 Alchemy, by Sarah Teasdale, read for LibriVox.org by Raven Notation. I lift my heart as spring lifts up, a yellow daisy to the rain. My heart will be a lovely cup, although it holds but pain. For I shall learn from flower and leaf that colour every drop they hold, to change the lifeless wine of grief, to living gold. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Annabelle Lee by Edgar Allen Poe, read for LibriVox.org by Anita Fleming. It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea, that a maiden there lived whom you may know, by the name of Annabelle Lee, and this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child in this kingdom by the sea, but we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabelle Lee, with a love that the wings seraphs of heaven coveted her and me. And this was the reason that long ago, in this kingdom by the sea, a wind blew out of a cloud, chilling my beautiful Annabelle Lee, so that her high-born kinsmen came and bore her away from me, to shut her up in a sepulcher in this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, went envying her and me. Yes, that was the reason, as all men know in this kingdom by the sea, that the wind came out of the cloud by night, chilling and killing my Annabelle Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love of those who were older than we, of many far wiser than we, and neither the angels in heaven above, nor the demons down under the sea, can ever deceiver my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabelle Lee. For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabelle Lee. And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabelle Lee. And so all the night tied, I lie down by the side of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, in the sepulcher there by the sea, in her tomb by the sounding sea. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. A Baby by Madison Julius Kaine. Read for LibriVox.org by Tamara Trahill. You may contact me via email at MissButterflyKisses90 at Yahoo.com. That's M-I-S-S-B-U-T-T-E-R-F-L-Y-K-I-S-S-E-S-9-0 at Yahoo.com. Why speak of Rajarubis and roses of the south? I know a sweeter crimson, a baby's mouth. Why speak of salt and sapphires and violet seas and skies? I know a lovelier azure, a baby's eyes. Go seek the wide world over, search every land and mart. You'll never find a pearl like this, a baby's heart. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Because I could not stop for death by Emily Dickinson. Read for LibriVox.org by Anita Fleming. Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me. The carriage held but just ourselves an immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, and I had put away my labour and my leisure too for his civility. We passed the school where children played at wrestling in a ring. We passed the fields of gazing grain. We passed the setting sun. We passed before a house that seemed a swelling of the ground. The roof was scarcely visible, the cornice but a mound. Since then to centuries, but each feels shorter than the day I first surmised the horse's heads were toward eternity. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Better Part by E. Nesbitt. Read for LibriVox.org by Ruth Golding. There's a grey old church on a windswept hill where three bent yew trees cower. The chipsy roses grow there still, and the thyme and St John's gold flower. The pale blue violets that love the chalk cling light round the lichen stone. And starlings chatter and grey owls talk in the belfry a night's alone. It's a thousand leagues and a thousand years from the brick-built, gaslit town to the little church where the wild time hears the bees and the breeze of the dawn. The town is crowded and hard and rough. Let those fight in its press who will. But the little churchyard is quiet enough, and there's room in the churchyard still. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Beyond Kerguelen by Henry C. Kendall. Read for LibriVox.org by Mark Smith of Simpsonville, South Carolina. Down in the south by the waste without sail on it, far from the zone of the blossom and tree, lieth with winter and whirlwind and whale on it, ghost of a land by the ghost of a sea. Weird is the mist from the summit to base of it, sun of its heaven is wizened and grey, phantom of light is the light on the face of it, never is night on it, never is day. Here is the shore without flower or bird on it, here is no litany sweet of the springs, only the haughty harsh thunder is heard on it, only the storm with a roar at its wings. Shadow of moon is the moon in the sky of it, Juan is the face of a wizard and far, never there shines from the firmament high of it, grace of the planet or glory of star. All the year round in the place of white days on it, all the year round where there never is night, lies a great sinister, bitter, blind haze on it, growth that is neither of darkness nor light. Wild is the cry of the sea and the caves by it, sea that is smitten by spears of the snow, desolate songs are the songs of the waves by it, down in the south where the ships never go. Storm from the pole is the singer that sings to it, hymns of the land at the planet's grey verge, thunder discloses dark wonderful things to it, thunder and rain and the dull research. Hills with no hope of a wing or a leaf on them, scarred with the chronicles written by flame, stare through the gloom of inscrutable grief on them, down on the horns of the gulfs without name. Cliffs with the records of fierce flying fires on them, loom over perilous pits of eclipse, alps with anathema stamped in the spires on them, out by the wave with a curse on its lips. Never is sign of soft, beautiful green on it, never the colour, the glory of rose, neither the fountain nor river is seen on it, naked its crags are and barren its snows. Blue as the face of the drowned is the shore of it, shore with the capes of indefinite cave, strange as the voice of the wind and the roar of it stuttles the mountain and hushes the wave. Out to the south and away to the north of it, spectral and sad are the spaces untold, all the year round a great cry goeth forth of it, sob of this leper of lands in the cold. No man hath stood, all its bleak bitter years on it, fall of a foot on its wastes is unknown, only the sound of the hurricane's spears on it breaks with a shout from the uttermost zone. Blind are its bays with a shadow of bale on them, storms of the nadir their rocks have up hurled. Earthquake hath registered deeply its tail on them, tail of distress, from the dawn of the world. There are the gaps with the surges that sieve in them, gaps in whose jaws is a menace that glares. There the wan reefs with the merciless teeth in them gleam on a chaos that startles and scares. Back in the dawn of this beautiful sphere on it, land of the dolerous, desolate face, beam the blue day and the bountiful year on it fostered the leaf and the blossom of grace. Grand were the lights of its mid-summer noon on it, mornings of majesty shown on its seas, glitter of star and the glory of moon on it fell in the march of the musical breeze. Valleys and hills with a whisper of wing in them, dels of the daffodil, spaces imperiled, flowered and flashed with a splendor of spring in them, back in the mourn of this wonderful world. Soft were the words that the thunder then said to it, said to this luster of emerald plain, sun brought the yellow, the green, and the red to it, sweet were the songs of its silvery rain. Voices of water and wind in the bays of it lingered and lulled like the psalm of a dream. Fair were the nights and effulgent the days of it, moon was in shadow and shade in the beam. Summer's chief throne was the marvellous coast of it, home of the spring was its luminous lee, garden of glitter, but only the ghost of it moans in the south by the ghost of a sea. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Cities of the Plain by Edgar Lee Masters This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, reading by Bologna Times. Where are the Cavalists, the insidious committees, the panders who betrayed the idiot cities, for miles and miles toward the prairie sprawled, ignorant, soulless, rich, smothered in fumes of pitch. Rooms of mahogany and tall skyscrapers see the unfolding and the folding up of ring-clipped papers and letters which keep drugged the public cup. The walls hear whispers and the semitones of voices in the corner over telephones muffled by Persian padding, gemmed with brass batons. Butts of cigars are on the glass-top table and through the smoke, gracing the furtive babel. The bishop's picture blesses the picaroons, who start or stop the life of millions moving, unconscious of obedience. The plastic yielders to satanic and dynastic hands of reproaching and approving. Here come knights armed, but their arms concealed and rubber-healed. Here priests and wavering want are charmed, and shadows fall here like the sharks in messages received or sent. Signals are flying from the battlement, and every president of rail, gas, coal, and oil, the parks, the receipt of custom nose, without a look, their meaning as the code is in no book. The treasonous cracksmen of the city's wealth watch for the flags of stealth. Acres of coal life-fenced along the tracks, tracks ribbon the streets, and beneath the streets, wires for voices, fire, thwart the plebiscites, and choke the councils and symposiax of dreamers who have pity for the backs that bear and bleed all things are theirs. Tracks, wires, streets, and coal, the church's creed, the city's soul, the city's secret loveliness, the merciless and meretricious press. Far up in a watch-tower where the news is printed, gray faces and bright eyes, weary and cynical, discuss fresh wonders of the old cabal. But nothing of its work in type is hinted. Taxes are high. The mentors of the town must keep their taxes down on buildings, presses, stocks, in gas, oil, coal, and docks. The mahogany rooms conceal a spider-man who holds the taxing bodies through the church, and knights with arms concealed. The mentors search the spider-man, the master-publican, and for his friendship silence keep, letting him herd the populace like sheep, for self and for the insatiable desires of coal and tracks and wires, pick judges, legislators, and tax-gatherers, or name his favourites whom they name. The slick and sinistral servitors of the cabal, for praise which seems the equivalent of fame giving to the delicate-handed crackers of priceless saves, the spiritual slackers, the flash and thunder of front pages, and the gold millions stare and fling their wages where they are bitten, helpless, and emasculate, and the unaluminate whose brows are brass. Who weep on every sabbath day, for Jesus writing, on an ass, scarce know the ass is they, now ridden by his effigy. The publican with Jesus painted mask, along away were fumes of odorless gas, for spur, then fell them from the task. Through the parade runs swift the psychic cackle, like thorns beneath a boiling pot that crackle, and the angels say to y'all while looking down from the alabaster railing on the town, oh, cackle, cackle, cackle, crack and crack, we wish we had our little Sodom back. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Cottage by the Sea by Horatio Alger Jr. Read for LibriVox by Jody Bly on a laptop.com In a cottage by the sea by the ever-rolling sea where the surges rage and roar as they dash along the shore, with their foaming crests of white sparkling with reflected light, where the winds are moaning low to the water's ebb and flow, and then pleasant days gone by fled alas how silently in that cottage by the sea dwelt a maiden fare with me. I remember how of yore the twain wandered on the shore, how we gathered from the strand seashells mingled with the sand, how we listened all the while as in some cathedral aisle to the music soft and low of the waters and their flow, while the organ of the sea played for us a symphony, or a non with lighter strain breathed a musical refrain. Oh, I loved her passing well, dearly loved my claribel, but the days flew quickly by as the clouds along the sky, as the stars that gem the night fly before the dawn of light. Gone are all my hours of pleasure vanished with my vanished treasure for a deathly shadow fell on the brow of claribel in my cottage by the sea. No one dwelleth now but me. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Evolution. From Nonsenseurship. Another of those outlines. By George S. Chappell. Read for LibriVox.org by Craig Campbell. 1. Time. The Beginning. When Adam sat with lovely Eve and pressed his primal suit, there was a ban, if we believe our Genesis, on fruit. But did it give old Adam pause? This one and only law there was. 10. Nine verses are supposed to elapse. And then great Moses on the crest of Sinai did devise his tablets, acting for the best, though some thought otherwise. At least he showed restraint, for then man's sins were limited to ten. 100. 99 verses elapse. In later days the Romans proud their famous code began, and lots of things were not allowed by Justinian. He wrote a list stupendous long. 100 ways of going wrong. 1000. 999 verses elapse. Napoleon improved the Roman plan by spotting a potential crook in every fellow man. And by the thousand off they went to jail, until proved innocent. 1922. 9999 verses elapse. Now in the change, about complete, since Adam passed from view, for apples we are urged to eat, and all else is taboo. A million laws hold us enthralled, and we serenely break them all. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Farewell to the World by Ben Johnson. Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake. A farewell for a gentlewoman, virtuous and noble. False world, good night, since thou hast brought that hour upon my mourn of age. Henceforth I quit thee from my thought. My part is ended on thy stage. Yes, threaten do, alas I fear as little as I hope from thee. I know thou canst not show nor bear more hatred than thou hast to me. My tender, first and simple years thou didst abuse and then betray, since stirraced up jealousies and fears when all the causes were away. Then in a soil hast planted me where breath the basest of thy fools, where envious arts professed be, and pride and ignorance the schools, where nothing is examined, weighed, but as tis rumored so believed, where every freedom is betrayed, and every goodness taxed or grieved. But what we are born for we must bear. Our frail condition is as such that what to all may happen here. If a chance to me I must not grudge. Else I my state should much mistake to harbour a divided thought from all my kind. That for my sake there should a miracle be wrought. No, I do know that I was born to age misfortune, sickness, grief. But I will bear these with that scorn, as shall not need thy false relief. Nor for my peace will I go far, as wanderers do that still do roam. But make my strengths, such as they are, here in my bosom and at home. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. And he came behind and kissed me, and I smacked him for his pains. Says he, you take it easy, that ain't no way to do. I love you hot as fire, my girl, and you know you know it too. So won't you name the day? But I said that I will not, and I pushed him away, out among the raspberries all on a summer day. And I says, you ask in winter if your love's so hot, for it's summer now and sunny, and my hand is fulls as I. With the fair by and by, and the village dance and all, and the turkey-pots is small, and soles the ducks and chicks, and the hay not yet in ricks, and the flowers shall be presently and hot pickings to come, and the fruiting and the harvest-home. And my new white gown to make, and the jam all to be done. Can't you leave a girl alone? Your love's too hot for me. Can't you leave a girl be till the evenings do draw in? Till the leaves be getting thin, till the fires be lighted early, and the curtains draw'd for tea. That's the time to do your courting, if you come accorting me. And he took it as I said it, and not as it was meant. And he went. The hay was stacked, the fruit was picked, the hops were dry and brown, and everything was garnered, and the year turned upside down. And the winter had come on, and the fires were early lit, and he'd never come an eye again, and all my life was sick. And I was cold alone with not to do but sit, with my hands in my black lap, and hear the clock tick. For a father he lay dead with the candles at his head, and his coffin was that black I could see it through the wall. And I'd sent them all away, though they'd offered for the stay. I wanted to be cold alone, and learn to bear it all. Then I heard him. I'd a known it for his footstep, just as plain, if he brought his regiment with him up the rut he froze and lain. And I hadn't draw'd the curtains, and I see him through the pain, and I jumped up in my blacks, and I threw the door back wide. Says I, you come inside, for it's cold outside for you, and it's cold here too, and I haven't no more pride. It's too cold for that, I cried. Then I saw in his face the fear of death and desire, and oh, I took and kissed him again and again, and I clipped him close and all, in the winter, in the dusk, in the quiet house-place, with the coffin lying black and full, the other aside the wall. And you wore my heart, I told him, if there's any fire in men. And he got his two arms round me, and I felt the fire then. And I warmed my heart at the fire. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Declining always disappears in the weak circles of increasing years, and his short tumults of themselves compose, while flowing time above his head does close. Cromwell alone, with a greater vigor, runs sun-like the stages of succeeding suns, and still the day which he does next restore is the just wonder of the day before. Cromwell alone doth with new luster spring, and shines the jewel of the yearly ring. Tis he the force of scattered time contracts, and in one year the work of ages acts, while heavy monarchs make a wide return, longer and more malignant than Saturn, and though they all platonic years should reign, in the same posture would be found again. Their earthly projects underground they lay, more slow and brittle than the China clay. Well might they strive to leave them to their son, for one thing never was by one king done. Yet some more active, for a frontier town took him by proxy, begs a false renown. Another triumphs at the public cost, and will have won if he no more have lost. They fight by others, but in person wrong, and only are against their subjects strong. Their other wars are but a feigned contest, this common enemy is still oppressed. If conquerors on them they turn their might, if conquered on them they wreak their spite. They neither build the temple in their days, nor matter for succeeding founders raise, nor sacred prophecies consult within, much less themselves to perfect them begin. No other care they bear of things above, but with astrologers divine of jove, to know how long their planet yet reprieves from their deserved fate their guilty lives. Thus, image like, and useless time they tell, and with vain scepters strike the hourly bell, nor more contribute to the state of things than wooden heads upon the vile's strings, while indefatigable cromwell, highs, and cuts his way still nearer to the skies, learning a music in the region clear to tune this lower to that higher sphere. So, when Amphion did the loot command, which the God gave him with his gentle hand, the rougher stones unto his measures hewed danced up in order from the quarry's rude. This took a lower, that a higher place, as he the treble altered or the base. No note he struck, but a new story laid, and the great work ascended while he played. The listening structures he with wonder eyed, and still new stops to various time applied. Now, through the strings of marshal rage he throws, and joining straight the Theban tower arose. Then, as he strokes them with a touch more sweet, the flocking marbles in a palace meet. But for the most, he graver notes did try. Therefore, the temples reared their columns high. Thus, ere he ceased, his sacred loot creates the harmonious city of the seven gates. Such was that wondrous order and consent, when Cromwell tuned the ruling instrument. While tedious statesmen many years did hack, framing a liberty that still went back, whose numerous gorge could swallow in an hour that island which the sea cannot devour. Then, our Amphion issues out, and sings, and once he struck, and twice the powerful strings. The commonwealth then first together came, and each one entered in the willing frame. All other matter yields, and may be ruled, but who the minds of stubborn men can build? No quarry bears a stone so hardly wrought, nor with such labor from its center brought. None to be sunk in the foundation bends, each in the house the highest place contends. And each the hand that lays him will direct, and some fall back upon the architect. Yet all, composed by his attractive song into the animated city throng. The commonwealth does through their centers all draw the circumference of the public wall. The cross's spirits here do take their part, fastening the contignation which they thwart. And they whose nature leads them to divide, uphold this one and that the other side, but the most equal still sustain the height. And they, as pillars, keep the work upright, while the resistance of opposed minds the fabric, as with arches stronger binds, which, on the basis of a senate free, knit by the roof's protecting weight, agree. When for his foot he thus a place had found, he hurls air since the world about him round, and in his several aspects, like a star, here shines in peace, and thither shoots a war, while by his beams observing princess steer, and wisely court the influence they fear. Oh, would they rather, by his pattern one, kiss the approaching, nor yet angry son, and in their numbered footsteps humbly tread the path where holy oracles do lead? How might they, under such a captain, raise the great designs kept for the latter days? But mad with reason, so miscalled, of state, they know them not, and what they know not, hate. Hence still they sing Hosanna to the whore, and her, whom they should massacre, adore. But Indians, whom they should convert, subdue, nor teach, but traffic with, or burn the Jew. Unhappy princes, ignorantly bred, by malice sum, by error more misled, if gracious heaven to my life give length, leisure to time, and to my weakness of strength, then shall I once with graver accents shake your regal sloth and your long slumber's wake, like the shrill huntsman that prevents the east, winding his horned kings that chase the beast. Till then, my muse shall hallow far behind Angelic Cromwell, who outwings the wind, and in dark nights, and in cold days, alone pursues the monster through every throne, which, sinking to her Roman den impure, gnashes her gory teeth, nor there secure. Hence oft I think, if in some happy hour high grace should meet in one with highest power, and then a seasonable people still should bend to his, as he to heaven's will, what we might hope, what wonderful effect from such a wished conjuncture might reflect. Sure, the mysterious work where none with stand would forthwith finish under such a hand, for shortened time its useless course would stay, and soon precipitate the latest day. But a thick cloud about that morning lies, and intercepts the beams to mortalize. That is the most which we determine can. If these the times, then this must be the man. And well he therefore does, and well has guessed, who in his age had always forward pressed, and knowing not where heaven's choice may light, girds yet his sword, and ready stands to fight. But men, alas, as if they nothing cared, look on, all unconcerned or unprepared, and stars still fall, and still the dragon's tail swinges the volumes of its horrid flail, for the great justice that had first suspend the world by sin does by the same extend, hence that blessed day still counterpoisoned wastes, the ill-delaying what the elected hastes. Hence landing, nature to new seas is tossed, and good designs still with their authors lost. And thou, great Cromwell, for whose happy birth the mould was chosen out of better earth, whose saint-like mother we did lately see live out in age, long as a pedigree, that she might seem, could we the fall dispute, to have smelt the blossom, and not ate the fruit. Though none does of more lasting parents grow, yet never any did them honour so. Though thou, thine heart from evil still unstained, and always hast thy tongue from fraud refrained, thou, who so oft through storms of thundering lead has to borne securely thine undaunted head, thy breast through pondered inconspiracies, drawn from the sheath of lying prophecies, the proof beyond all other force or skill, our sins and danger, and shall one day kill. How near they failed, and in thy sudden fall, at once a sage to overturn us all, our brutish fury, struggling to be free, hurried thy horses while they hurried thee, when thou hast almost quit thy mortal cares, and soiled in dust thy crown of silver hairs. Let this one sorrow interweave among the other glories of our yearly song, like skillful looms, which through the costly thread of pearling oar, a shining wave do shed, so shall the tears we on past grief employ, still as they trickle, glitter in our joy. So with more modesty we may be true, and speak as of the dead the praises do, while impious men, deceived with pleasure short, on their own hopes shall find the fall retort. But the poor beasts, wanting their noble guide, what could they more, shrunk guiltily aside. First winged fear transports them far away, and let in sorrow then their flight did stay. See how they, each their towering crests abate, and the green grass and their known manger's hate, nor through wide nostrils snuff the wanton air, nor their round hoofs or curled mains compare, with wandering eyes and restless ears they stood, and with shrill ne'ings asked him of the wood. Thou, Cromwell, falling, not a stupid tree or rock so savage, but it mourned for thee, and all about was heard a panic groan, as if that nature's self were overthrown. It seemed the earth did from the center tear, it seemed the sun was fallen out of the sphere. Justice obstructed lay, and reason fooled, courage disheartened, and religion cooled. A dismal silence through the palace went, and then loud shrieks the vaulted marble's rent, such as the dying chorus sings by turns, and to deaf seas and ruthless tempest's mourns, when now they sink, and now the plundering streams break up each deck and rip the oaken zemes. But thee triumphant, hence the fiery car, and fiery steeds had borne out of the war, from the low world and thankless men, above unto the kingdom blessed of peace and love. We only mourned ourselves in thine ascent, whom thou hadst left beneath with mantle rent, for all delight of life thou then didst lose, when to command thou didst thyself depose, resigning up thy privacy so dear to turn the headstrong people's charioteer, for to be Cromwell was a greater thing than up below, or yet above a king. Therefore thou rather didst thyself depress, yielding to rule, because it made thee less. For neither didst thou from the first apply thy sober spirit unto things too high, but in thine own fields exercise its long, a healthful mind within a body strong. Till at the seventh time, thou in the skies, as a small cloud, like a man's hand didst rise, then did thick mists and winds the air to form, and down at last thou portst the fertile storm, which to the thirsty land did plenty bring, but though forewarned, or took and wet the king. What, since he did, and higher force him pushed still from behind, and it before him rushed. Though undersurned among the two multiblined, who think those high decrees by man designed, it was heaven would not that his power should cease, but walk still middle betwixt war and peace, choosing each stone, and poising every weight, trying the measures of the breadth and height, here pulling down, and there erecting new, founding a firm state by proportions true. When Gideon so did from the war of a treat, yet by the conquest of two kings grown great, he on the peace extends a warlike power, and Israel, silent, saw him raise the tower, and how he, Sakoth's elders, durst suppress with thorns and briars of the wilderness. No king might ever such a force have done, yet would not he be lord, nor yet his son. Thou, with the same strength, at a heart so plain, didst, like thine olive, still refuse to reign. Though why should others all thy labor spoil, and brambles be anointed with thine oil? Whose climbing flame, without a timely stop, had quickly leveled every cedar's top. Therefore, first growing to thyself a law, the ambitious shrubs thou in just time didst awe. So have I seen at sea, when whirling winds hurry the bark, but more the seamen's minds, who, with mistaken course salute the sand, and threatening rocks misapprehend for land, while baleful tritons to the shipwreck guide, and corpusons along the tackling's slide. The passengers all wearied out before, giddy, and wishing for the fatal shore. Some lusty mate, who, with more careful eye, counted the hours at every start at spy, the helm does from the artless steersman's strain, and doubles back gun to the safer main. What though a while they'd grumble discontent, saving himself, he does their loss prevent. It is not a freedom that, were all command, nor tyranny, where one does them withstand. But who of both the bounders knows to lay, him, as their father, must the state obey. Thou and thy house, like Noah's eight did rest, left by the war's flood on the mountain's crest, and the large veil they subject to thy will, which thou, but as an husbandment wouldst hill, and only didst for others plant the vine of liberty, not drunken with its wine. That sober liberty which men may have, that they enjoy, but more they vainly crave, and such as their parents tends to press, may show their own, not see his nakedness. Yet such a chamish issue still doth rage, the shame and plague, both of the land and age, who watched thy halting, and thy fall deride, rejoicing when thy foot had slipped aside, that their new king might the fifth scepter shake, and make the world by his example quake, whose frantic army, should they want for men, might muster heresies, so one were ten. What thy misfortune, they the spirit call, and their religion only is to fall. O Muhammad, now couldst thou rise again, thy falling sickness should have made thee rain, while feak and Simpson would in many a tome have writt the comments of thy sacred foam. For soon thou mightst have passed among their rant, were but for thine unmoved to the band, as thou must needs have owned them of thy band, for prophecies fit to be al-Qurand. A cursed locusts, whom your king to spit out of the center of the unbottomed pit, wanderers, adulterers, liars, munzers rest, sorcerers, atheists, Jesuits, possessed, you, who the scriptures and the laws deface, with the same liberty as points enlace, overace most hypocritically strict, bent to reduce us to the ancient picked, well may you act the Adam and the Eve, I and the serpent too that did deceive. But the great captain, now the danger or, makes you, for his sake, tremble one fit more, and, to your spite, returning yet alive, does with himself all that is good revive. So, when first man did through the morning new see the bright sun his shining race pursue, all day he followed, with unwearied sight, pleased with that other world of moving light. But thought him, when he missed his sitting beams, sunk in the hills or plunged below the streams, while dismal blacks hung round the universe, and stars like tapers burned upon his hearse, and owls and ravens with their screeching noise did make the funerals sadder by their joys, his weeping eyes the doleful vigils keep, not knowing yet the night was made for sleep. Still, to the west, where he him lost, he turned, and with such accents as despairing mourned, why did mine eyes once see so bright a ray, or why day last no longer than a day? When straight the sun behind him he described, smiling serenely from the farther side. So, while our star that gives us light and heat seemed now a long and gloomy night to threat, up from the other world his flame doth dart, and princes shining through their windows start. Who there suspected counsellors refuse, and credulous ambassadors accuse. Is this, Sethuan, the nation that we read spent with both wars under a captain dead? Yet, rig a navy while we dress us late, and ere we dine, raise and rebuild a state. What oaken forests and what golden mines, what mince of men, what union of designs. Unless their ships do as their fowl proceed of shedding leaves, that with their ocean breed. There's are not ships, but rather arcs of war, and beaked promontories sailed from far, of floating islands a new hatchet nest, a fleet of worlds of other worlds in quest, and hideous shawl of wood leviathans, armed with three tire of brazen hurricanes, that through the centre shoot their thundering side, and sink the earth that does it anchor ride. What refuge to escape them can be found, whose watery leaguers all the world surround. Needs must we all their tributaries be, whose navies hold the sleuces of the sea. The ocean is the fountain of command, and that once took, we captives are on land, and those that have the waters for their share can quickly leave us neither earth nor air. Yet if through these our fears could find a pass through double oak, and lined with treble brass, that one man still, although but named, alarms more than all men, all navies, and all arms. Him all the day, him in late nights I dread, and still his sword seems hanging over my head. The nation had been ours, but his one soul moves the great bulk, and animates the whole. He secrecy with number hath enchaste, courage with age, maturity with haste, the valiant's terror, riddle of the wise, and still his falchion all our nots and ties. Where did he learn those arts that cost us dear? Where below earth, or where above the sphere? He seems a king by long succession born, and yet the same to be a king does scorn. Abroad a king he seems, and something more, at home a subject on the equal floor. Oh, could I once him with our title see, so should I hope, yet he might die as we. But let them write his praise that love him best, it grieves me sore to have thus much confessed. Pardon, great prince, if thus their fear or spite, more than our love and duty, do the right. I yield, nor further will the prize contend, so that we both alike may miss our end, while thou thy venerable head does raise, as far above their malice as my praise. And, as the angel of our common wheel, troubling the waters, yearly makes them heal. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Hippopotamus, by T. S. Eliot. Read for LibriVax.org, by Kalenda. The Hippopotamus. Similiter et omnes reverianto a diaconos, ut mandatum Jesu Christi. Et episcopum, ut Jesum Christum, existentum filium patris, presbyterus autum, ut concilium dei et coniunzionem apostolorum. Sine his ecclesia non vocator, decvibes su adio, vos si cavio, santo ignati atralianos. And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans. The broad-banked Hippopotamus rests on his belly in the mud. Although he seems so firm to us, he is merely flesh and blood. Flesh and blood is weak and frail, susceptible to nervous shock, while the true church can never fail, for it is based upon a rock. The Hippo's feeble steps may err, encompassing material ends, while the true church need never stir to gather in its dividends. The Potamus can never reach the mango on the mango tree, but fruits of pomegranate and peach refresh the church from over the sea. At mating-time the Hippo's voice betrays inflections, hoarse and odd, but every week we hear rejoice the church at being one with God. The Hippopotamus' day is passed in sleep, at night he hunts. God works in a mysterious way, the church can sleep and feed at once. I saw the Potamus take wing, ascending from the damp savannas, inquiring angels round him sing the praise of God in loud hezamas. Blood of the lamb shall wash him clean, and him shall heavenly arms enfold. Among the saints he shall be seen performing on a harp of gold. He shall be washed as white as snow by all the martyred virgins kissed, while the true church remains below, wrapped in the old miasma mist. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. An oration owed upon Cromwell's return from Ireland by Andrew Marvel. Recorded for LibriVox.org by Adam Ringeth. The forward youth that would appear must now forsake his muses dear, nor in the shadows sing his numbers languishing. It is time to leave the books in dust and oil the unused armor's rust, removing from the wall the coarslet of the hall. So restless Cromwell could not cease in the inglorious arts of peace, but through adventurous war urged his active star. And, like the three-forked lightning, first breaking the clouds where it was nursed did through his own side his fiery way divide. For Tisall won to courage high the emulus or enemy, and with such to enclose is more than to oppose. Then burning through the air he went, and palaces and temples rent, and Caesar's head at last did through his laurels blast. Tis madness to resist or blame the force of angry heaven's flame, and, if we would speak true, much to the man is due. Who, from his private gardens, where he lived reserved in austere, as if his highest plot to plant the bergamot, could by industrious valor climb to ruin the great work of time, and cast the kingdom's old into another mould. Though justice against fate complain, and plead the ancient rites in vain, but those do hold or break as men are strong or weak. Nature that hated emptiness allows of penetration less, and therefore must make room where greater spirits come. What field of all the civil wars were his were not the deepest scars. And Hampton shows what part he had of wiser art, where, trining subtle fears with hope, he wove a net of such a scope that Charles himself might chase to Caresbrook's narrow case. That thence the royal actor borne the tragic scaffold might adorn, while round the armoured bands did clap their bloody hands. He, nothing common did, or mean, upon the memorable scene, but with his keener eye the axe's edge did try, nor called the gods with vulgar spite to vindicate his helpless right, but bowed his comely head down as upon a bed. This was that memorable hour which first assured the Forced Power. So when they did design the capital's first line, a bleeding head where they begun did fright the architects to run, and yet in that the state foresaw its happy fate. And now the Irish are ashamed to see themselves in one year tamed, so much one man can do that does both act and know. They can affirm his praises best, and have, though overcome, confessed how good he is, how just and fit for highest trust, nor yet grown stiffer with command, but still in the republic's hand, how fit he is to sway the canso well obey. He, to the common's feet, presents a kingdom for his first year's rents, and, what he may, for bears his fame to make it theirs, and has his sword and spoils and gert to lay them at the public's skirt. So when the falcon high falls heavy from the sky, she, having killed, no more does search, but on the next green bow to perch, where, when he first does lure, the falconer has her sure. What may not then our isle presume, while victory his crest does plume? What may not others fear, if thus he crown each year? A Caesar he heir long to Gaul, to Italy and Hannibal, and to all states not free shall Climacteric be. The picked no shelter now shall find within his party-coloured mind, but from this valour sad shrink underneath the plaid. Happy if in the tufted break the English hunter him mistake, nor lay his hounds in near the Caledonian deer. But thou, the war's and fortune's sun march indefatigably on, and for the last effect still keep thy sword erect. Besides the force it has to fright the spirits of the shady night, the same arts that to gain a power must it maintain. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Lament. By Edness and Vincent Millay. Read for LibriVox.org. By Suzanne Houghton. Listen, children. Your father is dead. From his old coats I'll make you little jackets. I'll make you little trousers from his old pants. They'll be in his pockets things he used to put there. Keys and pennies covered with tobacco. Dan shall have the pennies to save in his bank. Anne shall have the keys to make a pretty noise with. Life must go on, and the dead be forgotten. Life must go on, though good men die. Anne, eat your breakfast. Dan, take your medicine. Life must go on. I forget just why. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine. By Harriet A. Glazebrook. Read for LibriVox.org. By Abigail Bartels. Ham Lake, Minnesota. Alice Lee stood awaiting her lover one night. Her cheeks flushed and glowing, her eyes full of light. She had placed a sweet rose mid her wild flowing hair. No flower of the forest air looked half so fair, As she did that night as she stood by the door Of the cot where she dwelt by the side of the moor. She heard a quick step coming over the moor, And a merry voice which she had offed her before, An air she could speak, a strong arm held her fast, And a manly voice whispered, I've come love at last. I'm sorry that I've kept you waiting like this, No you'll forgive me, then give me a kiss. But she shook the bright curls on her beautiful head, And she drew herself up, while quite proudly she said, Now William, I'll prove if you really are true, For you say that you love me, I don't think you do. If really you love me, you must give up the wine, For the lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine. He looked quite amazed. Why Alice, it is clear, You really are getting quite jealous, my dear. In that you are right, she replied, For you see you'll soon love the liquor far better than me. I'm jealous I own of the poisonous wine, For the lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine. He turned then quite angry, Confound it, he said, What nonsense you've gotten your dear little head, But I'll see if I cannot remove it from hence. She said, tis not nonsense, tis plain common sense, And I mean what I say, and this you will find, I don't often change when I've made up my mind. He stood all your resolute, angry, perplexed, She never before saw him look half so vexed. But she said, if he talks all his life, I won't flinch. And he talked, but he never could move her an inch. He then bitterly cried with a look and a groan, Oh Alice, your heart is as hard as a stone. But though her heart beat in his favor quite loud, She still firmly kept to the vow she had vowed. And at last, without even a tear or a sigh, She said, I am going, so William, goodbye. Nay, stay, he then said, I'll choose one of the two. I'll give up the liquor in favor of you. Now William had often great cause to rejoice, For that hour he had made sweet Alice his choice. And he blessed through the whole of a long, useful life, The fate that had given him his dear little wife. And she, by her firmness, won to us that night, One who in our cause is an ornament bright. Oh, that each fair girl in our abstinence band Would say, I'll never give my heart or my hand Unto one who I ever had reason to think Would taste one small drop of that vile, cursed drink. But say when you are wooed, I'm a foe to the wine, And the lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The room is the hollow rind of a fruit, A gourd, scooped out and dry, Where a spider, folded in its legs as in a bed, Lies on the dust, watching where is nothing to see But twilight and walls. And if the day outside were mine, What is the day but a grey cave With great grey spider-cloths hanging Low from the roof And the wet dust falling softly from them Over the wet, dark rocks, the houses, And over the spiders with white faces That scuttle on the floor of the cave? I'm choking with creeping grey confindness. But somewhere, birds, beside a lake of light Spread wings, larger than the largest fans, And rise in a stream upwards and upwards On the sunlight that rains invisible, So that the birds are like one wafted feather, Small and ecstatic, suspended over a vast spread country. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. I've known rivers. I've known rivers, ancient as the world, And older than the flow of human blood and human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo, And it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi When Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, And I've seen its muddy bosom turn all golden, And the sunset. I've known rivers, ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. End of poem. This recording lies within the public domain. To One in Paradise by Edgar Allen Poe Read for LibriVox.org by John Lopiana Thou was all that to me love For which my soul did pine, A green isle in the sea-love, A fountain in a shrine, All wreathed with very fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last, Ah, starry hope that didst arise, But to be overcast. A voice from out the future cries, On, on, but o'er the past. Dim gulf, my spirit hovering lies, Mute, motionless, aghast. For alas, alas me, The light of life is o'er. No more, no more, No more. Such language holds the solemn sea To the sands upon the shore, Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree Or the stricken eagle soar. And all my days are trances, And all my nightly dreams Are where thy gray eye glances And where thy footstep gleams, In what ethereal dances By what eternal streams. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. One Woman, Two All Women by D. H. Lawrence read philiberavox.org by Corey Samuel. I don't care whether I am beautiful to you, you other women. Nothing of me that you see is my own. A man balances, bone unto bone, balances everything thrown in the scale, you other women. You may look and say to yourselves, I do not show like the rest. My face may not please you, nor my stature. Yet if you knew how happy I am, how my heart in the wind rings true, like a bell that is chiming, each stroke as a stroke falls to you, you other women. You would draw your mirror towards you, you would wish to be different. There's the beauty you cannot see, myself and him balanced in glorious equilibrium, the swinging beauty of equilibrium, you other women. There's this other beauty, the way of the stars, you straggling women. If you knew how I swerve in peace, in the equipoise with the man, if you knew how my flesh enjoys, this swinging bliss, no shattering ever destroys, you other women. You would envy me, you would think me wonderful beyond compare, you would weep to be lapsing on such harmony as carries me, you would wonder aloud that he, who is so strange, should correspond with me everywhere. You see, he is different, he is dangerous, without pity or love, and yet how his separate being liberates me, and gives me peace, you cannot see how the stars are moving in surety exquisite, high above. We move without knowing, we sleep and we travel on, you other women. And this is beauty to me, to be lifted and gone, in emotion, human, inhuman, two and one encompassed, and many reduced to none, you other women. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Road and the End by Carl Sandberg. Read for LibriVox.org by Michelle Wood. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Road and the End. I shall foot it down the roadway in the dusk, where shapes of hunger wander in the fugitives of pain go by. I shall foot it in the silence of the morning, see the night slur and dawn, hear the slow great winds arise, where tall trees blink the way and shoulder toward the sky. The broken boulders by the road shall not commemorate my ruin. Regret shall be the gravel underfoot. I shall watch for slim birds, swift of wing that go where wind and ranks of thunder drive the wild processionals of rain. The dust of the traveled road shall touch my hands and face. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Silence by Edgar Allen Poe. Read for LibriVox.org by Norman Elfer. There are some qualities, some incorporate things, that have a double life, and thus is made a type of that twin entity which springs from matter and light, inst in solid and shade. There is a twofold silence, sea and shore, body and soul. One dwells in lonely places, newly with grass or groan, some solemn graces, some human memories and tearful lore, render him terrorless, his names no more. Here is the corporate silence, dread him not. No power hath he of evil in himself, but should some urgent fate untimely lot bring thee to his shadow, nameless elf, that haunteth the lone regions where hath trod no foot of man, commend thyself to God. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Sonnet 43 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Read for LibriVox.org by Reverend Miltation. How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach when feeling out of sight for the ends of being an ideal grace. I love thee to the level of every day's most quiet need by sun and candlelight. I love thee freely as men strive for right. I love thee purely as they turn from praise. I love thee with the passion put to use in my old griefs and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seem to lose with my lost sense. I love thee with the breath, smiles, tears of all my life and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Sonnet 29 when in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes by William Shakespeare. Read for LibriVox.org by Kim Stish. When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes I all alone beweep my outcast state and trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries and look upon myself and curse my fate, wishing me like to one more rich in hope featured like him, like him with friends possessed, desiring this man's art and that man's scope with what I most enjoy contented least. Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, happily I think on thee, and then my state, like to the lark at break of day arising from sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate. For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings that then I scorn to change my state with kings. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. So we'll go no more o' roving by George Gordon, Lord Byron. Read for LibriVox.org by Michael Goldman. So we'll go no more o' roving so late into the night that the heart be still as loving and the moon be still as bright for the sword out wears its sheath and the soul wears out the breast and the heart must pause to breathe and love itself have rest. Though the night was made for loving and the day returns too soon, it will go no more o' roving by the light of the moon. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. It was the stage driver's story as he stood with his back to the wheelers, quietly flecking his whip and turning his quid of tobacco. While on the dusty road and blend with the rays of the moonlight, we saw the long curl of his lash and the juice of tobacco descending. Danger! Sir, I believe you. Indeed, I may say on that subject you, your existence, might put to the hazard and turn of a wager. And, danger! Oh, no! Not me, sir, indeed, I assure you, to was only the man with the dog that is sitting alone in yon wagon. It was the Geiger grade, a mile and a half from the summit. Black as your hat was the night and never a star in the heavens. Thundering down the grade, the gravel and stones we sent flying over the precipice side, a thousand feet plumbed to the bottom. Halfway down the grade I felt, sir, a thrilling and creaking. Then, a lurch to one side as we hung on the bank of the canyon. Then, looking up the road, I saw, in the distance behind me, the hind wheel of the coach just loosed from its axle and following. One glance alone I gave, then gathered together my ribbons, shouted and flung them out spread at the straining necks of my cattle, screamed at the top of my voice and lashed the air in my frenzy while down the Geiger grade on three wheels the vehicle thundered. Speed was our only chance when again came the ominous rattle, crack, and another wheel slipped away and was lost in the darkness. Two only now were left, yet such was our fearful momentum, upright, erect and sustained on two wheels the vehicle thundered as some huge boulder unloosed from its rocky shelf on the mountain drives before it the hair and the timorous squirrel far leaping. So down the Geiger grade rushed the pioneer coach and before it leaped the wild horses and shrieked in advance of the danger impending. But to be brief in my tale, again air we came to level slipped from its axle a wheel. So that, to be plain in my statement, a matter of twelve hundred yards or more as the distance may be, we traveled upon one wheel until we drove up to the station. Then, sir, we sank in a heap. But picking myself from the ruins I heard a noise up the grade and looking I saw in the distance the three wheels following still like moons on the horizon whirling, till circling they gracefully sank on the road at the side of the station. This is my story, sir. A trifle indeed I assure you. Much more perchance might be said. But I hold him, of all men, most lightly whose swerves from the truth in his tale. No, thank you. Well, since you're pressing, perhaps I don't care if I do. You may give me the same, Jim. No sugar. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Supplication. By Joseph S. Carter Jr. Read for LibriVox.org by Victoria Grace. I am so tired and weary, so tired of the endless fight, so weary of waiting the dawn and finding endless night, that I ask but rest and quiet. Rest for days that are gone and quiet for the little space that I must journey on. End of poem. There's a certain slant of light by Emily Dickinson. Read for LibriVox.org by Kim Stisch. There's a certain slant of light on winter afternoons that oppresses like the weight of cathedral tunes. Heavenly hurt it gives us, we can find no scar, but internal difference where the meanings are. None may teach it anything tis the seal despair, an imperial affliction sent us of the air. When it comes, the landscape listens. Shadows hold their breath. When it goes, tis like the distance on the look of death. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Time does not bring relief. You all have lied. By Edna St. Vincent Millay. Read for LibriVox.org by Victoria Grace. Time does not bring relief. You all have lied who told me time would ease me of my pain. I miss him in the weeping of the rain. I want him at the shrinking of the tide. The old snows melt from every mountainside and last year's leaves are smoke in every lane. But last year's bitter loving must remain, heaped on my heart and my old thoughts abide. There are a hundred places where I fear to go, so with his memory they brim, and entering with relief some quiet place where never fell his foot or shown his face, I say there is no memory of him here, and so stand stricken, so remembering him. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Number 19. Sonnet 2. Time does not bring relief. You all have lied. By Edna St. Vincent Millay. 1892 to 1950. Renaissance and Other Poems. 1917. Read by Aspergene. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Time does not bring relief. You all have lied. Who told me time would ease me of my pain? I miss him in the weeping of the rain. I want him at the shrinking of the tide. The old snows melt from every mountainside and last year's leaves are smoke in every lane. But last year's bitter loving must remain, heaped on my heart and my old thoughts abide. There are a hundred places where I fear to go so with his memory they brim and entering with relief some quiet place where never fell his foot or shone his face. I say, there is no memory of him here and so stands stricken so remembering him. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Witnesses. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Read for LibriVox.org by Craig Campbell from Appleton, Wisconsin. In oceans wide domains half buried in the sands lie skeletons and chains with shackled feet and hands. Beyond the fall of dues deeper than plummet lies float ships with all their crews no more to sink nor rise. There the black slave ship swims fretted with human forms whose fettered lifeless limbs are not the sport of storms. These are the bones of slaves they gleam from the abyss they cry from yawning waves we are the witnesses. Within earth's wide domains are markets foreman's lives their necks are galled with chains or wrists are cramped with jibs. Dead bodies at the kike and deserts make its prey murders that with a fright scare schoolboys from their play. All evil thoughts and deeds anger and lust and pride the foulest rancous weeds that choke life's groaning tide. They are the woes of slaves they glare from the abyss they cry from unknown graves we are the witnesses. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. A woman's answer to a man's question Written by Mary Lathrop Read for Lapervox.org by Megan Conkel A woman's answer to a man's question Written and replied to a man's poetic unfolding of what he conceived to be a woman's duty. Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing ever made by the hand above? A woman's heart and a woman's life and a woman's wonderful love? Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing as a child might ask for a toy? Demanding what others have died to win with the reckless dash of a boy. You have written my lesson of duty out manlike you have questioned me. Now stand at the bar of my woman's soul until I shall question thee. You require your mutton shall always be hot your socks and your shirts shall be whole I require your heart to be true as God's stars and as pure as heaven your soul. You require a cook for your mutton and beef I require a far better thing a seamstress you're wanting for stockings and shirts I look for a man and a king a king for the beautiful realm called home and a man that the maker God shall look upon as he did the first and say it is very good. I am fair and young but the rose will fade from my soft young cheek one day Will you love me then mid the falling leaves as you did mid the bloom of May? Is your heart and ocean so strong and deep I may launch my all in its tide a loving woman finds heaven or hell on the day she has made a bride. I require all things that are grand and true all things that a man should be if you give all this I would stake my life to be all you demand of me. If you cannot do this and you're an interesting cook you can hire with little to pay.