 Ashes of Roses by Elaine Gooddale Eastman Read for LibriVox.org by Leanne Howlett Soft on the sunset sky bright daylight closes leaving when light doth die pale hues that mingling lie Ashes of Roses when love's warm sun is set love's brightness closes Eyes with hot tears are wet and harts there linger yet Ashes of Roses End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. A Baby Running Barefoot by D. H. Lawrence Read for LibriVox.org by Corey Samuel in June 2007 When the bare feet of the baby beat across the grass The little white feet nod like white flowers in the wind They poise and run like ripples lapping across the water And the sight of their white play among the grass is like a little robin's song, Winsome, or as two white butterflies settle in the cup of one flower For a moment, then away with a flutter of wings I long for the baby to wander hither to me like a wind-shadow wandering over the water So that she can stand on my knee with her little bare feet in my hands Cool like syringa buds, firm and silken like pink young peony flowers. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Binging on the Rhine by Caroline Norton Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage A soldier of the Legion lay dying in Algiers There was a lack of woman's nursing, there was a dearth of woman's tears But a comrade stood beside him while his lifeblood ebbed away And bent with pitying glances to hear what he might say The dying soldier faltered and he took that comrade's hand And he said, I never more shall see my own, my native land Take a message and a token to some distant friends of mine For I was born at Bingen, at Bingen on the Rhine Tell my brothers and companions when they meet and crowd around To hear my mournful story in the pleasant vineyard ground That we fought the battle bravely and when the day was done Full many a corpse lay ghastly pale beneath the setting sun And mid the dead and dying were some grown old in wars The death wound on their gallant breasts the last of many scars And some were young and suddenly beheld life's mourn decline And one had come from Bingen, fair Bingen on the Rhine Tell my mother that her other son shall comfort her old age For I was still a truant bird that thought his home a cage For my father was a soldier, and even as a child My heart leapt forth to hear him tell of struggles, fierce and wild And when he died and left us to divide his scanty horde I let them take whatever they would, but kept my father's sword And with boyish love I hung it where the bright light used to shine On the cottage wall at Bingen, calm Bingen on the Rhine Tell my sister not to weep for me and sob with drooping head When the troops come marching home again with glad and gallant tread But to look upon them proudly with a calm and steadfast eye For her brother was a soldier too, and not afraid to die And if a comrade seek her love I ask her in my name To listen to him kindly without regret or shame And to hang the old sword in its place, my father's sword in mine For the honour of old Bingen, dear Bingen on the Rhine There's another, not a sister. In the happy days gone by You'd have known her by the merriment that sparkled in her eye Too innocent for cockatry, too fond for idle scawning O friend, I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest morning Tell her the last night of my life, for ere the moon be risen My body will be out of pain, my soul be out of prison I dreamed I stood with her and saw the yellow sunlight shine On the vine-clad hills of Bingen, fair Bingen on the Rhine I saw the blue Rhine sweep along, I heard or seemed to hear The German songs we used to sing in chorus sweet and clear And down the pleasant river and up the slanting hill The echoing chorus sounded through the evening calm and still And her glad blue eyes were on me as we passed with friendly talk Down many a path beloved of yore and well-remembered walk And her little hand lay lightly, confidingly in mine But we'll meet no more at Bingen, loved Bingen on the Rhine His trembling voice grew faint and hoarse, his grasp was childish weak His eyes put on a dying look, he sighed and ceased to speak His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of life had fled The soldier of the Legion in a foreign land is dead And the soft moon rose up slowly and calmly she looked down On the red sand of the battlefield, with bloody corpses strown Yet calmly on that dreadful scene her pale light seemed to shine As it shone on distant Bingen, fair Bingen on the Rhine End of poem. This recording is in the public domain How sweet to lie there, sweet to kiss, with a great pine forest in Ialdes Thy kiss descending, sweeter were, with its soft tumult of thy hair O onto the pine wood at noon of day, come with me now, sweet love, away End of poem. This recording is in the public domain I know a place where the sun is like gold and the cherry blooms burst with snow And down underneath is the loveliest nook where the four leaf clovers grow One leaf is for hope and one is for faith and one is for love, you know And God put another in for luck. If you search, you will find where they grow But you must have hope and you must have faith, you must love and be strong And so, if you work, if you wait, you will find the place where the four leaf clovers grow End of poem. This recording is in the public domain Her hair was dull and drew no light, and yet its color was as mine Her eyes were strangely like my eyes, though love had never made them shine Her body was a thing grown thin, hungry for love that never came Her soul was frozen in the dark, unwarmed forever by love's flame I felt my lover look at her, and then turned suddenly to me His eyes were magic to defy the woman I shall never be End of poem. This recording is in the public domain Orchard by H.D. Hilda Doolittle Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake I saw the first pair as it fell The honey-seeking golden banded The yellow swarm was not more fleet than I, spare us from loveliness And I fell prostrate, crying You have flayed us with your blossoms Spare us the beauty of fruit trees The honey-seeking paused not The air thundering their song, and I alone was prostrate O rough-hewn god of the orchard, I bring you an offering Do you, alone, unbeautiful Son of the God, spare us from loveliness These fallen hazelnuts Stripped late of their green sheaths Grapes, red-purple Their berries dripping with wine Pomegranates already broken And shrunken figs And quinces untouched I bring you as offering End of poem. This recording is in the public domain Poet by Ralph Waldo Emerson Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake To clothe the fiery thought In simple words succeeds Postill the craft of geniuses To mask a king in weeds End of poem. This recording is in the public domain A little fairy comes at night Her eyes are blue, her hair is brown With silver spots upon her wings And from the moon she flutters down She has a little silver wand And when a good child goes to bed She waves her hand from right to left And makes a circle round its head And then it dreams of pleasant things Of fountains filled with fairy fish And trees that bear delicious fruit And bow their branches at a wish Of arbors filled with dainty scents From lovely flowers that never fade Bright flies that glitter in the sun And glowworms shining in the shade And talking birds with gifted tongues For singing songs and telling tales And pretty dwarfs to show the way Through fairy hills and fairy dales But when a bad child goes to bed From left to right she weaves her rings And then it dreams all through the night Of only ugly horrid things Then lions come with glaring eyes And tigers growl a dreadful noise And ogres draw their cruel knives To shed the blood of girls and boys Then stormy waves rush on to drown Or raging flames come scorching round Fierce dragons hover in the air And serpents crawl along the ground Then wicked children waken weep And wish the long black gloom away But good ones love the dark And find the night as pleasant as the day End of poem This recording is in the public domain But at every gust the dead leaves fall And the day is dark and dreary My life is cold and dark and dreary It rains and the wind is never weary My thoughts still cling to the moldering past But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast And the day is a dark and dreary We still sad heart and see street pining Behind the clouds and the sun still shining Thy fate is the common fate of all And to each life some rain must fall Some days must be dark and dreary End of poem This recording is in the public domain Woman too long degraded, scorned, oppressed O born to rule in partial laws despite Resume thy native empire or the breast Go forth arrayed in panoply divine That angel pureness which admits no stain Go, bid proud man his boasted rule resign Kiss the golden scepter of thy reign Go, gird thyself with grace Collect thy store of bright artillery Glancing from afar Soft melting tones thy thundering cannons roar Blushes and fears thy magazine of war Thy rights are empire No meaner claim felt not defined And if debated lost Like sacred mysteries which withheld from fame Shunning discussion are revered the most Try all that wit and art suggest To bend of thy imperial foe the stubborn knee Make treacherous man thy subject Not thy friend Thou mayest command, but never canst be free Or the licentious and restrain the rude Soften the sullen, clear the cloudy brow Be more than prince's gifts, thy favors sued She hazards all who will the least allow But hope not, courted idol of mankind, On this proud eminence secure to stay Subduing and subdued, thou soon shalt find Thy coldness soften and thy pride give way Then abandon each ambitious thought Conquest or rule thy heart shall feebly move In nature's school By her soft maxims taught That separate rights are lost in mutual love End of poem This recording is in the public domain A Roman Doll by Agnes Lee Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake In a museum How an image of paint and wood Leaped to her life with a love's control Struck the cords of her motherhood Passionate little mother soul Fair to her sight were the stolid eyes Deer to her toil the robes imperiled She crooned it the ancient lullabies She gathered it close from the outer world They watched together as Nero's pyres Fed the haze of a hundred fires Me in her fresh young arms she bore See I am small, only a doll But I keep her kiss for evermore Long and lonely the toy has lain One by one into times of this Years have dropped as the drops of rain Yet the cycles have left us this Today a sister has heard you call I saw her weep or the crumbling doll She knew, she knew You had lived and smiled You had loved your dream, little Roman child Me in her fresh young arms she bore See I am small, only a doll But I keep her kiss for evermore End of poem This recording is in the public domain Why so late and slow to come Am I not always here, thy summer home? Is not my voice thy music Morn and eve My breath thy healthful climate in the heats My touch thy antidote My bay thy bath Was ever building like my terraces Was ever couch magnificent as mine Lie in the warm rock ledges And there learn a little hut Suffices like a town I make your sculptured architecture vain, vain beside mine I drive my wedges home And carve the coastline mountains into caves Lo, here is Rome and Nineveh and Thebes, Karnak and Pyramid And giant stairs half piled or prostrate And my newest slab older than all thy races Behold the sea, the opaline, the plentiful and strong Yet beautiful as is the rose in June Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds Perjure of earth and medicine of men Creating a sweet climate by my breath Washing out harms and griefs from memory And in my mathematic ebb and flow Giving a hint of that which changes not Rich are the sea gods Who gives gifts but they They grope the sea for pearls But more than pearls They pluck force thence And give it to the wise For every wave is wealth to deadless Wealth to the cunning artist who can work this matchless strength Where shall we find a waves? A load your atlas' shoulders cannot lift I with my hammer pounding evermore The rocky coast smite Andes into dust Stroing my bed and in another age Rebuild a continent of better men Then I unbar the doors My paths lead out the exodus of nations I disperse men to all shores That front the hoary mane I too have arts and sorceries Illusion dwells forever with the wave I know what spells are laid Leave me to deal with credulous and imaginative man For though he scoop my water in his palm A few rods off he deems it gems and clouds Planting strange fruits and sunshine on the shore I make some coasts alluring Some lone isle To distant men who must go there or die There was a child went forth By Walt Whitman Read for LibriVox.org by Corey Samuel in June 2007 There was a child went forth every day And the first object he looked upon That object he became And that object became part of him for the day Or a certain part of the day Or for many years or stretching cycles of years The early lilacs became part of this child And grass and white and red morning glories And white and red clover And the song of the Phoebe bird And the third-month lambs And the sows pink-faint litter And the mare's foal And the cow's calf And the noisy brood of the barnyard Or by the mire of the pondside And the fish suspending themselves so curiously below there And the beautiful curious liquid And the water-plants with their graceful flat heads All became part of him The field sprouts of fourth-month and fifth-month became part of him Wintergrain sprouts and those of the light yellow corn And the eschuland roots of the garden And the apple trees covered with blossoms And the fruit afterward and wood-berries And the commonest weeds by the road And the old drunkard staggering home from the outhouse of the tavern Wince he had lately risen And the schoolmistress that passed on her way to the school And the friendly boys that passed And the quarrelsome boys And the tidy and fresh-cheeked girls And the barefoot negro-boy and girl And all the changes of city and country wherever he went His own parents, he that had fathered him And she that had conceived him in her womb and birthed him They gave this child more of themselves than that They gave him afterward every day They became part of him The mother at home quietly placing the dishes on the supper-table The mother with mild words, clean her cap and gown A wholesome odor falling off her peasant and clothes as she walks by The father, strong, self-sufficient, manly, mean, angered, unjust The blow, the quick-loud word, the tight bargain, the crafty lure The family usages, the language, the company, the furniture The yearning and swelling heart, affection that will not be, again said The sense of what is real, the thought if, after all, it should prove unreal The doubts of daytime and the doubts of nighttime The curious weather and how, whether that which appears so, is so Or is it all flashes and specs? Men and women crowding fast in the streets if they are not flashes and specs What are they? The streets themselves, and the facades of houses and goods in the windows Vehicles, teams, the heavy-planked wharves, the huge crossing at the ferries The village on the highland, seen from afar at sunset The river between, shadows, oriola and mist The light falling on roofs and gables of white or brown, three miles off The schooner nearby, sleepily dropping down the tide The little boat slacked toad a stern The hurrying, tumbling waves, quick-broken crests slapping The strata of coloured clouds, the long bar of maroon tint Away solitary by itself The spread of purity it lies motionless in The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow The fragrance of saltmarsh and shore mud These became part of that child, who went forth every day And who now goes, and will always go forth every day End of poem. This recording is in the public domain To My Dear and Loving Husband by Ann Bradstreet Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake If ever two were one, then surely we If ever man were loved by wife, then thee If ever wife were happy in a man Compare with me, ye women, if you can I prize thy love more than whole minds of gold Or all the riches that the east doth hold My love is such that rivers cannot quench Nor ought but love from thee give recompense Thy love is such I can no way repay The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray Then while we live in love let's so persevere That when we live no more we may live ever End of poem. This recording is in the public domain Tonight by Percy Bysshelling Read for LibriVox.org by Matt Walker Swiftly walker the western wave, spirit of night Out of the misty eastern cave, where all the long And lone daylight, thou wovest dreams of joy and fear Which make thee terrible and dear. Swift be thy flight Wrap thy form in a mantle gray, star and rod Blind with thine hair, the eyes of day Kiss her until she be wearied out Then wander, or city, and sea and land Touching all with thine opiate wand Come, long sought. When I rose and saw the dawn I sighed for thee. When light rode high And the dew was gone, and noon lay heavy On flower and tree, and the weary day turned To his rest, lingering like an unloved guest I sighed for thee. Thy brother death came And cried, wouldst thou me? Thy sweet child sleep The filmy eyed, murmured like a noon tied bee Shall I nestle near thy side? Wouldst thou me? And I replied, no, not thee. Death will come When thou art dead, soon too soon Sleep will come when thou art fled Of neither would I ask the boon I ask of thee, beloved night Swift be thine approaching flight Come soon, soon, end of poem This reading is in the public domain When that I was an a little tiny boy By William Shakespeare, read for LibriVox.org By Linda Wilcox When that I was an a little tiny boy With hay-ho, the wind and the ring A foolish thing was but a toy For the ring it ringeth every day But when I came to man's estate With hay-ho, the wind and the ring Against knaves and thieves men shut their gate For the ring it ringeth every day But when I came at last to wife With hay-ho, the wind and the ring By staggering could I never thrive For the ring it ringeth every day To my beds, with hay-ho, the wind and the ring With toss-pots still had drunken heads For the ring it ringeth every day A great while ago the world began With hay-ho, the wind and the ring But that's all one, our play is done And we'll strive to please you every day End of poem, this recording is in the public domain Winter Night by Po Chi Yi Wrath for LibriWogs.org by Paul Z. Hong Kong, my house is poor Those that I love have left me My body's sick, I cannot join the feast There is not a living soul before my eyes As I lie alone locked in my cottage room My broken lamp burns with a feeble flame My tattered curtains are crooked And do not meet Check-check on the doorstep and windowsill Again I hear the news no fall As I grow older, gradually I sleep less I wick at midnight and sit up straight in bed If I had not learned the art of sitting and forgetting How could I bear this utter loneliness Stiff and stark, my body cleaves to the earth Unimpeded, my soul used to change So has it been for four hateful years Through one thousand and three hundred nights End of poem, this recording is in the public domain A Word to the Wise by Caroline Dewar Wrath for LibriWogs.org by Leanne Howlett If wisdom's height is only disenchantment As say the cynics of a certain school And sages grow more sad in their advancement Then folly is the wisdom of the fool Since fools know happiness through lack of knowledge And see things fair because they shut their eyes Then anyone can tell who's been to college That wisdom is the folly of the wise