My Centenarian
A hundred years is a lot of living
I've often thought. and I'll know, maybe,
Some day if the gods are good in giving,
And grant me to turn the century.
Yet in all my eighty years of being
I've never known but one ancient man
Who actively feeling, hearing, seeing,
Survived t beyond the hundred span.
Thinking? No, I don't guess he pondered;
He had the brains of a tiny tot,
And in his mind he so often wandered,
I doubted him capable of thought.
He hadn't much to think of anyway,
There in the village of his birth,
Painfully poor in a pinching penny-way,
And grimed with the soiling of Mother Earth.
Then one day motoring past his cottage,
The hovel in which he had been born,
I saw him supping a mess of pottage,
on the sill door, so fail forlorn.
Thinks I: I'll give him a joy that's thrilling,
A spin in my open Cadillac;
And so I asked him, and he was willing,
And I installed him there in the back.
en I put the big bus through its paces,
A hundred miles an hour or more;
And he clutched at me with queer grimaces,
(He's never been in a car before.)
The motor roared and the road was level,
The old chap laughed like an impish boy,
And as I drove like the very devil,
Darn him! he peed his pants with joy.
And so I crowned his long existence
By showing him how our modern speed
Easily can annihilate distance,
And answer to all our modern need.
And I went on my way but little caring,
Until I heard to mild dismay,
His drive had thrilled him beyond all bearing . . .
The poor old devil! - He died next day.
poem by Robert William Service
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Related quotes
What Happened To His Village
He was born just a short distance from Adelaide
And he could see the sea from his back door
And in his young days there were not many houses
But the years have brought great change to Semaphore.
His sea side Village has grown to a coastal suburb
And his old Homeplace has undergone great change
Where once were trees and paddocks now there's houses
A stranger to your old Homeplace seems strange.
What happened to the Village of his childhood
The paddock where he played in years ago
He only can refer now to his memories
Of peaceful place the Homeplace he once did know.
The cottage of his childhood gone forever
A doctor's surgery where once it stood
And not one know him he is now a stranger
In Semaphore the place of his boyhood.
But of the past he still has good old memories
Of his old Village how it used to be
And from the cottage by the wide brown paddock
Six hundred yards off he could see the sea.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Galaxy Song
When youre feeling inside out and insecure,
and life keeps getting you down.
When all lifes daily worrieshurry through your head.
You dont want to even get up.
You just lie around in bed.
When you feel you just cant take it anymore
And you wonder what on earth it is all foryour love lifes like a war zone
Your tvs on the blinkits enough to drive a drinking man to stop and take a
Think
just remember that you standing on a planet thats evolving,revolving at 900
Miles an hour.its orbiting at 19 miles a second, so its reckoned,
A sun that is the source of all our power.
The sun and you and me and all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles a day.
In an outer spiral orb, at 40,000 miles an hour,
Of the galaxy we call the milky way
Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars.
Its a 100,000 light years side to side
It bulges in the middle 16,000 light years thick,
But out by us its just 3,000 light years wide.
Were 30,000 light years from galactic central point.
We go round every 200,000,000 years.
And our galaxy is only one of millions of billions
In this amazing and expanding universe.
Our universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whiz
As fast as it can go, the speed of light you know, 12,000,000 miles a minute,
And thats the fastest speed there is!
So, remember when youre feeling very small and insecure
How amazingly unlikely is your birth.
And pray that theres intelligent life somewhere up in space,
cause Im afraid that weve been cheated here on earth.
song performed by by Clint Black
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Poverty
I saw an old cottage of clay,
And only of mud was the floor;
It was all falling into decay,
And the snow drifted in at the door.
Yet there a poor family dwelt,
In a hovel so dismal and rude;
And though gnawing hunger they felt,
They had not a morsel of food.
The children were crying for bread,
And to their poor mother they’d run;
‘Oh, give us some breakfast,’ they said,
Alas! their poor mother had none.
She viewed them with looks of despair,
She said (and I’m sure it was true),
‘’Tis not for myself that I care,
But, my poor little children, for you.’
O then, let the wealthy and gay
But see such a hovel as this,
That in a poor cottage of clay
They may know what true misery is.
And what I may have to bestow
I never will squander away,
While many poor people I know
Around me are wretched as they.
poem by Jane Taylor
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Midnight
They put away the DDT now
But gave metal to the sea
A hundred years can't wait
A hundred years can't wait another day
The only eagle, only tree
Within a desert that was green
A hundred years can't wait
A hundred years can't wait another day
Midnight
Draws ever near
Daylight
Is fading so fast
It's so close to midnight
Midnight
The melting ice will fuel the sea
By burning gold from ancient tree
A hundred years can't wait
A hundred years can't wait another day
This is progress, this is sin
Injecting poison in her skin
A hundred years can't wait
A hundred years can't wait another day
Midnight
Draws ever near
Daylight
Is fading so fast
It's so close to midnight
Midnight
song performed by by Asia
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Nothing Like A Hundred Miles
I have tried to forget about you
And all the plans that we had planned
Yes, and Im bound to leave this town
I dont care where I may land
If what theyre telling me is true
And you have found somebody new
To love you
There aint but one thing I can do, baby
To save my heart from being broken in two by you
Baby, Im moving through
Theres nothing like a hundred miles
Between me and trouble in my mind
Theres nothing like a hundred miles
Show me the yellow line
Theres nothing like a hundred miles
When Im only passing through
Theres nothing like a hundred miles
To make me forget about you
Forget about you, baby
Dont we like our found farewells
And dont we like to keep our good-byes
Nice and clean
You may wish Id go to hell
While you tell me what a pleasure its been
So long, baby, Im moving on
Theres nothing like a hundred miles
Between me and trouble in mind
Theres nothing like a hundred miles
Somebody show me the yellow line
Theres nothing like a hundred miles
When Im only passing through
Theres nothing like a hundred miles
To make me forget about you
Forget about you
I have tried to forget about you
Baby, I have failed
Just as long as I stay in houston
I will
song performed by by James Taylor
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Maybellene
(words & music by chuck berry)
Maybellene, why cant you be true?
Oh maybellene, why cant you be true?
Youve started back doing the things you used to do.
As I was motivatin over the hill
I saw maybellene in a coup de ville.
A cadillac a-rollin on the open road,
Nothin will outrun my v8 ford.
The cadillac doin bout ninety-five,
Shes bumper to bumber rollin side by side.
Maybellene, why cant you be true?
Oh maybellene, why cant you be true?
Youve started back doing the things you used to do.
The cadillac moved to a hundred and four
Got hot and wouldnt do no more
It got cloudy and started to rain
Tooted my horn in the passing lane
The rain water blowin all under my hood
I knew that was doin my motor no good
Maybellene, why cant you be true?
Oh maybellene, why cant you be true?
Youve started back doing the things you used to do.
Maybellene, why cant you be true?
Oh maybellene, why cant you be true?
Youve started back doing the things you used to do.
The motor cooled down, the heat went down
And thats when I heard that highway sound.
The cadillac a-sittin like a ton of lead
A hundred and ten a half a mile ahead.
The cadillac lookin like its sittin still
And I caught mabellene at the top of the hill.
Maybellene, why cant you be true?
Oh maybellene, why cant you be true?
Youve started back doing the things you used to do.
Youve started back doing the things you used to do.
song performed by by Elvis Presley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Hundred Years From Now
(Marty Stuart)
When you left I nearly lost my mind
And I tried to drown my sorrow
Every night in warm, red wine
My old heart's broke to pieces
But I'll get by somehow
Cause I won't care, Lord, a hundred years from now
From the top of this old world
To the bottom of the glass
I've thrown away my future
By drownin' out the past
When you walked out the door
Girl, you broke every vow
But I won't care a hundred years from now...
Tonight I'm hurtin'
In an old familiar way
Lord, I've got lots of reasons
Why I come here every day
Lord, I'm tired of lovin' lonesome
That's how old Travis feels right now
But I won't care a hundred years from now...
From the top of this old world
To the bottom of the glass
I've thrown away my future
By drownin' out the past
When you walked out the door
Girl, you broke every vow
But I won't care a hundred years from now...
Lord, I won't care a hundred years from now...
song performed by by Travis Tritt
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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One Hundred Years
It doesn't matter if we all die
Ambition in the back of a black car
In a high building there is so much to do
Going home time
A story on the radio
Something small falls out of your mouth
And we laugh
A prayer for something better
A prayer
For something better
Please love me
Meet my mother
But the fear takes hold
Creeping up the stairs in the dark
Waiting for the death blow
Waiting for the death blow
Waiting for the death blow
Stroking your hair as the patriots are shot
Fighting for freedom on the television
Sharing the world with slaughtered pigs
Have we got everything?
She struggles to get away . . .
The pain
And the creeping feeling
A little black haired girl
Waiting for saturday
The death of her father pushing her
Pushing her white face into the mirror
Aching inside me
And turn me round
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Just like the old days
Caressing an old man
And painting a lifeless face
Just a piece of new meat in a clean room
The soldiers close in under a yellow moon
All shadows and deliverance
Under a black flag
A hundred years of blood
Crimson
The ribbon tightens round my throat
I open my mouth
And my head bursts open
A sound like a tiger thrashing in the water
Thrashing in the water
Over and over
We die one after the other
Over and over
We die one after the other
One after the other
One after the other
One after the other
One after the other
It feels like a hundred years
A hundred years
A hundred years
A hundred years
A hundred years
One hundred years
song performed by by Cure
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Too Late
HOPE? What! hope !—you say there is hope for the long-lost one!
Hope! when the light is out; hope! when the oil is done;
Hope! No, no, good lady! no hope for me, at least;
No home for me but the clammy grave when life has ceased.
Hope! Well, there might have been hope had my mother lived; but, then,
5
God struck her dead, and I was left alone among men.
God knows how I loved her; and shall I never see her again?
Is there no glimpse of heaven for those who are doomed to pain?
Oh, cannot she come and kiss me? Oh, cannot she pray by my side,
As she did long ago on that terrible evening before she died?
10
If she prayed God would hear her, and perhaps—but no;
I'm too old a sinner for mercy—there is nothing for me but woe.
You say that I yet could be saved if I sorrowed for my sin;
That the Lord is at heaven's gate to take poor sinners in!
God knows that I hate my sin, but I feel that it cannot be;
15
I've so often forsaken Him, that He must have forsaken me.
Nay, don't offer a prayer for me, lady, it's only mocking at God:
Who knows but my tired heart still may rest beneath the sod?
For I always loved the sunny fields and the sweet, sweet flowers,
And longed to be pure once again like them, in my better hours.
20
But after I first had fallen the devil opened my eyes,
And I saw that the world knew my shame, and I hadn't the heart to rise;
So I gave up trying to be good, and sank down lower in sin,
Tho' the thought of poor dead mother made me always hate it within.
Oh, many's the night that I've wandered about thro' rain and snow,
25
Wandered about in the street, and didn't know where had to go;
And I've often crept to the river and looked at it, still and black,
And thought how every one spurned me—but something held me back.
I remember how once, when I stopped, half-dead, one rainy day,
To rest on his steps for a moment, the servants drove me away;
30
Drove me away like a dog from the door of the man for whom,
O God! I had given up all in this world and beyond the tomb.
But don't weep at my story, good lady; I'm not worth it living or dead!
Ha, ha! I'm not frightened of Death, nor the devils that dance round my bed:
There cannot be any hell deeper nor fuller of devils and strife
35
Than the hell that burns in my heart, and the fire that eats out life.
poem by Frederick George Scott
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A Hundred Years From Now
(words & music by flatt - scruggs)
Well a hundred years from now I wont be crying
A hundred years from now I wont be blue
My heart will have to forget that we ever met
But I wont care a hundred years from now
Ill never forget sweetheart the night you told me
That you could live without my love somehow
Thats all in the past I knew it wouldnt last
But I wont care a hundred years from now
song performed by by Elvis Presley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Five Hundred Miles Away From Home
(bobby bare, charlie williams, hedy west)
Tear drops fell on mamas note
When I read the things she wrote
She said, we miss you girl
We love you come on home
Well I didnt have to pack
I had it all right on my back
Now Im five hundred miles away from home
Chorus:
Away from home, away from home
Cold and tired and all alone
Yes, Im five hundred miles away from home
Its hard to tell the state Im in
Where Im going, where Ive been
But theres a dream Ive been following so long
If mama knew the things Ive done
Shed forgive them everyone
But Im still five hundred miles away from home
Repeat chorus
Cant remember when I ate its just thumb and walk and wait
And Im still five hundred miles away from home
If my luck had been just right Id be with them all tonight
But Im still five hundred miles away from home
Repeat chorus
Lord, Im still five hundred miles away from home
song performed by by Reba Mcentire
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My Hundred Books
A thousand books my library
Contains;
And all are primed, it seems to me
With brains.
Mine are so few I scratch in thought
My head;
For just a hundred of the lot
I've read.
A hundred books, but of the best,
I can
With wisdom savour and digest
And scan.
Yet when afar from kin and kith
In nooks
Of quietness I'm happy with
Sweet books.
So as nine hundred at me stare
In vain,
My lack I'm wistfully aware
Of brain;
Yet as my leave of living ends,
With looks
Of love I view a hundred friends,
My books.
poem by Robert William Service
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Leonardo
The one on portrait hanging on the wall
Perhaps the best that history can recall
He lived and worked five hundred years ago
And still the legend of Leonardo grow.
A Poet, a Scientist and an Engineer
An Inventor and an Artist without peer
From near poverty to fame at a time
When to be poor was looked on as a crime.
Leonardo the greatest son of Italy
Opened the gate to modern technology
No stranger to the book of history
In five hundred years no greater one than he.
Five centuries back he said that man would fly
And the legend live his fame will never die
His dusty portrait in old frame hang on wall
Perhaps the best that history can recall.
poem by Francis Duggan
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One Hundred Years From Now
One hundred years from now when I am long gone
And there is not one mention of my name
Life it will carry on as it has always
And people will enjoy their weekend game
Of golf or tennis, bowls, football or cricket
Or whatever work free leisure they enjoy
And birds will sing on bush and tree and hedgerow
And lark to sing up to the clouds will fly.
One hundred years from now when I'm forgotten
The migratory waders will fly to the Northern Spring
And raise their families by the Artic waters
The call of Nature is a marvellous thing.
One hundred years from now the crimson lory
Will lay her eggs in cavity in tree
And little blue penguins will nest in their burrows
On grassy heights above the southern sea.
One hundred years from now there will be roses
And wildflowers in the Spring will come to bloom
And despite the high increase in the human population
For Nature's beauty there will still be room.
One hundred years from now you'll have the rich and famous
And the forgotten millions living in poverty
And there will be wars and rumours of destruction
And things won't have changed much in a century.
poem by Francis Duggan
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LXXXV
Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the
spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the
vanished flowers of an hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang
one spring morning, sending its glad voice across an hundred
years.
poem by Rabindranath Tagore from The Gardener (1913)
Submitted by Silvia Velea
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Hang On St. Christopher
Hang on St. Christopher
Through the smoke and the oil
Pumpin' iron around the scene
Let the radiator boil
Got no back down shift
And a two dollar grill
Got an '85 cab
......
*Hang on St. Christopher
On the passenger side
Open it up tonight
So the devil can ride
Hang on St. Christopher
With a ballast door
Kick me up ...
Throw me out in the fog
Tell ... Jack ...
Drive a stake through his heart
Do a hundred on the grapevine
Do a jump on the start
Hang on St. Christopher
Now don't let me go
Get me to Reno
And bring it in low, low
Hang On St. Christopher
With the hammer to the floor
Put a highball in the crankcase
Nail a crow to the door
Give me a bottle for the jockey
Give me a two ...
There's a certain ...
Bustin' down Johnny's door
(*Repeat)
Let the devil ride
Let the devil ride
Let the devil ride
Hang On St. Christopher
Now don't let me go
Get me to Reno
Got to bring it in low
Put my baby on a flatcar
Tell 'em to burn down the caboose
Get 'em all jacked up with whiskey
And we'll turn the mad dog loose
(*Repeat)
Let him ride, let him ride
Let him ride, let him ride
Let him ride, let him ride
HAng on St. Christopher
Through the smoke and the oil
Get me to Reno
And bring it in low, low ...
song performed by by Rod Stewart
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Lady Of The Lake
Today I talked
to the old lady
who lives across the way
she said she died
a hundred years ago today
She told me
of the time she saw me
fishing in the lake
I had to laugh
I said
if You've been dead
for a hundred years
it couldn't have been me
you saw fishing in the lake
I'm not even fifty yet
She said
have you ever seen me
walk out of this garden
or talk to anybody else
I said
you've got me there
but like I said
if you died a hundred
years ago today
it couldn't have been me
you saw fishing in the lake
She said
a hundred years ago today
you drowned trying to save me
now it's time to except
that you are dead
poem by Dave Alan Walker
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Karma
He looked down over the valley,
Over the verdant green and trees,
And suddenly felt so humbled
That he sighed, and fell to his knees,
He'd only been out a single day
With the world before him spread,
So still he could hear those prison gates
As they'd clanged behind, in his head.
He'd finished his twenty seven years
He'd paid society's due,
Locked in a cell of eight by ten
For the things that he'd had to do,
He'd shown no mercy to Annabel,
No more to the Widow Peak,
He'd drowned them, just as he meant to do
When they'd met, in less than a week.
He thrilled at the thought of their staring eyes
As he held them down in the bath,
Watching their lives leach out of them,
Just as he'd done with Kath,
There'd been so many, he'd not confessed
But been convicted for two,
The other ten would have got him life
Without reprieve, if they knew.
He went to live in the valley
Rented a cottage under the trees,
Owned by a man called Anderson
Who'd visited him for years,
He'd said he knew of a valley where
He could start his life again,
He'd said, ‘Now here is your second chance,
Back in the world of men! '
He wandered round in the cottage
Took in the bathroom at a glance,
Took in the nice deep marble tub
With a smirk and a rub of his hands,
The village was just a walk away
But he'd give it a day or two,
Then check for a widow or single girl
At the store, as he wandered through.
He spent the night reminiscing
Thinking of all those staring eyes,
Of Kristen Poole, that silly young fool
That he'd fed with outrageous lies,
Her mouth had flapped like a goldfish
As she fought in a bleak despair,
But nearly a foot of water lay
Between her face and the air.
And who was that girl, that Marigold,
That he'd met in the Shop ‘n Save?
He'd thought that her name was Sanderson,
She didn't know how to behave,
She'd said her brother looked out for her
Would interfere with her fun,
But once in a bath of water,
It would only be fun for one.
He lay and stared at the ceiling as
He felt quite suddenly cold,
The name of his mentor Anderson
Came creeping back to his soul,
He heard the rushing of water
Off in the distance, up on the heights,
And made his way to the village
Lying in darkness, deep in the night,
The cottages all were empty
So was the chapel, totally bare,
The door of the shop was open
Nothing but garbage left in there,
He turned and ran up the village street
But the thunder was hard at his heels,
When a wall of water, ten feet high
Rushed over the verdant fields.
They'd opened the sluices at the dam
To flood the Valley at night,
To turn it into a reservoir
For a city that lay nearby,
The villagers had been gone for a month
But they stood and they watched the tide,
Flooding their tiny cottages
While Anderson laughed, and cried!
11 November 2012
poem by David Lewis Paget
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Nine Hundred And Ninety Nine
NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE
When you are done
With a thousand gals!
You might wave
Wave the triumph card
For faking to
Faking to nine hundred and ninety nine
But i`ll still be THE ONE
The one clad in white
Not to boast of honesty nor candor
But to see you scream
Scream for peace and tranquility! !
You`ll never be fanatic nor crazy
But you`ll yowl bawl and wail
For stillness and serenity!
But your mind will never
Never ever sit in peace
Cause you had killed the nine hundred and ninety nine
Who longed to live on this lovely mother earth! !
When the seven hundredth suicide happened
You wandered for the seven hundred one
& when her parents pulled her from the ocean of death
You found the seven hundred and second one! !
When she went to the psychiatry ward
You caught hold of the seven hundred and third!
When she refused her love
You wailed like a toddler
She took you by her arms
But was forced to take a rope
Cause she knew you bore skin of lust & lust only
But your search went on & on
Till at nine hundred and ninty nine
& your mind screamed
Screamed for peace and tranquility!
I will not be the nine hundred and ninety nineth
But am I in the thousand who thought
Thought that you were all love! !
But i`l stay ………. Stay in silence
Till the nine hundred and ninety nine souls
Nine hundred and ninety nine souls
Will pinch every cell of yours! !
No tears will wash your sorrow
No words will lessen your pain! !
But i`ll be the nine hundered and ninety nineth
To see you bawl
Bawl for peace and tranquility!
There i`l remove my robes
Robes of honesty for you to hang
Or i`ll hang you in my rope of honesty!
poem by Dr DHANA LAKSHMI
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One Hundred Punks
They customised their gear and synchronised
(They)flame out in the streets with flame in their eyes
Guerilla operator ain't heard of cool
Check out any wall - one hundred punks rule
One hundred punks rule
A hundred punks run with London town
Down Wardour Street to the Soho Sound
Don't sleep all week only when they fall down
A hundred Rumble boys and Tumble girls
Protected by steel in a private world
Tomorrow's famous faces advertise today
And the studs on their back say
One hundred punks rule
A hundred punks run the loaded gun
They look so sharp they look like one
If you ain't got the look you'll never be one
A hundred punks run with total suss
A hundred good mates you know you can trust
There's never no bother and there's no fuss
Check out any wall - one hundred punks rule
One hundred punks rule
And Jimmy's no.101 knows one day he'll be One
Watch him - watch him Go!
A hundred punks run the leather army
I know whose by my side not at home with TV
Even when I'm down I hear them sing for me
Check out any wall - One hundred punks rule
One hundred punks rule
Check out any wall - One hundred punks rule
One hundred punks rule
Check out - One hundred punks rule O.K.
song performed by by Offspring
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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