Dead Mind
A coffin 2 sleep
A place 2 think
Underworld Hell A fantasy
Were will I go
Where will I be
Ask the Dead
WHere Can I sleep
poem by Dante King
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
I Learned To Stutter/coffin Car
Recorded live 3 june 1973 at the first international feminist conference, harvard university, cambridge, ma.
While john is setting up the amp...
What happened to me was that I was living as an artist and, who had relative freedom
As a woman and was considered the bitch in the society.
Since I met john, I was upgraded into a witch and I was...and I think that thats very flattering.
Anyway, what I learned from being with john is that the society solely treated me as a woman, as a woman who belonged to a man who is one of the most powerful people in our generation, and some of his closest friends told me that probably I should stay in the background, I should shut up, I should give up my work and that way Ill be happy.
And I got those advises, I was luck, I was over thirty and it was too late for me to change,
But still, still, this is one thing I want to say, sisters, because, with the wish that you know
Youre not alone, i...because the whole society started to attack me and the whole society wished me dead, I started accumulating a tremendous amount of guilt complex and in result of that I started to stutter. and I consider myself a very eloquent woman and also an attractive woman all my life and suddenly, because I was associated to john, that was considered an ugly woman, ugly jap, who took your monument or something away from you.
And thats when I realised how hard it is for woman, if I can start to stutter, being a strong woman and having lived thirty years by then, learn to stutter in three years of being treated as such, it is a very hard road.
Now the next song is called coffin car and this is a song that I observed in myself and also in many sisters who are riding on coffin cars.
Okay
Coffin car, shes riding a coffin car,
She likes to ride a coffin car.
People watching her with tender eyes,
Friends whispering in kindly words,
Children running, waving hands,
Telling each other, how pretty she is.
Coffin car, shes riding a coffin car,
She likes to ride a coffin car.
Friends making ways for the first time,
People throwing kisses for the first time,
Showering flowers, ringing bells,
Telling each other, how nice she is.
Coffin car, she likes to ride a coffin car,
Shes riding a coffin car.
Wives showing tears for the first time,
Husbands taking their hats off for the first time,
Crushing their handkerchiefs, rubbing their nose,
Telling each other, how good she is.
Half the world is dead anyway,
The other half is asleep.
And life is killing her,
Telling her to join the dead.
So evry day, she likes to ride a coffin car,
A flower covered coffin car,
Pretending she was dead.
Coffin car,
A flower covered coffin car,
A flower covered coffin car,
A flower covered coffin car.
song performed by Yoko Ono
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Sister Helen
"Why did you melt your waxen man
Sister Helen?
To-day is the third since you began."
"The time was long, yet the time ran,
Little brother."
(O Mother, Mary Mother,
Three days to-day, between Hell and Heaven!)
"But if you have done your work aright,
Sister Helen,
You'll let me play, for you said I might."
"Be very still in your play to-night,
Little brother."
(O Mother, Mary Mother,
Third night, to-night, between Hell and Heaven!)
"You said it must melt ere vesper-bell,
Sister Helen;
If now it be molten, all is well."
"Even so,--nay, peace! you cannot tell,
Little brother."
(O Mother, Mary Mother,
O what is this, between Hell and Heaven?)
"Oh the waxen knave was plump to-day,
Sister Helen;
How like dead folk he has dropp'd away!"
"Nay now, of the dead what can you say,
Little brother?"
(O Mother, Mary Mother,
What of the dead, between Hell and Heaven?)
"See, see, the sunken pile of wood,
Sister Helen,
Shines through the thinn'd wax red as blood!"
"Nay now, when look'd you yet on blood,
Little brother?"
(O Mother, Mary Mother,
How pale she is, between Hell and Heaven!)
"Now close your eyes, for they're sick and sore,
Sister Helen,
And I'll play without the gallery door."
"Aye, let me rest,--I'll lie on the floor,
Little brother."
(O Mother, Mary Mother,
What rest to-night, between Hell and Heaven?)
"Here high up in the balcony,
Sister Helen,
[...] Read more
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Underworld
To the underworld
To the underworld Im going down
Step into the ground
Into the breath of/from the gutter of the underworld
What will be I dont know
And I dont care if somebodys asking me
But I never will go
Back to the places where I once used to be
I dont care who you were
Cause we never stay the same
Every moments a change in the concrete game
I dont care where youve been
Everybodys astray
Like a homeless bird in the stormy bays
Of the underworld
Of the underworld
Welcome, welcome to the underworld
Now Im on my way cause Im out of bounds
Direction unknown which is always
What you dont understand
Vague vision in front as the past
Is calling from the lost and found
Never ever turn around, dont wait
And youll work it out, work it out
I dont care who you were
Cause we never stay the same
Every moments a change in the concrete game
I dont care where youve been
Everybodys astray
Like a hopeless bird in the stormy bays
Of the underworld
Of the underworld
Welcome, welcome to the underworld
song performed by Alphaville
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Underworld (live)
To the underworld
To the underworld i'm going down
Step into the ground
Into the breath of/from the gutter of the underworld
What will be i don't know
And i don't care if somebody's asking me
But i never will go
Back to the places where i once used to be
I don't care who you were
Cause we never stay the same
Every moment's a change in the concrete game
I don't care where you've been
Everybody's astray
Like a homeless bird in the stormy bays
Of the underworld
Of the underworld
Welcome, welcome to the underworld
Now i'm on my way cause i'm out of bounds
Direction unknown which is always
What you don't understand
Vague vision in front as the past
Is calling from the lost and found
Never ever turn around, don't wait
And you'll work it out, work it out
I don't care who you were
Cause we never stay the same
Every moment's a change in the concrete game
I don't care where you've been
Everybody's astray
Like a hopeless bird in the stormy bays
Of the underworld
Of the underworld
Welcome, welcome to the underworld
song performed by Alphaville
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Paradise Lost: Book 02
High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth or Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence; and, from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with Heaven; and, by success untaught,
His proud imaginations thus displayed:--
"Powers and Dominions, Deities of Heaven!--
For, since no deep within her gulf can hold
Immortal vigour, though oppressed and fallen,
I give not Heaven for lost: from this descent
Celestial Virtues rising will appear
More glorious and more dread than from no fall,
And trust themselves to fear no second fate!--
Me though just right, and the fixed laws of Heaven,
Did first create your leader--next, free choice
With what besides in council or in fight
Hath been achieved of merit--yet this loss,
Thus far at least recovered, hath much more
Established in a safe, unenvied throne,
Yielded with full consent. The happier state
In Heaven, which follows dignity, might draw
Envy from each inferior; but who here
Will envy whom the highest place exposes
Foremost to stand against the Thunderer's aim
Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share
Of endless pain? Where there is, then, no good
For which to strive, no strife can grow up there
From faction: for none sure will claim in Hell
Precedence; none whose portion is so small
Of present pain that with ambitious mind
Will covet more! With this advantage, then,
To union, and firm faith, and firm accord,
More than can be in Heaven, we now return
To claim our just inheritance of old,
Surer to prosper than prosperity
Could have assured us; and by what best way,
Whether of open war or covert guile,
We now debate. Who can advise may speak."
He ceased; and next him Moloch, sceptred king,
Stood up--the strongest and the fiercest Spirit
That fought in Heaven, now fiercer by despair.
His trust was with th' Eternal to be deemed
Equal in strength, and rather than be less
Cared not to be at all; with that care lost
Went all his fear: of God, or Hell, or worse,
He recked not, and these words thereafter spake:--
[...] Read more
poem by John Milton
Added by Poetry Lover
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!
Make It Real
Music :rudolf schenker
Lyrics:herman rarebell
You can always trust your inner feelings
cause they always tell the truth
Where did it get you, then your analyzing
Just do what feels right for you
If you take life as a crazy gamble
Throw your dice take your chance
You will see it from the different angle
And you too can join the dance
Make it real not fantasy
Fantasy
Make it real not fantasy
Fantasy oooh yeah
Did you ever have a secret yearning
Dont you know it could come true
Nows the time to set wheels turning
To open up your life for you
As you know theres always good and evil
Make your choice dont be blind
Open up your mind and dont be trivial
Theres a whole new world to find
Make it real not fantasy
Fantasy
Make it real not fantasy
Fantasy oooh yeah
Did you ever have a secret yearning
Dont you know it could come true
Nows the time to set wheels turning
To open up your life for you
If you take life as a crazy gamble
Throw your dice take your chance
You will see if from a different angle
And you too will join the dance
Make it real not fantasy
Fantasy
Make it real not fantasy
Fantasy
Make it real not fantasy
Fantasy
Make it real not fantasy
Fantasy oooh yeah
song performed by Scorpions
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Paradise Lost: Book 04
O, for that warning voice, which he, who saw
The Apocalypse, heard cry in Heaven aloud,
Then when the Dragon, put to second rout,
Came furious down to be revenged on men,
Woe to the inhabitants on earth! that now,
While time was, our first parents had been warned
The coming of their secret foe, and 'scaped,
Haply so 'scaped his mortal snare: For now
Satan, now first inflamed with rage, came down,
The tempter ere the accuser of mankind,
To wreak on innocent frail Man his loss
Of that first battle, and his flight to Hell:
Yet, not rejoicing in his speed, though bold
Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast,
Begins his dire attempt; which nigh the birth
Now rolling boils in his tumultuous breast,
And like a devilish engine back recoils
Upon himself; horrour and doubt distract
His troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
The Hell within him; for within him Hell
He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell
One step, no more than from himself, can fly
By change of place: Now conscience wakes despair,
That slumbered; wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be
Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.
Sometimes towards Eden, which now in his view
Lay pleasant, his grieved look he fixes sad;
Sometimes towards Heaven, and the full-blazing sun,
Which now sat high in his meridian tower:
Then, much revolving, thus in sighs began.
O thou, that, with surpassing glory crowned,
Lookest from thy sole dominion like the God
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads; to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,
Of Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere;
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down
Warring in Heaven against Heaven's matchless King:
Ah, wherefore! he deserved no such return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.
What could be less than to afford him praise,
The easiest recompence, and pay him thanks,
How due! yet all his good proved ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high
I sdeined subjection, and thought one step higher
[...] Read more
poem by John Milton
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
THE ARGUMENT
RINTRAH roars and shakes his
fires in the burdenM air,
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.
Once meek, and in a perilous path
The just man kept his course along
The Vale of Death.
Roses are planted where thorns grow,
And on the barren heath
Sing the honey bees.
Then the perilous path was planted,
And a river and a spring
On every cliff and tomb;
5
THE MARRIAGE OF
And on the bleached bones
Red clay brought forth:
Till the villain left the paths of ease
To walk in perilous paths, and drive
The just man into barren climes.
Now the sneaking serpent walks
In mild humility ;
And the just man rages in the wilds
Where Uons roam.
Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in
the burdened air,
Hungry clouds swag on the deep.
As a new heaven is begun, and it is
now thirty-three years since its advent,
the Eternal Hell revives. And lo!
Swedenborg is the angel sitting at
the tomb: his writings are the Unen
[...] Read more
poem by William Blake
Added by Poetry Lover
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!
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
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
I'll Do My Best To Deliver
Ask me for what you want.
Just ask me,
Ask me.
And make it anything,
You need...
From me.
Ask me for what you want.
Ask me for what you need,
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.
Ask me for what you want.
Just ask me.
Ask me.
Ask me for anything,
And I will fullfill...
That need.
Ask me for what you want.
Ask me for what you need,
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.
Oh ask me for what you want.
Ask me for what you need,
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.
And I will do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.
And I will do my best to deliver.
Just ask me for what you want.
Just ask me for what you need,
And I will do my best to deliver.
Come thunderstorms, rain or shine...
That pressure you have will be taken right off your mind.
I will do my best to deliver.
Just ask me...
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Surgeon's Warning
The Doctor whispered to the Nurse
And the Surgeon knew what he said,
And he grew pale at the Doctor's tale
And trembled in his sick bed.
Now fetch me my brethren and fetch them with speed
The Surgeon affrighted said,
The Parson and the Undertaker,
Let them hasten or I shall be dead.
The Parson and the Undertaker
They hastily came complying,
And the Surgeon's Prentices ran up stairs
When they heard that their master was dying.
The Prentices all they entered the room
By one, by two, by three,
With a sly grin came Joseph in,
First of the company.
The Surgeon swore as they enter'd his door,
'Twas fearful his oaths to hear,--
Now send these scoundrels to the Devil,
For God's sake my brethren dear.
He foam'd at the mouth with the rage he felt
And he wrinkled his black eye-brow,
That rascal Joe would be at me I know,
But zounds let him spare me now.
Then out they sent the Prentices,
The fit it left him weak,
He look'd at his brothers with ghastly eyes,
And faintly struggled to speak.
All kinds of carcasses I have cut up,
And the judgment now must be--
But brothers I took care of you,
So pray take care of me!
I have made candles of infants fat
The Sextons have been my slaves,
I have bottled babes unborn, and dried
Hearts and livers from rifled graves.
And my Prentices now will surely come
And carve me bone from bone,
And I who have rifled the dead man's grave
Shall never have rest in my own.
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Southey
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Fantasy Remix
Oh yeah...
(Keepin it real son)
Ooh yeah
(That's right)
(Shining star... you're my shining star, girl)
(Yo, New York in the house
Is Brooklyn in the house?
Uptown in the house
Shalom are you in the house?
Boogie Down are you in the house?
Sacramento in the house
Atlanta, Georgia are you in the house?
West Coast are you in the house?
Japan are you in the house?
Everybody are you in the house?
Baby, baby come on, baby come on, baby come on)
Oh when you walk by every night
Talking sweet and looking fine
I get kinda hectic inside
Baby, I'm so into you
Darlin' if you only knew all the things that flow through my mind
But it's just a sweet, sweet
I'm in heaven
(Yeah)
With my boyfriend
(Oh yeah)
My laughing boyfriend
(It's so deep, so deep)
There's no beginning and there is no end
(Sweet, sweet)
Feels like I'm dreaming but I'm not sleeping
(Fantasy)
Sweet fantasy
(So sweet, you're my fantasy)
Sweet fantasy
(Sweet, sweet fantasy)
Images of rapture creep into me slowly
As you're going to my head
And my hearts beats faster when you take me over
Time and time and time again
But it's just a
I'm in heaven
(Hey baby)
With my boyfriend
(Oh yeah)
My laughing boyfriend
(It's so deep, so deep)
There's no beginning and there is no end
(Sweet)
Feels like I'm dreaming but I'm not sleeping
[...] Read more
song performed by Mariah Carey
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Sixth Book
THE English have a scornful insular way
Of calling the French light. The levity
Is in the judgment only, which yet stands;
For say a foolish thing but oft enough,
(And here's the secret of a hundred creeds,–
Men get opinions as boys learn to spell,
By re-iteration chiefly) the same thing
Shall pass at least for absolutely wise,
And not with fools exclusively. And so,
We say the French are light, as if we said
The cat mews, or the milch-cow gives us milk:
Say rather, cats are milked, and milch cows mew,
For what is lightness but inconsequence,
Vague fluctuation 'twixt effect and cause,
Compelled by neither? Is a bullet light,
That dashes from the gun-mouth, while the eye
Winks, and the heart beats one, to flatten itself
To a wafer on the white speck on a wall
A hundred paces off? Even so direct,
So sternly undivertible of aim,
Is this French people.
All idealists
Too absolute and earnest, with them all
The idea of a knife cuts real flesh;
And still, devouring the safe interval
Which Nature placed between the thought and act,
They threaten conflagration to the world
And rush with most unscrupulous logic on
Impossible practice. Set your orators
To blow upon them with loud windy mouths
Through watchword phrases, jest or sentiment,
Which drive our burley brutal English mobs
Like so much chaff, whichever way they blow,–
This light French people will not thus be driven.
They turn indeed; but then they turn upon
Some central pivot of their thought and choice,
And veer out by the force of holding fast.
–That's hard to understand, for Englishmen
Unused to abstract questions, and untrained
To trace the involutions, valve by valve,
In each orbed bulb-root of a general truth,
And mark what subtly fine integument
Divides opposed compartments. Freedom's self
Comes concrete to us, to be understood,
Fixed in a feudal form incarnately
To suit our ways of thought and reverence,
The special form, with us, being still the thing.
With us, I say, though I'm of Italy
My mother's birth and grave, by father's grave
And memory; let it be,–a poet's heart
[...] Read more
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Paradise Lost: Book 10
Mean while the heinous and despiteful act
Of Satan, done in Paradise; and how
He, in the serpent, had perverted Eve,
Her husband she, to taste the fatal fruit,
Was known in Heaven; for what can 'scape the eye
Of God all-seeing, or deceive his heart
Omniscient? who, in all things wise and just,
Hindered not Satan to attempt the mind
Of Man, with strength entire and free will armed,
Complete to have discovered and repulsed
Whatever wiles of foe or seeming friend.
For still they knew, and ought to have still remembered,
The high injunction, not to taste that fruit,
Whoever tempted; which they not obeying,
(Incurred what could they less?) the penalty;
And, manifold in sin, deserved to fall.
Up into Heaven from Paradise in haste
The angelick guards ascended, mute, and sad,
For Man; for of his state by this they knew,
Much wondering how the subtle Fiend had stolen
Entrance unseen. Soon as the unwelcome news
From Earth arrived at Heaven-gate, displeased
All were who heard; dim sadness did not spare
That time celestial visages, yet, mixed
With pity, violated not their bliss.
About the new-arrived, in multitudes
The ethereal people ran, to hear and know
How all befel: They towards the throne supreme,
Accountable, made haste, to make appear,
With righteous plea, their utmost vigilance
And easily approved; when the Most High
Eternal Father, from his secret cloud,
Amidst in thunder uttered thus his voice.
Assembled Angels, and ye Powers returned
From unsuccessful charge; be not dismayed,
Nor troubled at these tidings from the earth,
Which your sincerest care could not prevent;
Foretold so lately what would come to pass,
When first this tempter crossed the gulf from Hell.
I told ye then he should prevail, and speed
On his bad errand; Man should be seduced,
And flattered out of all, believing lies
Against his Maker; no decree of mine
Concurring to necessitate his fall,
Or touch with lightest moment of impulse
His free will, to her own inclining left
In even scale. But fallen he is; and now
What rests, but that the mortal sentence pass
On his transgression,--death denounced that day?
Which he presumes already vain and void,
[...] Read more
poem by John Milton
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Tower Beyond Tragedy
I
You'd never have thought the Queen was Helen's sister- Troy's
burning-flower from Sparta, the beautiful sea-flower
Cut in clear stone, crowned with the fragrant golden mane, she
the ageless, the uncontaminable-
This Clytemnestra was her sister, low-statured, fierce-lipped, not
dark nor blonde, greenish-gray-eyed,
Sinewed with strength, you saw, under the purple folds of the
queen-cloak, but craftier than queenly,
Standing between the gilded wooden porch-pillars, great steps of
stone above the steep street,
Awaiting the King.
Most of his men were quartered on the town;
he, clanking bronze, with fifty
And certain captives, came to the stair. The Queen's men were
a hundred in the street and a hundred
Lining the ramp, eighty on the great flags of the porch; she
raising her white arms the spear-butts
Thundered on the stone, and the shields clashed; eight shining
clarions
Let fly from the wide window over the entrance the wildbirds of
their metal throats, air-cleaving
Over the King come home. He raised his thick burnt-colored
beard and smiled; then Clytemnestra,
Gathering the robe, setting the golden-sandaled feet carefully,
stone by stone, descended
One half the stair. But one of the captives marred the comeliness
of that embrace with a cry
Gull-shrill, blade-sharp, cutting between the purple cloak and
the bronze plates, then Clytemnestra:
Who was it? The King answered: A piece of our goods out of
the snatch of Asia, a daughter of the king,
So treat her kindly and she may come into her wits again. Eh,
you keep state here my queen.
You've not been the poorer for me.- In heart, in the widowed
chamber, dear, she pale replied, though the slaves
Toiled, the spearmen were faithful. What's her name, the slavegirl's?
AGAMEMNON Come up the stair. They tell me my kinsman's
Lodged himself on you.
CLYTEMNESTRA Your cousin Aegisthus? He was out of refuge,
flits between here and Tiryns.
Dear: the girl's name?
AGAMEMNON Cassandra. We've a hundred or so other
captives; besides two hundred
Rotted in the hulls, they tell odd stories about you and your
guest: eh? no matter: the ships
Ooze pitch and the August road smokes dirt, I smell like an
old shepherd's goatskin, you'll have bath-water?
CLYTEMNESTRA
They're making it hot. Come, my lord. My hands will pour it.
[...] Read more
poem by Robinson Jeffers
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Captain Fantasy
Please would you like to be somewhere floating free?
Seems my destiny, captain fantasy
Take a minute to go down beneath the reaches of sound
You could be with me, captain fantasy
And when Im there, Im here
And when youre near, Im there
The only words of your life, captain fantasy
And when Im here, Im there
And when youre near, Im here
The only words of your life, captain fantasy
Please would you like to be somewhere floating free?
Seems my destiny, captain fantasy
So take a minute to go down beneath the reaches of sound.
You could be with me, captain fantasy
And when Im there, Im here
And when youre near, Im there
The only words of your life, captain fantasy
And when Im here, Im there
And when youre near, Im here
The only words of your life, captain fantasy
Wow! yowww! owwww, fantasy -- fantasy
So please would you like to be somewhere floating free?
Seems my destiny, captain fantasy
So take a minute to go down beneath the reaches of sound
You could be with me, captain fantasy
Captain fantasy
song performed by Ween
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Rosalind and Helen: a Modern Eclogue
ROSALIND, HELEN, and her Child.
SCENE. The Shore of the Lake of Como.
HELEN
Come hither, my sweet Rosalind.
'T is long since thou and I have met;
And yet methinks it were unkind
Those moments to forget.
Come, sit by me. I see thee stand
By this lone lake, in this far land,
Thy loose hair in the light wind flying,
Thy sweet voice to each tone of even
United, and thine eyes replying
To the hues of yon fair heaven.
Come, gentle friend! wilt sit by me?
And be as thou wert wont to be
Ere we were disunited?
None doth behold us now; the power
That led us forth at this lone hour
Will be but ill requited
If thou depart in scorn. Oh, come,
And talk of our abandoned home!
Remember, this is Italy,
And we are exiles. Talk with me
Of that our land, whose wilds and floods,
Barren and dark although they be,
Were dearer than these chestnut woods;
Those heathy paths, that inland stream,
And the blue mountains, shapes which seem
Like wrecks of childhood's sunny dream;
Which that we have abandoned now,
Weighs on the heart like that remorse
Which altered friendship leaves. I seek
No more our youthful intercourse.
That cannot be! Rosalind, speak,
Speak to me! Leave me not! When morn did come,
When evening fell upon our common home,
When for one hour we parted,--do not frown;
I would not chide thee, though thy faith is broken;
But turn to me. Oh! by this cherished token
Of woven hair, which thou wilt not disown,
Turn, as 't were but the memory of me,
And not my scornèd self who prayed to thee!
ROSALIND
Is it a dream, or do I see
And hear frail Helen? I would flee
Thy tainting touch; but former years
Arise, and bring forbidden tears;
[...] Read more
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!