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L'INNUSTRIA Striving

Un giorno che arrestai propio a la fetta,
Senz'avé manco l'arma d'un quadrino,
Senti che cosa fo: curro ar camino
E roppo in quattro pezzi la paletta.

Poi me l'invorto sott'a la giacchetta,
E vado a spasso pe Campovaccino
A aspettà quarche ingrese milordino
Da daje una corcata co l'accetta.

De fatti, ecco che viè quer c'aspettavo.
"Siggnore, guardi un po' quest'anticaja
C'avemo trovo jeri in de lo scavo?"

Lui se ficca l'occhiali, la scannaja,
Me mette in mano un scudo e dice: "Bravo!"

Lines Written in a Blank Page of Milton's Paradise Lost

This happy pair a certain bliss might prove,
Confin'd to constancy and mutual love:
Heaven to one object limited their vows,
The only safety faithless Nature knows.
God saw the wand'ring appetite would range,
And would have kept them from the pow'r to change;
But falsehood, soon as man increas'd, began;
Down through the race the swift contagion ran,
All ranks are tainted, all deceitful prove,
False in all shapes, but doubly false in love.
This makes the censure of the world more just,
That damns with shame the weakness of a trust!

Lines For The Fortune Cookies

I think you're wonderful and so does everyone else.

Just as Jackie Kennedy has a baby boy, so will you--even bigger.

You will meet a tall beautiful blonde stranger, and you will not say hello.

You will take a long trip and you will be very happy, though alone.

You will marry the first person who tells you your eyes are like scrambled eggs.

In the beginning there was YOU--there will always be YOU, I guess.

You will write a great play and it will run for three performances.

Like undistinguishable horses

Like undistinguishable horses,
Gleam by my ever-painful days,
As if fade all the living roses,
And die all living nightingales.

But she is, too, upset and saddened,
My single governess – my love,
And under her skin of a satin,
The poisoned blood is now moved.

And if I stand the world I live in,
That is because I have a dream:
Both of us, like two blind children,
Will go to the highland’s rims,

Where clouds are so white and close,
Where only goats run the dales,
To seek forever faded roses,

Like an Animal

Behind the smooth texture
Of my eyes, way inside me,
A part of me has died:
I move my bloody fingernails
Across it, hard as a blackboard,
Run my fingers along it,
The chalk white scars
That say I AM SCARED,
Scared of what might become
Of me, the real me,
Behind these prison walls.

Lightly Come or Lightly Go

Lightly come or lightly go:
Though thy heart presage thee woe,
Vales and many a wasted sun,
Oread let thy laughter run,
Till the irreverent mountain air
Ripple all thy flying hair.

Lightly, lightly -- - ever so:
Clouds that wrap the vales below
At the hour of evenstar
Lowliest attendants are;
Love and laughter song-confessed
When the heart is heaviest.

Light breaks where no sun shines

Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glowworms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like a sea;

Light

Light, my light, the world-filling light,
the eye-kissing light,
heart-sweetening light!

Ah, the light dances, my darling, at the center of my life;
the light strikes, my darling, the chords of my love;
the sky opens, the wind runs wild, laughter passes over the earth.

The butterflies spread their sails on the sea of light.
Lilies and jasmines surge up on the crest of the waves of light.

The light is shattered into gold on every cloud, my darling,
and it scatters gems in profusion.

Life's Progress

How gayly is at first begun
Our Life's uncertain Race!
Whilst yet that sprightly Morning Sun,
With which we just set out to run
Enlightens all the Place.

How smiling the World's Prospect lies
How tempting to go through !
Not Canaan to the Prophet's Eyes,
From Pisgah with a sweet Surprize,
Did more inviting shew.

How promising's the Book of Fate,
Till thoroughly understood!
Whilst partial Hopes such Lots create,
As may the youthful Fancy treat
With all that's Great and Good.

Life and death

This world is driven by two contending powers--
Love, that coerceth Heaven to dwell with dust,
And that dire pledge of Hell's self-perjured Lust--
And as we list must Heaven and Hell be ours.
Not light the election runs: lo, each devours
That savour set in each, while equal gust
Each uses; yet our choice support we must--
Blest wine or, this rejected, sweat that sours.
Love, oft through Hell that seems, acclaims what Heaven!
But Lust, through seeming Heaven, with easy breath
Slides on to Hell, how soon, how richly given!