermore encaptured
They've been brought back from the grave
With mankind ressurrected
Forever to survive
Returns from Armageddon to the skies
He is the Painkiller
This is the Painkiller
Wings of steel Painkiller
Deadly wheels Painkiller
song performed by Judas Priest from Painkiller
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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
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Settle Down My Boy
Settle down, an eat your peas and gravy, my boy
Settle down, settle down my boy settle down
Stop wasting all your time with running around the town
Settle down, settle down my boy settle down
Knuckle down and find a job and take some responsibility
Settle down, settle down my boy settle down
The futures something you should be thinking about
Settle down, settle down my boy settle down
Look around for a wife to start a family, my boy
Settle down, settle down my boy settle down
Listen toy our father and hell tell you the same as me
Settle down, settle down my boy settle down
Your words would go in one ear and out the other side
Dont say my head was empty and I had things to hide
And you better put something away for your old age
So settle down, settle down my boy settle down
Settle down, settle down my boy settle down uh huh huh
song performed by Men At Work
Added by Lucian Velea
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IV. Tertium Quid
True, Excellency—as his Highness says,
Though she's not dead yet, she's as good as stretched
Symmetrical beside the other two;
Though he's not judged yet, he's the same as judged,
So do the facts abound and superabound:
And nothing hinders that we lift the case
Out of the shade into the shine, allow
Qualified persons to pronounce at last,
Nay, edge in an authoritative word
Between this rabble's-brabble of dolts and fools
Who make up reasonless unreasoning Rome.
"Now for the Trial!" they roar: "the Trial to test
"The truth, weigh husband and weigh wife alike
"I' the scales of law, make one scale kick the beam!"
Law's a machine from which, to please the mob,
Truth the divinity must needs descend
And clear things at the play's fifth act—aha!
Hammer into their noddles who was who
And what was what. I tell the simpletons
"Could law be competent to such a feat
"'T were done already: what begins next week
"Is end o' the Trial, last link of a chain
"Whereof the first was forged three years ago
"When law addressed herself to set wrong right,
"And proved so slow in taking the first step
"That ever some new grievance,—tort, retort,
"On one or the other side,—o'ertook i' the game,
"Retarded sentence, till this deed of death
"Is thrown in, as it were, last bale to boat
"Crammed to the edge with cargo—or passengers?
"'Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est!
"'Huc appelle!'—passengers, the word must be."
Long since, the boat was loaded to my eyes.
To hear the rabble and brabble, you'd call the case
Fused and confused past human finding out.
One calls the square round, t' other the round square—
And pardonably in that first surprise
O' the blood that fell and splashed the diagram:
But now we've used our eyes to the violent hue
Can't we look through the crimson and trace lines?
It makes a man despair of history,
Eusebius and the established fact—fig's end!
Oh, give the fools their Trial, rattle away
With the leash of lawyers, two on either side—
One barks, one bites,—Masters Arcangeli
And Spreti,—that's the husband's ultimate hope
Against the Fisc and the other kind of Fisc,
Bound to do barking for the wife: bow—wow!
Why, Excellency, we and his Highness here
Would settle the matter as sufficiently
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Settle Down
Settle down, dont settle down without me, no, no
Settle down, Ill settle down for good, yeah
Settle down, Ill settle down around you, yeah, yeah
Settle down, Ill settle down for sure, yeah
Whatever I can do, I will
cause Im good like that
For seven years, seven days, and seven hours
I took my chances, yeah
Whatever I can do, I will
cause I want
Never lose that feeling
Never lose that feeling
Settle down, Ill settle down around you, yeah, yeah
Settle down, Ill settle down for good, yeah
Settle down, dont settle down without me, no, no
Settle down, Ill settle down for sure, yeah
Never lose that feeling
Never, no, no
Never lose your feelings
Never, thats for sure
Never lose that feeling
Never lose that feeling
Never lose that feeling
Never lose that feeling
Never lose that feeling
Never lose that feeling
Whatever I can do, I will
cause I want to, and what I want I get
Seven years, seven days, and seven hours
I took my chances, yeah
Settle down, dont settle down without me, no, no
Settle down, Ill settle down for good, yeah
Settle down, Ill settle down around you, yeah, yeah
Settle down, Ill settle down for sure, yeah
Never lose that feeling
Never, no, no, no
song performed by Zwan
Added by Lucian Velea
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Canto the Second
I
Oh ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,
It mends their morals, never mind the pain:
The best of mothers and of educations
In Juan's case were but employ'd in vain,
Since, in a way that's rather of the oddest, he
Became divested of his native modesty.
II
Had he but been placed at a public school,
In the third form, or even in the fourth,
His daily task had kept his fancy cool,
At least, had he been nurtured in the north;
Spain may prove an exception to the rule,
But then exceptions always prove its worth -—
A lad of sixteen causing a divorce
Puzzled his tutors very much, of course.
III
I can't say that it puzzles me at all,
If all things be consider'd: first, there was
His lady-mother, mathematical,
A—never mind; his tutor, an old ass;
A pretty woman (that's quite natural,
Or else the thing had hardly come to pass);
A husband rather old, not much in unity
With his young wife—a time, and opportunity.
IV
Well—well, the world must turn upon its axis,
And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails,
And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails;
The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us,
The priest instructs, and so our life exhales,
A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame,
Fighting, devotion, dust,—perhaps a name.
V
I said that Juan had been sent to Cadiz -—
A pretty town, I recollect it well -—
'T is there the mart of the colonial trade is
(Or was, before Peru learn'd to rebel),
And such sweet girls—I mean, such graceful ladies,
Their very walk would make your bosom swell;
I can't describe it, though so much it strike,
Nor liken it—I never saw the like:
[...] Read more
poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
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Listen To The Rain
(Rain)
Listen listen
Listen listen
Listen listen
Listen listen
Listen (listen) listen (listen)
Listen (listen) listen (listen)
Listen (listen) listen (listen)
Listen listen
Listen to each drop of rain (listen listen)
Aaah
Whispering secrets in rain (listen listen)
Aaah
Frantically searching for someone to hear
That story be more than it hides
Please don't let go
Can't we stay for a while?
It's just to hard to say goodbye
Listen to the rain
Aa...ah
Listen listen listen listen listen listen to the rain
Weeping
Oo...ooh oooh ooh oo...ooh
Oo...ooh oooh oh oh
Listen (listen) listen (listen)
Listen (listen) listen
I stand alone in the storm (listen listen)
Suddenly sweet words take hold
(Listen listen)
Hurry they stay for you haven't much time
Open your eyes to the love around you
You can feel youre alone
But I'm here still with you
You can do what you dream
Just remember to listen to the rain
oo...ooh oh oh oh oh
ooh ooh oh oh oooh
Listen
song performed by Evanescence
Added by Lucian Velea
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Goblin Market
MORNING and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits,
Come buy, come buy:
Apples and quinces,
Lemons and oranges,
Plump unpecked cherries-
Melons and raspberries,
Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries,
Pine-apples, blackberries,
Apricots, strawberries--
All ripe together
In summer weather--
Morns that pass by,
Fair eves that fly;
Come buy, come buy;
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye,
Come buy, come buy."
Evening by evening
Among the brookside rushes,
Laura bowed her head to hear,
Lizzie veiled her blushes:
Crouching close together
In the cooling weather,
With clasping arms and cautioning lips,
With tingling cheeks and finger-tips.
"Lie close," Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?"
"Come buy," call the goblins
Hobbling down the glen.
"O! cried Lizzie, Laura, Laura,
You should not peep at goblin men."
[...] Read more
poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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My Chinee Cook
They who say the bush is dull are not so very far astray,
For this eucalyptic cloisterdom is anything but gay;
But its uneventful dulness I contentedly could brook,
If I only could get back my lost, lamented Chinee cook.
We had tried them without number—cooks, to wit—my wife and I;
One a week, then three a fortnight, as my wife can testify;
But at last we got the right one; I may say 'twas by a fluke,
For he dropped in miscellaneous-like, that handy Chinee cook,
He found the kitchen empty, laid his swag down, and commenced;
My wife, surprised, found nothing to say anything against;
But she asked him for how much a year the work he undertook—
“Me workee for me ration,” said that noble Chinee cook.
Then right off from next to nothing such a dinner he prepared,
That the Governor I'm certain less luxuriously fared;
And he waited, too, in spotless white, with such respectful look,
And bowed his head when grace was said, that pious Chinee cook.
He did the work of man and maid—made beds and swept out rooms;
Nor cooled he in his zeal, as is the manner of new brooms:
Oh, he shed celestial brightness on the most sequestered nook,
For his mop and pail were everywhere—my cleanly Chinee cook.
We got fat upon his cooking; we were happy in those days,
For he tickled up our palates in a thousand pleasant ways.
Oh his dinners! Oh his dinners! they were fit for any duke!
Oh delectable Mongolian! Oh celestial Chinee cook!
There was nothing in creation that he didn't put to use,
And the less he got to cook with, all the more he could produce,
All nature was his kitchen range, likewise his cook'ry book—
Neither Soyer nor Meg Dod could teach that knowing Chinee cook.
And day by day upon my wife and me the mystery grew,
How his virtues were so many and his earnings were so few;
And we laid our heads together to find out by hook or crook,
The secret of the cheapness of that priceless Chinee cook.
And still the sense of mystery grew on us day by day,
Till it came to be a trouble, and we wished him well away;
But we could not find a fault in one so far above rebuke—
Ah, we didn't know the value of that valuable cook.
But one day when I was out he brought my wife a lot of things,
Turquoise earrings, opal bracelets, ruby brooches, diamond rings,
And he ran their various prices o'er as glibly as a book,
And dirt cheap, too, were the jewels of that jewel of a cook.
[...] Read more
poem by James Brunton Stephens
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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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Memory Will Endure (Revised)
‘Cent Mille Chansons’ stirs memory, beautiful
voice, melody of such bitter-sweet nostalgia, a
whispering spirit crying in the cupboard: no drag
worm relates stories of new knights and dragons
Just dream sustained characters who take their
bows, spirits bolstered by lyrics of this song, there
always will be a hundred thousand loves – and
castles and stars to remain untouched by us
One hundred thousand horizons of love, we shall
add new another romance as we join a hundred
thousand lovers in the blue sphere of earth; the
world will never need to know –
but memory endures a hundred thousand years
in my sensitive soul
[ORIGINAL: ]
Listening to Cent Mille Chansons stirred a memory:
a beautiful voice, a melody conveying such bitter-
sweet nostalgia - the whispering spirit in the cup-
board crying: there is no dragworm to tell me a
new story of knights and dragons
Just dreams sustain as my characters take their bows,
the spirit bolstered by the lyrics of this song, there
always will be a hundred thousand loves; castles
and stars will remain untouched by us in this
ocean of love, there will always be
A hundred thousand horizons, we shall add another
romance as we join a hundred thousand lovers in
the blue sphere of the earth; the world will never
know - but the memory will endure a hundred
thousand years in my sensitive soul...
1.Lyrics “Cent Mille Chansons” Frida Boccara
Il y aura cent mille chansons
Quand viendra le temps des cent mille saisons
Cent mille amoureux
Pareils à nous deux
Dans le lit tout bleu de la terre
Cent mille chansons rien qu'à nous
Cent mille horizons devant nous
Partagés de bonheur
[...] Read more
poem by Margaret Alice Second
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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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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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