Judith Delivers The Israelites
(after Eugene Lee-hamilton)
Holofernes welcomed Judith in his tent
with in his eyes a kind of lustful gleam,
somewhat as if in a incoherent dream,
smiling, unarmored as if his power was spent.
Drunkenly he pushed her down and over her he bent,
a jewel on her scimitar had an ominous red gleam
as powerfully she beheaded him, made his blood stream,
heard his guards laugh in the tent adjacent
while she drew in her own breath
and in his heart there might have been a kind of love,
but away from the opening she did his body drag,
smiled after she had put him to death
and she believed her mission did come from above,
as she did put his head in a leather bag.
[References: Judith and Holofernes by Eugene Lee-hamilton. The apocryphal book of Judith.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Related quotes
Judith and You and A Morning Mist
The morning mist
that hung over
the pond (or your lake
as Judith called it)
had moved away
by the time she came
and stood next to you
wrapped up in her
Sunday best
waiting until the time
for the bus to take
you both to sing
in the church
her breath flowing out
on the air
like cigarette smoke
her eyes focused
on the skin
of the still water
I dreamt of you
last night
she said
you and I
were snuggled
together in my bed
having made love
you watched
a magpie take flight
over the water
nice
wish I could
have been there
in person
you said
more breath
left her lips
and rose upwards
maybe next time
you can
she said
turning her head
spreading her lips
into a smile
just be my luck
your mother
will invade the dream
and catch us
you said
yes
Judith said
that would
spoil the dream
some what
there was a mist
over the pond earlier
you said
it looked beautiful
she turned
and stared
over the water
I missed that
as you missed
making love to me
in my dream
she whispered
drawing closer
her hands
taking hold
of yours
what did you
dream about?
she asked
an empty bed
and cold sheets
and a space
where you should
have been
you said
she smiled
and said
I couldn't be
in both beds
at once could I?
once more
there was the rising
of her breath
you couldn't tell her
you'd seen
an image
of her death.
poem by Terry Collett
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Is It
Is it fact
or myth
that you
made love
to Judith?
Maybe she's just
inside my head,
fact or myth,
it doesn't matter now
Judith’s dead.
poem by Terry Collett
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Song Of One Of The Girls
Here in my heart I am Helen;
I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least.
I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael;
I'm Salome, moon of the East.
Here in my soul I am Sappho;
Lady Hamilton am I, as well.
In me Recamier vies with Kitty O'Shea,
With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell.
I'm of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook.
But you are a man, and see only my pan,
So I stay at home with a book.
poem by Dorothy Parker
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Lost On A Silent Planet
(judith? judith? )
(can you hear me? )
(can you see me? )
Life on a distant planet
Another atmosphere
Life on a distant planet
So cold inside of here
You can see her
But she cant see you
You can call her name
But she wont even hear you
In the morning of the day
To the evening
D-day and beyond
Lost on a silent planet
Two lone, rising stars
Locked on a silent planet
So close and yet so far
Children scream and shout
Their eyes torn out
Judith turns around and stumbles
To the ground
In the morning of the day
The evening time
D-day and beyond
Oh...girl you fall out
Oh...girl you come out to cry
Have you nothing to say
Girl you come out to cry
Have you nothing to say
In the morning
On to the day time
To the evening
D-day and beyond
song performed by by U2
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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There is no original or primary gender a drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original.
quote by Judith Butler
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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How a Little Girl Danced
DEDICATED TO LUCY BATES
(Being a reminiscence of certain private theatricals.)
Oh, cabaret dancer, I know a dancer,
Whose eyes have not looked on the feasts that are vain.
I know a dancer, I know a dancer,
Whose soul has no bond with the beasts of the plain:
Judith the dancer, Judith the dancer,
With foot like the snow, and with step like the rain.
Oh, thrice-painted dancer, vaudeville dancer,
Sad in your spangles, with soul all astrain,
I know a dancer, I know a dancer,
Whose laughter and weeping are spiritual gain,
A pure-hearted, high-hearted maiden evangel,
With strength the dark cynical earth to disdain.
Flowers of bright Broadway, you of the chorus,
Who sing in the hope of forgetting your pain:
I turn to a sister of Sainted Cecilia,
A white bird escaping the earth's tangled skein:—
The music of God is her innermost brooding,
The whispering angels her footsteps sustain.
Oh, proud Russian dancer: praise for your dancing.
No clean human passion my rhyme would arraign.
You dance for Apollo with noble devotion,
A high cleansing revel to make the heart sane.
But Judith the dancer prays to a spirit
More white than Apollo and all of his train.
I know a dancer who finds the true Godhead,
Who bends o'er a brazier in Heaven's clear plain.
I know a dancer, I know a dancer,
Who lifts us toward peace, from this earth that is vain:
Judith the dancer, Judith the dancer,
With foot like the snow, and with step like the rain.
poem by Vachel Lindsay
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I love being able to make people laugh.
quote by Judith Light
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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On Luca Signorelli‘S 'End Of The World' And 'The Last Judgement
(after Eugene Lee-hamilton)
I
Under that sombre waning sun that shone overhead
I saw a strange kind of sight
that to mere man gives fright,
there was stirring the bleached bones of the dead
and chilling I had a feeling of utter dread
where I looked at a plane filled with strange light,
that had shattered darkness, had made day from night
while strange, flesh came to bones somewhere ahead,
while powerful an angel's trumpet blared in the sky
like thunder roared, made the whole world shake
summoned the almost ceaseless numbers to identity
the awesome power of God was under my eye
while multitudes at its call did wake,
before their Lord quite suddenly forever free.
II
Under mountains in the hellish glare
the evil rulers and wicked men did not repent,
to conspire together they went
while every evil general gathered their,
but in that kind of lurid air
all sanity, everything good was amiss and spent
as if demons from hell to them did descent,
while fear rose with a kind of dark despair
while they who were lost wanted to win at all cost
and to means of war they sought after being transfigured
while in anger they mocked the very host
when in judgement the sound of the voice of God was heard
before they were thrown in fires of hell or into utter frost
when they were no more, as love is heaven's final word.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Most people who work at home find they do not have the benefit of receptionists who serve as personal guards.
quote by Judith Martin
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Your Mother and You and the Cherries
In the year the Who
and Jimi Hendrix
played
at the Isle of Wight
Rock Festival
your mother
was in Smallfields
hospital
having a kidney removed
and you sat with her
outside the ward
looking out
on woodland
and unkempt grassland
and you gave her cherries
in a brown paper bag
you had bought
she took the bag
and looked inside
I can't eat those
at the moment
what with the kidney
being removed and such
oh sorry
you said
not to worry
you eat them
she said
so you did
flicking the small stones
into the tall grass
your mother looked up
at the warm sun
and white clouds
shame you and Judith
didn't get together
she said suddenly
as you had just spat
a stone nearby
I liked Judith
she was a down to earth
kind of girl
you looked at your mother
in her pink dressing gown
and slippered feet
she'd got engaged
to someone else
by the time
I got around asking her
you said
there may have been
prettier girlS about
but she had
a heart of gold
and lovely eyes
and smile
your mother said
giving you one
of her studying looks
you tried to picture
Judith that Christmas
when she kissed you
for the first time
while carol singing
the moon bright
and stars out flashing
in the night sky
you spat out
another cherrystone
there'll be an orchard
of cherry trees here
in years to come
your mother said
scanning the woodland
and tall grass
you'll have to bring me back
and see
she added laughing
how do you feel?
you asked
a bit sore
but otherwise
all right
be glad to get home
but they want me
to go
to a convalescent home
run by nuns
for a few weeks
to recover
will you go?
you asked
they insist I go somewhere
so might as well
go to the nuns
she said
miss you at home
you said
the others will
miss you too
your mother
went silent
the lines on her forehead
screwed up
as she thought
and you remembered
Judith's arms
around your waist
and the big hug
she gave you
as her lips
met yours
penny for them
your mother said
for what?
you said
your thoughts
she said
if I had a penny
for all my thoughts
you said
I'd be a rich man
Mother laughed
then said
think on Son
and as much as you can.
poem by Terry Collett
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Before Choir One Friday Eve
Before choir practice
before entering
the vestry door
you and Judith
stayed behind
and waited until
the others
had gone inside
and Judith said
look at those stars
and how dark blue
the sky is
you gazed up
at the evening spread
of dark blue
and stars
and moon
to one side
and you put
your hand
around her waist
and drew her close
and she lay
against you
and you said
I read some place
that some
of those distant stars
burned out
centuries ago
and what we see
is the ghostly glow
of dead stars
and she turned your head
towards her
and kissed you
and the pressing
of her lips on yours
and her hands
on your waist
and her 13 year old
breasts pushing
against your
14 year old chest
and the sound
of the choir starting up
in practice in the church
and the flight of bats
across
the evening sky
and she holding you near
and the lips engaged
and the eyes closed
and the breathing
taken in
coming up for air
and behind you
the aging graves
the tombstones
with moss
and half lit
by moonlight
and star's glow
and you held her
in place face to face
with your hands
upon the cheeks
of her behind
eyes still closed
in the land
of the love sucked
blind.
poem by Terry Collett
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My first book took five years to write and I made $1,000 on it. The second took three years and I made $3,000. All this time I was a housewife being supported by a husband. I was very lucky.
quote by Judith Rossner
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I was different and people made fun of me.
quote by Judith Light
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Heaven knows, I've exposed myself in my novels through the use of fantasy and imagination... now my new book is about what really happened to me... not my heroines.
quote by Judith Krantz
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To a Dancer
Intoxicatingly
Her eyes across the footlights gleam,
(The wine of love, the wine of dream)
Her eyes, that gleam for me!
The eyes of all that see
Draw to her glances, stealing fire
From her desire that leaps to my desire;
Her eyes that gleam for me!
Subtly, deliciously,
A quickening fire within me, beat
The rhythms of her poising feet;
Her feet that poise to me!
Her body's melody,
In silent waves of wandering sound,
Thrills to the sense of all around,
Yet thrills alone for me!
And oh, intoxicatingly,
When, at the magic moment's close,
She dies into the rapture of repose,
Her eyes that gleam for me!
poem by Arthur Symons
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I found that the body, mind and spirit are all connected. They are not separate pieces.
quote by Judith Light
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Dream
Only a dream, a beautiful baseless dream;
Only a bright
Flash from your eyes, a brief electrical gleam,
Charged with delight.
Only a waking, alone, in the moon's last gleam
Fading from sight;
Only a flooding of tears that shudder and stream
Fast through the night.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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The message of transformation and how we all can live from our heart, not just from our head, was a very important message for me to learn in my own life.
quote by Judith Light
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Hamilton
WILD and wet, and windy wet falls the night on Hamilton,
Hamilton that seaward looks unto the setting sun,
Lady of the patient face, lifted everlastingly,
Veiled and hushed and mystical as a cloistered nun.
O the days, the cruel days creeping over Hamilton
Like a train of haggard ghosts, homeless and accursed,
Moaning for a fleet o’ dream silver-sailed and wonderful,
Moaning for a sorrow’s sake, the fairest and the first.
O the moon, the lonely moon, leaning low on Hamilton,
Thro’ the years that sunder us the dead come back, come back,
Scent of white eucrephia stars blown on winds of Memory,
Glint and gleam of fagus gold adown the torrent’s track.
Half my heart is buried there, buried high on Hamilton,
Lonely is the sepulchre with never stone for sign,
Where the nodding myrtle-plumes stand like sable sentinels
And the ruddy rimony wreathes the hooded pine.
Half my heart is yearning yet, yearning yet for Hamilton,
Hamilton beyond the surge of sobbing Southern main,
O the croon of wistful winds calling, calling, calling me,
Where the mottled mountain thrush is singing in the rain.
We shall ne’er go back again, back again to Hamilton,
Heart o’ me, our track is toward the heart of burning day,
Hills beyond the call of hills beaconing and beckoning—
Westward, westward winds the track, a thread of dusky grey.
poem by Marie E J Pitt
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I wish we lived in a society that made it safe and provided the courage for everyone to come out.
quote by Judith Light
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