Desdemona: Heaven truly doth know it.
Othello: Heaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.

classic lines from the play Othello, Act IV, Scene 2, script by William Shakespeare (1603)
Added by Dan Costinaş
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Desdemona: Mine eyes do itch; doth that bode weeping?
Emilia: 'Tis neither here nor there.

lines from the play Othello, Act IV, Scene 3, script by William Shakespeare (1603)
Added by Dan Costinaş
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Desdemona: Upon my knee, what doth your speech import?
I understand a fury in your words,
But not the words.

line from the play Othello, Act IV, Scene 2, script by William Shakespeare (1603)
Added by Dan Costinaş
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Othello: My life upon her faith! — Honest Iago,
My Desdemona must I leave to thee.
I prithee, let thy wife attend on her,
And bring them after in the best advantage.

line from the play Othello, Act I, Scene 3, script by William Shakespeare (1603)
Added by Dan Costinaş
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Lessons of English

When Desdemona sang a ditty-
In her last hours among the living-
It wasn't love that she lamented,
And not her star-she mourned a willow.
When Desdemona started singing,
With tears near choking off her voice,
Her evil demon for her evil day
Stored up of weeping rills a choice.

And when Ophelia sang a ballad-
In her last hours among the living-
All dryness of her soul was carried
Aloft by gusts of wind, like cinders.

The day Ophelia started singing,
By bitterness of daydreams jaded,
What trophies did she clutch, when sinking?
A bunch of buttercups and daisies.

Their shoulders stripped of passion's tatters,

[...] Read more

poem by Boris Pasternak
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Reward and punishment

A jealous Othello, an innocent Desdemona,
And a villain Iago, all played their parts
As per the scripts and directions, on the stage.
No one was hailed; No one was jailed.
The world is the stage on which we take parts
As Othellos, Desdimonas and Iagos.
Reward and punishment by God is a myth.
28.12.2000, Pmdi

poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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It Only Takes One To Do An 'Iago

Undermining has always been a trait,
Of those envious of others' deeds.
Conflicts have initiated over images raised.
Only to be replaced,
By mediocre initiatives.
And one with a taste to victimize with venom

It only takes one to do an 'Iago'.
You know
Othello's foe?
That legendary Moor,
In the military service of Venice.
Married to Desdemona,
And
The subject and tragic figure of Shakespeare's play.

That's all it takes!
An Iago who fakes a loyalty.
But has traitor on the mind,
And equipped to do it with lips.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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A money-order to Tamil Nadu

The software to write and read
Inside his cranium not installed.
Before me, his Tamil heart placed,
Which through Malayalam saw I,
As if in a mist; as pleaded,
The money-order form I filled
For the labourer came state border crossed.
His cell phone had chirped incessantly,
And he borrowed shamelessly.
A Desdemona, or a Lady Macbeth? Mind's vacuum it dropped.

Rupees had brought smile on her lips,
Beyond the sight beheld I,
As the sun appeared
Out of dark clouds.

(Tamil Nadu -a neighbouring state of Kerala, India
Tamil - spoken in Tamil Nadu.Malayalam - spoken in Kerala.
These languages are closely related)

poem by Fabiyas M V
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The Avon

WHAT are the Willows whispering in a row,
Nodding their old heads o'er the river's edge?
What does the West wind whisper to the sedge
And to the shame-faced purples drooping low?
Why sobs the water, in its broken flow
Lapping against the grey weir's ruined ledge?
And, in the thorny shelter of the hedge,
What bird unloads his heart of woe?

Green Avon's haunted! Look, from yonder bank
The willow leans, that hath not ceased to weep,
Whence, hanging garlands, fair Ophelia sank;
Since Jacques moped here the trees have had a tongue;
And all these streams and whispering willows keep
The moan of Desdemona's dying song.

poem by Mathilde Blind
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The Dove

If haply thou, O Desdemona Morn,
Shouldst call along the curving sphere, "Remain,
Dear Night, sweet Moor; nay, leave me not in scorn!"
With soft halloos of heavenly love and pain; --

Shouldst thou, O Spring! a-cower in coverts dark,
'Gainst proud supplanting Summer sing thy plea,
And move the mighty woods through mailed bark
Till mortal heart-break throbbed in every tree; --

Or (grievous `if' that may be `yea' o'er-soon!),
If thou, my Heart, long holden from thy Sweet,
Shouldst knock Death's door with mellow shocks of tune,
Sad inquiry to make -- `When may we meet?'

Nay, if ye three, O Morn! O Spring! O Heart!
Should chant grave unisons of grief and love;
Ye could not mourn with more melodious art
Than daily doth yon dim sequestered dove.

poem by Sidney Lanier
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The Violet Pressed in a Copy of Shakespeare

Here in the inmost of the master's heart
This violet crisp with early dew
Has come to leave her beauty and to part
With all her vivid hue.

And while in hollow glades and dells of musk,
Her fellows will reflower in bands,
Clasping the deeps of shade and emerald dusk,
With sweet inviolate hands,

She will lie here, a ghost of their delight,
Their lucent stems all ashen gray,
Their purples fallen into pulvil white,
Dull as the bluebird's alula.

But her where human passions pulse in power,
She will transcend our Shakespeare's art,
From Desdemona to a smothered flower,
Will leap the tragic heart.

[...] Read more

poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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An African Elegy

In the groves of Africa from their natural wonder
the wildebeest, zebra, the okapi, the elephant,
have enterd the marvelous. No greater marvelous
know I than the mind’s
natural jungle. The wives of the Congo
distil there their red and the husbands
hunt lion with spear and paint Death-spore
on their shields, wear his teeth, claws and hair
on ordinary occasions. There the Swahili
open his doors, let loose thru the trees
the tides of Death’s sound and distil
from their leaves the terrible red. He
is the consort of dreams I have seen, heard
in the orchestral dark
like the barking of dogs.

Death is the dog-headed man zebra striped
and surrounded by silence who walks like a lion,
who is black. It was his voice crying come back,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Duncan
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0312 Even the Best may stumble

Let’s suppose
you’ve bought or blagged
an invite to a buzzy West End party
after the football game, where
you’ll ‘mingle with the stars’

and when you get there, all glammed up
and wearing your Saturday best,
you glimpse, beyond a velvet, guarded rope,
the ‘stars’ you just won’t mingle with –

those ‘celebs’ with not too much to do
except to party and be photographed,
‘stars’ who’re hoping thus to burn the brighter
in the starry glitter of their combined glow…

while the hungry media, mingling in symbiosis,
poised to photograph,
smooze and click to elevate
these passing comets into myth

[...] Read more

poem by Michael Shepherd
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My Typewriter

I used to think a pot of ink
Held magic in its fluid,
And I would ply a pen when I
Was hoary a a Druid;
But as I scratch my silver thatch
My battered old Corona
Calls out to me as plaintively
As dying Desdemona.

"For old time's sake give me a break:
To you I've been as loyal
As ever could an Underwood,
Or Remington or Royal.
The globe we've spanned together and
Two million words, maybe,
For you I've tapped - it's time you rapped
A rhyme or two for me.

"I've seen you sit and smoke and spit
With expletives profane,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert William Service
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Po Boy

Words and music by bob dylan
Man came to the door, I say for whom were you lookin?
Says your wife, I say shes busy in the kitchen cookin
Po boy, where you been?
Already told you, wont tell you again
I say how much you want for that, Ill go into the store
Man says three dollars all right, I say, will you take four?
Po boy, never say die
Things will be all right, by and by
Workin like in a main line, workin like the devil
The game is the same its just upon another level
Po boy, dressed in black
Police at your back
Po boy in a red hot town
Out beyond the twinklin stars
Ridin first class train
Makin the rounds
Try to keep from fallin between the cars
Othello told desdemona Im cold, cover me with a blanket
By the way, what happened to that poisoned wine?

[...] Read more

song performed by Bob Dylan
Added by Lucian Velea
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Everyday Characters IV - My Partner

'There is, perhaps, no subject of more universal interest in the whole range of natural knowledge, than that of the unceasing fluctuations which take place in the atmosphere in which we are immersed.'
-- British Almanack.

At Cheltenham, where one drinks one's fill
Of folly and cold water,
I danced last year my first quadrille
With old Sir Geoffrey's daughter.
Her cheek with summer's rose might vie,
When summer's rose is newest;
Her eyes were blue as autumn's sky,
When autumn's sky is bluest;
And well my heart might deem her one
Of life's most precious flowers,
For half her thoughts were of its sun,
And half were of its showers.
I spoke of Novels: -- 'Vivian Grey'
Was positively charming,
And 'Almacks' infinitely gay,
And 'Frankenstein' alarming;
I said 'De Vere' was chastely told,

[...] Read more

poem by Winthrop Mackworth Praed
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A Bush Study, A La Watteau

HE.
See the smoke-wreaths how they curl so lightly skyward
From the ivied cottage nestled in the trees:
Such a lovely spot—I really feel that I would
Be happy there with children on my knees.

SHE.
No, you wouldn’t. These are merely idle fancies
Of a gentleman much given to day-dreams.
These chimneys always smoke, and, then the chance is
You would have a scolding wife and babe that screams.

HE.
Ah! but look! just there, above that lowly cottage,
Birds are flitting in the sunlight clear and pure;
And the three-score years and ten—man’s poor allottage—
Might be passed away with pleasure there, I’m sure.

SHE.
Now, pray listen, oh, vain wanderer from the city,

[...] Read more

poem by Arthur Patchett Martin
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Address Delivered At The Opening Of The New Theatre At Richmond

A Prize Poem

A fairy ring
Drawn in the crimson of a battle-plain --
From whose weird circle every loathsome thing
And sight and sound of pain
Are banished, while about it in the air,
And from the ground, and from the low-hung skies,
Throng, in a vision fair
As ever lit a prophet's dying eyes,
Gleams of that unseen world
That lies about us, rainbow-tinted shapes
With starry wings unfurled,
Poised for a moment on such airy capes
As pierce the golden foam
Of sunset's silent main --
Would image what in this enchanted dome,
Amid the night of war and death
In which the arm|\ed city draws its breath,

[...] Read more

poem by Henry Timrod
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A Prize Poem

A fairy ring
Drawn in the crimson of a battle-plain --
From whose weird circle every loathsome thing
And sight and sound of pain
Are banished, while about it in the air,
And from the ground, and from the low-hung skies,
Throng, in a vision fair
As ever lit a prophet's dying eyes,
Gleams of that unseen world
That lies about us, rainbow-tinted shapes
With starry wings unfurled,
Poised for a moment on such airy capes
As pierce the golden foam
Of sunset's silent main --
Would image what in this enchanted dome,
Amid the night of war and death
In which the arm|\ed city draws its breath,
We have built up!
For though no wizard wand or magic cup
The spell hath wrought,

[...] Read more

poem by Henry Timrod
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Driving Up To Mayberly

Driving up to Maberly for cheap cigarettes
at the Two Eagles Trading Post
across the highway from Silver Lake,
frost of the night,
mist of the morning lifting
in the blaze of the sun
in the bleach-blue sky
that wheels the reds and oranges,
and the wild, canary, grosbeak yellows
into their complementary hue,
I can't really see the autumn
until my blood stops thinning itself down
to peer through the lenses
of the watercolours in my eyes
and flowing, deeper, darker
turns into fire and paint
and dancing on the funeral pyre
of my last unknown masterpiece
instead of trying to walk on stars,
celebrates the crazy wildness of my solitude

[...] Read more

poem by Patrick White
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