 There are some things that entertain me more than men or books, and to my knowledge seem a key of poetry, made of magic lore of childhood, opening many a fabled door of superstition, mystery and dream enchantment locked of yore. Or when through dusking woods my pathway lies, often I feel old spells, as or me flits the bat, like some black thought that, troubled, flies round some dark purpose. Or before me cries the owl that, like an evil conscience, sits a shadowy voice and eyes. Then when down blue canals of cloudy snow, the white moon oars her boat, and woods vibrate with crickets, lo, I hear the hot boys blow up Elf land, and when gold the fireflies glow, see where the goblins hold a fairy-feet with many a lanthorn row, strange growths that ooze from long dead logs, and spread a creamy fungus, where the snail uncoiled and the fat slug feed at morn, are pixie-bread, made of the yeasted dew, the lichens red. Beside these grown are meat the brownies broiled above a glowworm bed. The smears of silver on the webs that line the knuckled roots, or stretch white woven within the hollow stump, are stains of fairy wine, spilled on the cloth where Elf land sat to dine, when night beheld them drinking, chin to chin, on the moon's fermented shine. What but their chairs, the mushrooms on the lawn, or toad stools hidden under flower and fern, tagged with the dotting dew? With knees up drawn, as far as his eyes, have I not come upon pucks seated there? What scarcely round could turn when, presto, he was gone? And so, though science from the woods hath tracked the Elfen, and with prosy lights of day unhallowed all his haunts, and dulling blacked our vision, still hath beauty never lacked for seers yet, who, in some wizard way, prove fancy real as fact. Into poem this recording is in the public domain. The World of Fairy by Madison Cowayne, read fridleybrevox.org by Josh Kibbey. When in the pansy-purpled stain of sunset one far star is seen, like one bright drop of rain, out to the forest deep and green, or me a spirit seems to lean, the fairest of her train, the spirit dowered with fadeless youth of lay and legend young as wind, close to her side in sooth, she led me from the marts of men, a child into her world which then, to me, was true as truth. Her hair is like the silken husk that holds the corn, the gloss that glows, her brow is white as tusk, her body is like some sweet rose, and through her gossamer raiment shows, like starlight closed in musk. She smiles at me, she nods at me, and by her looks I am beguiled, into the mystery of ways I knew in as a child she led me mid her blossoms wild of fairy fantasy. The blossoms that, when night is here, become sweet mouths that sigh soft tales, or each a jeweled ear, leaned to the elfin dance at trails, down moon-raid cirks of haunted veils to cricket song and cheer. The blossoms that, closed of all day, primrose and poppy, darkness opes, slowly to free a fey, who, silken soft, leaps forth and ropes, with rain each web that, starlit, slopes, between each grassy spray. The blossoms from which elves are born, sweet wombs of mingled scintent snow, whose deeps are cool as morn, wherein I oft have heard them blow, their pixie trumpets silvery low as some bee's drowsy horn. So was it when my child had roamed, the woodland's dim enchanted ground, where every mushroom domed its disc for them to revel round, each glowworm forged its flame, green-drowned, in hollow snow that foamed. Of lilies, for their lantern light, to lamp their dance beneath the moon, each insect of the night, that rasped its thin, vibrating tune, and owl that raised its sleepy croon, made music for their flight. So is it still when twilight fills, my soul with childhood's memories, that haunt the far-off hills, and people with dim things the trees, with fairy forms that no man sees, and dreams that no man kills. Then all around me sway and swing, the puck lights of their firefly train, their elfin reveling, and in the bursting pods that rain, their seeds around my steps again I hear their footsteps ring. The fairy feet that fall once more, within my way, and then I see, as oft I saw before, her spirit rise, who shimmeringly fills all my world with poetry, the loveliness of your... End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. There are fairies by Madison Cowine. Read for LibriVox.org by Matthew D. Robinson. There are fairies bright of eye, who the wildflower's warders are, alfs that chase the firefly, elves that ride the shooting star, faze who in a cobweb lie, swinging on a moon beam-bar, or who harness bumble-bees, grumbling on the clover-leaves, to a blossom or a breeze, that's their fairy-car. If you care, you too may see, there are fairies, verily there are fairies. There are fairies I could swear I have seen them busy, where roses loose their scented hair, in the moonlight weaving, weaving, out of star-light in the dew, glinting gown and shimmering shoe, or within a glow-worm layer, from the dark earth slowly heaving mushrooms whiter than the moon, on whose tops they sit and croon, with their greg-like mandolins, to fair-fairy lady-kins, leaning from the window-sill of a rose or daffodil, listening to their serenane all-of-cricket music made. Follow me, oh follow me, oh a way to fairy, where your eyes like mine may see there are fairies, verily there are fairies. There are fairies, elves that swing in a wild and rainbow ring through the air, or mount the wing of a bat to courier news to the fairy-king and queen. Faze who stretch the gossimmers on which twilight hangs the dews, who within the moonlight sheen whispers dimly in the ears of the flowers words so sweet that their hearts are turned to musk and to honey, things that beat in their veins of gold and blue, alfs that shepherd moths of dusk, soft of wing and gray of hue, forth to pasture on the dew. There are fairies, verily, verily, for the old owl in the tree, hollow tree, he who makeeth melody for them tripping merrily, told it me. There are fairies, verily, there are fairies. End of Poem On Midsummer Night by Madison Cowine, all the poppies in their beds nodding crumpled at crimson heads, and the lark spurs in whose ears twilight hangs, like twinkling tears, sleepy jewels of the rain, all the violets that strain, eyes of amorentine gleam, and the clover blooms that dream with pink baby fists closed tight. They can hear upon this night noiseless as the moon's white light footsteps, and the glimmering flight shimmering flight of the fairies. Every sturdy four o'clock in its variegated frock, every slender sweet pea-two in its hood of pearly hue, every primrose pale that doses by the wall, and slow uncloses a sweet mouth of dewy dong, and a little silken yon. On this night of silvery sheen they can see the fairy queen, on her palfrey white I wean, tread dim cirks of haunted green, moonlit green with her fairies. Never a foxglove bell you see that's a cradle for a bee, never a lily that's a house where the butterfly may drowse, never a rosebud or a blossom that unfolds its honeyed bosom to the moth that nestles deep, and there sucks itself to sleep, but can hear and also see on this night of witchery all that world of fairy, all that world where eerily, merrily, tripped the fairies. It was last bit summer night in the moon's uncertain light that I stood among the flowers, and in language unlike ours heard them speaking of the pixies, trolls and gnomes and water-nixies. How in this flower's ear a fae hung a gem of rainy day, and round that flower's throat had set dim the dew-drop carcannet, then among the minionette stretched a cobweb hammock wet, and dewy wet for the fairies. Long I watched but never won, Ariel, Puck or Oberon, Mab or Queen Titania, first of them all they say, clad in morning glory hues, did I glimpse among the dews only once I thought the torch of that elfin rogue and arch-robin good-fellow, a far-flashed-along woodland bar, bright a jack-o'-lantern star, a green-lamp-of-fire-fly-spar, glow-worm-spar, loved of fairies. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Dance of the Fairies by Madison Carwine Read for leapivox.org by Alan Lawley From the glimmering coppies, from her shadowy hair, long silvery poppies of moon-litten air, the night hath plung there. In the fern-fongle hollow the fire-fly stream, uncertainly follow, with antons of gleam, some spirit or dream, the forest is fragrant, the night hazes swirl, and trail through the vagrant, deep ferns that unfurl, faint footsteps of pearl. From hill and from valley, where the moon is at home, from rocks musically, where singing streams comb, wild stresses of foam, with a ripple and twinkle of luminous arms, and foot-force that twinkle, the darkness in swarms of flower-like forms. We speed to the revel, from bloom and from briar, with locks that dishevel, and feet like the fire, winged wild with desire. Like the wind on the mountain we circle and dance, like the foam of the fountain that sings of romance, we glimmer and glance. Swift, swift we go swinging, down the slanted moon-beam, in spirals faint blinging, a rainbow raid gleam, on spward and on stream. You may hear like a murmur, the swirl of our hair, our foot for no firmer, than leaves on the air, when branches blow bare. To men who are favoured, in spiritual wise, whose hearts have not wavered, to see us we rise and doth all disguise. Come away then, come hither, in the moon-blossom night, ere the star-flowers wither, and morning the white reaps most them with light. Come hither, we're singing, sound softer than tears, or kisses sweet-linging, or music one hears with memories' ears. Come join us, whose kisses are waiting for you, come catch at our tresses, and dance through the dew. Come away and pursue. Come, come to the coppies, the violent ridge, the torrent whose top is a rainbow, a bridge we dread like the midge. Come mortal, come hither, come dance with your dreams, ere the golden spark wither, of the glow worm that gleams, like a star in still streams. End of Poem. This recording is in the Public Domain. The Changeling by Madison Cawain Red for LibriVox.org by Nikalia In the night I heard the sea, saw the round moon, white as wool, or a bloom in fairy, rise above the hawthorn tree, white and wonderful, weird and wonderful. Through the door there came to me breezy whispers, fragrant as wafts that rock the honeybee, cradled sweet in arcady, in the blue-belt grass, in the rose-strewn grass. Then I saw them, suddenly, three red caps against the moon, and three voices whispered me, I have come to dance for thee, sing for thee a tune, sing an elfin tune. They were fairies, fairies three, nearer to my crib they drew, singing all the time to me, till my eyes closed dreamily, closed and not I knew, and no more I knew. While I slept I heard the three, whispering round my baby there, white as moonlit ivory, in its crib of ebony, all my joy and care, all my love and care. Now I sit here, as you see, and my heart is all bereft, sighing, singing wearily, to this strange thing on my knee, this wild thing they left, changeling that they left. The Elf Queen by Madison Cowine, read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. You ask me why I wondered why they went summerside or dying June, to see the fairy people ride beneath the moon. While poppies hedged to hoff on cups were glowworms undimmed lamps of gold, a sudden whisper bowed their tops, and then behold, between the poppies and the mead I saw the fairies riding down, one fair-faced fairy in the lead crowned with a crown. The night was ringing with their reins, so loud the cricket hushed its song, bells up and down their horses' mains swung sweet along, and whistles that took all the wind with music when they shook their mains, so that the fields before behind rang with sweet strains, and as their bridles chiming swung the night seemed cured of every qualm, and my sick heart so wild of tongue was almost calm. The steeds they rode were fairy steeds of filmy form and gossamer green, and every elf was clad in weeds of silken sheen. Above a beam of silver light beat time to their wild fairy tune, and danced and glanced an elfin white knot of the moon. They were so small the hair-bells blue had hemmets in each tiny head, save that fae, who tall as two, the fairies led. Dark tresses floated from a tire of diamond sparks that snapped with light, and all her white sark seemed to fire, shimmering the night. I would have thrown me at her feet, and told her of my grief and pain, and she perhaps had helped me meet my love again. Alas, a cock crew far away, a long-necked cry, and swift as thought the elf-queen in her company passed into naught. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Song of the Elf by Madison Cowine, read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson, where the poppies with their shields sentinel forced in the harvest fields, in the bell of a blossom fair to see. There I stall the bumblebee, my good stud. There I stable him and hold, harness him with hairy gold. There I ease his burly back of the honey and its sack, Filched from bloom and bud. Where the glow-worm lights its lamp, there I lie. Where above the grasses damp moths go by. Now within the fussy brook where the waters wind and crook round the rocks, I go sailing down the gloom, straddling light, a wisp of room. Or beneath the outlet moon, tripp it to the cricket's tomb, tossing back my locks. Either crow-foot on the lawn lifts its head, or the glow-worm's light be gone. Dim and dead in a cobweb hammock, I swing between two ferns and lie hit away. Where the drowsy musk-rose blows and a sleepy runnel flows, in the land of Ferry there I rock, where none can see all the summer day. In the poem this recording is in the public domain. An Elf's Washbuckler by Madison Cawain, read for LibriVox.org by Nikalia. Ho my bullies, lift a tune, to Queen Mab and come make merry, buy a mushroom in the moon, white as bud of berry. Then come, take your grog, each one in his cap and mantlet, who refuses is a dog. He must lift my gantlet. Look, my gabber-deen how brave and my tunic, o' fen yellow, one a bat-wing's lately gave, and a frog its fellow. And a moth's head grew this fine feather of my beetle bonnet. See my gnesting daggers shine, hath its blood still on it. If this ring I wear, I swear, twas Queen Mab who gave it, studded as you see with Ruby's rare eyes of spiders blooded. Doubt me, sirs, and buy my blade, sirrah's a good stabbing hanger. From a hornet's stinger maid you may dread my anger. Fill the lichen-pottles up, honey pressed from hearts of roses, cheek by jowl, up with each cup, till we hide our noses. And sirs, marry, twas the cock, hay away the moon's lost fire. Ho, the cock, our dial and clock, hide beneath this briar. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. On the eve of St. John by Madison Cawine, read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuk. Dizzily round on the Elf Hills, white in the mellow moonlight, to a sweet, unholy, ravishing sound of wizard voices from underground, their mazy dance the Elmaid's wound on St. John's eve. Beautiful white, like a wreath of mist, by the star-beams' kiss, their frail, sweet faces bloomed out of the night with floating tresses of firefly light that puffed like foam to the left and the right on St. John's eve. Fitfully there they danced like the daughters of starlit waters, but I saw what a mockery all of them were, with their hollow bodies, when the moon-lit air rate out of their eyes with a glow-worm glare on St. John's eve. I turned my feet to the river's banks. In the rush-flowers' ranks I heard the neck and their songs repeat, a music all made of the water's beat of moss and of whispering winds that meet on St. John's eve. They called my name, and I saw them there, in their beauty rare, on the moon-lit waves whence the music came, with their harps of gold and their locks of flame, blown over pale brows, sans sin or blame, on St. John's eve. It was nearing morn when I turned me home, and a wizard gnome, a niss all grey with flailing the corn, and strong with the scent of bire and barn, scowled at me under the haunted thorn, on St. John's eve. To end it all, as I passed the hill, by the ruined mill, the hill rose up on pillars tall, crims and pillars that ranked a hall, where the dwarfs and the trolls were holding a ball, on St. John's eve. One reached to me a goblet of gold, of a vintage old, and I drank and mixed with their mirth and glee, and danced with them, for an hour may be, but they tell me now, it is a year you see, since St. John's eve. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. THE NIXIES By Madison Cowine Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachok Deep down beneath the waves, great emerald curving caves, dark domed above it, dim walled with pearl and gold, glimmers their city old, hast thou heard of it, where through the long green nights the spangling spars twinkle like misty stars, where the wind ripple rays and the white water sprays over the rocks, sitting they comb their hair, singing with fingers fair, braiding their locks, while round their loveliness of naked limbs the moon's gold glamour swims, or on some stormy night seen through the glow-worm light, haunting the sands, thou canst behold them drift, wild through the foam, and lift pale arms and hands, or in the lightning's leap along the lake, dance in the tempest's wake, singing, come join our dance, come, where the lightning's glance, or when the moon spills all her flowers of light at the dark feet of night, and soon, ah, soon, within our shadowy halls thou shalt forget earth's fever and its fret. And a poem, this recording is in the public domain, The Water Fairy by Madison Cowine, read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuk. Stars above her, stars beneath, white she rose, as white as death, where the waters glassed the splendor of a thousand thousand stars, twinkling where the lilies slender, rocked above the ripple bars. Slow she oared a shining shoulder to a blossom-crusted boulder, with slim fingers, long and milky, from the wave and water lilies. Up the rock she drew her silky beauty, wild as any real is, flashing from a hilly height. Sitting, dripping in the night, sweet she sang unto the lilies, sang unto the listening lilies, till arose the wool-white moon in the silken hush of heaven. Then she wreathed her bra with seven lily-bods, all sweet with June, belted wreathed with lilies seven. Then again upon the boulder, dark locks on a milk-white shoulder, wild she sang, a wilder ditty, to the wool-white moon, to the lilies and the moon. Beautiful and without pity, sang and sang an elfin tune, till a youth who wondered far, saw her sitting like a star, heard her singing to the moon, found her sitting, starry white, on the flower-crusted boulder, dark locks on a milky shoulder in the low moon's lily-light, neath the wool-white moon. And the creature wrapped her hair round his white throat, sitting there, singing, smiled into his eyes, while she wrapped her raven hair, slowly round his throat, and then laughed and whispered to the skies, kissed him once, and then again, smiled and left him stark and strangled in the water lilies, tangled, staring up with open eyes, at the moon with open eyes. And a poem, this recording is in the public domain. THE MORNING GLORIES by Madison Cowine, read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachok. They swing from the garden trellis in aerial airy ease, and their aromatic honey is sought by the earliest bees. The rose it knows their secret, and the jessamine also knows. And the rose told me the secret, that the jessamine told the rose. And the jessamine said, at midnight ere the red cock woke and crew, the face of Queen Titania came here to bathe in the dew. And the yellow moonlight glistened, on braids of elfin hair, and fairy feet on the flowers fell lighter than any air. And their petticoats, gay as bubbles, they hung up every one, on the morning glories' tendrils, till their moonlight bath were done. But the barn cock crew too early, and the fairies fled in fear, leaving their petticoats one and all, like blossoms hanging here. And a poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Gladials by Madison Collwine. As tall as the lily, as rich as the rose, and deep as the bloom of the hollyhock, they lift their blossoms in fur belowes, a flame that the warm winds rock. And some are red as the hummingbird's throat, and some are pied as the butterfly's wings, and each is shaped like an elfin coat, or a goblin cap that swings. Freaked with fire or red as blood, they gnawed at me in my garden old, each flower a pixie helm or hood, lace-lined with fairyland gold. For you know the goblins that come at dusk, whose firefly eyes you have seen, each one, when is sprinkled the dew and scattered the musk. Hangs here his cap when done. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Tiger Lily by Madison Collwine. Red for LibriVox.org by Lucy Park. Tall in his tawny turban, a sultan mid his bands, in my garden old and urban, the Tiger Lily stands. The poppies there that glisten, whose gaudy garments glow, are unique to garden-listen round his ralio. Of roses' murd and musky, some whiter than a dove, and others deep and dusky, his auto-lisks of love. Circassian white and slender, his dancing girls and slaves, to the August lilies tender, his haughty hand he waves. While he watches them, nothing missing, in her bar of blue-mun high, his favorite rose is kissing, a bedonium butterfly. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Moth, the Rose, and the Pink by Madison Collwine. Red for LibriVox.org. White as snow, I saw it sink, on the pungent petaled pink, through the moonlit dusk. Moth or fairy, or who knows, ghost perhaps, of some dead rose, mid the rose's musk. Then it seemed I heard a sweet tinkle as of elfin feet, underneath the blooms, where one rose hung desolate, sick of heart and filled with hate, dead with its perfumes. Thou, for whom I died today, so I seemed to hear it say, Madison, lovely pink, vampire-like, unto thy heart now I send, through my white art, my pale ghost to drink. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Glamour by Madison Collwine. Red for LibriVox.org. By Foam. With fall on foal, from wood to wood, to brook porous mossy music down. Or is it, in the solitude, the murmur of a fairy town? A town of Elfland, filled with bells, and holiday of hurrying feet, or traffic now, whose small sound swells, now sinks from busy street to street. Whose folk I often recognize in winged things that hover round, who to men's eyes assume disguise, when on some fairy-errant bound. The bee that haunts to touch me not, big-bodied, making draggard thin, is Elfin brother to that sot, Jack Falstaff, of the boar's head in. The dragonfly, whose wings of black are mantle for his garb of green, is ancient to this other Jack, another pistol, long and lean. The butterfly, in royal tints, is Hal, mad Hal, in cloth of gold, who passes these, as once that prince passed his companion's boon of old. This recording is in the public domain. Fairy Morris, by Madison Cowan, read for librafox.org by phone. The winds are wist, and hid in mist, the moon hangs o'er the wooded height. The bushy bee, with unkempt head, has made the sunflowers disk his bed, and sleeps half-hid from sight. The outlet makes us melody, come dance with us in fairy, come dance with us tonight. The dew is damp, the glow-worm's lamp blurs in the moss its tawny light. The great grey moth sinks half-asleep, where in an elfin-laundered heap the lily-gowns hang white. The crickets make us minstrel-sea, come dance with us in fairy, come dance with us tonight. With sense of heat, dew-chilled and sweet, the new cut hay smells by the bite. The ghost of some dead pansy bloom, the butterfly seems in the gloom its pied wings folded tight. The world is drowned in fantasy, come dance with us in fairy, come dance with us tonight. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Little People by Madison Cowan, read for librafox.org by phone. When the lily nods in slumber, and the roses are all sleeping, when the night hangs deep and umber, and the stars their watch are keeping, when the clematis uncloses like a hand of snowy fire, and the golden-lipped prim-roses to the tiger-moth's desire, each a mouth of musk and puckers, silken-pouts of scented sweetness, which they sip with honey-suckers, shot with hush and winged with fleet-ness, you may see the Little People round and round the drowsy steeple of a bell-free holly-hawk, clad in flocks and four o'clock, gay of gown and pantaloon, dancing by the glimmering moon, till the cock, the long-necked cock, crows them they must vanish soon. When the cobweb is a cradle for the dreaming dew to sleep in, and each blossom is a ladle that the perfumed rain lies deep in. When the flaming firefly scribble darkness as with lines flame tragic, and the night seems some dim civil speaking gold or wording magic, silent syllables and golden, capped with snapdragon and hooded with the sweet pea, you may see the Little People underneath the sleepy steeple of a towering malaine stock, trip it over musk and rock to the owlet's elvish tune, and to treetow's gnome bassoon, till the cock, the barnyard cock, crows them they must vanish soon. When the wind upon the water seems a boat of ray and ripple that some fairy moon-beam daughter steers with sails that drift and dripple, when the sound of greg and cricket, ever singing, ever humming, seems a goblin in the thicket on his elfin vile strumming, when the toadstool, combed and milky, heaves a roof for snails to clamber, thistle down and milkweed silky, with loose locks of jade and amber, you may see the Little People underneath the pixie steeple of a dormant mushroom flock quaint in wildflower vest and frock, whirling by the waning moon to the whipper-wills weird tune, till the cock, the far-off cock, crows them they must vanish soon. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Sea King by Madison Cowine, read for LibriVox.org by Phil Shempf. In green sea caverns dim deep down, foam bearded, grey and grim beneath his crown, he sits where seas things swim and dead men frown. In green sea caverns dim deep down, around him mermaids sing, foam-clad and comb-long locks and cling, and sing so sad their song's wild murmuring drives mortals mad. Around him mermaids sing, foam-clad. There vast the sea-snakes lair and yawn, great bulks cloud by, and there huge shells and spawn, weird weeds fantastic fare, Griff Scarlett won. There vast sea-snakes lair and yawn, of wrecks of ships and hulls and bones, sunk gold the water-dolls, and precious stones, anchors and dead men's skulls, he builds gaunt thrones, of wrecks of ships and hulls and bones. Men's tears are dear to him, deep down. Set in the foamy rim of his pale crown, their pearlage sorrows swim above his frown. Men's tears are dear to him, deep down. For him a no-tempest sweep, and sever the league-long waves that leap. The sun shines never, in caverns vast and deep he sits forever. For him no-tempest sweep, never, ah, never. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Neread by Madison Cowine. Read for LibriVox.org by Phil Shempf. I saw one night a neread white arise from our coral caves. Her sea-green curls were pale with pearls, and her limbs were veiled with the waves. Through the moonlit foam I saw her come up the billow-haunted shore, and faint and sweet I heard her feet, foam-like, through the surf's long roar. While ever the wind and rolling waves kept time to her song of ocean caves that she sang to her harp of mist and moon, of moonbeam shell, this ocean tune. Come follow, come follow to cavern's hollow, that sound with the sighing sea. Come follow me o'er the water's whore, come away, come away with me. Come follow, oh follow to grotto's hollow, and caves that are ocean-wist, where the sea-weeds twine and the starfish shine and the rosy corals twist. Come follow me home on the wandering foam that rolls my world above. My bosom shall bear thee safely where the sea-nymphs dream of love. They will lie at thy feet, and thy heart shall beat to the music of their sighs. They will lean to thy face, and like stars thou shall trace their radiant, love-lit eyes. Come away, come away, where under the spray the heliotus glows, the nautilus gleams and the sponge-grove dreams, and the crimson dulce like sunset streams, and the coral forest grows. Come away to my caves, my emerald caves, from the moon and the sun deep-hid. Forget the world down under the waves, the world of man that sighs and slaves. Forget the world there under the waves, in the arms of a naryad. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Mermaid by Madison Kawain Read for LibriVox.org by Matthew D. Robinson The moon in the east was glowing when I sought the moaning sea. The winds from the sea were blowing, and they brought strange dreams to me. The waves at my feet were breaking, the stars in the sky were won, and I watched a white mist making for the shore and glimmering on. And was it a sound of wailing that the sea wind bore to me? Did I hear a footstep trailing, or was it a wave of the sea? The night hung pale above me upon her starry throne, and a voice said, Youth, come love me, for my heart for thee makes moan. And out of the mist came slipping a mermaid tall and fair, her limbs with sea dew dripping and moonlight in her hair, her locks with the salt sea dripping, she rung with a snowy hand, her gown hung thinly clipping her breasts the sea wind fan. A mort from the sea came speeding this creature's semi-clad, and my heart for her was bleeding, but it's beating I for bad. On the strand where the sand was rocking she stood and sang an air, and the winds in her hair kept locking their fingers cool and bare. Soft in her arms did she fold me, and ever more she moaned, while her love and her grief she told me, and the ocean sighed and groaned. But I stilled my heart's wild beating, for I knew her love was dim. Oh cold, oh cold was my greeting, though my love burnt in each limb. To her bosom white she pressed me with arms of foam and mist, with her arms and her lips caressed me, and smiled in my eyes and kissed. But ever I kept repeating, a mermaid false as she, and cold, oh cold was my greeting, though the heart beat wild in me. To my ear she laid her sighing sweet mouth like a rosy shell, her arms round my neck were lying, and her bosom rose and fell. With her kisses soft did she woo me, but I hushed my heart's wild beat. With her lips and her eyes did she sue me, but met in my own defeat. With the cloud of her seed-dipped tresses she veiled her beautiful face, and oh how I longed for her kisses and sighed for her soft embrace. But out in the mists she went wailing when dawn besilver'd the night, her robes of semi-trailing the foam-flowers sad and white. Like a spirit lost went sighing in the twilight over the sea, and it seemed the night was crying, or was it the heart in me? Then she turned to me and weeping faded into the night, and I saw the wild waves leaping under the haunted height. I heard a far-off sobbing, a sound of agony. Oh, was it the ocean-throbbing, or was it the heart in me? But I hushed my heart's wild beating with a mermaid false as she. While ever I kept repeating, would she'd return to me? Oh, heart so full of yearning for a loveliness that's gone, a beauty unreturning, be still, or break with dawn. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. I too may see, as sees the star that peeps, through interlacing bows, the toadstools heave, their white roofs through the ferns like goblin huts, an elf in town and squatting on their tops, punch-bellied things, peat-need, their knees up-drawn, to perpendicular eyes of glow-worm flame, and arms of Kimbo in the light of the night. Watching the dewdrops tag the toadstools' rims, or from the mushroom-roll the orb drain, or where the tall-weed drips and spunkwood smells make musty under-oots slim ootland imps, snail-eyed frog-footed ousted sleeping bees from rocking cradles of the wildflower's bells, bell-frying with fox-glove-purple, a moon-beam-seed, with fox-glove-purple, a moon-beam-space. On the road in the April wood, under the oaks I stopped and stood, watching the moan that steadily heaved, the salt-loose clay of its barrow. The oaks above were all burn-leaved, and near me bloomed the arrow, when down from a leaf a gray snail fell, its long-stilled eyes thrust out of its shell. And I thought, this collar is worn of the face, whose fashion runs to dim-ish grays. A snail-brown tunic each elfin-unique wears in the harem the elfin king keeps, and a snail-gray gown each very clown dons, when the elf-dance rolls and leaps in the light of the moon on the upland down, a snail-shell house for its often spouse. Each elfin-builds by the snail-white moon, where his ferrican-love he boards and beds, under dandelion's whispered heads, wherever he pipes his crooked tone. The sphinx-moth-clothed-and-downy hues in woolly whites and fawns and blues goes fluttering through the evening dews. Above the Nicotiana's blooms, narcotic-hornset-wavesage plumes make drowsy with the drug-perfumes. It seems some fairy-queen who goes mid-trumpets lifted in long rows of white-wear-on the elf-world blows. Attendant and triumphant strains of fragrance greeting her who reigns, who takes the air in fairy lanes of flowers that the moonlight stains. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. A Motive in Gold and Gray by Madison Cowine Red for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Tonight he sees their star-beaded, dewy bright, deep in the pansy eave hath made for it, low in the west, a placid purple lit at its far edge with warm auroral light. Love's planet hangs above a cedered height, and there in shadow like gold music writ of dusk's dark fingers, skill like fireflies, fit now up, now down the balmy bars of night. How different from that eve a year ago, which was a stormy flower in the hair of Dolores Day, whose somber eyes looked blurred into night's civil face, and saw the wool of parting here, and imaged a despair, as now a hope caught from a homing word. She came unto him, as the springtime does, unto the land where all lies dead and cold, until her rosary of days is told, and beauty, prayer-like, blossoms where death was. Nature divined her coming. Yea, the dusk seemed thinking of that happiness. Behold, no cloud it had to blot its marigold moon, great and golden, were the slopes of musk whereon the earth's voice made music, tree and stream lilting the same low lullaby again, to coax the wind who romped among the hills all day, when through the moonlight of the locus lane she came, as spring comes through her daffodils. White as a lily molded of earth's milk, that eve the moon bloomed in a hyacinth sky, soft in the gleaming glens the wind went by, fate as a phantom clothed in unseen silk. Bright as a niad's limbs, from shine to shade, the runnel twinkled through the shaken hybrire, above the hills one long cloud pulsed with fire, flashed like a great enchantment welded blade, and when the western sky seemed some weird land, a night a witch's spell at whose command one sloping star fell green from heaven, and deep the warm rose opened for the moth to sleep. Then she, consenting, laid her hands in his, and lifted up her lips for their first kiss. There where they part the porch's steps are strewn with wind-dropped petals of the purple vine, the thwart the porch the shadow of a pine cleaves the white moonlight, and like some calm rune heaven says to earth shines the majestic moon. And now a meteor draws a line of line across the welkin as if God would sign the perfect poem of this night of June. The woodwind stirs the flowering chestnut tree, whose curving blossoms strew the glimmering grass like crescents that wind wrinkled water's glass, and like a moonstone in a frill of flame the dew-drop trembles in the peony as in a lover's heart his sweet heart's name. And after years shall she stand here again in heart regretful and with lonely sighs think on that night of love, and realize whose was the fault whence grew the parting pain, and in her soul persuading still in vain shall doubt take shape, and all its old surmise bid darker phantoms of remorse arise, trailing the raiment of a dead disdain. Masks unto whom shall her avowal yearn with looks clairvoyant, seeing how each is a different form with eyes and lips that burn into her heart with love's last look and kiss, and ere they pass shall she behold them turn to her face which evermore is his. And after years shall he remember how dawn had no breeze sweeter as her murmured name, and day no sunlight that availed the same as her bright smile or beauty of her brow, nor had the conscious twilight's golds and greys her souls of lermit that was free from blame, nor dusk's advances soft with starry flame, more young bewitchment than her own sweet ways. Then as the night with moonlight and perfume and dew and darkness qualifies the whole, the world with glamour shall the past with dreams that were the love theme of their lives elume the present with remembered hours, with gleams long lost to him that bring them soul to soul. No, not for her and him that parked, the might have been sad consolation, where had bent happily in prayer and patience penitent, both though apart before no blown out light, the otherwise of fate for them, when white lilacs bloom again, and innocent spring comes with beauty for her testament, singing the praises of the day and night, when orchards blossom and the distant hills pale with haw trees as a ridge with mist, the moon shall see him where a watch he keeps by her young form that lieth white and still, with lidded eyes and passive wrist on wrist, while by her side he bows himself and weeps. What pain for him to see the blooms appear of haw and dogwood in the spring again, the prim rose dragging with its weight of rain, and hill-slooped orchards swarming far and near to see the old fields that her steps made dear, grow green with deepening plenty of the grain, yet feel how this excess of life is vain, how vain to him, since she no more is here. What though the woodland virgin water-flow like a rejoicing harp beneath the boughs, the cat-bird in the oil arouse day with the impulsive music of their love, beneath the graveyard sod she will not know, nor what his heart is all too conscious of. How blessed is he who gazing in the tomb, can yet behold beneath the investing mask of mockery, whose horror seems to ask sphinx riddles of the soul within the gloom, upon dead lips no dust of love's dead bloom, and in dead hands no shards of faith's writ flask, but hope, who still stands at her starry task weaving the web of promise on her loom. Christ blessed, who though he hear the tomb proclaim how all is death's and life's death's other name, can yet reply, O grave, these things are yours, but that is left which life indeed assures, love through whose touch I shall arise the same, love of whose self was wrought the universe. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Intimations by Madison Cowine. Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. Is it uneasy moonlight on the restless field that stirs, or while white meadow blossoms the night wind bends and blurs? Is it the dolorous water that sobs in the wood and sighs, or heart of an ancient oak tree that breaks and sighing dies? The wind is vague with the shadows that wander in no man's land, the water is dark with the voices that weep on the unknown strand, O ghosts of the winds that call me, O ghosts of the whispering waves, sad as forgotten flowers that die upon nameless graves. What is this thing you tell me in tongues of a twilight trace of death with the vanished features mantled of my own face? The old enigmas of the deathless dawns and riddles of the all-immortal eaves that still or death-ic longs speak as the God spoke through oracular leaves. I read with newborn eyes remembering how a slave they buried me, a living sacrifice, once in a dead king's grave, or crowned with hyacinth and helicrous, how towards the altar in the marble gloom, hearing the maggotus dirge through the pale Amarisine perfume, mid-chanting priests I trod with never a sigh or pause to give my life to pacify a god my country's cause. Again, Cyrenian roses on wild hair and oil in purple smeared on breasts and cheeks, how with mad torches there reddening the cedars of Scytheron's peaks, with gesture and fierce glance lascivious menad bands once drew and slew me in the pyrrhic dance with Bacchanelian hands. The music now that lays dim lips against my ears, some far-off thing it says unto my soul, of years long past into the haze of tears, me seems before me are the dark eyes of a queen, a queen of Istikar, I seem to see her lean more lovely than a star, me, a slave I stand before her jeweled throne, I kneel and in a song once more, my love for her reveal, how once I did a door I feel, again her dark eyes gleam, again her red lips smile, and in her face the beam of love that knows no guile, and so she seems to dream a while. Out of her deep hair then arose she takes, and I am made a god mid-men, arose that here did lie when I in the wild beast then did die. Old paintings on its wane-scot and in its oaken hall old auras and the twilight of sorrow over all, old grandeur on its stairways and in its haunted rooms old souvenirs of greatness and ghosts of dead perfumes. The winds are phantom voices around its carven doors, the moon-beam spectre footsteps upon its polished floors, old cedars build around it a solitude of size, and the old hours pass through it with immemorial eyes. But more than this I know not, nor where the house may be, nor what its ancient secret and ancient grief to me. It seems my soul remembers of which this house's part, once in a former lifetime, was here I broke my heart. In eons of the senses my spirit knew of your, I found the Isle of Cersei and felt her magic lore, and still the soul remembers what I was once before. She gave me flowers to smell of that wizard branch's bore, of weird and wondrous beauty whose stems dripped human gore. There's scent when I remember I know that world once more. She gave me fruits to eat of that grew beside the shore of necromantic ripeness with human flesh at core. I faced when I remember I know that life once more. And then behold, a serpent that glides my face before with eyes of tears and fire that glare me oar and oar, I look into its eyeballs and know myself once more. I have looked in the eyes of poesy and sat in song's high place, and the beautiful spirits of music have spoken me face to face. Yet here in my soul there is sorrow that never can name or trace. I have walked with a glamour of gladness, and dreamed with the shadow sleep, and presences, love, and knowledge have smiled in my heart's red keep. Yet here in my soul there is sorrow for the depth of their gaze too deep. The love and the hope God grants me, the beauty that lures me on, and the dreams of folly and wisdom that thoughts of the spirit don are but masks of an ancient sorrow of a lifelong dead and gone. Was it sin, or a crime forgotten, of a love that loved too well, that sat on a throne of fire a thousand years in hell, that the soul with its nameless sorrow remembers, but cannot tell in the poem. This recording is in the public domain. Self and Soul by Madison Cowine Read from LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson It came to me in my sleep, and I rose in my sleep and went out in the night to weep, out where the trees were bent. With my soul it seemed I stood alone in a windswept wood, and my soul said gazing at me, I will show you another land different from that you see. When I took into hers my hand, we passed from the wood to a heath, as starved as the ribs of death. There every leaf and the grass was a thorn or a thistle whore, the rocks rose mass on mass, black bones on an iron whore, and my soul said looking at me, the past of your life you see, and a swine herd passed with his swine, deformed with the face of an owl. Two eyes of a wolfish shine burned under his eyebrows foul, and my soul said, this is the lust that soils my beauty with dust. Then a goose-wife hobbled by on a crutch with the devil's geese amumbling that God is alive and cursing the world without cease, and my soul said, this is unfaith who maketh me that which she saith. Then we came to a garden close to a hollow of graves and tombs, a garden as red as a rose hung over of obscene glooms. The heart of each rose was a spark that smoldered or glared in the dark, and I was aware of a girl with a wild rose face who came with a mouth like a shell-split pearl, rose-clad in a robe of flame, and she plucked the roses and gave, and I was her various slave. She vanished. My lips would have kissed the flower she gave me with sighs, but they writhed from my hands and hissed in their hearts were a serpent's eyes, and my soul said, pleasure is she, the joys of the flesh you see. Then I bowed with a heart too weary that longed to rest, to sleep, and it seemed in the darkness dreary that I heard my sad heart weep, and my soul to the silence say, oh, God, for the break of day. In the poem this recording is in the public domain. Oh, dine-gates on posts of stone, from which the grass-grown roadway leads. Five rotting gable-points appear above bleak ews and cedars sad, beneath which lies the sleepy mirror in lazy lilies clad. At morn the slender dragonfly, a living ray of light darts past, the burly bee comes charging by, winding a surly blast. At noon amid the fervid leaves the insects quarrel, harsh and hot, in bitter briars the spider weaves, a web with silver shot. At eve the hermit cricket rears a plaintive prayer, and creaks and creaks. The bat, like some winged elfin, veers beneath the sunset's streaks. The caterpillar gnaws the leaf, the mottled toad croaks drowsily, and then the owl, like some dark grief, cries in the old beech-tree. At night the blistering dew comes down, and lies as white as autumn frost, upon the green, upon the brown, you'd think each bush a ghost. The crescent moon sheaths its white sword within a cloud, and gray with fear one large blue star keeps stealthy guard above the house and mirror. The livid lilies rotting lie on oozy beds of weltering leaves. The willow wisps go flickering by, and then the water heaves and like some monstrous blossom there a maiden's corpse with staring eyes and naked breast and raven hair slow in the mere doth rise. And when the clock of some far town nails midnight in that house of sins, in haunted chambers up and down the dance of death begins, and stiff, stiff silks sweep rustling, and stately satins none may see, and then soft sounds of music ring in wildest melody. And through the halls the demon dance whirls onward, and dark corridors resound with song and feet that glance along the falling floors. Then suddenly, as if in fear, the music ends, the dance is done, and booming over house and mirror, a far-off clock strikes one. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. In an Old Garden by Madison Cowine Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachuk The autumn glory fades upon the withered trees, and over all the dead leaves fall and whisper in the breeze, the violets are dead, and dead the holly-hawks that hang like rags by the wind-crushed flags and tiger-lilly stalks. The wild gourd clambers free, where the clematis was wont, where nanophars bloomed thick as stars, rank weeds fill up the fount. Yet, as in dreams I hear, a tinkling mandolin in the dark blue light of a fragrant night float in and out and in, till the dewy vine that climbs to a casement's lattice sways, and behind the vine, like stars that shine, two dark eyes gleam and gaze, and now a perfume comes, a swift Favonian gust, and the shriveled grass where it doth pass bows worshiping to the dust. I seem to see her drift from tree to moonlit tree, in her jeweled shawl, divinely tall, a mist of drapery, and one awaits her there by the broken psyche hold, and there they stand, pale hand in hand, her thin wrists hooped with gold, but a wind sweeps overhead, and the frosty leaves are strewn, and nothing is there but a bow-blown bear and the light of the ghostly moon. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. THE HAUNTED ROOM by Madison Cowine read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kitchock. Its casements diamond-disked with glass look down upon a terrace-hold where urns unkempt with ragged grass foe-more with hoary cold. The snow rounds out each stair of stone, the frozen fount is hooped with pearl, down desolate walks like phantoms blown, thin powdery snow wreaths whirl, and to each rose-tree stem that bends with silvery snowcombs glued with frost, it seems each summer rosebud sends its airy, scentless ghost. A stiff Elizabethan pile with bleakness chattering in its panes where rumbling down each chimney-file the mad wind shakes his reins, lone in the northern-angle dim with immemorial dust it lies where each gaunt casement's stony rim stares eye-like at the skies. Drear in the old pile's oldest wing hung round with motoring harris where tall shadowy tristums fight and sing for shadowy e-salt's fair. Beside a crumbling cabinet a tarnished loot lies on the floor, a talon-footed chair is set grotesquely near the door. A carven-tested bedstead stands with rusty silks draped all about and like a moon in murky lands a mirror glimmers out, neglected locked that chamber where, in dropping harris, dimly clings the drowsy moth and frightened there the lost wind sighs and sings adown the roomy flu and takes and swings the ghostly mirror till it seems some unseen hand that shakes its frame then leaves it still. A starving mouse forever gnaws behind a panel and the vines that on the casement tap like claws lattice the floor with lines I have been there when blades of light stabbed each doll stained and dusty pain once I was there at dead of night I dream of it again she grew upon my vision as heat grows that haunts the summer day in taffeters like glimmering glass she stood there dim and gray and willow-wisp like jewels bound faint points of light round neck and wrist and round her slender waist was wound a zone of silver mist and icy as some winter land her pale still face or which the night hung of her raven hair her hand was beautiful and white before the mirror moaningly she wrung her hands and palely pressed her brow and did I dream or see that blood was on her breast and then she vanished like a breath that o'er the limpid glass had passed her presence passed and cold as death she left me and aghast yes I've been there when spears of light pierced through each stained and sunlit pain once I was there at dead of night I dream of it again End of poem This recording is in the public domain The Mirror by Madison Cowine An ancient mirror hangs within an ancient hall in a lonely room where the aroused gloom scowls from the pictured wall a mystic mirror framed in ebon wildly carved that seems to stare on the shadows there like something lean and starved a mirror where one sees in the broad good light of day like crimson torches at the window arches red roses swing and sway and a part of the garth is seen with its quaint stone-dial plate that gray and old green stained with mold stands near the lion-tree stands near the lion-gate these it reflects all day and at night one star of blue that the nightingale where the roses pale lifts its passionate love song too the night bird sings below the stars hang bright above and the roses soon in the salt-free moon shall palpitate with love the night bird sobs below the roses blow and bloom through mullioned pains the moonlight rains in the dim unholy room grim ancestors that stare stiff-starched and haughty down from the oaken wall of the noble hall put on the sterner frown the old horse-castle clock coughs midnight overhead and the rose is won and the bird is gone when walk the shrouded dead then from their frames it seems the portrait's shadows flit by the mirror there they stand and stare and weep or sigh to it in rare rich ermine, earls and knights in gold and bare with a rapiered throng of courtiers long pass with a stately stare with jewels and perfumes in powder rough and lace tall ladies pass by the looking-glass each sighing at her face what secret does it hide this mirror, gaunt and tall in this lonely room where the arised gloom scowls from the pictured wall and a poem this recording is in the public domain The Hall of Darkness by Madison Cawine read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachuk within her veins it beats and burns within her brain as year by year more sad and seer grow barren, hill and plain ah, over young is she who bears within her breast more pain and woe than women know and all of love's unrest Seven towers of shaggy rock rise black to ragged skies from out of fenn where bones of men stare with their empty eyes eternal sunset pours around its warlock towers from out its urn of beams that burn long fire-cloudy flowers on bat like turrets high and owlet battlements huge conders dream and vultures scream as at the battle's sense within the banquet hall a bride rich-robed and pale she sits at board with men of the sword cased all in silver mail their visors barred are drawn their hands are gauntleted and one, behold, in glittering gold sits at the table's head while music echoes through the hollow-sounding air it seems at least a wedding feast with richness everywhere while music oozes from the ceiling, groin'd with white pure pearl and floors like mythic shores of limpid chrysolite silent they sit at feast and she whom he sits near he in gold mail why is she pale as one with grief and fear the heavens grow slaughter-red grow blood-red west and east seven casements high that frame the sky flare on the blood-red feast gaunt torches tall they seem red revel torches seven and then behold the hour is told the great bell strikes eleven silence the light that makes each plate a splash of fire gold splintered dims and softer swims the music of each liar grave silence like a king at that strange feast has place grave silence still as God's own will within the deep soft space she leans to him in gold and to him seems to say the night grows late my love why wait ah God would it were day would it were day ah God how long is it till dawn why wear this mask undo thy cask the midnight hour comes on silent he sits severe then one sonorous tower owls warmed that looms in glaring glooms tolls slow the midnight hour three strokes the nights arise the silence from them flung like waves that mock some horse sea rock wild laughter moves each tongue six strokes and wailing out the music hoots away the fiery glimmer of heaven grows dimmer the red turns ghostly gray nine strokes and dropping mold the crumbling hall is led the plate is rust the feast is dust the banquetters are dead twelve strokes pound out and roll the vast hall heaves and waves with things that crawl from floor and wall spawn of a thousand graves then rattling in the night his golden visor slips in rotting mail a death's head pale kisses her loathing lips then over all a voice crying above the strife death is the groom this hall the tomb the bride behold is life and a poem this recording is in the public domain what dreams may come by Madison Kawain read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachuk I have lain for an hour or twain awake and the tempest is beating on the roof and the sleet on the pain and the winds are three enemies meeting and I listen and hear it again my name in the silence repeating then dumbness of death and moon gray in the darkness a light like a bubble from which like a single white ray comes a woman in loveliness double her face is the breaking of day her eyes are the night and its trouble I move not she lies with her lips at mine and I feel she is drawing my life from my heart to their tips my heart where the horror is gnawing my life in a hundred slow sips my soul with her gaze overhawing she binds me with merciless eyes she drinks of my blood and I hear it drain up with a shutter and rise to the lips like a serpents that steer it and she lies and she laughs as she lies saying low, thy affinitized spirit I pray and a gate as of swords mid-torments and tortures huge grated clangs iron deep under and words are heard as of sins that awaited a fiend who lashed into their hordes a woman who lacerated I pray and lie clammy and stark as a something mounts higher and higher up out of damnation and dark with hobbling of hooves that is dire a devil whose breath is a spark whose face is of filth and of fire to thy body's corruption thy grave, thy hell from which thou hast stolen he snarls and the night like a wave engulfs them with darkness wild swollen can it be that in sleep I'm a slave of a thing neither flesh nor I'd stolen End of poem this recording is in the public domain That Hour by Madison Cowine read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachok When she was dead a voice she knew not whose said to her soul that fell to cheer thee there in hell of all thy life's lost happiness now choose Ask what thou wilt thou who has walked midflowers and songs the easy way of pleasure day by day Ask what thou wilt of all thy lived out hours and then she thought O shall it be when there a blameless maiden thy dreaming watched love draw nigh and felt his kiss rose sweet on mouth and hair O shall it be when that white night his fingers smoothed from my brow the curls and fell like unstrung pearls his words of passionate love whose memory lingers O shall it be when over earth and sea I heard the sweet unrest within his ardent breast his heart that beat alone for me for me O shall it be when in his belting arms soul gazed on kindred soul and love had won the goal of his desire and his were all my charms No, no, not these that hour he left me lost stunned, fallen, and despised before the world he prized when, God forgive me when I loved him most and a poem this recording is in the public domain Epilogue by Madison Cobine read for LibriVox.org by Laurie Wilson Beyond the moon within a land of mist lies the dim garden of all dead desires walled round with morning's clouded amethyst and haunted of sunset's shadowy fires there all lost things we loved hold ghastly twist dead dreams, dead hopes dead loves and dead desires sad are the stars that day and night exist above the garden of all dead desires and sad the roses that within it twist deep bowers and sad the wind that through its choirs but sad or far are they who there hold twist dead dreams, dead hopes, dead loves and dead desires there like a dove upon the twilight's wrist soft in the garden of all dead desires sleep broods and there where never a serpent hissed on the wan willows music hangs her liars aeolian dials by which phantoms twist dead dreams, dead hopes, dead loves and dead desires there you shall hear low voices kisses kissed faint in the garden of all dead desires by lips the anguish of vain song makes whisked and meet with shapes that arts despair attires and gaze and eyes where all sweet sorrows twist dead dreams, dead hopes, dead loves and dead desires thither we go, dreamer and realist bound for the garden of all dead desires where we shall find perhaps all life hath missed all life hath longed for when the soul aspires earth's illusive loveliness to twist dead dreams, dead hopes, dead loves and dead desires End of poem This recording is in the public domain Poem by Madison Cobine read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson Poem, Submit and Romance to my friend William Warwick Thumb There is no rhyme that is half so sweet as the song of the wind in the rippling wheat There is no meter that's half so fine as the lilt of the brook under rock and vine and the loveliest lyric I ever heard was the Wildwood strain of a forest bird If the wind and the brook and the bird would teach my heart their beautiful parts of speech and the natural art that they say these with my soul would sing of beauty and myth In a rhyme and a meter that none before have sung in their love are dreamed in their lore and the world would be richer one poet the more End of poem This recording is in the public domain Myth and Romance by Madison Cobine read for LibriVox.org by Phil Shempf When I go forth to greet the glad face spring just at the time of opening apple buds when brooks are laughing winds are whispering on babbling hillsides or in the warbling woods there is an unseen presence that alludes perhaps a dryad in whose tresses cling the lomi odors of old solitudes who from her beach and doorway calls and leads my soul to follow now with dimpling words of leaves and now with syllables of birds while here and there is it her limbs that swing or restless sunlight on the moss and weeds or happily tis a niad now who slips like some white lily from her fountain's glass while from her dripping hair and breasts and hips the moisture rains cool music on the grass her have I heard and followed yet alas have seen no more than the wet rays that dips the shivering waters wrinkling where I pass but in the liquid light where she doth hide I have beheld the azure of her gaze smiling and where the orbing ripple plays among her minnows I have heard her lips bubbling making merry by the waterside or now is it an oaryad whose eyes are constellated dusk who stands confessed as naked as a flower her heart's surprise like morning's rose mantling her brow and breast she, shrinking from my presence all distressed, stands for a startled moment ere she flies her deep hair blowing up the mountain crest wild as a mist that trails along the dawn and is it her footfalls learn me or the sound of airs that stir the crisp leaf on the ground or is it her body glimmers on yawn rise or dogwood blossoms snowing on the lawn now tis a satyrs piping serenades on a slim reed now pan and fawn advance beneath green hallowed roofs of forest glades their feet gone mad with music now perchance Sylvanus sleeping on whose leafy trance the nymphs stand gazing in dim ambioscades of sun embodied perfume myth romance where ere I turn reach out bewildering arms compelling me to follow day and night I hear their voices and behold the light of their divinity that still evades and still adlers me in a thousand forms and a poem this recording is in the public domain Reverie by Madison Cowine Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuck What o' jive gates from gold of oaf are wrought What walls of parian whiter than a rose What towers of crystal for the eyes of thought Hast builded on dim islands of repose Thy cloudy columns vast Corinthian Or huge ionic colonnade the heights Of dreamland looming o'er the soul's deep seas Piled melodies of marble That no man has ever reached Except in fancies flights Templing the presence of perpetual ease Oft wear o'er plastic frees and plinths of spar In glimmering solitudes of pillared stone The twilight blossoms with one violet star With thee, o' Reverie, I have stood alone And there beheld from out the mythic age The rosy breasts of Scytheria Fair, full-sestest, and suggestive Of what loves immortal rise And heard the lyric rage of sun-burned poetry Whose throat breathes bare or leopard skins Fluting among his groves Oft wear thy castled peaks and tempered veils Cloud like convulsive sunsets Shores that dream, mere fragrant Over siren seas whose sails gleam white As lilies on a lilyed stream My soul has stood O'er by thy sapphire sea in thy arcaded gardens In the shade of breathing sculpture Oft has walked with thought And bent in shadowy attitude its knee Before the shrine of beauty That must fade and leave no memory Of the mind that wrought Who hath beheld thy caverns wear in heaps The wine of lethy and love's witchery In sealid amphory a sible keeps World-old, a grape filled with the soul of thee No wine of zeiries or of Syracuse No fine phalernian and no vile Sabine The stolen fire of a demigod Whose bubbled purple, heavenly feet did bruise In crusted vats of vintage When the green flamed into autumn On the Samian sod Oh, for the deep enchantment of one draft The reckless ecstasy of classic earth Make me godlike as the gods that left In eyes of mortal brown A mighty mirth of deity, delirious with desire To make me one with roses of the shrines The splashing wine libation or the blood And all the young priests dreaming To inspire my very soul with beauty Till it shines star-like amid life-starry brotherhood Would I might slumber in the old world shades Where poise could touch me as some bold wild bee A pulpy lily of the glades barbaric covered With the kernal gold and feel the glory Of the golden age less godly than my purpose Strong to dare death with the young immortal lips of love Less lovely than my soul's ideal rage To mate itself with music and declare itself Part meaning of the stars above There is a scent of roses and spilt wine Between the moonlight and the laurel coppers The marble idol glimmers on its shrine White as a star among a heaven of poppies Here all my life lies like a spilt of wine There is a mouth of music like a lute A nightingale that singeth to one flower Between the falling flower and the fruit Where love hath died the music of an hour To sit alone with memory and a rose To dwell with shadows of wilam romances To make one hour of a year of woes And walk on star-light in ethereal trances With love's lost face fair as a moon-white rose To shape from music and the scent of buds Love's spirit and its presence of sweet fire Between the heart's wild burning and the blood's Is part of life and of the soul's desire There is a song to silence and the stars Between the forest and the temple's arches And down the stream of night like nanophars The tossing fires of Menad's torches Here all my life waits lonely as the stars Shall not one hour of all those hours suffice For resignation God hath given as dour One hour between the summons and the sacrifice One hour of love, the eternity of an hour The shrine is shattered and the bird is gone Dark is the house of music and of bridal The stars are stricken and the storm comes on Beneath a wreck of roses lies the idol Sad as the memory of a joy that's gone To dream of perished gladness and a kiss Waking the last chord of love's broken lyre Between remembering and forgetting This is part of life and of the soul's desire End of poem. This recording is in the public domain The Nayad by Madison Cowine Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuk She sits among the iris stalks of bubbling brooks And leans for hours among the river's lily flowers Or on their whiteness walks above dark forest pools Gray rocks, wall in, she leans with dripping locks And listening to the echo talks with her own face Iothara, there is no forest of the hills No valley of the solitude nor fern nor moss That may elude her searching step that stills She dreams among the wild rose-breaks of fountains That the ripple shakes and dreaming of herself She fills the silence with Iothara And every wind that haunts the ways of leaf and bow Once having kissed her virgin nudity Goes wist with wonder and amaze There blows no breeze which hath not learned her name's sweet melody And yearned to kiss her mouth that laughs and says Iothara, Iothara No wild thing of the wood, no bird or brown or blue Or gold or gray beneath the sun's or moon's pale ray That hath not loved and heard, they are her pupils She can say no new thing, but within a day They have its music word for word harmonious as Iothara No man who lives and is not wise With love for common flowers and trees Be bird and beast and brook and breeze And rocks and hills and skies Search where he will shall ever see One flutter of her drapery One glimpse of limbs or hair or eyes of beautiful Iothara End of poem. This recording is in the public domain The Limned by Madison Cowine Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachuk The leg she haunts gleams mistily Through sleepy boughs of melody Lost mid-lone hills beside the sea Entangled bush and briar Where reflected sunsets, right, Ghostly things in golden light Where along the pine-crowned height Clouds of twilight, rosy white Build far towers of fire Mid the rushes there that swing Flowering flags where voices sing When night winds are murmuring And the stars of midnight glitter Blossom white with purple locks Underneath the stars still flocks In the dusky waves she rocks, rocks And all the landscape mocks With a song both sweet and bitter Soft it sounds at first as dreams Filled with tears that fall in streams Then it soars until it seems Beauty's very self hath spoken And the woods grow silent quite Stars wax faint and flowers wane white And the nightingales that light near Or hear her through the night Die their hearts with longing broken Dark dim and sad or mournful lands White-throated stars heaped in her hands Like wildwood buds the twilight stands The twilight dreaming lingers Listening where the limnad sings Witcheries whose magic brings A great moon from hidden springs Pale with amorous quiverings Feet of fire and silvery fingers In the veils or laniads On the mountains oryads On the leaves like laniads Whiter than the stars that glisten Pan the satters dryades Fountain lovely neyades Foam-lipped oceanities Breathless mid their seas and trees Stay and look and lean and listen Large-eyed siren-like she stands In the lake or on its sands And with rapture from the hands Of the night some stars are shaken To her song the rushes swing Lily's nod and ripples ring Lost in helpless listening These will wake who hear her sing But one mortal will not waken End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Before the Temple by Madison Cowine Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachok O desolate, she sat her down Upon the marble of the Temple's stair You would have thought her with her eyes of brown Flushed cheeks and hazel hair A dryad dreaming there A priest of Bacchus passed Nor stopped to chide her Deeming her whose kite and hid But half her bosom and whose girdle Dropped some grief-drowned basserid The god of wine had chid With wreaths of woodland cyclamen For Diane's shrine a shepherdess drew near All her young thoughts on vestal beauty When she dare not look for fear And hold the goddess here Fierce lights on shields of bossy brass And helms of bronze next from the hill's deploy Tall youths of Argos And she sees him pass Flushed with heroic joy On towards the Siege of Troy End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. By Madison Cawain Red for LibriVox.org by Josh Kibbey Under an oak tree in a woodland Where the dreaming spring had dropped it from her hair I found a flower through which I seemed to gaze beyond the world And see what no man dare beholden live The myths of bygone days Diana and Endymion And the bare, slim beauty of the boy whom Echo would And Hyacinthus, whom Apollo do'd with love and death And Daphne, ever fair And that Reed slender girl whom Pan pursued I stood engaged and through it seemed to see The dryad dancing by the forest tree Her hair wild blown The fawn with listening ear Deep in the boscage kneeling on one knee Watching the wandered Aurea draw near Her wild heart beating like a honeybee within a rose All, all the myths of old All, all the bright shapes of the age of gold Peopling the wonder worlds of poetry Through it I seemed and fancy to behold What other flower that, fashioned like a star Draws its frail life from earth And braves the war of all the heavens Can suggest the dreams that this suggests In which no trace of mar or soil exists Where stainless innocence seems enshrined And where, beyond our vision far That inaccessible beauty Which the heart worships as truth And holiness and art is symbolized Wherein embodied are the things That make the souls immortal part End of poem. This recording is in the public domain.