Sonnet 29
William Shakespeare
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
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Flying
Crooked
Robert Graves
The Butterfly, a Cabbage White
His honest idiocy of flight
Will never now, it is too late,
Master the art of flying straight
Yet has who knows as well as I
I
just sense of how not to fly
He lurches here and here by guess
And God and Hope and Hopelessness
Even the aerobatic swift
Has not his flying crooked gift
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Night Ride
Herbert Read
Along the black
Leather strap
Of the night
Deserted road
Swiftly rolls
The freighted bus.
Huddled together
Two lovers doze
Their hands linkt
Across their laps
Their bodies loosely
Interlockt
Their heads resting
Two heavy fruits
On the plaited
Basket of their limbs
Slowly the bus
Slides into light.
Here are hills
Detach'd from dark
The road, uncoils
A
white ribbon
The lovers with
The hills unfold
Wake cold
To face the fate
Of those who love
Despite the world
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Traveller's
Curse after
Misdirection
Robert Graves
May they stumble, stage by stage
On an endless pilgrimage,
Dawn and dusk, mile after mile,
At each and every step, a stile;
At each and every step withal
May they catch their feet and fall;
At each and every fall they take
May a bone within them break;
And may that bone which breaks within
Not be, for variation's sake,
Now rib, now thigh, now arm, now shin,
But always, without fail THE NECK.
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Infant
Sorrow
William Blake
My mother groan'd, my father wept,
Into the dangerous world I leapt;
Helpless, naked, piping loud,
Like a fiend hid in a cloud.
Struggling in my father's hands,
Striving against my swaddling-bands,
Bound and weary, I thought best
To sulk upon my mother's breast.
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The Wreck of the
Hesperus
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
IT WAS the schooner Hesperus,
That sailed the wintery sea;
And the skipper had taken his little daughter,
To bear him company.
Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of day,
And her bossom white as the hawthorn buds,
That open in the month of May.
The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now west, now south.
Then up spake an old Sailor,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane."
"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And tonight, no moon we see."
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.
Colder and louder blew the wind,
A
gale from the north-east,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.
Down came the storm, and smote amain
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frightened steed,
Then leaped her cable's length.
"Come hither, come hither, my little daughter,
And do not tremble so;
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow."
He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.
"Oh Father I hear the church bells ring,
Oh say, what may it be?"
"Tis
a fog bell on a rock bound coast."
And he steered for the open sea.
"Oh Father I hear the sound of guns,
Oh say, what may it be?"
"Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"
"Oh Father I see a gleaming light,
Oh say what may it be?"
But the Father answered never a word,
A
frozen corpse was he.
Lashed to the half, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.
Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That saved she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,
On the lake of Galilee.
And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Towards the reef of Norman's Woe.
And ever the fitful gusts between
A
sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the bard sea sand.
The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.
She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.
Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! Ho! the breakers roared!
At daybreak, on the bleak sea-beach,
A
fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.
The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown seaweed,
On the billows fall and rise.
Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe.
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The
Unicorn
Unknown
The tiger is killed for his skin
The rhino is killed for his horn
The shark is killed for his fin
What price the unicorn?
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Desiderata
Max Ehrmann
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and
remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible, without surrender, be on good
terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly
and
clearly; and listen to others, even to dull and
ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are
vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may
become vain or bitter, for always there will be
greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career; however
humble; it is a real possession in the changing
fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the
world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue is; many
persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere
life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of
all aridity and disenchantment, it is as perennial
as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully
surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden
misfortune but do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with
yourself.
You are a child of the universe no less than the
trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt
the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you
conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the
noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it
is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
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For Whom The
Bell Tolls
John Donne
No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of
the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the
lesser, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine
owne were;
any man's death diminishes me, because I am
involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell
tolls;
it tolls for thee.
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Do we not
bleed
Extract from "The Merchant of Venice"
William Shakespeare
If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
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Let's just be
friends
Adrian Perrett
I'd built my fortress tall, its walls around my
heart
Defences strong and true, which none could tear
apart
And curled into a corner, with my back against
the wall
And blocked out hope, and light and pain
And love and tears and need and gain
And swore I'd never open up at all.
In
the darkness of that void, I lived life on my
own
Never touching anybody, my choice to be alone
Impotent in silence, girded in pretence
Licking the wounds from lovers past
From promises that could never last
And shielded from the words, "Let's just be
friends".
So
you see, I never really meant to love you
I'd cauterised my soul and hid my heart from
view
And in that twilight world, where the monochrome
descends
And the colours bleed away to night
You brought your mesmerising light
And I lost all sight of words like "Lets be
friends".
It
all happened in an instant; my world was turned
around
When I realised my feelings, when my barriers
came down
When the walls lay fallen round me, when I gave
up my defence
You became the only one that matters
Amid a world of tawdry tatters
And I couldn't see a way to "just be friends"
Welcomed to your world, you brought me to your
home
You held me in your arms so I didn't have to be
alone
And I tried so hard to back away, approach
things from a distance
But your eyes, your body, welcomed me
And set my feelings soaring free
And despite my head, my heart lost all
resistance
Insecure, I searched for clues in every
interaction
Something to prove you care for me, reciprocal
attraction
I
told you of my feelings and so this story ends
The way such stories always do
With me alone and missing you
And wishing to God I'd never heard
Those damned, accursed, crippling words
The ones that broke my heart that day
The ones that tore my hopes away
The words that bring the hardest ends
The words you spoke, the words, "Let's just be
friends".
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Just Like A
Man
Del Amitri
I
still don't believe it, how much we lied
Last night you made it with him now I'm supposed
to be dignified
Just like a man
Well I spend my night times drinking and you
spend your days in bed
And I guess it's up to us to choose the methods
by which we forget
And just like a man he holds you gently
And just like a man he strokes your hair
And just like a man I still pretend that I'm
Immune to the whole affair
But I wanna die, I wanna cry, I wanna tell you I
was wrong
Yeh I wanna die, I wanna cry but
it's too late
So
I soldier on just like a man
I
don't believe it, you were easy to leave but now
I
do my best to relieve it the only way I know how
Just like a man
And I don't wanna possess you, I don't wanna
take his place
But I don't wanna see my last few pleasures
written all over his face
And I have something to tell you but it doesn't
matter now
I'll stick to small talk and leave the little
bits of flattery to him
And I could call you but why would I bother to
You might not be in or he might misunderstand
Just like a man
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A Perrett
It seems
to me, there is a place
Which
occupies some 'other' space;
A void, a
gap, between the lines
Made
manifest at certain times
In times when
feelings overcome
The rational
world becomes undone
Frays at the
edge, and splits apart;
A rift begot
of a broken heart
The gateway
opens when anguish flares
When torment
struggles amid despair
When reason,
meaning, common sense
Offer
inadequate defence
And madness
claws at fevered mind
Circling,
stalking, searching to find
Answers where
none may yet be found
And logic's
sense runs swift aground
When head and
heart play out of phase
The doorway
opens to this place
Half through
madness, made insane
By confusion,
impotence and pain
Now time takes
on a different beat
Slows to
standing, then gathers speed
But here, in
this place set out of time
The reality I
live is mine
And all I want
can be created
Every detail
anticipated
Expanded here,
worlds interlace
Across dimensions, time and space
I anchor to
your world through pain
A thread maintained from mind to brain
From dreams unfurled, created blind
In my
frenzied, contorted mind
It seems to me
there is a place
Which occupies some ‘other’ space
Attained through emptiness and pain
Where worlds expand and minds explain
And perhaps this place, this non-location
Provides a glimpse, a confirmation
Of the path to take to our salvation
And the truth which is our destination
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A Perrett
If
I had three wishes, the first would be
That I'd love you and you'd love me
The second wish would have us see
Our love grow strong in synergy
But my final wish would set you free
For, bending fate with wishes three
Would bring too much uncertainty
Would you have really chosen me?
So
I'll not change what's meant to be
I'll leave it up to fate, and wait, and see
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