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Somebody Touched Me

(first release, live version portsmouth, england, september 24, 2000traditional, arranged by bob dylan)
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen!
Would you please welcome columbia recording artist bob dylan.
Glory, glory, glory, somebody touched me,
Glory, glory, glory, somebody touched me,
Glory, glory, glory, somebody touched me,
Must have been the hand of the lord.
While I was praying, somebody touched me,
While I was praying, somebody touched me,
While I was praying, somebody touched me,
Must have been the hand of the lord.
Glory, glory, glory, somebody touched me,
Glory, glory, glory, somebody touched me,
Glory, glory, glory, somebody touched me,
Must have been the hand of the lord.
Well, it was on a sunday, somebody touched me,
It was on a sunday, somebody touched me,
It was on a sunday, somebody touched me,
Must have been the hand of the lord.
Glory, glory, glory, somebody touched me,
Glory, glory, glory, somebody touched me,
Glory, glory, glory, somebody touched me,
Must have been the hand of the lord.

song performed by Bob Dylan
Added by Lucian Velea
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The White Cliffs

I
I have loved England, dearly and deeply,
Since that first morning, shining and pure,
The white cliffs of Dover I saw rising steeply
Out of the sea that once made her secure.
I had no thought then of husband or lover,
I was a traveller, the guest of a week;
Yet when they pointed 'the white cliffs of Dover',
Startled I found there were tears on my cheek.
I have loved England, and still as a stranger,
Here is my home and I still am alone.
Now in her hour of trial and danger,
Only the English are really her own.

II
It happened the first evening I was there.
Some one was giving a ball in Belgrave Square.
At Belgrave Square, that most Victorian spot.—
Lives there a novel-reader who has not
At some time wept for those delightful girls,
Daughters of dukes, prime ministers and earls,
In bonnets, berthas, bustles, buttoned basques,
Hiding behind their pure Victorian masks
Hearts just as hot - hotter perhaps than those
Whose owners now abandon hats and hose?
Who has not wept for Lady Joan or Jill
Loving against her noble parent's will
A handsome guardsman, who to her alarm
Feels her hand kissed behind a potted palm
At Lady Ivry's ball the dreadful night
Before his regiment goes off to fight;
And see him the next morning, in the park,
Complete in busbee, marching to embark.
I had read freely, even as a child,
Not only Meredith and Oscar Wilde
But many novels of an earlier day—
Ravenshoe, Can You Forgive Her?, Vivien Grey,
Ouida, The Duchess, Broughton's Red As a Rose,
Guy Livingstone, Whyte-Melville— Heaven knows
What others. Now, I thought, I was to see
Their habitat, though like the Miller of Dee,
I cared for none and no one cared for me.

III
A light blue carpet on the stair
And tall young footmen everywhere,
Tall young men with English faces
Standing rigidly in their places,
Rows and rows of them stiff and staid

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poem by Alice Duer Miller
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An Ancient to Ancients

Where once we danced, where once we sang,
Gentlemen,
The floors are sunken, cobwebs hang,
And cracks creep; worms have fed upon
The doors. Yea, sprightlier times were then
Than now, with harps and tabrets gone,
Gentlemen!

Where once we rowed, where once we sailed,
Gentlemen,
And damsels took the tiller, veiled
Against too strong a stare (God wot
Their fancy, then or anywhen!)
Upon that shore we are clean forgot,
Gentlemen!

We have lost somewhat of that, afar and near,
Gentlemen,
The thinning of our ranks each year
Affords a hint we are nigh undone,
That shall not be ever again
The marked of many, loved of one,
Gentlemen.

In dance the polka hit our wish,
Gentlemen,
The paced quadrille, the spry schottische,
"Sir Roger."--And in opera spheres
The "Girl" (the famed "Bohemian"),
And "Trovatore" held the ears,
Gentlemen.

This season's paintings do not please,
Gentlemen
Like Etty, Mulready, Maclise;
Throbbing romance had waned and wanned;
No wizard wields the witching pen
Of Bulwer, Scott, Dumas, and Sand,
Gentlemen.

The bower we shrined to Tennyson,
Gentlemen,
Is roof-wrecked; damps there drip upon
Sagged seats, the creeper-nails are rust,
The spider is sole denizen;
Even she who voiced those rhymes is dust,
Gentlemen!

We who met sunrise sanguine-souled,
Gentlemen,

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poem by Thomas Hardy
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The mother and the artist

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of wonderfully emollient freshness; every
unfurling instant of impregnably magnificent existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of spellbindingly undefeated innocence; every
unfurling instant of symbiotically pristine existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of timelessly unconquerable truth; every unfurling
instant of bounteously magnanimous existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of unfathomably unfettered creativity; every
unfurling instant of timelessly burgeoning existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of royally triumphant resplendence; every
unfurling instant of unconquerably majestic existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of eternally exhilarating vivaciousness; every
unfurling instant of redolently insuperable existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of unbelievably ameliorating optimism; every
unfurling instant of marvelously benign existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of brilliantly liberated camaraderie; every
unfurling instant of iridescently inscrutable existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of unshakably virgin righteousness; every
unfurling instant of beautifully untainted existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of uninhibitedly heavenly frolic; every unfurling
instant of tantalizingly sensuous existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of compassionately humanitarian friendship; every
unfurling instant of magically mitigating existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of miraculously everlasting freshness; every
unfurling instant of invincibly coalescing existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of pricelessly ubiquitous oneness; every unfurling

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poem by Nikhil Parekh
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Fourth Book

THEY met still sooner. 'Twas a year from thence
When Lucy Gresham, the sick semptress girl,
Who sewed by Marian's chair so still and quick,
And leant her head upon the back to cough
More freely when, the mistress turning round,
The others took occasion to laugh out,–
Gave up a last. Among the workers, spoke
A bold girl with black eyebrows and red lips,–
'You know the news? Who's dying, do you think?
Our Lucy Gresham. I expected it
As little as Nell Hart's wedding. Blush not, Nell,
Thy curls be red enough without thy cheeks;
And, some day, there'll be found a man to dote
On red curls.–Lucy Gresham swooned last night,
Dropped sudden in the street while going home;
And now the baker says, who took her up
And laid her by her grandmother in bed,
He'll give her a week to die in. Pass the silk.
Let's hope he gave her a loaf too, within reach,
For otherwise they'll starve before they die,
That funny pair of bedfellows! Miss Bell,
I'll thank you for the scissors. The old crone
Is paralytic–that's the reason why
Our Lucy's thread went faster than her breath,
Which went too quick, we all know. Marian Erle!
Why, Marian Erle, you're not the fool to cry?
Your tears spoil Lady Waldemar's new dress,
You piece of pity!'
Marian rose up straight,
And, breaking through the talk and through the work,
Went outward, in the face of their surprise,
To Lucy's home, to nurse her back to life
Or down to death. She knew by such an act,
All place and grace were forfeit in the house,
Whose mistress would supply the missing hand
With necessary, not inhuman haste,
And take no blame. But pity, too, had dues:
She could not leave a solitary soul
To founder in the dark, while she sate still
And lavished stitches on a lady's hem
As if no other work were paramount.
'Why, God,' thought Marian, 'has a missing hand
This moment; Lucy wants a drink, perhaps.
Let others miss me! never miss me, God!'

So Marian sat by Lucy's bed, content
With duty, and was strong, for recompense,
To hold the lamp of human love arm-high
To catch the death-strained eyes and comfort them,
Until the angels, on the luminous side

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poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Release Your Love

Ahhhh baby release it, talkin about your love.
Yeah, baby release it, your love,
Your love.
Release your love to me.
And, put it in my heart where its supposed to be.
Release your love to me.
cause girl I cant live without it.
Release your love to me.
cause girl Im gonna take you home.
You aint never gonna be alone.
Unless youre out there on your own.
You dont have to worry.
Baby, release your love to me.
And, were gonna make plans for eternity.
Release your love to me.
Youll never ever have to doubt it.
Release your love to me.
cause, baby, thats the way that its got to be.
I know theres other lovers,
But, they just cant stick.
cause none of them other lovers,
Baby, can do my trick.
I know theres other lovers,
But, they just cant stick.
cause none of them other lovers,
Baby, can do my trick.
Release your love.
Release your love. release your love.
Release your love. release your love.
Release your love. release your love.
Release your love.
Release your love to me.
And, put it in my heart where its supposed to be.
Release your love to me.
cause girl I cant live without it.
Release your love to me.
Were gonna make plans for eternity.
Release your love to me.
Therell never be a doubt about it.
Release your love to me.
And, put it in my heart where its supposed to be.
Release your love to me.
cause girl I cant live without it.
Release your love to me.
Were gonna make plans for eternity.
Release your love to me.
Therell never be a doubt about it.
(to fade)

song performed by Grand Funk Railroad
Added by Lucian Velea
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Relese Your Love

Ahhhh baby release it, talkin' about your love.
Yeah, baby release it, your love,
Your love.
Release your love to me.
And, put it in my heart where it's supposed to be.
Release your love to me.
'Cause girl I can't live without it.
Release your love to me.
'Cause girl I'm 'gonna take you home.
You ain't never 'gonna be alone.
Unless you're out there on your own.
You don't have to worry.
Baby, release your love to me.
And, we're 'gonna make plans for eternity.
Release your love to me.
You'll never ever have to doubt it.
Release your love to me.
'Cause, baby, that's the way that it's got to be.
I know there's other lovers,
But, they just can't stick.
'Cause none of them other lovers,
Baby, can do my trick.
I know there's other lovers,
But, they just can't stick.
'Cause none of them other lovers,
Baby, can do my trick.
Release your love.
Release your love. Release your love.
Release your love. Release your love.
Release your love. Release your love.
Release your love.
Release your love to me.
And, put it in my heart where it's supposed to be.
Release your love to me.
'Cause girl I can't live without it.
Release your love to me.
We're 'gonna make plans for eternity.
Release your love to me.
There'll never be a doubt about it.
Release your love to me.
And, put it in my heart where it's supposed to be.
Release your love to me.
'Cause girl I can't live without it.
Release your love to me.
We're 'gonna make plans for eternity.
Release y

song performed by Grand Funk Railroad
Added by Lucian Velea
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Fifth Book

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

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poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
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Each Morning At The Breakfast Table

Who’ll stone you when you feel unable,
eating at the breakfast table,
to answer who’s the great composer,
implying that you are a loser?
Not my wife, though she’s most brainy;
on my creations never rainy,
she doesn’t let me feel alone,
rolling like a lonely stone.
Less than I a fan of Bob
on no occasions will she rob
me of my confidence. Sure, Dylan
to her appears to be a villain,
because of his association
with other forms of inspiration.
but she won’t stone me ever, that’s
why I won’t settle for ersatz.
She sees through masks, including mine,
but never stones the wearer, she
is morning coffee, evening wine,
and midnight she is ecstasy.
Not number twelve or thirty-five,
she’s number one, and helps me thrive
like Scarlett on the screen with Gable,
each morning at the breakfast table.

Inspired by Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women, #12 and 35, ” which he sang wwith a lot of other songs at Prospect Park Bandshell two days ago. Nate Chinen writes in the NYT, August 14,008 (“In Prospect Park, the Consequences of Love and a Shot of War”) :
In the final moments of his sold-out Celebrate Brooklyn concert at the Prospect Park Bandshell on Tuesday night, Bob Dylan struck a pose. He was standing at center stage, feet planted wide. Dressed in black from his hat on down, he faced outward, proud, flanked by stone-faced band members. Then he formed his hands into pistols — six-shooters, let’s say — and fired shot after shot, roguishly slaying the crowd. It was a pretty good illustration of what had been happening for the past two hours.
Mr. Dylan can be an inconstant performer, and sometimes an indifferent one. But here he was dynamic, enthusiastic, out for blood. His set list featured more than half a dozen irrefutable classics, starting with “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.” And he showed ironclad focus, commanding the same professionally gritty crew heard on his most recent album, “Modern Times” (Columbia) . As usual Mr. Dylan transformed his old songs, in some cases preserving only the lyrics. “Girl From the North Country” adopted some shadowy new harmonies, and “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) ” turned up with a Celtic-Appalachian lilt. “Blowin’ in the Wind, ” the civil rights anthem that put Mr. Dylan on the map roughly 45 years ago, underwent the most radical revision, riding a crisp backbeat and rhythm-guitar part that suggested the heyday of Muscle Shoals rhythm and blues. Necessity surely birthed some of these inventions: Mr. Dylan,67, now sings with a (more) limited range, and a coarse, throaty tone. (When he rasped, “Lay across my big brass bed, ” in “Lay Lady Lay, ” he sounded like the Big Bad Wolf entreating Little Red Riding Hood.) And he rarely plays guitar, instead favoring an organlike keyboard, and occasionally the harmonica. Rhythm is his asset, his best means of asserting control; the bassist Tony Garnier and the drummer George Receli dug in but followed his lead.
Mr. Dylan has a new edition of his popular Bootleg Series due out in October: “Tell Tales Signs” (Columbia/Legacy) , consisting of relatively recent recordings, many previously unreleased. Only one track from that package, “Lonesome Day Blues, ” crept into the show. (It can also be found on the 2001 album “Love and Theft.”) Meanwhile the five songs culled from “Modern Times” held up admirably. “The Levee’s Gonna Break, ” set at a hard-rollicking tempo, was especially strong. But the two most potent songs, in a show that often touched upon the consequences of love, had to do explicitly with war. One was “John Brown, ” an early protest song that Mr. Dylan never released on a studio album: its narrative, forcefully told, involves a shattered soldier returning to his chastened mother. The other was “Masters of War, ” a much more celebrated song from the same era, which draws its focus wide but sharp. Here Mr. Dylan enunciated unusually clearly, over a drone-haunted vamp. “I hope that you die, ” he snarled, leaving two bars of open space before the next line, “And your death will come soon.” But his peak of intensity came paired to something other than a death wish. “I can see through your masks, ” he wailed, stretching out the last word of the phrase for emphasis. He seemed to know firsthand about masks, and seeing through them.

8/14/08

poem by Gershon Hepner
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Canto the First

I
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.

II
Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
And fill'd their sign posts then, like Wellesley now;
Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk,
Followers of fame, "nine farrow" of that sow:
France, too, had Buonaparté and Dumourier
Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.

III
Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,
Were French, and famous people, as we know:
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,
With many of the military set,
Exceedingly remarkable at times,
But not at all adapted to my rhymes.

IV
Nelson was once Britannia's god of war,
And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd;
There's no more to be said of Trafalgar,
'T is with our hero quietly inurn'd;
Because the army's grown more popular,
At which the naval people are concern'd;
Besides, the prince is all for the land-service,
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.

V
Brave men were living before Agamemnon
And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;
But then they shone not on the poet's page,
And so have been forgotten:—I condemn none,
But can't find any in the present age
Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);
So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan.

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poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
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How Does It Feel To Be Alone?

How does it feel to be alone
with no one round with whom you can
hang out, e-mail and telephone
now silent from your loverman?

How does it feel to get no kicks
from your beloved? Who is left,
for you to mix with, will you nix
your lovelife, loverman bereft?

Stone cold and lonely, lady, will
you roll, or will you gather moss?
On empty running, will you fill
your life again, make up your loss?

I knew that you were bound to fall
when first you fell for me. D’you feel
there’s someone else now you can call
and hope that you can make a deal?

With no direction home, is there,
d’you think, another man who’ll hold
you as I did, and if so, where
d’you think that like a stone he’s rolled?

Inspired by an article in the NYT by Adam Liptak on the use of lyrics by Bob Dylan in the Supreme Court (“The Chief Justice, Dylan and the Disappearing Double Negative, ” June 29,2008) :

The last chief justice liked light opera. The new one cites Bob Dylan. oour pages into his dissent on Monday in an achingly boring dispute between pay phone companies and long distance carriers, John G. Roberts Jr., the chief justice of the United States, put a song lyric where the citation to precedent usually goes. “The absence of any right to the substantive recovery means that respondents cannot benefit from the judgment they seek and thus lack Article III standing, ” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “ ‘When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose.’ Bob Dylan, Like a Rolling Stone, on Highway 61 Revisited (Columbia Records 1965) .”
Alex B. Long, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and perhaps the nation’s leading authority on the citation of popular music in judicial opinions, said this was almost certainly the first use of a rock lyric to buttress a legal proposition in a Supreme Court decision. “It’s a landmark opinion, ” Professor Long said.
In the lower courts, according to a study Professor Long published in the Washington & Lee Law Review last year, Mr. Dylan is by far the most cited songwriter. He has been quoted in 26 opinions. Paul Simon is next, with 8 (12 if you count those attributed to Simon & Garfunkel) . Bruce Springsteen has 5.
But Mr. Dylan has only once before been cited as an authority on Article III standing, which concerns who can bring a lawsuit in federal court. His key contribution to legal discourse has been in another area.
“The correct rule on the necessity of expert testimony has been summarized by Bob Dylan: ‘You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows, ’ ” a California appeals court wrote in 1981, citing “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” Eighteen other decisions have cited that lyric.
Chief Justice Roberts’s predecessor, William H. Rehnquist, cited his beloved Gilbert & Sullivan in a 1980 dissent from a decision that the press had a constitutional right of access to court proceedings. He was still an associate justice, and he thought the court had made up the right out of whole cloth. In rebuttal, Justice Rehnquist relied on the Lord Chancellor in “Iolanthe” to rebuke the majority. “The Law is the true embodiment of everything that’s excellent, ” the Lord Chancellor says. “It has no kind of fault or flaw, and I, my Lords, embody the Law.”
That made Justice Rehnquist’s point pretty well. The Roberts citation is more problematic. On the one hand, he showed excellent taste. “Like a Rolling Stone, ” as Greil Marcus has written, is “the greatest record ever made, perhaps, or the greatest record that ever would be made.” On the other hand, Chief Justice Roberts gets the citation wrong, proving that he is neither an originalist nor a strict constructionist. What Mr. Dylan actually sings, of course, is, “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.”
It’s true that many Web sites, including Mr. Dylan’s official one, reproduce the lyric as Chief Justice Roberts does. But a more careful Dylanist might have consulted his iPod. “It was almost certainly the clerks who provided the citation, ” Professor Long said. “I suppose their use of the Internet to check the lyrics violates one of the first rules they learned when they were all on law review: when quoting, always check the quote with the original source, not someone else’s characterization of what the source said.” The larger objection is that the citation is not true to the original point Mr. Dylan was making, which was about the freedom that having nothing conveys and not about who may sue a phone company. (See, e.g., “Me and Bobby McGee.”)

6/29/08

poem by Gershon Hepner
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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:

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poem by Robert Browning (1871)
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England, My England

WHAT have I done for you,
   England, my England?
What is there I would not do,
   England, my own?
With your glorious eyes austere,
As the Lord were walking near,
Whispering terrible things and dear
   As the Song on your bugles blown,
   England--
   Round the world on your bugles blown!

Where shall the watchful sun,
   England, my England,
Match the master-work you've done,
   England, my own?
When shall he rejoice agen
Such a breed of mighty men
As come forward, one to ten,
   To the Song on your bugles blown,
   England--
   Down the years on your bugles blown?

Ever the faith endures,
   England, my England:--
'Take and break us: we are yours,
   England, my own!
Life is good, and joy runs high
Between English earth and sky:
Death is death; but we shall die
   To the Song on your bugles blown,
   England--
   To the stars on your bugles blown!'

They call you proud and hard,
   England, my England:
You with worlds to watch and ward,
   England, my own!
You whose mail'd hand keeps the keys
Of such teeming destinies,
You could know nor dread nor ease
   Were the Song on your bugles blown,
   England,
   Round the Pit on your bugles blown!

Mother of Ships whose might,
   England, my England,
Is the fierce old Sea's delight,
   England, my own,
Chosen daughter of the Lord,
Spouse-in-Chief of the ancient Sword,

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poem by William Ernest Henley
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Pro Rege Nostro

WHAT have I done for you,
England, my England?
What is there I would not do,
England, my own?
With your glorious eyes austere,
As the Lord were walking near,
Whispering terrible things and dear
As the Song on your bugles blown, England --
Round the world on your bugles blown!

Where shall the watchful Sun,
England, my England,
Match the master-work you've done,
England, my own?
When shall he rejoice again
Such a breed of mighty men
As come forward, one to ten,
To the Song on your bugles blown, England --
Down the years on your bugles blown?

Ever the faith endures,
England, my England: --
'Take and break us: we are yours,
England, my own!
Life is good, and joy runs high
Between English earth and sky:
Death is death; but we shall die
To the Song on your bugles blown, England --
To the stars on your bugles blown!'

They call you proud and hard,
England, my England:
You with worlds to watch and ward,
England, my own!
You whose mailed hand keeps the keys
Of such teeming destinies,
You could know nor dread nor ease,
Were the Song on your bugles blown, England --
Round the Pit on your bugles blown!

Mother of Ships whose might,
England, my England,
Is the fierce old Sea's delight,
England, my own,
Chosen daughter of the Lord,
Spouse-in-Chief of the ancient Sword,
There's the menace of the Word
In the Song of your bugles blown, England --
Out of heaven on your bugles blown!

poem by William Ernest Henley
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What Have I Done For You

What have I done for you,
England, my England?
What is there I would not do,
England, my own?
With your glorious eyes austere,
As the Lord were walking near,
Whispering terrible things and dear
As the Song on your bugles blown,
England -
Round the world on your bugles blown!

Where shall the watchful Sun,
England, my England,
Match the master-work you've done,
England, my own?
When shall he rejoice agen
Such a breed of mighty men
As come forward, one to ten,
To the Song on your bugles blown,
England -
Down the years on your bugles blown?

Ever the faith endures,
England, my England:-
'Take and break us: we are yours,
'England, my own!
'Life is good, and joy runs high
'Between English earth and sky:
'Death is death; but we shall die
'To the Song on your bugles blown,
'England -
'To the stars on your bugles blown!

They call you proud and hard,
England, my England:
You with worlds to watch and ward,
England, my own!
You whose mailed hand keeps the keys
Of such teeming destinies
You could know nor dread nor ease
Were the Song on your bugles blown,
England,
Round the Pit on your bugles blown!

Mother of Ships whose might,
England, my England,
Is the fierce old Sea's delight,
England, my own,
Chosen daughter of the Lord,
Spouse-in-Chief of the ancient sword,

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poem by William Ernest Henley
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Release, Release

Have you heard before, hit it out, dont look back
Rock is the medium of our generation
Stand for every right, kick it out, hear you shout
For the right of all of creation
Weve heard before, but we just dont seem to move
The pressures on is there lack of concentration
Power defy our needs, lift us up, show us now
Show us how amid the rack of confusion
Drive in thoughts of high, satisfy, in a plan
Set it out for all to understand it
Weve heard before, but we just dont seem to move
The pressures on is there lack of concentraion
Lost and wondering, maybe, how it is
Seems to me, its as simple as this
No matter, where you go, youre going to find
You wont see me in front, but you cant leave me behind
Power at first to the needs of each others days
Simple to lose in the void sounds of anarchys calling ways
All unaccounted for in the craziness of power
In the craziness
Release all, release all, or abandon your hope for your brother
Release all, release all, or abandon your hope for your sister
Release, release, enough controllers
Show some signs of appreciated loyalties
Release, release, enough controllers
Show some signs of appreciated loyalties
Straight jacket, freedoms march, is it all, far beyond
Our reason of understanding
Campaign everything, anti-right, anti-left
Anticipate the love of creation
Stand for every right
Kick it out, hear you shout
Further the right
Further the right
Further the right
Of all of creation
Power at first to the needs of each others days
Simple to lose in the void sounds of anarchys calling ways
All unaccounted for in the craziness of power
In the craziness
Release all, release all, or abandon your hope for your brother
Release all, release all, or abandon your hope for your sister
Release, release
Release, release
Release, release
Release, release

song performed by Yes
Added by Lucian Velea
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Ladies In Waiting

So you been to the market
And the meat looks good tonight
And the ladies in waiting
Will show you what its all about
Their selection is inviting
They sure look hot tonight
And the ladies in waiting
Will show you what its all about
And so you move on down the line
All the ladies are lookin fine, so fine
Ladies in waiting, ladies in waiting, ladies in waiting
So you move on down the line
All the ladies are lookin fine
Their selection is inviting
They sure look hot tonight
And the ladies in waiting
Will show you what its all about
And so you move on down the line
All the ladies are lookin fine, so fine
Ladies in waiting, ladies in waiting, ladies in waiting
Ladies in waiting, ladies in waiting, ladies in waiting
Ladies in waiting, ladies in waiting, ladies in waiting
Ladies in waiting

song performed by Kiss
Added by Lucian Velea
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Ladies Pay

All the sailors theyre all home from leave
And everybodys waiting for them to try to deceive
The storekeepers have drawn their lace curtains bare
And all the women and the wee young girls all waiting there
Oh, but how the ladies pay
Oh, if they only knew how the ladies pay
Yeah now, how the ladies pay
Oh, when the men theyve gone away
Nobody is standing on upon the door
And nobody is feeding any of the poor
The poor sick soldier lies in bed beside his girl
Thinking of another place on the other side of the world
Ah
How the ladies pay
Oh-oh, oh, how the ladies pay
When the men theyve gone away
Oh, I wish I knew how the ladies pay
Day and night, night and day
How the ladies pay
Day and night, night and day
How the ladies pay
Day and night
Night and day
Day and night
Day and night, night and day, ladies pay now
Night and day, day and night
How the ladies pay
Day and night, night and day
How the ladies pay
Day and night now
Night and day and now
How the pay now
Oh, how the pay now
Ladies pay, ladies pay
Ah, ladies pay the way now
Ladies pay, ah, ladies pay
Ah, ladies pay
Night and day, night and day, night and day
Oh, how the ladies pay
Oh, night and day, night and day, night and day
Oh, how the ladies pay

song performed by Lou Reed
Added by Lucian Velea
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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

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

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

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Lord of the Isles: Canto VI.

I.
O who, that shared them, ever shall forget
The emotions of the spirit-rousing time,
When breathless in the mart the couriers met,
Early and late, at evening and at prime;
When the loud cannon and the merry chime
Hail'd news on news, as field on field was won,
When Hope, long doubtful, soar'd at length sublime,
And our glad eyes, awake as day begun,
Watch'd Joy's broad banner rise, to meet the rising sun!
O these were hours, when thrilling joy repaid
A long, long course of darkness, doubts, and fears!
The heart-sick faintness of the hope delay'd,
The waste, the woe, the bloodshed, and the tears,
That track'd with terror twenty rolling years,
All was forgot in that blithe jubilee!
Her downcast eye even pale Affliction rears,
To sigh a thankful prayer, amid the glee,
That hail'd the Despot's fall, and peace and liberty!

Such news o'er Scotland's hills triumphant rode,
When 'gainst the invaders turn'd the battle's scale,
When Bruce's banner had victorious flow'd
O'er Loudoun's mountain, and in Ury's vale;
And fiery English blood oft deluged Douglas-dale,
And fiery Edward routed stout St. John,
When Randolph's war-cry swell'd the southern gale,
And many a fortress, town, and tower, was won,
And fame still sounded forth fresh deeds of glory done.

II.
Blithe tidings flew from baron's tower,
To peasant's cot, to forest-bower,
And waked the solitary cell,
Where lone Saint Bride's recluses dwell.
Princess no more, fair Isabel,
A vot'ress of the order now,
Say, did the rule that bid thee wear
Dim veil and wollen scapulare,
And reft thy locks of dark-brown hair,
That stern and rigid vow,
Did it condemn the transport high,
Which glisten'd in thy watery eye,
When minstrel or when palmer told
Each fresh exploit of Bruce the bold?-
And whose the lovely form, that shares
Thy anxious hopes, thy fears, thy prayers?
No sister she of convent shade;
So say these locks in lengthen'd braid,
So say the blushes and the sighs,

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poem by Sir Walter Scott
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