Chance
(berry/buck/mills/stipe)
Chance, chance, chance, chance
Friday bank card yours got stuck
I loaned you a phone quarter, said good luck
Where are you now?
Me and glasses saturday slump
You and your shopping, I looked up
Our eyes met, mine are green
Youd had a peroxide thing
Call now, look me up
Sunday walk, weavers park,
I was on the lakeside
Where the playgrounds meet
In bare feet
You said, mighty cold today
You never see what I think
You didnt like your daytime job
I was born to travel
You were a camera, I dropped my keys
Im on the northbound, you were asleep
I said, are you holding?
You wanna ride the silent sky?
I wrote a story on the fly
You in the tabletop
I said, Ive had enough of the city.
I held a bag of apples
You at the last table
I had had a soy dog
Cafe streetside, tuesday bloom
You wanna be on fire, I said I hung the moon
Wednesday grocery, corner of vine,
You were in the checkout line
I dropped my frozen dinners, you helped pick them up
Thursday cab rush, our block,
You with broken accent, my heart stopped
You laughed, I worry
Chance, chance, chance, chance
Swarming like a dozen crushing blows
All those glances, midtime dances
Chance
I never looked it up
You hit the sidewalk talking
Said, Id read the ads
Do you?
Where are you? will you read this? can I see?
This is surely moving faster than I can think
A minute shy, a passing eye
I know I saw you there
Will you read this? can I see? what did I see?
Chance, chance, chance, chance
[...] Read more
song performed by REM
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Thurso’s Landing
I
The coast-road was being straightened and repaired again,
A group of men labored at the steep curve
Where it falls from the north to Mill Creek. They scattered and hid
Behind cut banks, except one blond young man
Who stooped over the rock and strolled away smiling
As if he shared a secret joke with the dynamite;
It waited until he had passed back of a boulder,
Then split its rock cage; a yellowish torrent
Of fragments rose up the air and the echoes bumped
From mountain to mountain. The men returned slowly
And took up their dropped tools, while a banner of dust
Waved over the gorge on the northwest wind, very high
Above the heads of the forest.
Some distance west of the road,
On the promontory above the triangle
Of glittering ocean that fills the gorge-mouth,
A woman and a lame man from the farm below
Had been watching, and turned to go down the hill. The young
woman looked back,
Widening her violet eyes under the shade of her hand. 'I think
they'll blast again in a minute.'
And the man: 'I wish they'd let the poor old road be. I don't
like improvements.' 'Why not?' 'They bring in the world;
We're well without it.' His lameness gave him some look of age
but he was young too; tall and thin-faced,
With a high wavering nose. 'Isn't he amusing,' she said, 'that
boy Rick Armstrong, the dynamite man,
How slowly he walks away after he lights the fuse. He loves to
show off. Reave likes him, too,'
She added; and they clambered down the path in the rock-face,
little dark specks
Between the great headland rock and the bright blue sea.
II
The road-workers had made their camp
North of this headland, where the sea-cliff was broken down and
sloped to a cove. The violet-eyed woman's husband,
Reave Thurso, rode down the slope to the camp in the gorgeous
autumn sundown, his hired man Johnny Luna
Riding behind him. The road-men had just quit work and four
or five were bathing in the purple surf-edge,
The others talked by the tents; blue smoke fragrant with food
and oak-wood drifted from the cabin stove-pipe
And slowly went fainting up the vast hill.
Thurso drew rein by
a group of men at a tent door
And frowned at them without speaking, square-shouldered and
heavy-jawed, too heavy with strength for so young a man,
He chose one of the men with his eyes. 'You're Danny Woodruff,
[...] Read more
poem by Robinson Jeffers
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
On More Saturday Night
One More Saturday Night
-----------------------
I went down to the mountain, I was drinkin' some wine,
looked up in the heavens Lord I saw a mighty sign,
written in fire across the heavens, plain as black and white;
Get prepared, there's gonna be a party tonight.
Uhuh, Hey! Saturday Night!
Yeh, uhuh one more Saturday night,
Hey saturday night !
Everybody's dancin' down the local armory
with a basement full of dynamite and light artillery.
The temperature keeps risin', everybody gittin' high;
come the rockin' stroke of midnite, the place is gonna fly.
Uhuh, Hey! Saturday Night!
Yeh, uhuh one more Saturday night,
Hey saturday night !
Turn on channel six, the President comes on the news,
says "I get no satisfaction, that's why I sing the blues."
These wives, they don't get crazy, Lord, they know just what to do,
crank up that old Victrola, put on them rockin' shoes.
Uhuh, Hey! Saturday Night!
Yeh, uhuh one more Saturday night,
Hey saturday night !
When God way up in Heaven, for whatever it was worth,
thought He'd have a big old party, thought He'd call it planet Earth.
Don't worry about tomorrow, Lord, you'll know it when it comes,
when the rock and roll music meets the risin' shinin' sun.
Uhuh, Hey! Saturday Night!
Yeh, uhuh one more Saturday night,
Hey saturday night !
Hey another Saturday night,
Hey another Saturday night,
Everybody gettin' right,
Hey another Saturday night,
One more saturday, one more Saturday night,
Hey another Saturday night,
Hey another Saturday night,
Hey another Saturday night,
One more saturday, one more saturday night.
Hey another Saturday night,
Hey another Saturday night,
Hey another Saturday night,
One more saturday, one more saturday night
song performed by Grateful Dead
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Better Luck Next Time
Black is for the nighttime
Preys upon the day
Red is for the blood that flows like rivers in our veins
Gray is for betrayal
What you did to me
White is for the blinding light
That I know Ill never see, know Ill never see
Found you in the gutter
You needed tenderness
I gave you everything I had
I gave you all my trust
Handed out so neatly
Caught me in your trap
When I needed you the most
You stab me in the back, stab me in the back
Better luck, better luck, better luck next time
If you do it once therell never be a second time
Better luck, better luck, better luck next time
Find somebody else, youre never gonna be mine
How do you find the nerve
To lie right to me face
How do you find the nerve
Black is for the nighttime
Preys upon the day
Red is for the blood that flows like rivers in our veins
I try and find excuses
For what you did to me
Cant forget that burning rage
When I wake up thinking of your face
For the blinding swiftness of revenge
That I know Ill never see, know Ill never see
Better luck, better luck, better luck next time
If you do it once therell never be a second time
Better luck, better luck, better luck next time
Find somebody else, youre never gonna be mine
Better luck, better luck, better luck next time (better luck, better luck)
Better luck, better luck, better luck next time (better luck, better luck)
How do you find the nerve
To lie right to me face
How did you find the nerve
Better luck, better luck, better luck next time (better luck, better luck)
Better luck, better luck, better luck next time (better luck, better luck)
Better luck, better luck, better luck next time (better luck, better luck)
song performed by Oingo Boingo
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Carrolling II-Parody Lewis CARROLL–The Mad Gardener’s Song
Carolling II
He Thought He Saw
He thought he saw new Internet
exchanging peer to peer,
he looked again and found it was
a mirage for each year
sees more control, “what rôle, ” he said,
“for values once held dear?
Some track to trace attack and get
convictions based on fear.'
He dreamt he saw spam disappear,
all consultations free,
he looked again and found it was
a spybot lottery.
“Is net neutrality”, he said,
“from rash risks viral clear? ”
He dreamt that Microsoft would steer
all trash deleted fast,
then woke to find world insincere
where independence past
was sacrificed throughout the year
to biometrics ghast.
He thought he saw a friend’s hello,
with an attachment piece,
he looked again and found it was
the porno scanning police.
“Politically correct”, he said,
“can’t guarantee release.”
He opened it, discovered though,
a trojan horse to fleece –
he looked again as data flow
declined, - mind not at peace -
and whispered with voice hoarse and low:
'when will our worries cease? ”
He thought he saw a hierophant,
who’d deal successful life,
he looked again and found it was
subpoena from ex-wife
demanding child support, he said,
“cards are cut by Time’s knife.”
He looked once more with rage and rant
and swore like a fishwife
[...] Read more
poem by Jonathan Robin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Saturday Night's Alright
It's getting late have you seen my mates,
It's getting late have you seen my mates,
Go on and tell me when the boys get here.
Go on and tell me when the boys get here.
It's seven o'clock and I want to rock,
It's seven o'clock and i want to rock,
Want to get a belly full of beer.
Want to get a belly full of beer.
My old man's drunker than a barrel full of monkeys
My old man's drunker than a barrel full of monkeys
And my old lady she don't care
And my old lady she don't care
My sister looks cute in her braces and boots with a handful of grease in her hair.
My sister looks cute in her braces and boots with a handful of grease in her hair.
Hey... Don't give us none of your aggravation,
Hey... don't give us none of your aggravation,
We've had it with your discipline.
We've had it with your discipline.
Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting, get a little action in.
Saturday night's alright for fighting, get a little action in.
I get about as oiled as a diesel train, gonna set this dance alight.
I get about as oiled as a diesel train, gonna set this dance alight.
Cause' Saturday Night's the night I like,
Cause' saturday night's the night i like,
Saturday Nights Alright..
Saturday nights alright..
Alright, Alright!
Alright, alright!
Well, we're packed pretty tight in here tonight and I'm looking for a dolly who'll see me right.
Well, we're packed pretty tight in here tonight and i'm looking for a dolly who'll see me right.
I may use a little muscle to get what I need, and sink a little drink and shout out, 'She's with me!'.
I may use a little muscle to get what i need, and sink a little drink and shout out, "she's with me!".
A couple of the sounds that I really like are the sound of a switchblade and a motorbike.
A couple of the sounds that i really like are the sound of a switchblade and a motorbike.
I'm a juvenile product of the working class, who's best friend floats in the bottom of a glass.
I'm a juvenile product of the working class, who's best friend floats in the bottom of a glass.
Don't give us none of your aggravation, we've had it with your discipline.
Don't give us none of your aggravation, we've had it with your discipline.
Saturday Night's Alright for fighting, to get a little action in.
Saturday night's alright for fighting, to get a little action in.
I get about as oiled as a diesel train, gonna set this dance alight.
I get about as oiled as a diesel train, gonna set this dance alight.
Cause Saturday Night's the night I like,
Cause saturday night's the night i like,
Saturday Night's Alright...
Saturday night's alright...
Alright, Alright!
Alright, alright!
Chorus: Saturday, Saturday, Saturday!........
Chorus: saturday, saturday, saturday!........
[...] Read more
song performed by Who
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Never, Ever And Luck
never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck
never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck
never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck
never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck
never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck
never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck
never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck
never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck
never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck never, ever and luck
prayers are answered
need repetitions
poem by Nyein Way
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Chance (dub)
Chance, chance, chance, chance
Friday bank card yours got stuck
I loaned you a phone quarter, said "Good luck"
Where are you now?
Me and glasses Saturday slump
You and your shopping, I looked up
Our eyes met, mine are green
You'd had a peroxide thing
Call now, look me up
Sunday walk, Weaver's Park,
I was on the lakeside
Where the playgrounds meet
In bare feet
You said, "Mighty cold today"
You never see what I think
You didn't like your daytime job
I was born to travel
You were a camera, I dropped my keys
I'm on the northbound, you were asleep
I said, "Are you holding?"
"You wanna ride the silent sky?"
I wrote a story on the fly
You in the tabletop
I said, "I've had enough of the city."
I held a bag of apples
You at the last table
I had had a soy dog
Cafe streetside, Tuesday bloom
You wanna be on fire, I said I hung the moon
Wednesday grocery, corner of Vine,
You were in the checkout line
I dropped my frozen dinners, you helped pick them up
Thursday cab rush, our block,
You with broken accent, my heart stopped
You laughed, I worry
Chance, chance, chance, chance
Swarming like a dozen crushing blows
All those glances, midtime dances
Chance
I never looked it up
You hit the sidewalk talking
Said, "I'd read the ads"
Do you?
Where are you? Will you read this? Can I see?
This is surely moving faster than I can think
A minute shy, a passing eye
I know I saw you there
Will you read this? Can I see? What did I see?
Chance, chance, chance, chance
Swimming like a dozen crushing blows
[...] Read more
song performed by REM
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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.
[...] Read more
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
On A Saturday Night
Mama said, she said it's gonna be alright
Yes she did, well come to bed and turn out the light
She's sleeping there, she's dreaming through her life
Yes she is
Well you know you've done no wrong
All you done is sing this song
You sing this song, yeah
On a Saturday nite
On a Saturday nite
Everything is alright, wooh
That's when the bad man meets his fate
Sitting there, you're feeling only second rate
You're sorry now, you've come a little bit too late
Yes you did
But when you come around
You only bring you down
You feel a clown, yeah
On a Saturday nite
On a Saturday nite
Everything is alright, yeah
Mama said, she said it's gonna be alright
You know she said, you've got to see the coming light
You know you are, you're riding through your life
Yes you are
Well you know you've done your best
All you need's a little rest
You've done your best, yes
On a Saturday nite
On a Saturday nite
Everything is alright
Everything is alright
On a Saturday nite
On a Saturday nite
Everything is alright
Everything is alright
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
song performed by Journey
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
On A Saturday Nite
Mama said, she said it's gonna be alright
Yes she did, well come to bed and turn out the light
She's sleeping there, she's dreaming through her life
Yes she is
Well you know you've done no wrong
All you done is sing this song
You sing this song, yeah
On a Saturday nite
On a Saturday nite
Everything is alright, wooh
That's when the bad man meets his fate
Sitting there, you're feeling only second rate
You're sorry now, you've come a little bit too late
Yes you did
But when you come around
You only bring you down
You feel a clown, yeah
On a Saturday nite
On a Saturday nite
Everything is alright, yeah
Mama said, she said it's gonna be alright
You know she said, you've got to see the coming light
You know you are, you're riding through your life
Yes you are
Well you know you've done your best
All you need's a little rest
You've done your best, yes
On a Saturday nite
On a Saturday nite
Everything is alright
Everything is alright
On a Saturday nite
On a Saturday nite
Everything is alright
Everything is alright
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
Saturday nite
song performed by Journey
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Hurricane Cindy
What's that piece of ass i see walking over here?
What's that piece of ass to me, who is she standing near?
And when i walk on a cyclone
You should see it get rolling
Over my heart and emotion inside me
They go rolling inside me
Hold me close and never let me go
All my life i've wanted you to know
A few things 'bout me
I feel beautiful today
Lovely, beautiful
Saturday, saturday, saturday, saturday
Saturday, saturday, what's on the heel?
Saturday, saturday, saturday, saturday
What's on the heel, what's on the heel?
And when i walk on a cyclone
You should see it get rolling
Over my heart and emotion inside me
They go rolling inside me
Put it on the stereo and play
All my life i've wanted you to say
A few things 'bout me
I feel beautiful today
Lovely, beautiful
Saturday, saturday, saturday, saturday
Saturday, saturday, what's on the heel?
Saturday, saturday, saturday, saturday
What's on the heel, what's on the heel?
And when i walk on a cyclone
You should see it get rolling
Over my heart and emotions inside me
They go rolling inside me
And when i walk it's a riot
You should see the commotion
A hundred people drowning in oceans inside me
They go rolling inside me
Inside me
Inside me
"that's for cindy crawford.
song performed by Liz Phair
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Tamar
I
A night the half-moon was like a dancing-girl,
No, like a drunkard's last half-dollar
Shoved on the polished bar of the eastern hill-range,
Young Cauldwell rode his pony along the sea-cliff;
When she stopped, spurred; when she trembled, drove
The teeth of the little jagged wheels so deep
They tasted blood; the mare with four slim hooves
On a foot of ground pivoted like a top,
Jumped from the crumble of sod, went down, caught, slipped;
Then, the quick frenzy finished, stiffening herself
Slid with her drunken rider down the ledges,
Shot from sheer rock and broke
Her life out on the rounded tidal boulders.
The night you know accepted with no show of emotion the little
accident; grave Orion
Moved northwest from the naked shore, the moon moved to
meridian, the slow pulse of the ocean
Beat, the slow tide came in across the slippery stones; it drowned
the dead mare's muzzle and sluggishly
Felt for the rider; Cauldwell’s sleepy soul came back from the
blind course curious to know
What sea-cold fingers tapped the walls of its deserted ruin.
Pain, pain and faintness, crushing
Weights, and a vain desire to vomit, and soon again
die icy fingers, they had crept over the loose hand and lay in the
hair now. He rolled sidewise
Against mountains of weight and for another half-hour lay still.
With a gush of liquid noises
The wave covered him head and all, his body
Crawled without consciousness and like a creature with no bones,
a seaworm, lifted its face
Above the sea-wrack of a stone; then a white twilight grew about
the moon, and above
The ancient water, the everlasting repetition of the dawn. You
shipwrecked horseman
So many and still so many and now for you the last. But when it
grew daylight
He grew quite conscious; broken ends of bone ground on each
other among the working fibers
While by half-inches he was drawing himself out of the seawrack
up to sandy granite,
Out of the tide's path. Where the thin ledge tailed into flat cliff
he fell asleep. . . .
Far seaward
The daylight moon hung like a slip of cloud against the horizon.
The tide was ebbing
From the dead horse and the black belt of sea-growth. Cauldwell
seemed to have felt her crying beside him,
[...] Read more
poem by Robinson Jeffers
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
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,
[...] Read more
poem by Robinson Jeffers
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Canto the Fifth
I
When amatory poets sing their loves
In liquid lines mellifluously bland,
And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves,
They little think what mischief is in hand;
The greater their success the worse it proves,
As Ovid's verse may give to understand;
Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due severity,
Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.
II
I therefore do denounce all amorous writing,
Except in such a way as not to attract;
Plain -- simple -- short, and by no means inviting,
But with a moral to each error tack'd,
Form'd rather for instructing than delighting,
And with all passions in their turn attack'd;
Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod ill,
This poem will become a moral model.
III
The European with the Asian shore
Sprinkled with palaces; the ocean stream
Here and there studded with a seventy-four;
Sophia's cupola with golden gleam;
The cypress groves; Olympus high and hoar;
The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream,
Far less describe, present the very view
Which charm'd the charming Mary Montagu.
IV
I have a passion for the name of "Mary,"
For once it was a magic sound to me;
And still it half calls up the realms of fairy,
Where I beheld what never was to be;
All feelings changed, but this was last to vary,
A spell from which even yet I am not quite free:
But I grow sad -- and let a tale grow cold,
Which must not be pathetically told.
V
The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave
Broke foaming o'er the blue Symplegades;
'T is a grand sight from off the Giant's Grave
To watch the progress of those rolling seas
Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave
Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease;
There's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in,
Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine.
[...] Read more
poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Don Juan: Canto The Fifth
When amatory poets sing their loves
In liquid lines mellifluously bland,
And pair their rhymes as Venus yokes her doves,
They little think what mischief is in hand;
The greater their success the worse it proves,
As Ovid's verse may give to understand;
Even Petrarch's self, if judged with due severity,
Is the Platonic pimp of all posterity.
I therefore do denounce all amorous writing,
Except in such a way as not to attract;
Plain- simple- short, and by no means inviting,
But with a moral to each error tack'd,
Form'd rather for instructing than delighting,
And with all passions in their turn attack'd;
Now, if my Pegasus should not be shod ill,
This poem will become a moral model.
The European with the Asian shore
Sprinkled with palaces; the ocean stream
Here and there studded with a seventy-four;
Sophia's cupola with golden gleam;
The cypress groves; Olympus high and hoar;
The twelve isles, and the more than I could dream,
Far less describe, present the very view
Which charm'd the charming Mary Montagu.
I have a passion for the name of 'Mary,'
For once it was a magic sound to me;
And still it half calls up the realms of fairy,
Where I beheld what never was to be;
All feelings changed, but this was last to vary,
A spell from which even yet I am not quite free:
But I grow sad- and let a tale grow cold,
Which must not be pathetically told.
The wind swept down the Euxine, and the wave
Broke foaming o'er the blue Symplegades;
'T is a grand sight from off 'the Giant's Grave
To watch the progress of those rolling seas
Between the Bosphorus, as they lash and lave
Europe and Asia, you being quite at ease;
There 's not a sea the passenger e'er pukes in,
Turns up more dangerous breakers than the Euxine.
'T was a raw day of Autumn's bleak beginning,
When nights are equal, but not so the days;
The Parcae then cut short the further spinning
Of seamen's fates, and the loud tempests raise
The waters, and repentance for past sinning
[...] Read more
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
[...] Read more
poem by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Seventh Book
'THE woman's motive? shall we daub ourselves
With finding roots for nettles? 'tis soft clay
And easily explored. She had the means,
The moneys, by the lady's liberal grace,
In trust for that Australian scheme and me,
Which so, that she might clutch with both her hands,
And chink to her naughty uses undisturbed,
She served me (after all it was not strange,;
'Twas only what my mother would have done)
A motherly, unmerciful, good turn.
'Well, after. There are nettles everywhere,
But smooth green grasses are more common still;
The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud;
A miller's wife at Clichy took me in
And spent her pity on me,–made me calm
And merely very reasonably sad.
She found me a servant's place in Paris where
I tried to take the cast-off life again,
And stood as quiet as a beaten ass
Who, having fallen through overloads, stands up
To let them charge him with another pack.
'A few months, so. My mistress, young and light,
Was easy with me, less for kindness than
Because she led, herself, an easy time
Betwixt her lover and her looking-glass,
Scarce knowing which way she was praised the most.
She felt so pretty and so pleased all day
She could not take the trouble to be cross,
But sometimes, as I stooped to tie her shoe,
Would tap me softly with her slender foot
Still restless with the last night's dancing in't,
And say 'Fie, pale-face! are you English girls
'All grave and silent? mass-book still, and Lent?
'And first-communion colours on your cheeks,
'Worn past the time for't? little fool, be gay!'
At which she vanished, like a fairy, through
A gap of silver laughter.
'Came an hour
When all went otherwise. She did not speak,
But clenched her brows, and clipped me with her eyes
As if a viper with a pair of tongs,
Too far for any touch, yet near enough
To view the writhing creature,–then at last,
'Stand still there, in the holy Virgin's name,
'Thou Marian; thou'rt no reputable girl,
'Although sufficient dull for twenty saints!
'I think thou mock'st me and my house,' she said;
'Confess thou'lt be a mother in a month,
[...] Read more
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!