 Processional by Madison Cowain, read for LibriVox.org by phone. Universes are the pages of that book whose words are ages, of that book which destiny opens in eternity. There each syllable expresses silence, there each thought it guesses, in whose rhetoric cosmic rooms roll the worlds and swarming moons. There the systems, we call solar, equatorial and polar, write their lines of rushing light on the awful leaves of night. There the comets, vast and streaming, punctuate the heavens gleaming scroll and sun's gigantic shine, periods, to each starry line. There initials huge, the lion looms and measureless Orion, and as neath a chapter done, burns the great bear's colophon. Constellated hieroglyphic, numbering each page terrific, fiery on the nebular black, flames the hurling zodiac. In that book are which Jardine, wisdom poured and many an eon of philosophy long dead. This is all that man has read. He has read how good and evil, in creation's wild upheaval, warred, while God wrought terrible at foundations red of hell. He has read of man and woman, laws and gods, both beast and human, thrones of hate and creeds of lust, vanished now and turned to dust. Arts and manners that have crumbled, cities buried, empires tumbled, time but breathed on them its breath, earth is builded of their death. These but lived their little hour, filled with pride and pomp and power. What availed it all at last? We shall pass as they have passed. Still the human heart will dream on, love part angel and part demon. Yet by question, what secures our belief that ought endures? In that book are which Jardine, wisdom poured and many an eon of philosophy long dead. This is all that man has read. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The flame that fell on bards of old, to hello and inspire. Yet let the soul dream on and there, no less song's heights where these repose, we can but fail and may prepare the way for one like those. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Song and Story by Madison Cowine. I was destined, when a baby, for that land which lieth hidden in the moon, and wither may be at their birth all souls are bitten. She bewitched me then, and bound me, she, a daughter of Apollo, in a golden snare who wound me, and compelled me thus to follow. Once she sent a stallion, sired of the wind, a mare his mother, whom the salient madness fired, and the hurricane his brother. And a voice said, Do not tarry, mount him while the world is sleeping. He, my beautiful, will carry you, my soul, into my keeping. And I mounted, tapest whistled in my ears, and yawning auras, flame the lightning. Boom, the missile thunder, crashing far before us. On we hurled, the world was rubble underneath us, and the wonder of our passage seemed to double heaven's tempest and its thunder. With us rode the air's wild races, wisps and witches, all the brocken, stunted, gnarled, with fiendish faces, seemed around us, jibing, mocking, hate that shook the heart with hooting, humpbacked horror, gibbet-headed murder, and great raven shooting over, fear in bats embedded. All were left, were passed like water, hurling headlong from a mountain, hag and elf and demon's daughter, ere we reached that mystic fountain. There we stopped. I drained a beaker old as earth. The draft was fire. On my soul, the burning liquor acted like new desire. On again, the darkness lifted like an uproled banner, scattered overhead in points that shifted, shown the stars through tempest-tattered. Then the moon rose, slowly, slowly, of a wild and copper color, rose the moon in melancholy deeps, and all the stars grew duller. And we passed, an instant scanning, swift as thought, the spider-archers of the ray-built bridges spanning space between her lunar marches. So I reached her kingdom, olden as the god that was its maker. Where the rocks and trees are golden, and the sea and air are nacre. Where mid-ingot-glowing flowers, over streams of diamond brightness, palaces of pearl and towers, rot of topaz, loom in whiteness. Here she met me with a chalice, like the geometry ruby burning, and I entered in her palace, from the world forever turning. Centuries have passed, have vanished. Still she holds me with her glory. She, whom earth long since hath vanished. She, the soul of song and story. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. An Indian Legend by Madison Caron, read for LibreVox.org by Law An Indian Legend on a mountain by a fountain, by a faintly falling stream, where upon the moss and flowers, sparkling felt the spray in showers. In the moonlight's mystic beam, once a maiden came to dream, came to sit and sigh and dream, on a mountain by a fountain, by a faintly falling stream. To the fountain and the mountain rode a youth upon a steed. In his hair an eagle's feather, round his waist a belt of leather. One poem wrote, with shell and bead, in his hands a hollow reed, in his hands a magic reed. To the fountain and the mountain rode a youth upon a steed. On the mountain by the fountain, when the moon shone overhead, while the maiden by him wavered, low upon his reed he quavered. Biped and played and singing said, Listen and be comforted, heart of mine be comforted. On the mountain by the fountain, when the moon shone overhead, by the fountain and the mountain, so the Indian legend saith. Pailer, paler grew the maiden, paler as if sorrow laden. Frailer, paler at each breath, saying art though love or death. And he answered, I am death. By the fountain and the mountain, so the Indian legend saith. Gone the mountain and the fountain, where the maiden soul was lost. But in every stream you hear it, whispering, sighing like a spirit. Here the Indian maiden's ghost, in the foam as white as frost, whiter than the winter's frost. Gone the mountain and the fountain, where the maiden soul was lost. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. John Davis Buccaneer by Madison Cowain. Read for LibriVox.org by Sonya. John Davis Buccaneer. High time, high time, good gentlemen, to sail the Spanish Maine. Three months we've watched for galleons and treasure bound for Spain. Three months, and not a vessel, neither bark nor brigantine, no Carter-Gina play-ship, or the Deos have we seen. Our sails are idle as the wind, our ships as gulls or waves, and shall in action rot us like a gang of shackled slaves. Up Buccaneers, the land is wide and wider far to sea, somewhere between the dusk and dawn and dusk some hope must be. Some ship somewhere, or city there beneath the Indian sky, what matter whether east or west, some ship with decks built high. With treasure packed from stem to stern, some huge ship of the line, against whose ports we'll cram our ports, while all our cannons shine and thunder. Then, with blade to blade, and shouting horde on horde, swarm up her sights, and sweep her decks with pistol and with sword. And sink or swim, our flag flies there. We Buccaneers, aboard. Say what availed your patron saints, Iago and St. Mark, Lanceros, Adalantados, against Ravenous Park. O butchers of good Jean Ribaud, well might your cheeks turn pale, when Montabarros, brigantine, shook to the wind her sail. Around the coasts where New Spain boasts the haughtiness of old, her tyranny, her bigotry, her solid greed for gold. From east to west, from north to south, among the caribiles, swift to revenge the Frenchmen swept across the foaming miles. The spirit of Pierre Legrand, and of his gallant crew, who took a galleon with a boat, beneath the tropic blue, be with us now. Up, gentlemen, and Spain, oh woe to you. Prime Archibos, and Brighton Blade, and let the Calvaryne gleam burnish as the morning star, as through the foam we spin. And now be glad as when we had Granada in our hold, and stabbed the city's sentinels, and took the city's gold. New Spain's good homes and churches, I will not forget too soon, the Buccaneer John Davis, sirs, who taught their dons a tune. Such serenades of belts and blades they danced to by the moon. What helped the Latin of them monks to curse what Satan blessed? Those pieces, broad of aid and plate we counted in our chest. And now that we may double, or may travel every piece, pipe up the anchor-bosin, and before the horses cease, let every sail salute the gale, and every rope be torn. But that will take all care, and us, if jaundiced colors don't. The seagulls dip and dive and float, and swim and soar again. Be like them, merry gentlemen, high-hearted. May it rain rich galleons for us, mix a bowl and drink, the ships of Spain, be merry as the seagulls are, and as the case may go, who cares a curse for wealth? Now drink, here's to Spain's overthrow, doth caps and follow, though the price be over fat or lean. Kneel down now, give her praise to Leeds, dame fortune, our good queen. Upon our prow she guides us now. On to St. Augustine. Voyagers, where are they that song and tale tell of, lands our childhood knew, sea-locked fairylands that trail morning summits wet with dew, crimson over crimson sail? Where in dreams we entered on, wonders eyes have never seen, wither often we have gone, sailing a dream brigantine, on from voyaging dawn to dawn. Leons seeking lands of song, fabled fountains pouring spray, where our anchors dropped among corals of some blooming bay, with its worthy native throng. Shoulder-ex and archibus, we may find it past young range of sierras, vaporous, rich with gold and wild and strange, that dim region lost to us. Yet, behold, although our zeal, daring summits may subdue, our Balboa eyes reveal but a vaster sea come too, new endeavor for our keel. Yet, whose sails with face set hard westward, while behind him lies unfaith, where his dreams keep guard, rounded in the sunset skies, he may reach it afterward. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Hieroglyphs by Madison Cowine, read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson All dreams are older than the seas, being but newer forms of change. Some savage dreamed mine, and was these daily-owned sought where seas were strange. All thoughts are older than the earth, being of beauty ages wrought, old when creation gave them birth, when Homer sang them, Shakespeare thought. If souls could travel as Ken thought, beyond the farthest arcs that span imagination, what would man not know and see at last? One would explore the stars, and one would search the moon, and one the sun, and tell us of their past. And one would seek out hell, and wise in tortures of the damned, return to tell us if they freeze or burn. And where God's red hell lies, and one would look on heaven, and mute with memories of harp and lute sit silent as the skies. But I, on conder wings, would sweep to some new world, and soaring sit mid-firmaments, volcano-lit, and sea-creation heap its awful andes, vague and vast about its ink of people past, while deep roared out to deep. Out of it all, but this remains. I dreamed that I had crossed wide chains of Cordilleras, whose huge peaks lock in the wilds of Yucatán, Chiapas, and Honduras, weeks, and then a city that no man had ever seen. So dim and old no chronicle has ever told the history of men who piled its temples in huge steel callies among mimosa blooming valleys, or how its altars were defiled with human blood, whose idols there with eyes of stone still stand and stare. So old the moon can only know how old, since ancient forests grow on mighty wall and pyramid, who'd Saíbas whose trunks were scarred with ages, and Nisyakas hid feins mid-grade cacti scarlet-starred. I look upon its pavement ways and saw it in its kingliest days, when from its lordliest palace won a victim, walked with prince and priest, who turned brown faces toward the eastern worship of the rising sun. At night a thousand temple-spires of gold burnt everlasting fires. Uxmal, Palenque, or Copán, I know not, only how no man had ever seen. And still my soul believes it vaster than the three, volcanic rock walled in the hole, lost in the woods as in some sea. I only read its hieroglyphs, perused its monster monoliths of death, gigantic heads, and read the pictured codex of its fate, the parish Toltec, while in hate mad monkeys cursed me, as if dead priests of its past had taken form to guard their ruined feigns from harm. And then it was as if I talked of gods and beauty like a god, mid-matasumus priests who walked obedient to my nod. From Mexico-levels breezes blue or green magways, cacao fields, I stood among casics a crew with plumes and golden shields. Enraiment made of hummingbirds, brown slave girls danced all on a walk, stood grim with strange obsidian swords around the idol's rock. And up the temple's winding stair of pyramid we wound and went. The bloomed vanilla drenched the air with all its tropic scent. Volcanoes walled us in, and I walked crowned with flaming cactus flowers beneath the golden Aztec sky, lord of the living hours. Then lo, five priests who led me to a jasper stone of sacrifice, then deep within my soul I knew that prideful moment's price. A sixth priest, robed in coquineal, received me at the altar's stone. I saw the flit-blade, sharp as steel, that in his high hands shone. Oh, God, to dream that they would bind with pomp and pageant of their love, me to a rock, and never blind mine eyes to that above. I felt the flint hack through my breast, and in my agony did raise wild eyes a little while to rest upon their idol's face. Just God, the priest tore out my heart and held it beating to the sun, chanting, and from one burning part great drops dripped one by one. Torn out I felt my heart still beat, I felt it beat with pain divine, for bleeding at the idol's feet my heart was pressed to thine. You were a maiden like a dream who led me where volcanic dust rained in Scoriac mountain stream, where from Andean snows we thrust one crater, belching stones and steam. You were an Inca princess when I was a cavalier of Spain, who frowned among Pizarro's men, and saw the New World rent with pain. No grace of God could save me then. And it was you who led me far to gaze on caves of Inca gold. But when we came, low warrior, unwarrior, an army rolled around us, panopled for war. Fierce faces chiseled out of stone are not more stern. Down underneath I heard the sullen earthquake groan, above me red eruptions seeped, and clenched my teeth and stood alone. And then you plaid and was denied. They laid me where the lava crawled, red river down the mountainside. I felt the slow, slow hell-heat scald, and as it closed you leapt and died. In farther planets there are men who walk not with their lips, but with their eyes alone. With beaming eyes and brows that burn with thought. Pure souls whose sentiments need but be borne to be expressed, where speech and mouth and tongue were barbarous discord. Where no voice imparts thought, but divulging eye and sensitive brow, superior planets far beyond our sphere. And nearer God than ages shall combine to lift our world up with its wrangling woes. Worlds that are strange to sickness and disease of mind and body, perfect mentally, past what we name perfection here on earth, and physically morally divine as creeds have taught us God's high heaven is. Worlds where love makes no playmate of vile lust, where hope makes no companion of despair, where power cannot trample with fierce feet, and impotent the iron hand of might surrenders its red weapon unto mind, where truth and thought are wedded in one rule of far progression whose white child is love. So have I dreamed and longed to leave sad earth, and live anew on some divine sphere, a world so higher, lovelier than this, so spiritually perfected and refined, that should an earth-born mortal suddenly translated thither, unprepared behold dazed with divinity before the feet of its inhabitants, he would fall prone in worship and astonishment, and all the exaltation of celestial peace singing within cry out, Ye this is heaven, how long O sinner has thou dwelt in hell, in iron despotism the days, a brutal anarchy the nights, what hope for hope when day betrays and night in death delights. For once I prayed for gulfs of gold, and mourn pooled heaven with somber blood, for skies of stars and skies behold, malignant with the scud, and so I marvel not that he gray-haired and toothless hugs his stove, while I in my youth which once was she had buried with my love. All thoughts of nature are but forms of life and death, with which began love, love that swept the heavens with storms, evolving worlds to perfect man. Thoughts are the forms of mind, and come and go, assuming every shape, science and art through which we clump and climb to angel from ape. In the poem this recording is in the public domain. A Legend of the Lily by Madison Cowain, read for LibriVox.org by Sonya. A Legend of the Lily. Pale as a star that shines through rain, her face was seen at the window-pane, her sad frail face that watched in vain. The face of a girl whose brow was worn, to whom the kind sun spoke at dawn, and the star and the moon when the day was gone. And oft and often the sun had said, o fair white face, o sweet fair head, come talk to me of the love that's dead. And she would sit in the sun awhile, down in the garth by the old stone dial, when never again would he make her smile. And often the first bright star overhead had whispered, sweet, where the rose blooms red, come look with me for the love that's dead. And she would wait with the star she knew, where the fountain splashed and the roses blew, when never again would he come to woo. And oft the moon when she lay in bed, had sighed, dear heart, in the orchard stead, come dream with me of the love that's dead. And she would stand in the moon, the dim, where the fruit made heavy the apple dim, when never again would she dream with him. So summer passed and the autumn came, and the wind-torn boughs were touched with flame, but her life and her sorrow remained the same. Or if she changed as it comes about, a life may change through trouble and doubt, as a candle flickers and then goes out. It was only to grow more quiet and one, sadly waiting at dusk and at dawn, for the coming of love forever gone. And so, one night, when the star looked in, it kissed her face that was white and thin, and murmured, come, thou free of sin. And when the moon on another night beheld her lying still and white, it sighed, Tesswell, now all is right. And when one morning the sun arose, and they bore her beer down the garden-clothes, it touched her, saying, at last, repose. And they laid her down, so young and fair, where the grass was withered, the bough was bare, all wrapped in the light of her golden hair. So autumn passed and the winter went, and spring, like a blue-eyed penitent, came telling her beets of blossom and sand. And, lo, to the grave of the beautiful, the strong sun cried, Why art thou dull? Awake, awake, forget thy skull. And the evening star and the moon above, called out, O dust, now speak thereof, proclaim thyself, arise, O love. And the skull and the dust in the darkness heard, each icy germ in its seraments stirred, as Lazarus moved at the Lord's loud word. And the flower arose on the mound of green, white as the robe of the Nazarene, to testify of the life unseen. And I paused by the grave, then went my way, and it seemed that I heard the lily say, Here was a miracle wrought today. End of poem. Disrecording is in the public domain. The End of the Century by Madison Cowine Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson There are moments when, as missions, God reveals to us strange visions, when within their separate stations we may see the centuries like revolving constellations, shaping out Earth's destinies. They have gazed in time's abysses, where no smallest thing Earth misses, that was hers once, mid her chattels. There the past's gigantic ghosts sits and dreams of thrones and battles in the night of ages lost. Far before her eyes, unholy mist was spread, that darkly slowly rolled aside like some huge curtain, hung above the land and sea, and beneath it, wild uncertain rose the wraths of memory. First I saw colossal specters of dead cities, Troy once hector's pride, then Babylon and Tyre, Karnak, Carthage, and the gray walls of thieves, Apollo's lyre built, then Rome and Nineveh. Empires followed, first in seeming old Caldea lost in dreaming, Egypt next, a Bochmanomian staring from her pyramids, then Assyria, Babylonian night beneath her hell that it lids. Grease and classic white, sidereal armored, Rome and dark imperial purple crowned with blood and fire, down the deeps, barbaric strode, gall in Britain stalking by her, clad in skins tattooed with woe. All around them, rent and scattered, lay their gods with features battered, brute in human stone and iron, caked with gems and gnarled with gold. Temples that did once environ these in wreck around them rolled. While I stood engaged and waited slowly night obliterated all, and other phantoms drifted out of darkness pale as stars, shapes and tyrant faces lifted, sultans, kings, and emperors. Man and steed in ponderous metal, pen of bleed, they seemed to settle Condor's gunt of devastation on the world. Behind their march desolation, conflagration loomed before them with her torch. Hummets flamed like fearful flowers, chariots rose and moving towers. Captains passed, each fierce commander with his gauntlet on his sword, Agamemnon, Alexander, Caesar, Alleric, horde on horde, Huns and vandals, wild invaders, Goths and Arabs turned crusaders, each like some terrific taunt rolled above a ruined world, till a cataraca born seemed the swarming spears up hurled. Banners and escutcheons kindled by the light of slaughtered, dwindled, dyed in darkness. The chimera of the past was late at last, but behold another era from her corpse rose. They conversed. Demogorgon of the present, who in one hand raised decrescent, and the other with submissive fingers lifted up across, reverent and yet derisive seemed she, roved in gold and dross. In her skeptic eyes professions of great faith I saw, expressions Christian and humanitarian played around her cynic lip. Still I knew her a barbarian by the sword upon her hip, and she cherished strange idolons, pagan shadows, Plato's salons, from whose teachings she indentured forms of law and sophistry, seeking eye for truth she ventured just so far as these could see. When she vanished, eye uplifting eyes to where the dawn was rifting darkness, lo behold the shadow towering on earth's utmost peaks, round whom warnings Eldorado rivered gold in blinding streaks. On her brow I saw the stigma still of death, and life's enigma filled her eyes, around her shimmered folds of silence, and afar faint above her forehead glimmered, lone the light of one pale star. Then a voice above our under-earth, against her seemed to thunder questions wherein was repeated, Christ or Cain, and man or beast, and the future shadowy sheeted turned and pointed towards the east. In the poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Isle of Voices by Madison Cawain Red for LibriVox.org by Campbell Shelp The wind blew free that mourn that we, high-hearted, sailed away, round for that island named the blessed, remote within the unknown west beyond the golden day. There we were told each dream of old, each deed and dream of youth, each myth of life's divinest prime in every romance, put on a mortal truth. The love undone, the aim unwon, the hope that's turned to despair, the thought unborn, the dream that died, the unattained unsatisfied should be accomplished there. So we believed, and undeceived, a little crew set sail, a little crew with hearts as stout as any yet that faced the doubt and tore away its veil, and time went by and sea and sky had worn our masts and decks. When though one mourn with canvas torn, a phantom ship we came forlorn into the sea of wrecks. There day and night the mists lay white and pale stars shone at noon, the sea around was foe and fire and overhead hung thin as wire a willow-wisp of moon, and through the mist a white and wist gaunt ships with seaweed wound, with rotting masts upon whose spars the corpusin's lit spectre stars sailed by without a sound. And all about, now in, now out, their ancient holes was shed, the worm-like glow of green decay writhed and glimmered in the gray of canvas overhead, and each that passed in hole and masts seemed that wild ship that flees, before the tempests semen tell, deep cargoed with the curse of hell through roaring rain and seas. I, many a craft, we left a baffed upon the taunted sea, but never a hulk that clued a sail or waved a hand or answered hail and never a man saw we. At last we came where, pouring flame, in darkness and in storm, fast the volcano westward reared in awful summit lava seared like some terrific arm, and we could feel beneath our keel the ocean throb and swell, as if the earthquake there uncoiled its monster bulk or titans toiled at the red heart of hell. Like madmen, now we turned our prow north towards an ocean weird, of northern lights and icy blasts and four-ten moons with reeling masts and leaking hold we steered. Then black as blood through streaming scud and isle of iron gulfs and crags and cataracts like wind-tossed rags and caverns lost in gloom and burning white on every height and white in every cave, and naked spirits like a flame now gleamed, now banished, went and came above the windy wave. No mortal thing of foot or wing made glad its steep or strand, but voices voices seemingly fake voices of the sky and sea peopled the demon land. Yea, everywhere in earthen air and went, that gathering strength above below, now like a mighty wind of woe around the island swept. And in that sound it seemed was bound, all life's despair of art, the bitterness of joy that died, the anguish of faith's crucified and love that broke its heart, the ghost that seemed of all we'd dreamed of all we had desired. That turned a curse and empty cry with wailing words went trailing by in hopes that robes attired. And could this be the land that we sought for soon and late, the island of the blessed the fair where we had hoped to ease our care and end the fight with fate, whole lie that lured, oh pain and dirt, oh toil and tears and thirst where we had looked for blessed ground, the island of the damned we found and in the end were cursed. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Watcher by Madison Cowain read for LibriVox.org by Campbell Shelp. Young was the dream that held her when the world was moon-white with the may. She watched the singing fishermen sail out to sea at break of day. Soft as the morning heavens then, the eyes that watched him sail away. Old was her grief when summer filled the world with warm maturity. Far off she watched the nets that spilled their twinkling foison by the sea where on the rocks she sat instilled with song his infant on her knee, who to her love would make them lies those vows his sea slain manhood swore beneath the raining autumn skies the fishing vessels put to shore. She watches with remembering eyes for the brown face that comes no more. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. At the Sign of the School by Madison Cowain read for LibriVox.org by Campbell Shelp. It's gallop and go and slow now slow with every man in this life below, but the things of the world are a fleeting show. The post she's time that all must take is old with clay and dust. Two horses strain its rusty break named pleasure and disgust. Our baggage totters on its roof of vanity and care as hope the post boy spurs each hoof of heavy-eyed despair. And now a comrade with his rides, love happily or remorse, and that dim traveler besides gone to memory on a horse. And be we king or be we curn who rides the roads of sin no matter how the roads may turn they lead us to that inn, and to that inn within that land of silence and of gloom, whose ghastly landlord takes our hand and leads us to our room. It's gallop and go and slow now slow with every man in this life below, but the things of the world are a fleeting show. End of poem this recording is in the public domain. Doom Vivimus by Madison Cowayne read for livervox.org by Campbell Shelp. Now with the marriage of the lip and beaker let joy be born and in the rosy shine the slanting starlet of the lifted liquor let care the hag go drown no more repine at all life's ills come bury them in wine room for great guests yea let us usher in philosophies of old anacreon and Omar that from dawn to glorious dawn shall lessen us in love and song and sin. Some lives need less than others who can ever say truly thou art mine of happiness death comes to all and one today is never sure of tomorrow that may ban or bless and what's beyond is but a shadowy guess all all is vanity the preacher sighs and in this world what has more right than wrong come let us hush remembrance with a song and learn with folly to be glad and wise. There was a poet of the east named Hoffees who sing of wine and beauty let us go praising them too and where good wine to quaff is and maids to kiss of life's grey garb of woe for soon that taverns reached that inn you know where wine and love are not where sends disguise each one must lie in his straight bed apart the thorn of sleep deep in his heart and dust and darkness in his mouth and eyes end of poem this recording is in the public domain failure by Madison Cawain read for livervox.org by Campbell Shelp there are some souls whose lot it is to set their hearts on goals that adverse fate controls while others win with little labor through life's dust and din and lord like enter in immortal gates and of success the high born intimates inherit fame's estates why is the lot of merit oft to struggle and yet not attain to toil for what simply to know the disappointment the despair and woe of effort here below ambitious still to reach those lofty peaks which men aspiring preach for which their souls beseech those heights that swell remote removed and unattainable pinnacle on pinnacle still yearning to attain their fair repose above life's stress and strain but all in vain in vain why hath God put great longings in some souls and straight away shut all doors of their clay hut the clay accursed that holds achievement back from which immersed the spirit may not burst were it at least not better to have sat at Cersei's feast if afterwards a beast then I to bleed to strain and strive to toil in thought and deed and never more succeed end of poem this recording is in the public domain the cup of joy by Madison Cawain read for LibriVox.org by Campbell Shelp let us mix a cup of joy that the wretched may employ whom the fates have made their toy who have given brain and heart to the thinkless world of art and from fame have won no part who have laboured long at thought carved and toiled and all for not sought and found not what they sought let our goblet be the skull of a fool made beautiful with a gold nor base nor dole gold of mad cup fancies once it contained that sage or dunce each can read whoever runs first we pour the liquid light of our dreams in then the bright beauty that makes day of night let this be the must wear from in due time the meddlesome care destroying drink shall come falling next with which mix in laughter of a child of sin and the red of mouth and chin these shall give the tang there too effervescence and rich hue which to all good wine are due then into our cup we press one wild kiss of wantonness and a glance that says not less sparkles both that give a fine luster to the drink divine necessary to good wine lastly in the goblet goes sweet a love song then arose warmed upon her breasts repose those bokeh our drink now measure with your arm the waste you treasure lift the cup and drink to pleasure end of poem this recording is in the public domain la jeunesse l'amour by madison coain read for livervox.org by cambell shelp unto her fragrant face and hair as some wild bee unto arose that blooms in splendid beauty there within the south my longing goes my longing that is over feign to call her mine but all in vain since jealous death as each one knows is guardian of la belle allaine of her whose face is very fair to my despair a belle allaine the sweetness of her face suggests the sensuous scented jack in minnets magnolia blooms her throat and breasts her hands long lilies in repose fair flowers all without a stain that grow for death to pluck again within the garden's radiant clothes the body of la belle allaine the garden glad that she suggests that death invests a belle allaine god had been kinder to me when he dipped his hands in fires and snows and made you like a flower to ken a flower that an earth's garden grows had he for pleasure or for pain instead of death in that domain made love the gardener to that rose your loveliness oh belle allaine god had been kinder to me then me of all men a belle allaine love and loss by madison covein read for libra vox dot org by lorry wilson loss molds our lives in many ways and fills our souls with guesses upon our hearts sad hands it lays like some grave priest that blesses far better than the love we win that earthly passions leaven is love we lose that knows no sin that points the path to heaven love whose soft shadow brightens earth through whom our dreams are nearest and lost through whom we see the worth of all we held dearest not joy it is but misery that chasens us and sorrow perhaps to make us all that we expect beyond tomorrow within that life where time and fate are not that knows no sin that world to which death keeps the gate where love and loss sit dreaming in the poem this recording is in the public to me the end of all by madison covein read for libra vox dot org i do not love you now oh narrow heart that had no heights but pride you whom mine to whom yours still denied food when mine hungered and of which love died i do not love you now i do not love you now oh shallow soul with depths but to deceive you whom mine watered to whom yours did give no drop to drink to help my love to live i do not love you now i do not love you now but did i love you in the old old way and knew you loved me though the words should slay me and your love forever i would say i do not love you now i do not love you now end of poem this recording is in the public domain arose of the hills by madison covein read for libra vox dot org the hills looked down on wood and stream on orchard land and farm and o'er the hills the azure gray of heaven bends a live long day and all the winds blow warm on wood and stream the hills looked down on farm and orchard land and o'er the hills she came to me through wild rose break and blackberry the hill winds hand in hand the hills looked down on home and field on wood and winding stream and o'er the hills she came along upon her lips a wildwood song and in her eyes a dream on home and field the hills looked down on stream and hill locked wood disordered hair fair in the wild rose tangled there a sudden while she stood o'er the hills that look on rock and road ungrove and harvest field to whom God giveth rest and peace and slumber that is kin to these and visions unrevealed o'er the hills that look on road and rock on field and fruited grow no more shall I find peace and rest in you since entered in my breast love. In the poem this recording is in the public domain The White Vigil by Madison Cowine read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Last night I dreamed I saw you lying dead and by your sheeted form stood all alone frail as a flower you lay upon your bed and on your face through the wide casements shown the moonlight pale as I who kissed you there so young and fair white violence in your hair oh sick with suffering was my soul and sad to breaking was my heart that would not break and for my soul's great grief no tear I had no lamentation for my heart's deep ache yet what I bore seemed more than I could bear beside you there white violence in your hair a white rose blooming at the window bar and glimmering in it like a firefly caught upon the thorns the light of one white star looked in on you as if they felt and thought as did my heart how beautiful and fair and young she lies white violence in her hair and so we looked upon you white instill the star the rose and I the moon had passed like a pale traveler behind the hill all her sorrowful silver and at last darkness and tears and you who did not care lying so still white violence in your hair end of poem this recording is in the public domain A Study in Grey by Madison Cowine readforlibrebox.org by Larry Wilson a woman fair to look upon where waters whiteened the moon around whom glimmering along the white moth swoon a mouth of music eyes of love and hands of blended snow and scent that touched the pearly shadow of an instrument and low and sweet that song of sleep after the song of love is hust while all the longing here to weep is held and crushed then leafy silence that is musk with breath of the magnolia tree while dwindles moth white her drapery let me remember how a heart wrote its romance upon that night God helped my soul to read each part of it a right and like a dead leaf shut between a book's dull chapters stained and dark that page with immemorial green of life I mark it is not well for me to hear that song's appealing melody the pain of loss comes all too near through it to me loss of her whose love looked through the mist death's hand hath hung between within the shadow of the you her grave is green a dream that vanished long ago o anguish of remembered tears and shadow of unlifted woe a thwart the years that haunt the sad rooms of my days as keepsakes of unperished love where pale memory of her face hangs framed above this olden song of love she used to sing is now a spell that opens doors within the deep of my heart's hell in music making visible one soul assertive memory that stills into my sight to tell my lost to me in the poem this recording is in the public domain At Vespers by Madison Cobine read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson high up in the organ store a girl stands slim and fair and touch with the casement's glory gleams out her radiant hair the young priest kneels at the altar then lifts the host above and the psalm intoned from the salters pure with patient love a sweet bell chimes and a censor swings gleaming in the gloom the candles glimmer and denser rolls up the pale perfume then high in the organ choir a voice of crystal sores of patients and souls' desires that suffers and adores and out of the altar's dimness and answering voice and its swell of passion that cries from the grimness and anguish of its own hell high up in the organ store one kneels with a girlish grace and touch with the Vesper glory lifts her Madonna face one stands at the cloudy altar a form bowed down and thin the text of the psalm and the salter he chants is sorrow and sin end of poem this recording is in the public domain end of the poems of Madison Cowling volume 4 by Madison Cowling