Citatepedia^®.com

He who dies rests, he who lives remarries.

aphorism by Camelia Oprița from This life is a theatrical scene (January 2001), translated by Camelia Oprița
Added by Alexander Manzoni
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII (Entire)

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.

Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.

Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood, thou:
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

We have but faith: we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.

Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,

But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock thee when we do not fear:
But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

Forgive what seem’d my sin in me;
What seem’d my worth since I began;
For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.

Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.

Forgive these wild and wandering cries,

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Love Never Dies...

I never knew how long a day could be
It was winter and the sun was shining
Beyond the shadows I could see
It was winter and the wind was blowing
Love never dies
I know that true love never dies
The season end
And time moves on
But true love never dies
I look at picture I took of you
Now its winter and the colors fading
I just sit here while the wind blows through me
No matter how hard I try
Cant stop this feeling
Love never dies
I know that true love never dies
A day comes to end
And time moves on
But true love never dies
True love never dies
Never dies
Now I dont want to be wanting you
Its been three years and my hearts still crying
Love never dies
I know that true love never dies
A day comes to end
And time moves on
But true love never dies !
True love never dies !
Love never dies
Love never dies
Love never dies...

song performed by Belinda Carlisle
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Seasonable Retour-Knell

SEASONABLE RETOUR KNELL
Variations on a theme...
SEASONABLE ROUND ROBIN ROLE REVERSALS

Author notes

A mirrored Retourne may not only be read either from first line to last or from last to first as seen in the mirrors, but also by inverting the first and second phrase of each line, either rhyming AAAA or ABAB for each verse. thus the number of variations could be multiplied several times.- two variations on the theme have been included here but could have been extended as in SEASONABLE ROUND ROBIN ROLE REVERSALS robi03_0069_robi03_0000

In respect of SEASONABLE ROUND ROBIN ROLE REVERSALS
This composition has sought to explore linguistic potential. Notes and the initial version are placed before rather than after the poem.
Six variations on a theme have been selected out of a significant number of mathematical possibilities using THE SAME TEXT and a reverse mirror for each version. Mirrors repeat the seasons with the lines in reverse order.

For the second roll the first four syllables of each line are reversed, and sense is retained both in the normal order of seasons and the reversed order as well... The 3rd and 4th variations offer ABAB rhyme schemes retaining the original text. The 5th and 6th variations modify the text into rhyming couplets.

Given the linguistical structure of this symphonic composition the score could be read in inversing each and every line and each and every hemistitch. There are minor punctuation differences between versions.

One could probably attain sonnet status for each of the four seasons and through partioning in 3 groups of 4 syllables extend the possibilites ad vitam.

Seasonable Round Robin Roll Reversals
robi03_0069_robi03_0000 QXX_DNZ
Seasonable Retour-Knell
robi03_0070_robi03_0069 QXX_NXX
26 March 1975 rewritten 20070123
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll lllllllllllllllllll
For previous version see below
_______________________________________
SPRING SUMMER

Life is at ease Young lovers long
Land under plough; To hold their dear;
Whispering trees, Dewdrops among,
Answering cow. Bold, know no fear.

Blossom, the bees, Life full of song,
Burgeoning bough; Cloudless and clear;
Soft-scented breeze, Days fair and long,
Spring warms life now. Summer sends cheer.

AUTUMN WINTER

Each leaf decays, Harvested sheaves
Each life must bow; And honeyed hives;
Our salad days Trees stripped of leaves,
Are ending now. Jack Frost has knives.

Fruit heavy lays Time, Prince of thieves,
Bending the bough, - Onward he drives,

[...] Read more

poem by Jonathan Robin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Blood, Milk, & Sky

The siren sings a lonely song - of all the wants and hungers
[of all the wants and hungers]
The lust of love a brute desire - the ledge of life goes under
[the ledge of life goes under]
Divide the dream into the flesh - kaleidoscope and candle eyes
[kaleidoscope and candle eyes]
Empty winds scrape on the soul - but never stop to realize
[but never stop to realize]
Animal whisperings - intoxicate the night
[intoxicate the night]
Hypnotize the deperate - slow motion light
[slow motion light]
Wash away into the rain - blood, milk and sky
[blood, milk and sky]
Hollow moons illuminate - and beauty never dies
[and beauty never dies]
Running wild, running blind
[Running wild, running blind]
I breathe the body deep
[I breathe the body deep]
1,000 years beside myself
[1,000 years beside myself]
I do not sleep
[I do not sleep]
Seduce the world it never screams
[Seduce the world it never screams]
Dead water lies
[Dead water lies]
Ride the only one who knows
[Ride the only one who knows]
Beauty never dies
[Beauty never dies, never dies, never dies, never dies, never dies, never dies, never dies, never dies,]

song performed by White Zombie
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Blood, Milk, Sky

The siren sings a lonely song - of all the wants and hungers
[of all the wants and hungers]
The lust of love a brute desire - the ledge of life goes under
[the ledge of life goes under]
Divide the dream into the flesh - kaleidoscope and candle eyes
[kaleidoscope and candle eyes]
Empty winds scrape on the soul - but never stop to realize
[but never stop to realize]
Animal whisperings - intoxicate the night
[intoxicate the night]
Hypnotize the deperate - slow motion light
[slow motion light]
Wash away into the rain - blood, milk and sky
[blood, milk and sky]
Hollow moons illuminate - and beauty never dies
[and beauty never dies]
Running wild, running blind
[running wild, running blind]
I breathe the body deep
[i breathe the body deep]
1,000 years beside myself
[1,000 years beside myself]
I do not sleep
[i do not sleep]
Seduce the world it never screams
[seduce the world it never screams]
Dead water lies
[dead water lies]
Ride the only one who knows
[ride the only one who knows]
Beauty never dies
[beauty never dies, never dies, never dies, never dies, never dies, never dies, never dies, never dies,]

song performed by White Zombie
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Once Upon A Time: The Battle Of Life And Death

?? ?? ?? (Life Life Life)
?? ?? ?? (It dies It dies It dies)
?? ?? ?? (Life Life Life)
?? ?? ?? (It dies It dies It dies)
???????????? (That raise, death, being born, it dies)
???????????? (That raise, death, being born, it dies)
???????????????? (The vampire lives eternally, it was promised)
???????????? (That raise, death, being born, it dies)
???????????? (That raise, death, being born, it dies)
???? (Eternal death)
?????????????? (That raise, death and death are beautiful, it is beautiful)
?????????????? (That raise, death and death are beautiful, it is beautiful)
?????????????? (That raise, death and death are beautiful, it is beautiful)
???????????????? (The vampire, eternally, you live, it is beautiful)

song performed by Good Charlotte
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

True Love Never Dies

True love never dies, true love never dies, true love never dies, true love
Never dies, true love never dies, true love never dies, true love never dies
We look like shadows in the streetlight, only me and u a secret rendevouz after
Midnight, they tried to keep us from each other, they crucify our love, say
Were not good enough to be lovers, I want to hold u in the morning, I want to
Wake up by your side, no reason to hide what were feelin, (give me your
Feelin!), I want to tell the world about it, tell them all the truth, get up on
The rooftops and shout it, true love never dies, true love never dies,true love
Never dies (repeat to fade)

song performed by Kylie Minogue
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Child Of The Islands - Winter

I.

ERE the Night cometh! On how many graves
Rests, at this hour, their first cold winter's snow!
Wild o'er the earth the sleety tempest raves;
Silent, our Lost Ones slumber on below;
Never to share again the genial glow
Of Christmas gladness round the circled hearth;
Never returning festivals to know,
Or holidays that mark some loved one's birth,
Or children's joyous songs, and loud delighted mirth.
II.

The frozen tombs are sheeted with one pall,--
One shroud for every churchyard, crisp and bright,--
One foldless mantle, softly covering all
With its unwrinkled width of spotless white.
There, through the grey dim day and starlit night,
It rests, on rich and poor, and young and old,--
Veiling dear eyes,--whose warm homne-cheering light
Our pining hearts can never more behold,--
With an unlifting veil,--that falleth blank and cold.
III.

The Spring shall melt that snow,--but kindly eyes
Return not with the Sun's returning powers,--
Nor to the clay-cold cheek, that buried lies,
The living blooms that flush perennial flowers,--
Nor, with the song-birds, vocal in the bowers,
The sweet familiar tones! In silence drear
We pass our days,--and oft in midnight hours
Call madly on their names who cannot hear,--
Names graven on the tombs of the departed year!
IV.

There lies the tender Mother, in whose heart
So many claimed an interest and a share!
Humbly and piously she did her part
In every task of love and household care:
And mournfully, with sad abstracted air,
The Father-Widower, on his Christmas Eve,
Strokes down his youngest child's long silken hair,
And, as the gathering sobs his bosom heave,
Goes from that orphaned group, unseen to weep and grieve.
V.

Feeling his loneliness the more this day
Because SHE kept it with such gentle joy,
Scarce can he brook to see his children play,
Remembering how her love it did employ

[...] Read more

poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

He Lives In You

(mark a. mancina/jay rifkin/lebohang morake)
Ingonyama nengw enamabala
Ingonyama nengw enamabala
Night and the spirit of life calling
Oh, oh, iyo mamela oh, oh, iyo
And the voice with the fear of a child answers
Oh, oh, iyo iyo mamela
Wait! theres no mountain too great
Hear these words and have faith
Oh, oh, iyo
Have faith
Hela hey mamela, hela hey mamela
Hela hey mamela, hela hey mamela
He lives in you, he lives in me (hela hey mamela)
He watches over everything we see
Into the waters, into the truth
In your reflection, he lives in you
Dream, and the voice in the wind whispers
Oh, oh, iyo, iyo mamela oh, oh, iyo
Wait! theres no mountain too great
Hear these words and have faith
Oh, oh, iyo
He lives in you, he lives in me
He watches over everything we see
Into the waters, into the truth
In your reflection, he lives in you
Ingonyama nengw enamabala
Ingonyama nengw enamabala
He lives in you, he lives in me
He watches over everything we see
Into the water, into the truth
In your reflection, he lives in you
He lives in you (oh yeah), he lives in me
He watches over everything we see
Into the water, into the truth
In your reflection, he lives, he lives, he lives, he lives in you
He lives, he lives, he lives in you
He watches over everything we see

song performed by Diana Ross
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Love Never Dies

You say you saw the dark side, baby
I know what gets you through the night
And love is like a red rose, baby
And so it's coming 'round again
If we can take the same direction
We find the road that never ends
'Cause love never dies
It goes on forever
Love never dies, love never dies
Love goes on forever
This is the love we've been talking about
You led her in 'till she couldn't get out
'Cause you made the little girl cry
No sad stories to deny
I go through the holy war for you, baby
You know, so you ain't got a prayer
I'll answer if you call for me, baby
I'm yours, to God above I swear
I only wanna live in the shadow you make
The soul that never lies
'Cause love never dies
It goes on forever
Love never dies, love never dies
Love goes on forever
You better run to the heart of the flame
She don't change like the sun and the rain
'Cause she don't understand why
You made the little girl cry
'Cause love never dies
It goes on forever
Love never dies, love never dies
Love goes on forever
This is the love we've been talking about
You led her in 'till she couldn't get out
'Cause you made the little girl cry
No sad stories to deny
You better run to the heart of the flame
She don't change like the sun and the rain
'Cause she don't understand why
You made the little girl cry

song performed by Bee Gees
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

And If An Old Man Dies

AND IF AN OLD MAN DIES
(Yet another reflection on Koheleth)

And if an old man dies
And leaves behind him nothing-
And if an old man dies and leaves behind
Much family and wealth
And friends who remember him-
And if an old man dies
And leaves behind him
A reverenced work
Esteemed through many generations-
And if an old man dies
With a name mankind wishes to take with it to its own grave-

And if an old man dies
And nothing survives of humanity
And all his works and wishes
Bound up with the being of others
Who earthbound will die with the Earth
Or transformed into other kinds of being elsewhere
Lose eventually their essential humanity-

And if an old man dies
As all die
And if we stand forever alone in a universe unknown,
Then what else is there but praying to God
And hoping
That somehow beyond it all in some way we cannot now understand
An old man‘s death will be more or less
Than what we can think or know it to be now-

And if an old man dies,
And somehow never dies
And if God saves us all
And if we are surprised

poem by Shalom Freedman
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Child Of The Islands - Autumn

I.

BROWN Autumn cometh, with her liberal hand
Binding the Harvest in a thousand sheaves:
A yellow glory brightens o'er the land,
Shines on thatched corners and low cottage-eaves,
And gilds with cheerful light the fading leaves:
Beautiful even here, on hill and dale;
More lovely yet where Scotland's soil receives
The varied rays her wooded mountains hail,
With hues to which our faint and soberer tints are pale.
II.

For there the Scarlet Rowan seems to mock
The red sea coral--berries, leaves, and all;
Light swinging from the moist green shining rock
Which beds the foaming torrent's turbid fall;
And there the purple cedar, grandly tall,
Lifts its crowned head and sun-illumined stem;
And larch (soft drooping like a maiden's pall)
Bends o'er the lake, that seems a sapphire gem
Dropt from the hoary hill's gigantic diadem.
III.

And far and wide the glorious heather blooms,
Its regal mantle o'er the mountains spread;
Wooing the bee with honey-sweet perfumes,
By many a viewless wild flower richly shed;
Up-springing 'neath the glad exulting tread
Of eager climbers, light of heart and limb;
Or yielding, soft, a fresh elastic bed,
When evening shadows gather, faint and dim,
And sun-forsaken crags grow old, and gaunt, and grim.
IV.

Oh, Land! first seen when Life lay all unknown,
Like an unvisited country o'er the wave,
Which now my travelled heart looks back upon,
Marking each sunny path, each gloomy cave,
With here a memory, and there a grave:--
Land of romance and beauty; noble land
Of Bruce and Wallace; land where, vainly brave,
Ill-fated Stuart made his final stand,
Ere yet the shivered sword fell hopeless from his hand--
V.

I love you! I remember you! though years
Have fleeted o'er the hills my spirit knew,
Whose wild uncultured heights the plough forbears,
Whose broomy hollows glisten in the dew.

[...] Read more

poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Born With The Hunger

Hear the coyote howl
He's found his pray at last
In one moment of weakness
The chase is over so fast
He celebrates his kill
No mercy in his eyes
When you're born with the hunger
The hunger never dies
Midnight is on the prowl
And I hear it call my name
Danger lurks in the shadows
But it's all part of a game
Until I quench this thirst
I will not close these eyes
When you're born with the hunger
The hunger never dies
You and I, we're the same
We both carry this flame
To depths of our souls
Once the fever awakes
We can never escape
It's beyond our control
We're both born with the hunger
Oh with the hunger
Temptation bites your lip
One kiss ignites the fire
So begins the seduction
As we succumb to desire
Your body aches for more
Why are you so surprised
When you're born with the hunger
The hunger never dies
When you're born with the hunger
The hunger - it never dies
Never dies
When you're born with the hunger It never dies
When you're born with the hunger Oh, it never dies
He celebrates the kill
You're born with the hunger
It never dies

song performed by Cher
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Creature

A shadow glides above my plate
And all I see is birds migrate
Going south, remember me
When you fly above the sea
Autumn dies serene and slow
The lamp stands in a gentle glow
The silence rules, the evening grows
And the moon is far below
In me twist a sudden cramp
In my heart I hear it stamp
Marrow and blood encircle me
My blood stream chokes on gall and spleen
What will become of you
Since you have forsaken me
Not one tear I have in me
I am numb to my memory
Ill believe than that youre dead
First I felt bitter, I made amends
But I see you in a new light
You only have my contempt
So Ill believe than that youre dead
Second youre a loser, I spit on pretence
And I begin to wonder, and I begin to understand
That, youre a creature that breeds its kind and dies
Youre a creature that breeds and kind of dies
Youre a creature that breeds its kind and dies
Youre a creature that breeds its kind and dies
Youre a creature that breeds its kind and dies
Youre a creature that breeds its kind and dies
Dies.

song performed by Xymox
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Creature

A shadow glides above my plate
And all I see is birds migrate
Going south, remember me
When you fly above the sea
Autumn dies serene and slow
The lamp stands in a gentle glow
The silence rules, the evening grows
And the moon is far below
In me twist a sudden cramp
In my heart I hear it stamp
Marrow and blood encircle me
My blood stream chokes on gall and spleen
What will become of you
Since you have forsaken me
Not one tear I have in me
I am numb to my memory
Ill believe than that youre dead
First I felt bitter, I made amends
But I see you in a new light
You only have my contempt
So Ill believe than that youre dead
Second youre a loser, I spit on pretence
And I begin to wonder, and I begin to understand
That, youre a creature that breeds its kind and dies
Youre a creature that breeds and kind of dies
Youre a creature that breeds its kind and dies
Youre a creature that breeds its kind and dies
Youre a creature that breeds its kind and dies
Youre a creature that breeds its kind and dies
Dies.

song performed by Xymox
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Peruvian Tales: Aciloe, Tale V

Character of ZAMOR , a bard--His passion for ACILOE , daughter of the Cazique who rules the valley--The Peruvian tribe prepare to defend themselves--A battle--The PERUVIANS are vanquished--ACILOE'S father is made a prisoner, and ZAMOR is supposed to have fallen in the engagement--ALPHONSO becomes enamoured of ACILOE --Offers to marry her--She rejects him--In revenge he puts her father to the torture--She appears to consent, in order to save him--Meets ZAMOR in a wood--LAS CASAS joins them--Leads the two lovers to ALPHONSO , and obtains their freedom--ZAMOR conducts ACILOE and her father to Chili--A reflection on the influence of Poetry over the human mind.

In this sweet scene, to all the virtues kind,
Mild ZAMOR own'd the richest gifts of mind;
For o'er his tuneful breast the heav'nly muse
Shed from her sacred spring inspiring dews;
She loves to breathe her hallow'd strain where art
Has never veil'd the soul, or warp'd the heart;
Where fancy glows with all her native fire,
And passion lives on the exulting lyre.
Nature, in terror rob'd or beauty dreast,
Could thrill with dear enchantment ZAMOR'S breast;
He lov'd the languid sigh the zephyr pours,
He lov'd the placid rill that feeds the flowers--
But more the hollow sound the wild winds form,
When black upon the billow hangs the storm;
The torrent rolling from the mountain steep,
Its white foam trembling on the darken'd deep--
And oft on Andes' heights with earnest gaze
He view'd the sinking sun's reflected rays
Glow like unnumber'd stars, that seem to rest
Sublime upon his ice-encircled breast.
Oft his wild warblings charm'd the festal hour,
Rose in the vale, and languish'd in the bower;
The heart's reponsive tones he well could move,
Whose song was nature, and whose theme was love.
ACILOE'S beauties his fond soul confest,
Yet more ACILOE'S virtues warm'd his breast.

Ah stay, ye tender hours of young delight,
Suspend, ye moments, your impatient flight;
Prolong the charm when passion's pure controul
Unfolds the first affections of the soul!
This gentle tribe ACILOE'S sire obey'd,
Who still in wisdom and in mercy sway'd.
From him the dear illusions long had fled
That o'er the morn of life enchantment shed;
But virtue's calm remembrance cheer'd his breast,
And life was joy serene, and death was rest:
Bright is the blushing Summer's glowing ray,
Yet not unlovely Autumn's temper'd day.
Now stern IBERIA'S ruthless sons advance,
Roll the fierce eye, and shake the pointed lance.
PERUVIA'S tribe behold the hostile throng
With desolating fury pour along;
The hoary chief to the dire conflict leads
His death-devoted train--the battle bleeds.
ACILOE'S searching eye can now no more
The form of ZAMOR or her sire explore;

[...] Read more

poem by Helen Maria Williams
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Vision Of Columbus - Book 8

And now the Angel, from the trembling sight,
Veil'd the wide world–when sudden shades of night
Move o'er the ethereal vault; the starry train
Paint their dim forms beneath the placid main;
While earth and heaven, around the hero's eye,
Seem arch'd immense, like one surrounding sky.
Still, from the Power superior splendors shone,
The height emblazing like a radiant throne;
To converse sweet the soothing shades invite,
And on the guide the hero fix'd his sight.
Kind messenger of Heaven, he thus began,
Why this progressive labouring search of man?
If man by wisdom form'd hath power to reach
These opening truths that following ages teach,
Step after step, thro' devious mazes, wind,
And fill at last the measure of the mind,
Why did not Heaven, with one unclouded ray,
All human arts and reason's powers display?
That mad opinions, sects and party strife
Might find no place t'imbitter human life.
To whom the Angelic Power; to thee 'tis given,
To hold high converse, and enquire of heaven,
To mark uncircled ages and to trace
The unfolding truths that wait thy kindred race.
Know then, the counsels of th'unchanging Mind,
Thro' nature's range, progressive paths design'd,
Unfinish'd works th'harmonious system grace,
Thro' all duration and around all space;
Thus beauty, wisdom, power, their parts unroll,
Till full perfection joins the accordant whole.
So the first week, beheld the progress rise,
Which form'd the earth and arch'd th'incumbant skies.
Dark and imperfect first, the unbeauteous frame,
From vacant night, to crude existence came;
Light starr'd the heavens and suns were taught their bound,
Winds woke their force, and floods their centre found;
Earth's kindred elements, in joyous strife,
Warm'd the glad glebe to vegetable life,
Till sense and power and action claim'd their place,
And godlike reason crown'd the imperial race.
Progressive thus, from that great source above,
Flows the fair fountain of redeeming love.
Dark harbingers of hope, at first bestow'd,
Taught early faith to feel her path to God:
Down the prophetic, brightening train of years,
Consenting voices rose of different seers,
In shadowy types display'd the accomplish'd plan,
When filial Godhead should assume the man,
When the pure Church should stretch her arms abroad,
Fair as a bride and liberal as her God;

[...] Read more

poem by Joel Barlow
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Earth Dies Screaming

A warm dry wind is all that breaks the silence,
The highways quiet scars across the land.
People lie, eyes closed, no longer dreaming,
The earth dies screaming.
Like scattered pebbles, cars lie silent waiting,
Oilless engines seized by dirt and sand.
Bodies hanging limp, no longer bleeding,
The earth dies screaming.
The earth dies screaming
The earth dies screaming
Your country needs you, lets strike up the band.
The earth dies screaming
The earth dies screaming
Despite all odds we must defend our land.
Half eaten meals lie rotting on the tables,
Money clutched within a boney hand.
Shutters down, the banks are not receiving,
The earth dies screaming.

song performed by Ub40
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Stravinsky's Three Pieces

First Movement

Thin-voiced, nasal pipes
Drawing sound out and out
Until it is a screeching thread,
Sharp and cutting, sharp and cutting,
It hurts.
Whee-e-e!
Bump! Bump! Tong-ti-bump!
There are drums here,
Banging,
And wooden shoes beating the round, grey stones
Of the market-place.
Whee-e-e!
Sabots slapping the worn, old stones,
And a shaking and cracking of dancing bones;
Clumsy and hard they are,
And uneven,
Losing half a beat
Because the stones are slippery.
Bump-e-ty-tong! Whee-e-e! Tong!
The thin Spring leaves
Shake to the banging of shoes.
Shoes beat, slap,
Shuffle, rap,
And the nasal pipes squeal with their pigs' voices,
Little pigs' voices
Weaving among the dancers,
A fine white thread
Linking up the dancers.
Bang! Bump! Tong!
Petticoats,
Stockings,
Sabots,
Delirium flapping its thigh-bones;
Red, blue, yellow,
Drunkenness steaming in colours;
Red, yellow, blue,
Colours and flesh weaving together,
In and out, with the dance,
Coarse stuffs and hot flesh weaving together.
Pigs' cries white and tenuous,
White and painful,
White and -
Bump!
Tong!

Second Movement

Pale violin music whiffs across the moon,

[...] Read more

poem by Amy Lowell
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Metamorphoses: Book The Third

WHEN now Agenor had his daughter lost,
He sent his son to search on ev'ry coast;
And sternly bid him to his arms restore
The darling maid, or see his face no more,
But live an exile in a foreign clime;
Thus was the father pious to a crime.
The Story of The restless youth search'd all the world around;
of Cadmus But how can Jove in his amours be found?
When, tir'd at length with unsuccessful toil,
To shun his angry sire and native soil,
He goes a suppliant to the Delphick dome;
There asks the God what new appointed home
Should end his wand'rings, and his toils relieve.
The Delphick oracles this answer give.
"Behold among the fields a lonely cow,
Unworn with yokes, unbroken to the plow;
Mark well the place where first she lays her down,
There measure out thy walls, and build thy town,
And from thy guide Boeotia call the land,
In which the destin'd walls and town shall stand."
No sooner had he left the dark abode,
Big with the promise of the Delphick God,
When in the fields the fatal cow he view'd,
Nor gall'd with yokes, nor worn with servitude:
Her gently at a distance he pursu'd;
And as he walk'd aloof, in silence pray'd
To the great Pow'r whose counsels he obey'd.
Her way thro' flow'ry Panope she took,
And now, Cephisus, cross'd thy silver brook;
When to the Heav'ns her spacious front she rais'd,
And bellow'd thrice, then backward turning gaz'd
On those behind, 'till on the destin'd place
She stoop'd, and couch'd amid the rising grass.
Cadmus salutes the soil, and gladly hails
The new-found mountains, and the nameless vales,
And thanks the Gods, and turns about his eye
To see his new dominions round him lye;
Then sends his servants to a neighb'ring grove
For living streams, a sacrifice to Jove.
O'er the wide plain there rose a shady wood
Of aged trees; in its dark bosom stood
A bushy thicket, pathless and unworn,
O'er-run with brambles, and perplex'd with thorn:
Amidst the brake a hollow den was found,
With rocks and shelving arches vaulted round.
Deep in the dreary den, conceal'd from day,
Sacred to Mars, a mighty dragon lay,
Bloated with poison to a monstrous size;
Fire broke in flashes when he glanc'd his eyes:
His tow'ring crest was glorious to behold,

[...] Read more

poem by Ovid
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!