Holy, Holy, Holy

by Reginald Heber

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee;
Holy, holy, holy merciful and mighty!
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Holy, holy, holy! all the saints adore thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,
Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.

Holy, holy, holy! tho' the darkness hide thee,
Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see,
Only thou art holy, there is none beside thee,
Perfect in power, in love, and purity.

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty
All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth, and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy merciful and mighty!
God in Three Persons, blessed Trinity!

Cage & Aquarium

by John Flansburgh

Somebody's reading your mind
Damned if you know who it is
They're digging through all of your files
Stealing back your best ideas

You cover your windows with lead
Even keeping the pets outside
Then you hear a moment too late
This sound coming over the phone

This is the spawning of the cage and aquarium
Don't wait a moment too soon
Used to be different, now you're the same
Yawn as your plane goes down in flames

October

by Robert Frost

O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
To-morrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow,
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know;
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away;
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—
For the grapes' sake along the wall.

Positively 4th Street

by Bob Dylan

You got a lot of nerve
To say you are my friend
When I was down
You just stood there grinning
You got a lot of nerve
To say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on
The side that's winning

You say I let you down
You know it's not like that
If you're so hurt
Why then don't you show it?
You say you lost your faith
But that's not where it's at
You had no faith to lose
And you know it

I know the reason
That you talk behind my back
I used to be among the crowd
You're in with
Do you take me for such a fool
To think I'd make contact
With the one who tries to hide
What she don't know to begin with?

You see me on the street
You always act surprised
You say, 'How are you? Good luck!'
But you don't mean it
When you know as well as me
You'd rather see me paralyzed
Why don't you just come out once
And scream it?

No, I do not feel that good
When I see the heartbreaks you embrace
If I was a master thief
Perhaps I'd rob them
And now I know you're dissatisfied
With your position and your place
Don't you understand?
It's not my problem

I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
And just for that one moment
I could be you
Yes, I wish that for just one time
You could stand inside my shoes
You'd know what a drag it is
To see you

East Coker (Pt. III)

[Pt. II here]
by T.S. Eliot

O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark,
The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant,
The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters,
The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers,
Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees,
Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark,
And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha
And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors,
And cold the sense and lost the motive of action.
And we all go with them, into the silent funeral,
Nobody's funeral, for there is no one to bury.
I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you
Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre,
The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed
With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness,
And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama
And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away—
Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations
And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence
And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen
Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about;
Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing—
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning.
The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry,
The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy
Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony
Of death and birth.

                                            You say I am repeating
Something I have said before. I shall say it again.
Shall I say it again? In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not.

[Pt. IV here]

Girl Inside My Head

by John Popper

When all is said and done
I wish I needed no one
Never was up to me
Just something in her way that sets me free
It seems so easy

And I try to pay attention
But there's only four things running through my mind

How hard will it be if she is nice to me?
How bad will it get if I let her get to know me?
Should she see the willing dog, or should I be a jungle cat?
And most of all, my god, how does she make her eyes do that?

I don't need another girl inside my head

'Johnny, be brave,' I say inside
As I won't take a bite from the apple that she gave me
But that's not what I'm after
Still all along, my mother's voice singing
'Treat her like a lady'

I'm not the only one to write her letters
It doesn't matter anyhow
The question isn't if, but when

In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning

by Bob Hilliard

When the sun is high
In the afternoon sky
You can always find something to do
But from dusk til dawn
As the clock ticks on
Something happens to you

In the wee small hours of the morning
While the whole wide world is fast asleep
You lie awake and think about the girl
And never even think of counting sheep

When your lonely heart has learned its lesson
You'd be hers if only she would call
In the wee small hours of the morning
That's the time you miss her most of all