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Crossing The Line

I've broken clean free off the leash now
I don't have to go and please you anymore
You fooled me fooled them fooled the whole crowd
You're not up on that cloud to look down anymore
I'm feelin alive
Now that no one is left at my side to drag me down
I'm crossing the line
And I'm takin all that is mine to carry on
Keep all your thoughts to yourself now
I don't need to trip on those words anymore
You blame me blame them blame the whole town
Don't you try to look down at me anymore
I'm feelin alive
Now that no one is left at my side to drag me down
I'm crossing the line
And I'm takin all that is mine to carry on
I'm feelin alive
I'm crossin the line
I'm feelin alive
I'm crossin the line

song performed by Default
Added by Lucian Velea
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Feelin Down Farther

Tom johnston
Well, the sun is shinin
A new day is here
All the people smilin
And the sky is clear
Not an hour wasted will I share with you
Got to keep lovin, mama
No matter what I do
Ooh, ooh, ooh
I got to tell you
Feelin down farther
Feelin farther down
Feelin down farther, baby
Feelin farther down
Feelin down farther
Feelin farther down
Feelin down farther, baby
Feelin farther down
Jesus, hear me
When I sing out loud
The echoes of my gladness
Fall upon the crowd
I dont care for sadness
And I dont need fear
I hope they finally realize
That the feelin is near
Ooh, ooh, ooh
I got to tell you
Feelin down farther
Feelin farther down
Feelin down farther, baby
Feelin farther down
Feelin down farther
Feelin farther down
Feelin down farther, baby
Feelin farther down
Givin and receivin
Are all I know
Some of you will find it
And youll probbly let it show
Only one thing that I know to be true
Every day is different, mama
And so are you
Ooh, ooh, ooh
I got to tell you
Feelin down farther
Feelin farther down
Feelin down farther, baby
Feelin farther down
Feelin down farther

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song performed by Doobie Brothers
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R U Feel' In Me

**aaliyah hums**
Verse 1:
I know in my heart, i know in my mind,
We're meant to be, are you feelin' me yo.
I'm the girl in your life, i'm the one you call wife,
And i need to know, are you feelin' me yo
Is there anyone else, that can do it the best,
Give you things you need, well it must be me.
I got very big dreams and the fantasies,
But i need to know, are you feeling' me yo
Chorus:
Boy are you feelin' me (yeah yeah), cause i'm feelin' you (hmmm),
Somethin' in my heart, tells me your the one
Are you feelin' me (feelin me), cause i'm feelin' you (feelin you),
Somethin' in my heart (yeaaa), tells me your the one
Are you feelin me yo
Verse 2:
I'm crazy for you (what), i'm falling for you (whoa),
I got feelins for you (what), are you lovin' me yo. (whoa)
Tell me if it's our time (what), do i blow your mind,(whoa)
Cause i need to know (what), put my life on the line(whoa),
I'm gon' give you my heart (what), all the love that i own (whoa),
But before i do that (what), are you feelin' me yo (whoa).
Anything for you (what), cause i'm big on you(whoa),
But i need to know(what), are you lovin' me yo(whoa)
Chorus:
Boy (boy) are you feelin' me (whooooh), cause i'm feelin' you (yoooo),
Somethin' in my heart (oooh), tells me your the one
Are you feelin' me (me yeah), cause i'm feelin' you,
Somethin' in my heart, are you feelin me yo
Bridge by timbaland
Umm yeah (are you feelin' this yo)
Hey ooh (are you feelin' this yo)
Yeah, yeah yeah yeah (are yo feelin'this yo)
Ficky, ficky, ficky, fikcy, switch!
Are you feelin' me baby baby yeah
Let me talk to em for a minute,
Who is the best, makin' these beats, who could it be?
Are you feelin' this yo, are you feelin' this yo,
Are you feelin' this yo, oh oh, who is the best,
Makin these beats, who can it be (t t)
Are you feelin this yo, are you feelin this yo
Are you feelin this yo, whoa whoa
Who is the best (what), makin' these beats (whoa), who could it be (what)?
Are you feelin' this yo (what), are you feelin' this yo, (whoa)
Are you feelin' this yo (what), oh oh (whoa), who is the best (what),
Makin these beats (whoa), who can it be (what)(heeey)
Are you feelin this yo (what), are you feelin this yo (whoa)
Are you feelin this yo (what) whoa whoa
You neva saw it comin shhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

song performed by Aaliyah
Added by Lucian Velea
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Feelin You

Feelin you, baby
Feelin me, baby
Feelin you, baby
Feelin me, baby
Feelin you, baby
Feelin me, baby
Feelin you, baby
Chorus:
Im feelin you (comon)
Like you feelin me (com on)
Cant you see? (com on)
Theres a love goin down
Im feelin you (com on)
Like you feelin me (com on)
Cant you see? (com on)
I will always be around
Verse 1: (olamide)
Every time I think about love
I think about us...yea
Cuz its the way you be making me feel
And you know its real
And I cant stop givin it up...mmhm
When I feel that you need my love
All you do is call on me
And baby you will see
Im all that you need
Chorus:
Im feelin you
Like you feelin me (com on)
Cant you see?
Theres a love goin... down
Im feelin you
Like you feelin me (com on)
Cant you see?
I will always be around
Verse 2: (olamide)
Every time like you come around
Im wearing a smile
You got me mesmerized, hypnotized
When I look into your eyes
Youre all that I see
And I cant stop givin it up...oh no
When you feel that you need my love...yea
All you do is say my name
And dont you be ashamed
If you feel the same
Chorus:
Im feelin you
Like you feelin me (com on)
Cant you see?

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song performed by Imajin
Added by Lucian Velea
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Are U Feelin Me

**aaliyah hums**
Verse 1:
I know in my heart, I know in my mind,
Were meant to be, are you feelin me yo.
Im the girl in your life, Im the one you call wife,
And I need to know, are you feelin me yo
Is there anyone else, that can do it the best,
Give you things you need, well it must be me.
I got very big dreams and the fantasies,
But I need to know, are you feeling me yo
Chorus:
Boy are you feelin me (yeah yeah), cause Im feelin you (hmmm),
Somethin in my heart, tells me your the one
Are you feelin me (feelin me), cause Im feelin you (feelin you),
Somethin in my heart (yeaaa), tells me your the one
Are you feelin me yo
Verse 2:
Im crazy for you (what), Im falling for you (whoa),
I got feelins for you (what), are you lovin me yo. (whoa)
Tell me if its our time (what), do I blow your mind,(whoa)
Cause I need to know (what), put my life on the line(whoa),
Im gon give you my heart (what), all the love that I own (whoa),
But before I do that (what), are you feelin me yo (whoa).
Anything for you (what), cause Im big on you(whoa),
But I need to know(what), are you lovin me yo(whoa)
Chorus:
Boy (boy) are you feelin me (whooooh), cause Im feelin you (yoooo),
Somethin in my heart (oooh), tells me your the one
Are you feelin me (me yeah), cause Im feelin you,
Somethin in my heart, are you feelin me yo
Bridge by timbaland
Umm yeah (are you feelin this yo)
Hey ooh (are you feelin this yo)
Yeah, yeah yeah yeah (are yo feelinthis yo)
Ficky, ficky, ficky, fikcy, switch!
Are you feelin me baby baby yeah
Let me talk to em for a minute,
Who is the best, makin these beats, who could it be?
Are you feelin this yo, are you feelin this yo,
Are you feelin this yo, oh oh, who is the best,
Makin these beats, who can it be (t t)
Are you feelin this yo, are you feelin this yo
Are you feelin this yo, whoa whoa
Who is the best (what), makin these beats (whoa), who could it be (what)?
Are you feelin this yo (what), are you feelin this yo, (whoa)
Are you feelin this yo (what), oh oh (whoa), who is the best (what),
Makin these beats (whoa), who can it be (what)(heeey)
Are you feelin this yo (what), are you feelin this yo (whoa)
Are you feelin this yo (what) whoa whoa
You neva saw it comin shhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

song performed by Aaliyah
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:

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poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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V. Count Guido Franceschini

Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of … why, 't is wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate … aie, aie, aie,
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all's over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short, I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I' the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O' the Franceschini's once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Troubadour. Canto 2

THE first, the very first; oh! none
Can feel again as they have done;
In love, in war, in pride, in all
The planets of life's coronal,
However beautiful or bright,--
What can be like their first sweet light?

When will the youth feel as he felt,
When first at beauty's feet he knelt?

As if her least smile could confer
A kingdom on its worshipper;
Or ever care, or ever fear
Had cross'd love's morning hemisphere.
And the young bard, the first time praise
Sheds its spring sunlight o'er his lays,
Though loftier laurel, higher name,
May crown the minstrel's noontide fame,
They will not bring the deep content
Of his lure's first encouragement.
And where the glory that will yield
The flush and glow of his first field
To the young chief? Will RAYMOND ever
Feel as he now is feeling?--Never.

The sun wept down or ere they gain'd
The glen where the chief band remain'd.

It was a lone and secret shade,
As nature form'd an ambuscade
For the bird's nest and the deer's lair,
Though now less quiet guests were there.
On one side like a fortress stood
A mingled pine and chesnut wood;
Autumn was falling, but the pine
Seem'd as it mock'd all change; no sign
Of season on its leaf was seen,
The same dark gloom of changeless green.
But like the gorgeous Persian bands
'Mid the stern race of northern lands,
The chesnut boughs were bright with all
That gilds and mocks the autumn's fall.

Like stragglers from an army's rear
Gradual they grew, near and less near,
Till ample space was left to raise,
Amid the trees, the watch-fire's blaze;
And there, wrapt in their cloaks around,
The soldiers scatter'd o'er the ground.

[...] Read more

poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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Feelin'

when you give what's in your heart
to the one you love
you want them to give their love back to you
when every kiss and every smile
mean the world to you
then you've got it bad
don't need a cure for what you're going through
this feelin' inside you can't let it hide

feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
when your love is true
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
there ain't nothin' you can do now
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
you feel it through and through honey
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'

'cause there ain't nothin' you can do boy
when every look and touch
makes you come undone
and you can't believe this feelin' is real
when the sound of someone's name
gives you butterflies
don't wander why 'cause you can be sure
that you're in love
this feelin' inside you can't let it hide

feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
when your love is true
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
there ain't nothin' you can do now
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
you feel it through and through honey
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
'cause there ain't nothin' you can do boy

oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo
oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo
oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo
oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo

feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
when your love is true
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
there ain't nothin' you can do now
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
you feel it through and through honey
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
'cause there ain't nothin' you can do boy

[...] Read more

song performed by Gloria Estefan from Gloria!
Added by Lucian Velea
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Feelin' (Love To Infinity Remix) (bonus track)

when you give what's in your heart
to the one you love
you want them to give their love back to you
when every kiss and every smile
mean the world to you
then you've got it bad
don't need a cure for what you're going through
this feelin' inside you can't let it hide

feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
when your love is true
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
there ain't nothin' you can do now
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
you feel it through and through honey
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'

'cause there ain't nothin' you can do boy
when every look and touch
makes you come undone
and you can't believe this feelin' is real
when the sound of someone's name
gives you butterflies
don't wander why 'cause you can be sure
that you're in love
this feelin' inside you can't let it hide

feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
when your love is true
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
there ain't nothin' you can do now
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
you feel it through and through honey
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
'cause there ain't nothin' you can do boy

oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo
oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo
oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo
oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo

feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
when your love is true
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
there ain't nothin' you can do now
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
you feel it through and through honey
feelin' never gonna stop the feelin'
'cause there ain't nothin' you can do boy

[...] Read more

song performed by Gloria Estefan from Gloria!
Added by Lucian Velea
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Feelin

When you give whats in your heart, to the one you love
You want them to give their love back to you
When every kiss and every smile mean the world to you
Then youve got it bad
Dont need a cure for what youre going through
This feelin inside you cant let it hide
Feelin, never stop that feelin
When your love is true
Feelin, never stop that feelin
There aint nothin you can do now
Feelin, never gonna stop that feelin
You feel it through and through, honey
Feelin, never gonna stop that feelin
cause there aint nothin you can do now, boy
When every look and every touch makes you come undone
And you cant believe this feelin is real
When the sound of someones name gives you butterflies
Dont wonder why cause you can be sure
That youre in love
This feelin inside you cant let it hide
Feelin, never gonna stop that feelin
When your love is true
Feelin, never gonna stop that feelin
There aint nothing you can do now
Feelin, never gonna stop that feelin
You feel it through and through, honey
Feelin, never gonna stop that feelin
cause there aint nothin you can do now, boy
Oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo
Oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo
Oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo
Oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo
Feelin, never gonna stop that feelin
When your love is true
Feelin, never gonna stop that feelin
There aint nothing you can do now
Feelin, never gonna stop that feelin
You feel it through and through, honey
Feelin, never gonna stop that feelin
cause there aint nothin you can do now, boy
Oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo
Oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo
Oo hoo hoo boy oo hoo hoo
Oo hoo hoo boy ooh ho hoo

song performed by Gloria Estefan
Added by Lucian Velea
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The House Of Dust: Complete

I.

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.

'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.

We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .

Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.

Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.

Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.

II.

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poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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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

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Lara. A Tale

The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain,
And slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord--
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far chequering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted fagots' hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.

II.
The chief of Lara is return'd again:
And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main?
Left by his sire, too young such loss to know,
Lord of himself;--that heritage of woe,
That fearful empire which the human breast
But holds to rob the heart within of rest!--
With none to check, and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime;
Then, when he most required commandment, then
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern'd men.
It skills not, boots not, step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of its race;
Short was the course his restlessness had run,
But long enough to leave him half undone.

III.
And Lara left in youth his fatherland;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there;
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew
Cold in the many, anxious in the few.
His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name,
His portrait darkens in its fading frame,
Another chief consoled his destined bride,
The young forgot him, and the old had died;
'Yet doth he live!' exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear.
A hundred scutcheons deck with gloomy grace
The Laras' last and longest dwelling-place;
But one is absent from the mouldering file,
That now were welcome to that Gothic pile.

IV.
He comes at last in sudden loneliness,
And whence they know not, why they need not guess;

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poem by Byron
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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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Lara

LARA. [1]

CANTO THE FIRST.

I.

The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain, [2]
And slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord —
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far chequering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted fagots' hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.

II.

The chief of Lara is return'd again:
And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main?
Left by his sire, too young such loss to know,
Lord of himself; — that heritage of woe,
That fearful empire which the human breast
But holds to rob the heart within of rest! —
With none to check, and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime;
Then, when he most required commandment, then
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern'd men.
It skills not, boots not, step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of its race;
Short was the course his restlessness had run,
But long enough to leave him half undone.

III.

And Lara left in youth his fatherland;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there;
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew
Cold in the many, anxious in the few.
His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name,
His portrait darkens in its fading frame,
Another chief consoled his destined bride,
The young forgot him, and the old had died;
"Yet doth he live!" exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear.

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poem by Byron
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Sixth Book

THE English have a scornful insular way
Of calling the French light. The levity
Is in the judgment only, which yet stands;
For say a foolish thing but oft enough,
(And here's the secret of a hundred creeds,–
Men get opinions as boys learn to spell,
By re-iteration chiefly) the same thing
Shall pass at least for absolutely wise,
And not with fools exclusively. And so,
We say the French are light, as if we said
The cat mews, or the milch-cow gives us milk:
Say rather, cats are milked, and milch cows mew,
For what is lightness but inconsequence,
Vague fluctuation 'twixt effect and cause,
Compelled by neither? Is a bullet light,
That dashes from the gun-mouth, while the eye
Winks, and the heart beats one, to flatten itself
To a wafer on the white speck on a wall
A hundred paces off? Even so direct,
So sternly undivertible of aim,
Is this French people.
All idealists
Too absolute and earnest, with them all
The idea of a knife cuts real flesh;
And still, devouring the safe interval
Which Nature placed between the thought and act,
They threaten conflagration to the world
And rush with most unscrupulous logic on
Impossible practice. Set your orators
To blow upon them with loud windy mouths
Through watchword phrases, jest or sentiment,
Which drive our burley brutal English mobs
Like so much chaff, whichever way they blow,–
This light French people will not thus be driven.
They turn indeed; but then they turn upon
Some central pivot of their thought and choice,
And veer out by the force of holding fast.
–That's hard to understand, for Englishmen
Unused to abstract questions, and untrained
To trace the involutions, valve by valve,
In each orbed bulb-root of a general truth,
And mark what subtly fine integument
Divides opposed compartments. Freedom's self
Comes concrete to us, to be understood,
Fixed in a feudal form incarnately
To suit our ways of thought and reverence,
The special form, with us, being still the thing.
With us, I say, though I'm of Italy
My mother's birth and grave, by father's grave
And memory; let it be,–a poet's heart

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poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
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IV. Tertium Quid

True, Excellency—as his Highness says,
Though she's not dead yet, she's as good as stretched
Symmetrical beside the other two;
Though he's not judged yet, he's the same as judged,
So do the facts abound and superabound:
And nothing hinders that we lift the case
Out of the shade into the shine, allow
Qualified persons to pronounce at last,
Nay, edge in an authoritative word
Between this rabble's-brabble of dolts and fools
Who make up reasonless unreasoning Rome.
"Now for the Trial!" they roar: "the Trial to test
"The truth, weigh husband and weigh wife alike
"I' the scales of law, make one scale kick the beam!"
Law's a machine from which, to please the mob,
Truth the divinity must needs descend
And clear things at the play's fifth act—aha!
Hammer into their noddles who was who
And what was what. I tell the simpletons
"Could law be competent to such a feat
"'T were done already: what begins next week
"Is end o' the Trial, last link of a chain
"Whereof the first was forged three years ago
"When law addressed herself to set wrong right,
"And proved so slow in taking the first step
"That ever some new grievance,—tort, retort,
"On one or the other side,—o'ertook i' the game,
"Retarded sentence, till this deed of death
"Is thrown in, as it were, last bale to boat
"Crammed to the edge with cargo—or passengers?
"'Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est!
"'Huc appelle!'—passengers, the word must be."
Long since, the boat was loaded to my eyes.
To hear the rabble and brabble, you'd call the case
Fused and confused past human finding out.
One calls the square round, t' other the round square—
And pardonably in that first surprise
O' the blood that fell and splashed the diagram:
But now we've used our eyes to the violent hue
Can't we look through the crimson and trace lines?
It makes a man despair of history,
Eusebius and the established fact—fig's end!
Oh, give the fools their Trial, rattle away
With the leash of lawyers, two on either side—
One barks, one bites,—Masters Arcangeli
And Spreti,—that's the husband's ultimate hope
Against the Fisc and the other kind of Fisc,
Bound to do barking for the wife: bow—wow!
Why, Excellency, we and his Highness here
Would settle the matter as sufficiently

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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The Ballad of the White Horse

DEDICATION

Of great limbs gone to chaos,
A great face turned to night--
Why bend above a shapeless shroud
Seeking in such archaic cloud
Sight of strong lords and light?

Where seven sunken Englands
Lie buried one by one,
Why should one idle spade, I wonder,
Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder
To smoke and choke the sun?

In cloud of clay so cast to heaven
What shape shall man discern?
These lords may light the mystery
Of mastery or victory,
And these ride high in history,
But these shall not return.

Gored on the Norman gonfalon
The Golden Dragon died:
We shall not wake with ballad strings
The good time of the smaller things,
We shall not see the holy kings
Ride down by Severn side.

Stiff, strange, and quaintly coloured
As the broidery of Bayeux
The England of that dawn remains,
And this of Alfred and the Danes
Seems like the tales a whole tribe feigns
Too English to be true.

Of a good king on an island
That ruled once on a time;
And as he walked by an apple tree
There came green devils out of the sea
With sea-plants trailing heavily
And tracks of opal slime.

Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;
His days as our days ran,
He also looked forth for an hour
On peopled plains and skies that lower,
From those few windows in the tower
That is the head of a man.

But who shall look from Alfred's hood

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poem by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
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I'm Not Feelin It Anymore

Have to get back, have to get back the base
I need to talk to somebody, I can trust
Too many cooks, are tryin' to spoil the broth
I can't feel it in my throat, that's all she wrote
I'm not feeling it no more, I'm not feeling it anymore
Not feelin' it no more, not feelin' it anymore
When I was high at the party, everything looked good
I was seein' through rose coloured glasses
Not seein' the wood for the trees
I started out in normal operation
But I just ended up in doubt
All my drinking buddies, they locked me out
I'm not feelin' it no more, I'm not feelin' it anymore
No feelin' it no more, I'm tryin' to give you the score
You see me up there baby, I'm on the screen
But I know better now, it's so unreal
If this is success, then something's awful wrong
'Cause I bought the dream and I had to play along
I'm not feelin' it no more, I'm not feelin' it anymore
I'm tryin' to give you the score, I'm not feelin' it no more
We all know that money, don't buy you love
You just get a job and somewhere to live
You have to look for happiness, within yourself
And don't go chasin' thinkin' that it is somewhere else
I'm not feelin' it no more, I'm not feelin' it anymore
Baby I'm tryin' to give you the score,
I'm not feelin' it no more
I was pretending all the time
I was givin' everybody what they wanted
And I lost my peace of mind
And all I ever wanted was simply just to be me
All you ever need is the truth
And the truth will set you free
I'm not feelin' it no more, I'm not feelin' it anymore
I'm tryin' to give you the score, just like I did before
I'm not feelin' it no more, I'm not feelin' it anymore
I'm not feelin' it no more, baby I'm just trying to give you the score
I'm not feelin' it no more, not feelin' it anymore
Not feelin' it no more
Not feelin' it no more baby

song performed by Van Morrison
Added by Lucian Velea
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