 BATTER MY HEART, THREE PERSONED GOD, for you as yet but knock, breath, shine, and seek to mend, that I may rise and stand, or throw me, and bend your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I like a usurped town to another do, labor to admit you, but oh, to no end, reason your viceroy in me, me should defend, but is captive, and proves weak or untrue. Yet dearly I love you, and would be love and fame, but am betrothed unto your enemy. Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again. Take me to you, imprison me, for I, except you, enthrall me, never shall be free. Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. BELOW, BELOW, THOU WINTER WIND, THOU ART NOT SO UNKIND AS MAN'S IN GRATITUDE. Thy tooth is not so keen, because thou art not seen, although thy breath be rude. Hayhoe, sing hayhoe unto the green holly. Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly, than hayhoe the holly. This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, that doth not bite so nigh as benefits forgot. Though thou the water is warped, thy sting is not so sharp as a friend, remember not. Hayhoe, sing hayhoe unto the green holly. Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly. When hayhoe the holly, this life is most jolly. End of Poem This recording is in the Public Domain, Disenchantment by Emily Dickinson, read for LibriVox.org. It dropped so low in my regard I heard it hit the ground, and go to pieces on the stones at bottom of my mind, yet blamed the faith that fractured less than I reviled myself for entertaining plated wares upon my silver shelf. End of Poem This recording is in the Public Domain. Fair Iris I Love and Hourly I Die by John Dryden, read for LibriVox.org. Fair Iris I Love and Hourly I Die, but not for a lip nor a languishing eye. She's fickle and false, and there we agree, for I am as false and as fickle as she. We neither believe what either can say, and neither believing, we neither betray. This is civil to swear and say things, of course. We mean not the taking for better or worse. When present we love, when absent agree. I think not a virus, nor Iris of me. The legend of love no couple can find, so easy to part, or so equally joined. End of Poem This recording is in the Public Domain. Fire and Ice by Robert Frost, read for LibriVox.org. Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favour fire. But if it had to perish twice I think I know enough of hate to know that for destruction ice is also great, and wood suffice. End of Poem This recording is in the Public Domain. Footsteps of Angels by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, read for LibriVox.org by Mindy H. When the hours of day are numbered, and the voices of the night, wake the better soul that slumbered to a holy, calm delight. Air the evening lamps are lighted, and, like phantoms grim and tall, shadows from the fitful firelight dance upon the parlor wall. Then the forms of the departed enter at the open door. The beloved, the true hearted, come to visit me once more. He, the young and strong who cherished noble longings for the strive, by the roadside fell and perished, weary with the march of life. They, the holy ones and weakly, who the cross of suffering bore, unfolded their pale hands so meekly, spake with us on earth no more. And with them the bean-beautious who unto my youth was given, more than all things else to love me, and is now a saint in heaven. With a slow and noiseless footstep comes that messenger divine, takes the vacant chair beside me, lays her gentle hand in mine. And she sits and gazes at me with those deep and tender eyes, like the stars so still and saint-like, looking downward from the skies. Uttered not, yet comprehended, is the spirit's voiceless prayer, soft rebukes in blessings ended, breathing from her lips over. Oh, though oft depressed and lonely, all my fears are laid aside. If I but remember only, such as these have lived and died. Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, and sings the tune without the words, and never stops at all. And sweetest in the gale is heard, and soar must be the storm that could abash this little bird that kept so many warm. I've heard it in the chillest land and on the strangest sea, but never in extremity it asked a crumb of me. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. I never hear the word escape, by Emily Dickinson, read for LibriVox.org. I never hear the word escape, without a quicker blood, a sudden expectation, a flying attitude. I never heard of prisons broad by soldiers battered down, but I tugged childish at my bars, only to fail again. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Lost Doll by Charles Kingsley, read for LibriVox.org by Chris Jones. I once had a sweet little doll, dears, the prettiest doll in the world. Her cheeks were so red and white, dears, and her hair was so charmingly curled. But I lost my poor little doll, dears, as I played on the heath one day, and I cried for her more than a week, dears, but I could never find where she lay. I've found my poor little doll, dears, as I played on the heath one day. Folks say she has terribly changed, dears, for her paint is all washed away, and her arms trodden off by the cow's dears, and her hair not the least bit curled. Yet for old time's sake, she is still, dears, the prettiest doll in the world. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Nightpiece to Julia by Robert Herrick, read for LibriVox.org by Clarica. Her eyes the glow worm lend thee, the shooting stars attend thee, and the elves also, whose little eyes glow, like the sparks of fire befriend thee. No will of the wisp mislight thee, nor snake or slow worm bite thee, but on, on thy way, not making a stay, since ghost there's none to affright thee. Let not the dark thee cumber, what, though the moon does slumber, the stars of the night will lend thee their light, like tapers clear without number. Then Julia let me woo thee, thus, thus, to come unto me, and when I shall meet thy silvery feet, my soul all pour into thee. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. And you shall keep your room where white flows the river and bright blows the broom. And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white in rainfall at morning and dewfall at night. And this shall be for music when no one else is near, the fine song for singing, the rare song to hear, that only I remember that only you admire of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Seashell Murmurs by Eugene Lee Hamilton Read for LibriVox.org by Clarica The hollow seashell, which for years hath stood on dusty shelves, when held against the ear proclaims its stormy parents, and we hear the faint far murmur of the breaking flood, we hear the sea. The sea, it is the blood in our own veins, impetuous and near, and pulses keeping pace with hope and fear, and with our feelings every shifting mood. Low in my heart I hear, as in a shell, the murmur of a world beyond the grave, distinct, distinct, though faint and far it be. Thou fool, this echo is a cheat as well. The hum of earthly instincts, and we crave a world unreal, as the shell heard see. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Second Coming by William Butler Yates Read for LibriVox.org by Mindy H. Turning and turning in the widening gyre, the falcon cannot hear the falconer. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand, surely the Second Coming is at hand, the Second Coming. Hardly are those words out, when a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi troubles my sight. Somewhere in the sands of the desert, a shape with a lion body and the head of a man, a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun is moving its slow thighs, while all about it real shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again, but now I know that twenty centuries of stony sleep were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle. And what rough beast its hour come round at last slouches towards Bethlehem to be born. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Song by John Gay. Recorded for LibriVox.org by Clarica. O ruddier than the cherry, O sweeter than the berry, O nymph more bright than moonshine night, like kidlings blithe and merry, Ripe as the melting cluster, no lily has such luster, yet hard to tame as raging flame and fierce as storms that bluster. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Love. We have dipped life's humble bread into the star's flame-bubbling springs. We've knelt before the moon's white face, while around us word night's purple wings. Love. We have trod the floors of morn, and watched dawn's reeling galleons die. The sun sets panoramic hills. Love. We have known them, you and I. Upon the battlements of time we stood and heard life's thunderous roar. A million ticking years that swelled the crashing notes of millions more. Our hearts have germinated sweet to beauty through each golden hour. But now, the bloom-time days are past, the stalk is fading with the flower, and we shall seek earth's simple things, a roof-tree small, a green-thatched fire. Come, love, and lay your cherished dreams beneath the touch of my desire. We could not climb the infinite. The jagged heights were steep and long. For us, child-wistfulness and sleep, old twilight memories and song. Love, is it here that we shall wend down a homelid path's grown gently wise? Perhaps your eyes, made glad of earth, shall find the key to paradise. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Why should the world be overwise in counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us while we wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries to thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but, O, the clay is vile beneath our feet and long the mile. But let the world dream otherwise. We wear the mask. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. By Thomas Campion. Red for LibriVox.org by Clarica. Now winter nights enlarge the number of their hours, and clouds their storms discharge upon the airy towers. Let now the chimneys blaze and cups or flow with wine. Let well-turned words amaze with harmony divine. Now yellow wax and lights shall wait on honey love, while youthful revels, masks, and courtly sights sleep's leaden spells remove. This time doth well dispense with lovers' long discourse. Much speech hath some defence, though beauty no remorse. All do not all things well. Some measures comely tread. Some knotted riddles tell. Some poems smoothly read. The summer hath his joys and winter his delights. Though love and all his pleasures are but toys, they shorten tedious nights. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The World Is Too Much With Us. Late and Soon. By William Wordsworth. Red for LibriVox.org. The World Is Too Much With Us. Late and Soon. Getting and spending we lay waste our powers. Little we see in nature that is ours. We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon. The sea that bears her bosom to the moon, the winds that will be howling at all hours, and are up gathered now like sleeping flowers. For this, for everything, we are out of tune. It moves us not. Great God, I'd rather be a pagan, suckled in a creed outworn. So might I, standing on this pleasantly, have glimpses that would make me less forlorn. Have sight of Proteus rising from the-