 Art versus Cupid by Ella Wheeler Wilcox ReadfullyBrivox.org Maiden read by Sonja Cupid read by John Burlinson Art versus Cupid A room in a private house A maiden sitting before fire meditating Now have I fully fixed upon my part Goodbye to dreams For me a life of art Beloved art, O realm serene and fair Above the mean and sordid world of care Above earth's small ambitions and desires Art, art, the very word my soul inspires From foolish memories it sets me free Not what has been, but that which is to be Absorbs me now A due to vain regret The bow is tensely drawn The target set A knock at the door The night is dark and chill The hour is late Who knocks upon my door? Tis I, your fate! Thou dost deceive not me, but thine own self My fate is not a wandering vagrant elf My fate is here within this throbbing heart That beats alone for glory and for art Another knock at the door Pray let me in, I am so faint and cold Door is pushed ajar And to Cupid, who approaches the fire without stretched hands Me thinks thou art not faint, however cold, But rather too courageous and most bold Surprisingly ill-mannered, sir, and rude, Without an invitation to intrude into my very presence Cupid, warming his hands But you see, girls never mind a little chap like me They're always watching for me on the sky And hoping I will call Indeed not I, my heart has listened to a sweeter voice A clarion call that gives command, not choice And I have answered to that call, I come To other voices shall my ears be dumb To art alone I consecrate my life Art is my spouse, and I his willing wife Cupid, slowly gazing in the great A heart is a sultan, and you must divide his love with many another ill-fed bride Now I know one who worships you alone I will not listen, for the dice is thrown and art has won me On my brow some day shall rest the laurel wreath Cupid, sitting down and looking at maid critically Just let me say I think sweet orange blossoms under lace Are better suited to your type of face I yet shall stand before an audience That listens as one mind, absorbed in tents And with my genius I shall rouse its cheers Still it to silence, softening to tears Or wake its laughter Oh, the play, the play, the place the thing, my boy, the play Cupid, suddenly clapping his hands Oh, say, I know a splendid role for you to take And one that always keeps the house awake And calls for pretty dressing Oh, it's great Well? Well, what is it? Wherefore make me wait? Cupid, tapping his brow thoughtfully Oh, how is it those lines run? Oh, now I know, you make a stately entrance measured, slow To stirring music, then you kneel and say something about To honor and obey, for better and for worse, till death do part Be still, you foolish boy, that is not art She needs great skill, who takes the role of wife In God's stupendous drama, human life So I once thought Oh, once my very soul was filled and thrilled with dreaming of that role Life seemed so wonderful It held for me no purpose, no ambition, but to be loving and loved My highest thought of fame was someday bearing my dear lover's name Alone I oft times uttered it aloud Oh, rode it down, half timid, and all proud to see myself lost utterly in him As some small star might joy in growing dim when sinking in the sun Or as did you, forgetting the brief little life it knew in space Mide on the ocean's bosom fall and ask for nothing, only to give all Now that's the talk, it's music to my ear After all that stuff on art and the career I hope she'll keep it up Again my dream shaped into changing pictures I would seem to see myself in beautiful array Move down the aisle upon my wedding day And then I saw the modest living room with lighted lamp And fragrant plants in bloom And books and sewing scattered all about, and just we two alone There is not a doubt I'll lend her yet My dream kaleidoscope changed still again And framed love's dearest hope, the trinity of home And life was good, and all its deepest meaning understood Sits lost in a dream, behind scenes a voice sings a lullaby Beautiful land of nod, cupid in ecstasy tiptoes about And clasps his hands in the light Another scene, a matron in her prime I saw myself glide peacefully with time into the quiet middle years Content with simple joys to dear home-circle land My sons and daughters made my diadem I saw my happy youth renewed in them The pain of growing old lost all its sting For love stood near, in winter as in spring Cupid tiptoes to door and makes a signal Maiden starts up dramatically Twasper the dream, I woke all suddenly The world had changed, and now life means to me My art, the stage, excitement and the crowd The glare of many footlights And the loud applause of man as I cry in rage Give me the dagger, or creep down the stage In that sleep-walking scene Oh, art like mine will send the chills down every listener's spine And when I choose, salt-tears shall freely flow As in the moonlight I cry, Romeo, Romeo Oh, wherefore art thou Romeo? I, this done, my dream of home life It is but begun The heart but once can dream a dream so fair And so henceforth love thoughts I do forswear Since faith in love has crumbled to the dust In fame alone I put my hope and trust Cupid at the door beckons excitedly Enter lover without stretched arms Here's one who will explain yourself to you And make that old sweet dream of love come true Fix up your foolish quarrel, time is brief So waste no more of it in doubt or grief The lovers meet and embrace Cupid in doorway Warm lip to lip, and heart to beating hearts The cast is made My lady has her part Curtain End of poem This recording is in the public domain Autumn, a dirge, by Percy Bysshelly Read for LibriVox.org by Ian King The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying And the year on the earth her deathbed In a shroud of leaves dead is lying Come, months, come away from November to May In your saddest array Follow the beer of the dead cold year And like dim shadows, watch by her sepulchre The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling for the year The blithe swallows are flown And the lizards each gone to his dwelling Come, months, come away Put on white, black and grey Let your light sisters play Ye follow the beer of the dead cold year And make her grave green With tear on tear End of poem This recording is in the public domain Autumn, by Alice Carey Read for LibriVox.org by Ian King Shorter and shorter now The twilight clips the days As through the sunset gates they crowd And summer from her golden collar slips and strays Through stubble fields and moans aloud Save when by fits the warmer air deceives And, stealing hopeful to some sheltered bower She lies on pillows of the yellow leaves And tries the old tunes over for an hour The wind, whose tender whisper in the may Set all the young blooms listening through the grove Sits rustling in the faded boughs today And makes his cold and unsuccessful love The rose has taken off her tyre of red The mullin' stalk, its yellow stars have lost And the proud meadow-pink hangs down her head Against earth's chilly bosom, witched with frost The robin that was busy all the June Before the sun had kissed the topmost bow Catching our hearts up in his golden tune Has given place to the brown cricket now The very cock crows lonesomely at morn Each flag and fern the shrinking stream divides Uneasy cattle low and lambs forlorn Creep to their storied sheds with nettle'd sides Shut up the door, who loves me must not look upon the withered world But haste to bring his lighted candle and his storybook And live with me the poetry of spring End of poem, this recording is in the public domain Autumn by Walter De La Mer Read for LibriVox.org by Kangaroo There is a wind where the rose was Cold rain where sweet grass was And clouds like sheep stream o'er the steep Gray skies where the lark was Not gold where your hair was Not warm where your hand was But phantom forlorn beneath the thorn Your ghost where your face was Sad winds where your voice was Tears tears where my heart was And ever with me, child ever with me Silence where hope was End of poem, this recording is in the public domain Bright star would I wear steadfast as thou art By John Keats Read for LibriVox.org by Winston Tharp Bright star would I wear steadfast as thou art Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night And watching with eternal lids apart Like nature's patient sleepless eromite The moving waters at their priest-like task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores Or gazing at the new soft fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the boars No, yet still steadfast, still unchangeable Pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast To feel for ever its soft fall and swell Awake for ever in a sweet unrest Still, still to hear her tender taken breath And so live ever or else swoon to death End of poem, this recording is in the public domain The City in the Sea by Edgar Allan Poe Low death has reared himself a throne In a strange city lying alone far down within the dim west Where the good and the bad and the worst And the best have gone to their eternal rest There shrines and palaces and towers Time-eaten towers that tremble not Resemble nothing that is ours Around by lifting winds forgot Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie No rays from the holy heaven come down On the long nighttime of that town But light from out the lurid sea Streams up the turrets silently Gleams up the pinnacles far and free Up domes, up spires, up kingly halls Up faines, up Babylon-like walls Up shadowy long forgotten bowers A sculptured ivy and stone flowers Up many and many a marvelous shrine Whose wreathed freezes intertwine the veal, The violet and the vine Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down There open faines and gaping graves Yon level with the luminous waves But not the riches there that lie In each idol's diamond eye Not the gaily-jeweled dead Tempt the waters from their bed For no ripples curl alas Along that wilderness of glass No swellings tell that winds may be Upon some far-off happier sea No heavings hint that winds have been On seas less hideously serene But lo, a stir is in the air The wave, there is a movement there As if the towers had thrust aside In slightly sinking the dull tide As if their tops had feebly given Avoid within the filmy heaven The waves have now a redder glow The hours are breathing faint and low And when amid no earthly moans Down, down that town shall settle hence Hell rising from a thousand thrones Shall do it reverence End of poem Red by Michele Frye, Baton Rouge, Louisiana In October 2016 This recording is in the public domain Good beasts are silent in their pens Hush, leave the boasting to the hands End of poem This recording is in the public domain Odours that rise When the spade wounds the root of tree Rose, current, raspberry or goutweed Rhubarb or celery The smoke's smell too Flowing from where a bonfire burns the dead The waste, the dangerous And all to sweetness turns It is enough to smell To crumble the dark earth While the robin sings over again Sad songs of autumn mirth End of poem This recording is in the public domain With constant drinking, fresh and fair The sea itself, which one would think, Should have but little need of drink, Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up, So fill that they all flow the cup The busy sun, and one would guess, By his drunken fiery face no less, Drinks up the sea, and when he's done, The moon and stars drink up the sun. They drink and dance by their own light, They drink and revel all the night, Nothing in nature's sober found. But an eternal health goes round, Fill up the bowl then, fill it high, Fill all the glasses there, for why, Should every creature drink but I? Why, man of morals, tell me why? End of poem This recording is in the public domain White wet clots impatiently About the grizzled head Where the coarse hair mats like grass And the efficient wind With cold professional-based Probes like a lancet through the cotton shirt About us are white cliffs and space No facades show, nor roof, Nor any spire, all sheathed in snow The parasitic snow that clings about them Like a blight Only detached lights float hazily Like greenish moons, and endlessly Down the hoarse street A couched and comforted and sleeping warm The blizzard waltzes with the night End of poem This recording is in the public domain Haunted houses By Henry Wasworth Longfellow Read for LibriVox.org by Thomas Peter All houses wherein men have lived and died Are haunted houses Through the open doors The harmless phantoms on their errands glide With feet that make no sound upon the floors We meet them at the doorway, on the stair Along the passages they come and go Impalpable impressions on the air A sense of something moving to and fro There are more guests at table than the hosts invited The illuminated hall is thronged with quiet In offensive ghosts, as silent as the pictures on the wall The stranger at my fireside cannot see the forms I see Nor hear the sounds I hear He but perceives what is, while unto me All that has been is visible and clear We have no title deeds to house or lands Owners and occupants of earlier dates From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands And hold in more maim still their old estates The spirit world around this world of sense Floats like an atmosphere And everywhere wafts through these earthly mists And vapours dense, a vital breath of more ethereal air Our little lives are kept in equipoise By opposite attractions and desires The struggle of the instinct that enjoys And the more noble instinct that aspires These perturbations, this perpetual jar Of earthly wants and aspirations high Come from the influence of an unseen star An undiscovered planet in our sky And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud Throws o'er the sea a floating bridge of light Across whose trembling planks are fancies Crowd into the realm of mystery and night So from the world of spirits there descends A bridge of light, connecting it with this Or whose unsteady floor that sways and bends Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss End of poem This recording is in the public domain The Haunted House by Janet Hamilton Read for LibriVox.org when you get novelist The haunted house in days of yore Stood lone, deserted, ruined, whore With dusty pains and moss-grown sill With grass-grown steps, rooms dark and chill Where, while the wailing night winds moaned Pale shrouded spectres shrieked and groaned And nightly, winged with wild afright The trembling youth in rapid flight Would pass the spot, nor look behind Four fearful sounds were on the wind Nor paused till on the hearth he stood Amidst the dear fraternal brood The haunted house How vast the change in modern times A goodly range of painted casements Scaly shine with glittering pains Large crystalline and rich-cut goblets brimming high Where troops of fiends in ambush lie Pront to obey that potent charm The screw-propelling waiter's arm And hark, through rooms gay, thronged and bright Sound festal strains and laughter light And tinkling bells and dancing feet That trip the time to music sweet Ah, simple youth, beware, beware Cross not that threshold, snowy fare With varnished door forever open Within the ghosts of murdered hope Of wedded duties, filial claims Of high resolves and noble aims Of health and fame, of time and peace With whale and plate that will not cease Forever when dark midnight falls Stock through the rooms, glide round the walls While warning voices mournful swell Upon the wind with dirge-like knell Pass thoughtless youth to adepth to stay Avoid, turn from it, haste away End of poem This recording is in the public domain Heraclitus by William Johnson Corry 1823 to 1892 Read for LibriVox.org by Hatton43 In October 2016 They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead They brought me bitter news to hear And bitter tears to shed I wept as I remembered, how often you and I Had tired the sun with talking And sent him down the sky And now thou art lying My dear old Caryon guest A handful of grey ashes Long, long ago at rest Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales awake For death he'd take a fall away, but then he cannot take End of poem This recording is in the public domain The Homewood Track by CJ Dennis Read for LibriVox.org by Algie Pug Once a year we lumber southward with the clip from Yarrity Spell the bullocks in the township while we run our yearly spree What's a bullocky to live for? Days of toil are hard and long And you not begrudge him yearly one short week of wine and song While it lasts, he asks no better When it's over, yoke him up And we'll make another promise for to shun the brimming cup When we've done our little check-in and the townships at our back Then we start to think of mending Out along the Homewood Track For there comes a time of reckoning when we're trudging by the team Back again to work and worry Kind of waking from a dream We begin to see the folly of a week of wicked fun Bought with months of weary slaving, punching bullocks on the run But our views are somewhat tempered when we've done a twelve-month drought And our thoughts ain't so religious when the team is heading south When the pleasure is before us, work and worry at our back We forget the grim reformers out along the Homewood Track What's the odds? It's got to happen What we've done will do again And we know it while we make them resolutions are in vain Life's a weary track to travel, mostly full of ruts and stumps Them that find their days in drudging have to take their joy in lumps Yoke them up and get a move on Gayest times must have an end There's a weary track to travel when we've nothing left to spend If there's still a bob, we're wetted and a last glad joke will crack Time enough for vain regretting when we're on the Homewood Track End of poem This recording is in the public domain The Horrors of War by Janet Hamilton Read Philippa Vox.org by Newgate Novelist Verses suggested by the war in the Crimea, 1854 Flapping fierce her gory pinions, wetting sharp her crimson beak Vulture wore her barbarous minions, calls their ghastly prey to seek Now her hideous form comes swooping from the thundering rampart's height Or the carnage valley stooping, gorged with slaughter, horrid sight Shot and shell, the dark air rending, sulfurous flash and bayonets gleam Shouts and shrieks and groans wild blending with her loud discordant scream High the purple tide is swelling Or the darkened sanguine plain From a thousand bosom's welling mangled limbs and shattered brain Oh, for Angel Eye and station far above the battle cloud Once I'd view the dread migration of the unbodied spirit crowd Through eternity's dark portals To the abodes of wheel or whirl Swiftly rush the new immortals Lord, how long shall it be so? Summerland, oh, beauteous region, rich in foliage, flowers and fruit Shall the foe, whose name is legion, keep and tread thee underfoot Ground thy legal port and city, volleying thunders ceaseless roar Earth affords not aid or pity, they shall fall to rise no more End of poem. This recording is in the public domain And Rose, her face all China white against the gory green Now, Arry Cox, he drives a car for Dr. Percy Gray She's either me or Sunday next, the dock will be away How is it for a little trip to Fernville for the day? I know two bonza girls, he says, fair oddies, both they are There's Rose, who serves behind the joint in Mudge's privet bar And Lena Crump, who jerks the pump down at the southern star Now, who'd refuse a Sunday trip with girls and all give in? The car was there, an oil to spare, to rat would be a sin And who'd refuse a dropper booze when pals is flusher tin What all the courts and papers say can't add to my distress Rose, with the blood upon her face and on her crumpled dress And that poor champ who got the bump, oh God, he was a mess The girls had stout at ten mile out, and we was drinking beer I swear they lies like Elu says that we was on our ear For, as we was both, I'd take me oath, a sober as me here Now, Lena was a dash in peace, I spirited and flash It was plain enough to me that day that Arry'd done his dash And Rose, ah, how her eyes did stare, Rose was my special mash It's easy now for folks to talk who might have done the same We meant no harm to anyone, and Arry knew his game It was like a flash, the skid, the crash, and we was not to blame I wished I could shut out that sight, forget that awful row Oh, Rose, her face all china white, like I can see it now And Arry, like a heap of clothes, just chuck there any hour They says we painted Fernville red, they says that we was gay But what's come after dulls me mine to what them liars say We never dreamt of death and El when we set out that day It was evening when we turned for home, the moon shone full that night And for a mile or more ahead the road lay gleam and wide And Rose that close aside of me, her face turned to the light What if we sung a song or two? What if they heard a shout You sung a laughter, things to curse and make a fuss about Go faster, faster, leaner screams and Arry let her out I'd give me soul just to forget, Lord, how her eyes did stare Her kisses warm upon me lips, I seen a lion there Blood on her face, all china white, and on her yellow air I never took no either pace, I'd been on 20 trips And Rose was resting in me arms, her cheek against my lips A precious lot I dream of skids, a lot I thought of slips I only know we never thinks, I know we never dreams of folk walking on that road Till, sudden, leaner screams, and after that the sights I saw I've seen again in dreams We never seen the bloke ahead, how can they call us rash I'd just seen Arry move to shove his arm around his bash I'd seen her jump to grab the wheel, then Lord, there came the smash Oh, they can blame and cry their shame, it ain't for that I care I held her in my arms and laughed, then seen a lion there The moonlight streamed on her face, and on her yellow air End of poem. This recording is in the public domain Low Barometer by Robert Bridges Red for LibriVox.org by Thomas Peter The south wind strengthens to a gale, across the moon the clouds fly fast The house is smitten as with a flail, the chimney shutters to the blast On such a night when air has loosed its guardian grasp on blood and brain Old terrors then of God or ghost creep from the caves to life again And reason kens he herits in a haunted house Tenants unknown assert their squalid lease of sin with earlier title than his own Unbodied presences, the packed pollution and remorse of time Slipped from oblivion re-enact the horrors of an household crime Some men would quell the thing with prayer whose sightless footsteps pad the floor Whose fearful trespass mounts the stair or burts the locked forbidden door Some have seen corpses long and turd escape from hallowing control Pale charnel forms nay even have heard the shrilling of a troubled soul That wanders to the dawn hath crossed the duller's dark Or earth hath wound closer her storm-spread cloak And thrust the baleful phantoms underground End of poem, this recording is in the public domain Man's Testament by Adam Lindsay Gordon 1833-1870 Read for LibriVox.org by Hatton43 in October 2060 Question not, but live in labour till your goal be won Helping every feeble neighbour seeking help from none Life is mostly froth and bubble, two things stand like stone Kindness in another's trouble, courage in your own End of poem, this recording is in the public domain The Meeting by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Read for LibriVox.org by Winston Tharb After so long an absence at last we meet again Does the meeting give us pleasure or does it give us pain? The tree of life has been shaken and but few of us linger now Like the Prophet's two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bow We cordially greet each other in the old familiar tone And we think, though we do not say it, how old and gray he has grown We speak of a merry Christmas and many a happy New Year But each in his heart is thinking of those that are not here We speak of friends and their fortunes and of what they did and said Till the dead alone seemed living and the living alone seemed dead And at last we hardly distinguish between the ghosts and the guests And a mist and a shadow of sadness steals over our merriest chests End of poem, this recording is in the public domain North Wind by Lola Ridge Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachuk I love you, malcontent male wind Shaking the pollen from a flower or hurling the sea backward from the grinning sand Blow on and over my dreams Scatter my sick dreams Throw your lusty arms about me and vellop all my hot body Carry me to pine forests, great rough-bearded forests Bring me to stark plains and steppes I would have the North to-night, the cold, enduring North And if we should meet the snow whirling in spirals And he should blind my eyes Ally, you will defend me You will hold me close blowing on my eyelids End of poem, this recording is in the public domain October 1861 by Janet Hamilton Read for LibriVox.org by Newgate Novelist Not changeful April, with her suns and showers Pregnant with buds, whose birth the genial hours of teeming May will give to life and light Rich and young beauty, odorous and bright Not Rose crowned June, in trailing robes of bloom Her flowery sensors, breathing rich perfume Her glorious sunshine and her bluest skies Her wealth of dancing leaves, where Zephyr sighs Nor fervid July, in her full-blown charms Shedding the odorous hay with sun-browned arms Not glowing August, with her robe unbound With ripening grain and juicy frutage crown Nor the September, though thine orchards glow With fruits ripe, rich and ruddy Laying low the yellowest grain with gleaming sickles keen With just and laugh and harvest song between I sing October, month of all the year To poet's soul than calm deep feeling dear Her chastened sunshine and her dreamy skies With tender magic charm my heart and eyes In silvery haze the purple hills are swaved In dripping dews the faded herbage bathed Red robin trills his winter-warning ditty His big bright eye invoking crumbs and pity From fading woodlands ever pattering down Come many tinted leaves, red, yellow, brown The rustling carpet with slow lingering feet I thoughtful tread, inhaling odour's sweet The very soul of quietude is breathing or field and lake With sweetest peace in breathing my tranquil soul From founts of blissful feeling Sweet silent tears are down my cheeks are stealing Spirit of meekness brooding in the air On thy soft pinions waft my lonely prayer That I may meet calm, meek, resigned and sober My life's decline, my solemn Last October End of poem, this recording is in the public domain Once More Fields and Gardens by Ta-Yun Min translated by Amy Lowell and Franz S.Q. Read for LibriVox.org by Sonya Once More Fields and Gardens Even as a young man I was out of tune with ordinary pleasures. It was my nature to love the rooted hills, the high hills which look upon the four edges of heaven. What folly to spend one's life like a dropped leaf snared under the dust of streets. But for thirteen years it was so I lived. The caged bird longs for the fluttering of high leaves. The fish in the garden pool languishes for the world water of meeting streams. So I desire to clear and see the patch of the wild southern moor. And always, a countryman at heart, I have come back to the square enclosures of my fields and to my walled garden with its quiet path. Mine is a little property of ten moo or so. A fetched house of eight or nine rooms. On the north side the eaves are over-hung with the thick leaves of elm trees and willow trees break the strong force of the wind. On the south, in front of the great hall, peach trees and plum trees spread a net of branches before the distant view. The village is hazy, hazy, and mist sucks over the open moor. A dog barks in the sunken lane, which runs through the village. A cockroach perched on a clipped mulberry. There is no dust or clutter in the courtyard before my house. My private rooms are quiet and calm with the leisure of moonlight through an open door. For a long time I lived in a cage, now I have returned, for one must return to fulfill one's nature. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Like the motion of leaves. Fragments of color in glowing surprises, pink innuendos hooded in gray, like buds in a cobweb, purled at dawn. Glimpses of green and blurs of gold, and delicate moves that snatch at youth. And bodies all rosely fleshed for the airing in warm velvety surges, passing imperious slow. Women drift into the limousines, that shot like silken caskets on gems, half weary of their glittering. Lamps open like pale moonflowers. Arcs are radiant opals strewn along the dusk. No common lights invade. And spires rise like litanies, magnificats of stone over the white silence of the arcs, burning in perpetual adoration. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Silver by Walter De La Mer. Red for LibriVox.org by Kingaroo. Slowly, silently, now the moon walks the night in her silver shun. This way and that she peers and sees silver fruit upon silver trees. One by one the casements catch. Her beams beneath the silvery thatch. Couched in his kennel like a dog. With paws of silver sleeps the dog. From their shadowy coat the white breasts peep. Of doves in a silver feathered sleep. A harvest mouse goes scampering by. With silver claws and silver eye. And moveless fish and the water gleam. By silver reeds in a silver stream. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Sleep by Walter De La Mer. Red for LibriVox.org by Kingaroo. Men all and birds and creeping beasts. When the dark of night is deep, from the moving wonder of their lives commit themselves to sleep. Without a thought or fear they shut their narrow gates of sense. He listened quiet in slumber turn, their strength to impotence. The transient strangeness of the earth, their spirits no more see. Within a silent gloom withdrawn they slumber in secrecy. Two worlds they have, a globe forgot. Willing from dark to light. And all the enchanted realm of dream. That burgeon's out of night. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Sonnet 73. By William Shakespeare. Red for LibriVox.org by Winston Tharp. That time of year thou mayst in me behold, when yellow leaves or none or few do hang upon these boughs which shake against the cold. Bear ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. In me thou cease the twilight of such day as after sunset faded in the west, which by and by black night doth take away death's second self that seals up all in rest. In me thou cease the glowing of such fire that on the ashes of his youth doth lie, as the death bed where on it must expire consumed with that which it was nourished by. This thou perceivst, which makes thy love more strong, to love that well which thou must leave ere long. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Valley of Unrest. By Edgar Allen Poe. Red for LibriVox.org by Jim Nineheis. Once it smiled a silent dell, where the people did not dwell. They had gone into the wars, trusting to the mild-eyed stars nightly from their azure towers to keep watch above the flowers. In the midst of which all day the red sunlight lazily lay. Now each visitor shall confess the sad valley's restlessness. Nothing there is motionless. Nothing save the airs that brood over the magic solitude. Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees that palpitate like the chill seas around the misty hebrides. Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven that rustle through the unquiet heaven uneasily for more until even over the violets there that lie in myriad types of the human eye. Over the lilies there that wave and weep above a nameless grave. They wave from out their fragrant tops eternal dues come down in drops. They weep from off their delicate stems perennial tears descend in gems. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. THE WITCH by Mary Elizabeth Colleridge redforlippervox.org by Thomas Peter I have walked a great while over the snow and I am not tall nor strong. My clothes are wet and my teeth are set and the way was hard and long. I have wandered over the fruitful earth but I never came here before. Oh, lift me over the threshold and let me in at the door. The cutting wind is a cruel foe. I did not stand in the blast. My hands are stoned and my voice grown and the worst of death is passed. I am but a little maiden still. My little white feet are sore. Oh, lift me over the threshold and let me in at the door. Her voice was the voice that women have who plead for their heart's desire. She came. She came in the quivering flame sunk and died in the fire and never was lit again on my earth. Since I hurried across the floor to lift her over the threshold and let her in at the door. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain.