Jump to content
  • Sign up for free and receive a month's subscription

    You are viewing this page as a guest. That means you are either a member who has not logged in, or you have not yet registered with us. Signing up for an account only takes a minute and it means you will no longer see this annoying box! It will also allow you to get involved with our friendly(ish!) community and take part in the discussions on our forums. And because we're feeling generous, if you sign up for a free account we will give you a month's free trial access to our subscriber only content with no obligation to commit. Register an account and then send a private message to @dave u and he'll hook you up with a subscription.

How Sad Is That


Red Nick
 Share

Recommended Posts

For RiS, Chris, and all the other country bumpkins...

 

530-1.jpg

 

The John Deere Model 530

 

The John Deere 530

The Model 530 is basically the same tractor as the Model 520, but the sheet metal has been revised. Notice that the design of the hood and grill have been simplified and the green horizontal element that can be seen on the Model 520 has been removed. Notice also that fenders are standard equipment and the headlights are built into them.

 

http://www.retiredtractors.com/Popper/530.html

 

I was always more of a MF man.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 1k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

There is no verse number 550 in the Koran.

Not a lot of people kn know that.

 

The Beneficent

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful.

 

[55.1] The Beneficent God,

[55.2] Taught the Quran.

[55.3] He created man,

 

Was Allah was afraid of 550 or did someone nick it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My first thought was, he lied in every word,

That hoary cripple, with malicious eye

Askance to watch the working of his lie

On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford

Suppression of the glee that pursed and scored

Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby.

 

What else should he be set for, with his staff?

What, save to waylay with his lies, ensnare

All travellers who might find him posted there,

And ask the road? I guessed what skull-like laugh

Would break, what crutch 'gin write my epitaph

For pastime in the dusty thoroughfare,

 

If at his counsel I should turn aside

Into that ominous tract which, all agree,

Hides the Dark Tower. Yet acquiescingly

I did turn as he pointed: neither pride

Nor hope rekindling at the end descried,

So much as gladness that some end might be.

 

For, what with my whole world-wide wandering,

What with my search drawn out thro' years, my hope

Dwindled into a ghost not fit to cope

With that obstreperous joy success would bring,

I hardly tried now to rebuke the spring

My heart made, finding failure in its scope.

 

As when a sick man very near to death

Seems dead indeed, and feels begin and end

The tears and takes the farewell of each friend,

And hears one bid the other go, draw breath

Freelier outside ("since all is o'er," he saith,

"And the blow fallen no grieving can amend;")

 

While some discuss if near the other graves

Be room enough for this, and when a day

Suits best for carrying the corpse away,

With care about the banners, scarves and staves:

And still the man hears all, and only craves

He may not shame such tender love and stay.

 

Thus, I had so long suffered in this quest,

Heard failure prophesied so oft, been writ

So many times among "The Band" - to wit,

The knights who to the Dark Tower's search addressed

Their steps - that just to fail as they, seemed best,

And all the doubt was now--should I be fit?

 

So, quiet as despair, I turned from him,

That hateful cripple, out of his highway

Into the path he pointed. All the day

Had been a dreary one at best, and dim

Was settling to its close, yet shot one grim

Red leer to see the plain catch its estray.

 

For mark! no sooner was I fairly found

Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two,

Than, pausing to throw backward a last view

O'er the safe road, 'twas gone; grey plain all round:

Nothing but plain to the horizon's bound.

I might go on; nought else remained to do.

 

So, on I went. I think I never saw

Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve:

For flowers - as well expect a cedar grove!

But cockle, spurge, according to their law

Might propagate their kind, with none to awe,

You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove.

 

No! penury, inertness and grimace,

In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See

Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly,

"It nothing skills: I cannot help my case:

'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place,

Calcine its clods and set my prisoners free."

 

If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk

Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents

Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents

In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulk

All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk

Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents.

 

As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair

In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud

Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood.

One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare,

Stood stupefied, however he came there:

Thrust out past service from the devil's stud!

 

Alive? he might be dead for aught I know,

With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain,

And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane;

Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe;

I never saw a brute I hated so;

He must be wicked to deserve such pain.

 

I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart.

As a man calls for wine before he fights,

I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights,

Ere fitly I could hope to play my part.

Think first, fight afterwards - the soldier's art:

One taste of the old time sets all to rights.

 

Not it! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face

Beneath its garniture of curly gold,

Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold

An arm in mine to fix me to the place

That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace!

Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold.

 

Giles then, the soul of honour - there he stands

Frank as ten years ago when knighted first.

What honest men should dare (he said) he durst.

Good - but the scene shifts - faugh! what hangman hands

Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands

Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst!

 

Better this present than a past like that;

Back therefore to my darkening path again!

No sound, no sight as far as eye could strain.

Will the night send a howlet or a bat?

I asked: when something on the dismal flat

Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.

 

A sudden little river crossed my path

As unexpected as a serpent comes.

No sluggish tide congenial to the glooms;

This, as it frothed by, might have been a bath

For the fiend's glowing hoof - to see the wrath

Of its black eddy bespate with flakes and spumes.

 

So petty yet so spiteful! All along

Low scrubby alders kneeled down over it;

Drenched willows flung them headlong in a fit

Of mute despair, a suicidal throng:

The river which had done them all the wrong,

Whate'er that was, rolled by, deterred no whit.

 

Which, while I forded, - good saints, how I feared

To set my foot upon a dead man's cheek,

Each step, or feel the spear I thrust to seek

For hollows, tangled in his hair or beard!

--It may have been a water-rat I speared,

But, ugh! it sounded like a baby's shriek.

 

Glad was I when I reached the other bank.

Now for a better country. Vain presage!

Who were the strugglers, what war did they wage,

Whose savage trample thus could pad the dank

Soil to a plash? Toads in a poisoned tank,

Or wild cats in a red-hot iron cage--

 

The fight must so have seemed in that fell cirque.

What penned them there, with all the plain to choose?

No foot-print leading to that horrid mews,

None out of it. Mad brewage set to work

Their brains, no doubt, like galley-slaves the Turk

Pits for his pastime, Christians against Jews.

 

And more than that - a furlong on - why, there!

What bad use was that engine for, that wheel,

Or brake, not wheel - that harrow fit to reel

Men's bodies out like silk? with all the air

Of Tophet's tool, on earth left unaware,

Or brought to sharpen its rusty teeth of steel.

 

Then came a bit of stubbed ground, once a wood,

Next a marsh, it would seem, and now mere earth

Desperate and done with; (so a fool finds mirth,

Makes a thing and then mars it, till his mood

Changes and off he goes!) within a rood--

Bog, clay and rubble, sand and stark black dearth.

 

Now blotches rankling, coloured gay and grim,

Now patches where some leanness of the soil's

Broke into moss or substances like boils;

Then came some palsied oak, a cleft in him

Like a distorted mouth that splits its rim

Gaping at death, and dies while it recoils.

 

And just as far as ever from the end!

Nought in the distance but the evening, nought

To point my footstep further! At the thought,

A great black bird, Apollyon's bosom-friend,

Sailed past, nor beat his wide wing dragon-penned

That brushed my cap--perchance the guide I sought.

 

For, looking up, aware I somehow grew,

'Spite of the dusk, the plain had given place

All round to mountains - with such name to grace

Mere ugly heights and heaps now stolen in view.

How thus they had surprised me, - solve it, you!

How to get from them was no clearer case.

 

Yet half I seemed to recognise some trick

Of mischief happened to me, God knows when--

In a bad dream perhaps. Here ended, then,

Progress this way. When, in the very nick

Of giving up, one time more, came a click

As when a trap shuts - you're inside the den!

 

Burningly it came on me all at once,

This was the place! those two hills on the right,

Crouched like two bulls locked horn in horn in fight;

While to the left, a tall scalped mountain . . . Dunce,

Dotard, a-dozing at the very nonce,

After a life spent training for the sight!

 

What in the midst lay but the Tower itself?

The round squat turret, blind as the fool's heart

Built of brown stone, without a counterpart

In the whole world. The tempest's mocking elf

Points to the shipman thus the unseen shelf

He strikes on, only when the timbers start.

 

Not see? because of night perhaps? - why, day

Came back again for that! before it left,

The dying sunset kindled through a cleft:

The hills, like giants at a hunting, lay

Chin upon hand, to see the game at bay,--

"Now stab and end the creature - to the heft!"

 

Not hear? when noise was everywhere! it tolled

Increasing like a bell. Names in my ears

Of all the lost adventurers my peers,--

How such a one was strong, and such was bold,

And such was fortunate, yet each of old

Lost, lost! one moment knelled the woe of years.

 

There they stood, ranged along the hillsides, met

To view the last of me, a living frame

For one more picture! in a sheet of flame

I saw them and I knew them all. And yet

Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,

And blew. "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

551 A.D.: political events

 

A Byzantine fleet defeats the Ostrogoth navy.

 

With a deflected goal by Atilla Hornblower.

I remember it well from the Robert Graves novel Count Bellasrius.

 

In the end they plucked the Count's eyes out after losing the replay.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner Part One:

 

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,

Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

"The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,

And I am next of kin;

The guests are met, the feast is set:

May'st hear the merry din."

 

He holds him with his skinny hand,

"There was a ship," quoth he.

"Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"

Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

 

He holds him with his glittering eye --

The Wedding-Guest stood still,

And listens like a three years child:

The Mariner hath his will.

 

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:

He cannot chuse but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.

 

The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the light-house top.

 

The Sun came up upon the left,

Out of the sea came he!

And he shone bright, and on the right

Went down into the sea.

 

Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon --

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,

For he heard the loud bassoon.

 

The bride hath paced into the hall,

Red as a rose is she;

Nodding their heads before her goes

The merry minstrelsy.

 

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,

Yet he cannot chuse but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner.

 

And now the Storm-Blast came, and he

Was tyrannous and strong:

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,

And chased south along.

 

With sloping masts and dipping prow,

As who pursued with yell and blow

Still treads the shadow of his foe

And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,

And southward aye we fled.

 

And now there came both mist and snow,

And it grew wondrous cold:

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,

As green as emerald.

 

And through the drifts the snowy clifts

Did send a dismal sheen:

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken --

The ice was all between.

 

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,

Like noises in a swound!

 

At length did cross an Albatross:

Thorough the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,

We hailed it in God's name.

 

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,

And round and round it flew.

The ice did split with a thunder-fit;

The helmsman steered us through!

 

And a good south wind sprung up behind;

The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,

Came to the mariners' hollo!

 

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

It perched for vespers nine;

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,

Glimmered the white Moon-shine.

 

"God save thee, ancient Mariner!

From the fiends, that plague thee thus! --

Why look'st thou so?" -- With my cross-bow

I shot the Albatross.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"I shot the Albatross"

 

I luv a happy ending.

 

Apparently Sam C had a very unhappy marriage to a frump called Sarah.

The ode is an allegory of his marital disillusionment.

 

That’s enough of the bullshit. When are we having the bit about the painted ship on the painted ocean, it’s my favourite part?

 

There’s nothing like it in the Koran.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part the Second

 

The Sun now rose upon the right:

Out of the sea came he,

Still hid in mist, and on the left

Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew behind

But no sweet bird did follow,

Nor any day for food or play

Came to the mariners' hollo!

 

And I had done an hellish thing,

And it would work 'em woe:

For all averred, I had killed the bird

That made the breeze to blow.

Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay

That made the breeze to blow!

 

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,

The glorious Sun uprist:

Then all averred, I had killed the bird

That brought the fog and mist.

'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,

That bring the fog and mist.

 

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free:

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea.

 

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,

'Twas sad as sad could be;

And we did speak only to break

The silence of the sea!

 

All in a hot and copper sky,

The bloody Sun, at noon,

Right up above the mast did stand,

No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

 

Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where,

Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!

That ever this should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs

Upon the slimy sea.

 

About, about, in reel and rout

The death-fires danced at night;

The water, like a witch's oils,

Burnt green, and blue and white.

 

And some in dreams assured were

Of the spirit that plagued us so:

Nine fathom deep he had followed us

From the land of mist and snow.

 

And every tongue, through utter drought,

Was withered at the root;

We could not speak, no more than if

We had been choked with soot.

 

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is from a chapter called The Cow

 

[2.164] Most surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day, and the ships that run in the sea with that which profits men, and the water that Allah sends down from the cloud, then gives life with it to the earth after its death and spreads in it all (kinds of) animals, and the changing of the winds and the clouds made subservient between the heaven and the earth, there are signs for a people who understand.

 

Did you know there is no mention of the word paint or ocean in the Koran?

 

It’ll never make a decent movie.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is from a chapter called The Cow

 

[2.164] Most surely in the creation of the heavens and the earth and the alternation of the night and the day, and the ships that run in the sea with that which profits men, and the water that Allah sends down from the cloud, then gives life with it to the earth after its death and spreads in it all (kinds of) animals, and the changing of the winds and the clouds made subservient between the heaven and the earth, there are signs for a people who understand.

 

Did you know there is no mention of the word paint or ocean in the Koran?

 

It’ll never make a decent movie.

 

Does Dylan Thomas make an appearence in the Koran?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The once was a man from Leeds

Who swallowed a packet of seeds

As time came to pass

He was covered in grass

And he couldn't move for the weeds

 

I've just quoted Browning and Coleridge. They shouldn't have bothered please, please tell me that is just a verse from from a much longer piece of work. I beg you regail us with this masterpiece.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part the Third

 

There passed a weary time. Each throat

Was parched, and glazed each eye.

A weary time! a weary time!

How glazed each weary eye,

When looking westward, I beheld

A something in the sky.

At first it seemed a little speck,

And then it seemed a mist:

It moved and moved, and took at last

A certain shape, I wist.

 

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!

And still it neared and neared:

As if it dodged a water-sprite,

It plunged and tacked and veered.

 

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

We could not laugh nor wail;

Through utter drought all dumb we stood!

I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,

And cried, A sail! a sail!

 

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

Agape they heard me call:

Gramercy! they for joy did grin,

And all at once their breath drew in,

As they were drinking all.

 

See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!

Hither to work us weal;

Without a breeze, without a tide,

She steadies with upright keel!

 

The western wave was all a-flame

The day was well nigh done!

Almost upon the western wave

Rested the broad bright Sun;

When that strange shape drove suddenly

Betwixt us and the Sun.

 

And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,

(Heaven's Mother send us grace!)

As if through a dungeon-grate he peered,

With broad and burning face.

 

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)

How fast she nears and nears!

Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,

Like restless gossameres!

 

Are those her ribs through which the Sun

Did peer, as through a grate?

And is that Woman all her crew?

Is that a death? and are there two?

Is death that woman's mate?

 

Her lips were red, her looks were free,

Her locks were yellow as gold:

Her skin was as white as leprosy,

The Night-Mare Life-in-Death was she,

Who thicks man's blood with cold.

 

The naked hulk alongside came,

And the twain were casting dice;

"The game is done! I've won! I've won!"

Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

 

The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:

At one stride comes the dark;

With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea.

Off shot the spectre-bark.

 

We listened and looked sideways up!

Fear at my heart, as at a cup,

My life-blood seemed to sip!

 

The stars were dim, and thick the night,

The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;

From the sails the dew did drip --

Till clombe above the eastern bar

The horned Moon, with one bright star

Within the nether tip.

 

One after one, by the star-dogged Moon

Too quick for groan or sigh,

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,

And cursed me with his eye.

 

Four times fifty living men,

(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)

With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,

They dropped down one by one.

 

The souls did from their bodies fly, --

They fled to bliss or woe!

And every soul, it passed me by,

Like the whizz of my Cross-Bow!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does Dylan Thomas make an appearence in the Koran?

 

I'll check it out for ya, meanwhile where's chapter 3?

The bit where the ghost ship appears is ace.

 

BTW Just heard on R4, the editor who published that Islamic cartoon about Islam has been found guilty of taking the piss and is awaiting sentencing.

That's wot I call sad.

 

On the plus side, they’ll hang Usher for this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've just quoted Browning and Coleridge. They shouldn't have bothered please, please tell me that is just a verse from from a much longer piece of work. I beg you regail us with this masterpiece.

 

 

It's one of Byron's verses actually.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Act Of Union

 

To-night, a first movement, a pulse,

As if the rain in bogland gathered head

To slip and flood: a bog-burst,

A gash breaking open the ferny bed.

Your back is a firm line of eastern coast

And arms and legs are thrown

Beyond your gradual hills. I caress

The heaving province where our past has grown.

I am the tall kingdom over your shoulder

That you would neither cajole nor ignore.

Conquest is a lie. I grow older

Conceding your half-independant shore

Within whose borders now my legacy

Culminates inexorably.

 

 

 

And I am still imperially

Male, leaving you with pain,

The rending process in the colony,

The battering ram, the boom burst from within.

The act sprouted an obsinate fifth column

Whose stance is growing unilateral.

His heart beneath your heart is a wardrum

Mustering force. His parasitical

And ignorant little fists already

Beat at your borders and I know they're cocked

At me across the water. No treaty

I foresee will salve completely your tracked

And stretchmarked body, the big pain

That leaves you raw, like opened ground, again

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share


×
×
  • Create New...