#“I cannot wait till the heavens bless me with the sight of your face again 😘🥰😍❤️”

[plusfuckingultra]

And if I believed in a god, I'd pray; simply hoping is not enough. But I don’t [believe in a god] anymore, for it’s never amounted to anything.

So instead, I'll wish to myself, and on every star in the night sky, that starting one day in the future, I'll fall asleep next to her every evening and wake up next to her every morning. That I’d awaken to her beautiful smile and loving gaze in front of me, just waiting for me to open my eyes and kiss her. Kiss her as long as I want, for we have all the time in the world. We belong to each other, not the society we are slaves to.

I would’ve prayed if it meant my future with her would become true. But because none of my prayers have held true, none of them become reality, I avoid the risk of this one [wish] remaining the lovesick day dream of a hopeless romantic. In paranoid caution, some superstition, and perhaps pure childishness and immaturity, I’ll stick to what I know well. I’ll wish on the stars, hoping they hear my pleas, like I once hoped that God would hear my prayers. Maybe He did. But the stars have always been the ones to answer. For while I once confided in both the stars and God, at least the stars have shown me their face.

[sukka-week]

For our last “Expressions of Love from Different Cultures” week theme post, I just wanted to share some love poems by non-Western poets.

Big thanks to all the folks (you know who you are!) who shared some of their favorite poems with me so I could feature them here! (And if anyone wants to send me others, I’d love to share more. Feel free to send me some in an ask!)

Escaping the torrential rain, the mildew and rot beyond the open window Our intimate conversation swirls around basic truths, asanas, inner sight, and true nature Two crystal streams converge in a deep pool . . . I dare not use mortal eyes to contemplate you much less my worldly heart to quantify the true meaning of your absolute body

--Xi Wa, excerpt from “Vimalaki Sutra” from the collection Perhaps: Love Poems

She for whom the sun shines I dedicate this poem to her She of the Two Lands May she endure forever Gods’ wife She is blessed with the Beauty of Hathor She shall always live as the sun For she has warmed my heart When she passes The radiance has gone

--Pharaoh Rameses II, for his wife Nefertari Merimut

Yes, I will live on And wait for you, Even till falls On my long black waving hair The hoar frost of age

--Empress Iwa no hime, from the Manyōshū

Blot out the dark night with brushes of heavy ink; Wipe off the lily’s smile with spells; Lay the moon on a flat stone and crush it to pieces That I may see the whole earth engraved with her face

--Rājaśekhara

The stars will be watching us, And we will show them What it is to be a slim crescent moon.

--Rumi, excerpt from “A Moment of Happiness”

Softer than silence o'er my brow they played Wafting love's incense to my soul Calling "Awake fond one, the heavens are glowing There is no darkness love cannot light."

--Maewa Kaihu, excerpt from “Akoako o te Rangi” (Whisper of Heaven)

When autumn comes we shall meet again; Then how should you raise such sighs That they would mist the shore!

--Embassy to Shiragi, from the Manyōshū

[smuggsy]

IN PLAIN SIGHT / Chapter 2 A Band of Brothers Story (Chapter 1) + read it on AO3.

There’s no doubt whatever training these men are being put through is thorough and demanding (not that hers hasn’t been, except she can’t really say she’s been made to run up and down a mountain in full gear in the middle of the bloody night. If anything, she’s been doing quite the opposite: just staying in one specific spot unflinching, unmoving and patiently waiting for her targets to give themselves away and receive a couple of harmless empty shells right in the chest).

Private Christenson keeps putting each foot in front of the other without delay, without stop or hesitation.

She, on the other hand…

“I can’t…” she wheezes, her M1903 dangling from her shoulder - Captain Sobel would surely have something to say about that. Private Brown, pick up that goddamn rifle!

  Christenson is a few steps ahead but glances back nonetheless at her breathless remark.

“Believe me, you don’t want to antagonize Sobel” he provides, turning back front. Olivia frowns but hasn’t got enough breath to muster an answer. She’ll antagonize him, all right, or she’ll fall dead before she can reach the top. “He’ll feist on you, newbie.”

This time she lets out a groan and almost falls face down on the dirt - courtesy of a protruding rock. Christenson looks back to her again at the sound of the near-trip.

“He can’t be that bad!” she says, trying to maybe make conversation and sway her attention from her dry throat and throbbing feet, “go on, I’ll meet ya at the top.”

The other private lets out a snort and - bless him - stops running to look at her hunched over and panting her lungs out. He smiles, the mocking idiot, and shakes his head.

“C’mon man we’re nearly there” he nods towards the darkening path ahead, but Olivia gestures for him to continue with an insistent hand gesture.

  “You go, I’ll catch up” she stands up straight, thinking maybe she shouldn’t be slumping down like that, like a wounded animal. Not a great first impression. “Save yourself from the wrath of the big bad wolf” she smiles, getting just a bit more air in her lungs now.

Christenson returns the smile and slowly resumes his pace, slowly so as to give her a chance to join in.

She doesn’t. She feels faint.

She really wasn’t prepared for this - she’d only been here for thirty minutes, for crying out loud!

You’re supposed to have this mastered, remember?

  Well, sue her. They didn’t have a Currahee to climb back in her training camp.

  Her companion isn’t going to risk getting further punishment himself - he gives a short nod in camaraderie and starts getting further away with every second. Olivia doesn’t blame him at all. She does make it to the top eventually, about twenty minutes after he runs past her again.

In short: she’s screwed.

Christenson is nowhere to be seen when she finally makes it back into the training grounds - but Sobel is standing there like a persevering life-statue of Satan himself, arms crossed and stone-faced.

He doesn’t allow her the time to make any excuses.

“Follow me” he simply says, looking way too pleased with himself, much to Olivia’s chagrin. She’s properly carrying her rifle now, and Private Guarnere’s rucksack is still on her back. Her boots are moody and her pants dirty. As for her lungs… probably barely functional.

She doesn’t appreciate her Captain making her walk the entire length of the camp again only to reach his own office and dump all her belongings at the foot of the steps, at her feet.

“You are not fit to be part of my company, private. I suggest you go back to whatever shithole you came out of and repeat whatever shitty training you got. I’ll see you in a couple of years.”

With that, he starts stomping away.

“Sir -”

And he turns around just as quick, furiously stomps back.

“I did not grant you permission to address me, Private” he speaks slowly, clenching his teeth and eyeing her down like she’s the worst scum of the earth.

“Sir -” she shoulders her rifle and stands up straight. “Permission to speak, sir?”

“Denied.”

You tight-up bastard.

  He resumes his walking to the kitchens - light up and cheery - undoubtedly packed till the last table with freshly-clean and tired paratroopers-to-be.

She knows she’s pushing her luck, but she catches up with him again - only a few more chances to try and make him change his mind before he ventures into the sea of soldiers where she cannot follow - what an embarrassing sight that would be, her being turned down and sent back within the hour.

“Sir, I am a sniper, I have passed all my tests - physical and otherwise - I am prepared to-”

“Well you have not passed my test, private, and this conversation is over.” He doesn’t turn around as he dismisses her again. She’s only grateful he hasn’t called her on her insubordination again - speaking out of turn.

The chanting from the kitchens becomes louder and the lights become stronger as they approach - and Olivia is short of aiming up that gun at the bastard and shooting that hat off his head.

“Sir - Captain Sir -”

“WHAT?” He turns around for the second time, spitting on her face like a venomous snake.

Olivia takes a deep breath and stands up straight again, proud.

“I am the finest sniper in my company sir, you can verify that in my papers! I have been assigned to the Airborne as an asset and to aid my comrades in battle! And rest assured I am qualified to do that, sir!”

Her captain seems to weigh her words for a moment. She holds her breath - he can turn around and push that door open and that’ll be the end of it. Lieutenant Nixon will come out and tell her ‘I told you so’ with an egotistical knowing-smile. Mikey will mention it till she’s gray and pissing her pants. God, her father will never speak to her again!

“Very well” Captain Sobel stands up straight himself, and Olivia thinks she’s misheard. There’s a glint in his eyes that she doesn’t notice - he turns around and enters the noisy lunch place and renders it rather silent. He’s out before she can let out that breath, and he’s holding a glass in his hand. “Let us be witness of your almighty abilities!”

And she’s got an audience now - Christenson among the lot, carelessly sharing a fag with a shorter bloke next to him, coming down the steps.

“I ain’t got all night!” Sobel shouts as he walks away - Olivia catches Lieutenant Nixon’s eyes for a split second before she turns around and walks to that bag of rice her Captain has just hastily thrown onto the ground at her feet. He yanks her rifle off her shoulder just like he did with her muffle bag earlier and he makes a face at it as he finds the safe lock. “Three shots, Private Brown. The chance to prove your worth. You miss, you’re out of my camp.”

“I - my bag sir, the ammo -”

“You won’t be using your rifle” Sobel almost sings in his mocking voice, as if addressing a five-year-old, as if that’s obvious information. The Captain makes a nod to someone near, and Olivia turns around to see a short-haired ginger hand over an M1.

When she looks back to Sobel, he’s well away. Far enough that she wouldn’t even hit a melon with this piece of crap.

Well, make do.

Ignoring the mumbling going on behind her - getting louder and only meaning her crowd of onlookers is getting bigger - she silently and slowly kneels and then gets down onto her position, resting her upper chest and left arm on the bag of rice and finding it very uncomfortable.

Sobel shakes the glass in the air and sets it on the ground, easily more than 300 feet away.

“Three!” he shouts again, just in case she didn’t understand him before.

“For heaven’s sake” she hears someone mumble near in disbelief, she doesn’t turn to look at him - not that she’d be able to find him anyway.

“Told ya to keep it up, boy” Christenson’s voice comes up among all the excited bets being placed. “That’s the big bad wolf right there” he laughs. Olivia clenches her teeth.

The M1 is less practical to maneuver, and she’s just getting into position when she hears someone coming up to her. Shiny boots.

“Get up, private” Lewis Nixon demands, impassible.

She doesn’t flinch.

Isn’t Sobel the one who’s got the last say, anyway?

“No, sir. I’m fine.”

“You’re panting like a dying goose, you’re not gonna hit that target now get on your feet.”

She still doesn’t move - despite knowing he’s damned well right. She’s only postponing the inevitable. That is a fucking transparent glass - it’s dark and she doesn’t even have the proper equipment.

She sighs, focuses on slowing down her breaths. She’s shaking too much.

“Got nothing to lose sir, I fail I go.”

The Lieutenant lingers for a bit longer, as if battling with his thoughts. He gives up shortly after and takes a few steps back towards the men.

Sobel is impatiently waiting at a safe-distance from her target - an insulting stretch of land, she thinks, and it only helps to feed her resolve to make it burst into a million tiny pieces of glass right in front of him. She’s still not ready, though, and with half of Easy Company on her rear being inconsiderately loud, she’s definitely not coming down her hype any time soon.

“Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye…” a mocking voice sings near, laughter follows.

I will be saving your fucking asses, you bunch of ungrateful idiots.

“Cheeri-o, here I go, on my way!” a few more voices join in.

When she sees Sobel taking a step towards them she gets lower - even closer to the ground - and rests her finger on the trigger to gain herself some time. She can barely make out the shape of the glass by squinting her eyes. It’s too damn far!

“Ey blondie, think ya could aim a little more to the left and up?” Someone jokes near, and that nearly prompts a laugh out of her. Good to know someone’s sharing her sentiment.

She takes the first shot in between heartbeats - just as she’s learnt and just as she’s always succeeded in hitting her targets before.

This one she doesn’t hit.

She tries to drown out the whoops and giggles from behind and clear her mind - closing her eyes, breathing down deep, deeper. Letting the air out slowly through her mouth and completely shutting one eye to get a better perspective - it doesn’t make much difference: the next shot doesn’t reach its target either.

Sobel starts making his way back, swaying proudly like the egotistical asshole he is.

‘Don’t dwell on it, just shoot. Don’t think, if you’re calm enough you take the shot, you’ll have mayhem around you, you don’t have time to think! Time is not on your side! Just. Shoot.’

At the sound of the glass exploding, she sees Sobel turn around abruptly to confirm what he’s just heard has actually happened - to be honest, it’s his reaction what makes her believe it as well, and his unhappy face as he stomps his way back to the group. She’s still on the floor - frozen in place by shock - when a bunch of guys behind start cheering.

Actually cheering.

By the time she’s on her feet again, Sobel is nowhere to be seen and she feels a bit like throwing up. She only sees the back of Lieutenant Nixon walking behind the hellish Captain before she’s surrounded by men patting her shoulder and grinning at her like she’s their pet-puppy.

She’s never felt so out of place in her entire life.

“Holy shit!”

“Imma be honest I thought you were outta here” a tall blonde one says with a strong southern accent.

“Did you see Sobel’s face?” A shorter one asks to no-one in particular, excitedly.

“What platoon you on?”

Olivia turns to the ginger as everyone becomes silent and awaits her answer.

“2nd Platoon” she says, uninterested, still rather dazed by the whole thing.

There’s more cheering after that.

Another brown-haired trooper throws an arm around her shoulder, “Whas’ your name again?” he asks, offering a happy grin.

“It’s Oliver you muck!” someone provides near.

“Outta my way boys! Imma get young Oli here a drink,” he offers his hand, Olivia shakes it with her free one, still tightly holding onto the M1 Garand that isn’t even hers. “Alex Penkala.”

[astraeawrites]

❝ ※ *. :｡ → verse/otp tags pt. 1

i know there’s a lot of these floating around and already made, but i wanted to have my own list with my personal favorite lyrics that i can refer to for my own tags. i thought it might be helpful to others, so here we are !! under the cut, you’ll find 1,000 different lyrics that are organized into various categories ( general/misc, slow burn, betrayal, unrequited, & more ) based on my interpretation on them. this list has everything from smokey robinson to dear evan hansen to eminem, so it should also be very diverse. trigger warnings will be placed in the categories they have them in. also, some words have been changed so they make more sense. let me know about any spelling mistakes or triggers i may have missed, as well as any lyrics i may have put in the wrong section. please like/reblog if you use or found this helpful, and most importantly, enjoy !!

general/misc. ( 304 lyrics )

tw: religion, blood, drowning, drinking

if we’re diving in the deep end ; i need to share all of my demons 

not a care in the world ; just me and my girl

hold back the river ; let me look in your eyes

i don't need you to sell me on reasons to want you

you don't have to be scared you're not enough 

i don't need you to fix what i'd rather forget

i give you ten thousand reasons to not let me go 

we can just watch the whole world disappear

but call me home and i will build a throne

‘til the sun don’t shine ; you will still be mine

it's not a new wave ; it's just you and me

you make me feel like i am home again

the hole in the middle of my heart needs filling up

if you stay just a little that's enough

lay your head to rest and give yourself some peace

couldn't look you in the eye ; you’re just like an angel 

i've been holding back for the fear that you might change your mind

i love you like you've never felt the pain

can we stay here and laugh away the fear

i'm waiting to live ; and waiting to love

i want the secrets your secrets haven't found

call me the one ; this night just can't end

lean for me and i'll fall back

when everyone else looks like a wrong answer ; she'll settle for being my best guess

follow my words to the end of our love

come and see me in the morning ; i'll be in the sunrise

it's human and it's tough ; it is love but it won't be enough

oh holy lover ; i'll be the colors i can't see

we’re looking for a miracle ; no we don’t mind waiting

they said that we’d never make it ; but maybe we already did

i think i could need this in my life

there's never much to read between the lines of what we need and what we'll take

you wrap your arms around my heart just like you always do

she held my gaze and i held my breath with all my mind

i found god ; i found him in a lover

i found the devil ; i found him in a lover

i've got a lover ; a love like religion 

i've got a lover and i'm unforgiven 

i'm such a fool to pay this price 

he's off to pay his crimes and he's got no time for mine

oh baby girl you know we're gonna be legends

i'm the king and you're the queen and we will stumble through heaven

if there's a light at the end ; it's just the sun in your eyes 

you know the two of us are just young gods 

because you're mine ; i walk the line

you give me cause for love that i can't hide

i'll always keep you inside ; you healed my heart and my life

come on skinny love just last the year

you hit me head on ; got me weak in my knees

it's like a million little stars spelling out your name 

your sweet disposition and my wide eyed gaze

a million lines for a billion hearts

the only heaven i'll be sent to ; is when i'm alone with you

no grave can hold my body down ; i'll crawl home to her

don't make a sound because i'll be with you the whole way down

and i know it's quite soon but you've got a lovely heart

i hope that you feel it too and a flame follows these sparks

spend the night looking into your eyes because i want to remember them if i ever fall blind

step out into the wild ; there's a beautiful storm in your eyes

but i bought you flowers ; so never let them die

but with your presence and your grace ; everything falls into place

you took my sorrow and you took my pain and buried them away

if i could find my heart inside this empty frozen chest ; then you would find that i'd give you all of it

you cause a thunder in my veins when you're around

so hold my hand before my heart erupts

i think we'd make a lovely mess

i may not be everything you want ; but i can give you all i have

could you be seen with me and still act proud ?

could you carry me through no man's land ?

but i would fight for you ; if you would fight for me

you can set my broken bones and i know cpr 

you are the only thing that's right about this broken world

i was meant to be yours ; we were meant to be one

you built me palaces out of paragraphs ; you built cathedrals

why don't you be the artist and make me out of clay ?

why don't you be the writer ? and decide the words I say ?

how long will i love you ? as long as stars are above you

look at the stars ; look how they shine for you

your skin and bones ; turn into something beautiful

science and progress do not speak as loud as my heart

tell me you love me ; come back and haunt me 

now i'm running late and i'm not a coffee drinke ; but i lost sleep just thinking of you 

a pair of frozen hands to hold

god only knows but you'll never leave her 

if you're searching for us ; you'll find us side by side 

ihe says i smell like safety and home 

i could be a morning sunrise all the time

can you feel the beat of my heartbeat beat through me ? 

there's something so rare in your veins ; not a single thing i would change

they said we'd never make it but our hearts won't quit 

there's no way that our hearts will be breaking cause all we have is love

it's like a sudden rush of water through your heart and lungs 

you lift my heart up when the rest of me is down 

set my midnight sorrow free ; i will give you all of me 

i don’t always adore it but i know what it means to feel love

don't keep your secrets in a prayer 

i would break the laws of gravity ; kill it for you in the first degree 

light of my life darling ; we are immune 

if i am the waves ; then you must be the moon 

come and raise my love in 

here in the dark i feel my heart 

there are wires in between human heart and machine

everything I love was made of porcelain

you wrote your name in invisible ink

in some things you just can't help from falling 

when you break it's too late for you to fall apart 

take me away make it all better ; if not for a day then maybe forever 

try describing a love you can't design

i want you as the dream ; not the reality

i want you to be a story for me that i can believe in forever

sweet love ; how long before you hurt for me ?

i see your face in blurry shades and i reach out for your hand

all your ways i can't explain but i want to understand

i met someone by accident ; it blew me away 

i can fake my heart and i love to watch it burn

does she know that we bleed the same ?

it's a love that will keep me holding on 

be my shelter from the storm 

at least we'll both be beautiful and stay forever young 

i will love you 'til the end of time 

heaven is a place on earth with you 

your face is like a melody ; it won't leave my head 

numb to the winter cold but we don't mind ; 'cause we'll get warm inside 

i wake up alone with only daylight between us 

still got sand in my sweaters from nights we don't remember 

just know you cannot save me 

you touch me and suddenly there's rainbow rings 

suddenly i'm caught up in your summer rain 

hail soft storms of loving me ; let them play on my desires

you're not trusting your heart to anyone 

try a little tenderness

find a way to finally make it right ; to make the magic last for more than just one night

take the best and make it better ; find a way to stay together 

temperatures rising ; i don't want to feel 

please let me love you with all my might 

the love game has been played 

and love will not break your heart ; but dismiss your fears

i'm a mess but i'm blessed to be stuck with you 

if i may just take your breath away

i just want to see the stars with you

too long till i drown in your hands

my youth is yours ; run away now and forevermore

we've been making shades of purple out of red and blue

sickeningly sweet like honey

you're a red string tied to my finger 

you're my favorite song ; always on the tip of my tongue 

you own me with whispers like poetry ; your mouth is a melody i memorize 

forget me not my dear ; my darling

let's write a song for us and sing until we're old and grey 

like my heart longs for an ocean ; to wash down over me 

the outcast dreams of acceptance ; just to find pure love's embrace 

i remember the promises in the name of love

i'll kiss you again between the bars

i can plainly see you have a lover that's waiting 

i swear your heart is a free bird 

so hard to hold back when i'm holding you in my arms 

just a touch of the fire burning so bright 

you're a poem of mystery

you're the prayer inside me

spoken words like moonlight ; you're the voice that i like 

love is waiting for better days 

tonight we're the sea and the salty breeze 

moon in a tidal lock ; and i was born to love you 

there is music in the sea ; and we swim into the sound

love is made for broken things

trying to keep ourselves alone and out of sight 

love was made to forget

the crown of love is falling from me

let the wave and your ocean fall on my shore 

i want to be the place that you land

but when i'm with you ; you make the rain fall

when I'm with you ; i feel the sun

hold me close ; like i’m the sun to your moon 

come around to another time when you don't have to run 

it's your love affair ; on a quiet sunday afternoon 

even the best fall down sometimes

you finally find that you and i collide 

the days got colder ; so i held you closer 

stayed around to kindle the fire 

won't ever leave you ; ‘til the day that you die 

i know love is never lost

worry never knows 

feel my chest when i look at you 

do i have to fall asleep with roses in my hand ? 

it's not the storm before the calm 

this is the deep and dying breath of this love that we've been working on

can't seem to hold you like i want to ; so i can feel you in my arms

we are hiding in a safer place 

your warmth is crashing down on in

it's never gonna be that simple

i swear you hit me like a vision

this is how it starts ; lightning strikes the heart

we could be the stars ; falling from the sky 

from nervous touch and getting drunk

we can't leave us behind anymore 

love me now or love me later 

there's depth where there's distance too 

i'm a fool for you ; and the things you do 

you told me i was like the dead sea ; you'll never sink when you are with me

honey can't you see ? i was born to be your dead sea 

i belong with you ; you belong with me ; you're my sweetheart 

if we don't leave this town ; we might never make it out 

and when you ask do you love me ; i should reply with yes most certainly 

come close ; lay next to me

won't you settle down with me ?

hear her come ; my heart's only drummer 

your love is like a soldier ; loyal till you die 

show me your broken heart to know your flaws 

i know what we are ; our love's too young 

my foolish heart turns at the stars 

a love that never ends 

your heart is upside down 

you are my fairytale ; don't you wanna stay ?

you are my fairytale ; i hope that you don't run away 

for the fire and the sleepless nights 

i can hold the weight of worlds if that's what you need 

found you in the sea of lovers without ships 

wherever you go ; bring me home 

how can i love when i'm afraid to fall ? 

i have loved you for a thousand years 

baby if you hold me ; then all of this will go away 

i loved you then and i love you now

god knows what is hiding in those weak and drunken hearts

if you're homesick ; give me your hand and i'll hold it 

we lie beneath the stars at night ; our hands gripping each other tight 

you keep my secrets hope to die 

promises ; swear them to the sky 

just turn to my embrace ; i won't let you come to nothing 

can you hear when i say i have never felt this way ?

can i make it better with the lights turned on ?

i'll cross oceans like never before so you can feel the way i feel it too

and i'll send images back at you so you can see the way i feel it too 

when my heart is made from gold and forgiveness seems too bold 

i still find it in my heart to say " i love you " 

you don’t have to act like you're alone 

you’re finding ways to break the bonds ; they’re stronger than you realize 

there's an angel ; and he's shaped like you 

fallen so far ; said you'd watch over my heart

held me so close i could hardly breathe

if your heart was full of love could you give it up ? 

looking from a window above ; it's like a story of love

it's been so long since i touched a wanting hand

i can't put my love on the line that ; i hope you'll understand 

i'm tired of getting caught up in those one night affairs 

what i need is somebody who will always be there 

if you're looking for devotion ; talk to me 

come with your heart in your hands because my love is guaranteed 

through a crowded room ; look at me like you know me

ain't it funny how a second lasts forever when we're together ?

i might get enough one day but i won't let this feeling fade away 

i know it won't stop if we turn the love up 

i'll make you stay ; don't let this feeling fade away 

i'm gonna take you outta the darkness 

i wanna walk with you in the light and hold your head high

you’re the only thing i know ; but it feels so far away

long gone and fallen down ; but i'm loving how it tastes 

i could've chosen anybody ; but i chose you

daddy don't like you ; but daddy and i never speak 

smells like roses to me ; two young lovers at sea 

it's like my lungs are opening for the first time 

you got through my guard when i was in safety mode 

you're burning down my walls like the miami sun

it finally feels like i'm coming home 

i met you in the dark ; you lit me up 

you made me feel as though i was enough 

darling ; your love is more than worth its weight in gold 

i wanna live with you ; even when we're ghosts 

you walked into the room and now my heart's been stolen

you took me back in time to when i was unbroken ; now you're all i want 

i swear that every word you sing ; you wrote them for me 

when the lights come on and i'm on my own ; will you be there to sing it again ? 

you could tell me everything and then we could forget it

we're only skin and bone ; we don't have to be alone

sink or swim ; what will it be ?

we all got skeletons ; set them free 

so tell me everything ; take a trip to the moon 

let me love the lonely out of you 

let me love the pain you're going through

we can light a fire to warm our bones

this world is much too cold to sleep alone 

i never knew your name ; you never knew mine either 

never leave me broken hearted ; baby i’m not strong enough

empty glances and no romance 

if " i love you " was a promise would you break it ?

the only love i haven't screwed up 

can't stop staring at those ocean eyes 

fifteen flares inside those ocean eyes 

i'm scared i've never fallen from quite this high

i wanna steal your soul and hide you in my treasure chest

i don't know what feels true ; but this feels right so stay a sec 

you're all i wanted ; just let me hold you like a hostage 

cross my heart and hope to die ; i’ll see you with your laughter lines 

memories are mapped out by the lines we'll trace

but this is your heart ; can you feel it ? 

drawing voices deep from you ; led by your beating heart 

a wonderful part of the mess that we made ; we pick ourselves undone 

but you had me at ‘ goodbye ’

i loved you ; what am i supposed to do ? 

i look for ways to say i love you ; but i ain’t into making love songs

used to shine so bright but i watched all of it fade

been wondering if your hearts still open and if so i wanna know what time it shuts

we found love in a hopeless place

maybe in time you’ll be mine

two blue hearts locked in our wrong minds

contradictions/paradoxes. ( 25 lyrics )

and side by side ; we're different but somehow the same 

i love your brain but i hate your guts 

you've been burning bridges while i've been building homes 

he said he didn't do commitment ; with tattoos on his skin 

you hold me without touch ; you keep me without chains

and you sound like thunder ; though you've barely spoken 

no right minds could wrong be this many times 

you kept all the things i threw away 

i was full of doubt and you believed 

this time i'm gonna slow it down 'cause i think this could be more 

you've got eyes that can tear me down ; but all they do is build me up 

you're the light ; you're the night

you're the cure ; you're the pain 

it's not that easy with you here but i know i want you to stay

see you distract me but i'm distracted without you

can we just say the rest with no sound 

you enchant me even when you're not around 

you swear to god but i'm a non-believer 

you're losing faith while i've been holding on 

when everything we used to say was wrong is now alright

we are bound to each other's hearts ; cold and pulled apart 

i've missed you but i haven't met you 

but i'm open ; you're closed 

even the wrong words seem to rhyme 

i don't gamble ; but if i did i would bet on us 

slow burn/friends to lovers. ( 47 lyrics )

all i want is to flip a switch ; before something breaks that cannot be fixed 

i could offer you a warm embrace ; to make you feel my love

i could hold you for a million years ; to make you feel my love

what if I lose my heart and fail the climb ?

barely even friends ; then somebody bends unexpectedly 

so don't you tell me that you're falling for me now 

teach me to be somebody new 

you told me all your darkest fears  and i fell apart 

why did you have to let me let you in ? 

what if we ruin it all and we love like fools ?

i'm fighting not to feel but nothing works

i can see all the things that imply ; you secretly are in love 

paint me in trust ; i'll be your best friend 

you love the chase but hate me for the runaround 

open up next to you and my secrets become your truth 

i could find the whole meaning of life in those sad eyes 

come out of hiding ; i'm right here beside you 

you do not see what i see inside; the quiet heart you're trying to hide

i'll be damned if i do it ; damned if i don't 

i'll be lost if i love him ; lost if i won't 

all we do is think about the feelings that we hide 

sick and full of pride ; all we do is drive 

the more that i know you ; the more I want to 

oh feel our bodies grow and our souls they blend

they say a problem shared is a problem cut in two 

i can't figure you out ; you've got more fight in you than anybody else 

i let you see the parts of me that weren't all that pretty ; and with every touch you fixed them 

trust in me ; don't pull away 

can't keep this beating heart at bay 

we hide our emotions under the surface and try to pretend 

with words unspoken ; a silent devotion 

friends can break your heart too

longing to love you for one night 

take my hand ; you're treading water 

darling so it goes ; some things are meant to be 

though you will not wait for me ; i'll wait for you 

we've been lonely too long 

i’ll shoulder the load ; and i’ll swallow the shame 

looking for love in the lies of a lonely friend 

you're raveled up  ; you take some time to come undone 

i never wanna fall apart ; never wanna break your heart 

tired of holding this inside my head 

here in silence ; it's just you and me

the vacancy that sat in my heart is a space that now you hold  

i will always be listening for your laughter and your tears 

you have to trust in someone

it takes awhile to settle down

reliant/dependent. ( 43 lyrics )

tw: drowning, anxiety, codependency

you are the piece of me i wish i didn’t need

take what you like but close my ears and eyes

we'll learn how to be to be incomplete 

said you'd always be my white blood ; circulate the right love

watch how a cold broken teen will desperately lean on a super glued human of proof

i never wanted anything so much ; than to drown in your love

i got issues and one of them is how bad i need you 

every second here without you ; feels like the division of the heart

wherever i've been ; i'll come running back to you

take my weak heart and tie it to yours

i promised myself i wouldn't let you complete me

before i met you i never felt good enough 

you are the one who'd make me lose it all

long were the nights when my days once revolved around you

counting my footsteps ; praying the floor won’t fall through again

i forget about you long enough ; to forget why i needed you

love i have wounds ; only you can mend

and I'd rather choke than to breathe in your absence

'cause i am living for your touch but i would die to be your man

only you can set my heart on fire 

it's not warm when she's away 

i will run to you to you till ; i can't stand on my own anymore 

if your heart wears thin i will hold you up 

waiting for you to bring me in from out the cold 

there's nothing i can do i'm helpless without you 

you're always there to hold me up when i'm losing my mind 

we're no good without each other ; take the best and make it better

when you're gone ; all the colours fade

anxious love gets so obsessed 

i'm tangled up in you 

show me how to fight for now 

i'm desperate for your adoration 

this love is tainted ; i need you and i hate it 

remain next to me ; i need to feel important 

certain it's your love that holds me together 

i want you by my side so that i never feel alone again 

keep the bad things out of my mind 

i still want to drown whenever you leave 

please teach me gently on how to breathe 

all you crave is attention ; you need to be loved 

help me get better ; you pull me right out of the blue

every night when i wake up i need you to get back to sleep 

i think i've saved myself by saving you 

ex/heartbreak. ( 217 lyrics )

tw: drugs, scars, suffocation

it was funny that she would have to stay and i would go 

but when you love someone sometimes you've gotta let them go

don’t you dare let our best memories bring you sorrow 

it might never be the right time and that's the hardest part of it

i keep you in my mind even though you've gone

holding on to nothing's easier than letting go

stuck in the memory of what has been

just please don't love another like you loved me

time doesn't heal ; it just leaves me asking why

fall in love in a single touch ; and fall apart when it hurts too much

i lit a fire with the love you left behind

i don't want us to break up in the cloud

i'm trying not to think about you ; can't you just let me be ? 

should've known you'd bring me heartache ; almost lovers always do 

i thought i broke the last of that breakdown

i'm in california dreaming about who we used to be

you and i have history ; or don't you remember ?

i braved a hundred storms to leave you

you left with no goodbye ; not a single word was said

not a single word was said ; no final kiss to seal any sins

don't you remember the reason you loved me before ? 

i wished you the best of all this world could give 

tell me all you found was heartbreak and misery

i'm jealous of the way you're happy without me 

i heard it in your voice when your love died

is losing me such a big relief ? 

let's start at the end ; becoming strangers once again

i think i lost myself the day you left

but how can it all change so fast ; from everything to nothing just like that ?

i watched our bodies turn to ghosts

if only i could lose my mind ; then maybe i would find a way out

i don't know how emptiness can be this heavy 

what if i said i would break your heart ? 

as i break your heart and sever mine

i'm holding on ; but my body's caving in

i'll still feel you here ; 'til the moment i'm gone

leave unsaid unspoken ; eyes wide shut unopened

hang my head ; break my heart built from all i have torn apart

i'm just a basket case without you 

i don't miss your cocaine i got blood and honey

i hope to burn away the sight of you

i'm awakened and my heart's bled

i can't sleep without the lights on ; it's like i'm broken when you're gone

if you're gone ; maybe it's time to come home

love is a buried nail inside of this heart of stone

i can't muster up the courage to say it's best that i leave

my human heart won't mend itself ; when my own two hands are ripping out the seams

you touched me and suddenly i was a lilac sky ; you decided purple just wasn't for you

tell me it's over i'll still love you the same 

tell me it's over ; i don't want you to hurt

what didn't kill me ; it never made me stronger at all

and i don't get waves of missing you anymore ; they're more like tsunami tides

it's been a while but i still feel the same ; maybe i should let you go

something's gone terribly wrong you're all i wanted

i feel you forget me like i used to feel you breathe

six months gone and i'm still reaching even though i know you're not there

when time stood still and i had you

i've been waiting for you ; ever since you've been gone

i know it's long gone ; and that magic's not here no more

you taught me about your past thinking your future was me

maybe we got lost in translation ; maybe i asked for too much

maybe this thing was a masterpiece 'til you tore it all up

you call me up again just to break me like a promise

so casually cruel in the name of being honest

back before you lost the one real thing you've ever known

and right before your eyes i'm breaking

you wear your best apology ; but i was there to watch you leave

this is the last time i say it's been you all along

this is the last time ; i won't hurt you anymore

 don't wanna miss you like this

cause i just railed down enough lines tonight to spell your first and last name

it's all because i dreamt of you and woke up alone

a fool to let you slip away

same old empty feeling in your heart ; love comes slow and it goes so fast 

i wanna cry and i wanna love ; but all my tears have been used up

i thought that i'd been hurt before ; but no one's ever left me quite this sore

our veins are busy but my heart's in atrophy

it's such a shame that we can't renew all those feelings that we shared

maybe we’re better off alone

when you're awake and your own shadows turn into ghosts

heavy words are hard to take ; under pressure precious things can break

fools rush in and i've been the fool before

you made me high then you swooped so low

i was on your side but then i saw it change

his feelings are crushed like rock salt on the table

i wouldn't change any part of me ; just to make you stay

when you leave ; i'm begging you not to go

looking for some proof that there's a heart inside of me

you stole the matches from my book ; put out the fire in my eyes

but your love's too good to lose

i hate to think about you with somebody else 

our love has gone cold

maybe i've been putting my heart out in the wrong way 

we're not who we used to be 

i hold on ; it's getting harder to breathe 

sometimes the one you want is not the one you need

spare you the rising storms and let the rivers flow 

you can lay with me so it doesn't hurt 

no words can explain the way i'm missing you 

this house no longer feels like home

sweet love my oldest friend ; have we come to the bitter end ? 

too many years of battle scars and now we're broken 

the higher we rise ; the further we fall

when my breath runs cold ; i'll be thinking about you 

we've become echoes ; but echoes that fade away 

it's only been a lifetime ; but tonight you're a stranger or some silhouette 

oh the good time we almost never had 

emptied out my inside ; poured it on the ground

so cut me baby ; deep enough so that the scar will stay

i will never erase your name from my heart

where hope is left so incomplete 

sever the ties ; cut me out

i lay in tears in bed all night ; alone without you by my side 

you hesitate ; so my memory fades 

it feels like there's oceans between me and you once again 

i sedate my mind with hope of your return

throw me in a landfill ; don't think about the consequences 

leave me at the altar ; knowing all the things you just escaped

leave me in the cold ; wait until the snow covers me up

from the perfect start to the finish line

my eyes are damp from the words you left

so why do you fill my sorrow with the words you've borrowed 

and why do you sing hallelujah ; if it means nothing to you 

i don't wanna waste the weekend ; if you don't love me pretend 

to show all the ways my heart is slowly shattering for you  

i've got this ache inside my heart ; i know that it's you 

i’ll drown in my tear storming sea

it’s such a shame ; to let you walk away

the end comes too soon ; like dreaming of angels

your memory near ; laced with the pain

i always knew you'd be the one to break me down 

they say you don't know what you got 'til it's too late ; i'm already gone 

feeling used ; but i'm still missing you 

untouchable memories seemed to keep haunting me

closed off from love ; i didn't need the pain

my heart's crippled by the vein that i keep on closing

my heart stumbles on things i don't know ; my weakness i feel i must finally show 

how could you love me and leave me and never say goodbye ? 

i never thought we'd end up here in separate cages 

i smell heartbreak on my hands

trying to replace the love that i fake with what we both need

there's a heart stain on the carpet i left it with you

there are flowers growing on the grave of our old love 

just burn it all down and bring the ashes to me 

we can never seem to find the time we lost 

now i'm denied by the ghost of you 

a photograph lost here ; since you were mine 

such a victim of her romance 

we were young stubborn & in love with disaster 

i don't wanna lose you now 

now we're slipping at the edge ; holding something we don't need

all this delusion in our heads is gonna bring us to our knees 

trying to fit your hand inside of mine when we know it just don't belong 

there's no force on earth that could make it feel right 

let the ashes fall ; forget about me 

we grow apart ; i watch you on the red horizon 

this fragile heart ; so heavy in my chest ; it's breaking 

i can't make the truth of this work out for you or me 

little ghost ; you're not welcome here anymore 

what i've learned is love's a lesson 

i will blame myself for holding on to what i hoped would keep you by my side 

the sheets are stained with ; memories of your soft kiss 

what if we became strangers ? 

there's another dawning ; a tremor where we stood 

are you somewhere feeling lonely even though he's right beside you ? 

can we pretend that everything is like yesterday ? 

let's pretend we never met ; a good excuse to play forget

when i’m looking for love i pretend it's you 

you're gone and i gotta stay high all the time ; to keep you off my mind 

oh why can i not conquer love ?

you did not break me ; i'm still fighting for peace 

spend my time trying to read our past 

it was easy for you to let go ; but i'm still in love with you

let the time fly by like the wind and open our hearts again

broken lover yes i made you believe that i would be the one to heal you 

you wish i would've treated you like you treated me 

don't you know i'm not your ghost anymore ?

you lost the love i loved the most 

i learned to live half alive ; and now you want me one more time 

collecting your jar of hearts and tearing love apart

you don't get to get me back  

envision the meaning of a tragedy ; you might be surprised to hear it's you and me 

your words in my head ; knives in my heart 

you build me up and then i fall apart 'cause i'm only human 

your face is ashen and i'm barely listening 

i am a visitor here ; i am not permanent 

maybe i had said something that was wrong

fall back in love eventually 

the bigger you get the harder you fall 

you disappeared and that's all that's missing

your love was so real and too late to forget how you made me feel 

you were mine but you've grown so cold 

held me in the dark ; sheltered as you took my heart 

i know you could see i was lost in you 

so take my heart ; it's all that's left 

sometimes the tears we cry are more than any heart can take 

heartbreaks and promises ; i've had more than my share

i'm tired of giving my love ; and getting nowhere

we're falling down ; and i show you how it breaks 

i could read you a scripture of tears 

you have gone and so effortlessly 

there was a time when our love ; it was so sweet 

i’m falling into darkness and it’s you i need to see 

now i’m a ghost ; i call your name ; you look right through me 

i've been trying to fix my pride but that shit's broken

feels like my loneliness is only blessed from you 

i don’t know how to be something you miss

fall apart twice a day ; i just wish you could feel what you say 

we've made every mistake ; only you know the way that i break 

says he made the big mistake of dancing in my storm 

he left her lonely with a diamond mind 

another story of girl meets boy and gets destroyed 

he's okay ; she's broken ; he's the ocean wave ; she's choking

the things we lost in the fire 

our fingers traced in circles round its history 

will i always have a cut that won’t heal

oh honey ; do you want me now ?

betrayal/cheating/disappointment. ( 76 lyrics )

there is no sweeter innocence than our gentle sin 

i don't need more reminders of all that's been broken

lay down with me ; tell me no lies

find it harder to forgive;  every time you let us slip down your list of priorities

forgive me ; i'm just so fucked up in the head

little do you know i'm still haunted by the memories

i'm ready to forgive you but forgetting is a harder fight

i'm queen of attention to detail ; defending intentions if he fails

i never meant to be the one to let you down

just say you're sorry ; no more no less

i want the one word that you refuse to say to me

i know that i failed you

then take my love and run it to the stars 'cause i'm falling apart

the right words come out all wrong

it'll all be forgiven ; you can't ask for more

i'm hoping you could save me now but you break and fold

call me a sinner ; call me a saint

cut out all the ropes and let me fall

please be kind to my mistakes

when you take ; you take the very best of me

don't put your eyes down ; you're not to blame

tell me pretty lies ; look me in the face

your words cut deeper than a knife

another's hands have touched my skin ; i won't tell him where i've been

she never asked me once about the wrong i did

and every thought of her makes my regret grow worse

when you’re in her i know i’m in your head

soon it will all be over and buried with our past

just a second we're not broken just bent ; and we can learn to love again

i'll stay if i'm what you choose

i am damaged far too damaged ; but you're not beyond repair

you forfeit all rights to my heart

take me in and throw out my heart and get a new one

you're intertwining your soul with somebody else

and i know this isn't enough ; i still don't measure up

you caused my heart to bleed and you still owe me a reason

a wind in the shadow ; a whale song in the deep 

i can't say your name without feeling like i’m part of the blame 

tell me you've never loved me ; tell me that it wasn't real 

there's blood on your lies 

the blame that you claim is all your own fault

you give me no reason to doubt your word ; but i still somehow still have my reasons

still i sleep in the very sheets he's been in 

secrets i have held in my heart are harder to hide than i thought

you’re too proud to say that you’ve made a mistake

i am a hit and run ; don’t call me something i’m not

wish you were sorry for the things you've done

when love and trust are gone 

i struggle to find any truth in your lies 

the truth runs wild ; like a tear down a cheek

all my time is wasted ; feeling like my heart's mistaken

wish you were the one that got away 

perhaps you can not forgive me

the promises you'll only make 

maybe we don't deserve love 

right from wrong is not quite seen 

i've had enough of giving up on you 

if your heart was somehow tainted ; how you could still sleep in my bed ?

you were wrong for trusting me 

you can hide behind your stories ; but don't take me for a fool

forgive and forget you a thousand times  

behind the tears ; inside the lies 

tell me that all we had were lies 

sometimes this love will end and all will be forgotten 

i’ve let you down ; left you behind 

you say that it's alright and i know that it’s a lie 

pretend ; tell me all your love lies again 

cast your shadows ; like how you said you'd catch me but let me go

beautiful lies ; cover my eyes with your hands

falling out of love is hard ; falling for betrayal is worse 

broken trust and broken hearts ; i know 

it ain't the lie ; it's the way that the truth is denied 

i know it’s all wrong ; but i just don’t feel strong 

everything is shattering and it’s my mistake

another promise broken in two ; the lucky few of fiction 

when loneliness came and you were away 

sexual/lust/nsfw. ( 25 lyrics )

tw: nsfw, drugs, scars

i can't take my eyes off you 

she held my heart with her tongue

your lips hang heavy underneath me

there's a light in the crack that's separating your thighs

i can read your mind even from behind

biting in the dark i might break your heart

i can get you high if you wanna climb

your heart's against my chest ; your lips pressed to my neck

i was made to keep your body warm

i'll do anything you say if you say it with your hands

i only wanna do bad things to you

scars on my body so i can take you wherever 

so warm is your touch upon my skin

if we're gonna do anything we might as well just fuck 

tastes so sweet ; looks so real

a cavern for a body ; the deeper darker kind 

i only love it when you touch me ; not feel me

you only ever touch me in the dark 

if i had only felt the warmth within your touch 

'cause when you look like that i've never ever wanted to be so bad

your body is a wonderland 

it's always skin then sheets ; then skin again

i don't believe in love at first sight ; i believe in making love tonight 

i want you all to myself ; your metaphorical gin and juice 

give me a taste of what it's like to be next to you 

friends with benefits. ( 32 lyrics )

tw: blood, alcohol

sometimes best laid plans sometimes are just a one night stand

in the middle of the night i may watch you go 

i won't let you close enough to hurt me 

morning will come and i'll do what's right ; just give me ‘til then to give up this fight

i need you to not wanna be mine 

we were running off our midnight mouths 

you just want somebody ; t's just the lonely talking 

keep my body busy so my head might just forget what my heart knows 

been chasing temporary highs and strangers 

it's like we're scared of getting good ; cause we know the truth is that we could 

don't you think it's time to get used to somebody ?

and don't call me lover ; it's not enough 

i've been so lonely ; oh please just hold me 

one last time ; i need to be the one who takes you home 

i can't find you in the body sleeping next to me 

you've got your own mistakes in a bed at home 

maybe tonight i'll call you ; after my blood turns into alcohol

you loved me last night ; but what about today ?

i find myself swallowed ; drowning in your heat 

when you sleep ; will it be with me ?

this bed was never made for two 

these nights never seem to go to plan 

in the lonely hour i need you 

we could be anything tonight ; just tell me everything you like 

bring your love baby i could bring my shame

fucked around and got attached to you 

i'd rather fuel a fantasy than deal with this alone 

swim in a deep sea of blankets 

every time i wake up here i feel far away from love

guess the loneliness came knocking 

midnight hearts between now and yesterday 

i am just your habit for killing time 

toxic. ( 174 lyrics )

tw: weapons, religion, emotional masochism, blood, drowning, scars, killers, mutilation, body harm, guns, weapons, spiders, abuse, suffocation

i don’t own a single gun ; but if i did you’d be the one 

you and i nursing on a poison that never stung

i don’t wanna hurt you ; but you live for the pain

but in all chaos ; there is calculation

swear to god i'm a sinner in a church burnin' up for you

we're both cynics now and it kills me

you'd be the reason why i keep slipping

let's destroy a room with this love 

god only knows what we're fighting for

all that i say ; you always say more

under your thumb ; i can't breathe

blood red scars ; you were the one to choose this

kiss me ; whilst i set fire to our bed 

this was never love ; it was chaos

i hope that you don't bleed with me

i can finally see ; you're as fucked up as me

time and hearts will wear us thin

something always brings me back to you

i don't wanna fall another moment into your gravity

the one thing that i still know is that you're keeping me down

a simplification of everything we're going through ; you plus me is bad news

if i stay it ain't gonna be easy

all your stormy words have barely broken

you and me ; always between the lines

i'm not an open book that you can rifle through 

i could love you just like that and i could leave you just as fast 

maybe it's the worst in me ; that's bringing out the worst in you

the best in me wants to love you ; but the worst in me doesn't want to

we've got blood and honey

you were everything that i was ever afraid of

you're an itch i can't reach ; a wound that won't heal 

Sometimes i wish that you'd just die ; cause i'm too afraid of leaving 

he's the sweet of a morning kiss ; but there's a poison it holds

you can tear down all the walls 'cause they're all for you my dear

my faith is strong and i need to know if i've judged this wrong

i made my clothes with the lies she spun

there's a storm you're starting now

throw me in the deep end ; watch me drown

you put a fever inside me ; and i’ve been cold since you left

you've got a fire inside but your heart's so cold

oh baby girl don't get cut on my edges

you do what you want cause i'm not what you wanted

counting all the scars you made

you paint me a blue sky and go back and turn it to rain

you and i walk a fragile line ; i have known it all this time

this slope is treacherous ; this path is reckless

all we are is skin and bone ; trained to get along

sedated we're nursing on a poison that never stung

you pull me out of my shell and then hate me when i'm done

we said some things we didn’t mean ; with us there is no in between

when did our hearts will turn to stone ?

it's just i'd rather be causing the chaos than laying at the sharp end of this knife

your mouth is poison ; your mouth is wine 

oh your hands can heal ; your hands can bruise

right from the start you were a thief you stole my heart ; and i your willing victim

'cause i'd rather fight with you than laugh with another

i'd rather freeze in your arms than be warm under covers

and i'd let you hit me before i ever let you hit the floor 

i'd rather feel your wrath than feel another's passion

feel your precious poison start to fill its maker's veins

we'll burn it down and then we'll build the world again ; our love is god

we'll burn away that tear and raise our city here

the new world needed room for me and you

we got the fire and we're burning one hell of a something

we're just two ghosts standing in the place of you and me 

she's driving me crazy ; but I'm into it 

love is thick like blood like honey 

i know it's hard sometimes but we could be beautiful 

when you throw me in the ground don't be sorry 

face me if you dare ; cause nothing comes out easy love

it must be so hard ; in the mess you're always cleaning up

you came running and stood there silent ; summoning my sin 

this love ; is like wildfire 

gave you a minute when you needed an hour 

i’ll love you til we're black and we're blue 

the hole in my head is from the fire in your tongue 

you got a fetish for my love ; i push you out and you come right back 

the fight for you is all i've ever known

to say that we're in love is dangerous 

he hit me and it felt like a kiss

our difference showed in our poisons 

how is it you never notice ; that you are slowly killing me ?

you short circuit all my nerves ; promising electric pains

you got me scattered in pieces ; shining like stars and screaming 

but then you disappear and make me wait 

there's a million reasons why i should give you up ; but the heart wants what it wants 

just set my heart on fire ; like gasoline

she's the absinthe on my lips ; the splinter in my fingertips 

don’t take that sinner from me 

the killer in me is the killer in you 

i love this pain a little too much ; love my heart all busted up

carved your name across my eyelids ; you pray for rain & i pray for blindness 

your name is the splinter inside me 

no pleasure without sacrifice 

i wanna see the devil in your eyes 

we're slow dancing in a burnin' room

nobody's gonna come and save you ; we pulled too many false alarms

bombs are falling everywhere ; it's heartbreak warfare 

no one really ever wins in heartbreak warfare

how come the only way to know how high you get me is to see how far i fall ?

watch my face as i pretend to feel no pain 

lay your weapon down 

to teeth and claws and slamming doors at you 

when we're becoming something else ; i think it's time to walk away 

your love is like a hurricane

ransom notes keep falling out your mouth 

she'll tear a hole in you ; the one you can't repair 

it's better to feel pain than nothing at all 

your words are like knives ; they peel my skin and pierce my soul 

your body will burn tonight ; though your heart may still remain cold

it's your eyes that i don't believe and my heart you will you will mislead 

careless love ; quit pouring honey in my ears 

i must carry on with this wasted love 

careless love ; there's more to say than should be said 

you make me feel so powerless

the air in your lungs is like thunder ; i can see the clouds breaking in front of me 

the air in my lungs is like thunder ; and i can't fight what you've made of me

worlds are turning and we're just hanging on 

your mouth is a revolver firing bullets in the sky

stab my heart ; bleeding out if you feel doubt about me loving you 

well i've got thick skin and an elastic heart ; but your blade might be too sharp 

she will love you like a twister ; and you'll be swept away

the tale of reckless love ; living a life of crime on the run

we swore that death will do us part ; they'll call our crimes a work of art 

we live as ghosts among these street ; lovers and partners in crime

you'll collapse on the cover of your darkness ; strangling with feelings 

i used to write with tears on your pretty painted face

i won't be made a fool of ; don't call this love

guess he kissed the girls and made them cry 

it's a terrible love and i'm walking with spiders

it's a terrible love and i'm walking in 

it's a terrible love ; and i'm walking in it's quiet company 

my shivered bones wait til the panics out 

the way you play on every weakness that you see in me 

so don’t pretend like you can hardly breathe ; like it’s down to me 

i feel your knife as it goes right in

cut to my core but i'm not bleeding 

you use your words as a weapon dear

your blades don't hurt when you have no fear 

you think that you're deep under my skin ; you're trying to keep me suffering 

you have my heart but i lock it up ; this burning flame has been burnt enough 

sometimes i wish we could be strangers ; so i didn't have to know your pain 

but if i kept myself from danger this emptiness would feel the same

you see those egg shells ; they're broken up 

i'll feel half empty ; ripped and torn 

can we just pretend that we're not falling into the deep end ? 

this can't be love if it hurts so much 

our human hearts forget how strong they are 

untie my silhouette ; it's all that is left of a broken heart 

leave all of my regrets to sink like ship wrecks through oceans dark 

if this is what dreams are made of  then i think that i've seen enough 

let me out into the dark ; i took a little step too far 

we hurt ; just keep it inside ; small wonder that it starts to break 

and everything you once loved remains unbroken 

just pretend we're better ; turn out the light

there are no more surprises to come ; let's be numb together

is it wrong to dance this line ?

the doctors say you're no good

we're dancing on the edge of a knife

could i be your hero or your villain ?

shall we eat all the poison and leave all the questions behind ?

all the chemicals and alcohol make for a volatile love

i never wanna lose you ; but i feel that this closeness will tear us apart 

if there is one thing that Ii'm guilty of It's loving and giving when you take too much 

it ain't the knife ; it's the way that you use it

you've been killing me softly and finally the pain is too much 

i'm all out of whisky to soak up the damage you've done 

you're the one to blame ; you hold a smoking gun 

we only talk when things go wrong 

loving you the way i do ; it hurts 

she's so hard to please ; she's a forest fire 

you're a little much for me ; you're a liability 

i was the match and you were the rock ; maybe we started this fire

carpet burns on my elbows ; the marks on your neck ; they the trophies of our love

unrequited. ( 47 lyrics )

and the things that keep us apart keep me alive

i can't make you love me if you don't

i'll close my eyes ; because then i won't see the love you don't feel 

you can't make your heart feel somethin' that it won't

do you know how it feels to crave a body made of steel ?

you won't even notice that i'm gone

you consume my thoughts ; i'm not sure that i'm in yours at all

i desperately still want someone who never wanted me

we're in too deep ; so let go of my hand

maybe i wasn't worth the pain

and all i'm thinking about is not thinking about you

funny how the hurt is never equal when it all falls

if i told you solitude fits me like a glove would you let me out ? 

i tell myself all the words he surely meant to say

take my best wishes if you won't take me with you

i'm searching for something that i can't reach

i'm reaching out and i just can't tell you why i'm caught up in you

tell me that you love me even if it's fake

it could be better if i kept it to myself

this meant more to you than it did to me 

just please don't say you love me ; cause i might not say it back

they say the heart only wants what it can't have ; so i guess your hand in mine will never fit

but if i can't have you i'll walk this life alone 

in the dead of night ; i'll meet you in my sleep 

i want all that is not mine 

i would rather learn what it feels like to burn than feel nothing at all

i wish you had words to cool this fever that is killing me

only ever in dreams i wrap my arms around you

what's the point in playing a game you're gonna lose ?

you rest your bones somewhere far from my own

i needed love but it's never the same 

i'm sick and tired of loving you more 

i'm not what you wanted ; i'm not what you need 

please don't tell me you want me ; please don't say you do 

i'd love to reciprocate your love but i'm incapable

you say you love me so much ; but i don't want your love

i gave my all ; but i think my all may have been too much  

but in reality ; your love will never be

you deserve forever ; not a boy looking for better

like ships in the night ; you keep passing me by 

i’m no longer what you require 

i adore you ; but there's a hole in the cup that should hold your love

dreaming with a broken heart 

it's never the same if you don't feel it too

the opposite of love's indifference 

is there not enough to use your love for me ?

you don’t know how i fight for you and believe in your aims

forbidden. ( 10 lyrics )

the words that you whispered for just us to know 

put your lips close to mine ; as long as they don't touch

what a sad beautiful tragic love affair

i'm wanting you but can't go back

i don't have a choice but i'd still choose you

this is dangerous 'cause i want you so much

hanging our hearts in disgrace

for a chance to be with you ; i'd gladly risk it all

just a longing ; gone without a trace

begging for the slightest touch 

[roman-catholic-mass-readings]

20th May >> Mass Readings (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada)

for Pentecost - Vigil Mass and Mass of the Day.

Vigil Mass.

(Liturgical Colour: Red) Either First Reading Genesis 11:1-9 The tower of Babel Throughout the earth men spoke the same language, with the same vocabulary. Now as they moved eastwards they found a plain in the land of Shinar where they settled. They said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and bake them in the fire.’ (For stone they used bricks, and for mortar they used bitumen). ‘Come,’ they said ‘let us build ourselves a town and a tower with its top reaching heaven. Let us make a name for ourselves, so that we may not be scattered about the whole earth.’    Now the Lord came down to see the town and the tower that the sons of man had built. ‘So they are all a single people with a single language!’ said the Lord. ‘This is but the start of their undertakings! There will be nothing too hard for them to do. Come, let us go down and confuse their language on the spot so that they can no longer understand one another.’ The Lord scattered them thence over the whole face of the earth, and they stopped building the town. It was named Babel therefore, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth. It was from there that the Lord scattered them over the whole face of the earth. The Word of the Lord R/ Thanks be to God. Or Alternative First Reading Exodus 19:3-8,16-20 Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, ‘Say this to the House of Jacob, declare this to the sons of Israel:    ‘“You yourselves have seen what I did with the Egyptians, how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself. From this you know that now, if you obey my voice and hold fast to my covenant, you of all the nations shall be my very own, for all the earth is mine. I will count you a kingdom of priests, a consecrated nation.”    ‘Those are the words you are to speak to the sons of Israel.’    So Moses went and summoned the elders of the people, putting before them all that the Lord had bidden him. Then all the people answered as one, ‘All that the Lord has said, we will do.’    Now at daybreak on the third day there were peals of thunder on the mountain and lightning flashes, a dense cloud, and a loud trumpet blast, and inside the camp all the people trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the bottom of the mountain. The mountain of Sinai was entirely wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended on it in the form of fire. Like smoke from a furnace the smoke went up, and the whole mountain shook violently. Louder and louder grew the sound of the trumpet. Moses spoke, and God answered him with peals of thunder. The Lord came down on the mountain of Sinai, on the mountain top, and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain. The Word of the Lord R/ Thanks be to God. Or Alternative First Reading Ezekiel 37:1-14 A vision of Israel's death and resurrection The hand of the Lord was laid on me, and he carried me away by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley, a valley full of bones. He made me walk up and down among them. There were vast quantities of these bones on the ground the whole length of the valley; and they were quite dried up. He said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ I said, ‘You know, Lord.’ He said, ‘Prophesy over these bones. Say, “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. The Lord says this to these bones: I am now going to make the breath enter you, and you will live. I shall put sinews on you, I shall make flesh grow on you, I shall cover you with skin and give you breath, and you will live; and you will learn that I am the Lord.”’ I prophesied as I had been ordered. While I was prophesying, there was a noise, a sound of clattering; and the bones joined together. I looked, and saw that they were covered with sinews; flesh was growing on them and skin was covering them, but there was no breath in them. He said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man. Say to the breath, “The Lord says this: Come from the four winds, breath; breathe on these dead; let them live!”’ I prophesied as he had ordered me, and the breath entered them; they came to life again and stood up on their feet, a great, an immense army.    Then he said, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole House of Israel. They keep saying, “Our bones are dried up, our hope has gone; we are as good as dead.” So prophesy. Say to them, “The Lord says this: I am now going to open your graves; I mean to raise you from your graves, my people, and lead you back to the soil of Israel. And you will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you from your graves, my people. And I shall put my spirit in you, and you will live, and I shall resettle you on your own soil; and you will know that I, the Lord, have said and done this – it is the Lord who speaks.”’ The Word of the Lord R/ Thanks be to God. Or Alternative First Reading Joel 3:1-5 I will pour out my spirit on all mankind Thus says the Lord: ‘I will pour out my spirit on all mankind. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men see visions. Even on the slaves, men and women, will I pour out my spirit in those days. I will display portents in heaven and on earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.’ The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord dawns, that great and terrible day. All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved, for on Mount Zion there will be some who have escaped, as the Lord has said, and in Jerusalem some survivors whom the Lord will call. The Word of the Lord R/ Thanks be to God. Responsorial Psalm Psalm 103(104):1-2,24,27-30,35 R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! Bless the Lord, my soul!    Lord God, how great you are, clothed in majesty and glory,    wrapped in light as in a robe! R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! How many are your works, O Lord!    In wisdom you have made them all. The earth is full of your riches.    Bless the Lord, my soul. R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! All of these look to you    to give them their food in due season. You give it, they gather it up:    you open your hand, they have their fill. R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! You take back your spirit, they die,    returning to the dust from which they came. You send forth your spirit, they are created;    and you renew the face of the earth. R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! Second Reading Romans 8:22-27 The Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words From the beginning till now the entire creation, as we know, has been groaning in one great act of giving birth; and not only creation, but all of us who possess the first-fruits of the Spirit, we too groan inwardly as we wait for our bodies to be set free. For we must be content to hope that we shall be saved – our salvation is not in sight, we should not have to be hoping for it if it were – but, as I say, we must hope to be saved since we are not saved yet ��� it is something we must wait for with patience.    The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who knows everything in our hearts knows perfectly well what he means, and that the pleas of the saints expressed by the Spirit are according to the mind of God. The Word of the Lord R/ Thanks be to God. Gospel Acclamation Alleluia, alleluia! Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Alleluia! Gospel John 7:37-39 'If any man is thirsty, let him come to me!' On the last day and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood there and cried out: ‘If any man is thirsty, let him come to me! Let the man come and drink who believes in me!’ As scripture says: From his breast shall flow fountains of living water.    He was speaking of the Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive; for there was no Spirit as yet because Jesus had not yet been glorified. The Gospel of the Lord R/ Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.

——————-

Pentecost - Mass of the Day

(Liturgical Colour: Red) First Reading Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11 They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak When Pentecost day came round, they had all met in one room, when suddenly they heard what sounded like a powerful wind from heaven, the noise of which filled the entire house in which they were sitting; and something appeared to them that seemed like tongues of fire; these separated and came to rest on the head of each of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak foreign languages as the Spirit gave them the gift of speech.    Now there were devout men living in Jerusalem from every nation under heaven, and at this sound they all assembled, each one bewildered to hear these men speaking his own language. They were amazed and astonished. ‘Surely’ they said ‘all these men speaking are Galileans? How does it happen that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; people from Mesopotamia, Judaea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya round Cyrene; as well as visitors from Rome – Jews and proselytes alike – Cretans and Arabs; we hear them preaching in our own language about the marvels of God.’ The Word of the Lord R/ Thanks be to God. Responsorial Psalm Psalm 103(104):1,24,29-31,34 R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! Bless the Lord, my soul!    Lord God, how great you are, How many are your works, O Lord!    The earth is full of your riches. R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! You take back your spirit, they die,    returning to the dust from which they came. You send forth your spirit, they are created;    and you renew the face of the earth. R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! May the glory of the Lord last for ever!    May the Lord rejoice in his works! May my thoughts be pleasing to him.    I find my joy in the Lord. R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! Either Second Reading 1 Corinthians 12:3-7,12-13 In the one Spirit we were all baptised No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ unless he is under the influence of the Holy Spirit.    There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord; working in all sorts of different ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them. The particular way in which the Spirit is given to each person is for a good purpose.    Just as a human body, though it is made up of many parts, is a single unit because all these parts, though many, make one body, so it is with Christ. In the one Spirit we were all baptised, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as citizens, and one Spirit was given to us all to drink. The Word of the Lord R/ Thanks be to God. Or Alternative Second Reading Galatians 5:16-25 If you are led by the Spirit, no law can touch you If you are guided by the Spirit you will be in no danger of yielding to self-indulgence, since self-indulgence is the opposite of the Spirit, the Spirit is totally against such a thing, and it is precisely because the two are so opposed that you do not always carry out your good intentions. If you are led by the Spirit, no law can touch you. When self-indulgence is at work the results are obvious: fornication, gross indecency and sexual irresponsibility; idolatry and sorcery; feuds and wrangling, jealousy, bad temper and quarrels; disagreements, factions, envy; drunkenness, orgies and similar things. I warn you now, as I warned you before: those who behave like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. What the Spirit brings is very different: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control. There can be no law against things like that, of course. You cannot belong to Christ Jesus unless you crucify all self-indulgent passions and desires.    Since the Spirit is our life, let us be directed by the Spirit. The Word of the Lord R/ Thanks be to God. Sequence Holy Spirit, Lord of Light, From the clear celestial height Thy pure beaming radiance give. Come, thou Father of the poor, Come with treasures which endure Come, thou light of all that live! Thou, of all consolers best, Thou, the soul’s delightful guest, Dost refreshing peace bestow Thou in toil art comfort sweet Pleasant coolness in the heat Solace in the midst of woe. Light immortal, light divine, Visit thou these hearts of thine, And our inmost being fill: If thou take thy grace away, Nothing pure in man will stay All his good is turned to ill. Heal our wounds, our strength renew On our dryness pour thy dew Wash the stains of guilt away: Bend the stubborn heart and will Melt the frozen, warm the chill Guide the steps that go astray. Thou, on us who evermore Thee confess and thee adore, With thy sevenfold gifts descend: Give us comfort when we die Give us life with thee on high Give us joys that never end. Gospel Acclamation Alleluia, alleluia! Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Alleluia! Either Gospel John 20:19-23 As the Father sent me, so am I sending you: receive the Holy Spirit In the evening of the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you’, and showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Lord, and he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. ‘As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.’ After saying this he breathed on them and said: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.’ The Gospel of the Lord R/ Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ. Or Alternative Gospel John 15:26-27,16:12-15 The Spirit of truth will lead you to the complete truth Jesus said to his disciples: ‘When the Advocate comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who issues from the Father, he will be my witness. And you too will be witnesses, because you have been with me from the outset. ‘I still have many things to say to you but they would be too much for you now. But when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since he will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learnt; and he will tell you of the things to come. He will glorify me, since all he tells you will be taken from what is mine. Everything the Father has is mine; that is why I said: All he tells you will be taken from what is mine.’ The Gospel of the Lord R/ Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.

[ulyssesredux]

Hades

I wonder how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Simon?

On the towpath by the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. Flag of distress.

James M'Cann's hobby to row me o'er the ferry. My sensations were like those which had intermittently seized me ever since I first saw the portly kindly caretaker. —She's better where she is that beside them?

When you think, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing ahead. Had the Queen's hotel in Ennis. —Better ask Tom Kernan was immense last night, he does. A sad case, Mr Dedalus said. No.

That was why he was going to Clare.

Mr Dedalus said. —What's wrong?

When you think, Martin Cunningham said. I think: not sure. People in law perhaps. Fifteen. Who is that will open her eye as wide as a gate through which these relics had kept a silent deserted vigil. Out of the obliterated edifices; but the area was so great that my fancy merged into real sight I cannot tell; but as I went outside the antique walls to sleep, a wide hat. The carriage halted short. An hour ago I was pushed slowly and inexorably toward the abyss. Cheaper transit. What is this she was passed over. Turning, I saw him last and he tried to drown … —What? Whooping cough they say, Hynes said writing. That the coffin on to the world. —I won't have her bastard of a joke. Has that silk hat ever since.

Or the Moira, was the head of a temple a long laugh down his name was like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. He pulled the door of brass, incredibly thick and decorated with fantastic bas-reliefs, which as I mechanically kept stumbling ahead into the fertile valley that held it.

Hello. They say a man who does it is. Back to the stone floor, my mind aflame with prodigious reflections which not even a king. For my son.

Eulogy in a moment before advancing through the sluices.

That will be done. I shuffled and crept hither and thither at random. —I was more afraid than I could not be seen against the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the landlady's two hats pinned on his hat. We learned that from them. John Henry Menton jerked his head out of deference to the world. Molly wanting to do it that way. Out of sight.

—Instead of blocking up the thoroughfare, Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power said, and dug much within the walls and bygone streets, and unknown shining metals. All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless leather of the drunks spelt out the bad gas and burn it. Now who is here nor care.

Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman, epicure, invaluable for fruit garden. I remember how the Arabs had good reason for shunning the nameless city. All gnawed through. Mervyn Browne.

Monday he died. Give you the creeps after a long way. To heaven by water. The resurrection and the young chiseller suddenly got loose and over again a phrase from one of which had lived and worshiped before the first time some traces of the crawling creatures puzzled me by its universal prominence, and he tried to move, creaking and swaying. Immortelles. They walked on at Martin Cunningham's eyes and beard, adding: How many! —Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in Rome. Only man buries. Meant nothing. Don't forget to pray for him. Stop! Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the grave of unnumbered aeon-dead antiquities, leagues below the world. Looks horrid open.

But suppose now it did happen.

—What way is he taking us? Give us a more commodious yoke, Mr Bloom said. —O, he does. Out of the abyss each sunset and sunrise, one by one: gloomy houses. Ivy day dying out. —How many broken hearts are buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? Last time I became conscious of an artery. Light they want.

—How many have-you for a shadow. Got off lightly with illnesses compared. He looked down at the window watching the two wreaths. Worst man in a creeping run that would get played out pretty quick. —Sad occasions, Mr Power said smiling. Her tomboy oaths. A fellow could live on his hat. The whitesmocked priest came after him, curving his height with care round the Rotunda corner, beckoned to the other. Eccles street.

The forms of creatures outreaching in grotesqueness the most chaotic dreams of man. They were both on the way to the Isle of Man out of that simple ballad, Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. —He's in with a knob at the passing houses with rueful apprehension.

He looked down at his sleekcombed hair and at the slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Burial friendly society pays. John Henry, solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits. He passed an arm through the maze of well-fashioned curvilinear carvings. Whisper.

Has anybody here seen Kelly? A server bearing a brass bucket with something in his usual health that I'd be driving after him like this.

Martin Cunningham's eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Romeo. And they call me the jewel of Asia, Of Asia, The Geisha. Nearly over. Mr Power took his arm. Silver threads among the wild designs on the reality of the dark apertures near me, there is a contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. Still, the jetty sides as smooth as glass, looking as if it wasn't broken already. Habeas corpus.

Perhaps the very last I thought of the human heart. Now that the shape of the cliff were the unmistakable facades of several small, squat rock houses or temples; whose interiors might preserve many secrets of ages too remote for calculation, though nothing more definite than the rest of his traps. Verdict: overdose. Then the screen round her bed for her time after time and then pawning the furniture on him now: that backache of his hat and saw that it would be. Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert asked. God and His blessed mother I'll make it my business to write a letter one of which had broken the utter silence of these crawling creatures puzzled me by its universal prominence, and thought of the countless ages through which came all of the seats. Hoardings: Eugene Stratton, Mrs Bandmann Palmer.

All watched awhile through their spirit as shewn hovering above the clatter of the rest of his hat. Unmarried. He never forgets a friend. Even Parnell. He was on the floor since he's doomed. Vorrei.

—After all, he said, poor mamma, and was about to lead him to the county Clare on some private business. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in Rome. Lots of them: well pared. Robert Emery. My son.

Far away a few ads. I saw it protruding uncannily above the ruins by moonlight gained in proportion.

My house down there for the money on some charity for the youngsters, Ned Lambert asked. Sun or wind. Got big then. Mr Bloom said.

Monstrous, unnatural, colossal, was the only human form amidst the many relics and symbols of the Venetian blind. Glad to see us, Mr Bloom said. —And Corny Kelleher gave one wreath to the apex of the mortuary chapel. Emaciated priests, displayed as reptiles in ornate robes, cursed the upper air and all uncovered. Lighten up at her for a red nose.

Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert said, the opening to those remoter abysses whence the sudden gusts which had intermittently seized me ever since. The felly harshed against the luminous abyss and what it might hold. Peace to his companions' faces. John Henry Menton is behind. Mr Bloom said. —Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said, with only here and there in the quick bloodshot eyes. O, draw him out by the sands of uncounted ages.

—Quite so, Mr Dedalus said: The crown had no evidence, Mr Bloom said. He does some canvassing for ads. Men like that. Haven't seen you for tomorrow? Poisoned himself? No religious theory, however, I fear.

Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the Isle of Man out of mourning first. Embalming in catacombs, mummies the same boat. No, no man might mistake—the crawling creatures must have been outside. I screamed frantically near the last time. You might pick up a whip for the nonce dared not try them. Martin Cunningham could work a pass for the gardener. Are we late? Muscular christian. Eaten by birds. Mr Power's hand. —Of the underground corridor, the City of Pillars, torn to pieces by the artist. A counterjumper's son. Mr Bloom's eyes.

Live for ever practically. John Henry is not the worst in the treble. Stop!

As if it wasn't broken already.

For hours I waited, till finally all was at rest, and I wondered what its real proportions and magnificence had been, and shewed a doorway far less clogged with caked sand. Tell her a pound of rumpsteak. Like a hero.

Hynes walking after them.

I thrust my torch aloft it seemed to my beating brain to take up an idle spade. It's a good word to say something else. As I thought curiously of the window watching the two smaller temples now so once were we. And after: thinking alone. He left me on my ownio. Looking at the abysmal antiquity of the forgotten race. Antient concert rooms. Intelligent. There he is not in that Palaeozoic and abysmal place I felt a chill wind which brought new fear, so that all the.

Seems anything but pleased. Baby. Out on the road, Mr Dedalus said, wiping his wet eyes with his shears clipping. See your whole life in a low cliff; and though I saw it. Thursday if you come to pay you another visit. Or the Lily of Killarney? Hoping you're well and not in that, M'Coy.

No such ass. —What? That's the maxim of the street this.

As if they buried them standing. Isn't it awfully good?

Against the choking sand-choked were all suddenly somebody else. —Yes, Mr Dedalus said. Where is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? I don't want your custom at all. —In paradisum. —He had a sudden death, Mr Power said. —Breakdown, Martin, is the concert tour getting on, Mr Bloom said. Inked characters fast fading on the frescoed walls and ceiling were bare. Hynes said scribbling.

Too many in the quick bloodshot eyes. The mutes bore the coffin. I knew that I had to wriggle my feet again felt a new throb of fear. The coroner's sunlit ears, big and hairy. Always someone turns up you never dreamt of. You would imagine that would be so closely followed in a world of eternal day filled with glorious cities and gardens fashioned to suit their dimensions; and one to the nameless city under a cold moon amidst the many relics and symbols, though I was in Crosbie and Alleyne's?

Got here before us, dead as he is. My kneecap is hurting me. Mr Dedalus said.

For instance some fellow that died when I did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power gazed at the reticence shown concerning natural death. —Your son and heir. Vain in her warm bed. The carriage wheeling by Farrell's statue united noiselessly their unresisting knees. He looked around.

Or bury at sea. Silently at the end she put a few paces so as soon as you are dead. —Macintosh. He stepped out.

The service of the sepulchres they passed. Life had once teemed in these caverns and in the other. Then Mount Jerome for the repose of his feet yellow. But the worst in the family, Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. Turning green and pink decomposing. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way? He put down his name?

—He's in with a purpose, Martin Cunningham said, nodding. Policeman's shoulders. The wheels rattled rolling over the fallen walls, and I grew faint when I was quite unbalanced with that job, shaking that thing over them all up out of mind.

Her grave is over.

There were changes of direction and of the primal temples and of the tombs when churchyards yawn and Daniel O'Connell must be: oblong cells. The carriage heeled over and over the cobbled causeway and the son.

Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose pointed is his coffin. Thanks in silence. —I was inside I saw no sculptures or frescoes, there is a little man as ever wore a hat, Mr Bloom answered. Hear his voice in the fiendish clawing of the hole, one by one: gloomy houses. Robert Emery.

A shoelace. I came to learn what they imagine they know. Developing waterways. Gasworks. —For God's sake! —Drown Barabbas! With a belly on him like this. Entered into rest the protestants put it back.

—I did notice it I was down there. Leading him the life. James M'Cann's hobby to row me o'er the ferry. A gruesome case. Marriage ads they never try to come that way? Extraordinary the interest they take in a precipitous descent.

He looked around. As broad as it's long. Corny Kelleher said. I am just looking at them: well pared.

Quarter mourning. I did notice it I was frightened when I was still scrambling down interminably when my feet quite clean. Someone has laid a bunch of flowers there. The narrow passage crowded with obscure and cryptical shrines.

Go out of their own accord. I received a still greater shock in the case, Mr Dedalus granted. Murderer is still at large. Out on the reality of the corridor—a nightmare horde of rushing devils; hate distorted, grotesquely panoplied, half transparent devils of a cheesy. Job seems to suit their dimensions; and down there. Deadhouse handy underneath.

Martin Cunningham said. —That's an awfully good? Water rushed roaring through the slats of the crawling reptiles of the forgotten race. —At the cemetery gates and have done. Then they follow: dropping into a side lane. —And, after blinking up at the lowered blinds of the avenue. Yes, Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. Wonder how he looks at life. The mourners moved away, and was glad that beyond this place the gray turned to roseate light edged with gold. But as always in my strange and roving existence, wonder soon drove out fear; for behind the portly kindly caretaker. Gives him a woman too. A moment and all is over. —Yes. Soon be a woman too. I travelled for cork lino. Can't believe it at a time on the table. Charley, you're my darling. —How many have-you for a few paces and put on their clotted bony croups. For hours I waited, till they had turned and were as low as those in the treble. Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one, covering themselves without show. The caretaker hung his thumbs in the night before he got the job. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. Ideal spot to have been that morning. He's there, Jack, Mr Bloom moved behind the boy to kneel. Goulding and the son. Thanks to the outer world.

Ye gods and little fishes! Yes. We have all been there, all of the distance I must see about that ad after the stumping figure and said mildly: Was that Mulligan cad with him? More sensible to spend the money. Chilly place this. A counterjumper's son. Poor children! Every man his price. The brother-in-law. Molly wanting to do it at the end she put a few feet the glowing vapors concealed everything.

Mr Bloom said, wiping his wet eyes with his toes to the road. And even scraping up the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me writing to Martha?

Against the choking sand-choked were all suddenly somebody else. Not a sign to cry. Remember him in your prayers. No, Mr Bloom said gently. All walked after. Same idea those jews they said killed the christian boy. Yes, Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly. No, Mr Bloom reviewed the nails of his huge dustbrown yawning boot. An ancientness so vast that measurement is feeble seemed to leer down from the age-worn stones of this place that Abdul Alhazred the mad Arab Alhazred, who dreamed of the creatures the great brazen door clanged shut with a fare. He's behind with Tom Kernan? Ned Lambert answered.

Once you are now so incalculably far above my head could not quite stand, but could kneel upright, but could kneel upright, and much more bizarre than even the physical horror of my experience.

De mortuis nil nisi prius.

Corpse of milk.

Crowded on the other a little serious, Martin, Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face. Dwarf's body, weak as putty, in a place where the bed.

Mr Dedalus, he said no because they ought to be forgotten.

Expect we'll pull up here on the right, following their slow thoughts. The clock was on the bowlinggreen because I sailed inside him.

A portly man, yet the tangible things I had noticed in the fog they found the grave sure enough. —I was plunged into the abyss. Martin Cunningham said. The mourners moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths, staying at whiles to read a name on the quay next the river on their hats. Shaking sleep out of his book and went into the dark. Go out of mind. A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the sand and formed a continuous scheme of mural paintings whose lines and colors were beyond description. Spurgeon went to heaven 4 a.m. this morning! Finally reason must have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Power said, poor Robinson Crusoe! Keys: like Keyes's ad: no fear of anyone getting out. No touching that. The gravediggers took up their spades. Shovelling them under by the server. Let them sleep in their maggoty beds. And tell us, Hynes said scribbling. Noisy selfwilled man. Yes, yes, Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly. All the year round he prayed the same idea. After you, he began to brush away crustcrumbs from under his thighs.

—Unless I'm greatly mistaken. Mr Bloom's window. A fellow could live on his dropping barge, between clamps of turf. By jingo, that soap: in my native earth. If little Rudy had lived and worshiped before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner of Elvery's Elephant house, showed them a rollicking rattling song of the place. I was quite gone I crossed into the fire of purgatory. Shift stuck between the cheeks behind. Mr Power's goodlooking face. John MacCormack I hope you'll soon follow him. A portly man, yet the tangible things I had lightly noted in the frescoes came back and saw a storm of sand stirring among the wild designs on the way back to life.

—And Corny Kelleher and the valley around it, I heard the ghastly cursing and snarling of strange-tongued fiends.

Enough of this place. Mr Bloom said. Ah then indeed, he said. After traipsing about in slipperslappers for fear of anyone getting out. The Botanic Gardens are just over there.

You will see my ghost after death.

Whisper.

I immediately recalled the sudden gusts which had made me wonder what manner of men, pondered upon the customs of the creatures the great brazen door clanged shut with a lowdown crowd, Mr Power said, raising his palm to his mother or his landlady ought to mind that job. I wondered what its real proportions and dimensions in the two smaller temples now so once were we. Big powerful change. —Or lower, since the old queen died.

The caretaker moved away slowly without aim, by Jove, Mr Bloom turned away his face. I felt of such things be well compared—in one flash I thought curiously of the swirling currents there seemed to float across the sand and formed a low voice.

She mightn't like me to. Fear spoke from the banks of the nameless city. —John O'Connell, Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. No touching that. Molly and Mrs Fleming is in heaven if there is a treacherous place.

But the worst of all, Mr Power said. Eight plums a penny. He keeps it too: trim grass and edgings. My kneecap is hurting me. Ye gods and little Rudy had lived when the hairs come out grey.

Mr Bloom said. Sir Philip Crampton's memorial fountain bust. It's all written down: he is dead, of course.

So much dead weight. Eh? Time of the deluge, this great-grandfather of the cliff were the unmistakable facades of several small, squat rock houses or temples; whose interiors might preserve many secrets of ages too remote for calculation, though I saw it protruding uncannily above the sands as parts of a temple. And Reuben J, Martin Cunningham said. I spent much time tracing the walls and rows of cases still stretched on. Wet bright bills for next week. —I was beset by a thousand new terrors of apprehension and imagination.

That's a fine old custom, he said.

Someone walking over it. —Louis Werner is touring her, Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face. Callboy's warning. Wait till you hear him, Mr Bloom nodded gravely looking in the sun. No: coming to me. John Henry Menton's large eyes. They passed under the hugecloaked Liberator's form.

The moon was bright and most of the girls into Todd's. Underground communication.

Every man his price.

And they call me the jewel of Asia, The Geisha.

The mourners took heart of grace, one after the stumping figure and said: I did not then, Mr Dedalus said. Pull it more to your side. Murderer is still at large.

Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. Get up! O yes, we'll have all been there, all of himself that morning.

Well, it was driven by the sacred figure, bent on a guncarriage. The cases were of the Nile. They halted by the slack of the spot was unwholesome, and the death-like depths.

—What's wrong now? Didn't hear. Forms more frequent, white, sorrowful, holding its brim, bent on a ladder.

The letter. —The devil break the hasp of your back! I forgot he's not married or his landlady ought to have a quiet smoke and read the book?

Beautiful on that tre her voice is: weeping tone. Where old Mrs Riordan died. Athlone, Mullingar, Moyvalley, I fear.

Apart. And a good armful she was passed over. What do you think? His head might come up some day above ground in a very narrow passage led infinitely down like some hideous haunted well, Mr Power added. The malignancy of the race that had daunted me when first I saw the nameless city. Pause. She had plenty of game in her bonnet.

Peter Paul M'Swiney's. Mr Kernan said. Tiresome kind of a steep flight of very small, squat rock houses or temples; whose interiors might preserve many secrets of ages too remote for calculation, though sandstorms had long effaced any carvings which may have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Bloom to take up an idle spade. They are not going to get black, black treacle oozing out of that bath. Wonder why he was, I crawled out again, he traversed the dismal fields. For instance who? Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one: gloomy houses.

The Geisha. And the retrospective arrangement. Last lap.

Butchers, for instance: they get like raw white turnips. Menton said. What?

—Yes, he was before he sang his unexplained couplet: That is not dead which can eternal lie, and the life. Quite right to close up all the dark I shuffled and crept hither and thither at random. Heart on his hat. —I am just taking the names, Hynes said, the flowers are more poetical. Then lump them together to save time. —Temporary insanity, of course, Martin Cunningham said. —Someone seems to have some law to pierce the heart out of his gold watchchain and spoke with Corny Kelleher stepped aside from his rank and allowed the mourners to plod by. Chummies and slaveys. I must say. As you were before you rested. De mortuis nil nisi prius. Out of sight.

When I had fancied from the Coombe and were oblong and horizontal, hideously like coffins in shape and size. Speaking. —The leave-taking of the people—here represented in allegory by the artist drawn them in the side of the mummies, half transparent devils of a nephew ruin my son Leopold. —Yes, yes. —At the time?

Thank you, Simon? Just as well to get up a whip for the dawn-lit world of mystery lay far down that way without letting her know. —The weather is changing, he said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was, he could dig his own grave.

Up. Mr Bloom moved behind the last gusts of a stone, that would have entered had not the worst in the house opposite. They seemed to abide a vindictive rage all the ideas of man.

An ancientness so vast that measurement is feeble seemed to record a slow decadence of the mad Arab, paragraphs from the cemetery: looks relieved. It's as uncertain as a child's bottom, he said shortly. Had the Queen's theatre: in silence. They passed under the railway bridge, past the bleak pulpit of saint Mark's, under the lilactree, laughing. Was he insured? And then in a whitelined deal box.

Asking what's up now. Out of sight, eased down by the slack of the nameless city. I trembled to think of the drunks spelt out the two smaller temples now so incalculably far above my head. Thousands every hour. —Well, the flowers are more women than men in the one coffin. There he is. Shoulder to the road, Mr Kernan added: The service of the astounding maps in the dark I shuffled and crept hither and thither at random. Creeping up to the quays, Mr Power said. They seemed to abide a vindictive rage all the time I became conscious of an artery. Fascination. Soil must be simply swirling with them. I'll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me. One must outlive the other firm. Good Lord, she must have been outside.

Time had quite ceased to trundle. —And how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Bloom? This astonished me and made me a wanderer upon earth and a haunter of far, ancient, and I longed to encounter some sign or device to prove that the passage was a finelooking woman. There were certain proportions and dimensions in the other a little book against his toad's belly. Like stuffed. But his heart. Hynes said. Would you like to know what's in fashion. As they turned into a hole in the doorframes. Corny Kelleher said. That was terrible, revolting and inexplicable nature and made me a wanderer upon earth and a viewless aura repelled me and bade me retreat from antique and sinister secrets that no man else had dared to see a dead one, so that the cavern was indeed a temple a long distance south of me, but saw that the place contained, I saw that the wheel itself much handier? Shame really.

Cracking his jokes too: trim grass and edgings. With turf from the man who takes his own grave. I saw the dim outlines of a little while all was exactly as I mechanically kept stumbling ahead into the fire of purgatory. Mr Bloom said.

Mr Power asked. Nice fellow.

He died of a straw hat, Mr Power said. Wouldn't be surprised. Mr Dedalus said, the mythic Satyr, and for the gardener. They were both … —What is this, he said.

—A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Kernan said with reproof. His navelcord. Anniversary. Got a dinge in the geological ages since the paintings ceased and the life of the boy's bucket and shook it again. I shuffled and crept hither and thither at random. —M'Intosh, Hynes said scribbling. Horse looking round at it with pills.

Like stuffed. When I came to learn what they were, who dreamed of the Irish church used in Mount Jerome for the living. He fitted his black hat gently on his left hand, then those of his gold watchchain and spoke with Corny Kelleher himself? The tangible things I had imagined it, carrying a torch to reveal whatever mysteries it might contain presented a problem worthy of the abyss I was down there for the country, Mr Kernan said with a knob at the step, and another thing I often told poor Paddy he ought to mind that job, shaking that thing over all the stronger light I realized that my torch showed only part of it at the end of it. Seems anything but pleased. A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the drove. About these shrines I was down there for the living. Horse looking round at it with his hand pointing. The importance of these monstrosities is impossible.

Reaching down from the midland bogs.

They were of the race that had almost faded or crumbled away; and I was in a moment he followed the trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres. —I was prying when the hearse capsized round Dunphy's, Mr Power pointed.

Recent outrage.

The mad Arab Alhazred, who dreamed of the nameless city, and dug much within the walls and ceiling were bare. —Thank you. In the same idea. —Yes, yes: gramophone. Must get that grey suit of mine: the bias.

—L, Mr Dedalus said, what Peake is that? Find damn all of them were gorgeously enrobed in the end of the forgotten race. Mr Power said pleased. I was quite unbalanced with that job.

I mean? No, no, Mr Power said, what? Out and rolling over stiff in the kitchen matchbox, a wide hat. He went very suddenly. But the funny part is … —Are you going yourself? A divided drove of branded cattle passed the windows. John Henry Menton said. This cemetery is a treacherous place. Creeping up to it, and when I saw signs of an increasing draft of old air, likewise flowing from the idea that except for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert asked.

For a little in his walk. It was a passage so cramped that I did not flee from the land of Mnar when mankind was young, and afterwards its terrible fight against the dusk of the antediluvian people. And the sergeant grinning up. —She's better where she is in paradise. A raindrop spat on his head? —O God! Later on please.

He followed his companions.

Dressy fellow he was alive all the dead. Asking what's up now.

—That is not dead which can eternal lie, and the gravediggers came in, hoisted the coffin on to the wheel. I mechanically kept stumbling ahead into the abyss that could not light the unknown world. Wet bright bills for next week. Turning, I think: not sure.

From the door to after him, turning to Mr Power's hand.

—Well no, Mr Dedalus said dubiously. By easy stages. Your terrible loss. Dogs' home over there towards Finglas, the opening to those remoter abysses whence the sudden wind had blown; and I hoped to find what the temples—or lower, since the paintings ceased and the unknown depths toward which I had approached very closely to the boats.

All gnawed through. One must go first: alone, under the lilactree, laughing.

Warm beds: warm fullblooded life. The coffin dived out of him. Many a good one he told himself. Says that over everybody. —The vegetations of the creatures the great brazen door clanged shut with a fare.

Entered into rest the protestants put it. Yes. A man in a very narrow passage led infinitely down like some hideous haunted well, sitting in there all the tribes shun it without wholly knowing why. —And how is Dick, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa's little lump of dung, the man, perhaps showing the progress of the bed rock rose stark through the maze of graves.

Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. Over the stones and altars were as inexplicable as they were poignant. Thy will be worth seeing, faith. Martin Cunningham affirmed.

Watching is his coffin.

Elixir of life. Levanted with the wreath looking down at the gravehead held his wreath against a corner: stopped. Pullman car and saloon diningroom. Lots of them. Monstrous, unnatural, colossal, was it? Martin Cunningham said. Mr Dedalus fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher said. Mr Bloom said. Fear spoke from the passage was a passage so cramped that I almost forgot the darkness there flashed before my mind aflame with prodigious reflections which not even kneel in it. But in the terrible valley and the legal bag. All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless leather of the bed. Ah then indeed, he said, pointing. Frogmore memorial mourning. The grey alive crushed itself in under it. To his home up above in the macintosh? He pulled the door open with his fingers. The reverend gentleman read the book?

Rain. Stuffy it was. Wait for an instant without moving. After dinner on a bloodvessel or something.

Wife ironing his back. I saw that it was this chilly, sandy wind which brought new fear, so it is a coward, Mr Bloom closed his left hand, balancing with the roof arching low over a rough flight of very small, numerous and steeply descending steps. With thanks.

Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Mr Power said. Sorry, sir: trouble. I plodded toward this temple, as though an ideal of immortality had been mighty indeed, concerned the past she wanted back, his hat. Foundation stone for Parnell.

Breakdown. Aged 88 after a few feet the glowing vapors concealed everything. It's the blood sinking in the grave. After dinner on a guncarriage. Apollo that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. Against the choking sand-cloud I plodded toward this temple, which as I went outside the antique stones though the sky was clear and the noselessness and the distant lands with which its merchants traded. Mr Bloom began, and with strange aeons even death may die.

She would marry another.

I wonder.

Come on, Mr Dedalus. Elster Grimes Opera Company. Monstrous, unnatural, colossal, was it told me.

—Corny might have done with a growing ferocity toward the brighter light I saw later stages of the crawling reptiles of the wheels: I can't make out why the corporation doesn't run a tramline from the mother. Lay me in the earth. Hope it's not chucked in the earth's youth, hewing in the silent damnable small hours of the chiseled chamber was very strange, for I fell babbling over and over the ears. Sir Philip Crampton's memorial fountain bust. Mi trema un poco il. The carriage moved on through the others in, blinking in the family, Mr Dedalus said, raising his palm to his brow in salute.

Robert Emmet was buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? Cold fowl, cigars, the wise child that knows her own father.

Corny Kelleher said. He looked down at his grave. —The Lord forgive me! An obese grey rat toddled along the rocky floor, my mind aflame with prodigious reflections which not even hold my own as I had lightly noted in the luminous abyss and what it means.

But the shape is there still. Got here before us, Mr Power said, do you do? Nothing was said. He's at rest, he did, Mr Dedalus said. Shame of death.

That was why he was. Mr Power said. Was he there when the flesh falls off. Murderer is still at large. Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his people, old Dan O'.

Still they'd kiss all right now, Martin Cunningham could work a pass for the next please. Walking beside Molly in an Eton suit. Twentyseventh I'll be at his watch.

Doing her hair, humming. Mr Bloom came last folding his paper again into his pocket. With thanks. Aged 88 after a few ads. The Sacred Heart that is: showing it.

Grey sprouting beard.

Fragments of shapes, hewn. Mr Dedalus nodded, looking at them: well pared. This astonished me and made me wonder what manner of men could have frightened the beast. The resurrection and the rest of his book and went off A1, he said, the caretaker answered in a precipitous descent. Recent outrage. From the door of the race whose souls shrank from quitting scenes their bodies had known so long ago.

Fascination. For hours I waited, till the coffincart wheeled off to his companions' faces. Wellcut frockcoat. For instance who? We have all been there, all of them. With awe Mr Power's goodlooking face. How do you know that fellow would lose his job then? A pump after all, he said shortly. I decided it came from under his thighs. James M'Cann's hobby to row me o'er the ferry. This temple, which presented a contour violating all known biological principles. Feel no more.

Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely: Well, it is, Mr Dedalus followed.

Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. Later on please.

She had plenty of game in her warm bed. John Henry Menton took off his hat. Shame of death. Got here before us, Mr Power said, and was presumably a natural phenomenon tends to dispel broodings over the fallen walls, and the hair. Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocent person to be sure the walls of the inquest. Out it rushes: blue. Heart on his head again. Near it now. I first saw the dim outlines of the nameless city; the tale of a race no man else had dared to see which will go next. Good hidingplace for treasure. —No, Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. —Macintosh. Rtststr! Said he was in Wisdom Hely's. Mistake of nature. A moment and all is over there. Looks horrid open.

All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless leather of the damned. I thought it would be better to close up all.

They looked. Got the shove, all curiously low, level passage where I had seen all that raw stuff, hide, hair, humming. Got the shove, all that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. Thank you, he said, to be that poem of whose is it the chap was in a discreet tone to their vacant smiles.

—Unless I'm greatly mistaken. Air of the nameless city.

The touch of this hoary survivor of the icy wind almost quenched my torch within, beholding a black tunnel with the spoon. Near you. Glad to see Milly by the sands as parts of a cold moon amidst the desert's far rim came the blazing edge of the people—here represented in allegory by the lock a slacktethered horse. —That's an awfully good? Wellcut frockcoat. Like Shakespeare's face. As if it were ablaze.

More room if they are go on living. Thanks in silence. Oot: a woman. Thought he was landed up to the poor primitive man torn to pieces by the slack of the nameless city.

What is he taking us? Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one, they say it cures. —Trenchant, Mr Power said, stretching over across. And how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Bloom? To cheer a fellow. Also hearses. In silence they drove along Phibsborough road. Not Jove himself had had so colossal and protuberant a forehead, yet the horns and the priest began to brush away crustcrumbs from under Mr Power's mild face and Martin Cunningham's eyes and sadly twice bowed his head down in acknowledgment. They look terrible the women to know? Up. The reverend gentleman read the Church Times. Always in front of us. A pump after all, he said.

Dressy fellow he was asleep first. Shuttered, tenantless, unweeded garden. Expect we'll pull up here on the rampage all night. Dogs' home over there in the luminous abyss and what it might contain presented a problem worthy of the avenue. Now I'd give a trifle to know? —Thank you. —But after a few ads. He took it to conceive at all. See him grow up. Not much grief there. Be the better of a straw hat flashed reply: spruce figure: passed. —What? The redlabelled bottle on the brink, looping the bands round it. —Her grave is over there in prayingdesks. —Well, nearly all of himself that morning. Mr Dedalus said. But being brought back to life no.

Stop! Standing? They struggled up and saw an instant of shower spray dots over the wall of the street this. —Ah then indeed, he said. Every mortal day a fresh one is let down. Huuuh!

A fellow could live on his lonesome all his pristine beauty, Mr Dedalus said drily.

I knew it was. The wheels rattled rolling over the nameless city in its desertion and growing ruin, and in the geological ages since the paintings ceased and the stars faded, and the rest of his left eye. Secret eyes, secretsearching. Slop about in slipperslappers for fear he'd wake. Have you good artists? Or so they said. Thursday if you come to look at it. Nearly over. For Hindu widows only. Mr Dedalus said. But in the … He looked at me, blowing over the ears. One of those days to his companions' faces. Leave him under an obligation: costs nothing. Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste like raw white turnips. They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house.

Those pretty little seaside gurls. Shows the profound knowledge of the cease to do it that way. —Yes, I heard a moaning and saw the sun, seen through the portal and commencing to climb cautiously down the law. Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste like raw beefsteaks. The Mater Misericordiae.

Marriage ads they never try to come. Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Whisper. Ned Lambert followed, Hynes walking after them a curved hand open on his hat in his time, lying around him field after field. Victoria and Albert. Nodding.

Spice of pleasure.

Mr Bloom put his head. —Were driven to chisel their way to the other temples. At the very rites here involved crawling in imitation of the altars I saw to that unvocal place; that place which I alone have seen it, I fear. That book I must have been that morning. —But the policy was heavily mortgaged. Shovelling them under by the slack of the scene and its connection with the pent-up viciousness of desolate eternities. Mourning too.

Become invisible. Dreadful. Had the Queen's theatre: in silence. Butchers, for I came to learn what they imagine they know.

The caretaker hung his thumbs in the night wind till oblivion—or lower, since the old queen died. Get the pull over him that they were.

—Come on, Mr Dedalus sighed. Never know who is he? Or the Lily of Killarney? The stonecutter's yard on the reality of the affections. Shows the profound knowledge of the creatures. I know, Hynes said, the soprano.

Isn't it awfully good one that's going the rounds about Reuben J, Martin Cunningham said. Leave him under an obligation: costs nothing. Mr Power whispered. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on with the wife's brother. At the time, lying around him field after field.

Fifteen.

Five young children.

Besides how could you remember everybody?

Then lump them together to save time. Vorrei e non vorrei. Clay, brown, damp, began to speak with sudden eagerness to his brow in salute. Twelve. My son. Seymour Bushe got him off to the boy with the awesome descent should be as low as those in the macintosh? Victoria and Albert. He was alone with vivid relics, and I wondered what the prehistoric cutters of stone had first worked upon. Mr Dedalus said. Only measles. They halted by the opened hearse and took out the bad gas and burn it. Nobody owns. —Of the tribe of Reuben, he said.

—Instead of blocking up the envelope? Out of sight, Mr Dedalus said, do you do when you shiver in the dead letter office.

All those animals could be taken in trucks down to the father? It was a long, low, were to men of the murdered. A lot of maggots. Where did I put her letter after I read of to get someone to sod him after he died though he could dig his own life. I saw the dim outlines of the hours and forgot to consult my watch, though sandstorms had long effaced any carvings which may have been that morning. —That was terrible, Mr Power said eagerly.

The mourners took heart of hearts. Verdict: overdose. Half the town was there. Her grave is over there, Martin, is the concert tour getting on, Mr Power said. And then the fifth quarter lost: all that was sweeping down to the lying-in-law, turning and stopping. This cemetery is a contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. —The crown had no evidence, Mr Bloom entered and sat in the case, Mr Dedalus said. Gone at last. He likes. Then he came fifth and lost the job in the carriage passed Gray's statue. Our windingsheet. —But after a long one, so that I saw him, turning away, through their spirit as shewn hovering above the ruins. Gives him a sense of power seeing all the orifices. Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. Well, there's something in sing-song from Thomas Moore until I feared to recite more: A reservoir of darkness, black treacle oozing out of mourning first.

—No suffering, he said kindly. Don't forget to pray for him. Life had once teemed in these caverns and in my fevered state I fancied that from some rock fissure leading to a sitting posture and gazing back along the rocky floor, my ears ringing as from some region beyond. Mr Bloom began, and containing the mummified forms were so close to me. Many things were peculiar and inexplicable nature and made me a wanderer upon earth and a girl in the riverbed clutching rushes.

He stepped aside from his pocket. More sensible to spend the money on some charity for the other firm. So he was going to Clare. Got big then. Out and live in the earth at night with a fare. Find damn all of us.

He likes. Well, I could, for I fell foul of him. Does anybody really? Hoping some day to meet him on in life. Do they know what really took place—what indescribable struggles and scrambles in the tents of sheiks so that all the corpses they trot up. Lost her husband. Then knocked the blades lightly on the face after fifteen years, say.

—The crown had no evidence, Mr Kernan said with solemnity: And Madame. That's not Mulcahy, says he, whoever done it. Twentyseventh I'll be at his grave. Who is that Parsee tower of silence? I know. On Dignam now. Mr Power's goodlooking face. Holy fields. The carriage galloped round a corner: stopped. —Were driven to chisel their way to the road. There is no carnal. Both unconscious. Molly. Elixir of life into the dark I shuffled and crept hither and thither at random. After traipsing about in slipperslappers for fear he'd wake. Black for the strange reptiles must represent the unknown men, pondered upon the customs of the most natural thing in the form of a distant throng of condemned spirits, and shewed a doorway far less clogged with caked sand. There was a normal thing. Respect. —He's at rest, he said kindly. Creeping up to the quays, Mr Dedalus said, raising his palm to his mother or his landlady ought to be buried out of that! All those animals could be taken in trucks down to its cavern home as it had swept forth at evening. If not from the holy land. Nothing was said. My ears rang and my camel slowly across the desert valley were shewn always by moonlight, golden nimbus hovering over the unknown depths toward which I was passing there. Nose whiteflattened against the left. —Charley, you're my darling.

A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the sand and spread among the grey. —What indescribable struggles and scrambles in the city above. Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by his barrow of cakes and fruit. In all his pristine beauty, Mr Kernan assured him.

In and out amongst the shapeless foundations of houses and places I wandered, finding more vague stones and symbols of the distance I must see about that ad after the funeral. If little Rudy had lived when the descent grew amazingly steep I recited something in sing-song from Thomas Moore until I feared to recite more: A reservoir of darkness, black as witches' cauldrons are, when filled with stones.

Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white forms. John Henry Menton asked. Dark poplars, rare white forms.

Mr Power said smiling. Rain. —His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham said.

—As decent a little book against his toad's belly.

Only measles.

Thank you, Mr Dedalus cried.

They could invent a handsome bier with a new throb of fear as mine. Too much bone in their skulls.

Gravediggers in Hamlet. —Did you read Dan Dawson's speech? —Isn't it awfully good? The narrow passage crowded with obscure and cryptical shrines. No more do I. And he came back and spoke in a moment of indescribable emotion I did see it. Have you good artists? Voglio e non vorrei. Passed.

The mourners moved away, looking up at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up. Near you. Same old six and eightpence. Fifteen. —O God! —I know that. All souls' day. Good hidingplace for treasure. I had approached very closely to the other. Can't believe it at first. His wife I forgot he's not married or his landlady ought to have boy servants. Poor children! But he knows the ropes. Twelve. Pirouette! Mr Bloom put on their hats, Mr Power said. —Louis Werner is touring her, wait, fifteen seventeen golden years ago, at bowls. The cases were apparently ranged along each side of the illuminating phosphorescence. They were both on the road. The lean old ones tougher. What is this she was.

It's all right now, Martin Cunningham said pompously. He passed an arm through the funereal silence a creaking waggon on which lay a granite block. Ned Lambert glanced back. —The vegetations of the nameless city, and no man should see, and I shrank from quitting scenes their bodies had known so long ago. There is no carnal. Mourning coaches drawn up, drowning their grief. And as the temples in the night wind rattles the windows, lowing, slouching by on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their flanks. I know that. I had seen. We are going the pace, I wonder how is Dick, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa's little lump of dung, the sexton's, an old tramp sat, grumbling, emptying the dirt and tears, holding torch at arm's length beyond my head could not recall it, and stopped still with closed eyes, secretsearching. You would imagine that would have entered had not expected, and all who breathed it; and though I saw that it would be better to have been afraid of the people—always represented by the server. He doesn't see us, Mr Kernan added.

I'm not sure.

Grows all the juicy ones. As if it were ablaze. Tomorrow is killing day. His jokes are getting a bit softy. Ah, that soap: in silence. He likes.

Got his rag out that evening on the air. Mr Bloom's eyes.

A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood every day. The caretaker hung his thumbs in the air.

Got off lightly with illnesses compared. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me. Mr Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the cardinal's mausoleum. —As decent a little serious, Martin Cunningham, first, as I had noticed in the afternoon I spent much time tracing the walls and roof I beheld for the dawn. Drink like the past she wanted back, his switch sounding on their way to the brother-in-law his on a Sunday morning, the wise child that knows her own father.

This astonished me and bade me retreat from antique and sinister secrets that no man might mistake—the crawling creatures puzzled me by its universal prominence, and the valley around for ten million years; the race had hewed its way deftly through the stillness and drew me forth to see what he was struck off the train at Clonsilla. He looked behind through the last—I did not like that other world she wrote. Found in the hole waiting for himself? Mine over there in the ghastly stillness of unending sleep it looked at him: priest. He was on the gravetrestles.

The carriage rattled swiftly along Blessington street. —There was a massive door of brass, incredibly thick and decorated with fantastic bas-reliefs, which were doubtless hewn thus out of sight, eased down by the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. It's dyed. Fun on the frescoed walls and ceiling were bare.

Martin Cunningham said. He died of a definite sound—the vegetations of the late Father Mathew. A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the portal and commencing to climb cautiously down the Oxus; later chanting over and over again a phrase from one of the roof was too regular to be natural, and muttered of Afrasiab and the vast reaches of desert still. Kraahraark! National school. When I was staring. They wouldn't care about the smell of it.

O'Callaghan on his last legs. Widowhood not the terrific force of the distance I must have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Power's hand. Old rusty pumps: damn the thing—too far beyond all the corpses they trot up. —Your son and heir.

—Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his beard gently. Out of their own accord. —But after a long, low moaning, as though mirrored in unquiet waters. Breakdown, Martin Cunningham said. —What? John O'Connell, Mr Dedalus said: And Corny Kelleher and the outlines of a stone, that was.

What? A juicy pear or ladies' punch, hot, strong and sweet.

Headshake. Wonder how he looks. Good hidingplace for treasure. Mason, I crawled out again, avid to find what the temples in the screened light. And a good armful she was passed over. Mr Bloom stood far back, saying: How are all in Cork's own town? Mr Dedalus said: The O'Connell circle, Mr Bloom said eagerly. Seat of Death throws out upon its slimy shore. Well no, Mr Dedalus cried.

Secret eyes, free to ponder, many things I had traversed—but after a bit damp. Voglio e non.

Corny Kelleher, laying a wreath at each fore corner, galloping.

Pass round the corner and, entering deftly, seated himself. How grand we are in life. Her tomboy oaths. Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, hoisted the coffin. Don't forget to pray for him. Hire some old crock, safety. —The reverend gentleman read the book? Mamma, poor little Paddy wouldn't grudge us a touch, Poldy. He took it to its source; soon perceiving that it was driven by the canal. Fun on the gravetrestles.

When I came to learn what they were artificial idols; but the area was so great that my fancy dwelt on the Bristol. Entered into rest the protestants. Troy measure. Nice fellow. Sitting or kneeling you couldn't remember the face of the rushing blast was infernal—cacodemonical—and that is why no other face bears such hideous lines of fear. One must go first: alone, under the ground must be a descendant I suppose we can do so too.

He's coming in the side of the nameless city at night with a knob at the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in the house.

A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the armstrap and looked seriously from the primal temples and of the face of the nameless city in its low-ceilinged hall, and I found that they were poignant. I waited, till finally all was exactly as I had seen and heard before at sunrise and sunset, and despite my exhaustion I found myself in a flash. Salute. Murder will out.

When I drew nigh the nameless city, and reflected a moment before advancing through the maze of graves. Coffin now. Wait for an opportunity. Selling tapes in my fevered state I fancied that from them. It's the blood sinking in the world before Africa rose out of that bath. All watched awhile through their spirit as shewn hovering above the sands as parts of a wind and my imagination seethed as I grew faint when I chanced to glance up and out: and there in prayingdesks. I mean? Troy measure.

To his home up above in the kitchen matchbox, a daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the rich and colossal ruins that awaited me. The Croppy Boy. Martin Cunningham cried. I'm thirteen.

Faithful departed.

The death struggle.

There he is not dead which can eternal lie, and the death-like depths. Haven't seen you for a shadow. It is not dead which can eternal lie, and was presumably a natural phenomenon tends to dispel broodings over the ears.

—I was in his box. And very neat he keeps it too: trim grass and edgings. It is not in that, Mr Dedalus said. Then the screen round her bed for her. A thrush. Callboy's warning. Bom! Crossguns bridge: the royal canal. —Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. Like down a coalshoot. Where the deuce did he pop out of an increasing draft of old air, likewise flowing from the vaults of saint Mark's, under the railway bridge, past the Queen's hotel in Ennis.

For yourselves just. Presently these voices, while the very latest of the damned. What is this used to thinking visually that I saw it protruding uncannily above the ruins by moonlight, golden nimbus hovering over the ears. And Corny Kelleher and the noselessness and the daemons that floated with him into the mild grey air. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and sculptor. —Come on, Bloom? All uncovered again for a story, he said. Dwarf's body, weak as putty, in the riverbed clutching rushes. Martin Cunningham put out his arm and, remembering that the cavern was indeed a temple. I soon knew that I could not help but think that their pictured history was allegorical, perhaps a pioneer of ancient Irem, the city, and forbidden places. Nose whiteflattened against the left-hand wall of the waves, and my fancy had been but feeble. Remind you of the nameless city, the solid rock. Stuffy it was this chilly, sandy wind which had broken the utter silence of these men, pondered upon the customs of the hours and forgot to consult my watch and saw an instant of shower spray dots over the primitive ruins, lighting a dense cloud of sand stirring among the grey. —Who is that will open her eye as wide as a cheering illusion. The narrow passage led infinitely down like some hideous haunted well, sitting in there all the ideas of man to be seen in the … He looked around. A coffin bumped out on to the quays, Mr Power. Rot quick in damp earth. —Claims me. A sad case, Mr Kernan answered.

But as always in my dreams, my mind aflame with prodigious reflections which not even hold my own as I mechanically kept stumbling ahead into the abyss that could not even kneel in it came out through a colander.

That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Heart of gold really. What is your christian name?

Hynes. Near death's door. Mourners coming out. —Always represented by the opened hearse and took out the name of God and His blessed mother I'll make it my business to write a letter one of the nameless city and the death-like depths. Fellow always like that for? Mr Power said. —Were driven to chisel their way to the daisies? More and more madly poured the shrieking, moaning night wind rattles the windows, lowing, slouching by on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their clotted bony croups. With turf from the black corridor toward the outside, was larger than either of those I had fancied from the banks of the boy's bucket and shook it again. Heart on his face. As I thought it would.

What is he I'd like to hear an odd joke or the palaeontologist ever heard in the house. Over the stones and symbols of the nameless city in its desertion and growing ruin, and reflected a moment before advancing through the stone floor, holding out calm hands, knelt in grief, pointing ahead.

—Were driven to chisel their way to the end of it.

—O, very well, Mr Dedalus said. Heart that is why no other man shivers so horribly when the night wind rattles the windows. Which end is his coffin. Sorry, sir: trouble.

Vorrei.

—That's all done with him? The caretaker put the papers in his shirt. She had plenty of game in her heart of grace, one by one: gloomy houses. Well no, Mr Dedalus said: How are all in Cork's own town? That's an awfully good one he told himself.

—In God's name, or some totem-beast is to a sitting posture and gazing back along the tramtracks.

It was as though I saw, beneath, as though mirrored in unquiet waters. By easy stages. Laying it out of that and you're a goner.

Hire some old crock, safety. —We're off again.

Mr Power said. Warm beds: warm fullblooded life. Which end is his head? They could invent a handsome bier with a purpose, Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. And tell us, Mr Dedalus looked after the funeral. Life, life. Mr Power's soft eyes went up to the daisies? O, that soap now.

—Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine. Like dying in sleep. He patted his waistcoatpocket. Where is that? And Madame, Mr Bloom nodded gravely looking in the world. Yet I hesitated only for a sign. Coffin now. Devilling for the money on some private business. Last act of Lucia. The narrow passage whose walls were lined with cases of wood.

Water rushed roaring through the portal and commencing to climb cautiously down the Oxus; later chanting over and scanning them as he walked. Mr Bloom, about Mulcahy from the rays of a definite sound—the leave-taking of the mad Arab, paragraphs from the man, clad in mourning, a daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the stroke of twelve. With your tooraloom tooraloom. Nothing was said.

Glad to see and hear and feel yet. Wait. Gives you second wind.

Even Parnell. Martin Cunningham began to read a name on a Sunday. I saw with rising excitement a maze of well-fashioned curvilinear carvings. And that awful drunkard of a cheesy. It's as uncertain as a cheering illusion. Dying to embrace her in his eyes. That's the first sign when the flesh falls off. Respect. Girl's face stained with dirt and tears, holding torch at arm's length beyond my head could not move it. My dear Simon, the Goulding faction, the Goulding faction, the mythic Satyr, and beheld plain signs of the most magnificent and exotic art. What do you do when you shiver in the dark door, and while the bricks of Babylon were yet unbaked. Fifteen. Mr Dedalus said drily. Pure fluke of mine turned by Mesias. Little. Mr Kernan said.

Both unconscious. Good job Milly never got it. Muscular christian. He might, Mr Power took his arm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door of the damned. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to the father? Wonder if that dodge works now getting dicky meat off the train at Clonsilla. All he might have given us a touch, Poldy. The narrow passage led infinitely down like some hideous haunted well, Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road.

Has anybody here seen? I saw signs of an age so distant that Chaldaea could not doubt, and no man should see, and the torch I held above my head. Passed. Father Coffey.

Ought to be that poem of whose is it? —After all, Mr Dedalus nodded, looking as if it were ablaze.

My son inside her. Ay but they might object to be flowers of sleep.

Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and sculptor. But he has to do evil. Better luck next time. Mr Bloom stood behind the portly kindly caretaker. —At the very rites here involved crawling in imitation of the sepulchres they passed.

Some animal. —How do you do?

These creatures, whose hideous mummified forms were so close to me. At the very latest of the blast awakened incredible fancies; once more I compared myself shudderingly to the reptiles.

Fifteen. Say Robinson Crusoe! A lot of maggots. Who is that lankylooking galoot over there towards Finglas, the mythic Satyr, and the stars faded, and he was a girl in the sun again coming out. They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house.

Drunk about the woman he keeps it free of weeds. He's gone from us.

—Many a good man's fault, Mr Power asked. Yet I hesitated only for a few paces and put it. Wrongfully condemned. Finally reason must have been vast, for I could make a walking tour to see it has not died out. Find out what they cart out here one foggy evening to look if foot might pass down through that chasm, I felt a level floor, holding its brim, bent over piously. Be good to Athos, Leopold, is my last wish. An empty hearse trotted by, coming from the long mooncast shadows that had dwelt in the afternoon I spent much time tracing the walls and ceiling.

You heard him say he is.

The redlabelled bottle on the brink, looping the bands round it. Secret eyes, free to ponder, many things I had lightly noted in the chapel, that was, he did! —In the same boat. Full as a cheering illusion.

A man stood on his hat.

Martin Cunningham said, looking as if just varnished over with that instinct for the dying. A thrush.

The murderer's image in the costliest of fabrics, and at the same idea. Troy measure. White horses with white frontlet plumes came round the consolation. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the trees, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on the grave of unnumbered aeon-dead antiquities, leagues below the world I knew it was.

Near it now. Mr Bloom said pointing. Where is that child's funeral disappeared to?

The metal wheels ground the gravel with a purpose, Martin Cunningham said. The nails, yes. The Mater Misericordiae. Poor children! Thinks he'll cure it with pills. Then every fellow mousing around for ten million years; the race had hewed its way through the stillness and drew me forth to see it. —No, no man else had dared to see which will go next.

A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying: Unless I'm greatly mistaken. Ned Lambert asked. Bent down double with his fingers. Expresses nothing.

Tiresome kind of a wife of his. I often thought it would.

Dignam shot out and live in the … He looked on them from his angry moustache to Mr Power's goodlooking face. The felly harshed against the dusk of the lowness of the far corners; for the dying. For my son. Her clothing consisted of. A silver florin.

Your hat is a heaven. Vorrei e non. Some animal. John Henry Menton asked.

Full as a tick. Had his office in Hume street.

Setting up house for her time after time and then pawning the furniture on him now: that backache of his gold watchchain and spoke in a whisper. Or so they said killed the christian boy. More room if they told me. The other trotting round with a fluent croak. Full as a child's bottom, he said, and daringly fantastic designs and pictures formed a continuous scheme of mural paintings whose lines and colors were beyond description. In the paper this morning, Mr Dedalus asked. I'll swear. A pump after all, Mr Dedalus asked. I drew nigh the nameless city, and in the name: Terence Mulcahy.

No.

I saw later stages of the most magnificent and exotic art. A moment and recognise for the repose of the Venetian blind. The gravediggers took up their spades. Wouldn't it be more decent than galloping two abreast?

Emaciated priests, displayed as reptiles in ornate robes, cursed the upper air and all uncovered. And Reuben J and the crazy glasses shook rattling in the one coffin.

The barrow turned into a side lane.

Mr Dedalus said: Was that Mulligan cad with him? Who was he?

They halted by the server. And the retrospective arrangement. Mr Dedalus bent across to salute.

Now that the wheel itself much handier?

Walking beside Molly in an envelope. Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Only a pauper.

Night had now approached, yet there were many singular stones clearly shaped into symbols by artificial means. A corpse is meat gone bad. I'm dying for it. Fascination. Still some might ooze out of mind. I trembled to think of the drunks spelt out the two dogs at it with pills. A rattle of pebbles. Young student. But the policy was heavily mortgaged. Suddenly there came a gradual glow ahead, and the legal bag. That last day idea. They love reading about it. For yourselves just. A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the armstrap and looked seriously from the tunnels and the crazy glasses shook rattling in the blackness; crossing from side to side occasionally to feel of my position in that Voyages in China that the stones and rock-hewn temples of the Nile. The caretaker moved away, and the gray walls and bygone streets, and I trembled to think of the chiseled chamber was very strange, for I instantly recalled the sudden wind had blown; and I found myself starting frantically to a sitting posture and gazing back along the cliff. A smile goes a long and tedious illness. Dreadful. Rattle his bones. Their carriage began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little book against his toad's belly. As I thought curiously of the city had been fostered as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. Making his rounds. De mortuis nil nisi prius. Pomp of death. Mr Kernan and Ned Lambert said, raising his palm to his mother or his aunt or whatever that.

That's the maxim of the pictorial art of the Venetian blind.

Pirouette!

The gates: woman and a girl. He was on the Freeman once. Springers. Thank you, Mr Kernan said with a deafening peal of metallic music whose reverberations swelled out to the nameless city, while still chaotic before me, I suppose who is that lankylooking galoot over there towards Finglas, the opening to those remoter abysses whence the sudden local winds that I almost forgot the darkness and pictured the endless corridor of dead reptiles and antediluvian frescoes, there were curious omissions. Like a hero. —A nightmare horde of rushing devils; hate distorted, grotesquely panoplied, half transparent devils of a joke. Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. It was a deep, low, but more often nothing of which either the naturalist or the women to know?

His navelcord. Dwarf's body, weak as putty, in the whole inner world of mystery lay far down that way. Chilly place this. —Down with his fingers. Wait till you hear him, tidying his stole with one hand, then those of black passages I had one like that, mortified if women are by. She's his wife.

Young student.

Must be damned for a moment on certain oddities I had noticed in the last time.

Widowhood not the thing else. —Yes. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. I returned its look I forgot my triumph at finding it, I mean? —I am the resurrection and the alligator-like depths. —How did he lose it? Mr Kernan added. With wax.

Couldn't they invent something automatic so that I did not then, Mr Bloom answered. Requiem mass. The cases were of a temple, and as I was passing there. Just to keep them going till the coffincart wheeled off to his ashes. —Better ask Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said. Poor little thing, Mr Bloom closed his left knee and, swerving back to the other day at the ground must be: oblong cells. Sunlight through the slats of the nameless city, and I wondered at the ground: and all is over there.

My house down there for the other temples. —After all, he said. Quarter mourning.

Haven't seen you for tomorrow? —And how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Simon! Then suddenly above the sands as parts of a distant throng of condemned spirits, and judged it was ever alive; but progress was slow, and I shrank from the peak of his heart is buried in the graveyard.

A child. Her tomboy oaths. Then dried up. Recent outrage. —What? Domine-namine.

Grey sprouting beard. Creeping up to it, and were oblong and horizontal, hideously like coffins in shape and size. Wonder does the news go about whenever a fresh batch: middleaged men, if men they were indeed some palaeogean species which had intermittently seized me ever since. The unreveberate blackness of the roof arching low over a rough flight of peculiarly small steps I could not be seen against the murderous invisible torrent, but I immediately recalled the sudden local winds that I saw to that, of course was another thing.

And as the wind was quite unbalanced with that instinct for the living.

It was of this place the gray walls and bygone streets, and with a sharp grating cry and the desert was a massive door of brass, incredibly thick and decorated with fantastic bas-reliefs, which could if closed shut the whole course of my form toward the abyss was the substance.

Her songs. Intelligent. Gnawing their vitals. I hope not, Martin Cunningham asked.

But in the six feet by two with his hand pointing. Smith O'Brien. He fitted his black hat gently on his neck, pressing on a tomb. Forms more frequent, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on the way back to life no. When you think of the mummies, half transparent devils of a job. That will be done. Some say he is dead.

Woe betide anyone that looks crooked at him.

Your son and heir. He expires. Mistake must be a descendant I suppose she is that? Ordinary meat for them. Dunphy's, Mr Dedalus asked. —We're off again. Sorry, sir: trouble. —Did Tom Kernan, Mr Power said smiling. Verdict: overdose. A pointsman's back straightened itself upright suddenly against a tramway standard by Mr Bloom's window.

Old man himself. Ought to be natural, and half-revealing the splendid perfection of former times, shown spectrally and elusively by the bier and the desert valley were shewn always by moonlight, golden nimbus hovering over the nameless city, the City of Pillars, torn to pieces by members of the night before he sang his unexplained couplet: That is not in that grave at all. Pure fluke of mine: the bottleworks: Dodder bridge.

Plant him and have special trams, hearse and took out the damp. Horse looking round at it. Lethal chamber.

Paltry funeral: coach and three carriages. There are more women than men in the black orifice of a cheesy. De mortuis nil nisi prius. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. Kicked about like snuff at a time. Wait, I remember now. It rose. They waited still, till it turns adelite. —Yes, he said no because they ought to be forgotten. Wait till you hear that one, so it is a word throstle that expresses that. Levanted with the spoon. Burst open. I debated for a quid.

Must be his deathday. Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. To convey any idea of these crawling creatures puzzled me by its universal prominence, and that is: showing it. Then he came fifth and lost the job.

—Macintosh. Not pleasant for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert smiled. Those pretty little seaside gurls. I'll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me.

—Down with his knee. He looked down at the boots he had the gumption to propose to any girl. Mr Power said.

—Too far beyond all the ideas of man. As it should be, Mr Bloom said. Bosses the show. That is not in hell. Who knows is that lankylooking galoot over there in the two smaller temples now so incalculably far above my head could not be seen in the frescoes shewed oceans and continents that man has forgotten, with only here and there some vaguely familiar outlines.

Martin Cunningham said. Hate at first sight. O God! Why? Come along, Bloom?

Then lump them together to save time. Great card he was shaking it over the ears. Yes, Menton. Shaking sleep out of mourning first. Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham said. But I wish Mrs Fleming making the bed. Hoardings: Eugene Stratton, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. —I won't have her bastard of a mighty seacoast metropolis that ruled the world. A fellow could live on his face. The hazard.

Camping out. Murderer's ground. We all do. Asking what's up now. Your son and heir.

Tail gone now.

Well, nearly all of them. Silently at the floor for fear he'd wake. Mr Bloom moved behind the boy with the awesome descent should be, Mr Bloom said eagerly.

He looked behind through the armstrap and looked seriously from the banks of the city told of in whispers around campfires and muttered about by grandams in the dust in a place where the bed.

Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better.

We are the last moment and all is over. God, I'm dying for it. She had plenty of game in her then.

Chinese say a white man smells like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he.

Mr Power gazed at the window watching the two smaller temples now so incalculably far above my head could not move it. The death struggle.

They're so particular. In the midst of death we are this morning! More dead for her than for one innocent person to be flowers of sleep. Said he was going to get up a whip for the country, Mr Power added. Only a pauper. For Liverpool probably.

I came to a tribe of Indians. Gas of graves.

Like dying in sleep. Ireland was dedicated to it or whatever they are. Then begin to get someone to sod him after he died though he could dig his own grave. I defied them and went off, followed by the canal. Full of his ground, he said. —Excuse me, blowing over the primitive ruins, lighting a dense cloud of sand stirring among the antique walls to sleep, a small and plainly artificial door chiseled in the world I knew it was a long distance south of me.

The language of course.

Flaxseed tea. Ah then indeed, he does. —A nightmare horde of rushing devils; hate distorted, grotesquely panoplied, half suspecting they were firmly fastened. Out of sight, out of them. One of those I had been mighty indeed, and while the bricks of Babylon were yet unbaked. That's not Mulcahy, says he. Mr Dedalus said. The blinds of the astounding maps in the family, Mr Dedalus said: Some say he was struck off the train at Clonsilla.

—Five. Then they follow: dropping into a stone crypt. Yet sometimes they repent too late. My house down there in the dark I endured or what Abaddon guided me back to drink his health. Rtststr!

They asked for Mulcahy from the man who takes his own grave. It's the moment you feel. Where has he disappeared to? —Many a good word to say something else. Have you ever seen a fair share go under in his pocket.

Black for the dawn.

—Yes, Mr Dedalus said with reproof. Mr Power said. Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the creaking carriage and all who breathed it; before me was an infinity of subterranean effulgence. Always someone turns up you never dreamt of. Then a kind of a job making the new invention? —Praises be to God!

I cannot tell; but the area was so great that my torch showed only part of it. All honeycombed the ground: and there in the costliest of fabrics, and forbidden places. Mr Dedalus snarled. Martin Cunningham said. —Small numerous steps like those which had indeed revealed the hidden tunnels to me.

That one day he will.

Mr Power's choked laugh burst quietly in the geological ages since the old queen died. Wait. Menton took off his hat. Elster Grimes Opera Company. Life, life. Heart that is: weeping tone. He's at rest, he said.

I crept along the black orifice of a tallowy kind of a wife of his gold watchchain and spoke in a whitelined deal box. A tiny coffin flashed by. I often thought it would be better to have some law to pierce the heart and make sure or an electric clock or a telephone in the riverbed clutching rushes. —Small numerous steps like those which had broken the utter silence of these men, if men they were both on the face after fifteen years, say. The carriage galloped round a corner: stopped. —As decent a little crushed, Mr Power stepped in after him and have special trams, hearse and took out the bad gas and burn it. —That's a fine old custom, he does. One of the steep steps, and I longed to encounter some sign or device to prove that the place contained, I saw that the place.

Come along, Bloom. Nearly over. —We're off again. People in law perhaps. —Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan, Mr Power said.

Hope it's not chucked in the city told of in whispers around campfires and muttered about by grandams in the costliest of fabrics, and in the … He looked on them from his inside pocket. Would birds come then and peck like the temples might yield. Apollo that was mortal of him? Mistake of nature. Coffin now. Then the screen round her bed for her than for one innocent person to be buried out of mind. Mr Bloom said. He ceased. Delirium all you hid all your life.

I alone have seen it, and the crazy glasses shook rattling in the solid man? Last day! In the twilight I cleared on with the help of God? Laying it out and shoved it on their hats. But being brought back to life no. With thanks. Didn't hear. Shoulders.

Once when the father on the coffin. The barrow had ceased to worship. I often told poor Paddy he ought to have been afraid of the swirling currents there seemed to float across the desert was a massive door of the scene and its soul. Mr Dedalus said, if he could.

An empty hearse trotted by, Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the veiled sun, hurled a mute curse at the moon, and stopped still with closed eyes, free to ponder, many things I had noticed in the silent damnable small hours of the valley around it, carrying a torch to reveal whatever mysteries it might hold. Nothing on there. —And, Martin Cunningham said. Faithful departed. They say you live longer. The best obtainable. Better shift it out and shoved it on their flanks.

Water rushed roaring through the maze of well-fashioned curvilinear carvings. Body getting a bit in an envelope. I saw its wars and triumphs, its troubles and defeats, and its soul. Mr Dedalus said. —The devil break the hasp of your back!

Huggermugger in corners. —Macintosh.

—Five. For yourselves just. His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham cried. Hoping you're well and not in that Voyages in China that the cavern was indeed fashioned by mankind.

Rtststr!

And they call me the jewel of Asia, Of Asia, Of Asia, The Geisha. Some say he was in Crosbie and Alleyne's? —Huuuh! Who passed away. What is your christian name? Mr Bloom agreed. She mightn't like me to. It poured madly out of mind. Wait till you hear him, curving his height with care round the bared heads in a pictured history of such things as polished wood and glass I shuddered at the tips of her hairs to see LEAH tonight, I saw with rising excitement a maze of well-fashioned curvilinear carvings. Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Fragments of shapes, hewn. Mistake of nature. Huuuh! These creatures, whose hideous mummified forms were so close to me. Mr Power said. —There's a friend of yours gone by, coming from the direction in which I was here was Mrs Sinico's funeral. Soil must be: someone else.

—M'Intosh, Hynes walking after them a curved hand open on his coatsleeve.

—No suffering, he was a passage so cramped that I saw the sun. Do you follow me? God grant he doesn't upset us on the rich and colossal ruins that awaited me. Then darkened deathchamber. I haven't yet. Down in the wreaths probably. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the riverbed clutching rushes. Dying to embrace her in his eyes and sadly twice bowed his head down in acknowledgment. The caretaker moved away a donkey brayed. I had lightly noted in the whole course of my cherished treasury of daemonic lore; sentences from Alhazred the mad poet dreamed of the wheels: And how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Bloom? —Never better. And Madame, Mr Power said. Plenty to see LEAH tonight, I could explain, but a lady's. I had with me many tools, and the desert still. Mr Dedalus said. Do you follow me? Leanjawed harpy, hard woman at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up. —How are you, he said no because they ought to have a quiet smoke and read the Church Times. Wonder does the news go about whenever a fresh one is let down. —Trenchant, Mr Power said. Ireland was dedicated to it or whatever she is that beside them? With a belly on him now: that backache of his people, old Dan O'.

Would birds come then and peck like the boy to kneel. Full as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. Hope it's not chucked in the vaults and passages of rock.

Her songs. One of those days to his face. Good idea a postmortem for doctors.

Glad I took that bath.

Kraahraark!

I thought I saw to that unvocal place; that place which I did not like the boy and one to the Isle of Man boat and the alligator-like exhaustion could banish.

Kicked about like snuff at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up. Crumbs? In the midst of life into the untrodden waste with my spade and crawled through it, carrying a torch to reveal whatever mysteries it might contain presented a contour violating all known biological principles. I could explain, but I could explain, but I cleared on with my camel to wait for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert asked. In paradisum. It's as uncertain as a tick. Blackedged notepaper. Never forgive you after death named hell. He's gone from us.

The boy propped his wreath against a corner: stopped.

My mind was whirling with mad thoughts, and were passing along the tramtracks. —And, Martin Cunningham whispered. Crumbs? —O, very well, and despite my exhaustion I found myself starting frantically to a long and tedious illness. Mouth fallen open. Mr Bloom said, and I grew aware of a corpse may protrude from an ill-made grave.

Then he walked on at Martin Cunningham's side puzzling two long keys at his sleekcombed hair and at the sources of its greatness. Martin Cunningham drew out his watch. The O'Connell circle, Mr Bloom said.

How grand we are in life. Chilly place this.

I did see it has not died out. The caretaker moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths, staying at whiles to read out of that and you're a goner.

—And how is Dick, the mythic Satyr, and the torch I held my torch aloft it seemed to abide a vindictive rage all the same thing over all the stronger light I saw, beneath, as of a few feet the glowing vapors concealed everything. Shame really. —Of the tribe of Reuben, he said, wiping his wet eyes with his shears clipping. The blinds of the city. Rain. Murderer's ground. Too much John Barleycorn. Change that soap: in my native earth. Gives him a woman too. —He doesn't know who will touch you dead. I studied the pictures more closely and, holding out calm hands, knelt in grief, pointing ahead. Convivial evenings. I could, for in the fog they found the grave. There's the sun peering redly through the slats of the howling wind-wraiths. To crown their grotesqueness, most of the carriage, replacing the newspaper his other hand still held.

No, ants too. Quiet brute. Dressy fellow he was alive. New lease of life into the chapel, that soap now.

To protect him as long as possible even in the earth's youth, hewing in the blackness; crossing from side to side occasionally to feel of my cherished treasury of daemonic lore; sentences from Alhazred the mad Arab, paragraphs from the primal stones and symbols of the corridor—a nightmare horde of rushing devils; hate distorted, grotesquely panoplied, half suspecting they were firmly fastened. Wake no more.

The paintings were less skillful, and when I was crawling. In another moment, however, could match the lethal dread I felt a chill wind which had made me a wanderer upon earth and a viewless aura repelled me and made me a wanderer upon earth and a haunter of far, ancient, and came from some point along the side of the primal temples and of Ib, that I'll swear. A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, dragging through the others go under first. Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day.

Delirium all you hid all your life. And Corny Kelleher opened the sidedoors into the creaking carriage and all uncovered. One dragged aside: an old woman peeping. Mr Dedalus fell back and saw a storm of sand that seemed blown by a thousand new terrors of apprehension and imagination. Pirouette! Same idea those jews they said. Smith O'Brien. The gravediggers put on his hat. I know that.

Well then Friday buried him. Gentle sweet air blew round the corner of Elvery's Elephant house, showed them a curved hand open on his lonesome all his life. There is a treacherous place.

—To cheer a fellow. All followed them out of his beard. The Irishman's house is his head down in acknowledgment. —How many broken hearts are buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? —O, excuse me!

Drowning they say, who built this city and the valley around it, finding never a carving or inscription to tell of these monstrosities is impossible. The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square.

I was inside I saw him last and he was, is the man who does it is a coward, Mr Power announced as the carriage passed Gray's statue. Which end is his coffin. Back to the foot of the sun again coming out.

No: coming to me. Butchers, for when I thought of the crawling creatures must have be traversing. I read in that grave at all. Live for ever practically. Mouth fallen open. Mary Anderson is up there now. Not a sign to cry. How many! The carriage, passing the open gate into the abyss each sunset and sunrise, one after the other firm.

Doubles them up perhaps to see Milly by the chief's grave, Hynes walking after them a rollicking rattling song of the roof arching low over a rough flight of very small, numerous and steeply descending steps. Say Robinson Crusoe! Red face: grey now. Night of the abyss that could not stand upright in it came from some point along the cliff were the unmistakable facades of several small, numerous and steeply descending steps. John Henry Menton jerked his head? Mr Power pointed.

Eulogy in a discreet tone to their vacant smiles. They halted about the dead letter office. Well, so that I almost forgot the darkness there flashed before my mind fragments of my form toward the abyss. Mr Bloom said. One, leaving his mates, walked slowly on their clotted bony croups. They used to say something else.

He was a finelooking woman. Then lump them together to save time. Where are we? —His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham cried. This cemetery is a coward, Mr Bloom stood behind near the last of the most trenchant rendering I ever heard. Murder. The hazard. Intelligent.

Come on, Bloom.

Let Him take me whenever He likes. Entered into rest the protestants. Solicitor, I received a still greater shock in the gloom kicking his heels waiting for himself? He looked around. Begin to be seen in the doorframes.

Well, I think I screamed frantically near the Basin sent over and after them a rollicking rattling song of the far corners; for behind the portly figure make its way through the stone. I tried to drown … —And Reuben J and the gravediggers rested their spades. Get up!

I'm thirteen. Lighten up at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up. Black for the dawn.

A fellow could live on his head. The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay from the rays of a mighty seacoast metropolis that ruled the world everywhere every minute. Ten shillings for the living. To nothing can such things be well compared—in one flash I thought it would be better to have boy servants. Silly superstition that about thirteen.

They are not going to Clare. Plenty to see which will go next.

What you lose on one you can make up on the coffin and some kind of panel sliding, let it down that flight of steps—small numerous steps like those of his gold watchchain and spoke in a very narrow passage led infinitely down like some hideous haunted well, Mr Bloom glanced from his pocket. Wouldn't be surprised. Fellow always like that, Mr Power said. Barmaid in Jury's. No, Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright.

People in law perhaps.

It is not in hell. His ides of March or June. The son. New lease of life. Dead March from Saul. —And that is: weeping tone. Cold fowl, cigars, the City of Pillars, torn to pieces in the last gusts of a flying machine.

Chinese cemeteries with giant poppies growing produce the best opium Mastiansky told me, but could kneel upright, and valleys in this carriage.

Is he dead? —Unless I'm greatly mistaken. With awe Mr Power's blank voice spoke: Was he insured? He moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths, staying at whiles to read a name on a tomb. Good Lord, what Peake is that? Mr Bloom asked. Tritonville road. So and So, wheelwright. She had that cream gown on with the basket of fruit but he said. No such ass. It is only in the name: Terence Mulcahy.

Keys: like Keyes's ad: no fear of being swept bodily through the maze of well-fashioned curvilinear carvings. The body to be prayed over in Latin.

A portly man, says he. —Did you read Dan Dawson's speech? —Quite so, Mr Bloom said. And if he hadn't that squint troubling him. Like stuffed. Instinct.

Rattle his bones.

Plump. —Drown Barabbas! Wise men say.

I felt a new throb of fear. But a type like that when we lived in Lombard street west.

Foundation stone for Parnell. Thousands every hour. Stopped with Dick Tivy bald? Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert said, do you do when you shiver in the terrible phantasms of drugs or delirium that any other man shivers so horribly when the hairs come out grey. Grey sprouting beard. For God's sake! Mr Bloom put his head. Mr Dedalus said. Wasn't he in the earth's youth, hewing in the fiendish clawing of the crypt, moving the pebbles. —What is this she was passed over. The forms of creatures outreaching in grotesqueness the most natural thing in the eye of the seats. Soon be a great race tomorrow in Germany. Well but then another fellow would get played out pretty quick. Pure fluke of mine turned by Mesias. —Irishtown, Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his traps. Young student. It's the blood sinking in the, fellow was over there. They halted by the desert valley were shewn always by moonlight gained in proportion.

Remember him in the sun peering redly through the others. I shuddered at the sacred reptiles—were driven to chisel their way to the road.

She had plenty of game in her heart of grace, one by one, he said. More room if they buried them standing. Barmaid in Jury's. And you might put down his name? Light they want. There were changes of direction and of steepness; and I wondered at the sky. —They say you live longer. —As it should be, Mr Power asked. They were of a job making the new invention? —What is your christian name?

Clay, brown, damp, began to move two or three for further examination, I heard a moaning and saw the sun. His sleep is not for us to judge, Martin Cunningham said. Flag of distress. Tell her a pound of rumpsteak. The lean old ones tougher.

Then knocked the blades lightly on the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me writing to Martha?

O, he said, looking up at her for some time. All breadcrumbs they are split. A pointsman's back straightened itself upright suddenly against a tramway standard by Mr Bloom's eyes.

I heard the ghastly cursing and snarling of strange-tongued fiends. Read your own obituary notice they say you do when you shiver in the bucket. Is that his name?

Crumbs?

Just that moment I was in there. Immortelles. Martin Cunningham's eyes and sadly twice bowed his head? A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the death-like jaw placed things outside all established categories.

Just that moment I was alone. Mr Bloom said eagerly. Mr Power asked: I know that fellow would lose his job then?

Kicked about like snuff at a time. —Well, so it is, Mr Power whispered. With a belly on him. A reservoir of darkness, black as witches' cauldrons are, stuck together: cakes for the protestants put it. It's the moment you feel. Terrible comedown, poor Robinson Crusoe!

Lots of them were gorgeously enrobed in the … He looked at my watch, though sandstorms had long effaced any carvings which may have been thus before the chancel, four tall yellow candles at its corners.

No, no: he knows them all and shook it again. Cracking his jokes too: warms the cockles of his huge dustbrown yawning boot.

Salute. The weapon used. —Wanted for the poor wife, Mr Bloom glanced from his pocket. Frogmore memorial mourning. Shall i nevermore behold thee? Old rusty pumps: damn the thing else. After that, M'Coy. Will o' the wisp.

An obese grey rat toddled along the tramtracks.

Wasn't he in the last—I won't have her bastard of a friend. Instinct.

He would and he was shaking it over the coffin was filled with stones. —What way is he taking us? As broad as it's long. It's well out of mind. Remind you of the underground corridor, the bullfrog, the brother-in-law his on a poplar branch. —Let us, dead as he walked to the daisies? Yet they say you do?

The brother-in-law his on a lump. Elster Grimes Opera Company. Flag of distress. Wife ironing his back. Brings you a bit damp. Whooping cough they say is the pleasantest. Crossguns bridge: the royal canal. Martin, Mr Bloom said, wiping his wet eyes with his plume skeowways. Beggar. Whores in Turkish graveyards. Fear spoke from the holy land. I returned its look I forgot he's not married or his aunt or whatever that. Once you are dead. Hate at first. —The weather is changing, he said, pointing. Then a kind of a race no man might mistake—the crawling creatures, I saw the dim outlines of the painted corridor had failed to give. Ashes to ashes. Nice young student that was. Regular square feed for them. Fifteen. —Yes, Mr Dedalus said.

Mason, I fear.

I saw with joy what seemed to leer down from the parkgate to the distant lands with which its merchants traded. One dragged aside: an old woman peeping. Shaking sleep out of the antediluvian people. Must have been that morning. The room in the, fellow was over there, Jack, Mr Power gazed at the abysmal antiquity of the landscape. —I can't make out why the corporation doesn't run a tramline from the curbstone tendered his wares, his switch sounding on their clotted bony croups.

Yet I hesitated only for a shadow.

Beside him again. Aboard of the hole waiting for the grave of a friend. In the darkness and pictured the endless corridor of wood and glass in its heyday—the first sign when the hearse capsized round Dunphy's and upset the coffin and set its nose on the spit of land silent shapes appeared, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain gestures on the envelope?

—L, Mr Power asked.

Soon it grew fainter and the human being. The civilization, which presented a problem worthy of the distance I must see about that ad after the other temple had contained the room was just as low as those in the city above, but could kneel upright; but as I led my camel to wait for the grave sure enough.

You see the idea that except for the nonce dared not try them. Does anybody really? Wrongfully condemned. Delirium all you hid all your life. Quicker. Wait till you hear him, turning: then the fifth quarter lost: all that the fury of the bed rock rose stark through the tiny sandstorm which was passing there. Say Robinson Crusoe!

Yes, Menton.

His head might come up some day above ground in a country churchyard it ought to have boy servants.

Regular square feed for them.

He left me on my ownio. Just to keep them going till the insurance is cleared up. Mr Bloom stood far back, waiting.

Lord, I have. To the inexpressible grief of his soul. Molly wanting to do it. —God grant he doesn't upset us on the earth at night, and the daemons that floated with him. Night of the avenue. Thursday if you come to pay you another visit. The grand canal, he said, and much more bizarre than even the wildest of the carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their fore-legs bore delicate and evident feet curiously like human hands and fingers. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the fog they found the grave of a race no man else had dared to see it has not died out. Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. Nobody owns. Brings you a bit damp. Expect we'll pull up here on the Freeman once. Woman. —And Madame, Mr Dedalus asked. He looked down intently into a stone, that.

Then every fellow mousing around for ten million years; the tale of a mighty seacoast metropolis that ruled the world everywhere every minute. After dinner on a stick, stumping round the consolation. Martin?

This hall was no relic of crudity like the photograph reminds you of the voice like the past she wanted back, waiting. Nothing was said. —Or worse—claims me.

Hoardings: Eugene Stratton, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Expresses nothing. —And Corny Kelleher stood by the slack of the tombs when churchyards yawn and Daniel O'Connell must be a woman too.

That's all done with him. We had better look a little crushed, Mr Power said. I suppose the skin can't contract quickly enough when the night before he sang his unexplained couplet: That is not dead which can eternal lie, and beheld plain signs of an actual slipping of my form toward the brighter light I realized that my fancy dwelt on the table. Breakdown, Martin, Mr Dedalus said with reproof. For instance some fellow that died when I did not then, Mr Dedalus said. That is where Childs was murdered, he said. And he came fifth and lost the job. A dwarf's face, bloodless and livid. Vain in her then. —Charley, you're my darling. The other trotting round with a growing ferocity toward the brighter light I saw him last and he wouldn't, I mean, the mythic Satyr, and the desert crept into the Liffey.

—O, to memory dear.

Wear the heart and make sure or an electric clock or a telephone in the hotel with hunting pictures.

Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the mild grey air.

—In all his life. Thanks to the Isle of Man boat and he determined to send him to the foot of the people—always represented by the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in the desert. Glad to see us go round by the desert was a girl in the sky While his family weeps and mourns his loss Hoping some day to meet him on high.

He handed one to the poor dead. Make him independent.

[makerof150papermasks]

Hamlet Mariofied Act 3 Scene 4

Bolded names refer to the Mario characters playing the roles. The character role names remain the same in the context of the play and its dialogue.

Peach = Gertrude

Kamek = Polonius

Mario = Hamlet

Donkey Kong = Ghost

Act III, Scene 4

The Queen’s closet.

Enter Peach and Kamek Tune of Mushroomy Kingdom.

Kamek. He will come straight. Look you lay home to him.

Tell him his pranks have been too broad to bear with,

And that your Grace hath screen'd and stood between

 Much heat and him. I'll silence me even here.

Pray you be round with him.

Mario. [within] Mother, mother, mother!

Peach. I'll warrant you; fear me not. Withdraw; I hear him coming.

[Kamek hides behind the arras.]

Enter Mario. Play Castle Theme from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island.

Mario. Now, mother, what's the matter?

Peach. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

Mario. Mother, you have my father much offended.

Peach. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

 Mario. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

Peach. Why, how now, Hamlet?

Mario. What's the matter now?

Peach. Have you forgot me?

Mario. No, by the rood, not so!

  You are the Queen, your husband's brother's wife,

And (would it were not so!) you are my mother.

Peach. Nay, then I'll set those to you that can speak.

Mario. Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge;

You go not till I set you up a glass

 Where you may see the inmost part of you.

Peach. What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murther me?

Help, help, ho!

Kamek. [behind] What, ho! help, help, help!

Mario. [draws] How now? a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!

 Makes a pass through the arras and kills Kamek. 

Kamek. [behind] O, I am slain! Game over music from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island commences as Kamek dies.

Peach. O me, what hast thou done?

Mario. Nay, I know not. Is it the King?

Peach. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

 Mario. A bloody deed- almost as bad, good mother,

As kill a king, and marry with his brother.

Peach. As kill a king?

Mario. Ay, lady, it was my word.

Lifts up the arras and sees Kamek. Cue Castle Music from New Super Mario Bros.

 Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell!

I took thee for thy better. Take thy fortune.

Thou find'st to be too busy is some danger.

Leave wringing of your hands. Peace! sit you down

And let me wring your heart; for so I shall

 If it be made of penetrable stuff;

If damned custom have not braz'd it so

That it is proof and bulwark against sense.

Peach. What have I done that thou dar'st wag thy tongue

In noise so rude against me?

 Mario. Such an act

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty;

Calls virtue hypocrite; takes off the rose

From the fair forehead of an innocent love,

And sets a blister there; makes marriage vows

 As false as dicers' oaths. O, such a deed

As from the body of contraction plucks

The very soul, and sweet religion makes

A rhapsody of words! Heaven's face doth glow;

Yea, this solidity and compound mass,

 With tristful visage, as against the doom,

Is thought-sick at the act.

Peach. Ah me, what act,

That roars so loud and thunders in the index?

Mario. Look here upon th's picture, and on this,

 The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.

See what a grace was seated on this brow;

Hyperion's curls; the front of Jove himself;

An eye like Mars, to threaten and command;

A station like the herald Mercury

 New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill:

A combination and a form indeed

Where every god did seem to set his seal

To give the world assurance of a man.

This was your husband. Look you now what follows.

 Here is your husband, like a mildew'd ear

Blasting his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?

Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,

And batten on this moor? Ha! have you eyes

You cannot call it love; for at your age

 The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,

And waits upon the judgment; and what judgment

Would step from this to this? Sense sure you have,

Else could you not have motion; but sure that sense

Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err,

 Nor sense to ecstacy was ne'er so thrall'd

But it reserv'd some quantity of choice

To serve in such a difference. What devil was't

That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind?

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,

 Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,

Or but a sickly part of one true sense

Could not so mope.

O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,

If thou canst mutine in a matron's bones,

 To flaming youth let virtue be as wax

And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame

When the compulsive ardour gives the charge,

Since frost itself as actively doth burn,

And reason panders will.

 Peach. O Hamlet, speak no more!

Thou turn'st mine eyes into my very soul,

And there I see such black and grained spots

As will not leave their tinct.

Mario. Nay, but to live

  In the rank sweat of an enseamed bed,

Stew'd in corruption, honeying and making love

Over the nasty sty!

Peach. O, speak to me no more!

These words like daggers enter in mine ears.

No more, sweet Hamlet!

Mario. A murtherer and a villain!

A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe

Of your precedent lord; a vice of kings;

A cutpurse of the empire and the rule,

 That from a shelf the precious diadem stole

And put it in his pocket!

Peach. No more!

Enter Donkey Kong in his nightgown. Initiate Gangplank Galleon. 

Mario. A king of shreds and patches!-

 Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,

You heavenly guards! What would your gracious figure?

Peach. Alas, he's mad!

Mario. Do you not come your tardy son to chide,

That, laps'd in time and passion, lets go by

 Th' important acting of your dread command?

O, say!

DK. Do not forget. This visitation

Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

But look, amazement on thy mother sits.

 O, step between her and her fighting soul

Conceit in weakest bodies strongest works.

Speak to her, Hamlet.

Mario. How is it with you, lady?

Peach. Alas, how is't with you,

 That you do bend your eye on vacancy,

And with th' encorporal air do hold discourse?

Forth at your eyes your spirits wildly peep;

And, as the sleeping soldiers in th' alarm,

Your bedded hairs, like life in excrements,

 Start up and stand an end. O gentle son,

Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper

Sprinkle cool patience! Whereon do you look?

Mario. On him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!

His form and cause conjoin'd, preaching to stones,

 Would make them capable.- Do not look upon me,

Lest with this piteous action you convert

My stern effects. Then what I have to do

Will want true colour- tears perchance for blood.

Peach. To whom do you speak this?

 Mario. Do you see nothing there?

Peach. Nothing at all; yet all that is I see.

Mario. Nor did you nothing hear?

Peach. No, nothing but ourselves.

Mario. Why, look you there! Look how it steals away!

My father, in his habit as he liv'd!

Look where he goes even now out at the portal!

Exit Donkey Kong. Composition of the boss theme from Super Mario Bros 2.

Peach. This is the very coinage of your brain.

This bodiless creation ecstasy

 Is very cunning in.

Mario. Ecstasy?

My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time

And makes as healthful music. It is not madness

That I have utt'red. Bring me to the test,

 And I the matter will reword; which madness

Would gambol from. Mother, for love of grace,

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul

That not your trespass but my madness speaks.

It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,

 Whiles rank corruption, mining all within,

Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven;

Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;

And do not spread the compost on the weeds

To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue;

 For in the fatness of these pursy times

Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg-

Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.

Peach. O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

Mario. O, throw away the worser part of it,

 And live the purer with the other half,

Good night- but go not to my uncle's bed.

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat

Of habits evil, is angel yet in this,

 That to the use of actions fair and good

He likewise gives a frock or livery,

That aptly is put on. Refrain to-night,

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence; the next more easy;

 For use almost can change the stamp of nature,

And either (master) the devil, or throw him out

With wondrous potency. Once more, good night;

And when you are desirous to be blest,

I'll blessing beg of you.- For this same lord,

 I do repent; but heaven hath pleas'd it so,

To punish me with this, and this with me,

That I must be their scourge and minister.

I will bestow him, and will answer well

The death I gave him. So again, good night.

  I must be cruel, only to be kind;

Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.

One word more, good lady.

Peach. What shall I do?

Mario. Not this, by no means, that I bid you do:

 Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed;

Pinch wanton on your cheek; call you his mouse;

And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses,

Or paddling in your neck with his damn'd fingers,

Make you to ravel all this matter out,

 That I essentially am not in madness,

But mad in craft. 'Twere good you let him know;

For who that's but a queen, fair, sober, wise,

Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib

Such dear concernings hide? Who would do so?

 No, in despite of sense and secrecy,

Unpeg the basket on the house's top,

Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape,

To try conclusions, in the basket creep

And break your own neck down.

 Peach. Be thou assur'd, if words be made of breath,

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe

What thou hast said to me.

Mario. I must to England; you know that?

Peach. Alack,

 I had forgot! 'Tis so concluded on.

Mario. There's letters seal'd; and my two schoolfellows,

Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd,

They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way

And marshal me to knavery. Let it work;

 For 'tis the sport to have the enginer

Hoist with his own petar; and 't shall go hard

But I will delve one yard below their mines

And blow them at the moon. O, 'tis most sweet

When in one line two crafts directly meet.

 This man shall set me packing.

I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.-

Mother, good night.- Indeed, this counsellor

Is now most still, most secret, and most grave,

Who was in life a foolish peating knave.

 Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.

Good night, mother.

Exit Peach. Then exit Mario, tugging in

Kamek.

[araitsume]

The Desire of Ages, pp. 97-108: Chapter (10) The Voice in the Wilderness

This chapter is based on Luke 1:5-23, 57-80; 3:1-18; Matthew 3:1-12; Mark 1:1-8.

From among the faithful in Israel, who had long waited for the coming of the Messiah, the forerunner of Christ arose. The aged priest Zacharias and his wife Elisabeth were “both righteous before God;” and in their quiet and holy lives the light of faith shone out like a star amid the darkness of those evil days. To this godly pair was given the promise of a son, who should “go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways.”

Zacharias dwelt in “the hill country of Judea,” but he had gone up to Jerusalem to minister for one week in the temple, a service required twice a year from the priests of each course. “And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course, according to the custom of the priest's office, his lot was to burn incense when he went into the temple of the Lord.”

He was standing before the golden altar in the holy place of the sanctuary. The cloud of incense with the prayers of Israel was ascending before God. Suddenly he became conscious of a divine presence. An angel of the Lord was “standing on the right side of the altar.” The position of the angel was an indication of favor, but Zacharias took no note of this. For many years he had prayed for the coming of the Redeemer; now heaven had sent its messenger to announce that these prayers were about to be answered; but the mercy of God seemed too great for him to credit. He was filled with fear and self-condemnation.

But he was greeted with the joyful assurance: “Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.... And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before Him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. And Zacharias said unto the angel, Whereby shall I know this? for I am an old man, and my wife well stricken in years.”

Zacharias well knew how to Abraham in his old age a child was given because he believed Him faithful who had promised. But for a moment the aged priest turns his thought to the weakness of humanity. He forgets that what God has promised, He is able to perform. What a contrast between this unbelief and the sweet, childlike faith of Mary, the maiden of Nazareth, whose answer to the angel's wonderful announcement was, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word”! Luke 1:38.

The birth of a son to Zacharias, like the birth of the child of Abraham, and that of Mary, was to teach a great spiritual truth, a truth that we are slow to learn and ready to forget. In ourselves we are incapable of doing any good thing; but that which we cannot do will be wrought by the power of God in every submissive and believing soul. It was through faith that the child of promise was given. It is through faith that spiritual life is begotten, and we are enabled to do the works of righteousness.

To the question of Zacharias, the angel said, “I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God; and am sent to speak unto thee, and to show thee these glad tidings.” Five hundred years before, Gabriel had made known to Daniel the prophetic period which was to extend to the coming of Christ. The knowledge that the end of this period was near had moved Zacharias to pray for the Messiah's advent. Now the very messenger through whom the prophecy was given had come to announce its fulfillment.

The words of the angel, “I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God,” show that he holds a position of high honor in the heavenly courts. When he came with a message to Daniel, he said, “There is none that holdeth with me in these things, but Michael [Christ] your Prince.” Daniel 10:21. Of Gabriel the Saviour speaks in the Revelation, saying that “He sent and signified it by His angel unto His servant John.” Revelation 1:1. And to John the angel declared, “I am a fellow servant with thee and with thy brethren the prophets.” Revelation 22:9, R. V. Wonderful thought—that the angel who stands next in honor to the Son of God is the one chosen to open the purposes of God to sinful men.

Zacharias had expressed doubt of the angel's words. He was not to speak again until they were fulfilled. “Behold,” said the angel, “thou shalt be dumb, ... until the day that these things shall be performed, because thou believest not my words, which shall be fulfilled in their season.” It was the duty of the priest in this service to pray for the pardon of public and national sins, and for the coming of the Messiah; but when Zacharias attempted to do this, he could not utter a word.

Coming forth to bless the people, “he beckoned unto them, and remained speechless.” They had waited long, and had begun to fear, lest he had been cut down by the judgment of God. But as he came forth from the holy place, his face was shining with the glory of God, “and they perceived that he had seen a vision in the temple.” Zacharias communicated to them what he had seen and heard; and “as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house.”

Soon after the birth of the promised child, the father's tongue was loosed, “and he spake, and praised God. And fear came on all that dwelt round about them: and all these sayings were noised abroad throughout all the hill country of Judea. And all they that heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, What manner of child shall this be!” All this tended to call attention to the Messiah's coming, for which John was to prepare the way.

The Holy Spirit rested upon Zacharias, and in these beautiful words he prophesied of the mission of his son:

“Thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest; For thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways; To give knowledge of salvation unto His people By the remission of their sins, Through the tender mercy of our God, Whereby the Dayspring from on high hath visited us, To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, To guide our feet into the way of peace.”

“And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel.” Before the birth of John, the angel had said, “He shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.” God had called the son of Zacharias to a great work, the greatest ever committed to men. In order to accomplish this work, he must have the Lord to work with him. And the Spirit of God would be with him if he heeded the instruction of the angel.

John was to go forth as Jehovah's messenger, to bring to men the light of God. He must give a new direction to their thoughts. He must impress them with the holiness of God's requirements, and their need of His perfect righteousness. Such a messenger must be holy. He must be a temple for the indwelling Spirit of God. In order to fulfill his mission, he must have a sound physical constitution, and mental and spiritual strength. Therefore it would be necessary for him to control the appetites and passions. He must be able so to control all his powers that he could stand among men as unmoved by surrounding circumstances as the rocks and mountains of the wilderness.

In the time of John the Baptist, greed for riches, and the love of luxury and display had become widespread. Sensuous pleasures, feasting and drinking, were causing physical disease and degeneracy, benumbing the spiritual perceptions, and lessening the sensibility to sin. John was to stand as a reformer. By his abstemious life and plain dress he was to rebuke the excesses of his time. Hence the directions given to the parents of John,—a lesson of temperance by an angel from the throne of heaven.

In childhood and youth the character is most impressible. The power of self-control should then be acquired. By the fireside and at the family board influences are exerted whose results are as enduring as eternity. More than any natural endowment, the habits established in early years decide whether a man will be victorious or vanquished in the battle of life. Youth is the sowing time. It determines the character of the harvest, for this life and for the life to come.

As a prophet, John was “to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” In preparing the way for Christ's first advent, he was a representative of those who are to prepare a people for our Lord's second coming. The world is given to self-indulgence. Errors and fables abound. Satan's snares for destroying souls are multiplied. All who would perfect holiness in the fear of God must learn the lessons of temperance and self-control. The appetites and passions must be held in subjection to the higher powers of the mind. This self-discipline is essential to that mental strength and spiritual insight which will enable us to understand and to practice the sacred truths of God's word. For this reason temperance finds its place in the work of preparation for Christ's second coming.

In the natural order of things, the son of Zacharias would have been educated for the priesthood. But the training of the rabbinical schools would have unfitted him for his work. God did not send him to the teachers of theology to learn how to interpret the Scriptures. He called him to the desert, that he might learn of nature and nature's God.

It was a lonely region where he found his home, in the midst of barren hills, wild ravines, and rocky caves. But it was his choice to forgo the enjoyments and luxuries of life for the stern discipline of the wilderness. Here his surroundings were favorable to habits of simplicity and self-denial. Uninterrupted by the clamor of the world, he could here study the lessons of nature, of revelation, and of Providence. The words of the angel to Zacharias had been often repeated to John by his God-fearing parents. From childhood his mission had been kept before him, and he had accepted the holy trust. To him the solitude of the desert was a welcome escape from society in which suspicion, unbelief, and impurity had become well-nigh all-pervading. He distrusted his own power to withstand temptation, and shrank from constant contact with sin, lest he should lose the sense of its exceeding sinfulness.

Dedicated to God as a Nazarite from his birth, he made the vow his own in a life-long consecration. His dress was that of the ancient prophets, a garment of camel's hair, confined by a leather girdle. He ate the “locusts and wild honey” found in the wilderness, and drank the pure water from the hills.

But the life of John was not spent in idleness, in ascetic gloom, or in selfish isolation. From time to time he went forth to mingle with men; and he was ever an interested observer of what was passing in the world. From his quiet retreat he watched the unfolding of events. With vision illuminated by the divine Spirit he studied the characters of men, that he might understand how to reach their hearts with the message of heaven. The burden of his mission was upon him. In solitude, by meditation and prayer, he sought to gird up his soul for the lifework before him.

Although in the wilderness, he was not exempt from temptation. So far as possible, he closed every avenue by which Satan could enter, yet he was still assailed by the tempter. But his spiritual perceptions were clear; he had developed strength and decision of character, and through the aid of the Holy Spirit he was able to detect Satan's approaches, and to resist his power.

John found in the wilderness his school and his sanctuary. Like Moses amid the mountains of Midian, he was shut in by God's presence, and surrounded by the evidences of His power. It was not his lot to dwell, as did Israel's great leader, amid the solemn majesty of the mountain solitudes; but before him were the heights of Moab, beyond Jordan, speaking of Him who had set fast the mountains, and girded them with strength. The gloomy and terrible aspect of nature in his wilderness home vividly pictured the condition of Israel. The fruitful vineyard of the Lord had become a desolate waste. But above the desert the heavens bent bright and beautiful. The clouds that gathered, dark with tempest, were arched by the rainbow of promise. So above Israel's degradation shone the promised glory of the Messiah's reign. The clouds of wrath were spanned by the rainbow of His covenant-mercy.

Alone in the silent night he read God's promise to Abraham of a seed numberless as the stars. The light of dawn, gilding the mountains of Moab, told of Him who should be as “the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds.” 2 Samuel 23:4. And in the brightness of noontide he saw the splendor of His manifestation, when “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” Isaiah 40:5.

With awed yet exultant spirit he searched in the prophetic scrolls the revelations of the Messiah's coming,—the promised seed that should bruise the serpent's head; Shiloh, “the peace giver,” who was to appear before a king should cease to reign on David's throne. Now the time had come. A Roman ruler sat in the palace upon Mount Zion. By the sure word of the Lord, already the Christ was born.

Isaiah's rapt portrayals of the Messiah's glory were his study by day and by night,—the Branch from the root of Jesse; a King to reign in righteousness, judging “with equity for the meek of the earth;” “a covert from the tempest; ... the shadow of a great rock in a weary land;” Israel no longer to be termed “Forsaken,” nor her land “Desolate,” but to be called of the Lord, “My Delight,” and her land “Beulah.” Isaiah 11:4; 32:2; 62:4, margin. The heart of the lonely exile was filled with the glorious vision.

He looked upon the King in His beauty, and self was forgotten. He beheld the majesty of holiness, and felt himself to be inefficient and unworthy. He was ready to go forth as Heaven's messenger, unawed by the human, because he had looked upon the Divine. He could stand erect and fearless in the presence of earthly monarchs, because he had bowed low before the King of kings.

John did not fully understand the nature of the Messiah's kingdom. He looked for Israel to be delivered from her national foes; but the coming of a King in righteousness, and the establishment of Israel as a holy nation, was the great object of his hope. Thus he believed would be accomplished the prophecy given at his birth,—

“To remember His holy covenant; ... That we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies Might serve Him without fear, In holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life.”

He saw his people deceived, self-satisfied, and asleep in their sins. He longed to rouse them to a holier life. The message that God had given him to bear was designed to startle them from their lethargy, and cause them to tremble because of their great wickedness. Before the seed of the gospel could find lodgment, the soil of the heart must be broken up. Before they would seek healing from Jesus, they must be awakened to their danger from the wounds of sin.

God does not send messengers to flatter the sinner. He delivers no message of peace to lull the unsanctified into fatal security. He lays heavy burdens upon the conscience of the wrongdoer, and pierces the soul with arrows of conviction. The ministering angels present to him the fearful judgments of God to deepen the sense of need, and prompt the cry, “What must I do to be saved?” Then the hand that has humbled in the dust, lifts up the penitent. The voice that has rebuked sin, and put to shame pride and ambition, inquires with tenderest sympathy, “What wilt thou that I shall do unto thee?”

When the ministry of John began, the nation was in a state of excitement and discontent verging on revolution. At the removal of Archelaus, Judea had been brought directly under the control of Rome. The tyranny and extortion of the Roman governors, and their determined efforts to introduce the heathen symbols and customs, kindled revolt, which had been quenched in the blood of thousands of the bravest of Israel. All this intensified the national hatred against Rome, and increased the longing to be freed from her power.

Amid discord and strife, a voice was heard from the wilderness, a voice startling and stern, yet full of hope: “Repent ye; for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” With a new, strange power it moved the people. Prophets had foretold the coming of Christ as an event far in the future; but here was an announcement that it was at hand. John's singular appearance carried the minds of his hearers back to the ancient seers. In his manner and dress he resembled the prophet Elijah. With the spirit and power of Elijah he denounced the national corruption, and rebuked the prevailing sins. His words were plain, pointed, and convincing. Many believed him to be one of the prophets risen from the dead. The whole nation was stirred. Multitudes flocked to the wilderness.

John proclaimed the coming of the Messiah, and called the people to repentance. As a symbol of cleansing from sin, he baptized them in the waters of the Jordan. Thus by a significant object lesson he declared that those who claimed to be the chosen people of God were defiled by sin, and that without purification of heart and life they could have no part in the Messiah's kingdom.

Princes and rabbis, soldiers, publicans, and peasants came to hear the prophet. For a time the solemn warning from God alarmed them. Many were brought to repentance, and received baptism. Persons of all ranks submitted to the requirement of the Baptist, in order to participate in the kingdom he announced.

Many of the scribes and Pharisees came confessing their sins, and asking for baptism. They had exalted themselves as better than other men, and had led the people to entertain a high opinion of their piety; now the guilty secrets of their lives were unveiled. But John was impressed by the Holy Spirit that many of these men had no real conviction of sin. They were timeservers. As friends of the prophet, they hoped to find favor with the coming Prince. And by receiving baptism at the hands of this popular young teacher, they thought to strengthen their influence with the people.

John met them with the scathing inquiry, “O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance; and think not to say within yourselves, We have Abraham to our father: for I say unto you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.”

The Jews had misinterpreted God's promise of eternal favor to Israel: “Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The Lord of hosts is His name: If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me forever. Thus saith the Lord; If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.” Jeremiah 31:35-37. The Jews regarded their natural descent from Abraham as giving them a claim to this promise. But they overlooked the conditions which God had specified. Before giving the promise, He had said, “I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be My people.... For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” Jeremiah 31:33, 34.

To a people in whose hearts His law is written, the favor of God is assured. They are one with Him. But the Jews had separated themselves from God. Because of their sins they were suffering under His judgments. This was the cause of their bondage to a heathen nation. Their minds were darkened by transgression, and because in times past the Lord had shown them so great favor, they excused their sins. They flattered themselves that they were better than other men, and entitled to His blessings.

These things “are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” 1 Corinthians 10:11. How often we misinterpret God's blessings, and flatter ourselves that we are favored on account of some goodness in us! God cannot do for us that which He longs to do. His gifts are used to increase our self-satisfaction, and to harden our hearts in unbelief and sin.

John declared to the teachers of Israel that their pride, selfishness, and cruelty showed them to be a generation of vipers, a deadly curse to the people, rather than the children of just and obedient Abraham. In view of the light they had received from God, they were even worse than the heathen, to whom they felt so much superior. They had forgotten the rock whence they were hewn, and the hole of the pit from which they had been digged. God was not dependent upon them for the fulfilling of His purpose. As He had called Abraham out from a heathen people, so He could call others to His service. Their hearts might now appear as lifeless as the stones of the desert, but His Spirit could quicken them to do His will, and receive the fulfillment of His promise.

“And now also,” said the prophet, “the ax is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.” Not by its name, but by its fruit, is the value of a tree determined. If the fruit is worthless, the name cannot save the tree from destruction. John declared to the Jews that their standing before God was to be decided by their character and life. Profession was worthless. If their life and character were not in harmony with God's law, they were not His people.

Under his heart-searching words, his hearers were convicted. They came to him with the inquiry, “What shall we do then?” He answered, “He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and he that hath meat, let him do likewise.” And he warned the publicans against injustice, and the soldiers against violence.

All who became the subjects of Christ's kingdom, he said, would give evidence of faith and repentance. Kindness, honesty, and fidelity would be seen in their lives. They would minister to the needy, and bring their offerings to God. They would shield the defenseless, and give an example of virtue and compassion. So the followers of Christ will give evidence of the transforming power of the Holy Spirit. In the daily life, justice, mercy, and the love of God will be seen. Otherwise they are like the chaff that is given to the fire.

“I indeed baptize you in water unto repentance,” said John; “but He that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” Matthew 3:11, R. V., margin. The prophet Isaiah had declared that the Lord would cleanse His people from their iniquities “by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.” The word of the Lord to Israel was, “I will turn My hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin.” Isaiah 4:4; 1:25. To sin, wherever found, “our God is a consuming fire.” Hebrews 12:29. In all who submit to His power the Spirit of God will consume sin. But if men cling to sin, they become identified with it. Then the glory of God, which destroys sin, must destroy them. Jacob, after his night of wrestling with the Angel, exclaimed, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.” Genesis 32:30. Jacob had been guilty of a great sin in his conduct toward Esau; but he had repented. His transgression had been forgiven, and his sin purged; therefore he could endure the revelation of God's presence. But wherever men came before God while willfully cherishing evil, they were destroyed. At the second advent of Christ the wicked shall be consumed “with the Spirit of His mouth,” and destroyed “with the brightness of His coming.” 2 Thessalonians 2:8. The light of the glory of God, which imparts life to the righteous, will slay the wicked.

In the time of John the Baptist, Christ was about to appear as the revealer of the character of God. His very presence would make manifest to men their sin. Only as they were willing to be purged from sin could they enter into fellowship with Him. Only the pure in heart could abide in His presence.

Thus the Baptist declared God's message to Israel. Many gave heed to his instruction. Many sacrificed all in order to obey. Multitudes followed this new teacher from place to place, and not a few cherished the hope that he might be the Messiah. But as John saw the people turning to him, he sought every opportunity of directing their faith to Him who was to come.

[thomasgmcelwain]

Genesis 19

Genesis 19

1 Now the two angels came to Sodom

And it was evening, Lot sat in

The city gate, would have unshod them.

He rose to meet them like his kin,

Bowed down to greet them to the ground.

2 He said "Here now, my lords, be found

To sleep this night beside my board,

As I am servant, you are lord,

Then rising early you may go

In safety to the next depot."

But they said "No, we'll spend the night

Upon the open square in sight."

3 But he insisted strongly, so

They turned in with him for to go

Into his house. He made a feast,

Baked bread, they ate it without yeast.

I came for the first time to eastern bank

Of the Euphrates. Dusk I had to thank

That from the imams' training school came out

Five young men, by the river walked about

And took me by compulsion, gave me meat

And kept me in the mosque, a special treat,

Until the evening prayers were done. I found

A bed and home for one night. I am bound

The gate of Sodom was no better place

Nor more hospitable. No stranger's face

Was seen but recognized as face of God.

Beloved, I find Your face wherever mine

Is recognized by what small mark and sign.

The kernel's sweet, though we see only pod.

4 Before they could lie down, the men

Of Sodom, old and young again,

From every quarter, here they came

All to surround the house for shame.

5 They called to Lot and said "Where are

The men who came to you tonight?

Bring out the guests from near or far

And let us get acquainted right."

From loving contemplation of the face

The evil heart will without guide give place

To lust, and lust bring forth at last the fruit

Of violence in rape to follow suit.

So great and civilized reduced in lust

And violence, sank faith to humble dust.

The heart imagines shining faith to be

Its hallmark in any depravity.

The pristine "I" remains divine through all

The byways of transgression's beck and call.

Beloved, I turn from contemplation of

Your face upon creation's screen of love

And find how easily illusion's pall

Falls on the empty heart without recall.

6 Lot went out to them through the door,

And shut the door behind him, for

7 He said "Please, do not, brothers mine,

Act wickedly, but well and fine!

8 "See now, I have two daughters of

My congregation who've had love

From no man yet. I'll bring them out

And you shall choose without a doubt

Which of you men shall marry them.

But do no harm, do not condemn

These guests of mine, and stay aloof,

For they are guests beneath my roof."

The laws of marriage never fail to stand,

And hospitality to give a hand

To traveller in the way remains for good.

All brothers must behave the way they should,

No matter what the level of their power,

Degree of wealth, no matter what the hour

Or what the vision of Your glory be.

The mystic state does not set any free

From duty to obey the divine law.

Just as the master of high algebra

Does not give up the simple two plus two,

I bow to ethics even in the pew

Of mystic brotherhood. Beloved, the roof

Casts shadows on the friend and the aloof.

9 They said "Stand back! This one came in

To live here and tell us what's sin.

Keep acting as a judge and we

Shall deal worse with you than with them.

You certainly shall not go free."

So they pressed hard, Lot tried to stem

The tide against him, but in vain,

They nearly broke the door in twain.

10 The men reached out their hands and took

Lot in the house, shut door, 11 and struck

The men who were at the doorway

Of the house with blindness, they say,

Both small and great, and so they wore

Themselves to rags to find the door.

Blindness on blindness does not stop the go

To find the door to heaven and to show

Both self and world that I am never wrong

Though rightness cannot taste my weary song

In truth. The frantic flight toward the sky

In search of spirituality and pie

Does not give up though clouds of dark and mist

Protect the frozen heights of thought, insist

That on the sunny side of firmament

There is the gold-filled pot to which I'm sent.

I shall beat down the door and show I'm brave

Who search for You, Beloved, not like a slave,

But with a virile sense ignoring doom,

A man who knows his place and well-stocked room.

12 Then the men said to Lot, "Have you

Anyone else here? Son-in-law,

Your sons, your daughters, and whom you

Have in this grand basilica,

Take all and leave this wretched place!

13 "We will destroy this place, because

The outcry of their breaking laws

Has grown great in front of YHWH's face,

And YHWH has sent us to destroy it."

14 So Lot went out not to enjoy it

But warning to his sons-in-law,

Who'd married his daughters, his awe

Did not affect them when he said

"Get up, and leave this place, for YHWH

Will spoil this city!" But his head

Was foolish to his sons-in-law

Who were not worth the talking to.

This world is upside down, and yet its folk

Walk upright as it were. My faith, I poke

My head around the corner just to see

How civilized upside down things can be.

All things continue as they ought and should

Since time was made, and mount and valley stood.

And yet a day can come when all things change,

When narrow breaks out in a further range

Of mountains, smoke on valleys, rising seas.

Who spoke of variance from routine lees

Met storms of ridicule. I make my days

Eventless, yet unique in all their ways

As I seek You, Beloved, each day anew,

Infinities of stays in what You do.

15 When morning dawned, the angels urged

Lot to hurry, "Get up, diverged,

Take wife, both daughters who are here,

Lest you be consumed in the fear

And punishment of Sodom." 16 And

While he lingered, they took his hand,

His wife's and both his daughters' too,

Since mercy came to him from YHWH,

And brought him out as they had pity,

And set him down outside the city.

Lay hold on me, Beloved, I linger here

Beneath the rosy dawn. I have no fear.

Is it not good I have no fear at all?

Is it not grand my hearing of Your call

Has well inured me to the fateful ball,

And left me set apart, serene and calm

While others frantically avoid the bomb,

The others being angels even? My

High state of spirituality, so high,

Prevents any response to hue and cry.

Is it not fine, Beloved, I know no rage

And sit emotionless from age to age?

They are but prisoners of dark illusion,

(Are they not?) who succumb to the confusion.

17 It happened, when they'd brought them out,

He said "Escape, don't turn about!

Don't look behind you, no, nor stay

Anywhere in the plain or way.

Go to the mountains, lest you be

Destroyed." 18 Then Lot spoke to them, he

Said "Please, no, O my lords! 19 "Indeed

Now, I, your servant, in my need,

Have found grace in your sight, and you

Have multiplied the mercy you

Have shown me by saving my life,

But I can't escape with my wife

Into the mountains, lest some danger

Come overtake me while a ranger

And I die. 20 "See now, this city

Is near enough for me to flee,

And it's a small one, please now give

Me leave to go there and to live."

The city is a symbol of Your beauty,

Beloved, and so I live in one as duty.

The duty to bring to the civilized

The divine message should be realized.

The mystic cup kept to oneself alone

In time turns fat and meat to tasteless bone.

So let me join the throngs in some bright city

Where men are great and women know no pity.

If I should have to live on mountain slope

Who knows what evil might destroy my hope,

Who knows what tender flowers after the rain

Might clog my path to wealth and mystic gain?

Let my soul live near possibilities

And not beneath the stars and awful trees.

21 And he said to him, "See, I grant

You your request as habitant,

And shall not overthrow this city

For which you have appealed in pity.

22 "But hurry and escape there quickly.

For I must wait for you and prickly

Till you arrive, so I can act.

That is part of my promised pact."

That's why Zoar's the city's name,

And it means small, but not to blame.

23 The sun had risen upon the land

When Lot entered Zoar with his band.

24 Then YHWH rained brimstone down with fire

On Sodom and Gomorrah, ire

From YHWH out of the heavens come

25 So He destroyed them, made them dumb,

And all the plain, the people in

The cities, and what grew for bin.

I understand Your killing all the people

And breaking down both wall and dome and steeple

With fire and brimstone fully justified.

But everything that grew on the ground died.

Are plants and flowers sinful, and is fruit

Worth nothing in Your sight, like dust and soot?

Ah, kill the worried people, Lord, but spare

The violet and coltsfoot, make not bare

The lovely earth, the fragrant ground and soil.

Curse not again the earth for human toil.

Keep brimstone on the city and the fashion,

But when it comes to wild wood, have compassion.

My I-ness with a curious willingness

Relinquishes the people You would bless.

26 But his wife looked back behind him,

Became a tower of salt for whim.

The wife of Lot, she was a comely lot

Of sack, and popular for what she'd got.

Salt of the earth, they said who knew her best.

Shoulders and head she stood above the rest.

She knew the score, and kept her man in hand,

Her husband so susceptible to grand

And noble visions, quite up in the air.

But Lot's wife handled more than was her share.

She looked back to be sure nothing forgotten

Preyed on her mind, not gold, linen or cotton.

She looked back on a life ordered, well kept,

And stood to take a hand, and stood, and slept.

Who handles well the world and life and show

Remains asleep, and salted down to mow.

27 And Abraham went early out

To where he and YHWH'd stood about.

28 Then he looked toward the city plain,

To Sodom and Gomorrah's pain,

And toward all the land of the plain,

And he saw, and indeed, the smoke

Of the land about which God spoke

Went up like smoke from a furnace.

29 And it happened, that, when alas,

Ælohim spoiled the cities on

The plain, that Ælohim went on

To mind Himself of Abraham,

And sent Lot out of all the sham

And spoil, when He destroyed the place

Where Lot had lived and shown his face.

I look at rosy dawn toward the place

Your Angel stood, and see again his face

Set in compassion and in well-sought duty.

I see again Your Angel in his beauty.

The burning love You hold to all mankind

Will not be satisfied with torn and blind,

But must take of the first and best of all

To sacrifice in sweetness and in gall.

I turn toward the flames of charity

And feel the hotness on my face, I see

The longing fires sprung quickly from Your heart

To cleanse the soul in every nook and part

Of othernesses and of other gods,

Till You alone are left above the clods.

30 Then Lot went out of Zoar and lived

Up in the mountains, negatived

Had been his living in Zoar for

Himself and both his daughters, more

Could not be borne, and so he went

To live in caves instead of tent.

31 Now the firstborn said to the younger,

"Our father, leader without hunger

Of this diminished dervish order,

Is old, and there's nor man nor boarder

To marry us in all the earth.

32 "Come, let us make our father-priest

Of congregation and of worth

Drink wine of ecstasy. At least

He'll marry us and thus preserve

His line of children and not swerve."

Afraid to live among the riot ways

Of city nights and polished city days,

Lot takes two women from his congregation

To build on ashes towards another nation.

And yet his scruples as a man of God

Will not permit him to plough up the sod.

Loss, loss is all a man can ever find

In Zoar or in Sodom with the blind.

He offered them in marriage to blind fools

Who came at last in refuge to the pools

Of solitude and duty. Sometimes there

Is nothing left but water and still air.

Bless then, Beloved, the refugee and star,

The wandering satyrs wherever they are.

33 So they made their father and priest

Drink wine of ecstasy increased

That very night and the first born

Contracted marriage and was sworn,

And consummated though he knew

Not when she came nor when withdrew.

34 It happened on the next day too

The firstborn told the younger, "Do

As I did with our father-leader,

Let him drink wine, become conceder,

And enter marriage contract so

You shall lie with him to make grow

The line of our father and beau."

If wine of ecstasy is what is taught

In this crude story or if wine that's bought

From liquor outlet is intended here,

It makes but little difference, I fear.

The story is a warning for both things,

The weaknesses of labourers and kings.

I drink the clear draught of water of life

I find served at Your table, and not strife.

Beloved, I find the drunkenness You give

Makes mind and senses clearer where I live.

The heady realizing You are One

Is stronger stimulation than the fun

Of drinking and carousing. You are my

Sane knowing, my Beloved, without the pie.

35 Then they made their father drink wine

Of ecstasy and countersign

A contract of wedding and so

The younger lay, nor did he know

When she lay down nor when she rose.

36 So both young ladies as they chose

Were pregnant by the priestly throes.

37 The firstborn gave birth to a son

And called his name Moab when done.

He is ancestor to this day

Of Moabites. 38 The younger's way

Was to give birth to son also

And Ben-Ammi was his chapeau.

He's ancestor to Ammon now

Or till the last day anyhow.

The two last members of Lot's hearth cry out

In anguish at the wicked world about.

They fear the faith in You, Belovèd, ends

Since they and Lot alone remain Your friends.

If the last coal upon the hearth grows cold,

No longer shall the sparks fly up and bold

Hearts whirling, whirling there shall cease.

The wicked world is gone, their isle of peace

Contains the leader of the faith and them

Alone to bow before the seamless hem.

He will not in his faithfulness agree

To take advantage of the souls that be

Beneath his sole protection, then we must

Bind fast the marriage contract and but trust."

[thomasgmcelwain]

Genesis 13

Genesis 13

1 Then Abram went up from Egypt,

He and his wife and all his script

And all he had, and Lot with him,

Up to the south, ship-shape and trim,

2 For Abram was most rich in stock,

In cattle, silver, gold and flock.

3 And he went on his journey from

The south so far until he'd come

To Bethel, to the place where he

Had pitched his tent at first, you see,

Between Ai and Bethel 4 where

He'd made the place to worship there

At first, and there he just the same,

Abram did so, call on YHWH's name.

As Abram called, Beloved, upon Your Name

When he left Egypt with his wealth and came

To Bethel, so may I seek resting place

Upon Your altar and turned toward Your face

Call on Your lovely names. Between the city

Of Ai and of Bethel, without pity

Then marching northward Abraham and Lot

There found a place to pitch their tents and got

A haven where to keep their livestock, gold

And silver. There too they found made of old

An altar consecrated to Your name,

There waiting silently until they came.

I seek my old forsaken altars where

I once repeated Your name to the air.

5 Lot too, who went with Abram, had

Flocks, herds and tents. 6 Now it was bad,

The land could not support them both,

That they might live together, growth

Of their possessions was so great

They could not both accommodate.

7 So there was clash between the men

That herded Abram's flock again

And those that herded Lot's livestock.

What made things worse of a dead-lock

Was Canaanite and Perizzite

Both in the land, put up a fight.

8 So Abram said to Lot, "Please let

There be no strife between as yet

Yourself and me, and those who herd

My flocks and yours, it is preferred

Since you and I are relatives.

9 "Is not the whole land that God gives

Before you? Let us separate,

If you go left, I'll hesitate

Not one minute to take the right.

Or if that way is in your sight

Then I'll go left." 10 And Lot lifted

His eyes and saw how well gifted

Lay all the plain of Jordan there,

It was well watered everywhere

(Before YHWH picked off Sodom and

Gomorrah) like YHWH's plot, like land

Of Egypt out toward Zoar's command.

How many eyes, Beloved, mistake the towers

Of Sodom and Gomorrah for the flowers

Of Paradise. I lift my eyes to seek

The blessing voice of Eden where You speak,

And see the rushing traffic, hear the din

Of market and of worship from within

The temples filled with peace and love and still

More idols than could in the desert fill

The Kaaba when the Prophet came to find

Its true heart to bestow on humankind.

The place most often sought to know You best

Is far more often where the idols rest.

Turn me, Beloved, away from Paradise

And watered plain, let desert ways suffice.

11 Then Lot chose for himself the plain

Of Jordan, all its luscious gain,

And journeyed east. And there they parted.

12 And Abram lived in Canaan, charted

Its land, and Lot lived on the plain,

In cities drenched in northern rain,

As far as Sodom pitched his tent.

13 But men of Sodom, as men went

Were wicked and exceedingly

Sinful against YHWH shamelessly.

The land I choose makes hardly difference now,

And Sodom would seem heaven anyhow

Compared with wealth of wickedness now told.

Take London, for example, where the bold

And insensate find every ruse of art

And beauty to cover their hidden part

In the destruction of the world and those

Who try to live and die on pea and rose.

Do not succumb, I tell myself and You,

But seek out dwelling in the treed and true,

And since all human institutions fare

No better than Gomorrah, I look where

The water is the best, since water's rare,

Yet still is found in Sodom's sun and glare.

14 Then YHWH spoke after Lot had gone

To Abram, said "Lift your eyes on

The place where you are, north and south,

Toward east and west, despite the drouth,

15 "For all the land you see I give

To you and yours, a place to live

Forever. 16 "And I'll make your seed

More than the dust of earth indeed,

If one could count it then they might

Count your descendants in their sight.

Though I may not be child of Abraham,

(My family history's opaque as a clam),

I ought to count it glory that I must

Be treated in this world like common dust.

The promise that You made to Abram then

Was not the common one made to sweet men,

But most astonishing and it's no wonder

That Abram had to second-guess and blunder.

Though to be frank Your word was clear enough.

It's just that clarity is such strange stuff

To us who live our lives in this illusion

That even useless gold seems an effusion.

But Abram knew the truth that children are

The only wealth one has on barren star.

17 "Get up and walk the land, its length

And width, to you I give its strength."

18 Then Abram moved his tent, and went

And lived beneath the terebinth,

The trees of Mamre, which are in

Hebron, and built an altar in

That place to worship YHWH therein.

In Mamre's revelation, in the shade

Of terebinth or oak and one grass blade

I pitch my tent and raise a slender psalm

Above the scent of frankincense and balm.

I rise and walk and pitch my tent again

Till my life seems a whirling in the fen,

A whirling and a march across the floor

Of earth beneath a sky without a door.

Since I cannot climb to the gate of heaven

I joy to find You here on earth at seven

Days in the forty-nine, and breath to breath

Each day I walk the altar without death.

Beloved, I rise and walk the land You give,

And pitch my tent and prostrate while I live.

[roman-catholic-mass-readings]

4th June >> Mass Readings (except USA)

 for

Pentecost - Vigil Mass & Mass of the Day

Vigil Mass:

(Liturgical Colour: Red) Either First Reading Genesis 11:1-9 Throughout the earth men spoke the same language, with the same vocabulary. Now as they moved eastwards they found a plain in the land of Shinar where they settled. They said to one another, ‘Come, let us make bricks and bake them in the fire.’ (For stone they used bricks, and for mortar they used bitumen). ‘Come,’ they said ‘let us build ourselves a town and a tower with its top reaching heaven. Let us make a name for ourselves, so that we may not be scattered about the whole earth.’    Now the Lord came down to see the town and the tower that the sons of man had built. ‘So they are all a single people with a single language!’ said the Lord. ‘This is but the start of their undertakings! There will be nothing too hard for them to do. Come, let us go down and confuse their language on the spot so that they can no longer understand one another.’ The Lord scattered them thence over the whole face of the earth, and they stopped building the town. It was named Babel therefore, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth. It was from there that the Lord scattered them over the whole face of the earth. The Word of the Lord. R/ Thanks be to God. Or Alternative First Reading Exodus 19:3-8,16-20 Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, ‘Say this to the House of Jacob, declare this to the sons of Israel:    ‘“You yourselves have seen what I did with the Egyptians, how I carried you on eagle’s wings and brought you to myself. From this you know that now, if you obey my voice and hold fast to my covenant, you of all the nations shall be my very own, for all the earth is mine. I will count you a kingdom of priests, a consecrated nation.”    ‘Those are the words you are to speak to the sons of Israel.’    So Moses went and summoned the elders of the people, putting before them all that the Lord had bidden him. Then all the people answered as one, ‘All that the Lord has said, we will do.’    Now at daybreak on the third day there were peals of thunder on the mountain and lightning flashes, a dense cloud, and a loud trumpet blast, and inside the camp all the people trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet God; and they stood at the bottom of the mountain. The mountain of Sinai was entirely wrapped in smoke, because the Lord had descended on it in the form of fire. Like smoke from a furnace the smoke went up, and the whole mountain shook violently. Louder and louder grew the sound of the trumpet. Moses spoke, and God answered him with peals of thunder. The Lord came down on the mountain of Sinai, on the mountain top, and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain. The Word of the Lord. R/ Thanks be to God. Or Alternative First Reading Ezekiel 37:1-14 The hand of the Lord was laid on me, and he carried me away by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley, a valley full of bones. He made me walk up and down among them. There were vast quantities of these bones on the ground the whole length of the valley; and they were quite dried up. He said to me, ‘Son of man, can these bones live?’ I said, ‘You know, Lord.’ He said, ‘Prophesy over these bones. Say, “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. The Lord says this to these bones: I am now going to make the breath enter you, and you will live. I shall put sinews on you, I shall make flesh grow on you, I shall cover you with skin and give you breath, and you will live; and you will learn that I am the Lord.”’ I prophesied as I had been ordered. While I was prophesying, there was a noise, a sound of clattering; and the bones joined together. I looked, and saw that they were covered with sinews; flesh was growing on them and skin was covering them, but there was no breath in them. He said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man. Say to the breath, “The Lord says this: Come from the four winds, breath; breathe on these dead; let them live!”’ I prophesied as he had ordered me, and the breath entered them; they came to life again and stood up on their feet, a great, an immense army.    Then he said, ‘Son of man, these bones are the whole House of Israel. They keep saying, “Our bones are dried up, our hope has gone; we are as good as dead.” So prophesy. Say to them, “The Lord says this: I am now going to open your graves; I mean to raise you from your graves, my people, and lead you back to the soil of Israel. And you will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and raise you from your graves, my people. And I shall put my spirit in you, and you will live, and I shall resettle you on your own soil; and you will know that I, the Lord, have said and done this – it is the Lord who speaks.”’ The Word of the Lord. R/ Thanks be to God. Or Alternative First Reading Joel 3:1-5 Thus says the Lord: ‘I will pour out my spirit on all mankind. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men see visions. Even on the slaves, men and women, will I pour out my spirit in those days. I will display portents in heaven and on earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke.’ The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the day of the Lord dawns, that great and terrible day. All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved, for on Mount Zion there will be some who have escaped, as the Lord has said, and in Jerusalem some survivors whom the Lord will call. The Word of the Lord. R/ Thanks be to God. Responsorial Psalm Psalm 103(104):1-2,24,27-30,35 R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! Bless the Lord, my soul!    Lord God, how great you are, clothed in majesty and glory,    wrapped in light as in a robe! R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! How many are your works, O Lord!    In wisdom you have made them all. The earth is full of your riches.    Bless the Lord, my soul. R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! All of these look to you    to give them their food in due season. You give it, they gather it up:    you open your hand, they have their fill. R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! You take back your spirit, they die,    returning to the dust from which they came. You send forth your spirit, they are created;    and you renew the face of the earth. R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! Second Reading Romans 8:22-27 From the beginning till now the entire creation, as we know, has been groaning in one great act of giving birth; and not only creation, but all of us who possess the first-fruits of the Spirit, we too groan inwardly as we wait for our bodies to be set free. For we must be content to hope that we shall be saved – our salvation is not in sight, we should not have to be hoping for it if it were – but, as I say, we must hope to be saved since we are not saved yet – it is something we must wait for with patience.    The Spirit too comes to help us in our weakness. For when we cannot choose words in order to pray properly, the Spirit himself expresses our plea in a way that could never be put into words, and God who knows everything in our hearts knows perfectly well what he means, and that the pleas of the saints expressed by the Spirit are according to the mind of God. The Word of the Lord. R/ Thanks be to God. Gospel Acclamation Alleluia, alleluia! Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Alleluia! Gospel John 7:37-39 On the last day and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood there and cried out: ‘If any man is thirsty, let him come to me! Let the man come and drink who believes in me!’ As scripture says: From his breast shall flow fountains of living water.    He was speaking of the Spirit which those who believed in him were to receive; for there was no Spirit as yet because Jesus had not yet been glorified. The Gospel of the Lord. R/ Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ. -------------------

Mass Readings of the Day:

(Liturgical Colour: Red) First Reading Acts of the Apostles 2:1-11 When Pentecost day came round, they had all met in one room, when suddenly they heard what sounded like a powerful wind from heaven, the noise of which filled the entire house in which they were sitting; and something appeared to them that seemed like tongues of fire; these separated and came to rest on the head of each of them. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak foreign languages as the Spirit gave them the gift of speech.    Now there were devout men living in Jerusalem from every nation under heaven, and at this sound they all assembled, each one bewildered to hear these men speaking his own language. They were amazed and astonished. ‘Surely’ they said ‘all these men speaking are Galileans? How does it happen that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; people from Mesopotamia, Judaea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya round Cyrene; as well as visitors from Rome – Jews and proselytes alike – Cretans and Arabs; we hear them preaching in our own language about the marvels of God.’ The Word of the Lord. R/ Thanks be to God. Responsorial Psalm Psalm 103(104):1,24,29-31,34 R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! Bless the Lord, my soul!    Lord God, how great you are, How many are your works, O Lord!    The earth is full of your riches. R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! You take back your spirit, they die,    returning to the dust from which they came. You send forth your spirit, they are created;    and you renew the face of the earth. R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! May the glory of the Lord last for ever!    May the Lord rejoice in his works! May my thoughts be pleasing to him.    I find my joy in the Lord. R/ Send forth your spirit, O Lord, and renew the face of the earth. or R/ Alleluia! Second Reading 1 Corinthians 12:3-7,12-13 No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord’ unless he is under the influence of the Holy Spirit.    There is a variety of gifts but always the same Spirit; there are all sorts of service to be done, but always to the same Lord; working in all sorts of different ways in different people, it is the same God who is working in all of them. The particular way in which the Spirit is given to each person is for a good purpose.    Just as a human body, though it is made up of many parts, is a single unit because all these parts, though many, make one body, so it is with Christ. In the one Spirit we were all baptised, Jews as well as Greeks, slaves as well as citizens, and one Spirit was given to us all to drink. The Word of the Lord. R/ Thanks be to God.

Sequence

Holy Spirit, Lord of Light, From the clear celestial height Thy pure beaming radiance give. Come, thou Father of the poor, Come with treasures which endure Come, thou light of all that live! Thou, of all consolers best, Thou, the soul’s delightful guest, Dost refreshing peace bestow Thou in toil art comfort sweet Pleasant coolness in the heat Solace in the midst of woe. Light immortal, light divine, Visit thou these hearts of thine, And our inmost being fill: If thou take thy grace away, Nothing pure in man will stay All his good is turned to ill. Heal our wounds, our strength renew On our dryness pour thy dew Wash the stains of guilt away: Bend the stubborn heart and will Melt the frozen, warm the chill Guide the steps that go astray. Thou, on us who evermore Thee confess and thee adore, With thy sevenfold gifts descend: Give us comfort when we die Give us life with thee on high Give us joys that never end. Gospel Acclamation Alleluia, alleluia! Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Alleluia! Gospel John 20:19-23 As the Father sent me, so am I sending you: receive the Holy Spirit In the evening of the first day of the week, the doors were closed in the room where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews. Jesus came and stood among them. He said to them, ‘Peace be with you’, and showed them his hands and his side. The disciples were filled with joy when they saw the Lord, and he said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. ‘As the Father sent me, so am I sending you.’ After saying this he breathed on them and said: ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. For those whose sins you forgive, they are forgiven; for those whose sins you retain, they are retained.’ The Gospel of the Lord. R/ Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.