Swift's Epitaph
Swift has sailed into his rest;
Savage indignation there
Cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
World-besotted traveller; he
Served human liberty.
poem by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Related quotes
The Crooked Stick
First Traveller: What's that lying in the dust?
Second Traveller: A crooked stick.
First Traveller: What's it worth, if you can trust to arithmetic?
Second Traveller: Isn't this a riddle?
First Traveller: No, a trick.
Second Traveller:It's worthless, leave it where it lies.
First Traveller: Wait; count ten;
Rub a little dust upon your eyes;
Now, look again.
Second Traveller: Well, and what the devil is it, then?
First Traveller: It's the sort of crooked stick that shepherds know.
Second Traveller: Someone's loss!
First Traveller: Bend it, and you make of it a bow.
Break it, a cross.
Second Traveller: But it's all grown over with moss!
poem by Elinor Morton Wylie
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Be what you are
Cats don’t imitate tigers;
Ducks don’t imitate swans;
Cocks don’t imitate peacocks.
Must you imitate to live up?
28.08.2000, Madras
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Traveller
Traveller
Where did you come from?
Where are you going?
What do you have in your pack?
Traveller
Who are you travelling with?
Who is your enemy?
Who is your ally?
Traveller
Are you not tired?
Are you not lonely?
Are you not giving up?
Traveller
Can you tell me
where the dangerous roads are?
Can you tell me
where the safe roads are?
Can you tell me
where the harvests are?
Can you tell me
where the springs are?
Traveller
Up to where
will you be travelling?
Untill when
will you be travelling?
For whom
are you travelling?
Traveller
Who are you? ...
Traveller
Will you take me...
with you?
poem by Marites C. Cayetano
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When Am I Going To Rest
When am I going to rest?
When I'm going to fetch water
You are on my back
When I'm going to fetch firewood
You are on my back
Oh! When am I going to rest?
When am I going to rest?
When I want to rest
You are on my breast
Suckling like a calf
Yet you have little sharpened teeth
I can even scream if you bite my breast.
All you know is to wee wee, eat and cry
Without giving me time to rest
To my breast
You are the pest
Applying pepper might be a pest control
But still I will not rest
Because there is much to do for you
Perhaps death will be my rest.
poem by Walani Ndhlovu
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Savage
Words of power are killing me
While the sun displays its teeth.
All mockery is laughing
All violence is cheap.
She said...
"These are my guns
These are my furs
This is my living room."
"You can play with me there sometimes
If you catch me in the mood."
Savage
Savage
Savage
You savage...
She said...
"I have this unhappiness
To wear around my neck."
"It's a pretty piece of jewellery
To show what I protect."
She said...
"Everything is fiction
All cynic to the bone."
"So don't ask me to stay with you
Don't ask to see me home."
Savage
Savage
Savage
You savage...
song performed by by Eurythmics from Revenge
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Liberty
liberty
does not come in classes,
genders, colors, or creeds...
cannot be bought,
or sold,
bartered, or pawned.
cannot ever be for the few
at the expense of the many!
is not a political issue,
or a budget cut,
or a 'war against terror'!
liberty begins within
the human heart,
is joined from soul to soul
with both sameness and difference.
one person's liberty is dependant
upon the liberty of those
around him... liberty is responsible!
liberty, once realized,
can never be destroyed
- not even by death!
liberty is the gift born in giving,
the torch lit by compassion,
the actions of unity,
the working prayer of humanity,
the dignity of man!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Listen To The Lion *
And all my love come down
All my love come tumblin' down
All my love come tumblin' down
All my love come tumblin' down
Oh, listen listen
To the lion
Oh, listen listen listen
To the lion...
Inside of me
Oh, oh, oh
And I shall search my soul
I shall search my very soul
And I shall search my very soul
I shall search my very so-o-oul
For the lion
For the lion
For the lion
For the lion...
Inside of me
Oh, oh, yeah
And all my tears have flown
All my tears like water flown
And all my tears like water flown
All my tears like-a water flown
For the lion
For the lion
For the lion
For the lion...
Inside of me
(growling, scatting, etc.)
Listen to the lion (repeated 14 times)
(more scatting)
And we sailed, and we sailed...
And we sailed, and we sailed...
And we sailed, and we sailed...
... sailed to Caledonia
And we sailed, and we sailed,
And we sailed, and we sailed, and we sailed...
Away from Denmark
Way up to Caledonia
Away from Denmark
Way up to Caledonia
And we sailed, and we sailed, and we sailed...
All around the World
And we sailed..., and we sailed..., and we sailed...
Looking for a brand new start
And we sailed...
And we sailed, and we sailed...
All around the World
... a brand new start
Looking for a brand new start
Looking for a brand new start
Looking for a brand new start
And we sailed, and we sailed, and we sailed...
And we sailed...
Away from the Golden Gate
Way up to the New York City
song performed by by Van Morrison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Savage Earth Heart
Ooooh!
...let me see the savage
I want to see the savage coming
Crashing through your face
I want to be there
When the savage comes
I want to be there
When the savage comes
When your savage earth heart
Cuts through
I wanna be a witness
Or a victim to your spell
Crackling in lightening
Dressed in shadows
Red like a carousel
I want to be there
When the savage comes
I want to be there
When the savage comes
When your savage earth heart
...cuts through
Will you lay all of your
Deepest wildest secrets bare?
Will you let all of those
Rumbling old gods take rage?
I want to be there
When the savage comes
I want to be there
When the savage comes
When your savage earth heart
Cuts through!
Then I was taken smoothly
By the vulture of the soul
That hideous strength
That numbs the tongue
And he led me like a cinder
Through the fields of hell
To doubt my friends and to hate myself
But when my savage earth heart
...cuts through
When my savage earth heart
Cuts through
Then my savage earth heart
...cuts through
And the culture of the soul laid waste
song performed by by Waterboys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Traveller handwarm
the lamb in the blood a traveller moonlit
the lamb in the blood a traveller sunlit
the lamb in the womb the sky spelled cloud
the walker in the mud a traveller lightless
the walker in the mud a traveller darkless
the walker in the lamb the sky spelled step
a silent road in the traveller's book
a silent road the traveller took
a silent road after a storm
a traveller path traveller handwarm
poem by Miroslava Odalovic
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Where is the indignation about the fact that the US and USSR have thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world?
quote by Norman Cousins
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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We didn't know about the rest of the world. We just knew the pictures that we saw on TV, and it was so different that we wanted to try to imitate that, to a certain extent.
quote by Bob Livingston
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A New National Anthem
I.
God prosper, speed,and save,
God raise from England’s grave
Her murdered Queen!
Pave with swift victory
The steps of Liberty,
Whom Britons own to be
Immortal Queen.
II.
See, she comes throned on high,
On swift Eternity!
God save the Queen!
Millions on millions wait,
Firm, rapid, and elate,
On her majestic state!
God save the Queen!
III.
She is Thine own pure soul
Moulding the mighty whole,--
God save the Queen!
She is Thine own deep love
Rained down from Heaven above,--
Wherever she rest or move,
God save our Queen!
IV.
‘Wilder her enemies
In their own dark disguise,--
God save our Queen!
All earthly things that dare
Her sacred name to bear,
Strip them, as kings are, bare;
God save the Queen!
V.
Be her eternal throne
Built in our hearts alone--
God save the Queen!
Let the oppressor hold
Canopied seats of gold;
She sits enthroned of old
O’er our hearts Queen.
VI.
Lips touched by seraphim
Breathe out the choral hymn
‘God save the Queen!’
Sweet as if angels sang,
Loud as that trumpet’s clang
Wakening the world’s dead gang,--
God save the Queen!
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I dare not exercise personal liberty if it infringes on the liberty of others.
quote by Billy Sunday
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Aaron
Holiness on the head,
Light and perfection on the breast,
Harmonious bells below, raising the dead
To led them unto life and rest.
Thus are true Aarons dressed.
Profaneness in my head,
Defects and darkness in my breast,
A noise of passions ringing me for dead
Unto a place where is no rest.
Poor priest thus am I dressed.
Only another head
I have, another heart and breast,
another music, making live not dead,
without whom I could have no rest:
In him I am well dressed.
Christ is my only head,
My alone only heart and breast,
My only music, striking me even dead;
That to the old man I may rest,
And be in him new dressed.
So holy in my head,
Perfect and light in my dear breast,
My doctrine tuned by Christ, (who is not dead,
But lives in me while I do rest)
Come people; Aaron's dressed.
poem by George Herbert
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The Australian Marseillaise
Sing the strong, proud song of Labour,
Toss the ringing music high;
Liberty’s a nearer neighbour
Than she was in days gone by.
Workmen’s weary wives and daughters
Sing the songs of liberty;
Men hail men across the waters,
Men reply across the sea.
We are marching on and onward
To the silver-streak of dawn,
To the dynasty of mankind
We are marching on.
Long the rich have been protected
By the walls that can’t endure;
By the walls that they erected
To divide them from the poor.
Crumbling now, they should not trust them,
For their end is drawing near;
Walls of Cant and walls of Custom,
Walls of Ignorance and Fear.
Tyrants, grip your weapons firmer,
Grip them firmly by the helves;
For the poor begin to murmur
Loudly now among themselves.
Hear us dare to say that Heaven
Gave us equal rights with you,
Dare to say the world was given
Unto all and not the few.
Tell us that the law has risen,
Make us bend beneath its sway,
Throw our leaders into prison,
Wrong us in the light of day.
Drive us to our dens, forgetting
All our woe as greed forgets,
While our weapons we are whetting
On your levelled bayonets.
Treat us like the beasts you’d make us,
Pen us close in wretched sties.
’Til our patience shall forsake us,
And like wolves we will arise.
Louder still for this shall rattle
Rifle shots, and sword blades ring
On the blood-wet fields of battle
In the days of reckoning.
We shall rise to prove us human,
Worthy of a human life,
When our starved and maddened women
Lead our armies on to strife.
When our war hymns wake the valleys,
And the rushing missiles shriek
From your barricaded alleys,
’Til your cannon cease to speak.
Then when Mammon Castle crashes
To the earth and trampled lies,
Then from out the blood and ashes
True Republics shall arise.
Then the world shall rest a season
(First since first the world began)
In the reign of right and reason
And the dynasty of man.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Ci Oyate
The savage stick
does not come softly,
it is swift,
full of vengeance
in the white hand of justice.
The ravenous maw
spits steel,
turns thunderous herds
into bleached memory;
for tongues, for skins,
for the sport of kings.
Comes the march,
for death,
for the red day
passing into a long night
where lost languages fester
in spirits raw and dull.
The trail
The tears
The Circle
The World remains a dream intact.
When brown hands
wield the savage stick
like a plowshare
the earth will green,
The People will dance
and chant the world anew.
*Lakota for The People
poem by Ronald Shields
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Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female - whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.
quote by Simone de Beauvoir
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Art may imitate wild nature; less often does it dare to place itself in the midst of it, and when it does, it may come out second best.
We are as great as our belief in human liberty - no greater. And our belief in human liberty is only ours when it is larger than ourselves.
quote by Archibald MacLeish
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Dry and Thirsty Land
Parched and barren,
A dry and thirsty land
Filled with the haze of death
The forgotten bones of man
The tongue swells in the mouth
The sweat pours out his brow
Weary traveller falling down
Weary traveller dying now
The white bleached bones
The bones of those before
Lie about him spinning round
Bleached bones on the desert floor
His brown shrivelled skin
Turns black under the sun
He is lost and doomed
What is done is done
Thou are cruel, Dry thirsty land,
Slowly killing those who flee
Drying them from the inside
A miserable gutted tragedy
Weary traveller, there is rest
There is rest for you head
There is a place where you can rest
Where you can drink and be fed
Don’t push on any longer
For the dry thirsty land
Will eventually be stronger
Than thy inner man
Come to the one oasis
That inhabits this world
Find the well of water
From which life doth unfurl
Come thou weary and faint
Sojourners in a dry weary place
Come thou empty and dead
Come with all due haste
Come to the well
Strength and energy it gives
Come to the well
If you want to live
Come if you feel tired
Come if you need a refresh
Come if you need life
Come if you want energy afresh
A well for all who wish
A dry and thirsty land
Come thou faint
Come thou weary man
poem by Joses Tirtabudi
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