The Stalling of Q.H.F.
Horace: Epode 14
"Mollis inertia cur tantam diffuderit imis"
Maecenas, you fret me, you worry me
Demanding I turn out a rhyme;
Insisting on reasons, you hurry me;
You want my Iambics on time.
You say my ambition's diminishing;
You ask why my poem's not done.
The god it is keeps me from finishing
The stuff I've begun.
Be not so persistent, so clamorous.
Anacreon burned with a flame
Candescently, crescently amorous.
You rascal, you're doing the same!
Was no fairer the flame that burned Ilium.
Cheer up, you're a fortunate scamp,
. . . Consider avuncular William
And Phryne, the vamp.
poem by Franklin P. Adams
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
The Last Laugh
Horace: Epode 25
"Nox erat et cælo fulgebat Luna sereno---"
How sweet the moonlight sleeps," I quoted,
"Upon this bank!" that starry night--
The night you vowed you'd be devoted--
I'll tell the world you held me tight.
The night you said until Orion
Should cease to whip the wintry sea,
Until the lamb should love the lion,
You would, you swore, be all for me.
Some day Neæra, you'll be sorry.
No mollycoddle swain am I.
I shall not sit and pine, by gorry!
Because you're with some other guy!
No, I shall turn my predilection
Upon some truer, fairer Jane;
And all your prayer and genuflection
For my return shall be in vain.
And as for you, who choose to sneer, O,
Though deals in lands and stocks you swing,
Though handsome as a movie hero,
Though wise you are, and everything;
Yet, when the loss of her you're mourning,
How I shall laugh at all your woe!
How I'll remind you of this warning,
And laugh, "Ha! ha! I told you so!"
poem by Franklin P. Adams
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
When The Fox Dies, His Skin Counts
WE young people in the shade
Sat one sultry day;
Cupid came, and "Dies the Fox"
With us sought to play.
Each one of my friends then sat
By his mistress dear;
Cupid, blowing out the torch,
Said: "The taper's here!"
Then we quickly sent around
The expiring brand;
Each one put it hastily
ln his neighbour's hand.
Dorilis then gave it me,
With a scoffing jest;
Sudden into flame it broke,
By my fingers press'd.
And it singed my eyes and face,
Set my breast on fire;
Then above my head the blaze
Mounted ever higher.
Vain I sought to put it out;
Ever burned the flame;
Stead of dying, soon the Fox
Livelier still became.
poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Thats The Way Love Goes
Like a moth to a flame
Burned by the fire
My love is blind
Cant you see my desire?
Thats the way love goes
Like a moth to a flame
Burned by the fire
My love is blind
Cant you see my desire?
Like a moth to a flame
Burned by the fire
My love is blind
Cant you see my desire
Thats the way love goes
Like a moth to a flame
Burned by the fire
Thats the way love goes
My love is blind
Cant you see my desire?
Come with me
Dont you worry
Im gonna make you crazy
Ill give you the time of your life
Im gonna take you places
Youve never been before and
Youll be so happy that you came
Oooooh, Im gonna take you there
Oo-ooh hoo-ooh oo-ooh
Thats the way love goes
Hoo
Thats the way love goes
Thats the way love goes
Thats the way love goes
Dont mind if I light candles
I like to watch us play and
Baby, Ive got on what you like
Come closer
Baby closer
Reach out and feel my body
Im gonna give you all my love
Ooh sugar dont you hurry
Youve got me here all night
Just close your eyes and hold on tight
Ooh baby
Dont stop, dont stop
Go deeper
Baby deeper
You feel so good Im gonna cry
Oooooh Im gonna take your there
Oo-ooh hoo-ooh oo-ooh
Thats the way love goes
Hoo
Thats teh way love goes
Thats the way love goes it goes it goes
Oooh thats the way love goes
Reach out and feel my body
Thats the way love goes
Dontcha know
Thats the way
Like a moth to a flame
Burned by the fire
My love is blind
Cant you see my desire
Like a moth to a flame
Burned by the fire my love is blind
Cant you see my desire?
Thats the way love goes....
song performed by by Janet Jackson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Yukoner
He burned a hole in frozen muck,
He pierced the icy mould,
And there in six-foot dirt he struck
A sack or so of gold.
He burned holes in the Decalogue,
And then it cam about,
For Fortune's just a lousy rogue,
His "pocket" petered out.
And lo! 'twas but a year all told,
When there in a shadow grim,
In six feet deep of icy mould
They burned a hole for him.
poem by Robert William Service
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Candle of Love
He was the fire...the fire to my burning candle
When I first recieved him he lit up my life
His flame burned vibrantly, it burned with care, and
it burned forever
Now that fire that once burned for me won't even
spark for me
Maybe its old, maybe I'm not lighting it right..or
maybe his flame is tired of my candle
poem by Octavia Tisdale
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Embers
I said, "My youth is gone
Like a fire beaten out by the rain,
That will never sway and sing
Or play with the wind again."
I said, "It is no great sorrow
That quenched my youth in me,
But only little sorrows
Beating ceaselessly."
I thought my youth was gone,
But you returned --
Like a flame at the call of the wind
It leaped and burned;
Threw off its ashen cloak,
And gowned anew
Gave itself like a bride
Once more to you.
poem by Sara Teasdale
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
My Future
"Let's make him a sailor," said Father,
"And he will adventure the sea."
"A soldier," said Mother, "is rather
What I would prefer him to be."
"A lawyer," said Father, "would please me,
For then he could draw up my will."
"A doctor," said Mother, "would ease me;
Maybe he could give me a pill."
Said Father: "Lt's make him a curate,
A Bishop in gaiters to be."
Said Mother: "I couldn't endure it
To have Willie preaching to me."
Said Father: ""Let him be a poet;
So often he's gathering wool."
Said Mother with temper: "Oh stow it!
You know it, a poet's a fool."
Said Farther: "Your son is a duffer,
A stupid and mischievous elf."
Said Mother, who's rather a huffer:
"That's right - he takes after yourself."
Controlling parental emotion
They turned to me, seeking a cue,
And sudden conceived the bright notion
To ask what I wanted to do.
Said I: "my ambition is modest:
A clown in a circus I'd be,
And turn somersaults in the sawdust
With audience laughing at me."
. . . Poor parents! they're dead and decaying,
But I am a clown as you see;
And though in no circus I'm playing,
How people are laughing at me!
poem by Robert William Service
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To a Vers Librist
"Oh bard," I said, "your verse is free;
The shackles that encumber me,
The fetters that are my obsession,
Are never gyves to your expression.
"The fear of falsities in rhyme,
In metre, quantity, or time,
Is never yours; you sing along
Your unpremeditated song."
"Correct," the young vers librist said.
"Whatever pops into my head
I write, and have but one small fetter:
I start each line with a capital letter.
"But rhyme and metre--Ishkebibble!--
Are actually negligible.
I go ahead, like all my school,
Without a single silly rule."
Of rhyme I am so reverential
He made me feel quite inconsequential.
I shed some strongly saline tears
For bards I loved in younger years.
"If Keats had fallen for your fluff,"
I said, "he might have done good stuff.
If Burns had thrown his rhymes away,
His songs might still be sung to-day."
O bards of rhyme and metre free,
My gratitude goes out to ye
For all your deathless lines--ahem!
Let's see, now . . . What is one of them?
poem by Franklin P. Adams
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Sonnet V: Nothing But No
Nothing but "No," and "Aye," and "Aye," and "No"?
How falls it out so strangely you reply?
I tell ye, Fair, I'll not be answer'd so,
With this affirming "No," denying "Aye."
I say, "I love," you slightly answer "Aye";
I say, "You love," you pule me out a "No";
I say, "I die," you echo me an "Aye";
"Save me," I cry, you sigh me out a "No";
Must woe and I have nought but "No" and "Aye"?
No I am I, if I no more can have;
Answer no more, with silence make reply,
And let me take myself what I do crave.
Let "No" and "Aye" with I and you be so;
Then answer "No," and "Aye," and "Aye" and "No."
poem by Michael Drayton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
At Lulworth Cove a Century Back
Had I but lived a hundred years ago
I might have gone, as I have gone this year,
By Warmwell Cross on to a Cove I know,
And Time have placed his finger on me there:
"You see that man?" -- I might have looked, and said,
"O yes: I see him. One that boat has brought
Which dropped down Channel round Saint Alban's Head.
So commonplace a youth calls not my thought."
"You see that man?" -- "Why yes; I told you; yes:
Of an idling town-sort; thin; hair brown in hue;
And as the evening light scants less and less
He looks up at a star, as many do."
"You see that man?" -- "Nay, leave me!" then I plead,
"I have fifteen miles to vamp across the lea,
And it grows dark, and I am weary-kneed:
I have said the third time; yes, that man I see!"
"Good. That man goes to Rome -- to death, despair;
And no one notes him now but you and I:
A hundred years, and the world will follow him there,
And bend with reverence where his ashes lie."
poem by Thomas Hardy
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
You Are Old Father William
"You are old, father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head --
Do you think, at your age, it is right?
"In my youth," father William replied to his son,
"I feared it might injure the brain;
But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
Why, I do it again and again."
"You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,
And you have grown most uncommonly fat;
Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door --
Pray what is the reason for that?"
"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
"I kept all my limbs very supple
By the use of this ointment -- one shilling a box --
Allow me to sell you a couple?"
"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak
For anything tougher than suet;
Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak --
Pray, how did you mange to do it?"
"In my youth," said his fater, "I took to the law,
And argued each case with my wife;
And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
Has lasted the rest of my life."
"You are old," said the youth, "one would hardly suppose
That your eye was as steady as every;
Yet you balanced an eel on the tend of your nose --
What made you so awfully clever?"
"I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"
Said his father. "Don't give yourself airs!
Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs.
poem by Lewis Carroll
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Sorceress!
I asked her, "Is Aladdin's lamp
Hidden anywhere?"
"Look into your heart," she said,
"Aladdin's lamp is there."
She took my heart with glowing hands.
It burned to dust and air
And smoke and rolling thistledown
Blowing everywhere.
"Follow the thistledown," she said,
"Till doomsday, if you dare,
Over the hills and far away.
Aladdin's lamp is there."
poem by Vachel Lindsay
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The ABC
'Twas midnight in the schoolroom
And every desk was shut
When suddenly from the alphabet
Was heard a loud "Tut-Tut!"
Said A to B, "I don't like C;
His manners are a lack.
For all I ever see of C
Is a semi-circular back!"
"I disagree," said D to B,
"I've never found C so.
From where I stand he seems to be
An uncompleted O."
C was vexed, "I'm much perplexed,
You criticise my shape.
I'm made like that, to help spell Cat
And Cow and Cool and Cape."
"He's right" said E; said F, "Whoopee!"
Said G, "'Ip, 'Ip, 'ooray!"
"You're dropping me," roared H to G.
"Don't do it please I pray."
"Out of my way," LL said to K.
"I'll make poor I look ILL."
To stop this stunt J stood in front,
And presto! ILL was JILL.
"U know," said V, "that W
Is twice the age of me.
For as a Roman V is five
I'm half as young as he."
X and Y yawned sleepily,
"Look at the time!" they said.
"Let's all get off to beddy byes."
They did, then "Z-z-z."
poem by Spike Milligan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Vain Words
Humble, surely, mine ambition;
It is merely to construct
Some occasion or condition
When I may say "usufruct."
Ernest am I and assiduous;
Yet I'm certain that I shan't amount
To a lot till I use "viduous,"
"Indiscerptible," and "tantamount."
poem by Franklin P. Adams
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Another Acrostic ( In the style of Father William )
"Are you deaf, Father William!" the young man said,
"Did you hear what I told you just now?
"Excuse me for shouting! Don't waggle your head
"Like a blundering, sleepy old cow!
"A little maid dwelling in Wallington Town,
"Is my friend, so I beg to remark:
"Do you think she'd be pleased if a book were sent down
"Entitled 'The Hunt of the Snark?'"
"Pack it up in brown paper!" the old man cried,
"And seal it with olive-and-dove.
"I command you to do it!" he added with pride,
"Nor forget, my good fellow to send her beside
"Easter Greetings, and give her my love."
poem by Lewis Carroll
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Dream
Said Will: "I'll stay and till the land."
Said Jack: "I'll sail the sea."
So one went forth kit-bag in hand,
The other ploughed the lea.
They met again at Christmas-tide,
And wistful were the two.
Said Jack: "you're lucky here to bide."
Said Will: "I envy you."
"For in your eyes a light I see
Of tropic shores agleam."
Said Jack: "You need not envy me,
For still you have the Dream.
"The Dream that lured me out to sea;
'Twas bright as paradise;
Far fairer than the memory
You see within my eyes.
So if my foolish urge you share
In foreign lands to roam,
Take up my kit-bag waiting there
And I will stay at home."
* * * * * * * *
Yet while the years have fated Will
To sow the sober loam,
The eyes of Jack are starry still,
High-riding hills of foam.
poem by Robert William Service
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The foot and mouth crisis 2001
A clue: "Memitim" 2 down,5 across, DEATH...
Another farmer holds his "breath"
His crossword puzzle now solved,
As he sits by the open fire resolved.
Firebrats shimmer like melting
Sparks through grates, between falling,
Slivering, among, the black slates.
Like silver ashen; phosphates!
Covering that hearths entirety,
They too show there's no need for "piety"
As the future ghosts of the living; burn.
His world is an up-turned urn.
Listing he hears the cries of the last dying ewe.
Whilst angels of death beyond; "view"
Descend across each patchwork acre…
He himself too! screams at his maker.
Prier on prier, prayer on prayer!
Foot and mouth each neighboring "acre"
Burned black in the gasoline air…
Each man alone dies by his plowshare.
As more firebrats, recurred…
Another flock: another herd
Burned; like unguided lost souls
Stacked kindling in piled coals.
poem by Mark Heathcote
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Dark Trinity
Said I to Pain: "You would not dare
Do ill to me."
Said Pain: "Poor fool! Why should I care
Whom you may be?
To clown and king alike I bring
My meed of bane;
Why should you shirk my chastening?"
Said Pain.
Said I to Grief: "No tears have I,
Go on your way."
Said Grief: "Why should I pass you by,
While others pay?
All men must know the way of woe,
From saint to thief,
And tears were meant to overflow,"
Said Grief.
Said I to Death: "From ail and fret
Grant me relief."
Said Death: "I know you are beset
By Pain and Grief.
But my good will you must await
Since human breath
To suffering is consecrate,"
Said Death.
Said I to God: "Pale Sister Grief,
Bleak Brother Pain,
Bedevil me beyond belief,
And Death's unfain . . ."
Said God: "Curse not that blessed Three,
Poor human clod!
Have faith! Believe the One with Me,"
Said God.
poem by Robert William Service
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Burning To Burned
You lied to me
I cant believe
That Ive been such a fool
I thought this time
I might find
Someone who would play by the rules
My mind said no
But my heart said go
And again Ive made the wrong turn
Now here I stand
My heart in your hands...
And Ive gone from burning to burned
Ah, youd think by now
Id know how
To keep this heart of mine safe
It goes to show
You just never know
Who can you trust these days
How could I make
The same mistake
But as far as Im concerned
Got myself to blame
Got to close to the flame
Now Ive gone from burning to burned
Everyone knows
The old saying goes
That a fool in love
Never learns
But I guess I forgot
cause the fire was too hot...
Now Ive gone from burning to burned
Oh I guess I forgot
cause the fire was too hot...
Now Ive gone from burning to burned
song performed by by Dolly Parton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
My Friend, The Parking Lot Attendant
—he's a dandy
—small moustache
—usually sucking on a cigar
he tends to lean into cars as he
transacts business
first time I met him, he said,
"hey! ya gonna make a
killin'?"
"maybe," I answered.
next meeting it was:
"hey, Ramrod! what's
happening?"
"very little," I told
him.
next time I had my girlfriend with me
and he just
grinned.
next time I was
alone.
"hey," he asked, "where's the young
chick?"
"I left her at home...."
"Bullshit! I'll bet she dumped
you!"
and the next time
he really leaned into the car:
"what's a guy like you doing driving a
BMW! I'll bet you inherited your
money, you didn't get this car with your
brains!"
"how'd you guess?" I
answered.
that was some weeks ago.
I haven't seen him lately.
feIlow like that, chances are he just moved on
to better
things.
poem by Charles Bukowski
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!