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Policy (a cynical political poem)

Honesty
is the best Policy
but its passage
through the legislature
has
been somewhat
obstructed

poem by Pete Dowe
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Passage To India

SINGING my days,
Singing the great achievements of the present,
Singing the strong, light works of engineers,
Our modern wonders, (the antique ponderous Seven outvied,)
In the Old World, the east, the Suez canal,
The New by its mighty railroad spann'd,
The seas inlaid with eloquent, gentle wires,
I sound, to commence, the cry, with thee, O soul,
The Past! the Past! the Past!

The Past! the dark, unfathom'd retrospect! 10
The teeming gulf! the sleepers and the shadows!
The past! the infinite greatness of the past!
For what is the present, after all, but a growth out of the past?
(As a projectile, form'd, impell'd, passing a certain line, still
keeps on,
So the present, utterly form'd, impell'd by the past.)

Passage, O soul, to India!
Eclaircise the myths Asiatic--the primitive fables.

Not you alone, proud truths of the world!
Nor you alone, ye facts of modern science!
But myths and fables of eld--Asia's, Africa's fables! 20
The far-darting beams of the spirit!--the unloos'd dreams!
The deep diving bibles and legends;
The daring plots of the poets--the elder religions;
--O you temples fairer than lilies, pour'd over by the rising sun!
O you fables, spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known,
mounting to heaven!
You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish'd
with gold!
Towers of fables immortal, fashion'd from mortal dreams!
You too I welcome, and fully, the same as the rest;
You too with joy I sing.

Passage to India! 30
Lo, soul! seest thou not God's purpose from the first?
The earth to be spann'd, connected by net-work,
The people to become brothers and sisters,
The races, neighbors, to marry and be given in marriage,
The oceans to be cross'd, the distant brought near,
The lands to be welded together.

(A worship new, I sing;
You captains, voyagers, explorers, yours!
You engineers! you architects, machinists, your!
You, not for trade or transportation only, 40

[...] Read more

poem by Walt Whitman
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Some Prefer To Keep It Frozen

Honesty can be that one gift received,
To be quickly unwrapped to wear.
With a daring that is flaunted.
And exposing it to everyone,
To prove a truth living within...
Exists and is shown everywhere.

Unfortunately...
Not everyone welcomes this gift to receive.
With a keeping it under wraps.
To pack away in one's attic.
Or...
Stored in one's basement.
To leave it frozen in a freezer,
With a thawing no one will ever see at all.

A shocking honesty and truth can awe.
A shocking honesty and truth can awe.
A shocking honesty and truth can awe.
Some prefer to keep frozen,
Never to thaw.

Honesty can be that one gift received,
To be quickly unwrapped to wear.
With a daring that is flaunted.
And exposing it to everyone,
To prove a truth living within...
Exists and is shown everywhere.

But,
Left corrupted...
A shocking honesty can awe.
To be abducted.
Shocking honesty can awe.
With none conducted.
A shocking honesty can awe.
And...
Leaving it to freeze,
Never to thaw.

A shocking honesty and truth can awe.
A shocking honesty and truth can awe.
A shocking honesty and truth can awe.
Some prefer to keep frozen,
Never to thaw.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Benefits of 1995 Fish Trash Policy

policy no policy
policy of indifference
policy of stupidity

now reaps rewards

use “trash fish”
policy as animal feeds
and in fish farming means

bycatch
is increasingly
financially

attractive to fishers
fishers of world oceans
policy bad policy

1995 one study
showed 27 million tonnes
of fish being discarded

every year but
2005 an investigation found
figure had dropped

to recorded
only 7 million tones
good news

no amount
of bycatch
did dropp not

just deleted
from records
off hot books

policy of greed

a Bermuda Triangle mystery?
a mystery of 20 million tonnes
20 million tonnes of missing fish?

20 million tonnes
were being sold
but control without

what hope in fisheries
of achieving sustainability

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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Cheek

When PHARAOH chased the chosen Jew, and perished in the sea,
Things seemed to hint at failure in the PHARAOH policy.
For 'tis written that the Opposition leader had his way;
But we've never been enlightened on what PHARAOH had to say.
But probably before the wave came over him he swore:
'This is the naval policy I've always battled for!'
And continued to enlarge upon his policy's success,
Till a mouthful of the salt Red Sea cut short his brief address.

For there's nothing like a cool, calm cheek;
And there's wisdom in a big bold bluff.
If you find you've made a blunder,
And your policy goes under,
You've a chance if you can bellow loud enough.
That's the time you need a brass-bound cheek;
When your theory to smithereens is blown,
Seize the other fellow's notion
In the subsequent commotion
And declare, by all the gods, it is your own.

When BRUTUS punctured CAESAR in his quaint old Pagan way,
A lot of folk were almost sure that BRUTUS won the day.
'Twas the popular opinion, and was backed by solid facts;
But we are not told what CAESAR thought about these ancient acts.
For it was not 'Et tu BRUTE' that he murmured as he fell,
But 'I'm charmed to see my policy is carried out so well.'
And if we are allowed to make a sporting sort of guess,
He's skiting still in Hades of that policy's success.

For there's nothing like a hard-boiled cheek;
And there's virtue in assurance when its strong;
In claiming a11 the credit,
And declaring that you said it
Would occur just as it happened all along.
No, there's nothing like a steel-shod cheek;
And there's something in a tall, tough skite
Should it be the white you back,
And the winner turn out black,
Buck up, and say you meant a blackish white.

0, ye proud and haughty Britons, quondam rulers of the waves,
Have you ever once reflected why it is ye are not slaves?
Nay, the glorious foundation Britain's freedom stands upon
Is the firm and fearless policy of glorious King JOHN!
For when the Barons waited on him, asking him to sign
The grand old Magna Charta, did he hesitate and whine?
No! Spake that grand old monarch, with a rather bitter smile:-

[...] Read more

poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Ghost - Book IV

Coxcombs, who vainly make pretence
To something of exalted sense
'Bove other men, and, gravely wise,
Affect those pleasures to despise,
Which, merely to the eye confined,
Bring no improvement to the mind,
Rail at all pomp; they would not go
For millions to a puppet-show,
Nor can forgive the mighty crime
Of countenancing pantomime;
No, not at Covent Garden, where,
Without a head for play or player,
Or, could a head be found most fit,
Without one player to second it,
They must, obeying Folly's call,
Thrive by mere show, or not at all
With these grave fops, who, (bless their brains!)
Most cruel to themselves, take pains
For wretchedness, and would be thought
Much wiser than a wise man ought,
For his own happiness, to be;
Who what they hear, and what they see,
And what they smell, and taste, and feel,
Distrust, till Reason sets her seal,
And, by long trains of consequences
Insured, gives sanction to the senses;
Who would not (Heaven forbid it!) waste
One hour in what the world calls Taste,
Nor fondly deign to laugh or cry,
Unless they know some reason why;
With these grave fops, whose system seems
To give up certainty for dreams,
The eye of man is understood
As for no other purpose good
Than as a door, through which, of course,
Their passage crowding, objects force,
A downright usher, to admit
New-comers to the court of Wit:
(Good Gravity! forbear thy spleen;
When I say Wit, I Wisdom mean)
Where (such the practice of the court,
Which legal precedents support)
Not one idea is allow'd
To pass unquestion'd in the crowd,
But ere it can obtain the grace
Of holding in the brain a place,
Before the chief in congregation
Must stand a strict examination.
Not such as those, who physic twirl,
Full fraught with death, from every curl;

[...] Read more

poem by Charles Churchill
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The Aeneid of Virgil: Book 9

WHILE these affairs in distant places pass’d,
The various Iris Juno sends with haste,
To find bold Turnus, who, with anxious thought,
The secret shade of his great grandsire sought.
Retir’d alone she found the daring man, 5
And op’d her rosy lips, and thus began:
“What none of all the gods could grant thy vows,
That, Turnus, this auspicious day bestows.
Æneas, gone to seek th’ Arcadian prince,
Has left the Trojan camp without defense; 10
And, short of succors there, employs his pains
In parts remote to raise the Tuscan swains.
Now snatch an hour that favors thy designs;
Unite thy forces, and attack their lines.”
This said, on equal wings she pois’d her weight, 15
And form’d a radiant rainbow in her flight.
The Daunian hero lifts his hands and eyes,
And thus invokes the goddess as she flies:
“Iris, the grace of heav’n, what pow’r divine
Has sent thee down, thro’ dusky clouds to shine? 20
See, they divide; immortal day appears,
And glitt’ring planets dancing in their spheres!
With joy, these happy omens I obey,
And follow to the war the god that leads the way.”
Thus having said, as by the brook he stood, 25
He scoop’d the water from the crystal flood;
Then with his hands the drops to heav’n he throws,
And loads the pow’rs above with offer’d vows.
Now march the bold confed’rates thro’ the plain,
Well hors’d, well clad; a rich and shining train. 30
Messapus leads the van; and, in the rear,
The sons of Tyrrheus in bright arms appear.
In the main battle, with his flaming crest,
The mighty Turnus tow’rs above the rest.
Silent they move, majestically slow, 35
Like ebbing Nile, or Ganges in his flow.
The Trojans view the dusty cloud from far,
And the dark menace of the distant war.
Caicus from the rampire saw it rise,
Black’ning the fields, and thick’ning thro’ the skies. 40
Then to his fellows thus aloud he calls:
“What rolling clouds, my friends, approach the walls?
Arm! arm! and man the works! prepare your spears
And pointed darts! the Latian host appears.”
Thus warn’d, they shut their gates; with shouts ascend 45
The bulwarks, and, secure, their foes attend:
For their wise gen’ral, with foreseeing care,
Had charg’d them not to tempt the doubtful war,
Nor, tho’ provok’d, in open fields advance,
But close within their lines attend their chance. 50

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poem by Publius Vergilius Maro
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Frontin On Me

Saw you on the corner standing there,
Now I wonder who youre talking to,
Will I ever know, ever know?
And will you ever show?
Youre talking on your cell phone all this time,
I thought I could depend on you.
When you said youd be tonight with me,
That youd do right by me.
Youve been checkin all this time,
Better get yourself in line
Cos hangin with the fellas no it aint no crime,
Girl I just wanna be me.
No breakin, fakin no mistakin,
I just want some honesty from you boy,
Stop frontin on me, youre buggin me.
You better wake up, make up, get ready for a shake up,
I just want some honesty from you boy,
Cos youre frontin on me, stop buggin me.
I really want a love thats bona fide, yes Im looking for a boy thats true,
Will I ever find, ever find,
Someone to blow my mind.
Cos I dont really think you understand,
All that Ive been going though,
Cos every night that youd be stressin me,
Yeah you be frettin me.
Youve been thinkin I get down,
But I never play around,
Just hangin with the fellas when Im chillin downtown,
Girl I just want you to see.
No breakin, fakin no mistakin,
I just want some honesty from you boy,
Stop frontin on me, youre buggin me.
You better wake up, make up, get ready for a shake up,
I just want some honesty from you boy,
Cos youre frontin on me, stop buggin me. [x2]
Youve been checkin all this time,
Better get yourself in line
Cos hangin with the fellas no it aint no crime,
I just want some honesty from you boy,
Stop frontin on me, youre buggin me.
You better wake up, make up, get ready for a shake up,
I just want some honesty from you boy,
Cos youre frontin on me, stop buggin me.
No breakin, fakin no mistakin,
I just want some honesty from you boy,
Stop frontin on me, youre buggin me.
You better wake up, make up, get ready for a shake up,
I just want some honesty from you boy,
Cos youre frontin on me, stop buggin me. [x2]

song performed by Velvet Empire
Added by Lucian Velea
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Wall, Cave, And Pillar Statements, After Asoka

In order to perfect all readers
the statements should he carved
on rock walls, on cave walls,
and on the sides of pillars so
the charm of their instruction can
affect the mountain climbers near
the cliffs, the plainsmen near
the pillars, and the city people near
the caves they go to on vacations.

The statements should, and in a fair
script, spell out the right text and gloss
of the Philosopher’s jocular remark. Text:
“Honesty is the best policy.” Gloss:
“He means not ‘best’ but ‘policy,’
(this is the joke of it) whereas in fact
Honesty is Honesty, Best
is Best, and Policy is Policy,
the three terms being not
related, but here loosely allied.
What is more important is that ‘is’
is, but the rocklike truth of the text
resides in the ‘the’. The ‘the’ is The.
By this means the amusing sage
has raised or caused to be raised
the triple standard in stone:
the single is too simple for life,
the double is mere degrading hypocrisy,
but the third combines the first two
in a possible way, and contributes
something unsayable of its own:
this is the pit, nut, seed, or stone
of the fruit when the fruit has been
digested:
It is good to do good for the wrong
reason, better to do good for the good
reason, and best of all to do good
good: i.e. when the doer and doee
and whatever passes between them
are beyond all words like ‘grace’
or ‘anagogic insight,’ or definitions like
‘particular instance of a hoped-at-law,’
and which the rocks alone can convey.
This is the real reason for the rock walls,
the cave walls and pillars, and not the base
desires for permanence and display
that the teacher’s conceit suggests.”

That is the end of the statements, but,
in order to go on a way after the end

[...] Read more

poem by Alan Dugan
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My American Flag

Flag of the brave
Victory's only passage
With the Azure night
The dash of the fire ablaze
The stripe of pearly snow
Smybol of a victory

America's Victory
Soldiers true and brave
Trudging in the winter snow
Through the dark, hidden passage
The single, small fire ablaze
For I am of the dark night

Yet in my night:
I cry for victory,
I set my enemies ablaze,
For I am of the Brave
Within the hidden passage
The wind, the rain, the snow

Of the Sea, of the snow
Or hiding in the dark, cool night
Within every passage
In glorious victory
The symbol of the strong and brave
My fire within is ablaze

A Torch ablaze
The flash of falling snow
The strong and brave
In the night
Fighting for victory
leaving the passage

Victory has found a passage
The town is ablaze
Today is the victory
In the winter snow
The battle won this night
The shed blood of the brave

With the brave, in the passage
In the night, of the fire
Trudging in the snow, I won the victory

poem by Maria Robbins
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Napoleon

I

Cannon his name,
Cannon his voice, he came.
Who heard of him heard shaken hills,
An earth at quake, to quiet stamped;
Who looked on him beheld the will of wills,
The driver of wild flocks where lions ramped:
Beheld War's liveries flee him, like lumped grass
Nid-nod to ground beneath the cuffing storm;
While laurelled over his Imperial form,
Forth from her bearded tube of lacquey brass,
Reverberant notes and long blew volant Fame.
Incarnate Victory, Power manifest,
Infernal or God-given to mankind,
On the quenched volcano's cusp did he take stand,
A conquering army's height above the land,
Which calls that army offspring of its breast,
And sees it mid the starry camps enshrined;
His eye the cannon's flame,
The cannon's cave his mind.

II

To weld the nation in a name of dread,
And scatter carrion flies off wounds unhealed,
The Necessitated came, as comes from out
Electric ebon lightning's javelin-head,
Threatening agitation in the revealed
Founts of our being; terrible with doubt,
With radiance restorative. At one stride
Athwart the Law he stood for sovereign sway.
That Soliform made featureless beside
His brilliancy who neighboured: vapour they;
Vapour what postured statues barred his tread.
On high in amphitheatre field on field,
Italian, Egyptian, Austrian,
Far heard and of the carnage discord clear,
Bells of his escalading triumphs pealed
In crashes on a choral chant severe,
Heraldic of the authentic Charlemagne,
Globe, sceptre, sword, to enfold, to rule, to smite,
Make unity of the mass,
Coherent or refractory, by his might.

Forth from her bearded tube of lacquey brass,
Fame blew, and tuned the jangles, bent the knees
Rebellious or submissive; his decrees
Were thunder in those heavens and compelled:
Such as disordered earth, eclipsed of stars,

[...] Read more

poem by George Meredith
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Your Honesty

It's Your honesty
With you I have no
choice When you talk to me
I can make love to your voice
It's the things I see
when I look into your eyes
It's your honesty
Pulling me closer to u baby
You know you drive me crazy
You are one of a kind
And i want you to be mine,
oh oh mine Pulling me closer to you
You have a special quality
You're bringing out the best in me
You have a special quality
You are pulling me closer to you
It's Your honesty
With you I have no choice
When u talk to me
I can make love to your voice
It's the things I see
when I look into your eyes
It's your honesty
Pulling me closer to you baby
You know it just gets better
This is the way it should be
You know the truth will set you free,
so free Pulling me closer to you
You have a special quality
You're bringing out the best in me
You have a special quality
You are pulling me closer to you
It's Your honesty
With you I have no choice
When u talk to me
I can make love to your voice
It's the things i see
when i look into your eyes
It's your honesty
Pulling me closer to u baby
Touch my little body
Embrasse moi mon amour
pour ce soir, pour toujours
Keeping touch my little body
dis-moi la vrite
oui je sais toujours.
You have a special quality
You're bringing out the very best in me
You have a special quality
You are pulling me closer to you Honesty

song performed by Madonna
Added by Lucian Velea
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Honesty Begets Honesty

Honesty begets honesty
It is equivocatingly disparaging
Because honesty is an esoteric riddle
And a riddle begets a riddle
When you think it is inequitable
That life begets death
And not the pulp of life,
And death begets life
When you appealed for death
It is because they are one and similar
The equivocal correlation
Is but another juggle of affectation
In supercilious entanglement
So we fumble on the hills
Of the pre-determined sequence
Wretched friends, we are all dazed
About religion and politics,
And stereotypes and chauvinism,
And philosophy and geometry,
In a tête-à-tête with disparity
It is all but the same
From the encrusted veneer
To the profane epicenter,
As with veracity and metaphors
We are reveling gypsies
With pawned feet of stones.
When honesty begets honesty
You will figure for yourself
That life is but a game
And we are all to topple
In the treacle of sincerity
Because honestly,
Nothing begets nothing
Equivalent to an enema for the eczema
The paranoia protracts in an echolalia
Do not hand down your honesty
Because honestly,
You would abscond honesty.

poem by Norman Santos
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Annus Mirabilis, The Year Of Wonders, 1666

1
In thriving arts long time had Holland grown,
Crouching at home and cruel when abroad:
Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own;
Our King they courted, and our merchants awed.

2
Trade, which, like blood, should circularly flow,
Stopp'd in their channels, found its freedom lost:
Thither the wealth of all the world did go,
And seem'd but shipwreck'd on so base a coast.

3
For them alone the heavens had kindly heat;
In eastern quarries ripening precious dew:
For them the Idumaean balm did sweat,
And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew.

4
The sun but seem'd the labourer of the year;
Each waxing moon supplied her watery store,
To swell those tides, which from the line did bear
Their brimful vessels to the Belgian shore.

5
Thus mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long,
And swept the riches of the world from far;
Yet stoop'd to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong:
And this may prove our second Punic war.

6
What peace can be, where both to one pretend?
(But they more diligent, and we more strong)
Or if a peace, it soon must have an end;
For they would grow too powerful, were it long.

7
Behold two nations, then, engaged so far
That each seven years the fit must shake each land:
Where France will side to weaken us by war,
Who only can his vast designs withstand.

8
See how he feeds the Iberian with delays,
To render us his timely friendship vain:
And while his secret soul on Flanders preys,
He rocks the cradle of the babe of Spain.

9
Such deep designs of empire does he lay

[...] Read more

poem by John Dryden
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The Aeneid of Virgil: Book 2

ALL were attentive to the godlike man,
When from his lofty couch he thus began:
“Great queen, what you command me to relate
Renews the sad remembrance of our fate:
An empire from its old foundations rent, 5
And ev’ry woe the Trojans underwent;
A peopled city made a desart place;
All that I saw, and part of which I was:
Not ev’n the hardest of our foes could hear,
Nor stern Ulysses tell without a tear. 10
And now the latter watch of wasting night,
And setting stars, to kindly rest invite;
But, since you take such int’rest in our woe,
And Troy’s disastrous end desire to know,
I will restrain my tears, and briefly tell 15
What in our last and fatal night befell.
“By destiny compell’d, and in despair,
The Greeks grew weary of the tedious war,
And by Minerva’s aid a fabric rear’d,
Which like a steed of monstrous height appear’d: 20
The sides were plank’d with pine; they feign’d it made
For their return, and this the vow they paid.
Thus they pretend, but in the hollow side
Selected numbers of their soldiers hide:
With inward arms the dire machine they load, 25
And iron bowels stuff the dark abode.
In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an isle
(While Fortune did on Priam’s empire smile)
Renown’d for wealth; but, since, a faithless bay,
Where ships expos’d to wind and weather lay. 30
There was their fleet conceal’d. We thought, for Greece
Their sails were hoisted, and our fears release.
The Trojans, coop’d within their walls so long,
Unbar their gates, and issue in a throng,
Like swarming bees, and with delight survey 35
The camp deserted, where the Grecians lay:
The quarters of the sev’ral chiefs they show’d;
Here Phœnix, here Achilles, made abode;
Here join’d the battles; there the navy rode.
Part on the pile their wond’ring eyes employ: 40
The pile by Pallas rais’d to ruin Troy.
Thymoetes first (’t is doubtful whether hir’d,
Or so the Trojan destiny requir’d)
Mov’d that the ramparts might be broken down,
To lodge the monster fabric in the town. 45
But Capys, and the rest of sounder mind,
The fatal present to the flames designed,
Or to the wat’ry deep; at least to bore
The hollow sides, and hidden frauds explore.
The giddy vulgar, as their fancies guide, 50

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poem by Publius Vergilius Maro
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The passage wayto happiness

The passage way to happiness,
Isn't the trail to follow,
It doesn't take you anywhere,
But leads you to sorrow.

Theres no trail of happiness,
Only the people that surrounds you,
The only people that will make you smile,
Are the people you know and follow.

The passage way to happiness,
Isn't something to look for,
Something like that doesn't seem so real,
But only in the shows we love to watch.

Don't blieve in what people tell you,
That theres a trail that leads you to happiness,
They just wanna see you smile....

The passage way to happiness,
In nothing near reality,
But the people around you say its true,
And they say its somewhere around the world.

Dont go around this world,
Just to find that lonely trail of happiness,
Cause you will never find it,
I dont mean to mean so mean,
BUt I'm just tell you the truth,
But theres no way to find a trail of happiness,
If its not even true.

The passage way to happiness,
Is only in your imagination,
You think its so real,
Just beacause people say its true.

Who would you truly believe,
Yourself or the people that surrounds you,
When it comes to that,
I would rely on myself,
Not on the company of others.

The passage way to happiness,
Is a figment of my imagination,
But the reality of my friends are real,
Since they make me laugh and smile,
When they see me sad.

My peers really know me,

[...] Read more

poem by Gothic Fairy Princess
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In all honesty

In all honesty
today has been
something out of the ordinary.

In all honesty
I could do with some christmas carols
and a mug of hot chocolate.

In all honesty
walking on the road without a sidewalk
is more exhilerating than anything else.

In all honesty
watching fog settle over the road
can bring tears to anyones eyes.

In all honesty
you're the only person
I'm mostly honest to.

In all honesty
this poem
is entirely honest.

poem by Erica Francis
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A precious acquisition

Honesty,
A virtue so precious.
With it,
Lives are saved.
Without it,
Are lives destroyed.
Honesty,
A precious possession.

The humble,
Like a guest embrace.
The greedy,
Like an enemy they shun,
And with mud,
On its face they smear.
But the fools,
Like a stranger they fear.
Honesty,
A precious possession.

Its lovers,
To hens are metaphored,
But their ridiculers,
Are the hens themselves,
For God,
Honesty initiates and loves.
So anyone,
Who honesty champions,
Will for eternity,
God's friend remain.
Honesty,
A priceless commodity.

poem by Michael Wamalwa
Added by Poetry Lover
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The trite saying that honesty is the best policy has met with the just criticism that honesty is not policy. The real honest man is honest from conviction of what is right, not from policy.

quote by Robert E. Lee
Added by Lucian Velea
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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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Prelude

What a twitter! what a tumult! what a whirr of wheeling wings!
Birds of Passage hear the message which the Equinoctial brings.

Birds of Passage hear the message and beneath the flying clouds,
Mid the falling leaves of autumn, congregate in clamorous crowds.

Shall they venture on the voyage? are the nestlings fledged for flight;
Fit to face the fluctuant storm-winds and the elemental night?

What a twitter! what a tumult! to the wild wind's marching song
Multitudinous Birds of Passage round the cliffs of England throng.

And o'er tempest-trodden Ocean, cloud-entangled day and night,
Birds on birds, in corporate motion, wing a commonwealth in flight.

Waves, like hollow graves beneath them, hoarsely howling, yawn for prey;
And the welkin glooms above them shifting formless, grey in grey.

And across the Bay of Biscay on undaunted wing they flee,
Where mild seas move musically murmuring of the Odyssey;

Where the gurgling whirlpools glitter and by soft Circean Straits,
Fell Charybdis lies in ambush, and the ravenous Scylla waits;

Where a large Homeric laughter lingers in the echoing caves,
And in playful exultation Dolphins leap from dimpling waves;

Where, above the fair Sicilian, flock-browsed, flower-pranked meadows, looms
Ætna--hoariest of Volcanoes--ominously veiled in fumes;

Where the seas roll blue and bluer, high and higher arch the skies,
And as measureless as ocean new horizons meet the eyes;

Where at night the ancient heavens bend above the ancient earth,
With the young-eyed Stars enkindled fresh as at their hour of birth;

Where old Egypt's desert, stretching leagues on leagues of level land,
Gleams with threads of channelled waters, green with palms on either hand;

Where the Fellah strides majestic through the glimmering dourah plain,
And in rosy flames flamingoes rise from rustling sugar-cane;--

On and on, along old Nilus, seeking still an ampler light,
O'er its monumental mountains, Birds of Passage take their flight.

Where the sacred Isle of Philæ, twinned within the sacred stream,
Floats, like some rapt Opium-eater's labyrinthine lotos dream,

Birds on birds take up their quarters in each creviced capital,
In each crack of frieze and cornice, in each cleft of roof and wall.

[...] Read more

poem by Mathilde Blind
Added by Poetry Lover
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