Fontainebleau
Who put the palm over my blonde?
Who put all the tar on the morning sand?
Who took everything from where it once was
And put it where it was last seen?
Fontainebleau, they painted it green
Fontainebleau, for the well-to-do
At the fontainebleau.
Theres a palace in the gravy
Thats holding on and on and on
Even after all the blue-haired ladies
And the wheelchairs are gone.
I guess the reason Im so scared of it
Is I stayed there once and I almost fit
I left before I got out of it
People were drownin in their own
Fontainebleau
Fontainebleau, was that me?
Fontainebleau, well I guess Ill see
Fontainebleau.
Fontainebleau, where the surfer works
Fontainebleau, til the break of day
Fontainebleau, cause it takes a shark
Fontainebleau, to catch a wave at the fontainebleau.
song performed by by Neil Young
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
A New Pilgrimage: Sonnet XX
Enough, dear Paris! We have laughed together,
'Tis time that we should part, lest tears should come.
I must fare on from winter and rough weather
And the dark tempests chained within Time's womb.
Southwards I go. Each footstep marks the tomb
Of a dead pleasure. Melun, Fontainebleau,--
How shall I name them with the ghosts that roam
In their deserted streets of long ago?
I will not stop to weep. Before me lie
Lands larger in their purpose, and with dreams
Peopled more purely; and to these I fly
For ever from life's idler stratagems.
France! thy white hand I kiss in suppliant guise,
Too sad to love thee, and alas! too wise.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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At Fontainebleau
It was a day of sun and rain,
Uncertain as a child's swift moods;
And I shall never spend again
So blithe a day among the woods.
Was it because the Gods were pleased
That they were awful in our eyes,
Whom we in very deed appeased
With barley-cakes of sacrifice?
The forest knew her and was glad,
And laughed for very joy to know
Her child was with her; then, grown sad,
She wept, because her child must go.
And Alice, like a little Faun,
Went leaping over rocks and ferns,
Coursing the shadow-race from dawn
Until the twilight-flock returns.
And she would spy and she would capture
The shyest flower that lit the grass;
The joy I had to watch her rapture
Was keen as even her rapture was.
The forest knew her and was glad,
And laughed and wept for joy and woe.
This was the welcome that she had
Among the woods of Fontainebleau.
poem by Arthur Symons
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An American Addresses Philomela
Procne, Philomela, and Itylus,
Your names are liquid, your improbable tale
Is recited in the classic numbers of the nightingale.
Ah, but our numbers are not felicitous,
It goes not liquidly for us!
Perched on a Roman ilex and duly apostrophised,
The nightingale descanted unto Ovid;
She has even appeared to the Teutons, the swilled and gravid;
At Fontainebleau it may be the bird was gallicised;
Never was she baptised.
To England came Philomela with her strain,
Fleeing the hawk her husband ; querulous ghost,
She wanders when he sits heavy on his roost,
Utters herself in the original again,
The untranslatable refrain.
Not to these shores she came, this other Thrace,
Environ barbarous to the royal Attic;
How could her delicate dirge run democratic,
Delivered in a cloudless boundless public place
To a hypermuscular race?
I pernoctated with the Oxford students once,
And in the quadrangles, in the cloisters, on the Cher,
Precociously knocked at antique doors ajar,
Fatuously touched the hems of the Hierophants,
Sick of my dissonance;
I went out to Bagley Wood, I climbed the hill,
Even the moon had slanted off in a twinkling,
I heard the sepulchral owl and a few bells tinkling,
There was no more villainous day to unfulfill,
The diuturnity was still;
Up from the darkest wood where Philomela sat,
Her fairy numbers issued; what then ailed me?
My ears are called capacious, but they failed me,
Her classics registered a little flat!
I rose, and venomously spat.
Philomela, Philomela, lover of song,
I have despaired of thee and am unworthy,
My scene is prose, this people and I are earthy;
Unto more beautiful, persistently more young
Thy fabulous provinces belong.
poem by John Crowe Ransom
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My Last Afternoon With Uncle Devereux Winslow
1922: the stone porch of my Grandfather’s summer house
I
“I won’t go with you. I want to stay with Grandpa!”
That’s how I threw cold water
on my Mother and Father’s
watery martini pipe dreams at Sunday dinner.
... Fontainebleau, Mattapoisett, Puget Sound....
Nowhere was anywhere after a summer
at my Grandfather’s farm.
Diamond-pointed, athirst and Norman,
its alley of poplars
paraded from Grandmother’s rose garden
to a scary stand of virgin pine,
scrub, and paths forever pioneering.
One afternoon in 1922,
I sat on the stone porch, looking through
screens as black-grained as drifting coal.
Tockytock, tockytock
clumped our Alpine, Edwardian cuckoo clock,
slung with strangled, wooden game.
Our farmer was cementing a root-house under the hill.
One of my hands was cool on a pile
of black earth, the other warm
on a pile of lime. All about me
were the works of my Grandfather’s hands:
snapshots of his Liberty Bell silver mine;
his high school at Stuttgart am Neckar;
stogie-brown beams; fools’-gold nuggets;
octagonal red tiles,
sweaty with a secret dank, crummy with ant-stale;
a Rocky Mountain chaise longue,
its legs, shellacked saplings.
A pastel-pale Huckleberry Finn
fished with a broom straw in a basin
hollowed out of a millstone.
Like my Grandfather, the décor
was manly, comfortable,
overbearing, disproportioned.
What were those sunflowers? Pumpkins floating shoulder-high?
It was sunset, Sadie and Nellie
bearing pitchers of ice-tea,
oranges, lemons, mint, and peppermints,
and the jug of shandygaff,
which Grandpa made by blending half and half
yeasty, wheezing homemade sarsaparilla with beer.
The farm, entitled Char-de-sa
in the Social Register,
was named for my Grandfather’s children:
Charlotte, Devereux, and Sarah.
No one had died there in my lifetime ...
Only Cinder, our Scottie puppy
paralyzed from gobbling toads.
I sat mixing black earth and lime.
II
I was five and a half.
My formal pearl gray shorts
had been worn for three minutes.
My perfection was the Olympian
poise of my models in the imperishable autumn
display windows
of Rogers Peet’s boys’ store below the State House
in Boston. Distorting drops of water
pinpricked my face in the basin’s mirror.
I was a stuffed toucan
with a bibulous, multicolored beak.
III
Up in the air
by the lakeview window in the billiards-room,
lurid in the doldrums of the sunset hour,
my Great Aunt Sarah
was learning Samson and Delilah.
She thundered on the keyboard of her dummy piano,
with gauze curtains like a boudoir table,
accordionlike yet soundless.
It had been bought to spare the nerves
of my Grandmother,
tone-deaf, quick as a cricket,
now needing a fourth for “Auction,”
and casting a thirsty eye
on Aunt Sarah, risen like the phoenix
from her bed of troublesome snacks and Tauchnitz classics.
Forty years earlier,
twenty, auburn headed,
grasshopper notes of genius!
Family gossip says Aunt Sarah
tilted her archaic Athenian nose
and jilted an Astor.
Each morning she practiced
on the grand piano at Symphony Hall,
deathlike in the off-season summer—
its naked Greek statues draped with purple
like the saints in Holy Week....
On the recital day, she failed to appear.
IV
I picked with a clean finger nail at the blue anchor
on my sailor blouse washed white as a spinnaker.
What in the world was I wishing?
... A sail-colored horse browsing in the bullrushes ...
A fluff of the west wind puffing
my blouse, kiting me over our seven chimneys,
troubling the waters....
As small as sapphires were the ponds: Quittacus, Snippituit,
and Assawompset, halved by “the Island,”
where my Uncle’s duck blind
floated in a barrage of smoke-clouds.
Double-barreled shotguns
stuck out like bundles of baby crow-bars.
A single sculler in a camouflaged kayak
was quacking to the decoys....
At the cabin between the waters,
the nearest windows were already boarded.
Uncle Devereux was closing camp for the winter.
As if posed for “the engagement photograph,”
he was wearing his severe
war-uniform of a volunteer Canadian officer.
Daylight from the doorway riddled his student posters,
tacked helter-skelter on walls as raw as a boardwalk.
Mr. Punch, a water melon in hockey tights,
was tossing off a decanter of Scotch.
La Belle France in a red, white and blue toga
was accepting the arm of her “protector,”
the ingenu and porcine Edward VII.
The pre-war music hall belles
had goose necks, glorious signatures, beauty-moles,
and coils of hair like rooster tails.
The finest poster was two or three young men in khaki kilts
being bushwhacked on the veldt—
They were almost life-size....
My Uncle was dying at twenty-nine.
“You are behaving like children,”
said my Grandfather,
when my Uncle and Aunt left their three baby daughters,
and sailed for Europe on a last honeymoon ...
I cowered in terror.
I wasn’t a child at all—
unseen and all-seeing, I was Agrippina
in the Golden House of Nero....
Near me was the white measuring-door
my Grandfather had penciled with my Uncle’s heights.
In 1911, he had stopped growing at just six feet.
While I sat on the tiles,
and dug at the anchor on my sailor blouse,
Uncle Devereux stood behind me.
He was as brushed as Bayard, our riding horse.
His face was putty.
His blue coat and white trousers
grew sharper and straighter.
His coat was a blue jay’s tail,
his trousers were solid cream from the top of the bottle.
He was animated, hierarchical,
like a ginger snap man in a clothes-press.
He was dying of the incurable Hodgkin’s disease....
My hands were warm, then cool, on the piles
of earth and lime,
a black pile and a white pile....
Come winter,
Uncle Devereux would blend to the one color.
poem by Robert Lowell
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I Dont Wanna Know
Well you followed me this far
Did you find out whats inside
Can you tell me what Im doing
Is it something I should hide
I dont know for sure
I dont wanna find out what I left there for
Im not scared and Im not lonely
Saving all my money or my breath
Im not looking for an answer
Or anyone to second guess no
You told me all your secrets
And I filled you up with lies
Now Im living honestly
Because I said goodbye
I cant go home anymore
I dont wanna find out what I left there for
Im not scared and Im not lonely
Saving all my money or my breath
Im not looking for an answer
Im not asking anyone to second guess
I was losing all my senses
I was losing all control
It was getting so offensive
Now you want me back for more
And I just wont go
If you think you know the answers
Youve got a lot of gall
Cause it gives you satisfaction
Knowing nothing at all
I dont care anymore
And I dont wanna find out what I left there for
What I left there for
Im not scared and Im not lonely
Saving all my money or my breath
Im not looking for an answer
Im not asking anyone to take a second guess no
Im not scared and Im not lonely
Saving all my money or my breath yeah
Im not looking for an answer
Im not asking anyone to take a second guess no
Take a second guess yeah
Take a second guess yeah
(hey)
Take a second guess yeah
(hey)
Take a second guess yeah
Take a second guess
(I cant talk to you)
Take a second guess
(yeah, yeah I know)
Take a second guess
(well I gotta go okay)
Take a second guess
Take a second guess
(over one billion served)
Take a second guess
Oh yeah
song performed by by Indigo Girls
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dumb Blonde-It Seems True
People call me a dumb blonde
sometimes it seems true
i trip over my own feet
and i cant find the answer to an easy math problem
can the color of your hair change how you act?
if its true ill dye my hair pink
green
red
blue
silver
anything but blonde!
i love how it looks but i dont wanna be stupid!
Dumb Blonde?
I guess so
poem by Izzy Barnwell
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Lord I Guess I'll Never Know
I heard you stirring in your sleep last night
I was awake with something on my mind
What happens when I leave, will you come with me?
These things I guess I'll never know
Tell me, who do you see when you die in your dreams?
Tell me, who do you touch when you come in your dreams?
I know that sometimes I get lost
Been asking questions since the day I could talk
Life is sweet but when my bones get cold
Will you be there for me to hold?
Tell me, who do you see when you die in your dreams?
Tell me, who do you touch when you come in your dreams?
Tell me, who do you see when you die in your dreams?
Tell me, could it be yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
You holding me
Oh Lord, I guess I'll never know (repeat)
When you die in your dreams
Oh Lord, I guess I'll never know
Will I be holding you?
Oh Lord, I guess I'll never know
When I die in my sleep
Oh Lord, I guess I'll never know
Will I be holding you?
Oh Lord, I guess I'll never know
When you come in your dreams
Oh Lord, I guess I'll never know
Am I holding you
Oh Lord, I guess I'll never know
When you come in your dreams
Oh Lord, I guess I'll never know
Am I holding you
Oh Lord, I guess I'll never know
song performed by by Verve
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse
Through Alpine meadows soft-suffused
With rain, where thick the crocus blows,
Past the dark forges long disused,
The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes.
The bridge is cross'd, and slow we ride,
Through forest, up the mountain-side.
The autumnal evening darkens round,
The wind is up, and drives the rain;
While, hark! far down, with strangled sound
Doth the Dead Guier's stream complain,
Where that wet smoke, among the woods,
Over his boiling cauldron broods.
Swift rush the spectral vapours white
Past limestone scars with ragged pines,
Showing--then blotting from our sight!--
Halt--through the cloud-drift something shines!
High in the valley, wet and drear,
The huts of Courrerie appear.
Strike leftward! cries our guide; and higher
Mounts up the stony forest-way.
At last the encircling trees retire;
Look! through the showery twilight grey
What pointed roofs are these advance?--
A palace of the Kings of France?
Approach, for what we seek is here!
Alight, and sparely sup, and wait
For rest in this outbuilding near;
Then cross the sward and reach that gate.
Knock; pass the wicket! Thou art come
To the Carthusians' world-famed home.
The silent courts, where night and day
Into their stone-carved basins cold
The splashing icy fountains play--
The humid corridors behold!
Where, ghostlike in the deepening night,
Cowl'd forms brush by in gleaming white.
The chapel, where no organ's peal
Invests the stern and naked prayer--
With penitential cries they kneel
And wrestle; rising then, with bare
And white uplifted faces stand,
Passing the Host from hand to hand;
Each takes, and then his visage wan
Is buried in his cowl once more.
The cells!--the suffering Son of Man
Upon the wall--the knee-worn floor--
And where they sleep, that wooden bed,
Which shall their coffin be, when dead!
The library, where tract and tome
Not to feed priestly pride are there,
To hymn the conquering march of Rome,
Nor yet to amuse, as ours are!
They paint of souls the inner strife,
Their drops of blood, their death in life.
The garden, overgrown--yet mild,
See, fragrant herbs are flowering there!
Strong children of the Alpine wild
Whose culture is the brethren's care;
Of human tasks their only one,
And cheerful works beneath the sun.
Those halls, too, destined to contain
Each its own pilgrim-host of old,
From England, Germany, or Spain--
All are before me! I behold
The House, the Brotherhood austere!
--And what am I, that I am here?
For rigorous teachers seized my youth,
And purged its faith, and trimm'd its fire,
Show'd me the high, white star of Truth,
There bade me gaze, and there aspire.
Even now their whispers pierce the gloom:
What dost thou in this living tomb?
Forgive me, masters of the mind!
At whose behest I long ago
So much unlearnt, so much resign'd--
I come not here to be your foe!
I seek these anchorites, not in ruth,
To curse and to deny your truth;
Not as their friend, or child, I speak!
But as, on some far northern strand,
Thinking of his own Gods, a Greek
In pity and mournful awe might stand
Before some fallen Runic stone--
For both were faiths, and both are gone.
Wandering between two worlds, one dead,
The other powerless to be born,
With nowhere yet to rest my head,
Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.
Their faith, my tears, the world deride--
I come to shed them at their side.
Oh, hide me in your gloom profound,
Ye solemn seats of holy pain!
Take me, cowl'd forms, and fence me round,
Till I possess my soul again;
Till free my thoughts before me roll,
Not chafed by hourly false control!
For the world cries your faith is now
But a dead time's exploded dream;
My melancholy, sciolists say,
Is a pass'd mode, an outworn theme--
As if the world had ever had
A faith, or sciolists been sad!
Ah, if it be pass'd, take away,
At least, the restlessness, the pain;
Be man henceforth no more a prey
To these out-dated stings again!
The nobleness of grief is gone
Ah, leave us not the fret alone!
But--if you cannot give us ease--
Last of the race of them who grieve
Here leave us to die out with these
Last of the people who believe!
Silent, while years engrave the brow;
Silent--the best are silent now.
Achilles ponders in his tent,
The kings of modern thought are dumb,
Silent they are though not content,
And wait to see the future come.
They have the grief men had of yore,
But they contend and cry no more.
Our fathers water'd with their tears
This sea of time whereon we sail,
Their voices were in all men's ears
We pass'd within their puissant hail.
Still the same ocean round us raves,
But we stand mute, and watch the waves.
For what avail'd it, all the noise
And outcry of the former men?--
Say, have their sons achieved more joys,
Say, is life lighter now than then?
The sufferers died, they left their pain--
The pangs which tortured them remain.
What helps it now, that Byron bore,
With haughty scorn which mock'd the smart,
Through Europe to the Ætolian shore
The pageant of his bleeding heart?
That thousands counted every groan,
And Europe made his woe her own?
What boots it, Shelley! that the breeze
Carried thy lovely wail away,
Musical through Italian trees
Which fringe thy soft blue Spezzian bay?
Inheritors of thy distress
Have restless hearts one throb the less?
Or are we easier, to have read,
O Obermann! the sad, stern page,
Which tells us how thou hidd'st thy head
From the fierce tempest of thine age
In the lone brakes of Fontainebleau,
Or chalets near the Alpine snow?
Ye slumber in your silent grave!--
The world, which for an idle day
Grace to your mood of sadness gave,
Long since hath flung her weeds away.
The eternal trifler breaks your spell;
But we--we learned your lore too well!
Years hence, perhaps, may dawn an age,
More fortunate, alas! than we,
Which without hardness will be sage,
And gay without frivolity.
Sons of the world, oh, speed those years;
But, while we wait, allow our tears!
Allow them! We admire with awe
The exulting thunder of your race;
You give the universe your law,
You triumph over time and space!
Your pride of life, your tireless powers,
We laud them, but they are not ours.
We are like children rear'd in shade
Beneath some old-world abbey wall,
Forgotten in a forest-glade,
And secret from the eyes of all.
Deep, deep the greenwood round them waves,
Their abbey, and its close of graves!
But, where the road runs near the stream,
Oft through the trees they catch a glance
Of passing troops in the sun's beam--
Pennon, and plume, and flashing lance!
Forth to the world those soldiers fare,
To life, to cities, and to war!
And through the wood, another way,
Faint bugle-notes from far are borne,
Where hunters gather, staghounds bay,
Round some fair forest-lodge at morn.
Gay dames are there, in sylvan green;
Laughter and cries--those notes between!
The banners flashing through the trees
Make their blood dance and chain their eyes;
That bugle-music on the breeze
Arrests them with a charm'd surprise.
Banner by turns and bugle woo:
Ye shy recluses, follow too!
O children, what do ye reply?--
'Action and pleasure, will ye roam
Through these secluded dells to cry
And call us?--but too late ye come!
Too late for us your call ye blow,
Whose bent was taken long ago.
'Long since we pace this shadow'd nave;
We watch those yellow tapers shine,
Emblems of hope over the grave,
In the high altar's depth divine;
The organ carries to our ear
Its accents of another sphere.
'Fenced early in this cloistral round
Of reverie, of shade, of prayer,
How should we grow in other ground?
How can we flower in foreign air?
--Pass, banners, pass, and bugles, cease;
And leave our desert to its peace!'
poem by Matthew Arnold
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Miss The Lights
(intro) walking tall, full of tedious charm,
The smoothest (? ? ? ) in (? ? ? )
The mission boys all cross their palms
Dont you know who I am
I guess you miss the lights? huh!
I guess you miss the fame
I guess you miss everybody
Hanging onto your name
Little caesar is prince of the city
? ? ?
In this town theres no pity
This man stands alone
I guess you miss the lights - ha!
I guess you miss the fame
I guess you miss everybody
Hanging onto your name
Sometimes when youre all alone
And the blue turns to gray
Better get down on those pinky knees,
And you start to pray
I guess you miss the lights - ha!
I guess you miss the fame
I guess you miss everybody
Kiss-kissing your name
(instrumental)
A glimmering ? , a twilight star
And so much love for show,
A returning wave from the gallery bar
And share the afterglow
I guess you miss the lights
I guess you miss the fame
I guess you miss everybody
Hanging onto your name
Ha!
I guess you miss the lights
I guess you miss the fame, haha!
I guess you miss everybody
Hanging onto your name
(fade out music and chorus)
I guess you miss the lights
I guess you miss everybody
Kiss-kissing your name
song performed by by Ufo
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Surfer Girl
Little surfer little one
Made my heart come all undone
Do you love me, do you surfer girl
Surfer girl my little surfer girl
I have watched you on the shore
Standing by the oceans roar
Do you love me do you surfer girl
Surfer girl surfer girl
We could ride the surf together
While our love would grow
In my woody I would take you everywhere I go
So I say from me to you
I will make your dreams come true
Do you love me do you surfer girl
Surfer girl my little surfer girl
Well
Girl surfer girl my little surfer girl
Well
Girl surfer girl my little surfer girl
Well
Girl surfer girl my little surfer girl
song performed by by Beach Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Still Surfin
He used to ride the sidewalks in a landlocked town
A solitary surfer still he got around
He had his favorite spots now
Where the best rides could be found
With posters on his wall from surfer magazine
His room looked like a shrine to the surfin scene
Go to hawaii out of high school was his big time college dream
(thats where the girls are)
Did you ever wonder what happened to surfer joe
He up and took a ? ? ? down to mexico
With a pretty senorita we both used to know
You can see him catch a wave in the mornin light
And sometimes you can find him on his board at night
A silouette on water as the sun dips outta sight
Hes still surfin
(still surfin)
Hes still surfin
(still surfin)
Youll catch him on a wave on his way to class
Then be back there after school [til his daylight pass? ? ? ]
Hes still surfin
(still surfin)
Hes still surfin
(still surfin)
Surfers always love them summer days
With a board in the water rollin with the waves
Hes still surfin
Hes always been a surfer since the early days
Spendin the summer searchin for that perfect wave
He and his surfin senorita never seem to age
He doesnt do a whole lot with his law degree
They thought about a major oceanography
But he does a lot of thinkin bout how to save the sea
(thats where the waves are)
Things up north were gettin kinda out of hand
So he got a break to see the ride on the sand
With his little mama seated in a surfers never never land
You can see him catch a wave in the mornin light
And sometimes you can find him on his board at night
A silouette on water as the sun dips outta sight
Hes still surfin
(still surfin)
Hes still surfin
(still surfin)
Youll catch him on a wave on his way to class
Then be back there after school [til his daylight pass? ? ? ]
Hes still surfin
(still surfin)
Hes still surfin
(still surfin)
Surfers always love them summer days
With a board in the water rollin with the waves
Hes still surfin
In the mornin light he still surfin
On his board at night hes still surfin
In the summer days hes still surfin
Rollin with the waves hes still surfin
song performed by by Beach Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Surfer Boy
Surfer boy , surfer boy , surfer boy , surfer boy
Surfer boy you love the sea so much
And riding waves so big and blue
But Im in love with you , surfer boy
Why cant you learn to love me too
Im so afraid that youll get hurt someday
You say that this could never be
But Im in love with you , surfer boy
So wont you please come home to me
You say you love me , but you treat me mean
You are the meanest boy Ive ever seen
You leave me lonely and you leave me blue
I wish you wouldnt treat me like you do
Surfer boy, why dont you settle down
With a love you know is true
Yes , Im in love with you , surfer boy
Why dont you say you love me too
You say you love me but you treat me mean
You are the meanest boy Ive ever seen
You leave me lonely and you leave me blue
I wish you wouldnt treat me like you do
Surfer boy, why dont you settle down
With a love you know is true
Yes , Im in love with you , surfer boy
Why dont you say you love me too
Surfer boy , surfer boy, surfer boy, surfer boy , surfer boy
song performed by by Bee Gees
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Andrea del Sarto
But do not let us quarrel any more,
No, my Lucrezia; bear with me for once:
Sit down and all shall happen as you wish.
You turn your face, but does it bring your heart?
I'll work then for your friend's friend, never fear,
Treat his own subject after his own way,
Fix his own time, accept too his own price,
And shut the money into this small hand
When next it takes mine. Will it? tenderly?
Oh, I'll content him,--but to-morrow, Love!
I often am much wearier than you think,
This evening more than usual, and it seems
As if--forgive now--should you let me sit
Here by the window with your hand in mine
And look a half-hour forth on Fiesole,
Both of one mind, as married people use,
Quietly, quietly the evening through,
I might get up to-morrow to my work
Cheerful and fresh as ever. Let us try.
To-morrow, how you shall be glad for this!
Your soft hand is a woman of itself,
And mine the man's bared breast she curls inside.
Don't count the time lost, neither; you must serve
For each of the five pictures we require:
It saves a model. So! keep looking so--
My serpentining beauty, rounds on rounds!
--How could you ever prick those perfect ears,
Even to put the pearl there! oh, so sweet--
My face, my moon, my everybody's moon,
Which everybody looks on and calls his,
And, I suppose, is looked on by in turn,
While she looks--no one's: very dear, no less.
You smile? why, there's my picture ready made,
There's what we painters call our harmony!
A common greyness silvers everything,--
All in a twilight, you and I alike
--You, at the point of your first pride in me
(That's gone you know),--but I, at every point;
My youth, my hope, my art, being all toned down
To yonder sober pleasant Fiesole.
There's the bell clinking from the chapel-top;
That length of convent-wall across the way
Holds the trees safer, huddled more inside;
The last monk leaves the garden; days decrease,
And autumn grows, autumn in everything.
Eh? the whole seems to fall into a shape
As if I saw alike my work and self
And all that I was born to be and do,
A twilight-piece. Love, we are in God's hand.
How strange now, looks the life he makes us lead;
So free we seem, so fettered fast we are!
I feel he laid the fetter: let it lie!
This chamber for example--turn your head--
All that's behind us! You don't understand
Nor care to understand about my art,
But you can hear at least when people speak:
And that cartoon, the second from the door
--It is the thing, Love! so such things should be--
Behold Madonna!--I am bold to say.
I can do with my pencil what I know,
What I see, what at bottom of my heart
I wish for, if I ever wish so deep--
Do easily, too--when I say, perfectly,
I do not boast, perhaps: yourself are judge,
Who listened to the Legate's talk last week,
And just as much they used to say in France.
At any rate 'tis easy, all of it!
No sketches first, no studies, that's long past:
I do what many dream of, all their lives,
--Dream? strive to do, and agonize to do,
And fail in doing. I could count twenty such
On twice your fingers, and not leave this town,
Who strive--you don't know how the others strive
To paint a little thing like that you smeared
Carelessly passing with your robes afloat,--
Yet do much less, so much less, Someone says,
(I know his name, no matter)--so much less!
Well, less is more, Lucrezia: I am judged.
There burns a truer light of God in them,
In their vexed beating stuffed and stopped-up brain,
Heart, or whate'er else, than goes on to prompt
This low-pulsed forthright craftsman's hand of mine.
Their works drop groundward, but themselves, I know,
Reach many a time a heaven that's shut to me,
Enter and take their place there sure enough,
Though they come back and cannot tell the world.
My works are nearer heaven, but I sit here.
The sudden blood of these men! at a word--
Praise them, it boils, or blame them, it boils too.
I, painting from myself and to myself,
Know what I do, am unmoved by men's blame
Or their praise either. Somebody remarks
Morello's outline there is wrongly traced,
His hue mistaken; what of that? or else,
Rightly traced and well ordered; what of that?
Speak as they please, what does the mountain care?
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for? All is silver-grey,
Placid and perfect with my art: the worse!
I know both what I want and what might gain,
And yet how profitless to know, to sigh
"Had I been two, another and myself,
"Our head would have o'erlooked the world!" No doubt.
Yonder's a work now, of that famous youth
The Urbinate who died five years ago.
('Tis copied, George Vasari sent it me.)
Well, I can fancy how he did it all,
Pouring his soul, with kings and popes to see,
Reaching, that heaven might so replenish him,
Above and through his art--for it gives way;
That arm is wrongly put--and there again--
A fault to pardon in the drawing's lines,
Its body, so to speak: its soul is right,
He means right--that, a child may understand.
Still, what an arm! and I could alter it:
But all the play, the insight and the stretch--
(Out of me, out of me! And wherefore out?
Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,
We might have risen to Rafael, I and you!
Nay, Love, you did give all I asked, I think--
More than I merit, yes, by many times.
But had you--oh, with the same perfect brow,
And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,
And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird
The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare --
Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind!
Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged
"God and the glory! never care for gain.
"The present by the future, what is that?
"Live for fame, side by side with Agnolo!
"Rafael is waiting: up to God, all three!"
I might have done it for you. So it seems:
Perhaps not. All is as God over-rules.
Beside, incentives come from the soul's self;
The rest avail not. Why do I need you?
What wife had Rafael, or has Agnolo?
In this world, who can do a thing, will not;
And who would do it, cannot, I perceive:
Yet the will's somewhat--somewhat, too, the power--
And thus we half-men struggle. At the end,
God, I conclude, compensates, punishes.
'Tis safer for me, if the award be strict,
That I am something underrated here,
Poor this long while, despised, to speak the truth.
I dared not, do you know, leave home all day,
For fear of chancing on the Paris lords.
The best is when they pass and look aside;
But they speak sometimes; I must bear it all.
Well may they speak! That Francis, that first time,
And that long festal year at Fontainebleau!
I surely then could sometimes leave the ground,
Put on the glory, Rafael's daily wear,
In that humane great monarch's golden look,--
One finger in his beard or twisted curl
Over his mouth's good mark that made the smile,
One arm about my shoulder, round my neck,
The jingle of his gold chain in my ear,
I painting proudly with his breath on me,
All his court round him, seeing with his eyes,
Such frank French eyes, and such a fire of souls
Profuse, my hand kept plying by those hearts,--
And, best of all, this, this, this face beyond,
This in the background, waiting on my work,
To crown the issue with a last reward!
A good time, was it not, my kingly days?
And had you not grown restless... but I know--
'Tis done and past: 'twas right, my instinct said:
Too live the life grew, golden and not grey,
And I'm the weak-eyed bat no sun should tempt
Out of the grange whose four walls make his world.
How could it end in any other way?
You called me, and I came home to your heart.
The triumph was--to reach and stay there; since
I reached it ere the triumph, what is lost?
Let my hands frame your face in your hair's gold,
You beautiful Lucrezia that are mine!
"Rafael did this, Andrea painted that;
"The Roman's is the better when you pray,
"But still the other's Virgin was his wife--"
Men will excuse me. I am glad to judge
Both pictures in your presence; clearer grows
My better fortune, I resolve to think.
For, do you know, Lucrezia, as God lives,
Said one day Agnolo, his very self,
To Rafael . . . I have known it all these years . . .
(When the young man was flaming out his thoughts
Upon a palace-wall for Rome to see,
Too lifted up in heart because of it)
"Friend, there's a certain sorry little scrub
"Goes up and down our Florence, none cares how,
"Who, were he set to plan and execute
"As you are, pricked on by your popes and kings,
"Would bring the sweat into that brow of yours!"
To Rafael's!--And indeed the arm is wrong.
I hardly dare . . . yet, only you to see,
Give the chalk here--quick, thus, the line should go!
Ay, but the soul! he's Rafael! rub it out!
Still, all I care for, if he spoke the truth,
(What he? why, who but Michel Agnolo?
Do you forget already words like those?)
If really there was such a chance, so lost,--
Is, whether you're--not grateful--but more pleased.
Well, let me think so. And you smile indeed!
This hour has been an hour! Another smile?
If you would sit thus by me every night
I should work better, do you comprehend?
I mean that I should earn more, give you more.
See, it is settled dusk now; there's a star;
Morello's gone, the watch-lights show the wall,
The cue-owls speak the name we call them by.
Come from the window, love,--come in, at last,
Inside the melancholy little house
We built to be so gay with. God is just.
King Francis may forgive me: oft at nights
When I look up from painting, eyes tired out,
The walls become illumined, brick from brick
Distinct, instead of mortar, fierce bright gold,
That gold of his I did cement them with!
Let us but love each other. Must you go?
That Cousin here again? he waits outside?
Must see you--you, and not with me? Those loans?
More gaming debts to pay? you smiled for that?
Well, let smiles buy me! have you more to spend?
While hand and eye and something of a heart
Are left me, work's my ware, and what's it worth?
I'll pay my fancy. Only let me sit
The grey remainder of the evening out,
Idle, you call it, and muse perfectly
How I could paint, were I but back in France,
One picture, just one more--the Virgin's face,
Not yours this time! I want you at my side
To hear them--that is, Michel Agnolo--
Judge all I do and tell you of its worth.
Will you? To-morrow, satisfy your friend.
I take the subjects for his corridor,
Finish the portrait out of hand--there, there,
And throw him in another thing or two
If he demurs; the whole should prove enough
To pay for this same Cousin's freak. Beside,
What's better and what's all I care about,
Get you the thirteen scudi for the ruff!
Love, does that please you? Ah, but what does he,
The Cousin! what does he to please you more?
I am grown peaceful as old age to-night.
I regret little, I would change still less.
Since there my past life lies, why alter it?
The very wrong to Francis!--it is true
I took his coin, was tempted and complied,
And built this house and sinned, and all is said.
My father and my mother died of want.
Well, had I riches of my own? you see
How one gets rich! Let each one bear his lot.
They were born poor, lived poor, and poor they died:
And I have laboured somewhat in my time
And not been paid profusely. Some good son
Paint my two hundred pictures--let him try!
No doubt, there's something strikes a balance. Yes,
You loved me quite enough. it seems to-night.
This must suffice me here. What would one have?
In heaven, perhaps, new chances, one more chance--
Four great walls in the New Jerusalem,
Meted on each side by the angel's reed,
For Leonard, Rafael, Agnolo and me
To cover--the three first without a wife,
While I have mine! So--still they overcome
Because there's still Lucrezia,--as I choose.
Again the Cousin's whistle! Go, my Love.
poem by Robert Browning
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Stuck On You
Stuck on you
Ive got this feeling down
Deep in my soul
That I just cant lose
Guess, Im on my way
Needed a friend
And the way I feel now I guess
Ill be with you till the end
Guess Im on my way
Mighty glad you stayed
Im stuck on you
Been a fool too long I guess
Its time for me to come on home
Guess Im on my way
So hard to see
That a woman like you could wait
Around for a man like me
Guess Im on my way
Mighty glad you stayed
Oh, Im leaving on that midnight train
And I know just where Im going
Ive packed up my troubles
And Ive thrown them all away
Because this time little darlin
Im coming home to stay
Im stuck on you
Ive got this feeling down
Deep in my soul
That I just cant lose
Guess, Im on my way
Needed a friend
And the way I feel now I guess
Ill be with you till the end
Guess Im on my way
Im mighty glad you stayed
song performed by by Lionel Richie
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Catch A Wave
Catch a wave and youre sitting on top of the world
Dont be afraid to try the greatest sport around
Everybody tries it once
Those who dont just have to put it down
You paddle out turn around and raise
And baby thats all there is to the coastline craze
You gotta catch a wave and youre sittin on top of the world
Not just a fad cause its been going on so long
All the surfers going strong
They said it wouldnt last too long
Theyll eat their words with a fork and spoon
And watch em theyll hit the road and all be surfin soon
And when they catch a wave theyll be sittin on top of the world
Catch a wave and your sittin on top of the world
So take a lesson from a top-notch surfer boy
Every saturday boy
But dont treat it like a toy
Just get away from the shady turf
And baby go catch some rays on the sunny surf
And when you catch a wave youll be sittin on top of the world
Catch a wave and youll be sittin on top of the world
Catch a wave and youll be sittin on top of the world
Catch a wave and youll be sittin on top of the world
song performed by by Beach Boys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In Blue
Verse 1:
Summers over and my dear so is he
Over me now oh so suddenly
Onward downward cared so much it scared him
I wanted to walk peacefully
But in dramatic fashion out of hurt and passion's sword
At his feet both hands pulled the cord
Chorus:
I guess he likes me in blue
Those tears they make him feel like a man
After I gave all that I am
He loves to see me cry
Thought we would grow old together
But at the first sign of bad weather
He left me holding the shoe
Midnight my prince he just flew
I guess he likes me in blue
Verse 2:
Tried to hold on
But it pulled me under
Left to wonder
Is there something wrong with me?
Said 'no baby'
But I don't believe it
'Cause his actions spoke ever so clearly
And oh
Out of foolish pride
As he veered
I stood by his side
Chorus
Bridge:
Say it isn't so
Say I have my pride
My big sin you ask
Is I tried, I tried
Lovers on death row
Destined for the fall
When did that wind blow?
We could've had it all
Chorus
It's not my favorite color....
song performed by by Debbie Gibson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Target Caught A Lucky Break
wow he left you
and you did not
organize a dozen friends
to stab him in the back
with their stealie stealie knives
guess the cat caught
a really lucky break
but there is more
than one way
to kill a pet cat
guess this cat
wants to keep his skin
guess this cat
wants to keep his gut
not be a string
for your violin
poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Come On
I guess we know each other now for seven years
Why has it always to end up with tears
A little problem and soon discussions start
We bang our heads and we always forget our hearts
Somehow, somewhere
I guess I had this all before
Somehow, somewhere
I guess I had this all before
Come on, come on lets go home
Give the sinking ship a drink
I think its better if we go
Somehow my thoughts are running slow
Will feel sorry when I awake
So you better give me a break
Take your brown eyes and putem in a glass
Put some icecubes in and watch the rotting mess
Look in my blue ones and you know I never lie
Give me a drink and I say to you lets have another try
Somehow, somewhere...
You better give me a break
You better give me
You better give me a break...
song performed by by Fury In The Slaughterhouse
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ladies Man
Well, Ive heard of heartbreakers
But you take the cake
Ladies man
You could charm the diamonds
Off a rattlesnake
Ladies man
Ladies bring it on over
When you give em the glance
They dont stand a chance
First, you unfold them
Then you pigeon-hole em
Ladies man
Well it sure takes a lot of
Good natured self-control
Ladies man
When Im so hot for you and
Youre so cold, so cold
Ladies man
Why do you keep on trying to
Make a man of me
Couldnt you just love me--
Like you love cocaine
Cocaine head games
Cross my heart I swear
Im not trying to trick you
No tricks
Ladies man
Its just a straight ahead feeling
I have for you
Nothing slick
Ladies man
I guess you learn to refuse
What you think you cant handle
Youre acting like a vandal
Wrecking the dream
At the first bad scene
Ladies man
Ladies man
Ladies man
Ladies man
song performed by by Joni Mitchell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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You've Been Spoiled
Yes.
You've been spoiled.
And I...
No longer guess...
I am the reason and cause of it.
From the very beginning,
When I gifted you...
With my best 'anyone' could get.
And delivered that to you,
So happy you were.
And to me that was expressed.
Yes.
You've been spoiled.
And I...
No longer guess...
I am the reason and cause of it.
I feel it each time,
When you rush to find...
What it is I've left.
Believing it easy and simple for me...
To create for you something great.
Something to leave your mind teased and pleased.
You've been spoiled and that is because of me!
And now my very best...
Gets less of your attention,
With your inquisitive curiousness.
Now you get upset with a disrespect...
If you find an undotted 'i' or an uncrossed 't',
As you closely inspect.
Yes.
You've been spoiled.
And I...
No longer guess...
I am the reason and cause of it.
I am the reason,
You now mumble your indignities...
To me,
Under your breath!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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