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Love Dont Come Easy

(robb boldt / howie hersh / iki levy / paula abdul / da count / eric monsanty / chan andre)
It all went down at the cantina that she liked
Everyone would watch her as she danced all through the lights
She was the center of attraction in him mind
Maria thought shed never find a man worth her time
Oooo he came into the room
Oooo she really liked the way that he began to move
They were in the mood for romancin
Theres a fire in little havana
Flame so hot you cant stand it
Things are getting a little crazy
Someone better tell them that
Chorus:
Love dont come that easy
(I know youre ready boy)
Weve got to control all emotions that were feeling
Love dont come that easy
Weve gotta be strong
Swing
Weve gotta stay strong
Straight
As he took her in his arms
She got an instant chill
A sense of passion
She thought no one could make her feel
Their bodies moved with such intensity
The lights went down
Made sighs of pleasure
Like there was no one else around
Ooh now shes in the mood
Ooh to show him what she wants to do
Shes got him crazy
Theres a fire in little havana
Flame so hot you cant stand it
Things are getting a little crazy
Can you feel it
(yeah)
Are you ready
(yeah)
Chorus

song performed by Paula Abdul
Added by Lucian Velea
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Chan Hitchhikes To Shanghai

Chan goes to shanghai,
Chan hitchhikes to shanghai,
Chan goes to shanghai,
Chan hitchhikes to shanghai,
Chan goes to shanghai,
Chan hitchhikes to shanghai,
He took a trip to see his mother,
And she was sick, how he got over, he took pride in everything he did,
Never had a harsh word?
Chan goes to shanghai,
Chan hitchhikes to shanghai,
Chan goes to shanghai,
Chan hitchhikes to shanghai,
Works on the snow, works in the wind,
How does he travel? whos with him?
Didnt think chan had a family,
Grew accustomed to a symphony, chan held on to his mystery,
Chan, whaty doin man?
Say chan, I wrote this song about you man,
It goes, chan goes to shanghai,
Chan hitchhikes to shanghai,
Chan goes to shanghai,
Chan hitchhikes to shanghai,
Chan goes to shanghai,
Miss his cooking, sense of humour,
Miss his timing, his discipline, wee all miss chan but we cant advoid,
Now theres an empty space (? ),
Goin to give to leave his job,
Hes the only man, I wrote this song,
Hey, chan, whaty doin man?
Say chan, I wrote this song about you man,
It goes, chan goes to shanghai,
Chan hitchhikes to shanghai,
Chan goes to shanghai,
Chan hitchhikes to shanghai,
Hitchhikes, hitchhikes,
To shanghai, hitchhikes, to shanghai,
Chan,
Chan goes to shanghai,
Chan hitchhikes to shanghai,
Chan goes to shanghai,
Chan hitchhikes to shanghai,
Chan goes to shanghai,
Chan hitchhikes to shanghai,
Chan goes to shanghai,
Chan hitchhikes to shanghai,
Chan, hitchhikes, oh chan, anyway you can
Ha, come back chan, come back chan,
Shanghai chan,
Shanghai chan,

[...] Read more

song performed by Grace Jones
Added by Lucian Velea
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Footstompinmusic

Come on everybody, were gonna have a good time, yeah,
Gimmie all the love thats in ya, Im gonna give ya mine.
I wanna hear some hand clappin, I want you to get in the groove,
Were gonna play this footstompin music, everybody get up and groove, yeah.
Oooo-oooo, oooo-oooo.
Oooo-oooo, oooo-oooo.
Oooo-oooo, oooo-oooo.
Oooo-oooo, oooo-oooo.
Oooo-oooo, oooo-oooo.
Oooo-oooo, oooo-oooo.
Oooo-oooo, oooo-oooo.
Does everybody want to?
Does everybody want to?
Does everybody want to?
Does everybody want to?
Does everybody want to?
Does everybody want to?
Oooo-oooo, oooo-oooo.
Come on right now.
Oooo-oooo, oooo-oooo.
Everybody.
Oooo-oooo, oooo-oooo.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo.
Oh, yeah.
Ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo.
Yeah.
Ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo.
Ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo.
Ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo.
Oooooooooooo-ooo.
Ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo.
Ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo-ooo, ooo.
Ohhhh ... yeahhhh ...

song performed by Grand Funk Railroad
Added by Lucian Velea
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Talk To The People

Chorus
Talk to the people, but they just dont listen, no.
Talk to the people, but they just dont listen.
Talk to the people, but they just dont listen, no.
Talk to the people ...
Why wont they listen to rhyme or reason?
Please wont you give us just one more chance to get through?
You aint right if you might think were preachin.
We see their faces and were just tryin to reach them.
When we ...
Chorus
Why wont they listen to what were sayin?
Please wont you help us, its way past time that you do?
Your futures dyin right before your faces.
The lord above will put us all in our places.
When we ...
Chorus
But they just dont listen, no.
Chorus
But they just dont listen, no.
Oooo-oooo-oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo-oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo-oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo-oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo-oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo-oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo-oooo-oooo

song performed by Grand Funk Railroad
Added by Lucian Velea
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Born To Die

Life is too short now, to live it half way.
Im cryin for my cousin, who died yesterday.
He never had a chance, no, not to express his views.
I swear that hes leaving it, to the rest of you.
Oh he ...
Chorus
Lived his life of freedom, exactly the way that he wanted to.
But theres always that one thing, we never do count on.
You was born for it to happen to you ...
... oooo-oooo, oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo
He was on a motorcycle, in a side car.
They was just outside of town, they hadnt ridden far.
Out to have a good time, on a bike they built.
How was they to know it, that night that hed be killed.
Oh he ...
Chorus
... oooo-oooo, oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo
Oh he ...
Chorus
Yes he ...
Chorus
... oooo-oooo, oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo
Oooo-oooo

song performed by Grand Funk Railroad
Added by Lucian Velea
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Count Me Out

Count me out
Count me out
Fellas want to hang
And save tonight just
For the gang
But youll have to count me
Out this time
If I cant bring my girl
Dont look surprised
When I tell you that
Gotta spend some time
With my baby, yes
So if that means
Were gonna rain on
Your parade
Youll have to count me out
Youre gonna have to count me
Out
Youll have to count me out
I wanna be with my girlfriend
Youll have to count me out
This time
Youll have to count me out
When she asked me please
Could I say no and feel at
Ease
If you count me out tonight
Shes gonna be with me wherever
I go
Shes got a sweet personality
She saves her kisses just for me
So if that means were gonna rain on
Your parade
Youll have to count me out
Youre gonna have to count
Me out
Youll have to count me out
Im saving kisses for my baby
Youll have to count me out
This time
Youll have to count me out
Youll have to count me out
Youre gonna have to count
Me out
Youll have to count me out
My baby wants to be with me
Youll have to count me out
Thats the way its gonna be
Youll have to count me out
Count me out

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song performed by New Edition
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Love Is Here And Now You're Gone

1st Verse
Maria hey hey Maria
Maria don't you hear me calling Maria
Maria girl you know you were the only one
Hey hey Maria
Maria don't you miss me just a little
Maria after all you were the only one
Come on back to me Maria
Maria come on back to me girl
2nd
Hey hey Maria
Maria it's been long so long
Maria since you've been gone
Hey hey Maria
Maria don't you need me just a little
Maria 'cause honest girl you were the only one
Come on back to me Maria
Oh come on back to me girl
Bridge
Maria I need you
Maria why d'you keep a-running away
Oh baby you keep a-running away
Oh baby yeah Maria
I need you honey
Oh Maria you sweet little sunflower
Oh hear my plea for sympathy
I just want you here with me Maria
If you're on that lonely night
What's my life without you girl
I'm so lonely I'm so blue
Without you darling my life is through
Come on back
Written and Composed by Larry Brown, Shadee, George Gordy and Linda Glover

song performed by Michael Jackson
Added by Lucian Velea
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Maria

Written & composed: larry brown, shadee, george gordy and linda glover
Maria hey hey maria
Maria don't you hear me calling maria
Maria girl you know you were the only one
Hey hey maria
Maria don't you miss me just a little
Maria after all you were the only one
Come on back to me maria
Maria come on back to me girl
Hey hey maria
Maria it's been long so long
Maria since you've been gone
Hey hey maria
Maria don't you need me just a little
Maria 'cause honest girl you were the only one
Come on back to me maria
Oh come on back to me girl
Maria i need you
Maria why d'you keep a-running away
Oh baby you keep a-running away
Oh baby yeah maria
I need you honey
Oh maria you sweet little sunflower
Oh hear my plea for sympathy
I just want you here with me maria
If you're on that lonely night
What's my life without you girl
I'm so lonely i'm so blue
Without you darling my life is through
Come on back

song performed by Michael Jackson
Added by Lucian Velea
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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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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,—

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Feelin Alright

Seems I got to have a change in scene,
cause every night I have the strangest dreams.
Imprisoned by the way things used to be, yeah,
Left here on my own or so it seems.
I got to leave before I start to scream,
cause somebody locked the door and took the key.
Chorus
Feelin alright? Im not feelin too good myself.
Feelin alright? Im not feelin too good myself.
Oooo, oooo, oooo, oooo, oooo-ooo.
Baby, you sure took me on one big ride,
And, even now I sit and wonder why.
Then, when I think of you, I start to cry,
I know I cant get upset and I must keep dry.
I got to stop believin in all your lies,
cause I got too much to do before I die.
Chorus
Oooo, oooo, oooo, oooo, oooo-ooo.
Chorus
Oh, yeah.
Chorus
Oooo, oooo, oooo, oooo, oooo-ooo.

song performed by Grand Funk Railroad
Added by Lucian Velea
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II. Half-Rome

What, you, Sir, come too? (Just the man I'd meet.)
Be ruled by me and have a care o' the crowd:
This way, while fresh folk go and get their gaze:
I'll tell you like a book and save your shins.
Fie, what a roaring day we've had! Whose fault?
Lorenzo in Lucina,—here's a church
To hold a crowd at need, accommodate
All comers from the Corso! If this crush
Make not its priests ashamed of what they show
For temple-room, don't prick them to draw purse
And down with bricks and mortar, eke us out
The beggarly transept with its bit of apse
Into a decent space for Christian ease,
Why, to-day's lucky pearl is cast to swine.
Listen and estimate the luck they've had!
(The right man, and I hold him.)

Sir, do you see,
They laid both bodies in the church, this morn
The first thing, on the chancel two steps up,
Behind the little marble balustrade;
Disposed them, Pietro the old murdered fool
To the right of the altar, and his wretched wife
On the other side. In trying to count stabs,
People supposed Violante showed the most,
Till somebody explained us that mistake;
His wounds had been dealt out indifferent where,
But she took all her stabbings in the face,
Since punished thus solely for honour's sake,
Honoris causâ, that's the proper term.
A delicacy there is, our gallants hold,
When you avenge your honour and only then,
That you disfigure the subject, fray the face,
Not just take life and end, in clownish guise.
It was Violante gave the first offence,
Got therefore the conspicuous punishment:
While Pietro, who helped merely, his mere death
Answered the purpose, so his face went free.
We fancied even, free as you please, that face
Showed itself still intolerably wronged;
Was wrinkled over with resentment yet,
Nor calm at all, as murdered faces use,
Once the worst ended: an indignant air
O' the head there was—'t is said the body turned
Round and away, rolled from Violante's side
Where they had laid it loving-husband-like.
If so, if corpses can be sensitive,
Why did not he roll right down altar-step,
Roll on through nave, roll fairly out of church,
Deprive Lorenzo of the spectacle,

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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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I. The Ring and the Book

Do you see this Ring?
'T is Rome-work, made to match
(By Castellani's imitative craft)
Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn,
After a dropping April; found alive
Spark-like 'mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots
That roof old tombs at Chiusi: soft, you see,
Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There's one trick,
(Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device
And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold
As this was,—such mere oozings from the mine,
Virgin as oval tawny pendent tear
At beehive-edge when ripened combs o'erflow,—
To bear the file's tooth and the hammer's tap:
Since hammer needs must widen out the round,
And file emboss it fine with lily-flowers,
Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear.
That trick is, the artificer melts up wax
With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold
With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both,
Effects a manageable mass, then works:
But his work ended, once the thing a ring,
Oh, there's repristination! Just a spirt
O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face,
And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume;
While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains,
The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness,
Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:
Prime nature with an added artistry—
No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.
What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say;
A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.

Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss
I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about
By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since?
Examine it yourselves! I found this book,
Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just,
(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,
Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,
One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,
Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths,
Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time,
Toward Baccio's marble,—ay, the basement-ledge
O' the pedestal where sits and menaces
John of the Black Bands with the upright spear,
'Twixt palace and church,—Riccardi where they lived,
His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Marie Claire

Down in the valley, beside the Seine
Where it's cold and damp in the autumn rain,
A couple once opened a restaurant,
And called it the Café d'Aubijon.

The chef was Henri Apollinaire,
His wife, the beautiful Marie Claire,
And Henri worshipped his wife, complete
From her hair right down to her darling feet.

Marie had more of a roving eye
For the guests and the diners, passing by,
While Henri slaved over plates of veal,
Marie saw hearts she would like to steal.

She flirted, fluttered and teased with eyes
That promised much to the less than wise,
She often removed her wedding ring
And leant so close, she was whispering.

She'd show each guest to his tiny room
In the long drawn lull of the afternoon,
Then disappear for an hour or so
While Henri dealt with the guests below.

Then down amongst the crème brûlé,
The Guinea Fowl and the consommé,
The Chef sat brooding about his life,
Breaking his heart for his faithless wife.

So many guests had come and gone
From Caen, Toulouse, from Avignon,
From Brest, Limoux, from Vaux Sur Mer,
He wondered what he was doing there.

But every time that he saw his wife
His heart said: 'She's the love of my life! '
He never would think to challenge her there,
Her loss would shackle him in despair!

A change came suddenly over her
When a guest called André Carpentier
Took up her offer of room and board
And sneered at Henri's estouffade.

Too thin, too thick, the wine was sour,
He sniped, was muttering by the hour,
For nothing was well enough done, by half,
And Marie Claire had begun to laugh.

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poem by David Lewis Paget
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III. The Other Half-Rome

Another day that finds her living yet,
Little Pompilia, with the patient brow
And lamentable smile on those poor lips,
And, under the white hospital-array,
A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise
You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through again,
Alive i' the ruins. 'T is a miracle.
It seems that, when her husband struck her first,
She prayed Madonna just that she might live
So long as to confess and be absolved;
And whether it was that, all her sad life long
Never before successful in a prayer,
This prayer rose with authority too dread,—
Or whether, because earth was hell to her,
By compensation, when the blackness broke
She got one glimpse of quiet and the cool blue,
To show her for a moment such things were,—
Or else,—as the Augustinian Brother thinks,
The friar who took confession from her lip,—
When a probationary soul that moved
From nobleness to nobleness, as she,
Over the rough way of the world, succumbs,
Bloodies its last thorn with unflinching foot,
The angels love to do their work betimes,
Staunch some wounds here nor leave so much for God.
Who knows? However it be, confessed, absolved,
She lies, with overplus of life beside
To speak and right herself from first to last,
Right the friend also, lamb-pure, lion-brave,
Care for the boy's concerns, to save the son
From the sire, her two-weeks' infant orphaned thus,
And—with best smile of all reserved for him—
Pardon that sire and husband from the heart.
A miracle, so tell your Molinists!

There she lies in the long white lazar-house.
Rome has besieged, these two days, never doubt,
Saint Anna's where she waits her death, to hear
Though but the chink o' the bell, turn o' the hinge
When the reluctant wicket opes at last,
Lets in, on now this and now that pretence,
Too many by half,—complain the men of art,—
For a patient in such plight. The lawyers first
Paid the due visit—justice must be done;
They took her witness, why the murder was.
Then the priests followed properly,—a soul
To shrive; 't was Brother Celestine's own right,
The same who noises thus her gifts abroad.
But many more, who found they were old friends,
Pushed in to have their stare and take their talk

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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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Maria

The most beautiful sound I ever heard:
Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria...
All the beautiful words of the world in a single
word:
Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria...
Maria!
I've just met a girl named Maria,
And suddenly that name
Will never be the same
To me.
Maria!
I've just kissed a girl named Maria,
And suddenly I've found
How wonderful a sound
Can be!
Maria!
Say it loud and there's music playing,
Say it soft and it's almost like praying.
Maria,
I'll never stop saying Maria!
The most beautiful sound I ever heard.
Maria.

song performed by Michael Mcdonald
Added by Lucian Velea
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