29 July 2012

That I did first kiss a Queen: Found Poetry


Being demanded what he thought of God,
             he answers that he was a good old man; 
and what of Christ,
             that he was a towardly young youth;
and of his soul,
            that it was a great bone in his body;
and what should become of his soul after he was dead,
           that if he had done well he should be put into a pleasant green meadow.
A 17th-C man on his deathbed. J. F. C. Harrison, The Common People of Great Britain.

 
Item: one cliff, one dungeon, one hell-mouth, one Dido's tomb.
 Item: eight pits, one ladder for Phaeton to ascend to heaven.
Item: two sponge-cakes and one city of Rome.
Item: one golden fleece, two gibbets, one laurel tree.
Item: one wooden vault of heaven, one head of the prophet Mahomet.
Item: three heads of Cerberus, snakes from
Faustus, one lion, two lion's heads, one big horse with legs.
Item: one pair of red gloves, three kings' crowns, one scaffold for the execution of John.
Item: one pot for boiling the Jew.
Item: four sets of vestments for Herod, one green cloak for Mariamne, one jacket for Eve, one costume for the Holy Spirit and three Spanish noble's hats.
Theatrical inventory from 1598 noted by Meyerhold. 
 

It is not the black clothes that are trying to the sight
-- black is the steadiest of all colours to work at;
white and all bright colours makes the eyes water
after looking at 'em for any long time;
but of all colours scarlet,
       such as is used for regimentals, 
is the most blinding.
It seems to burn the eyeballs, and make them ache dreadful
       . . . everything seems all of a twitter
       and to keep changing its tint.
There's more military tailors blind than any others.
H. Mayhew in R. Hughes, The Fatal Shore. 




Cohen said she "took off her dress" backstage
and was about
one Gatorade-bucket slam from a full dugout pout
when somebody said to sequin up because she was about to medal
Seattle PI, Winter Olympics 2006.


I now took them to Westminster Abbey and there did show them the tombs very finely,
having one with us alone . .
and here we did see, by perticular favour,
the body of Queen Katherine of Valois,
and had her upper part of her body in my hands.
And I did kiss her mouth, 
reflecting upon it that I did kiss a Queen,
and that this was my birthday, 36 years old,
that I did first kiss a Queen.
Samuel Pepys




 


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