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"We live as we dream -- alone."
~ Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness
"All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream."
~ Edgar Allen Poe A Dream Within a Dream
"Everybody is like the moon and has a dark side
which he never shows anybody."
~ Mark Twain Following the Equator
"I slept and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke and found that life was Duty."
"When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes."
~ Erasmus
There Was A Little Girl
There was a little girl, she had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead;
And when she was good, she was very, very good,
And when she was bad, she was horrid.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Listeners
"Is anybody there?" said the Traveler,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence chomped the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor.
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the traveler's head:
And he smote upon the door a second time;
"Is there anybody there?" he said.
But no one descended to the Traveler;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his gray eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveler's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:--
"Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word," he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Aye, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
~ Walter De La Mare
My Last
Duchess
FERRARA
That's my last
Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as
if she were alive. I call
That piece
a wonder, now: Fra Pandolf's hands
Worked busily
a day, and there she stands.
Will't please
you sit and look at her? I said
"Fra Pandolf"
by design, for never read
Strangers
like you that pictured countenance,
The depth
and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself
they turned (since none puts by
the curtain I
have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed
they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a
glance came there; so not the first
Are you to
turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's
presence only, called that spot
Of joy into
the Duchess's cheek: perhaps
Fra Pandolf
chanced to say "Her mantle laps
Over my lady's
wrist too much," or Paint
Must never
hope to reproduce the faint
Half flush
that dies along her throat": such stuff
Was courtesy,
she thought, and cause enough
For calling
up that spot of you. She had
A heart--how
shall I say?--too soon made glad,
Too easily
impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked
on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas
all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping
of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the
orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with
round the terrace--all and each
Would draw
from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush,
at least. She thanked men--good! but thanked
Somehow--I
know not how--as if she ranked
My gift of
a nine-hundred-years-old name
With anybody's
gift. Who'd stoop to blame
This sort
of trifling? Even had you skill
In speech--(which
I have not)--to make your will
Quite clear
to such a one, and say, "Just this
Or that in
you disgusts me; here you miss
Or there exceed
the mark"--and if she let
Herself be
lessoned so, nor plainly set
her wits to
yours, forsooth, and made excuse
--E'en then
would be some stooping; and I choose
Never to stoop.
Oh sir, she smiled, no doubt
Whene'er I
passed her; but who passed without
Much the same
smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles
stopped together. There she stands
As if alive.
Will't please you rise? We'll meet
the company
below, then. I repeat
The Count
your master's known munificence
Is ample warrant
that no just pretense
Of mine dowry
will be disallowed
Though his
fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting,
is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down,
sir. Notice Neptune, though,
Taming a sea
horse, thought a rarity,
Which claus
of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!
~ Robert Browning
The Bells
I
Hear the sledges with the bells-
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And an in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
III
Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor,
Now–now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows:
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells-
Of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
IV
Hear the tolling of the bells-
Iron Bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people–ah, the people-
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All Alone
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone-
They are neither man nor woman-
They are neither brute nor human-
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells-
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells-
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells:
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-
Bells, bells, bells-
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
~ Edgar Allan Poe
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