Touch me deep...

[Byron In Exile]

King
Set me the stoops of wine upon that table.
If Hamlet give the first or second hit,
Or quit in answer of the third exchange,
Let all the battlements their ordnance fire:
The king shall drink to Hamlet's better breath;
And in the cup an union shall he throw,
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark's crown have worn. Give me the cups;
And let the kettle to the trumpet speak,
The trumpet to the cannoneer without,
The cannons to the heavens, the heavens to earth,
'Now the king dunks to Hamlet.' Come, begin:
And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

Hamlet
Come on, sir.

Laertes
Come, my lord.

They play

Hamlet
One.

Laertes
No.

Hamlet
Judgment.

Osric
A hit, a very palpable hit.

Laertes
Well; again.

King
Stay; give me drink. Hamlet, this pearl is thine;
Here's to thy health.

Trumpets sound, and cannon shot off within

Give him the cup.

Hamlet
I'll play this bout first; set it by awhile. Come.

They play

Another hit; what say you?

Laertes
A touch, a touch, I do confess.

King
Our son shall win.

Queen
He's fat, and scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet, take my napkin, rub thy brows;
The queen carouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.

Hamlet
Good madam!

King
Gertrude, do not drink!

Queen
I will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me.

King
[Aside] It is the poison'd cup: it is too late.

Hamlet
I dare not drink yet, madam; by and by.

Queen
Come, let me wipe thy face.

Laertes
My lord, I'll hit him now.

King
I do not think't.

Laertes
[Aside] And yet 'tis almost 'gainst my conscience.

Hamlet
Come, for the third, Laertes: you but dally;
I pray you, pass with your best violence;
I am afear'd you make a wanton of me.

Laertes
Say you so? come on.

They play

Osric
Nothing, neither way.

Laertes
Have at you now!

Laertes wounds Hamlet; then in scuffling, they change rapiers, and Hamlet wounds

King
Part them! They are incensed!

Hamlet
Nay, come, again.

Queen falls

Osric
Look to the queen there, ho!

Horatio
They bleed on both sides. How is it, my lord?

Osric
How is't, Laertes?

Laertes
Why, as a woodcock to mine own springe, Osric;
I am justly kill'd with mine own treachery.

Hamlet
How does the queen?

King
She swounds to see them bleed!

Queen
No, no, the drink, the drink, -- O my dear Hamlet, --
The drink, the drink! I am poison'd.

Queen dies

Hamlet
O villany! Ho! let the door be lock'd:
Treachery! Seek it out.

Laertes
It is here, Hamlet: Hamlet, thou art slain;
No medicine in the world can do thee good;
In thee there is not half an hour of life;
The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,
Unbated and envenom'd: the foul practise
Hath turn'd itself on me lo, here I lie,
Never to rise again: thy mother's poison'd:
I can no more: the king, the king's to blame!

Hamlet
The point! -- envenom'd too!
Then, venom, to thy work!

Stabs King Claudius

All
Treason! Treason!

King
O, yet defend me, friends; I am but hurt.

Hamlet
Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.

King dies

Laertes
He is justly served;
It is a poison temper'd by himself.
Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:
Mine and my father's death come not upon thee,
Nor thine on me.

Laertes dies

Hamlet
Heaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.
I am dead, Horatio. Wretched queen, adieu!
You that look pale and tremble at this chance,
That are but mutes or audience to this act,
Had I but time -- as this fell sergeant, death,
Is strict in his arrest -- O, I could tell you --
But let it be. Horatio, I am dead;
Thou livest; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.

Horatio
Never believe it:
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane:
Here's yet some liquor left.

Hamlet
As thou'rt a man,
Give me the cup: let go! By heaven, I'll have't.
O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.

March afar off, and shot within

What warlike noise is this?

Osric
Young Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,
To the ambassadors of England gives
This warlike volley.

Hamlet
O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o'er-crows my spirit:
I cannot live to hear the news from England;
But I do prophesy the election lights
On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

Hamlet dies

Horatio
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince:
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!
Why does the drum come hither?

March within

Enter Fortinbras, the English Ambassadors, and others

Fortinbras
Where is this sight?

Horatio
What is it ye would see?
If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

Fortinbras
This quarry cries on havoc. O proud death,
What feast is toward in thine eternal cell,
That thou so many princes at a shot
So bloodily hast struck?

First Ambassador
The sight is dismal;
And our affairs from England come too late:
The ears are senseless that should give us hearing,
To tell him his commandment is fulfill'd,
That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead:
Where should we have our thanks?

Horatio
Not from his mouth,
Had it the ability of life to thank you:
He never gave commandment for their death.
But since, so jump upon this bloody question,
You from the Polack wars, and you from England,
Are here arrived give order that these bodies
High on a stage be placed to the view;
And let me speak to the yet unknowing world
How these things came about: so shall you hear
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts,
Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters,
Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause,
And, in this upshot, purposes mistook
Fall'n on the inventors' reads: all this can I
Truly deliver.

Fortinbras
Let us haste to hear it,
And call the noblest to the audience.
For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:
I have some rights of memory in this kingdom,
Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.

Horatio
Of that I shall have also cause to speak,
And from his mouth whose voice will draw on more;
But let this same be presently perform'd,
Even while men's minds are wild; lest more mischance
On plots and errors, happen.

Fortinbras
Let four captains
Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;
For he was likely, had he been put on,
To have proved most royally: and, for his passage,
The soldiers' music and the rites of war
Speak loudly for him.
Take up the bodies: such a sight as this
Becomes the field, but here shows much amiss.
Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

A dead march. Exeunt, bearing off the dead bodies; after which a peal of ordnance is shot off

 

[Honey123]

Petals by Amy Lowell

Life is a stream
On which we strew
Petal by petal the flower of our heart;
The end lost in dream,
They float past our view,
We only watch their glad, early start.
Freighted with hope,
Crimsoned with joy,
We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;
Their widening scope,
Their distant employ,
We never shall know. And the stream as it flows
Sweeps them away,
Each one is gone
Ever beyond into infinite ways.
We alone stay
While years hurry on,
The flower fared forth, though its fragrance still stays.

 

[Nirvanadragones]

Buried
Covered by the dust of defeat -
or so the conquerors believed
But there is nothing that can
be hidden from the mind.
Nothing that memory cannot
reach or touch or call back.

~ Don Mattera

 

[Salvor-Hardon]

"If anyone can think their way around a SQL problem, I know its you."

 

[Selena_Kitt]

35/10

Brushing out our daughter’s brown
silken hair before the mirror
I see the grey gleaming on my head,
the silver-haired servant behind her. Why is it
just as we begin to go
they begin to arrive, the fold in my neck
clarifying as the fine bones of her
hips sharpen? As my skin shows
its dry pitting, she opens like a moist
precise flower on the tip of a cactus;
as my last chances to bear a child
are falling through my body, the duds among them,
her full purse of eggs, round and
firm as hard-boiled yolks, is about
to snap its clasp. I brush her tangled
fragrant hair at bedtime. It’s an old
story—the oldest we have on our planet—
the story of replacement.

-Sharon Olds

 

[Byron In Exile]

Photos of Ghosts

Black roses laced with silver
By a broken moon.
Ten million stars
And the whispered harmonies of leaves.
We were these.

Beside a dried up fountain
Lie five dusty tomes
With faded pasted pictures
Of love's reverie.

Across each cover is written,
"Herein are Photos of Ghosts"
Of ghosts, of ghosts,
Of the days we ran and the days we sang.

~ Peter Sinfield

 

[Trinique_Fire]

Excerpt taken from "Selah" by Lauryn Hill

"Please save me from myself
I need You to save me from myself
Please save me from myself so I can heal"

 

[Nirvanadragones]

Sometimes it happens: Brian Patten

And sometimes it happens that you are friends and then
You are not friends,
And friendship has passed.
And whole days are lost and among them
A fountain empties itself.

And sometimes it happens that you are loved and then
You are not loved,
And love is past.
And whole days are lost and among them
A fountain empties itself into the grass.

And sometimes you want to speak to her and then
You do not want to speak,
Then the opportunity has passed.
Your dreams flare up, they suddenly vanish.

And also it happens that there is nowhere to go and then
There is somewhere to go,
Then you have bypassed.
And the years flare up and are gone,
Quicker than a minute.

So you have nothing.
You wonder if these things matter and then
As soon you begin to wonder if these things matter
They cease to matter,
And caring is past.
And a fountain empties itself into the grass.

 

[Byron In Exile]

"If we lived in a state where virtue was profitable, common sense would make us saintly. But since we see that avarice, anger, pride, and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice, and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes."

~ Sir Thomas More, in "A Man For All Seasons"

 

[Nirvanadragones]

When I look at my life I realise that the mistakes I have made, the things I really regret, were not errors of judgement but failures of feeling.

~ Jeanette Winterson

 

[Blackie Malone]

I had a quote.
A beautiful one.
But I lost it.
I've lost all my words.

Mute.

 

[Handley_Page]

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here
But one ten thousand of those men in England
That do no work to-day!

KING. What's he that wishes so?
My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin;
If we are mark'd to die, we are enow
To do our country loss; and if to live,
The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honour,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour
As one man more methinks would share from me
For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is call'd the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd,
And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
He that shall live this day, and see old age,
Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.'
Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember, with advantages,
What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,
Familiar in his mouth as household words-
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester-
Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

 

[lesbiaphrodite]

Tonight I can write the saddest lines

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Pablo Neruda