Flu
If I could but linger all day in bed
drinking tea and medicinal whiskey
no more than is good take sudafed
and capture great sneezes in clean, white linen handkies
gorge my cold like a robin her brood
on broth stewn with bits of chicken
or curd with honey drizzle, that preferred
on shivery, brief trips to the kitchen
scratch in the tablet of the frosted pane
as my fingertip goes numb
some couplet of Ovids' or Verlaines'
that straightway dissolves and down the window runs
then climb to the parapet of my pillow again
browse travelogues and dream
of the beaches of Carossal or plage de Saline
I should be the happiest of men.
But I can't so I rise like Lazarus
reluctant to be summoned from the dead
thick with the afflictions of my flux
and irked to have to go to work instead;
spread bed sheets out all wet with sweat
command myself to the shower
(how warm it seems for how cold it was)
and reach for the door with a lour.
But neither is the flu a malingerer
for dressed and waiting at the door
as I leave, with its flies eyes and its mentholator
it coughs-and we descend the stairs together.
poem by Robert Dickerson
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[...] Read more
poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
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[...] Read more
poem by Rwetewrt Erwtwer
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Robin Hood And Guy Of Gisborne
When shawes been sheene, and shradds full fayre,
And leeves both large and longe,
Itt is merry, walking in the fayre forrest,
To heare the small birds songe.
The woodweele sang, and wold not cease,
Amongst the leaves a lyne:
And it is by two wight yeomen,
By deare God, that I meane.
'Me thought they did mee beate and binde,
And tooke my bow mee froe;
If I bee Robin a-live in this lande,
I'le be wrocken on both them towe.'
Sweavens are swift, master,' quoth John,
'As the wind that blowes ore a hill;
For if itt be never soe lowde this night,
To-morrow it may be still.'
'Buske yee, bowne yee, my merry men all,
For John shall goe with mee:
For I'le goe seek yond wight yeomen
In greenwood where the bee.'
^ TOP
The cast on their gowne of greene,
A shooting gone are they,
Untill they came to the merry greenwood,
Where they had gladdest bee;
There were the ware of a wight yeoman,
His body leaned to a tree.
A sword and a dagger he wore by his side,
Had beene many a man bane,
And he was cladd in his capull-hyde,
Topp, and tayle, and mayne.
'Stand you still, master,' quoth Litle John,
'Under this trusty tree,
And I will goe to yong wight yeomen,
To know his meaning trulye.'
'A, John, by me thou setts noe store,
And that's a farley thinge;
How offt send I my men beffore,
And tarry my-selfe behinde?
It is noe cunning a knave to ken,
[...] Read more
poem by Anonymous Olde English
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Thurso’s Landing
I
The coast-road was being straightened and repaired again,
A group of men labored at the steep curve
Where it falls from the north to Mill Creek. They scattered and hid
Behind cut banks, except one blond young man
Who stooped over the rock and strolled away smiling
As if he shared a secret joke with the dynamite;
It waited until he had passed back of a boulder,
Then split its rock cage; a yellowish torrent
Of fragments rose up the air and the echoes bumped
From mountain to mountain. The men returned slowly
And took up their dropped tools, while a banner of dust
Waved over the gorge on the northwest wind, very high
Above the heads of the forest.
Some distance west of the road,
On the promontory above the triangle
Of glittering ocean that fills the gorge-mouth,
A woman and a lame man from the farm below
Had been watching, and turned to go down the hill. The young
woman looked back,
Widening her violet eyes under the shade of her hand. 'I think
they'll blast again in a minute.'
And the man: 'I wish they'd let the poor old road be. I don't
like improvements.' 'Why not?' 'They bring in the world;
We're well without it.' His lameness gave him some look of age
but he was young too; tall and thin-faced,
With a high wavering nose. 'Isn't he amusing,' she said, 'that
boy Rick Armstrong, the dynamite man,
How slowly he walks away after he lights the fuse. He loves to
show off. Reave likes him, too,'
She added; and they clambered down the path in the rock-face,
little dark specks
Between the great headland rock and the bright blue sea.
II
The road-workers had made their camp
North of this headland, where the sea-cliff was broken down and
sloped to a cove. The violet-eyed woman's husband,
Reave Thurso, rode down the slope to the camp in the gorgeous
autumn sundown, his hired man Johnny Luna
Riding behind him. The road-men had just quit work and four
or five were bathing in the purple surf-edge,
The others talked by the tents; blue smoke fragrant with food
and oak-wood drifted from the cabin stove-pipe
And slowly went fainting up the vast hill.
Thurso drew rein by
a group of men at a tent door
And frowned at them without speaking, square-shouldered and
heavy-jawed, too heavy with strength for so young a man,
He chose one of the men with his eyes. 'You're Danny Woodruff,
[...] Read more
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Give Your Heart To The Hawks
1 he apples hung until a wind at the equinox,
That heaped the beach with black weed, filled the dry grass
Under the old trees with rosy fruit.
In the morning Fayne Fraser gathered the sound ones into a
basket,
The bruised ones into a pan. One place they lay so thickly
She knelt to reach them.
Her husband's brother passing
Along the broken fence of the stubble-field,
His quick brown eyes took in one moving glance
A little gopher-snake at his feet flowing through the stubble
To gain the fence, and Fayne crouched after apples
With her mop of red hair like a glowing coal
Against the shadow in the garden. The small shapely reptile
Flowed into a thicket of dead thistle-stalks
Around a fence-post, but its tail was not hidden.
The young man drew it all out, and as the coil
Whipped over his wrist, smiled at it; he stepped carefully
Across the sag of the wire. When Fayne looked up
His hand was hidden; she looked over her shoulder
And twitched her sunburnt lips from small white teeth
To answer the spark of malice in his eyes, but turned
To the apples, intent again. Michael looked down
At her white neck, rarely touched by the sun,
But now the cinnabar-colored hair fell off from it;
And her shoulders in the light-blue shirt, and long legs like a boy's
Bare-ankled in blue-jean trousers, the country wear;
He stooped quietly and slipped the small cool snake
Up the blue-denim leg. Fayne screamed and writhed,
Clutching her thigh. 'Michael, you beast.' She stood up
And stroked her leg, with little sharp cries, the slender invader
Fell down her ankle.
Fayne snatched for it and missed;
Michael stood by rejoicing, his rather small
Finely cut features in a dance of delight;
Fayne with one sweep flung at his face
All the bruised and half-spoiled apples in the pan,
[...] Read more
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Saigon
You got everything that a girl should grow
Im so afraid to kiss you I might lose control
You can hold me tighter but turn loose of my gun
Its a sentimental present all the way from saigon
Honey, honey, honey, please call me
You dont need no money we can do it for free
I got a friend in phoenix with a two-way radio
All the static in my attic getting ready to blow
Saigon, honey, honey, honey
Saigon, honey, honey, honey
Saigon, honey, honey, honey
All the static in my attic getting ready to blow
I was talking to the mailman late last week
He had a letter in his sweater from stuttering don
He said things are getting better in sa, sa, sa, sa, sa
Saigon, honey, honey, honey
Saigon, honey, honey, honey
Saigon, honey, honey, honey
Things are getting better back in saigon
Saigon, honey, honey, honey
Saigon, honey, honey, honey
Things are getting better back in saigon
Saigon, honey, honey, honey
Saigon, honey, honey, honey
Saigon, honey, honey, honey
Things are getting better back in saigon
Saigon, honey, honey, honey
Saigon, honey, honey, honey
Saigon, honey, honey, honey
Things are getting better back in saigon
song performed by John Prine
Added by Lucian Velea
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Robin Hood And The Butcher
Come, all you brave gallants, and listen awhile,
With hey down, down, an a down,
That are in the bowers within;
For of Robin Hood, that archer good,
A song I intend for to sing.
Upon a time it chanced so,
Bold Robin in forrest did 'spy
A jolly butcher, with a bonny fine mare,
With his flesh to the market did hye.
'Good morrow, good fellow,' said jolly Robin,
'What food hast [thou]? tell unto me;
Thy trade to me tell, and where thou dost dwell,
For I like well thy company.'
The butcher he answer'd jolly Robin,
'No matter where I dwell;
For a butcher I am, and to Nottingham
I am going, my flesh to sell.'
'What's [the] price of thy flesh?' said jolly Robin,
'Come, tell it soon unto me;
And the price of thy mare, be she never so dear,
For a butcher fain would I be.'
'The price of my flesh,' the butcher repli'd,
'I soon will tell unto thee;
With my bonny mare, and they are not too dear,
Four mark thou must give unto me.'
'Four mark I will give thee,' saith jolly Robin,
'Four mark it shall be thy fee;
The mony come count, and let me mount,
For a butcher I fain would be.'
Now Robin he is to Nottingham gone,
His butchers trade to begin;
With good intent to the sheriff he went,
And there he took up his inn.
When other butchers did open their meat,
Bold Robin he then begun;
But how for to sell he knew not well,
For a butcher he was but young.
When other butchers no meat could sell,
Robin got both gold and fee;
For he sold more meat for one peny
Then others could do for three.
[...] Read more
poem by Andrew Lang
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Robin Hood's Flight
Robin Hood's mother, these twelve years now,
Has been gone from her earthly home;
And Robin has paid, he scarce knew how,
A sum for a noble tomb.
The church-yard lies on a woody hill,
But open to sun and air:
It seems as if the heaven still
Were looking and smiling there.
Often when Robin looked that way,
He looked through a sweet thin tear;
But he looked in a different manner, they say,
Towards the Abbey of Vere.
He cared not for its ill-got wealth,
He felt not for his pride;
He had youth, and strength, and health,
And enough for one beside.
But he thought of his gentle mother's cheek
How it sunk away,
And how she used to grow more weak
And weary every day;
And how, when trying a hymn, her voice
At evening would expire,
How unlike it was the arrogant noise
Of the hard throats in the quire:
And Robin thought too of the poor,
How they toiled without their share,
And how the alms at the abbey-door
But kept them as they were:
And he thought him then of the friars again,
Who rode jingling up and down
With their trappings and things as fine as the king's,
Though they wore but a shaven crown.
And then bold Robin he thought of the king,
How he got all his forests and deer,
And how he made the hungry swing
If they killed but one in a year.
And thinking thus, as Robin stood,
Digging his bow in the ground,
He was aware in Gamelyn Wood,
Of one who looked around.
[...] Read more
poem by James Henry Leigh Hunt
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Tamar
I
A night the half-moon was like a dancing-girl,
No, like a drunkard's last half-dollar
Shoved on the polished bar of the eastern hill-range,
Young Cauldwell rode his pony along the sea-cliff;
When she stopped, spurred; when she trembled, drove
The teeth of the little jagged wheels so deep
They tasted blood; the mare with four slim hooves
On a foot of ground pivoted like a top,
Jumped from the crumble of sod, went down, caught, slipped;
Then, the quick frenzy finished, stiffening herself
Slid with her drunken rider down the ledges,
Shot from sheer rock and broke
Her life out on the rounded tidal boulders.
The night you know accepted with no show of emotion the little
accident; grave Orion
Moved northwest from the naked shore, the moon moved to
meridian, the slow pulse of the ocean
Beat, the slow tide came in across the slippery stones; it drowned
the dead mare's muzzle and sluggishly
Felt for the rider; Cauldwell’s sleepy soul came back from the
blind course curious to know
What sea-cold fingers tapped the walls of its deserted ruin.
Pain, pain and faintness, crushing
Weights, and a vain desire to vomit, and soon again
die icy fingers, they had crept over the loose hand and lay in the
hair now. He rolled sidewise
Against mountains of weight and for another half-hour lay still.
With a gush of liquid noises
The wave covered him head and all, his body
Crawled without consciousness and like a creature with no bones,
a seaworm, lifted its face
Above the sea-wrack of a stone; then a white twilight grew about
the moon, and above
The ancient water, the everlasting repetition of the dawn. You
shipwrecked horseman
So many and still so many and now for you the last. But when it
grew daylight
He grew quite conscious; broken ends of bone ground on each
other among the working fibers
While by half-inches he was drawing himself out of the seawrack
up to sandy granite,
Out of the tide's path. Where the thin ledge tailed into flat cliff
he fell asleep. . . .
Far seaward
The daylight moon hung like a slip of cloud against the horizon.
The tide was ebbing
From the dead horse and the black belt of sea-growth. Cauldwell
seemed to have felt her crying beside him,
[...] Read more
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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The Witch's frolic
[Scene, the 'Snuggery' at Tappington.-- Grandpapa in a high-backed cane-bottomed elbow-chair of carved walnut-tree, dozing; his nose at an angle of forty-five degrees,--his thumbs slowly perform the rotatory motion described by lexicographers as 'twiddling.'--The 'Hope of the family' astride on a walking-stick, with burnt-cork mustachios, and a pheasant's tail pinned in his cap, solaceth himself with martial music.-- Roused by a strain of surpassing dissonance, Grandpapa Loquitur. ]
Come hither, come hither, my little boy Ned!
Come hither unto my knee--
I cannot away with that horrible din,
That sixpenny drum, and that trumpet of tin.
Oh, better to wander frank and free
Through the Fair of good Saint Bartlemy,
Than list to such awful minstrelsie.
Now lay, little Ned, those nuisances by,
And I'll rede ye a lay of Grammarye.
[Grandpapa riseth, yawneth like the crater of an extinct volcano, proceedeth slowly to the window, and apostrophizeth the Abbey in the distance.]
I love thy tower, Grey Ruin,
I joy thy form to see,
Though reft of all,
Cell, cloister, and hall,
Nothing is left save a tottering wall,
That, awfully grand and darkly dull,
Threaten'd to fall and demolish my skull,
As, ages ago, I wander'd along
Careless thy grass-grown courts among,
In sky-blue jacket and trowsers laced,
The latter uncommonly short in the waist.
Thou art dearer to me, thou Ruin grey,
Than the Squire's verandah over the way;
And fairer, I ween,
The ivy sheen
That thy mouldering turret binds,
Than the Alderman's house about half a mile off,
With the green Venetian blinds.
Full many a tale would my Grandam tell,
In many a bygone day,
Of darksome deeds, which of old befell
In thee, thou Ruin grey!
And I the readiest ear would lend,
And stare like frighten'd pig;
While my Grandfather's hair would have stood up an end,
Had he not worn a wig.
One tale I remember of mickle dread--
Now lithe and listen, my little boy Ned!
Thou mayest have read, my little boy Ned,
Though thy mother thine idlesse blames,
In Doctor Goldsmith's history book,
Of a gentleman called King James,
In quilted doublet, and great trunk breeches,
[...] Read more
poem by Richard Harris Barham
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The Ballad Of Ira Hayes
Gather round you people and a story I will tell
About a brave young indian you should remember well
From the tribe of pima indians, a proud and a peaceful band
They farmed the phoenix valley in arizona land
Down their ditches for a thousand years the sparkling water rushed
Till their white man stole their water rights and the running water hushed
Now iras folks were hungry and their farms wene crops of weeds
But when war came he volunteers and forgot, the white mans greed
Call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war
Yes, call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war.
They started up iwo jima hill, 250 men
But only 27 lived to walk back down that hill again
And when the fight was over and the old glory raised
One of the men who held it high was the indian ira hayes
Call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war
Call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war.
Now ira returned a hero, celebrated throughout the land
He was wined and speeched and honored, everybody shook his hand
But he was just a pima indian, no money crops, no chance
And at home nobody cared what ira had done and the wind did the indians
Dance
Call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war
Call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war.
And ira started drinking hard, jail was often his home
They let him raise the flag there and lower it like youd throw a dog a bone
He died drunk early one morning, alone in the land he had fought to save
Two inches of water in a lonely ditch was the grave for ira hayes
Call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war
Yes, call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war.
Yes, call him, drunken ira hayes, but his land is still as dry
And his ghost is lying thirsty in the ditch where ira died
Call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war
Yes, call him, drunken ira hayes, he wont answer anymore
Not the whiskey-drinking indian or the marine who went to war.
song performed by Bob Dylan
Added by Lucian Velea
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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
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Robin Hood and the Prince of Aragon
NOW Robin Hood, Will Scadlock and Little John
Are walking over the plain,
With a good fat buck which Will Scadlock
With his strong bow had slain.
`Jog on, jog on,' cries Robin Hood,
`The day it runs full fast;
For though my nephew me a breakfast gave,
I have not yet broke my fast.
`Then to yonder lodge let us take our way,
I think it wondrous good,
Where my nephew by my bold yeomen
Shall be welcomd unto the green wood.'
With that he took the bugle-horn,
Full well he could it blow;
Streight from the woods came marching down
One hundred tall fellows and mo.
`Stand, stand to your arms!' crys Will Scadlock,
`Lo! the enemies are within ken:'
With that Robin Hood he laughd aloud,
Crys, They are my bold yeomen.
Who, when they arriv'd and Robin espy'd,
Cry'd, Master, what is your will?
We thought you had in danger been,
Your horn did sound so shrill.
`Now nay, now nay,' quoth Robin Hood,
`The danger is past and gone;
I would have you to welcome my nephew here,
That hath paid me two for one.'
In feasting and sporting they passed the day,
Till Phoebus sunk into the deep;
Then each one to his quarters hy'd,
His guard there for to keep.
Long had they not walked within the green wood,
But Robin he was espy'd
Of a beautiful damsel all alone,
That on a black palfrey did ride.
Her riding-suit was of sable hew black,
Sypress over her face,
Through which her rose-like cheeks did blush,
All with a comely grace.
[...] Read more
poem by Anonymous Olde English
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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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Robin Hood, A Child.
It was the pleasant season yet,
When the stones at cottage doors
Dry quickly, while the roads are wet,
After the silver showers.
The green leaves they looked greener still,
And the thrush, renewing his tune,
Shook a loud note from his gladsome bill
Into the bright blue noon.
Robin Hood's mother looked out, and said
"It were a shame and a sin
For fear of getting a wet head
To keep such a day within,
Nor welcome up from his sick bed
Your uncle Gamelyn."
And Robin leaped, and thought so too;
And so he has grasped her gown,
And now looking back, they have lost the view
Of merry sweet Locksley town.
Robin was a gentle boy,
And therewithal as bold;
To say he was his mother's joy,
It were a phrase too cold.
His hair upon his thoughtful brow
Came smoothly clipped, and sleek,
But ran into a curl somehow
Beside his merrier cheek.
Great love to him his uncle too
The noble Gamelyn bare,
And often said, as his mother knew,
That he should be his heir.
Gamelyn's eyes, now getting dim,
Would twinkle at his sight,
And his ruddy wrinkles laugh at him
Between his locks so white:
For Robin already let him see
He should beat his playmates all
At wrestling, running, and archery,
Yet he cared not for a fall.
Merriest he was of merry boys,
And would set the old helmets bobbing;
If his uncle asked about the noise,
[...] Read more
poem by James Henry Leigh Hunt
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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
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Pale Blue Eyes
Sometimes I feel so happy
Sometimes I feel so sad
Sometimes I feel so happy
But mostly you just make me mad
Baby, you just make me mad
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Thought of you as my mountain top
Thought of you as my peak
A thought of you as everything
Ive had, but couldnt keep
Ive had, but couldnt keep
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Skip a life completely
Stuff it in a cup
They said, money is like us in time
It lies, but cant stand up
Down for you is up
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
It was good what we did yesterday
And Id do it once again
The fact that you are married
Only proves youre my best friend
But its truly, truly a sin
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
If I could make the world as pure
And strange as what I see
Id put you in a mirror
Id put in front of me
Id put in front of me
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
song performed by Lou Reed
Added by Lucian Velea
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Honey Bee
Honey
Honey bee
Honey bee
Honey bee
Honey
Honey
Youre my honey bee [youre my honey bee, baby]
Come on and sting me [your love is sweet as can be]
Youre my honey bee [youre my honey bee, baby]
Come on and sting me [your love is sweet as can be]
Youre always so busy
Workin on loves honeycomb
Chalk full of sugar down your sweet mouth
Every time you kiss me, boy, really turns me on
Youre always buzzin, buzzin, buzzin
Love is in the air
Theres nothin like your lovin
Boy, its beyond compare, yeah
Youre my honey bee [youre my honey bee, baby]
Come on and sting me [your love is sweet as can be]
Youre my honey bee, yeah [youre my honey bee, baby]
Come on and sting me [your love is sweet as can be]
Theres so much love power
In everything you bring to me
Whenever Im snuggled in your arms
The love you bring makes my heart sing
You know love is where you are
Theres where I want to be
When its cold outside
Youre honey loves so good to me
Youre my honey bee, oh, yeah [youre my honey bee, baby]
Come on and sting me, oh [your love is sweet as can be]
Youre my honey bee [youre my honey bee, baby]
Come on and sting me, ah [your love is sweet as can be], ow
Ah
Youre my honey bee [youre my honey bee, baby]
Come on and sting me, yeah [your love is sweet as can be]
Youre my honey bee [youre my honey bee, baby]
Sweet love, oh [your love is sweet as can be]
Honey, honey, honey [youre my honey bee, baby]
Honey bee [your love is sweet as can be]
Sweet love [youre my honey bee, baby]
Sweet love, give it to me [your love is sweet as can be]
Got to have it, need your love, ah, yeah [youre my honey bee, baby]
Sweet honey bee, yeah [your love is sweet as can be]
Sweet [youre my honey bee, baby] love, ah
[your love is sweet as can be]
Youre my honey bee
song performed by Gloria Gaynor
Added by Lucian Velea
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VII. Pompilia
I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.
All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.
Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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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