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Roses and Rue

Could we dig up this long-buried treasure,
Were it worth the pleasure,
We never could learn love's song,
We are parted too long

Could the passionate past that is fled
Call back its dead,
Could we live it all over again,
Were it worth the pain!

I remember we used to meet
By an ivied seat,
And you warbled each pretty word
With the air of a bird;

And your voice had a quaver in it,
Just like a linnet,
And shook, as the blackbird's throat
With its last big note;

And your eyes, they were green and grey

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Room 7 The Coco-Fiend

I look at no one, me;
I pass them on the stair;
Shadows! I don't see;
Shadows! everywhere.
Haunting, taunting, staring, glaring,
Shadows! I don't care.
Once my room I gain
Then my life begins.
Shut the door on pain;
How the Devil grins!
Grin with might and main;
Grin and grin in vain;
Here's where Heav'n begins:
Cocaine! Cocaine!

A whiff! Ah, that's the thing.
How it makes me gay!
Now I want to sing,
Leap, laugh, play.
Ha! I've had my fling!
Mistress of a king
In my day.
Just another snuff . . .

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Romance

Of old, on her terrace at evening
...not here...in some long-gone kingdom
O, folded close to her breast!...

--our gaze dwelt wide on the blackness
(was it trees? or a shadowy passion
the pain of an old-world longing
that it sobb'd, that it swell'd, that it shrank?)
--the gloom of the forest
blurr'd soft on the skirt of the night-skies
that shut in our lonely world.

...not here...in some long-gone world...

close-lock'd in that passionate arm-clasp
no word did we utter, we stirr'd not:

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Robin and Makyne

Robin sat on gude green hill,
   Kepand a flock of fe:
Mirry Makyne said him till
   'Robin, thou rew on me:
I haif thee luvit, loud and still,
   Thir yeiris twa or thre;
My dule in dern bot gif thou dill,
   Doutless but dreid I de.'

Robin answerit 'By the Rude
   Na thing of luve I knaw,
But keipis my scheip undir yon wud:
   Lo, quhair they raik on raw.
Quhat has marrit thee in thy mude,
   Makyne, to me thou shaw;

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Rise, lovers

Rise, lovers, that we may go towards heaven; we have seen this world, so let us go to that world.
No, no, for thought these two gardens are beautiful and fair, let us pass beyond these two, and go to that Gardener.
Let us go prostrating to the sea like a torrent, then let us go foaming upon the face of the sea.
Let us journey from this street of mourning to the wedding feast, let us go from this saffron face to the face of the Judas tree blossom.
Trembling like a leaf and twig from fear of falling, our hearts are throbbing; let us go to the Abode of Security.

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Rinaldo

CHORUS.

To the strand! quick, mount the bark!

If no favouring zephyrs blow,

Ply the oar and nimbly row,
And with zeal your prowess mark!

O'er the sea we thus career.

RINALDO.


Oh, let me linger one short moment here!
'Tis heaven's decree, I may not hence away.
The rugged cliffs, the wood-encircled bay,
Hold me a prisoner, and my flight delay.

Ye were so fair, but now that dream is o'er;
The charms of earth, the charms of heaven are nought.
What keeps me in this spot so terror-fraught?

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Rime 08

If I, who am an abject, low-born woman,
Can bear within me such lofty fire,
Why should I not possess at least a little
Poetic power to tell it to the world?
If Love, with such a new unheard-of flint
Lifted me up where I could never climb,
Why cannot I, in an unusual way,
Make pain and pen be equal in myself?
If Love cannot do this by force of nature,
Perhaps as by a miracle he may
Passing and bursting every common measure.
How that can be, I cannot well explain
But yet I feel, because of my great fortune,

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Richard Coeur de Lion

Richard the First, Coeur-de-Lion,
Is a name that we speak of with pride,
Though he only lived six months in England
From his birth to the day that he died.

He spent all his time fighting battles,
Dressed up in most rigid attire,
For he had his suits made by the Blacksmith,
And his underwear knitted of wire.

He married a lady from Flanders,
Berengaria's what they called her;
She turned out a good wife to Richard,
In spite of a name like that there.

For when he came home from his fighting

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Rice Pudding

What is the matter with Mary Jane?
She's crying with all her might and main,
And she won't eat her dinner - rice pudding again -
What is the matter with Mary Jane?

What is the matter with Mary Jane?
I've promised her dolls and a daisy-chain,
And a book about animals - all in vain -
What is the matter with Mary Jane?

What is the matter with Mary Jane?
She's perfectly well, and she hasn't a pain;
But, look at her, now she's beginning again! -
What is the matter with Mary Jane?

What is the matter with Mary Jane?

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Resurrection

All rank on rank the tall white lillies stood,
The graceful palms against the rose-flushed sky
Showed gemmed with dew-drops, and red poppies glowed
Through the rank grass near by.

All hushed the air was - rapt and clear and still
The earth, late racked with pain
Felt it's insensate form with rapture thrill
And hope was born again

But in that garden there was silence deep,
All nature waited - till a ringing cry
'Rabboni! Master!' cleft the dewey air,
And swift the listening sky

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