Desiderata by Max Ehrmann
Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.As far as poible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggreive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and leer persons than yourself.Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real poeion in the changing fortunes of time.Exercise caution in your busine affairs; for the world is full of trickery.But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism. Be yourself.Especially, do not feign affection.Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the gra. Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth.Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.But do not distre yourself with dark imaginings.Many fears are born of fatigue and loneline.Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no le than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here.And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be, and whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul. With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.Be cheerful.Strive to be happy.
♪ Elegy 5 by Ovid
In summer\'s heat, and mid-time of the day, To rest my limbs, upon a bed I lay, One window shut, the other open stood, Which gave such light, as twinkles in a wood, Like twilight glimpse at setting of the sun, Or night being past, and yet not day begun.Such light to shamefast maidens must be shown, Where they may sport, and seem to be unknown.Then came Corinna in a long loose gown, Her white neck hid with trees hanging down, Resembling fair Semiramis going to bed, Or Lais of a thousand lovers sped.I snatched her gown: being thin, the harm was small, Yet strived she to be covered therewithal, And striving thus as one that would be cast, Betrayed herself, and yielded at the last.Stark naked as she stood before mine eye, Not one wen in her body could I spy, What arms and shoulders did I touch and see, How apt her breasts were to be preed by me, How smooth a belly, under her waist saw I, How large a leg, and what a lusty thigh? To leave the rest, all liked me paing well, I clinged her naked body, down she fell, Judge you the rest, being tired she bade me ki.Jove send me more such afternoons as this.
♪ Elegy 9 by Ovid
Yet should I curse a god, if he but said, Live without love, so sweet ill is a maid.For when my loathing it of heat deprives me, I know not whether my mind\'s whirlwind drives me.Even as a headstrong courser bears away, His rider vainly striving him to stay, Or as a sudden gale thrusts into sea, The haven touching bark now near the lea, So wavering Cupid brings me back amain, And purple Love resumes his darts again.Strike boy, I offer thee my naked breast, Here thou hast strength, here thy right hand doth rest.Here of themselves thy shafts come, as if shot, Better then I their quiver knows them not.Haple is he that all the night lies quiet And slumb\'ring, thinks himself much bleed by it.Fool, what is sleep but image of cold death, Long shalt thou rest when Fates expire thy breath.But me let crafty damsels words deceive, Great joys by hope I inly shall conceive.Now let her flatter me, now chide me hard, Let me enjoy her oft, oft be debarr\'d.Cupid by thee, Mars in great doubt doth trample, And thy step-father fights by thy example.Light art thou, and more windy then thy wings, Joys with uncertain faith thou tak\'st and brings.Yet Love, if thou with thy fair mother hear , Within my breast no desert empire bear.Subdue the wandring wenches to thy reign, So of both people shalt thou homage gain.
♪ Fresh Cheese And Cream by Robert Herrick
Would ye have fresh Cheese and Cream? Julia’s Breast can give you them: and if more: each Nipple cries, To your cream, here’s Strawberries.
♪ From \'Romeo And Juliet\' Act 5 Scene 3 by William Shakespeare
O my love! my wife!
Death, that hath suck\'d the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: Thou art not conquer\'d; beauty\'s ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death\'s pale flag is not advanced there. Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? O, what more favour can I do to thee, Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain To sunder his that was thine enemy? Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe That unsubstantial death is amorous, And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that, I still will stay with thee; And never from this palace of dim night Depart again: here, here will I remain
With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest,
And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars
From this world-wearied flesh.Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous ki A datele bargain to engroing death! Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide! Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark! Here\'s to my love!
♪ Funeral Blues by W.H.Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone, Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone, Silence the pianos and with muffled drum Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead Scribbling on the sky the meage \'He is Dead\'.Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves, Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West, My working week and my Sunday rest, My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song; I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one, Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun, Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood; For nothing now can ever come to any good.
♪ Go To The Limits of Your Longing by Rainer Maria Rilke
God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night.These are words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing.Embody me.Flare up like flame and make big shadows I can move in.Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.Just keep going.No feeling is final.Don’t let yourself lose me.Nearby is the country they call life.You will know it by its seriousne.Give me your hand.
♪ Good God, What A Night That Was by Petronius
Good God, what a night that was, The bed was so soft, and how we clung, Burning together, lying this way and that, Our uncontrollable paions Flowing through our mouths. If I could only die that way,
I’d say goodbye to the busine of living.
♪ He Would Not Stay For Me; And Who Can Wonder by A.E.Housman
He would not stay for me, and who can wonder? He would not stay for me to stand and gaze. I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder, And went with half my life about my ways.
♪ I Love Thee by Thomas Hood
I love thee—I love thee! ’Tis all that I can say;— It is my vision in the night, My dreaming in the day; The very echo of my heart, The bleing when I pray: I love thee—I love thee! Is all that I can say.I love thee—I love thee! Is ever on my tongue; In all my proudest poesy That chorus still is sung; It is the verdict of my eyes, Amidst the gay and young: I love thee—I love thee! A thousand maids among.I love thee—I love thee! Thy bright hazel glance, The mellow lute upon those lips, Whose tender tones entrance; But most, dear heart of hearts, thy proofs That still these words enhance, I love thee—I love thee! Whatever be thy chance.
♪ La Belle Dame Sans Merci by John Keats
Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake, And no birds sing.
Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms, So haggard and so woe-begone? The squirrel’s granary is full, And the harvest’s done.
I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew, And on thy cheeks a fading rose Fast withereth too.
I met a lady in the meads, Full beautiful – a faery’s child, Her hair was long, her foot was light, And her eyes were wild.
I made a garland for her head, And bracelets too, and fragrant zone; She looked at me as she did love, And made sweet moan.
I set her on my pacing steed, And nothing else saw all day long, For sidelong would she bend, and sing A faery’s song.
She found me roots of relish sweet, And honey wild, and manna-dew, And sure in language strange she said The latest dream I ever dreamt On the cold hill side.
I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried – ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!’
I saw their starved lips in the gloam, With horrid warning gaped wide, And I awoke and found me here, On the cold hill’s side.
And this is why I sojourn here Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake, And no birds sing.
♪ Leda And The Swan by William Butler Yeats
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still Above the staggering girl, her thighs careed By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill, He holds her helple breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push The feathered glory from her loosening thighs? And how can body, laid in that white rush, But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there The broken wall, the burning roof and tower And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
So mastered by the brute blood of the air, Did she put on his knowledge with his power Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
♪ Let Me Put It This Way by Simon Armitage
Let me put it this way: if you came to lay
your sleeping head against my arm or sleeve,
and if my arm went dead, or if I had to take my leave
at midnight, I should rather cleave it from the joint or seam
than make a scene or bring you round. There, how does that sound?
♪ Life Story
by Tenneee Williams
After you\'ve been to bed together for the first time, without the advantage or disadvantage of any prior acquaintance, the other party very often says to you, Tell me about yourself, I want to know all about you, what\'s your story? And you think maybe they really and truly do
sincerely want to know your life story, and so you light up a cigarette and begin to tell it to them, the two of you lying together in completely relaxed positions like a pair of rag dolls a bored child dropped on a bed.
You tell them your story, or as much of your story as time or a fair degree of prudence allows, and they say, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, each time a little more faintly, until the oh is just an audible breath, and then of course
there\'s some interruption.Slow room service comes up with a bowl of melting ice cubes, or one of you rises to pee and gaze at himself with the mild astonishment in the bathroom mirror.And then, the first thing you know, before you\'ve had time to pick up where you left off with your enthralling life story, they\'re telling you their life story, exactly as they\'d intended to all along,
and you\'re saying, Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, each time a little more faintly, the vowel at last becoming no more than an audible sigh, as the elevator, halfway down the corridor and a turn to the left, draws one last, long, deep breath of exhaustion and stops breathing forever.Then?
Well, one of you falls asleep and the other one does likewise with a lighted cigarette in his mouth, and that\'s how people burn to death in hotel rooms.
♪ Love After Love by Derek Walcott
The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here.Eat.You will love again the stranger who was your self.Give wine.Give bread.Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart.Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror.Sit.Feast on your life.
♪ May I Feel Said He by E.E.Cummings
may i feel said he (i\'ll squeal said she just once said he) it\'s fun said she
(may i touch said he how much said she a lot said he) why not said she
(let\'s go said he not too far said she what\'s too far said he where you are said she)
may i stay said he (which way said she like this said he if you ki said she
may i move said he is it love said she) if you\'re willing said he (but you\'re killing said she
but it\'s life said he but your wife said she now said he) ow said she
(tiptop said he don\'t stop said she oh no said he) go slow said she
(cccome?said he ummm said she) you\'re divine!said he (you are Mine said she)
♪ The Prince: Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; Nor waves the cypre in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font.The firefly wakens; waken thou with me.
Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.
Now folds the lily all her sweetne up, And slips into the bosom of the lake.So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip Into my bosom and be lost in me.
♪ One Cigarette by Edwin Morgan
No smoke without you, my fire.After you left, your cigarette glowed on in my ashtray and sent up a long thread of such quiet grey I smiled to wonder who would believe its signal of so much love.One cigarette in the non-smoker\'s tray.As the last spire trembles up, a sudden draught blows it winding into my face.Is it smell, is it taste? You are here again, and I am drunk on your tobacco lips.Out with the light.Let the smoke lie back in the dark.Till I hear the very ash sigh down among the flowers of bra I\'ll breathe, and long past midnight, your last ki.
♪ So We\'ll Go No More a Roving by Lord Byron
So, we\'ll go no more a roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we\'ll go no more a roving By the light of the moon.
♪ Sonnet 18 (Shall I Compare Thee to A Summer\'s Day) by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer\'s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer\'s lease hath all too short a date. Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature\'s changing course, untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose poeion of that fair thou ow\'st, Nor shall death brag thou wand\'rest in his shade, When in eternal lines to Time thou grow\'st. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
♪ Sonnet 98 (From You Have I Been Absent In The Spring) by William Shakespeare
From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dreed in all his trim, Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him, Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell Of different flowers in odor and in hue, Could make me any summer\'s story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew. Nor did I wonder at the lily\'s white, Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose; They were but sweet, but figures of delight, Drawn after you, you pattern of all those. Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away, As with your shadow I with these did play.
♪ Sonnet 116 (Let Me Not To The Marriage Of True Minds) by William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments.Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken. Love ’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle’s compa come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
♪ Take, Oh, Take Those Lips Away by John Fletcher
Take, oh, take those lips away That so sweetly were forsworn And those eyes, like break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn; But my kies bring again, Seals of love, though sealed in vain.
Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow, Which thy frozen bosom bears, On whose tops the pinks that grow Are of those that April wears; But first set my poor heart free, Bound in those icy chains by thee.
♪ Talking In Bed by Philip Larkin
Talking in bed ought to be easiest, Lying together there goes back so far, An emblem of two people being honest. Yet more and more time paes silently. Outside, the wind\'s incomplete unrest Builds and disperses clouds about the sky, And dark towns heap up on the horizon. None of this cares for us.Nothing shows why At this unique distance from isolation It becomes still more difficult to find Words at once true and kind, Or not untrue and not unkind.
♪ The Comparison by Catullus
The crowd of beauteous Quintia Prate: To me she is but fair and straight; So far I can comply.Those stated charms her form displays; But still the full, the general praise, Of beauteous I deny.No grain of sprightline or grace In all her lofty form we trace. I Lesbia beauteous call; Who, stealing from the lovely host The separate charms each fair could boast, Herself united all.
♪ A Drinking Song by William Butler Yeats
Wine comes in at the mouth And love comes in at the eye; That’s all we shall know for truth Before we grow old and die.I lift the gla to my mouth, I look at you, and I sigh.
♪ The Flea by John Donne
Mark but this flea, and mark in this, How little that which thou deniest me is; Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee, And in this flea our two bloods mingled be; Thou know’st that this cannot be said A sin, nor shame, nor lo of maidenhead, Yet this enjoys before it woo, And pampered swells with one blood made of two, And this, alas, is more than we would do.
Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare, Where we almost, nay more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our mariage bed, and marriage temple is; Though parents grudge, and you, w\'are met, And cloistered in these living walls of jet. Though use make you apt to kill me, Let not to that, self-murder added be, And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.
Cruel and sudden, hast thou since Purpled thy nail, in blood of innocence? Wherein could this flea guilty be, Except in that drop which it sucked from thee? Yet thou triumph’st, and say\'st that thou Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;
’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:
Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me, Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee. ♪ The Heart Of The Woman by William Butler Yeats
O WHAT to me the little room
That was brimmed up with prayer and rest; He bade me out into the gloom, And my breast lies upon his breast.
O what to me my mother’s care, The house where I was safe and warm; The shadowy bloom of my hair Will hide us from the bitter storm.
O hiding hair and dewy eyes, I am no more with life and death, My heart upon his warm heart lies, My breath is mixed into his breath.
♪ The Paionate Shepherd To His Love by Christopher Marlowe
Come live with me and be my love, And we will all the pleasures prove, That Valleys, groves, hills, and fields, Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the Rocks, Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks, By shallow Rivers to whose falls Melodious birds sing Madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of Roses And a thousand fragrant posies, A cap of flowers, and a kirtle Embroidered all with leaves of Myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool Which from our pretty Lambs we pull; Fair lined slippers for the cold, With buckles of the purest gold;
A belt of straw and Ivy buds, With Coral clasps and Amber studs: And if these pleasures may thee move, Come live with me, and be my love.
The Shepherds’ Swains shall dance and sing For thy delight each May-morning: If these delights thy mind may move, Then live with me, and be my love.
♪ The Shortest And Sweetest Of Songs by George MacDonald Come Home.
♪ To His Coy Mistre by Andrew Marvell
Had we but world enough and time, This coyne, lady, were no crime.We would sit down, and think which way To walk, and pa our long love’s day.Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide Of Humber would complain.I would Love you ten years before the flood, And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews.My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires and more slow; An hundred years should go to praise Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze; Two hundred to adore each breast, But thirty thousand to the rest; An age at least to every part, And the last age should show your heart.For, lady, you deserve this state, Nor would I love at lower rate. But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near; And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity.Thy beauty shall no more be found; Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound My echoing song; then worms shall try That long-preserved virginity, And your quaint honour turn to dust, And into ashes all my lust; The grave’s a fine and private place, But none, I think, do there embrace. Now therefore, while the youthful hue Sits on thy skin like morning dew, And while thy willing soul transpires At every pore with instant fires, Now let us sport us while we may, And now, like amorous birds of prey, Rather at once our time devour Than languish in his slow-chapped power.Let us roll all our strength and all Our sweetne up into one ball, And tear our pleasures with rough strife Thorough the iron gates of life: Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.
♪ Westron Wind, When Will Thou Blow
Westron wind, when will thou blow? The small rain down can rain.Christ, if my love were in my arms, And I in my bed again.
♪ Whoever Loved That Loved Not At First Sight? by Christopher Marlowe
It lies not in our power to love or hate, For will in us is overruled by fate.When two are stripped, long ere the course begin, We wish that one should love, the other win;
And one especially do we affect Of two gold ingots, like in each respect: The reason no man knows; let it suffice What we behold is censured by our eyes.Where both deliberate, the love is slight: Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?
