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Dear Homie

[hen-gee]
Dear homie, whats the hap, since your up in the sky?
With God by your side
Homie whats it like?
I know your bein treated right
No more worries
Plus youre bein heard g
I guess you know niggaz is still trippin
I dont know why, they see a future in it
Were headed for self-destruction
Cant function
Only thing I can do is pray
And thank god, for another day
Yes homie, its rough down here. I gotta watch my back
Cos its hard being black
If it aint the other
Its my own colour
Tryin to work me
Tryin to hurt me
Aint no l-o-v-e
Please tell me why, dear homie
[ice-t]
Dear homie, gang-bangin aint joke
And Im lookin over ya loc
Always knew there was fools out to get me
I didnt even hear the gunshots till after the slugs hit me
I grabbed for my chest and my neck, hopin
When my head hit the ground my skull busted open
You used to ask for my advice
Well dear homie, dyin aint nothin nice
And the place Im at is overpacked
With young blacks who crash crack and gats
I can only pray
You dont come this way
You gotta stay alive, you got a kid g
I feel ya partner but I worry alot
Bust shots
I know youre tryin to comfort me
But I dont want no company, homie
[hen-gee]
Dear homie, even though youre gone
I still fell your presence
Sometimes I can sleep
Cos I just cant see
Reality like it really should be seen
I still reminisce on how we used to kick it
Strollin the yard, just hangin out together
Down for whatever, whenever
And now Im hopin, youre seeing a true friend in me
We where meant to be

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song performed by Ice T
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Gangsta Trippin'

Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin'
Gangsta Trippin

song performed by Fatboy Slim
Added by Lucian Velea
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Nestling

When to summon the sky
Little nestling?
When to summon the sky?

And suffer the risk - abscond in dread -
The knowledge of sort that you'll be dead
Upon a calamitous fall;

Or taken in flight - a hawkish pounce -
Demolished as prey; your fate pronounce
You gone, and to never recall.

O when to summon the sky
Little nestling?
When to summon the sky?

Aborting a den with
Feathered bed,
Unwavering mother who
Saw you fed -
Surrendering all so
You may spread
Your reach of tentative wings!

‘Tis only instinct -
E'er the reason -
Forging life:
The Nesting Season
And the trials it brings.

So up and summon the sky
Little nestling,
Up! and summon the sky!

Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2011

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Yo Trippin

Written by anastacia newkirk - travon potts
Whoa
Heya
All this time this life
Is a rhythm without a rhyme
cause it makes me feel, uh
Im like a train without a wheel, whoa
You got me down, so low
I gotta be tough, wont touch the ground, ah
But - Im alright
I wont give up without a fight
If you dont want to realize
That I would never compromise my
Integrity or my right to be free
Theres nothing left for me to say
cause
Yo trippin
There aint nothing wrong
With the way I sing my song
Yo trippin
Fire make me feel
Like my feelings stay so real
Yo trippin
There aint nothing wrong
With the way I sing my song
Hey, whoa
Yo trippin
Why you feel (why you feel, why you feel)
That to be cruel
Is to be real, yeah
Honesty (honesty, yeah, honesty)
Is how I live
But you refuse to see that
Youll never wind the game of life
Ask why
You live in scene
From tellin all those lies
Cant live in peace
Your hart wont let me free
Theres nothing left for me to say, yeah
Yo trippin
There aint nothing wrong
With the way I sing my song
Yo trippin
Fire make me feel
Like my feelings stay so real
Yo trippin
There aint nothing wrong
With the way I sing my song
Whoa

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song performed by Anastacia
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Satan Absolved

(In the antechamber of Heaven. Satan walks alone. Angels in groups conversing.)
Satan. To--day is the Lord's ``day.'' Once more on His good pleasure
I, the Heresiarch, wait and pace these halls at leisure
Among the Orthodox, the unfallen Sons of God.
How sweet in truth Heaven is, its floors of sandal wood,
Its old--world furniture, its linen long in press,
Its incense, mummeries, flowers, its scent of holiness!
Each house has its own smell. The smell of Heaven to me
Intoxicates and haunts,--and hurts. Who would not be
God's liveried servant here, the slave of His behest,
Rather than reign outside? I like good things the best,
Fair things, things innocent; and gladly, if He willed,
Would enter His Saints' kingdom--even as a little child.

[Laughs. I have come to make my peace, to crave a full amaun,
Peace, pardon, reconcilement, truce to our daggers--drawn,
Which have so long distraught the fair wise Universe,
An end to my rebellion and the mortal curse
Of always evil--doing. He will mayhap agree
I was less wholly wrong about Humanity
The day I dared to warn His wisdom of that flaw.
It was at least the truth, the whole truth, I foresaw
When He must needs create that simian ``in His own
Image and likeness.'' Faugh! the unseemly carrion!
I claim a new revision and with proofs in hand,
No Job now in my path to foil me and withstand.
Oh, I will serve Him well!
[Certain Angels approach. But who are these that come
With their grieved faces pale and eyes of martyrdom?
Not our good Sons of God? They stop, gesticulate,
Argue apart, some weep,--weep, here within Heaven's gate!
Sob almost in God's sight! ay, real salt human tears,
Such as no Spirit wept these thrice three thousand years.
The last shed were my own, that night of reprobation
When I unsheathed my sword and headed the lost nation.
Since then not one of them has spoken above his breath
Or whispered in these courts one word of life or death
Displeasing to the Lord. No Seraph of them all,
Save I this day each year, has dared to cross Heaven's hall
And give voice to ill news, an unwelcome truth to Him.
Not Michael's self hath dared, prince of the Seraphim.
Yet all now wail aloud.--What ails ye, brethren? Speak!
Are ye too in rebellion? Angels. Satan, no. But weak
With our long earthly toil, the unthankful care of Man.

Satan. Ye have in truth good cause.

Angels. And we would know God's plan,
His true thought for the world, the wherefore and the why
Of His long patience mocked, His name in jeopardy.

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poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Victories Of Love. Book II

I
From Jane To Her Mother

Thank Heaven, the burthens on the heart
Are not half known till they depart!
Although I long'd, for many a year,
To love with love that casts out fear,
My Frederick's kindness frighten'd me,
And heaven seem'd less far off than he;
And in my fancy I would trace
A lady with an angel's face,
That made devotion simply debt,
Till sick with envy and regret,
And wicked grief that God should e'er
Make women, and not make them fair.
That he might love me more because
Another in his memory was,
And that my indigence might be
To him what Baby's was to me,
The chief of charms, who could have thought?
But God's wise way is to give nought
Till we with asking it are tired;
And when, indeed, the change desired
Comes, lest we give ourselves the praise,
It comes by Providence, not Grace;
And mostly our thanks for granted pray'rs
Are groans at unexpected cares.
First Baby went to heaven, you know,
And, five weeks after, Grace went, too.
Then he became more talkative,
And, stooping to my heart, would give
Signs of his love, which pleased me more
Than all the proofs he gave before;
And, in that time of our great grief,
We talk'd religion for relief;
For, though we very seldom name
Religion, we now think the same!
Oh, what a bar is thus removed
To loving and to being loved!
For no agreement really is
In anything when none's in this.
Why, Mother, once, if Frederick press'd
His wife against his hearty breast,
The interior difference seem'd to tear
My own, until I could not bear
The trouble. 'Twas a dreadful strife,
And show'd, indeed, that faith is life.
He never felt this. If he did,
I'm sure it could not have been hid;
For wives, I need not say to you,

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poem by Coventry Patmore
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VII. Pompilia

I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.

All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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If Youre Not Gonna Love Me Right

(m.seward)
Hey, oh
Hey yeah
Hey baby, hey baby
The phone is ringing
And Im running late
Ive no time to get it
coz Im expecting you at eight
Heard your voice on the message
Im surprised you called
Said youre all tied up
And you aint comin at all
If youre not gonna love me right
Baby dont love me at all
Youre just gonna make me crazy
If youre not gonna love me right
Baby dont love me at all
If youre not gonna love me right, oh
(baby dont love, baby dont love me)
At all
(baby dont love, baby dont love me)
At all
Another box of roses outside on my porch
Twelve long excuses none of them stop the hurt
Wheres this going, do you really care?
Is this real love, I dont know anymore I swear
If youre not gonna love me right
Baby dont love me at all
Baby dont make me crazy
If youre not gonna love me right
Baby dont love me at all
If youre not gonna love me right, yeah
(baby dont love, baby dont love me)
Oh baby
(baby dont love, baby dont love me)
I really want you, oh baby
(baby dont love, baby dont love me)
If youre not gonna love me right
(baby dont love, baby dont love me)
Baby just make me crazy
Baby, I want you here
If youre not here it makes me feel like
I cant trust you
You make me crazy if you really love me
You see
Oh, I get confused when you hold me next to you
I wanna go further, oh baby yes I do
I just cant hold on to something that wont last
So wed better slow down, and maybe not go so fast
Maybe not go so fast

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song performed by Diana Ross
Added by Lucian Velea
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Ego Trippin' 2000

[c.gee] spaceman on the bass..
Classic..
Party peoples, in the place to be
Just for you, it's the ultra-magnetic, mc's!
[c.gee] yeah...
[keith] say what, peter piper?
[c.gee] to hell with childish rhymes!
[keith] cause this jam is just movin
[c.gee] the crowd is steady groovin
[keith] to a supersonic pace
[c.gee] with highs and stupid bass
[keith] with some pep
[c.gee] and the step
[ultra] cause the beat is so funky the pace is well kept
Cause we're..
"ultra.." {magnetic, magnetic} doo doo doo-doo
"mc's ultra.." {magnetic, magnetic} doo doo doo-doo
"mc's ultra.." {magnetic, magnetic} doo doo doo-doo "mc's"
[c.gee] so what's his name? uhh
[keith] i'm kool keith
[kool keith]
They use the simple back and forth, the same, old rhythm
That a baby can pick up, and join, right with them
But their rhymes are pathetic, they think they copacetic
Youse a nerds that returns, at least, not poetic
On a educated base, intelligent wise
As the record just turn, you learn, plus burn
By the flame of the lyrics which cooks the human brain
Providing overheating knowledge, by means causing pain
Make a migraine, hated yourself, start to melt
While the technics spin, the wax is on the belt
Motivating clockwise the more you realize
Moe love's moving steady, by most, with everready
Like a battery, charged, i'm worth the alkaline
Yes the mystery to solve, so seek and define
These words i've given, extremely now driven
With a datsun, a maxima to glide
Yes the wizard kool keith and i'm sportin my ride
Cause we're
"ultra.." {magnetic, magnetic} doo doo doo-doo
"mc's ultra.." {magnetic, magnetic} doo doo doo-doo
"mc's ultra.." {magnetic, magnetic} doo doo doo-doo "mc's"
[c.gee] yeah, what's my name?
Uhh, ced gee
[ced gee]
Usin frequencies and data, i am approximate
Leaving revolutions turning, emerging chemistry
With the precise implications, acheived, ??
Explorating demonstrating, ruling, dominating
Igniting causing friction with nu-clear alarms

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song performed by Ultramagnetic Mc's
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Why You Wanna Trip On Me

They Say I'm Different
They Don't Understand
But There's A Bigger Problem
That's Much More In Demand
You Got World Hunger
Not Enough To Eat
So There's Really No Time
To Be Trippin' On Me

You Got School Teachers
Who Don't Wanna Teach
You Got Grown People
Who Can't Write Or Read
You Got Strange Diseases
Ah But There's No Cure
You Got Many Doctors
That Aren't So Sure
So Tell Me

Why You Wanna Trip On Me
Why You Wanna Trip On Me
Stop Trippin'

We've Got More Problems
Than We'll Ever Need
You Got Gang Violence
And Bloodshed On The Street
You Got Homeless People
With No Food To Eat
With No Clothes On Their Back
And No Shoes For Their Feet

We've Got Drug Addiction
In The Minds Of The Weak
We've Got So Much Corruption
Police Brutality
We've Got Streetwalkers
Walkin' Into Darkness
Tell Me
What Are We Doin'

To Try To Stop This

Why You Wanna Trip On Me
Why You Wanna Trip On Me
Why You Wanna Trip On Me
Why You Wanna Trip On Me
Ooh Stop Trippin'
Yeah Stop Trippin'
Everybody Just Stop Trippin'

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song performed by Michael Jackson from Dangerous
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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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Hold Up

feat. Havoc (Mobb Deep)
[talking]
Yeah nigga... haha yeah (South Suicide Queens)
That's right... uh uh, Q.U. nigga (yea yea)
Shit like that, knowhamsayin put these drinks up
yaheard? - let's do this right, what yo
[Fredro Starr]
Hold up, this is for my thugs on the block
For my one stop niggaz that be huggin the spot
Sittin on crates, gettin loaded, get that cake
Dodgin drinks, spit and hafta cover they face
Kick some tye, big truck with tricks inside
In too deep, tryna sell bricks from the side
See no games, with real niggaz from other hoods
Car titles get lost, some niggaz get jooked
But God forgive me if a nigga cross the fam
Holdin the heat, the streets'll make me force ya hand
From my wild crew, sets the new guns off the roof
To them slick dudes, hot and they workin the phone booth
Cuz Lord knows I'm gonna reload and bust back
Incredible gats, indicted for a federal rap
They ain't duck low enough, shots shredded they hat
Murdered and gone, nigga it's a medical fact
[Hook: Havoc] - 2X
Hold up, this is for my gangsta team
and my dime little mamis rockin Timbs and jeans
When it's on, know we ain't afraid to clap them things
In the club, gettin bent, goin cra-zay!
[Sonsee]
Hold up, this is for my chicks in the spot
All my bus stop bitches that be pushin them drops
Playin the gate, get it ma, get those papes
Hustle that face, seven G's below ya waist
Project chick, dippin whips, cruisin the strip
Gettin money for tuition, go to school and she strip
Kill in the club, when niggaz dicks get hard
Murda mami set you up and niggaz bricks get robbed
Help her soul if a chick try to set my team
I'm tying her up, rep till the death of Queens
All my staircase niggaz keep flippin the jun's
All my outta state niggaz keep gettin them ones
Guns in the air, hit you with invisible glocks
that mean you never see it comin nigga, 52 shots
I'm takin ya block nigga, if you like it or not
You either roll or get rushed (blaow bloaw!) I guess not
[Hook: Havoc] - 2X
[Sticky Fingaz]
Sticky Fingaz, the nigga that be stickin them spots
For all my gun-cock niggaz that be bustin off shots
Lay in the straight, black mask raidin ya gate

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song performed by Onyx
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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 Dont Stop Rappin

Dont stop
Dont stop that rap
Too short
And I dont stop rappin
Just dont stop
Too short
I dont stop rappin
Dont stop that rap
Well Im sir too short
The true mc
Fresh again with the brand new beat
The big bank roller, I know whats happening
I get on the mike and I dont stop rappin
Dont stop
Dont stop that rap
Too short
I dont stop rappin
My rap dont stop, you know it cant
I get on the mic and I make big bank
Unlike some rappers that I know
Trying to get no, but that dont go
Im that rapper, sir too short
I know youve heard my name before
And if you havent, now you have
Sir too short dont stop that rap
Dont stop
I dont stop rappin
Too short
Dont stop that rap
Im so rough so tough when I talk my stuff
I dont stop rappin cuz Im too tough
Telling you rappers what its all about
Most mcs are played out
But not too short, Im the best
You know too short is so so fresh
If thats not short, your mind is snapping
The best is fresh cause I dont stop rappin
Dont stop
Dont stop rappin
Too short
I dont stop rappin
Im sir too short, the rapping man
Im a cold mc and I know I am
Im the big time rapper from east oakland
Into music and making fans
I love young ladies who love my rhymes
Cuz what they say is right on time
The only mc with fresh hits
Its sir too short, he never quits
Thats so so true, what they say

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song performed by Too Short
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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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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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The Columbiad: Book III

The Argument

Actions of the Inca Capac. A general invasion of his dominions threatened by the mountain savages. Rocha, the Inca's son, sent with a few companions to offer terms of peace. His embassy. His adventure with the worshippers of the volcano. With those of the storm, on the Andes. Falls in with the savage armies. Character and speech of Zamor, their chief. Capture of Rocha and his companions. Sacrifice of the latter. Death song of Azonto. War dance. March of the savage armies down the mountains to Peru. Incan army meets them. Battle joins. Peruvians terrified by an eclipse of the sun, and routed. They fly to Cusco. Grief of Oella, supposing the darkness to be occasioned by the death of Rocha. Sun appears. Peruvians from the city wall discover Roch an altar in the savage camp. They march in haste out of the city and engage the savages. Exploits of Capac. Death of Zamor. Recovery of Rocha, and submission of the enemy.

Now twenty years these children of the skies
Beheld their gradual growing empire rise.
They ruled with rigid but with generous care,
Diffused their arts and sooth'd the rage of war,
Bade yon tall temple grace their favorite isle,
The mines unfold, the cultured valleys smile,
Those broad foundations bend their arches high,
And rear imperial Cusco to the sky;
Wealth, wisdom, force consolidate the reign
From the rude Andes to the western main.

But frequent inroads from the savage bands
Lead fire and slaughter o'er the labor'd lands;
They sack the temples, the gay fields deface,
And vow destruction to the Incan race.
The king, undaunted in defensive war,
Repels their hordes, and speeds their flight afar;
Stung with defeat, they range a wider wood,
And rouse fresh tribes for future fields of blood.

Where yon blue ridges hang their cliffs on high,
And suns infulminate the stormful sky,
The nations, temper'd to the turbid air,
Breathe deadly strife, and sigh for battle's blare;
Tis here they meditate, with one vast blow,
To crush the race that rules the plains below.
Capac with caution views the dark design,
Learns from all points what hostile myriads join.
And seeks in time by proffer'd leagues to gain
A bloodless victory, and enlarge his reign.

His eldest hope, young Rocha, at his call,
Resigns his charge within the temple wall;
In whom began, with reverend forms of awe,
The functions grave of priesthood and of law,

In early youth, ere yet the ripening sun
Had three short lustres o'er his childhood run,
The prince had learnt, beneath his father's hand,
The well-framed code that sway'd the sacred land;
With rites mysterious served the Power divine,
Prepared the altar and adorn'd the shrine,
Responsive hail'd, with still returning praise,
Each circling season that the God displays,

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poem by Joel Barlow
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Quatrains Of Life

What has my youth been that I love it thus,
Sad youth, to all but one grown tedious,
Stale as the news which last week wearied us,
Or a tired actor's tale told to an empty house?

What did it bring me that I loved it, even
With joy before it and that dream of Heaven,
Boyhood's first rapture of requited bliss,
What did it give? What ever has it given?

'Let me recount the value of my days,
Call up each witness, mete out blame and praise,
Set life itself before me as it was,
And--for I love it--list to what it says.

Oh, I will judge it fairly. Each old pleasure
Shared with dead lips shall stand a separate treasure.
Each untold grief, which now seems lesser pain,
Shall here be weighed and argued of at leisure.

I will not mark mere follies. These would make
The count too large and in the telling take
More tears than I can spare from seemlier themes
To cure its laughter when my heart should ache.

Only the griefs which are essential things,
The bitter fruit which all experience brings;
Nor only of crossed pleasures, but the creed
Men learn who deal with nations and with kings.

All shall be counted fairly, griefs and joys,
Solely distinguishing 'twixt mirth and noise,
The thing which was and that which falsely seemed,
Pleasure and vanity, man's bliss and boy's.

So I shall learn the reason of my trust
In this poor life, these particles of dust
Made sentient for a little while with tears,
Till the great ``may--be'' ends for me in ``must.''

My childhood? Ah, my childhood! What of it
Stripped of all fancy, bare of all conceit?
Where is the infancy the poets sang?
Which was the true and which the counterfeit?

I see it now, alas, with eyes unsealed,
That age of innocence too well revealed.
The flowers I gathered--for I gathered flowers--
Were not more vain than I in that far field.

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poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Give Your Heart To The Hawks

1 he apples hung until a wind at the equinox,

That heaped the beach with black weed, filled the dry grass

Under the old trees with rosy fruit.

In the morning Fayne Fraser gathered the sound ones into a

basket,

The bruised ones into a pan. One place they lay so thickly
She knelt to reach them.

Her husband's brother passing
Along the broken fence of the stubble-field,
His quick brown eyes took in one moving glance
A little gopher-snake at his feet flowing through the stubble
To gain the fence, and Fayne crouched after apples
With her mop of red hair like a glowing coal
Against the shadow in the garden. The small shapely reptile
Flowed into a thicket of dead thistle-stalks
Around a fence-post, but its tail was not hidden.
The young man drew it all out, and as the coil
Whipped over his wrist, smiled at it; he stepped carefully
Across the sag of the wire. When Fayne looked up
His hand was hidden; she looked over her shoulder
And twitched her sunburnt lips from small white teeth
To answer the spark of malice in his eyes, but turned
To the apples, intent again. Michael looked down
At her white neck, rarely touched by the sun,
But now the cinnabar-colored hair fell off from it;
And her shoulders in the light-blue shirt, and long legs like a boy's
Bare-ankled in blue-jean trousers, the country wear;
He stooped quietly and slipped the small cool snake
Up the blue-denim leg. Fayne screamed and writhed,
Clutching her thigh. 'Michael, you beast.' She stood up
And stroked her leg, with little sharp cries, the slender invader
Fell down her ankle.

Fayne snatched for it and missed;

Michael stood by rejoicing, his rather small

Finely cut features in a dance of delight;

Fayne with one sweep flung at his face

All the bruised and half-spoiled apples in the pan,

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Hen laid eggs

Hen laid an eggs, between legs two,
No small, no big but not in zoo,
Ran after those who made slight dig,
Dog, cat and crow planned very big,
Hen laid eggs……

Hen becomes heroin when find egg,
With big noise run after with one leg,
Even scare pig and allow near no body,
How to protect eggs that is only worry?
Hen laid eggs……

Make no fun when she may have kitten,
Beautiful scene seen when run in garden,
Children love to see and catch with fun,
Prefer little kitten and make gentle run,
Hen laid eggs……

Small kids ask, what will be her task?
How to protect them, by putting a mask?
Often they look at them and draw on page,
night take them all to stay in simple cage,
hen laid eggs……

Papa and mummy, where from kittens came?
Who laid an eggs and how she played game?
Simply they observe and ask funny questions
Why kitten become cock and not small hen?
Hen laid eggs....

What a lovely fun? I couldn’t answer one?
It was more confusing than work undone?
Answered few more questions but not in full,
Avoided by telling you may get it from school
Hen laid eggs.....

How to answer questions? When faced many?
Simple they may look but nature seems funny,
better not answer question any more,
It may not be ending but more and feel bore,
Hen laid eggs......

It is not the hen but cock steals show,
People get irritation when shouts crow,
Kittens and children happy and steadily grow,
Cock serve as alarm when mighty voice blow
Hen laid eggs......

Cocks find preference and first depart,
When runs after hen even looks smart,

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poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
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Christmas-Eve

I.
OUT of the little chapel I burst
Into the fresh night air again.
I had waited a good five minutes first
In the doorway, to escape the rain
That drove in gusts down the common’s centre,
At the edge of which the chapel stands,
Before I plucked up heart to enter:
Heaven knows how many sorts of hands
Reached past me, groping for the latch
Of the inner door that hung on catch,
More obstinate the more they fumbled,
Till, giving way at last with a scold
Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled
One sheep more to the rest in fold,
And left me irresolute, standing sentry
In the sheepfold’s lath-and-plaster entry,
Four feet long by two feet wide,
Partitioned off from the vast inside—
I blocked up half of it at least.
No remedy; the rain kept driving:
They eyed me much as some wild beast,
The congregation, still arriving,
Some of them by the mainroad, white
A long way past me into the night,
Skirting the common, then diverging;
Not a few suddenly emerging
From the common’s self thro’ the paling-gaps,—
—They house in the gravel-pits perhaps,
Where the road stops short with its safeguard border
Of lamps, as tired of such disorder;—
But the most turned in yet more abruptly
From a certain squalid knot of alleys,
Where the town’s bad blood once slept corruptly,
Which now the little chapel rallies
And leads into day again,—its priestliness
Lending itself to hide their beastliness
So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason),
And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on
Those neophytes too much in lack of it,
That, where you cross the common as I did,
And meet the party thus presided,
“Mount Zion,” with Love-lane at the back of it,
They front you as little disconcerted,
As, bound for the hills, her fate averted
And her wicked people made to mind him,
Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him.

II.
Well, from the road, the lanes or the common,

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poem by Robert Browning
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