Poetry

[ed note -- I haven't been posting poetry because of a discussion I had with someone about posting poetry being a violation of copyright. Yes, cue the ironic eyebrow. But I'm pretty sure this sonnet is in the public domain. :D I'm reading The Making Of the Sonnet, edited by Eavan Boland and Edward Hirsch. It's highly recommended.]

from Romeo and Juliet, act 1, scene v.
by William Shakespeare

ROMEO    If I profane with my unworthiest hand
              This holy shrine, the gentler sin is this:
               My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
              To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET    Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
               Which mannerly devotion shows in this.
               For saints have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,
               And palm to palm is holy palmers’ kiss.
ROMEO   Have not saints lips, and holy palmers, too?
JULIET    Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO    O then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do:
              They pray; grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET    Saints do not move, though grant for prayers’ sake.
ROMEO    Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take.

————————

Prototypes — Un Gars Fragile

KD Lang — The Consequences Of Falling