 Can such things be? By Madison Cowan, redfordlypervox.org, by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, M.C. Me seemed that while she played, while lightly yet, her fingers fell as roses bloom by bloom. I listened, dead with a mighty room, of some old place, where great casements let gaunt moonlight in that glimpsed a parapet, of statute marble in the aroused gloom, majestic pictures towered dim as doom, the dreams of Tishon and of Tintoret, and then it seemed along a corridor, a mile of oak, a stricken footstep came, hurrying, yet slow, I thought long centuries, past ear she entered, she I loved of yore, for whom I died, who wildly wailed my name, and bent and kissed me on the mouth and eyes. Night Errant by Madison Cowan, redfordlypervox.org, by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, M.C. Onward he gallops through enchanted gloom, the phantoms of the forest, dark and dim, and shadows of vast death environ him. Onward he spurs victorious over doom, before his eyes that loves far fires elune, where courage sits impregnable and grim. The form and features of her beauty swim, beckoning him on with looks that fears consume. The thought of her distress, her lips to kiss, mails him in triple might, and so at last, to less huge keep he comes its giant wall, while towering frowning from the precipice, and through its gate, born like a bugle blast, or night and hell he thunders to his all. End of poem, this recording is in The Public Domain. The Artist by Madison Cowan, redfordlypervox.org, by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, M.C. In storybooks, when I was very young, I knew her first, one of the fairy race, and then it was her picture took its place, framed round with loves deep gold, and draped and hung, high in my heart's red room, no song was sung, no tale of passion told, I did not grace, with her associated form and face, and intimated charm of touch and tongue. As years went on, she grew to more and more, until each thing symbolic to my heart, of beauty, such as honour, truth, and fame, within the studio of my soul's thought war, her liniments, whom I, with all my art, strove to embody, and to give a name. End of poem, this recording is in The Public Domain. Poetry and Philosophy by Madison Cowan, redfordlypervox.org, by Larry Wilson. Out of the past the dim leaves baked to me the thoughts of Pindar, with a voice so sweet, hybridian bees seemed swarming my retreat, around the reedy well of Poesie. I closed the book, then knee to neighbor knee, sat with the soul of Plato, to repeat doctrines, till mine seemed some Socratic seat, high on the summit of philosophy. Around the wave of one religion taught her first rude children, from the stars that burned above the mountain to Ether, science learned the first vague lessons of the work she wrought. Daughters of God, in whom we still behold the age of iron, and the age of gold. End of poem, this recording is in The Public Domain. Poetry and Philosophy by Madison Cowan, redfordlypervox.org, by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. It is as if Imperial trumpets broke, again the silence on war's iron height, and Caesar's armored legions marched to fight, The Rome, blood-red upon her mountain-yoke, blazed like an awful sunset, at a stroke, again I see the living torches light, the horrible revels, and the bloated white, Bade-brow of Nero, smiling through the smoke, and here and there a little band of slaves, long dark ruins, and the form of Paul, bearded and gaunt, expounding still the word, and towards the north the tottering architraves of empire and wild-waving overall, the flaming figure of a gothic sword. End of poem, this recording is in The Public Domain. Eucritic by Madison Cowan, redfordlypervox.org, by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. RHS Song hath a catalogue of lovely things, thy kind hath oft defiled, whose spite misleads, the world too often, where the poet reads, as in a fable of old enviings, crows such as thou, which hush the bird that sings, or kill it with their coins, thorns and weeds, such as thyself, midst which the wind sow seeds, of flowers these crush before one blossom swings, but here and there the wisdom of a school, unknown to these hath often written down, fame in white ink the future hath turned brown, when every beauty heaped with ridicule, in their ignoble prose proved their renown, making each famous as an ass or a fool. End of poem, this recording is in The Public Domain. Qua Trains by Madison Cowan, redfordlypervox.org, by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. 1. Poetry, who hath beheld the goddess face to face, blind with her beauty all his days shall go, climbing lone mountains towards her temple's place, wade with song sweet, inexorable, woe. 2. The Unimaginative, each form of beauties but the new disguise, of thoughts more beautiful than forms can be, skeptics who search with unannointed eyes, never the earth's wild fairy dance shall see. 3. Music. God born before the sons of God, she hurled, with awful sympathies of flood and fire, God's name on rocking chaos, world by world, flamed as the universe rolled from her lyre. 4. The Three Elements. They come as couriers of heaven, their feet, sonorius sandaled with majestic awe, enraignment of swift foam and wind and heat, blowing the trumpets of God's wrath and law. 5. Rome. Above the circus of the world she sat, beautiful and space, a harlot crowned with pride. Fierce nations, upon whom she sneered and spat, shrieked at her feet, and for her pastime died. 6. On Reading the Life of Herun Ur Reshid. 6. Down all the lantern-bagdad of our youth, he steals, with golden justice for the poor. Within his palace you shall know the truth, a blood-smeared headsman hides behind each door. 7. Menosomy. In classic beauty, cold immaculate, a voiceful sculpture, stern and still she stands, upon her brow, deep chiseled love and hate, sorrow or dead roses in her hands. 8. Beauty. High as a star, yet lowly as a flower, unknown she takes her unassuming place, at Ur's proud masquerade, the appointed hour, strikes and behold the marvel of her face. 9. The Stars. These, the bright symbols of man's hope and fame, in which he reads his blessing or his curse, are syllables which God speaks his name, in the vast utterance of the universe. 10. Echo. Weller in hollow places, hills and rocks, daughter of silence and old solitude, tiptoe she stands within her cave or wood, her only life the noises that she mocks. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Dreamer by Madison Cowan, read for Liebervox.org by Linda-Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. Even as a child he loved to thread the bowers, and mark the loafing sunlight's lazy laugh, or on each season spell the epitoth of his dead months repeated in their flowers, or list the music of the strolling showers, whose vagabond notes strummed through a twinkling staff, or read the days delivered monograph, through all the chapters of its needle hours. Still with the same child faith and child regard, he looks on nature, hearing at her heart, the beautiful beat out the time and place, through which no lesson of this life is hard, no struggle vain of science or of art, that dies with failure written on its face. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Winter by Madison Cowan, read for Liebervox.org by Linda-Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. The flute went summer's dreamy fingertips, drew music, brightening the cramped kernels in, the burly chestnut and the chin quaffin, red rounding out the oval haws and hips. Now winter crushes to his stormy lips, and surly songs whistle around his chin. Now the wild days and wilder nights begin, when at the eaves the lengthening icicle drips. Thy songs, o summer, are not lost so soon. Still dwells a memory in thy hollow flute, which unto winter's masculine airs doth give, thy own creative qualities of tune, through which we see each bow bend white with fruit, each branch with bloom in snow commemorative. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Midwinter by Madison Cowan, read for Liebervox.org by Linda-Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. All day the clouds hung ashen with the cold, and through the snow the muffled waters fell. The days seemed drowned in grief too deep to tell, like some old hermit whose last bead is tolled. At eve the wind woke, and the snow clouds rolled, aside to leave the fierce sky visible. Harsh as an iron landscape of one hell, the dark hills hung framed in, with gloomy gold. And then, towards night, the wind seemed some one at, my window wailing, now a little child, crying outside my door, and now the long hell of some star-beast down the flue. I sat, and knew towards winter, with his madman song, of miseries on which he stared and smiled. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Spring by Madison Cowan, read for Liebervox.org by Linda-Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. First came the rain, loud, with sonorous lips, a pursuant who heralded a prince, and dawn put on her livery of tints, and duskbound gold about her hair and hips. And all in silver mail the sunlight came, a night who bade the winter that him pass, and freed in prison to beauty, naked as the court of love, in all her wildflower shame. And so she came in breeze-born loveliness across the hills, and heaven bent down to bless. Above her head the birds were as a choir, and at her feet, like some strong worshipper, the shouting water panned praise of her, whose with blue eyes set the wild world on fire. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Transformation by Madison Cowan, read for Liebervox.org by Linda-Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. It is the time when, by the forest falls, the touch-me-nots hang fairy folly-caps, when ferns and flowers fill the likened laps of rocks with color, rich as orient shawls. And in my heart I hear a voice that calls me woodward, where the hammer-dryad wraps. Her limbs embark, and bubbling in the saps, sings the sweet Greek of Pan's old madrigals. There is a gleam that lures me up the stream, a niad swimming with wet limbs of light, perfume that leads me on from dream to dream, and orchids footprints flowering into flight. And lo! me seems I am a fawn again, one with the mists that I pursue in vain. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Response by Madison Cowan, read for Liebervox.org by Linda-Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, B.C. There is a music of immaculate love that beads within the virginal veins of spring, and trillium blossoms, like the stars that cling to fairies wands, and strung on sprays above, white hearts and madrake blooms that look enough, like the elves washing, white with laundering, of main moon do's, and all pale opening, while flowers of the woods are born thereof. There is no sod springs white foot brushes, but must feel the music that vibrates within, and thrill to the communicated touch. Response of harmonies that must unshot, the heart of beauty for songs concrete kin, emotions that are flowers born of such. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Swashbuckler by Madison Cowan, read for Liebervox.org squat-nosed and broad, of big and pompous port, a tavern-visage, apoplexy haunts, all pimple-puffed, the fall staff-like resort of fat debauchery, whose veined cheek flaunts a flabby purple. Rusty spurred he stands in rake-hell boots and belt, and hanger that claps when, with greasy gauntlets on his hands, he swagger's past in cloak and slouch-plumed hat. Aggression marches armies in his words, and in his oafs great deeds ride cappa-pee. His looks, his gestures, breathe the breath of swords, and in his carriage camp all wars to be. With him, of battles there shall be no lack, while bucksome wenches are and stoops of sack. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Simulacra by Madison Cowan, read for Liebervox.org by Matthew D. Robinson, dark in the west the sunset somber rack unrolled vast walls the rams of war had split, along whose battlements the battle lit tempestuous beacons, and with gates hurled back a mighty city red with ruin and sack, through burning breeches crumbling bit by bit, showed where the god of slaughter seemed to sit with conflagration glaring at each crack. Who knows, perhaps as sleep unto us makes our dreams as real as our waking seems, with recollections time cannot destroy. So in the mind of nature now awakes happily some wilder memory, and she dreams the stormy story of the fall of Troy. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Bluebird by Madison Cowan, read for Liebervox.org by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, BC. From morn till noon upon the window pane, the tempest tapped with rainy fingernails, and all the afternoon the blustering gales beat at the door with furious feet of rain. The rose, near which the lilies bloom, lay slain, like some red wound dripped by the garden rails, on which the sullen slug left silvery trails, it seemed the sun would never shine again. Then, in the drench, long, loud, and clarion-clear, a sky-y herald, tabarded in blue, a bluebird warbled, and, at once, a bow, was bent in heaven, and I seem to hear, God's sapphire spaces crystallizing through, the stratted clouds in azure tremolo. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Caverns by Madison Cowan, read for Liebervox.org by Linda Marie Nielsen, Vancouver, BC. Written of Colossal Cave, Kentucky. Iles and Abysses, Leagues, No Man Explores, a rock that labyrinths and night that drips, were everlasting silence broods, with clips, of adamant or earthquake-builded floors, where forms such as the demon world adores, laborious water-carves, wents echo slips, wild-tongued o'er pools, where petrifaction strips, her breasts of crystal from which crystal pours. Here, where primordial fear, the gorgon sits, staring all life to stone in ghastly birth, I seem to tread, with awe no tongue can tell, beneath vast domes by torrent tortured pits, mid-wrecks terrific of the ruined earth, an ancient causeway of forgotten hell. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. A Voice on the Wind. Proam by Madison Cowan, read for Liebervox.org by Larry Wilson. Oh, for a soul that fulfills music like that of a bird, thrilling with rapture the hills, heedless if anyone heard, or like the flower that blooms lone in the midst of the trees, filling the woods with perfumes careless if anyone sees, or like the wandering wind over the meadows that swings, bringing wild sweets to mankind, knowing not that which it brings. Oh, for a way to impart beauty, no matter how hard, like unto nature whose art never once dreams of reward. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. A Voice on the Wind by Madison Cowan, read by Elsie Selwyn. She walks with the wind on the windy height, when the rocks are loud and the waves are white. And all night long she calls through the night. Oh, my children, come home. Her bleak gown torn as a tattered cloud tosses around her like a shroud. While over the deep her voice rings loud. Oh, my children, come home, come home. Oh, my children, come home. Who is she who wanders alone when the wind drives shear and the rain is blown? Who walks all night and makes her moan? Oh, my children, come home. Whose face is raised to the blinding gale, whose hair blows black and whose eyes are pale. While over the world goes by her whale. Oh, my children, come home, come home. Oh, my children, come home. She walks with the wind and the windy wood, the dark rain drips from her hair and hood, and her cry sobs by like a ghost pursued. Oh, my children, come home. Where the trees loom gaunt and the rocks stretch drear, the owl and the fox crotch back in fear, as wild through the wood her voice they hear. Oh, my children, come home, come home. Oh, my children, come home. Who is she who shudders by when the bows blow bare and the dead leaves fly? Who walks all night with her wailing cry? Oh, my children, come home. Who strange of look and wild of tongue, with one feet wounded and hands wild wrong, sweeps on and on with her cry far flung? Oh, my children, come home, come home. Oh, my children, come home. To the spirits of autumn no man sees, the mother of death and of mysteries, who cries on the wind all night to these. Oh, my children, come home. The spirit of autumn pierced with pain, calling her children home again. Death and dreams through ruin and rain. Oh, my children, come home, come home. Oh, my children, come home. End of poem. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Land of Hearts Made Whole by Madison Cawain, read by Elsie Selwyn. Do you know the way that goes over fields of ruin rose, warm of scent and hot of hue, roofed with heavens bluest blue, to the veil of dreams come true? Do you know the path that twines, banked with elder bosques and vines, under bodes that shade a stream, hurrying crystal as a gleam, to the hills of love a dream? Tell me, tell me, have you gone through the fields and woods of dawn, meadowlands and trees that roll, great of grass and huge of bowl, to make the land of hearts made whole? On the way among the fields, poppies lift vermilion shields, in whose heart the golden noon, murmuring her drowsy tune, rocks the sleepy bees that croon. On the way amid the woods, mandrakes muster multitudes, mid whose blossoms whitest tusk, glides the glimmering forest dusk, with her moths of fluttering musk. Here you hear the stealthy stirrer, of shy lives of hoof and fur, harmless things that hide in pier, harch that sucked the milk of fear, fox and rabbit, squirrel and deer. Here you see the mossy flight of faint forms that love the night, whipper will and owlet things, whose weird call before you brings wonder worlds of happenings. Now in sunlight, now in shade, water like a brandished blade, foaming forward, wild of flight, startles then arrests the sight, whirling steely loops of light. Through the treetops down the veil, breezes roam, leave a trail of cool music that the birds, following in happy herds, gather up in twittering words. Blossoms frail and manifold, shower the way with pearl and gold, blurs that seem the darling print of the springtime's feet or glint of her twinkling gowns torn tint. There the myths of olden dur, dreams that are the world's souls cure, things that have no place or play and in the facts of every day, round your presence smile and sway. Suddenly your eyes may see, stepping softly from a tree, slim of form and wet with dew, the brown dryad lips the hue of a berry bit in two. You may mark the nigh-ed rise from her pools reflected skies, in her gaze the heaven that dreams, starred in twilight haunted streams, mixed with water's grayer gleams. You may see the laurels' girth, big with bloom give fragment birth, to the ori-ed whose hair, musk in darkness, light in air, fills the hush with wonder there. You may mark the rocks divide and the fawn before you blighed, piping on a magic reed, sowing many a music seed, from which bloom in mushroom bead. Of the rain and sunlight born, young of beard and young of horn, you may see the sader lie with a very knowing eye, teaching fledgling birds to fly. These shall cheer and follow you through the veil of dreams come true, wind-like voices, leaf-like feet, forms of mist and hazy heat, in whose pulses sunbeams beat. Low you tread enchanted ground, from the hollows all around, elf in spirit, gnome in fey, guide your feet along the way, till the dewy close of day. Then, beside you, jet on jet, emerald-hued and violet, flickering floats of firefly light, eye to guide your steps aright, from the valley to the height. Steep the way as when at last, veil in wood and stream are passed, from the height you shall behold, panther heavens of spotted gold, tiger-tony deeps unfold. You shall see on stalks and stones, sunsets bell-deep color tones, fallen in the valleys filled, with dusk's purple musics filled, on the silence rapture-thread. Then, as answering bow greets bow, night-ring in her miracle, of the domid dark o'er-rolled, note on note with starlight cold, twix the moon's broad peel of gold. On the hilltop, love a dream, shows you then her window-glean, rings you home and folds your soul in the peace of veil and knoll, in the lands of hearts made whole. End of poem. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The wind of summer, from the hills and far away, all the long-worn summer day, comes the wind and seems to say, come oh come and let us go, where the meadows bend and blow, waving with the white-top snow. Neath the hisop-colored sky, mid the meadows will we lie, watching the white clouds roll by, while your hair my hand shall press, with a cooling tenderness, till your grief goes less and less. Come oh come and let us roam, where the rock-cut waters comb, flowing crystal into foam, under trees whose trunks are brown, on the banks that violet's crown, we will watch the fish flash down, while my voice your ear shall soothe, with a whisper soft and smooth, till your care shall wax uncouth. Come, where forests, line on line, armies of the oak and pine, scale the hills and shout and shine, we will wander hand in hand, ways where tall the toads still stand, milestones white to fairyland, while your eyes my lips shall kiss, dewy as a wild rose is, till they gaze a knot but bliss, on the meadows you will hear, leaning low your spirit ear, cautious footsteps drawing near, you will deem it but a bee, murmuring soft and sleepily, till your inner sight shall see, tis a presence passing slow, all its shining hair blow, through the white-tops tossing snow, by the waters if you will, and your innermost soul is still, melody your ears shall fill, you will deem it but the stream, rippling onward in a dream, till upon your gaze shall gleam, arm of spray and throat of foam, tis a spirit there a roam, where the radiant waters comb, in the forest if you heed you shall hear a magic read, so sweet notes like silver seed, you will deem your ears have heard, stir of tree or song of bird, till your startled eyes are blurred, by a vision instant seen, naked gold and naked green, glimmering the boughs between, follow me and you shall see, wonder worlds of mystery that are only known to me, thus outside my city door speaks the wind its wild wood lore, speaks and lo I go once more. End of poem. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Wind of Winter, by Madison Cawain. Read by Elsie Selwyn. The winter wind, the wind of death, who knocked upon my door, now through the keyhole entereth, invisible in horror, he breathes around his icy breath and treads the flickering floor. I heard him wandering in the night, tap at my window pane, with ghostly fingers snowy white, I hear him tug in vain, until the shuttering candle light did cringe with fear and strain. The fire, awakened by his voice, leapt up with frantic arms, like some wild babe that greets with noise its father home whose storms, with rosy gestures that rejoice and crimson kiss that warms. Now on the hearth he sits and drowned, among the ashes blows, or through the room go stealing round unconscious stepping toes, deep mantled in the drowsy sound of night that sleets and snows. And oft, like some thin fairy thing, the stormy hush amid, I hear his captive trebles ring beneath the kettle's lid, or now a harp of elf-lands string and some dark cranny hid. Again I hear him imp like wine, cramped in the gusty flu, or knotted in the resinous pine, raise goblin cry in hue, while through the smoke his eyeball shine, a sooty red and blue. At last I hear him nearing dawn, take up his roaring broom, and sweep wild leaves from wooden lawn, and from the heavens the gloom, to show the gaunt world lying wan, and mourns called rows of bloom. End of poem. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Leaf Cricket by Madison Cawain, read by Elsie Selwyn. Small twilight singer of dew and mist, Thou ghost-grey gossamer winger, of dusk's dim glimmer, How cool thy note sounds, how thy wings of shimmer, Vibrates soft sighing, machines, for summer that is dead or dying. I stand and listen, and at thy song the garden beds, that glisten with rose and lily, seem touched with sadness, and the tuberose chilly, breathing around its cold and colorless breath, fills the pale evening with wan hints of death. I see thee quaintly beneath the leaf, thy shell-shaped winglets faintly, as thin as spangle of cobweb derain held up at airy angle. I hear thy tinkle, thy fairy notes, the silvery stillness sprinkle, investing wholly the moonlight with divinus melancholy, until, in seeming, I see the spirit of the summer dreaming, amid her ripened orchids, apple-strewn, her great-grave eyes fixed on the harvest moon. As dew drops beady as mist minute, thy notes ring low and reedy, the vaguest vapor of melody now near, now like some taper, of sound far-fading, thou willow wisp of music eye-avading, among the bowers, the fog-washed stalks of autumn's weans and flowers. By hill and hollow I hear thy murmur, and in vain I follow, thou jackal and her voice, thou elfin cry, thou dirge that tellest beauty she must die. And when the frantic wild winds of autumn with the dead leaves antick, and walnut scatter, the mire of lanes and dropping acorn's patter, and grove in forest like some frail grief, with the rude blast, thou worst, sending thy slender, far cry against the gale that rough, untender, untouched of sorrow, sweeps thee aside where happily I, tomorrow, shall find thee lying, tiny, cold and crushed, thy weak wings folded, and thy music hushed. End of poem, this Lieberbach's recording is in the public domain. The Owlet by Madison Cowain, read by Elsie Sowan. When dusk is drowned in drowsy dreams, and slow the hues of sunset die, when firefly and moth go by, and instill streams the new moon gleams, a sickle in the sky, then from the hills there comes a cry, the Owlets cry, a shivering voice that sobs and screams, that frightened screams. Who is it? Who is it? Who? Who rides through the dusk and do, with a pair of horns as thin as thorns, and a face that bubble blue? Who? Who? Who? Who is it? Who is it? Who? When night has dulled the lilies white, and opened wide the moonflower's eyes, when pale mists rise and veil the skies, and round the height and whispering flight, the night winds sounds and sighs, then in the woods the guinet cries, the Owlet cries, a shivering voice that calls in fright, and the mondering fright. Who is it? Who is it? Who? Who walks with a shuffling shoe, mid the gusty trees, with a face none sees, and a forearm as ghostly too? Who? Who? Who? Who? Who is it? Who is it? Who? When midnight leans a listening ear, and tinkles on her insect lutes, when mid the roots, the cricket flutes, and marsh and mirror, now far, now near, a jack-o'-lantern foots, then o'er the pool again it hoots, the Owlet hoots, a voice that shivers as with fear, that cries in fear. Who is it? Who is it? Who? Who creeps with his glow-worm crew, above the mire with a corpse-light fire, as only dead men do? Who? Who? Who? Who is it? Who is it? Who? End of poem. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. The Poet by Madison Cowine. Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. He stands above all worldly schism, and gazing over life's abysm beholds within the starry range of heaven, laws of death and change, that through his soul's pathetic prism are turned to rainbows wild and strange. Through nature is his hope made sure of that ideal, his allure, by whom his life is upward-drawn, to mount pale pinnacles of dawn, mid-which all that is fairer, purer of love and lore it comes upon. An alchohest that makes gold metal of dross his mind is, where one petal of one wild rose will well outweigh the piled-up facts of every day, where common places there that settle are changed to things of heavenly reign. He climbs by steps of stars and flowers companioned of the spirit-hours, and sets his feet in pastures where no merely mortal feet may fairer, and higher than the stars he towers, though lowly as the flowers there. His comrades are his own high fancies and thoughts in which his soul romances, and every part of heaven or earth he visits lo assumes new worth, and touched with loftier traits and traces reshines as with a lovely of birth. He is the play, also the player. The word that said likewise the sayer, and in the books of heart and head there is no thing he has not read, of time and tears he is the wearer, and mouthpiece twix the quick and dead. He dies, but mounting ever higher wings phoenix-like from out his pyre, above our mortal day and night, clothed on with sympathonal light, and raimented in thoughts fine-fire flames on in everlasting flight. Unseen, yet seen, on heights of visions, above all praise and world derisions, his spirit and his deathless brood of dreams fair on, a multitude while on the pillar of great missions his name and place are granite-hued. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Summer Noon Tide by Madison Cawain, read by Elsie Selwyn. The slender snail clings to the leaf gray on its silvered underside, and slowly, slower than the snail, with brief, bright steps whose ripening touch foretells the sheaf, her warm hands berry-dyed, comes down the tanned Noon Tide. The pungent fragrance of the mint in penny-royal drench her gown, that leaves long shreds of trumpet blossom tint among the thorns in everywhere the glint of gold and white and brown her flowery steps waft down. The leaves like hands with emerald veined along her way try their wild best to reach the jewel whose hot hue was drained from some rich rose that all the June contained, the butterfly soft-pressed upon her sunny breast, her shawl the lace-like elder bloom, she hangs upon the hillside break smelling of warmth and of her breast's perfume, and lying in the citron-colored gloom beside the lily'd lake, she stares the buds awake. Or with a smile through watery deeps, she leads the oaring turtle's legs, or guides the crimson fin that swims and sleeps, from pad to pad from which the young frog leaps, and to its nests green eggs the reed-bird there that begs. Then mid the fields of unmoan hay, she shows the bees where sweets are found, and points the butterflies at airy play, and dragonflies along the waterway, where honey'd flowers abound for them to flicker round, or where ripe apples pelt with gold some barn about which cone'd with snow, the wild potato blooms, she mounts its old, mossed roof, and through warped sides the knots have hold, lets her long glances glow into the loft below. To show the mud wasp at its though, slenderly busy, swallows to, packing against a beam their nests clay shall, and crouching in the dark the owl as well, with all her downy crew of owlets gray of hue. These are her joys, and until dusk, lounging she walks where reapers reap, from sultry raiments shaking scents of musk, rustling the corn within its silken husk, and driving down heavens deep, white herds of clouds like sheep. End of poem, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain, To the Locust by Madison Cawain, read by Elsie Selwyn. Thou pulse of hotness who, with read-like breast, makest meridian music long and loud, accentuating summer, dost thy best, to make the sunbeams fiercer and to crowd, with lonesomeness the long close afternoon, when labor leans, swart-faced and beady-browed, upon his sultry skyth, thou tangible tune of heat whose waves incessantly arise, quivering and clear beneath the cloudless skies. Thou singest, and upon his haggard hills, drowth yawns, and rubs his heavy eyes and wakes, brushes the hot air from his face, and fills the land with death as sullenly he takes, downward his dusty way, midst woods and fields, at every pool his burning thirsty slakes, no grove so deep, no bank so high, it shields a spring from him, no creek evades his eye, he needs but look in there withered dry. Thou singest, and thy song is a spell of somnolence to charm the land with sleep, a thorn of sound that pierces dale and dale, diffusing slumber over veil and steep, sleepy the forest nodding sleepy boughs, sleepy the pastures with their sleepy sheep, sleepy the creek where sleepily the cows stand knee-deep in the very heaven-scenes, sleepy and lost in undetermined dreams. Art thou a rattle that monotony, summer's dull nurse, old sister of slow time, shakes from day's peevish pleasure, who in glee takes its discordant music for sweet rhyme? Or oboe that the summer noontime plays, sitting with ripeness neath the orchard tree, trying repeatedly the same shrill phrase, until the musky peach with weariness drops in the home of murmuring bees grows less? End of poem, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. July by Madison Coyne, read by Elsie Sowan. Now tis the time when tall, the long blue torches of the bellflower gleam among the trees and by the wooded stream, in many a fragrant ball, blooms of the button-bush fall. Let us go forth and seek, woods where the wild plums redden, and the beach, plumps at stout burrs and swelling just in reach, the papa emerald sleek ripens along the creek. Now tis the time when waves of glimmering green flaunt white the giant plumes, of the black kahush and through bramble glooms, a blur of orange rays, the butterfly blossoms blaze. Let us go forth and hear, the spiral music that the locusts beat, and that small spray of sound, so grassy sweet, dear to a country ear, the crickets summer cheer. Now golden selodyne, as hairy hung with silvery sacks of seeds, and bugled over with freckled gold-like beads, beneath the fox-grape vine, the jewel-weeds blossoms shine. Let us go forth and see the dragon and the butterfly, like gems, spangling the sunbeams and the clover stems, weighed down with many a bee, nodding maleficially. Now mourns are full of song, the catbird and the redbird and the jay, upon the hill-tops rouse the ruddy day, who dewy, blithe, and strong, lures their wild wings along. Now noons are full of dreams, the clouds of heaven and the wandering breeze, follow a vision in the flowers and the trees, the hills and fields and streams, are lapped in mystic gleams. The nights are full of love, the stars and moon take up the golden tail of the sunk sun and passionate and pale, mixing their fires above, grow eloquent thereof. Such days are like a sigh, that beauty heaves from a full heart of bliss. Such nights are like the sweetness of a kiss, on lips that have to nigh, the warm lips of July. Evening on the farm by Madison Cawain, read by Elsie Selwyn. From out the hills where twilight stands, above the shadowy pasture lands, with strained and strident cry beneath pale skies that sunset bands, the bull-bats fly, a cloud hangs over, strange of shape, and colored like the half-ripe grape, seems some uneven stain on heaven's azure, thinnest crepe, and blue as rain, by ways that sunset's sardinics, oar-flares, and gates the farm boy clicks, through which the cattle came, the mulling's stalks seem giant wicks of downy flame. From woods no glimmer enters in, above the streams that wandering wind, from out the violet hills, those haunters of the dusk begin, the whipper-wills. Down the dark the firefly marks its flight and golden emerald sparks, and loosened from his chain, the shaggy watchdog bounds and barks, and barks again. Each breeze brings sense of hill-heaped hay, and now an outlet far away, Christ's twice-sur-thrice, choo-hoo, and cool dim moths of mottled gray, flit through the dew. The silent sounds its frog bassoon wear on the woodland creek's lagoon, pale as a ghostly girl lost mid the trees, looks down the moon with face of pearl. Within the shed where logs late-hued, smell forest sweet in chips of wood, make blurs of white and brown, the brood-hen cuddles her warm brood of teetering down. The clattering guineas in the tree, din for a time and quietly, the henhouse near the fence, sleeps save for some brief rivalry of cocks and hens. A cowbell tinkles by the rails, where streaming white and foaming pales, milk makes an ottery sound, while overhead the black-bat trails around and round. The night is still, the slow cows chew a drowsy cud, the bird that flew and sang is in its nest. It is time of falling dew, of dreams and rest. The brown bees sleep and round the walk, the garden path from stalk to stalk, the bungling beetle booms, where two soft shadows stand and talk among the blooms. The stars are thick, the light is dead, that dive the west in drowsy head, turning his cricket pipe, nods in some apple round in red, drops over ripe. Now down the road that shambles by, a window shining like an eye, through climbing rows and gourd shows where toil sucks and these things lie, his heart and hoard. End of poem, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Under the Hunter's Moon by Madison Cowayne, read by Elsie Sawan. White from her chrysalis of cloud, the moth-like moon swings upwards through the night, and all the bee-like stars that crowd, heavens hollow hive wane in her silvery light, along the distance folds of mist, hang frost pale, ridging all the dark with gray, tinting the trees with amethyst, touching with pearl and purple every spray, all night the stealthy frost and fog, conspire to slay the rich-robed weeds and flowers, to strip the woods of wealth and clog, with piled-up gold of leaves, the creek that cowers. I seem to see their spirits stand, molded of moonlight, faint of form and face, now reaching high a chilly hand, to pluck some walnut from its spicy place. Now with fine fingers, phantom cold, splitting the wahoo's pods of rose and thin, the bittersweet's globes of gold to show the coal-red berries packed within, now on frail threads of gossamer, slinging the slim pearls of moisture necklacing, the flowers, and spreading cobwood fur, crystal'd with stardew over everything. While, neath the moon, with moon-white feet, they wander, and a moon-chill music draw, from thin, leaf-cricot flutes the sweet, dim dirge of autumn dying in the shaw. End of poem, this LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Dusk and dew and home again, when the katydid sings, and the cricket cries, and ghosts of the mists ascend, and the evening star is a lamp in the skies, and summer is near its end. It's all for the fence and the leafy lane, and the twilight peace and the trist again, when the owllet hoots in the dogwood tree, that leans to the rippling run, and the wind is a wildwood melody, and summer is almost done. It's all for the bridge and the bramble lane, and the fragrant hush and her hands again, when fields smell moist with the dewy hay, and woods are cool and warm, and a path for dreams is the milky way, and summer is nearly gone. It's all for the rock and the woodland lane, and the silence and stars and her lips again, when the weight of the apples breaks down the limbs, and musk melons split with sweet, and the moon's broad boat in the heaven swims, and summer has spent its heat. It's all for the lane, the tristing lane, and the deep moon night, and her love again. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. There is nothing that eases my heart so much as the wind that blows from the great green hills. Tis a hand of balsam whose healing touch unburdens my bosom of ills. There is nothing that maketh my soul to rejoice like the sunset flaming without a flaw. Tis a burning bush whence God's own voice addresses my spirit with awe. There is nothing that hallows my mind, me seems, like the night with its moon and its starry slope. Tis a mystical lily whose golden gleams fulfill my being with hope. There is nothing, no nothing, we see and feel that speaks to our soul some beautiful thought that was not created to help us and heal our lives that are overwrought. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Life by Madison Cowine. Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. Pessimist. There is never a thing we dream or do but was dreamed and done in the ages gone. Everything's old. There is nothing that's new, and so it will be while the world goes on. The thoughts we think have been thought before, the deeds we do have long been done. We pride ourselves on our love and lore, and both are as old as the moon and sun. We strive and struggle and swink and sweat, and the end for each is one and the same. Time and the sun and the frost and wet will wear from its pillar the greatest name. No answer comes for our prayer or curse. No word replies though we shriek in air. Ever the taciturn universe stretches unchanged for our curse or prayer. With our mind small light in the dark we crawl, glowworm glimmers that creep about, till the power that made us over us all poises his foot and treads us out. A nasty fashions us out of clay, a little water, a little dust, and then in our holes he thrusts us away with never a word to rot and rust. It is a sorry play with a sorry plot, this life of hate, of lust and pain, where we play our parts and are soon forgot, and all that we do is done in vain. Optimist. There is never a dream but it shall come true, and never a deed but was wrought by plan, and life is filled with the strange anew, and never has been since the world began. As mind develops and soul matures, these two shall parent earth's mightier acts. Love is a fact, and his love endures though the world make wreck of all other facts. Through thought alone shall our age obtain above all ages gone before. The tribes of sloth, the brawn, not brain, are the tribes that perish are known no more. Within ourselves is a voice of awe, and a hand that points to balanced scales. The one is love, the other law, and their presence alone it is avails. For every shadow about our way there is a glory of moon and sun, but the hope within us has more of ray than the light of the sun and the moon made one. Behind all being a purpose lies, undeviating as God hath willed, and he alone it is who dies, who leaves that purpose unfulfilled. Life is an epic, the master sings, whose theme is man, and whose music soul, where each is a word in the song of things, that shall roll on while the ages roll. In the poem this recording is in the public domain. Meeting in the Woods by Madison Cowayne Red for LibriVox.org by Sophia Koshick Through ferns and moss the path wound to a hollow, where the touch-minots swung horns of honey filled with dew, and where, like footprints, violets blew, and bluits made sweet sapphire blots, it was there that she had passed, I knew. The grass, the very wilderness, on either side breathed rapture of her passage, it was her hand or dress, that touched some tree, a slight caress, that made the wood-birds sing above, her step that woke the flowers, I guess. I hurried till across my way, foam-footed, bounding through the wood, a brook, like some wild child at play, went laughing loud its roundelay, and there upon its bank she stood, a sun-beam clad in forest gray, and when she saw me all her face, bloomed like a wild rose by the stream, and to my breast a moment's space, I gathered her, and all the place seemed conscious of some happy dream come true to add to earth its grace, some union that was heaven's intent, for which God made the world, the bliss, the love that raised her innocent young face to mine, that smiling bent and sealed her first words with a kiss, as love might close his testament. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Rose and Brew by Madison Cohen. Red for LibriVox.org by Sophia Kaushik. Mamie Dean, ah Mamie Dean, do you remember where the willows used to screen the water flowing fair, the mill streams banks of green, where first our love begun, where you were seventeen, and I was twenty-one? Mamie Dean, ah Mamie Dean, do you remember how, from the old bridge we would lean, the bridge that's broken now, to watch the minnows sheen through ripples of the run, when you were seventeen, and I was twenty-one? Mamie Dean, ah Mamie Dean, do you remember to the old beach-tree between whose roots the wind flowers grew, where oft we sat at eleven, where stars were few or none, when you were seventeen, and I was twenty-one? Mamie Dean, ah Mamie Dean, the bark is grown around, the names I cut therein, and the true love not that bound, the love not clear and clean, I carved when our love begun, when you were seventeen, and I was twenty-one? Mamie Dean, ah Mamie Dean, the roof of the farmhouse gray, is fallen and mossy green, its rafters wrought away, the old path scarce is seen, where oft our feet would run, when you were seventeen, and I was twenty-one? Mamie Dean, ah Mamie Dean, through each old tree and bow, the lone winds cry and keen, the place is haunted now, with ghosts of what is being, and dreams of love long done, when you were seventeen, and I was twenty-one? Mamie Dean, ah Mamie Dean, there in your world of wealth, there where you move a queen, broken in heart and health, does there ever rise a scene of days, your thought would shun, when you were seventeen, and I was twenty-one? Mamie Dean, ah Mamie Dean, here mid the rose and rue, would God that your grave was green, and I were lying to, here on the hill, I mean, where oft we laughed in the sun, when you were seventeen, and I was twenty-one? End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. A maid who died old, by Madison Cowain, read for LibriVox.org by the letter A. Frail, shrunken face, so pinched and worn, that life has carved with care and doubt, so weary waiting, night and mourn, for that which never came about. Pale lamp, so utterly forlorn, in which God's light at last is out. Grey hair, that lies so thin and prim, on either side the sunken brows, and soldered eyes, so deep and dim, no word of man could now arouse, and hollow hands, so virgin-slim, forever collapsed in silent vows. Poor breasts, that God designed for love, for baby lips to kiss and press, that never felt, yet dreamed thereof, the human touch, the child caress, that lie like shriveled blooms above the heart's long perished happiness. O withered body, nature gave for purposes of death and birth, that never knew and could but crave, those things perhaps, that make life worth. Rest now, alas, within the grave, sad shell that serve no end of earth. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The ground. Perhaps the flowers, the leaves and grass that close them round. In spring the violets may spell, the moods of them we know not of, or lilies sweetly syllable, their thoughts of love. Happily in summer, due and sent, of all they feel, may be a part. Each red rose be the testament of some rich heart. The winds of fall be utterance, perhaps of saddest things they say, while leaves may word some dead romance in some dim way. In winter all their sleep profound through frost may speak to grass and stream, stilling them with the silent sound of all they dream. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Dead Day. By Madison Cowine. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuck. The West builds high a sepulcher of cloudy granite and of gold, where twilight's priestly hours inter. The day like some great king of old. A censer rimmed with silver fire. The new moon swings above his tomb, while organ stops of god's own choir. Star after star, throbs in the gloom, and night draws near. The sadly sweet, a nun whose face is calm and fair, and kneeling at the dead day's feet, her soul goes up in silent prayer. In prayer we feel through dewy gleam and flowery fragrance, and above all earth the ecstasy and dream that haunt the mystic heart of love. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Allurement. By Madison Cowine. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuck. Across the world she sends me word, from gardens fair as farorinas. Now by a blossom, now a bird, to come to her, who long has lured with magic sweeter than alchinas. I know not what her word may mean. I know not what may mean the voices she sends as messengers unseen, that through the hush around me lean and whisper till my heart rejoices. Soon must I go, I must away, must take the path that is appointed. God grant I reach her realm some day, whereby her love as by array, my soul shall be anointed. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. August. Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Lawley. Clad on with glowing beauty and the peace, benign of calm maturity she stands, among her meadows and her orchard lands, and on her mellowing gardens and her trees, out of the ripe abundance of her hands, bestows increase, and fruitfulness as, wrapped in sunny ease, blue-eyed and blond she goes, upon her bosom summers riches rose. And he who follows where her footsteps lead, by hill and rock, by forest side and stream, may glimpse the glory of her visible dream, in flower and fruit, in rounded nut and seed, she, in whose path, the very shadows gleam, whose humblest weed seems lovelier than June's loveliest flower indeed, and sweeter to the smell than April's self within a rainy dell. Hers is a sumptuous simplicity within the fair republic of her flowers, where you may see her standing hours on hours, breast deep in gold, soft holding up a bee, to her hushed ear, or sitting under bowers of greenery, a butterfly a tilt upon her knee, or lounging on her hip, dancing a cricket on her fingertip. I let me breathe hot scents that tell of you, the hoary catnip and the meadow mint, on which the honour of your touch doth print itself as odour. Let me drink the hue of ironweed and mist flower here, that hint with purple and blue, the rapture that your presence doth imbue, there in most essence with immortal, though as transient as a myth. Ye, let me feed on sounds that still assure, me where you hide the books whose happy din, tells where the deep retired woods within, disrobed you bathe the birds whose drowsy lure, tells where you slumber your warm nestling chin, soft on the pure pink cushion of your palm, what better cure for care and memory's ache than to behold you thus and watch you wake. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. And in the whistling hollow there, the red-butt bends as brown and bare, as buxom rocks his upstripped arm from some gray hickory or larch, sighed o'er the sodden meads of march, the sad heart thrills and reddens warm, to hear you braving the rough storm, frail courier of green-gathering powers, reveling sap in trees and flowers, love's minister come hurleding, o' sweet saint voice among bleak buyers, o' brown-red pursuant of spring, moon sob the woodland water still, dine bloomless ledges of the hill, and gray gunt clouds like harpy's hang, in harpy heavens and swoop and clang, spark sharp beaks and talons of the wind, black-scar the forests and unkind, the far fields as the near while song, seems murdered and all beauty wrong, one weak frog only in the thaw of spoony pills wakes cold and raw, expires a melancholy pace, and stops as if bewildered, then along the frowning wood again, flung in the thin wind's vulture face, from woolly tassels of the pride, red-bannered maples long and loud, the spring has come, is here, her grace, her grace, her grace, the spring, her grace, her grace, climbs beautiful and sunny-browed, up, up the kindling hills and wakes, blue berries in the berry-breaks, with fragrant flakes that blow and bleach, deep powders smothered, quince and peach, eyes dogwoods with a thousand eyes, teaches each sod how to be wise, with twenty wild flowers to one weed, and kisses germs that they may seed, impure as purple and sweet white, treads up the happier hills of light, blim, cloudy-born, song in her hair, and balm and beam of odorous air, winds, her retainers, and the rains, her ye men strong who sweep the plains, her scarlet nights of dawn and gold, of eve, her panoply unfold, her herald, tabarded, behold, awake to greet, prepare to sing, she comes the darting Dutch's spring, and of poem this recording is in the public domain. Quiet by Madison Cowayne, read for LibriVox.org by Cornel Nemes Rino Nevada. A log hut in the solitude, a clubboard roof to rest beneath, decide the shadow-hunted wood, that side the sunlight-hunted hith, a daybreak morn will come to me in raiment of the wide-wind spun, slim in her rosy hand the key that opens the gateway of the sun, her smile will help my heart enough with love to labor all the day, and cheer the road whose rocks are rough with her smooth footprints each array. A dusk, a voice will call afar, a lone voice like the weep-poor-wills, and on her shimmering brow one star night will descend the western hills. She, at my door, till down will stand, with gothic eyes, that dark and deep are mirrors of a mystic land, fantastic with the towns of sleep and of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Music by Madison Cowayne, read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gochuk. Thou, O Thou, Thou of the corded shell and golden plectrum, Thou of the dark eyes and pale Pacific brow, Music who by the plangent waves, or in the echoing night of labyrinthine caves, or on God's mountains, lonely as the stars, touched reverberant bars of immemorial sorrow and amaze, keeping regret and memory awake, and all the immortal ache of love that leans upon the past sweet days in retrospection. Now, oh, now, interpreter and heart physician, Thou who gazest on the heaven and the hell of life and singest each as well, touch with thy all-malifluous fingertips, or thy melodious lips, this sickness named my soul, making it whole, as is an echo of a cord or some symphonic word or sweet vibrating sigh, that deep resurgent still doth rise and die on thy voluminous roll, part of the beauty and the mystery that axles earth with music as a slave, swinging it round and round on each sonorous pole, midspheric harmony and choral majesty, and diapasening of wind and wave, speeding it on its far elliptic way, mid-vasty anthemings of night and day, oh cosmic cry of two eternities wherein we see the phantasms, death and life, that endless strife above the silence of a monster grave. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. A DREAM SHAPE by Madison Kawine, read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachuk. With moon-white hearts that held a gleam, I gathered wild flowers in a dream, and shaped a woman whose sweet blood was odor of the wild wood bud. From dew the starlight arrowed through, I wrought a woman's eyes of blue, the lids that on her eyeballs lay, were rose-pale petals of the may. Out of a rosebud's veins I drew the fragrant crimson beating through the languid lips of her whose kiss was as a puppy's drowsiness. Out of the moonlight and the air I wrought the glory of her hair that o'er her eyes blew heaven-lay like some gold cloud or dawn of day. I took the music of the breeze and water whispering in the trees, and shaped the soul that breathed below, a woman's blossom breasts of snow. A shadow's shadow in the glass of sleep my spirit saw her pass, and thinking of it now, me seems we only live within our dreams, for in that time she was to me more real than our reality, more real than earth, more real than I, the unreal things that pass and die. And a poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Old Barn, by Madison Cowine, read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuk. Low, swallow-swept and gray, between the orchard and the spring, all its wide windows overflowing hay, and crannied doors a-swing. The Old Barn stands today. Deep in its hay the leg-horn hides a round white nest and humming soft on roof and rafter, or its long rude sides, black in the sun-shot loft the building hornet glides. Along its corn-crib cautiously as thieving fingers skulks the rat, or in warped stalls of fragrant Timothy, gnaws at some loosened slat or passes shadowy. A dream of drought made audible, before its door hot harsh and shrill, all day the locust sings, what other spell shall hold it lazier still than the long days now tell. Dusk and the cricket and the strain of tree-toed and of frog, and stars that burn above the rich west's ribbit stain, and dropping pasture-bars, and cowbells up the lane. Night and the moon and Katie did, and leaf-lisp of the wind-touched bows, and mazy shadows that the fireflies thread, and sweet breath of the cows, and the lone owl here hid. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. THE WOODWITCH by Madison Cowine Red for LibriVox.org by Matthew D. Robinson There is a woodland witch who lies with blue-bright limbs and beam-bright eyes, among the water flags that rank the slowbrook's heron-haunted bank. The dragon flies in brass and blue, our sign she works her sorcery through. Weird wizard-character she weaves her spells with under forest leaves. These wait her word like imps upon the gray flag-pods, their wings of lawn and gauze, their bodies gleaming green. While o'er the wet sand left between the running water and the still, in pansy hues and daffodil, the fancies that she doth devise assume the forms of butterflies, rich-colored, and to she who hear whose sleepy rune hummed in the ear of silence bees and beetles purr, and the dry-droning locusts were, till where the wood is very lone, vague monotone meets monotone, and slumber is begot and borne, a fairy child beneath the thorn. There is no mortal who may scorn the witchery she spreads around her dim domain, wherein is bound the beauty of abandoned time, as some sweet thought twix rhyme and rhyme. And through her spells you shall behold the blue-turn gray, the gray-turn gold of hollow heaven, and the brown of twilight vistas twinkled down with fireflies, and in the gloom feel the cool vowels of perfume slow-syllable of weed and bloom. But in the night at languid rest, when like a spirit's naked breast the moon slips from a silver mist, with star-bound brow and star- wreathed wrist, if you should see her rise and wave you welcome, ah, what thing could save you then, forevermore her slave. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. May by Madison Kawine, redforlibbervox.org The golden discs of the rattlesnake weed that spangled woods and dance, no gleam of gold that the twilight's hold is strong as their necromanse, for under the oaks where the woodpaths lead, the golden discs of the rattlesnake weed are the may's own utterance. The azure stars of the blue-wit bloom that sprinkle the woodland's trance, no blink of blue that a cloud lets through is sweet as their countenance, for over the knolls that the woods perfume, the azure stars of the blue-wit bloom are the light of the may's own glance. With her wondering words and her looks she comes in a sunbeam of a gown. She needs but think and the blossoms wink, but look and they shower down. By orchard ways where the wild bee hums, with her wondering words and her looks she comes like a little maid to town. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Rain by Madison Carwine. Read for leapivox.org by Alan Lawley. Around the stillness deepened then the grain, went wild with wind, and every briary lane was swept with dust and then tempentuous black. Hillward the tempest heaved the monster back, but on the thunder leaned as on a cane, and on huge shoulders bore a cloudy pack that gold-gold from many a lightning crack when great drops splashed and wrinkled down the pain and then filled hill and wood were lost in rain. At last through clouds as from a cavern hewn into night's heart the sun burst angry room and every cedar with its weight of wet against the sunset's fury splendor set startled to beauty seemed with ruby strewn. Then in trench gardens like sweet phantoms met dim odour's rose of pink and minuet and in the east a confidence that soon grew to the calm assurance of the moon. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Fall by Madison Carwine. Read for leapivox.org by the letter A. Sad hearted spirit of the solitudes who come as through the ruined wetted woods. Grey gowned in fog, gold girdled with the gloom of tawny sunsets, burdened with perfume of rain-wet uplands, chilly with the mist, and all the beauty of the fire kissed, cold forests crimsoning thy indolent way, odorous of death and drowsy with decay. I think of thee as seated with the showers of languid leaves that cover up the flowers, the little flower's sisterhoods, whom June once gave wild sweetness to. As to a tune a singer gives her soul's wild melody. Watching the squirrel store his granary, or mid-old orchards, I have pictured thee. Thy hair's profusion blown about thy back, one lovely shoulder bathed with gypsy black. Upon thy palm, one nestling cheek, and sweet the rosy russets tumbled at thy feet. Was it a voice lamenting for the flowers, or heart-sick bird that sang of happier hours, a cricket dirging days that soon must die, or did the ghost of summer wander by? End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Sunset in Autumn by Madison Cowain, read for LibriVox.org by Sonya. Sunset in Autumn. Blood-colored oaks that stand against a sky of golden brass, gaunt slopes on which the bleak leaves glow of briar and sassafras, and broom-setched strips of smoky pink and pearl-gray clumps of grass, in which, beneath the ragged sky, the rain-pools gleam like glass. From west to east, from wood to wood, along the forest side, the winds, the sowers of the Lord, with thunderous footsteps dried, their stormy hands rain acorns down, and mad leaves wildly died, like tatters of their rushing cloaks stream round them far and wide. The frail leaf-cricket in the weeds sounds it far fairy-bell, and like a torch of phantom ray, the milk-weeds' windy shell glimmers, while wrapped in rithered dreams, the wet-autumnal smell of loam and leaf, like fall's own ghost, steels over field and dell. The oaks, against the copper sky, o' which, like some black lake of this, bronze clouds, like surges fringed with sullen fire, break, loom somber as dooms citadel, above the veils that make a pathway to a land of mist, the moon's pale feet shall take. Now, dyed with burning car-bunkle, a limbo-litten pane, red in wild walls of storm, the west opens to hill and plain, on which the wild geese ink themselves a far triangle train, and then the shattering clouds close down, and night it comes again. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Content by Madison Cowine, read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. When I behold how some pursue fame that is Care's embodiment, or fortune whose false face looks true, and humble home with sweet content is all I ask for me and you, and humble home where pigeons coo, whose path leads under breezy lines of frosty-buried cedars to a gate, one mass of trumpet vines, is all I ask for me and you. A garden which all summer through the roses old make redolent, and morning glories gay of hue, and tansy with its homely scent is all I ask for me and you. An orchard that the pippins strew, from whose bruised gold the juices spring. A vineyard where the grapes hang blue, wine big and ripe for the vintagey, is all I ask for me and you. A lane that leads to some far view of forest or of fallow land, loom door of rose and meadow rue, each with a bee in its hot hand, is all I ask for me and you. Hed morn a pathway deep with dew, and birds that vary time and tune, at eve a sunset avenue, and whipper-wheels that haunt the moon, is all I ask for me and you. Dear heart, with wants so small in few, and faith that's better far than gold, a lowly friend, a child or two, to care for us when we are old, is all I ask for me and you. In the poem, this recording is in the public domain. Long hosts of sunlight, and the bright wind blows, a turny trumpet on the listed hill, past is the splendour of the royal rose, and touches Staffordill. Crowned queen of beauty in the garden space, strong daughter of a bitter race and bold, a ragged beggar, with a lovely face, reigns the sad merry gold. And I, who saw June's butterfly for days, now find it, like a choreopsis bloom, ember and seal, rain murdered neath the blaze of this sunflower's plume. Here drones the bee, and there sky-voyaging wings, there the blue gulls of heaven. The last song, the red bird flings me as a dew, still rings upon that pear-tree's prong. No angry sunset brims with rubier red, the bowl of heaven than the days, indeed, pour in the blossoms of this salvia-bed, where each leaf seems to bleed. And where the wood-net stands, a little mist, above the efforts of the weedy stream, the girl, October, tired of the twist, dreams a divine adreem. One foot just dipping the caressing wave, one knee at languid angle, locks that drown, hands nut-stained, hazel-eyed, she lies and grave, watching the leaves drift down. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Discovery by Madison Cowain, read for LibriVox.org, by Sonja. Discovery. What is it now that I shall seek, where woods dip downward in the hills, a mossy nook, a phony creek, and may among the death-or-deals? Or in the valleys this that glow, past rocks of terrors trumpet vines, shall I behold her coming slow, sweet may, among the column vines? With red-butt cheeks and blue-et eyes, big eyes, the homes of happiness, to meet me with the old surprise, her hoidon hair, all bonad-less. Who waits for me, where note for note the birds make glad the forest-trees, a dog would blossom at her throat, my may among the anemones? As sweetheart breezes kiss the blooms, and dew-drops drink the moon's bright beams, my soul shall kiss her lips perfumes, and drain the magic of her dreams. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Old Spring, by Madison Cowain, read for LibriVox.org, by Sonja. The Old Spring. Under rocks whereon the rose like a strip of morning glows, where the azure-throated nude jouses on the twisted root, and the brown bees, humming homeward, stop to suck the honey-dew, fern and leaf-hid, gleaming gloamward, drips the wildwood spring I knew, drips the spring my boyhood knew. Murr and music everywhere haunt its cascades, like the hair that a naïat tosses cool, swimming strangely beautiful, with white fragrance for her bosom, and her mouth a breath of song, under leaf and branch and blossom, flows the woodland spring along, sparkling, singing flows along. Still the wet one mornings touch its gray rocks, perhaps, and such slender stars as dusk may have, pierce the rose that roofs its wave. Still the thrush may call at noontide, and the whipple-will at night, nevermore, by sun or moontide, shall I see it gliding white, falling, flowing, wild, and white. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Forest Spring by Madison Cowain, read for LibriVox.org by Sonya. The Forest Spring Push back the brambles, berry blue, the hollowed spring is full in view, deep-tangled with luxuriant fern ripples its rock-embedded urn. Not for the loneliness that keeps the coin wherein its crystal sleeps, not for wild butterflies that sway their pansy pinions all the day, above its mirror, nor the bee, nor dragonfly that passing see themselves reflected in its spar, not for the one white liquid star that twinkles in its firmament, nor moonshot clouds so slowly centethward it when the kindly night beats its long grasses with the light, small jewels of the dimpled dew, not for the days inverted blue, not a quaint, dimly-colored stones that dance within it where it moans, not for all these I love to sit in silence and to gaze in it. But lo! a nymph with merry eyes greets mine within its laughing skies, a glimmering, shimmering nymph who plays all the long fragrant summer days with instant sights of bees and birds and talks with them in water words, and for whose nakedness the air weaves moony mists, and on whose hair unfiltered the night will set that lone star as a coronet. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Hills by Madison Cowain, read for LibriVox.org by Sonya. The Hills There is no joy of earth that thrills my bosom like the far-off hills, the unchanging hills that shadowy beckon our mutability to follow and to gaze upon foundations of the dusk and dawn. Me seems the very heavens are massed upon their shoulders, vague and vast, with all the skyy burden of the winds and clouds and stars above. Lo! how they sit before us, seeing the laws that give all beauty being, behold! to them, when dawn draws near, the nomads of the air appear, unfolding crimson camps of day in brilliant bands, then march away, and under burning battlements of evening plant their tinted tents. The truth of olden myths that brood by haunted stream and haunted wood they see and feel the happiness of old, at which we only guess. The dreams the ancients loved and knew, still as their rocks and trees are true, not otherwise than presences, the tempest and the calm to these. One shouting on them all the night, black-limbed and veined with lambent light, the other with the ministry of all soft things that company with music whose embodied form fills all the solitude with charm of leaves and waters and the peace of bird-peacotten melodies, and who at night does still confer with the mild moon that tell us her pale tale of lonely love until one shadows of her passion fill the heights with shapes that glimmer by, clad on with sleep and memory. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Song of the Thrush by Madison Cowain, read for LibriVox.org by Sonya. The Song of the Thrush. Overhead, overhead a woodthrush flutes, and it seems to me all the sweet words in the world, married to melody, could not express what its few wild notes inspired, and simple and free express say to me of expectation and woodland mystery, dreams and wonder visions never appearing, remote and unattainably beautiful. O indescribable Song, Song of the Wild Brown Thrush, O June, O Love, O Youth, of you, of you it speaks to me, of the lost, the irremediable, the indescribably fair and far and yet to be found, the mysteriously hidden too, the lure of the indescoverable, calling, calling, bidding me on and on in the voice of all my longings, down the dim, the deep, the cadenced aisles of the forest. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Transmutation by Madison Cowain, read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. To me all beauty that I see as melody made visible, an earth translated state may be of music heard in heaven or hell. Out of some love and passion strain of saints, the rose evolved its bloom and dreaming of it here again perhaps relives it as perfume. Out of some chant the demon sing of hate and pain, the sunset grew and happily still remembering relives it here as some wild hue. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Thrust by Madison Cowain, read for LibriVox.org by Cornel Nemes Rino Nevada. Magician he who, autumn nights, down from the starry darkness worlds, heaven's harlequin whose spangled tides and wand are powder thick with pearls, through him each pain presents a scene, a lily-putian landscape where the world is white instead of green and trees and houses hang in air, where elfings gamble and delight and bow the jeweled bells of flowers, where upside down we see the night with the many moons and meteor showers, and surely in his wand and hand lies Mita's magic, for behold some morn we wake and find the land both field and forest turned to gold. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Adventurous by Madison Cowain, read for LibriVox.org by Sonja. Adventurous. Seemingly over the hill-tops, possibly under the hills, a tireless wing that never drops and a song that never stills. Epics heard on the star slips, lyrics read in the dew, to sing the song at our fingertips and live the world anew. Cavaliers of the Corteskind, bold and free and strong, and owe for a fine and muscular mind to sing a new world song. Sailing seas of the silver morn, blown of its balm and spice, to put the old world art to scorn at the price of any price. Danger, death, but the hope high, gods though the purpose fail, into the deeds of a vast sky, sailing a dauntless sail. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Invocation by Madison Cowain, read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. O life, O death, O God, have we not striven? Have we not known thee, God, as thy stars know heaven? Have we not held thee true, true as thy deepest wheat and immaculate blue heaven, whence reigns thy dew? Have we not known thee, true, O God, who keepest? O God, our Father God, who gave us to fire, to rise above the sod, to soar, aspire. What though we strive and strive, and all our souls say, live, will not the scorn of men like some wild bird again falcon it down with sneers, as often in past years? And, O sun-centered high, thou too, who art put beneath thy seen sky, each day new kites die, crying, Why should we try, that which we seek's a lie? Why is this so? Oh, why? Thou who disknow it? We know thee beautiful, we know thee bitter, help thou. Men's eyes are dull, O God, most beautiful, make thou their souls less full of things mere glitter. Does thou not see our tears? Does thou not hear the years treading our hearts to shards? O Lord of all lords, give heed, O God of hosts, there mid thy glorious ghosts most high and holy, have mercy on our tears, have mercy on our years, our strivings and our fears. O Lord of lordly peers, on us, O lowly. On us so fondly feigned to tell what mother pain of nature haunts the rain. On us so glad to show what sorrow wings the snow, and her wild winds that blow. Us who interpret right her mystic rows of light, her moony rune of night. Us who have utterance for each warm, flame-hearted star that stammeres from afar. Who hears the tears in size of every bud that dies, while heavens do on it lies. Who see the power that dowers the wild wood bosques and bowers with musk and sap of flowers. Who see what no man sees in water, earth, and breeze, and in the hearts of trees. Turn not away thy light, O God. Our strength is slight. Help us who breast the height. Have mercy, infinite. Have mercy. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Death of Love by Madison Cowine, read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. So love is dead. The love we knew of old, and in the sorrow of our hearts hushed halls, a loot flies broken, and a rose flower falls. Love's house stands empty, and his heart lies cold, lone in dim places where sweet vows were told, in walks grown desolate by ruined walls, beauty decays. And on their pedestals dreams crumble, and the immortal gods are mold, music is lame or sleeps. One voice alone. One voice awakens, and like a wandering ghost haunts all the echoing chambers of the past. The voice of memory that stills to stone, the soul that hears. The mind that utterly lost before its beautiful presence stands a cast. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain.