 Ancient Music by Ezra Pound Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake Winter is a coming in Luda sing goddam Raineth drop and staineth slop And how the wind doth ram Sing goddam Skiddeth bus and sluppeth us An agoo hath my ham Freezeth river turneth liver Damn you sing goddam Goddam goddam Tis why I am goddam So gainst the winter bomb Sing goddam dam Sing goddam Sing goddam Sing goddam Dam Note, this is not folk music, but Dr. Kerr writes that the tune is to be found under the Latin words of a very ancient canon. And of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Barter by Sarah Teesdale Read for LibriVox.org by Leanne Howlett Life has loveliness to sell, all beautiful and splendid things. Blue waves whitened on a cliff, soaring fire that sways and sings. In children's faces looking up, holding wonder like a cup. Life has loveliness to sell, music like a curve of gold, scent of pine trees in the rain, eyes that love you, arms that hold, and for your spirit still delight, holy thoughts that star the night. Spend all you have for loveliness, buy it and never count the cost, for one white singing hour of peace count many a year of strife well lost, and for a breath of ecstasy, give all you have been, or could be. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Birthday Verses by Thomas Hood Read for LibriVox.org by Clarica Good morrow to the golden morning, good morrow to the world's delight. I've come to bless thy life's beginning, since it makes my own so bright. I have brought no roses, sweetest. I could find no flowers, dear. It was when all sweets were over, thou were't born to bless the year. But I've brought the jewels, dearest, in thy bonny locks to shine, and if love shows in their glances, they have learned that look of mine. End of recording. This recording is in the public domain. The Dane Geld by Rudyard Kipling Read for LibriVox.org by Joshua Christensen It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation to call upon a neighbor and to say, we invaded you last night. We are quite prepared to fight, unless you pay us cash to go away. And that is called asking for Dane Geld. And the people who ask it explain that you've only to pay them the Dane Geld, and then you'll get rid of the Dane. It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation to puff and look important and to say, though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you, we will therefore pay you cash to go away. And that is called paying the Dane Geld. But we've proved it again and again that if once you have paid in the Dane Geld, you'll never get rid of the Dane. It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation for fear they should succumb and go astray. So when you are requested to pay up or be molested, you will find it better policy to say, we never pay anyone Dane Geld, nor matter how trifling the cost. For the end of that game is oppression and shame, and the nation that plays it is lost. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold. For LibriVox.org, narrated by Sean McKinley. The sea is calm tonight, the tide is full, the moon lies fair upon the straits, on the French coast the light gleams and is gone, the cliffs of England stand glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night air, only from the long line of spray where the sea meets the moon blanched sand. Listen, you hear the grating roar of pebbles which the waves draw back and fling at their return upon the high strand, begin and cease, and then again begin with tremulous cadence slow and bring the eternal note of sadness in. Sophocles long ago heard it on the Aegean and it brought into his mind the turbid ebb and flow of human misery. We find also in the sound of thought, hearing it by this distant northern sea. The sea of faith was once too at the full and round earth's shore, lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear its melancholy long with drawing roar, roar, retreating to the breath of the night winds, down the vast edges, drear and naked shingles of the world. Ah, love let us be true to one another, for the world which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams so various, so beautiful, so new, hath really neither joy nor love nor light, nor certitude nor peace nor help for pain. And we are here as on a darkling plain, swept with confused alarm of struggle and flight, where ignorant armies clash by night. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Drinking Alone by Moonlight by Lee Bye. For LibriVox.org, narrated by Sean McKinley. A cup of wine under the flowering trees, I drink alone, for no friend is near. Raising my cup I beckon the bright moon, for he with my shadow will make three men. The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine. Listless my shadow creeps about at my side. Yet the moon as friend and the shadow as slave, I must make merry before the spring is spent. To the songs I sing, the moon flickers her beams, and the dance I weave, my shadow tangles and breaks. While we were sober, three shared the fun. Now we are drunk, each goes his way. May we long share our odd inanimate feast and meet at last on the cloudy river of the sky. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. From Dewey Dreams My Soul Arise by James Joyce. For LibriVox.org, narrated by Sean McKinley. From Dewey Dreams My Soul Arise from love's deep slumber and from death. For low, the trees are full of sighs whose leaves the morn admonisheth. Eastward, the gradual dawn prevails, where softly burning fires appear, making to tremble all those veils of gray and golden gossamer. While sweetly, gently, secretly, the flowery bells of morn are stirred, and the wise choirs of fairy begin, enumerous to be heard. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Grand is the Scene by Walt Whitman. Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake. Grand is the Scene, the light to me. Grand are the sky and stars. Grand is the Earth, and grand are lasting time and space. And grand their laws, so multi-form, puzzling, evolutionary, by grander far the unseen soul of me, comprehending, endowing all those. Lighting the light, the sky and stars, delving the Earth, sailing the sea. What were all those indeed without thee, unseen soul? Of what amount without thee? More evolutionary, vast, puzzling, oh my soul, more multi-form far, more lasting thou than they. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Great Lover by Rupert Brooke. Read for LibriVox.org by Corrie Samuel. I have been so great a lover, filled my days so proudly with the splendour of love's praise, the pain, the calm, and the astonishment, desire illimitable, and still content, and all dear names men use to cheat despair, for the perplexed and viewless streams that bear our hearts at random down the dark of life. Now, ere the unthinking silence on that strife steals down, I would cheat drowsy death so far, my night shall be remembered for a star that outshone all the sons of all men's days. Shall I not crown them with immortal praise whom I have loved, who have given me, stared with me, high secrets, and in darkness knelt to see the inanarrable Godhead of delight? Love is a flame. We have beaconed the world's night, a city, and we have built it, these and I, an emperor, we have taught the world to die. So, for their sakes I loved, ere I go hence, and the high cause of love's magnificence, and to keep loyalties young, I'll write those names, golden forever, eagles, crying flames, and set them as a banner that men may know to dare the generations burn and blow out on the wind of time, shining and streaming. These have I loved. White plates and cups, clean gleaming, ringed with blue lines, and feathery fairy dust, wet roofs beneath the lamp-light, the strong crust of friendly bread, and many-tasting food, rainbows, and the blue-bitter smoke of wood, and radiant raindrops couching in cool flowers, and flowers themselves that sway through sunny hours, dreaming of moths that drink them under the moon. Then the cool kindliness of sheets that soon smooth away trouble, and the rough male kiss of blankets, grainy wood, live hair that is shining and free, blue-messing clouds, the keen unpassioned beauty of a great machine, the venison of hot water, furs to touch, the good smell of old clothes, and other such, the comfortable smell of friendly fingers, hair's fragrance, and the musty reek that lingers about dead leaves, and last year's ferns. Dear names, and thousand others throng to me, royal flames, sweet waters dimpling laugh from tap or spring, holes in the ground, and voices that do sing, voices in laughter too, and body's pain soon turn to peace, and the deep panting train, firm sands, the little dulling edge of foam that browns and dwindles as the wave goes home, and washing stones, gay for an hour, the cold graveness of iron, moist black earthen mould, sleep, and high places, footprints in the dew, and oaks, and brown-horse chestnuts, glossy new, and new-peeled sticks, and shining pools on grass. All these have been my loves, and these shall pass. Whatever passes not in the great hour, nor all my passion, all my prayers, have power to hold them with me through the gate of death, they'll play deserter, turn with the traitor-breath, break the high bond we made, and sell love's trust, and sacramented covenant to the dust. Oh, never a doubt but somewhere I shall wake, and give what's left of love again, and make new friends now strangers. But the best I've known stays here, and changes, breaks, grows old, is blown about the winds of the world, and fades from brains of living men, and dies. Nothing remains. Oh, dear my loves, oh, faithless, once again this one last gift I give, that after men shall know, and later lovers far removed praise you, all these were lovely. Say, he loved. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Jacob by Phoebe Carey. Read for LibriVox.org by Leanne Howlett. He dwelt among apartments let, about five stories high, a man I thought that none would get and very few would try. A boulder by a larger stone, half hidden in the mud, fair as a man when only one is in the neighborhood. He lived unknown and few could tell when Jacob was not free, but he has got a wife and, oh, the difference to me. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Life's Harmonies by Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Read for LibriVox.org by Philippa Willits. Let no man pray that he know not sorrow, let no soul ask to be free from pain, for the gall of today is the sweet of tomorrow, and the moment's loss is the lifetime's gain. Through want of a thing does its worth redouble, through hungers' pangs does the feast content, and only the heart that has harbored trouble can fully rejoice when joy is sent. Let no man shrink from the bitter tonics of grief and yearning and need and strife, for the rarest chords in the soul's harmonies are found in the minor strains of life. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Marvelous Moon Chausen by William Rose Benet. Read for LibriVox.org by Squid Vajlakova. Found at frisco-squid.blogspot.com. The Marvelous Moon Chausen. The snug little room with its brazier fire glow, and pier and sax and vroom all in the long ago, or the very long ago, or their pipes and hull and scene, and on the wall the manor war and firelight on the screen. Their flowered bulging waistcoats that wrinkle when they chuckle, the barren much moustachioed and gay with star and buckle, and bristling in a uniform as scarlet as his cheeks, with choker lace beneath his chin and splendid yellow breeks. The smoke dress blue and bluer through that window. All the breeze are glinting sky and glinting sea beyond the hull and quays. Blue tiles, red bricks, the busting wharves with colors or a flam. Starched caps and rosy posy cheeks the girls of Amsterdam. The snug little room with its brazier fire glow. Oh, listen, will he tell them as he told them long ago? Oh, very long ago, a laughing in his sleeve, the Marvelous Moon Chausen with the fables I believe. When I had sown the turkey-beans that reached it to the moon, and lifted all Westminster in the sling from my balloon, swung over the Atlantic, they peered from Windows Frantic. When eagle-back I scant the pole and broad eternal noon. In Queen Mab's chariot I ventured to the sea, it was like a mammoth hazelnut with matchless oary, a sparkle in its ceiling, with planet systems wheeling, and giddy cometh sizzling all about the head of me. The nine bulls drew it as stout as those of Crete, and all were shod with horrid skulls that clattered on their feet, which banners waved behind them, while on their backs to mind them, postillian crickets chirped them, all chirping loud and sweet. Ghost of the cape I warn you of, for he is bottle-blue. We split his table-mountain, he jibbered and he flew. The bull straight showed his feature with gazing on the creature, stampeding in their harness when I gave the view halloo. The wrecked on Egypt's obelisks disaster I defied, and harnessed Sphinx, the Emperor's gifts, to Toanark as a widest great Westminster, with bow-and-balance spinster, and cleric, clerk, and coronet, all tetetet inside. Good folk, we sail for Africa! said I to all my train, when Baldwin Chousen leads you forth, would leger dares remain, in slippery ease, uncaring, to share my deeds of daring, the cheers amazed my modesty, and more had made me vain. The sultans' bees I've shepherded, I've horn-piped at Marseille, where gulped me down while night had drowned the liveliest of whales. I'm riskiest of riskers, but below me my grizzled whiskers. I cried, May Jekyll's gnaw my bones, if now Moon Chousen fails. By night the lions roared at us, by day the Simoons came, and swept across our caravan and sandy clouds of flame, but not dismayed our temper, or the genial Afric Emperor, had missed my handsome greeting to his long-abiding shame. The people of the mountains of the moon I wind indigned, I reigned in gristerisca, when his majesty declined, reforms I brought untiring, with garg and megag squiring, and frostacose my bosom friend, who lent a legal mind. For last superb achievement, bright tears my envy shed, I built a bridge from Africa to distant England spread, no edifice of fable, nay, not the Tower of Babel, surpassed at mammoth glory in the heavens over ahead. So back across its noble arch of my retinue and eye, I advanced with blaring trumpets to the regions of the sky, cos it lingered to and wreathless, earth kingdoms far beneath us, and martial music cheered our march from all the birds that fly. The snug little room with its brazier fire aglow, and Pia and Saxon room all sleeping long ago, oh so very long ago, and, chuckling in his sleeve, still o'er the slumping table drawn droning in his fable, the marvellous moonshowzen with the stories I believe. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. My Dove, My Beautiful One, by James Joyce For LibriVox.org Narrated by Sean McKinley My Dove, My Beautiful One, Arise, Arise, The night dew lies upon my lips and eyes. The odorous winds are weaving a music of size. Arise, Arise, My Dove, My Beautiful One, I wait by the cedar tree, my sister, my love, white breast at the dove, my breast shall be your bed. The pale dew lies like a veil on my head. My Fair One, My Fair Dove, Arise, Arise End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Nobility, by Alice Carey Read for LibriVox.org by Anna Christensen True worth is in being, not seeming, in doing each day that goes by, some little good, notching dreaming, of great things to do by and by. For whatever men say in their blindness, and spite of the fancies of youth, there's nothing so kingly as kindness, and nothing so royal as truth. We get back our meat as we measure, we cannot do wrong and feel right, nor can we give pain and gain pleasure, for justice avenges each slight. The air for the wing of the sparrow, the bush for the robin and wren, but always the path that is narrow, and straight for the children of men. Tis not in the pages of story, the heart of its ills to be guile, though he who makes courtship to glory, gives all that he hath for her smile. For when from her heights he has won her, alas it is only to prove that nothing so sacred as honour, and nothing so loyal as love. We cannot make bargains for blisses, nor catch them like fishes in nets, and sometimes the thing our life misses helps more than the thing which it gets. For good lieth not in pursuing, nor gaining of great, nor of small, but just in the doing and doing, as we would be done by, is all. Through envy, through malice, through hating, against the world, early and late, no jot of our courage abating, our part is to work and to wait, and slight is the sting of his trouble, his winnings are less than his worth, for he who is honest is noble, whatever his fortunes or birth. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Staggered backward, hemmed by foes, a craven hung along the battle's edge and thought, had I assert of keener steel, that blue blade that the king's son bears, for this blunt thing, he snapped and flung it from his hand, and lowering crept away and left the field. Then came the king's son, wounded, serviced, dead, and weaponless, and saw the broken sword, hilt buried in the dry and charred sand, and ran and snatched it, and with battle-shellt, lifted afresh, he hewed his enemy down, and saved a great cause, that heroic day. End of poem. Till it has well inhaled the atmosphere of this river, also the western prairie scent, and exudes it all again. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Gone far away into the silent land, When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I have turned to go, yet turning stay. Remember me, when no more day by day, You tell me of our future that you plan. Only remember me, you understand, It will be late to counsel then, or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while, And afterwards remember, Do not grieve, for if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget, And smile than that you should remember, and be sad. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Before the Roman came to Rye, or out to Seven Strode, the rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road. A reeling road, a rolling road, That rambles round the shire, And after him the parson ran, The sexton and the squire, A merry road, a mazy road, And such as we did tread the night We went to Birmingham, by way of beachy head. I knew no harm of Bonaparte, and plenty of the squire, And for to fight the Frenchman I did not much desire. But I did bash their baganettes, because they came arrayed To straighten out the crooked road, And English drunkard made, Where you and I went down the lane, With alemups in our hands, The night we went to Glastonbury, By way of Goodwin Sands. His sins they were forgiven him, Or why do flowers run behind him, And the hedges all strengthening in the sun? The wild thing went from left to right, And knew not which was which, But the wild rose was above him, When they found him in the ditch. God, pardon us, nor harden us, We did not see so clear, The night we went to Panakburn, By way of Brighton Pier. My friends, we will not go again, Or ape an ancient rage, Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age, But walk with clearer eyes and nears, This path that wandereth, And see undrugged in evening light, The decent inn of death. For there is good news yet to hear, And find things to be seen, Before we go to Paradise, By way of Kensal Green. End of Poein. This recording is in the public domain. Love and fantastic triumph sate, Whilst bleeding hearts around him flowed, For whom fresh pains he did create, And strange tyrannic power he showed. From thy bright eyes he took his fires, Which round about, in sport he hurled, But twas from mine he took desires, Enough to undo the amorous world. From me he took his sighs and tears, From thee his pride and cruelty, From me his languishments and fears, And every killing dart from thee. Thus thou and I the God have armed, And set him up a deity. But my poor heart alone is harmed, While sty in the victor is and free. End of Poein. This recording is in the public domain. End of Poein. This recording is in the public domain. For I see you, you splash in the water there, Yet stay stock still in your room. Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth vader. The rest did not see her. But she saw them and loved them. The beards of the young men glistened with wet. It ran from their long hair. Little streams passed all over their bodies. An unseen hand also passed over their bodies. It descended tremblingly from their temples and ribs. The young men float on their backs. Their white bellies bulge to the sun. They do not ask who seizes fast to them. They do not know who puffs and declines With pendant and bending arch. They do not think who they souse with spray. End of Poein.