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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,

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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To Monica Thought Dying

You, O the piteous you!
Who all the long night through
Anticipatedly
Disclose yourself to me
Already in the ways
Beyond our human comfortable days;
How can you deem what Death
Impitiably saith
To me, who listening wake
For your poor sake?
When a grown woman dies
You know we think unceasingly
What things she said, how sweet, how wise;
And these do make our misery.
But you were (you to me
The dead anticipatedly!)
You--eleven years, was't not, or so? -
Were just a child, you know;
And so you never said
Things sweet immeditatably and wise

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poem by Francis Thompson
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The Shepherds Calendar - January- Winters Day

Withering and keen the winter comes
While comfort flyes to close shut rooms
And sees the snow in feathers pass
Winnowing by the window glass
And unfelt tempests howl and beat
Above his head in corner seat
And musing oer the changing scene
Farmers behind the tavern screen
Sit-or wi elbow idly prest
On hob reclines the corners guest
Reading the news to mark again
The bankrupt lists or price of grain
Or old moores anual prophecys
That many a theme for talk supplys
Whose almanacks thumbd pages swarm
Wi frost and snow and many a storm
And wisdom gossipd from the stars
Of polities and bloody wars
He shakes his head and still proceeds
Neer doubting once of what he reads

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poem by John Clare
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Seasonal Cycle - Chapter 01 - Summer

"Oh, dear, this utterly sweltering season of the highly rampant sun is drawing nigh, and it will always be good enough to go on taking daytime baths, as the lakes and rivers will still be with plenteous waters, and at the end of the day, nightfall will be pleasant with fascinating moon, and in such nights Love-god can somehow be almost mollified...[who tortured us in the previous vernal season... but now without His sweltering us, we can happily enjoy the nights devouring cool soft drinks and dancing and merrymaking in outfields...]

"Oh, beloved one, somewhere the moon shoved the blackish columns of night aside, somewhere else the palace-chambers with water [showering, sprinkling and splashing] machines are highly exciting, and else where the matrices of gems, [like coolant pearls and moon-stone, etc.,] are there, and even the pure sandalwood is liquefied [besides other coolant scents,] thus this season gets an adoration from all the people...

"The beloved ones will enjoy the summer's clear late nights while they are atop the rooftops of buildings that are delightful and fragranced well, while they savour the passion intensifiers like strong drinks and while the ladylove's face suspires the bouquets of those drinks together with melodious instrumental and vocal music...

"The women are ameliorating the heat of their lovers with their chicly silken coolant fineries gliding onto their rotund fundaments, for they are knotted loosely, and on those silks glissading are their golden cinctures with their dangling tassels that are unfastened on and off, and with their buxom bosoms that are bedaubed with sandal-paste and semi-covered with pearly strings and golden lavalieres, and with their locks of hair that are sliding onto their faces, which locks are fragrant with bath-time emulsions, which are just applied before their oil bath...

"Brightly coloured with the reddish foot-paint that is akin to the colour of lac's reddish resin, adorned with anklets that are festooned with jingling bells, whose tintinnabulations on their stepping after stepping mimic the clucks of swans, with such feet those women with bumpy behinds are rendering the hearts of people impassioned, in these days of pre-summer...

"These days the bosoms of womenfolk are bedaubed with scents and sandal-paste, and they are given out to snowily and whitely pearly pendants that are sported on those bosoms, and even their hiplines are with the dangling golden griddle-strings, with such a lovely ostentation whose heart is it, that does not fill with raptures...

"The seams of limbs of ladies of age are conquered by the often emerging sweat, thus those peaky bosomed lustful ladies are presently banding their bosoms with softish fineries, casting aside their roughish apparels ...

"The rustles of air comprising the aroma of watered sandal-paste, blown off by the fans with peacocks' plumage, and the rustle of strings of pearls when the roundish bosoms of loves are hugged, together with the subtle melody of string instruments, and subtly sung intonations of singers, now appear to awaken Love-god, Manmatha, who is as though asleep after his manoeuvres in the last spring season...

"On leisurely seeing the faces of the maids that are comfortably sleeping well on the tops of whitish edifices, the moon of these nights is highly ecstasized, for he is unpossessed with any such flawless face, as his own face is flawed with rabbit-like, deer-like foibles, and when the night dwindles, he doubtlessly goes into state of pallidity, as though ashamed to show his face to the flawless sun...

"The intolerable westerly wind of the summer is up-heaving the clouds of dust, even the earth is ablaze, set by the blazing sun, and the itinerants whose hearts are already put to blaze by the blazing called the detachment from their ladyloves, and now it has become impossible for them even to look at the blazing earth, to tread further...

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poem by Kalidasa
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Straw in the Street

Straw in the street where I pass to-day
Dulls the sound of the wheels and feet.
'Tis for a failing life they lay
Straw in the street.

Here, where the pulses of London beat,
Someone strives with the Presence grey;
Ah, is it victory or defeat?

The hurrying people go their way,
Pause and jostle and pass and greet;
For life, for death, are they treading, say
Straw in the street?

poem by Amy Levy
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Last Straw

I thought telling you how I feel, will change things between us, but it didn't
You don't get what I am saying at all
It's like I'm speaking another language
I'm done wasting my breath on you
We all make mistakes, but you never learn from your
If you can't treat me right, someone else will
Fool me once, twice, and three times, I must be stupid
Can you see all signs I given you?
I want to date you, but I guess you don't
At this point it's the
Last straw
You keep breaking my heart was too much
I just left the house crying in my sleeve
You came chasing me
I just went home
The day before my graduation you came
I hide from you and watching you leave and that was the last time I saw you
It was the
Last straw
I'm not forgiving you and feeling pity anymore

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poem by Christina Phan
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Like Horny Men

Don’t let the chickens out
Uncle said

close the gate
we don’t want

the foxes getting in
and tearing them

to pieces
because they will you know

they’ll go in for the kill
but maybe only go off

with one
and you stared

at the chickens
running around

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poem by Terry Collett
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The Scarecrow

Unblinking eyes always watching, always searching, never seeing,

Stoic man of straw guards the crops, never jumps and never hops,

Black birds of opportunity seek to doom this friendly community,

Menace of flight prey on corn, the village without will forever mourn,

Absent of straw they would all die, if not for this man who never lies,

He cannot fly, he cannot speak, without his presence the crows havoc would wreak,

His job is thankless, he is not paid, without jest he is portrayed,

He will not quit, he will not sway, the flying apparitions will lose this day,

Though he cannot speak or ever murmur, he watches as the crow gather, ready to murder,

Man of straw ready to fight, every day and every night, he fights for life,

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poem by Ruik Caldorn
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A Collective Grave Of Traditions

I have journeyed a long way,
On never ending
Route of time
I have left far behind
My youth time,
And moments mixed
Bitter and sweet,
Mild and harsh.
I remember the sturdy
Village folk,
Men and women
Of the past years,
With whom I worked
In my childhood,
When came back
After the school hours.

In the month of May,
Beneath the hot sun,
They thrashed wheat

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poem by Muhammad Shanazar
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The Magpie's Nest, Or A Lesson Of Docility

A FABLE

When the arts in their infancy were,
In a fable of old 'tis exprest,
A wise magpie constructed that rare
Little house for young birds, called a nest.

This was talked of the whole country round,
You might hear it on every bough sung,
'Now no longer upon the rough ground
Will fond mothers brood over their young.

'For the magpie with exquisite skill
Has invented a moss-covered cell,
Within which a whole family will
In the utmost security dwell.'

To her mate did each female bird say,
'Let us fly to the magpie, my dear;
If she will but teach us the way,

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poem by Charles Lamb
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