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Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain... |
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Light many lamps and gather round his bed. Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live. Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet. He's young; he hated War; how should he die When cruel old campaigners win safe through? But death replied: 'I choose him.' So he went, And there was silence in the summer night; Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep. Then, far away, the thudding of the guns. |
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- The Death-Bed
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Death is the end of life; ah, why Should life all labour be? Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast, And in a little while our lips are dumb. Let us alone. What is it that will last? All things are taken from us, and become Portions and parcels of the dreadful past. Let us alone. What pleasure can we have To war with evil? Is there any peace In ever climbing up the climbing wave? All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave In silence; ripen, fall and cease: Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease. |
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- The Lotus-Eaters
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For now the noonday quiet holds the hill: The grasshopper is silent in the grass: The lizard, with his shadow on the stone, Rests like a shadow, and the winds are dead. The purple flower droops: the golden bee Is lily-cradled: I alone awake. My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love, My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim, And I am all aweary of my life. |
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- Oenone
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She only said, "My life is dreary, He cometh not," she said; She said, "I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!" |
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- Mariana
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Shall Earth no more inspire thee, Thou lonely dreamer now? Since passion may not fire thee Shall Nature cease to bow? Thy mind is ever moving In regions dark to thee; Recall its useless roving — Come back and dwell with me — |
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- Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee
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His tired gaze - from passing endless bars - has turned into a vacant stare which nothing holds. To him there seem to be a thousand bars, and out beyond these bars exists no world. His supple gait, the smoothness of strong strides that gently turn in ever smaller circles perform a dance of strength, centered deep within a will, stunned, but untamed, indomitable. But sometimes the curtains of his eyelids part, the pupils of his eyes dilate as images of past encounters enter while through his limbs a tension strains in silence only to cease to be, to die within his heart. |
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- The Panther
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If we all were judged according to the consequences Of all our words and deeds, beyond the intention And beyond our limited understanding Of ourselves and others, we should all be condemned. |
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- The Cocktail Party
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I shall be left with the inconsolable memory Of the treasure I went into the forest to find And never found, and which was not there And is perhaps not anywhere? But if not anywhere Why do I feel guilty at not having found it? |
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- The Cocktail Party
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I should really like to think there's something wrong with me - Because, if there isn't then there's something wrong, Or at least, very different from what it seemed to be, With the world itself - and that's much more frightening! That would be terrible. |
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- The Cocktail Party
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Your burden is not to clear your conscience But to learn how to bear the burdens on your conscience. |
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- The Cocktail Party
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There are several symptoms Which must occur together, and to a marked degree, To qualify a patient for my sanatorium: And one of them is an honest mind. That is one of the causes of their suffering. |
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- The Cocktail Party
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What is hell? Hell is oneself. Hell is alone, the other figures in it Merely projections. There is nothing to escape from And nothing to escape to. One is always alone. |
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- The Cocktail Party
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You do not know what hope is, until you have lost it. You only know what it is not to hope: You do not know what it is to have hope taken from you, Or to fling it away, to join the legion of the hopeless Unrecognized by other men, though sometimes by each other. |
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- The Family Reunion
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You are all people To whom has happened, at most a continual impact Of external events. You have gone through life in sleep. Never woken to the nightmare. I tell you life would be unendurable If you were wide awake. You do not know The noxious smell untraceable in the drains, Inaccessible to the plumbers, that has its hour of the night; you do not know The unspoken voice of sorrow in the ancient bedroom |
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- The Family Reunion
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Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger. Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions. There is one who remembers the way to your door: Life you may evade, but Death you shall not. You shall not deny the Stranger. |
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- Choruses from The Rock
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Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things |
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I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence. |
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April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. |
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And how should I begin? I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. |
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