 Allurement by Margaret Steele Anderson Red for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachuk From yonder hedge, from yonder spray He calls me onward and away Broad lies the world and fair to see The cuckoo calls is calling me I have not seen nor heard of care Who used my very bed to share Since at first morn when eerily The cuckoo calling called to me My sweet heart's face I have forgot my mother But she calls me not From that green bank, from that dimly The cuckoo calls is calling me And I must go, I may not choose No gain there is nor ought to lose And soon, ah soon, on some wild tree The bird sits long and waits for me End of poem This recording is in the public domain Amorete Sittanta Fresh Spring, The Herald of Love's Mighty King By Edmund Spencer Red for LibriVox.org by Kevin S Fresh Spring, The Herald of Love's Mighty King In whose coat armor richly are displayed All sorts of flowers the witch on earth Do spring and goodly colors gloriously arrayed Go to my love where she is careless laid Yet in her winter's bower not well awake Tell her the joyous time will not be stayed Unless she do him by the forelock take Bid her therefore herself soon ready make To wait on love amongst his lovely crew Where every one that miseth then her make Shall be by him immersed with penance due Make haste therefore, sweet love, whilst it is prime For none can call again the passage time End of poem This recording is in the public domain Analgesia by Anonymous Red for LibriVox.org by Sonia Analgesia with Mr. Punch's best wishes for the speedy recovery of the French president President Deschanel was compelled to take several analgesia caches. Analgesia is a condition in which there is incapacity of feeling pain. Evening paper. Unhappily through excess of cake In childhood's days of fun and frolic I suffered from that local ache Known to the faculty as colic Or if across the foe, my fared, And was invariably seasick How much distress had I been spared Just by a simple analgesic. In the headmasters' awesome den His cane poised over me palely bending A lozenge deftly swallowed then Had eased the smart of its descending. Thus might I have indulged in rags Immune from every sore corrective Nor need I then have stuffed my bags With notebooks often ineffective. Henceforth in any sort of fuss Lives little incidental dramas As when one bolts a motor-bus Or leaps from trains in one's pajamas I'll take a tabloid Deschanel, so much to me Your agile featment L'example présidentielle Lends quite a cachet to the treatment. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. An April Aria by George Parsons Lathrop Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuk. When the mornings dankly fall With the dim forethought of rain, And the robins richly call To their mates mercurial, And the tree boughs creak and strain In the wind, when the rivers rough With foam, and the new-made clearing smoke, And the clouds that go and come Shine and darken frolicsome, And the frogs at evening croak Undefined mysteries of monotone, And by melting beds of snow, Windflowers blossom all alone Then I know that the bitter winter's dead. Over his head the damp sod breaks so mellow It's mosses tipped with points of yellow I cannot but be glad, Yet this sweet mood will borrow Something of a sweeter sorrow To touch and turn me sad. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. As the team's head brass, By Edward Thomas, read for LibriVox.org by Kevin S., As the team's head brass splashed out on the turn The lovers disappeared into the wood. I sat him on the boughs of the fallen elm That strewed an angle of the fallow, And watched the plow narrowing a yellow square of Sherlock. Every time the horses turned Instead of treading me down, the plowman leaned upon the handles To say or ask a word about the weather, Next about the war. Scraping the share he faced towards the wood, And screwed along the furrow till the brass flashed once more. The blizzard felled the elm whose crest I sat in by a woodpecker's round hole, The plowman said. When will they take it away? When the war's over. So the talk began. One minute and an interval of ten. A minute more and the same interval. Have you been out? No. And don't want to, perhaps? If I could only come back again, I should. I could spare an arm. Shouldn't want to lose a leg. If I should lose my head, why so? I should want nothing more. Have many gone from here? Yes. Many lost? Yes, a good few. Only two teams work on the farm this year. One of my mates is dead. The second day in France they killed him. It was back in March. The very night of the blizzard, too. Now, if he had stayed here, we should have moved the tree. And I should not have sat here. Everything would have been different. For it would have been another world. I and a better, though if we could see all, all might seem good. Then the lovers came out of the wood again. The horses started, and for the last time I watched the clods crumble and topple over after the plowshare and the stumbling team. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Aunt Helen by T.S. Eliot, read for LibriVox.org by Cornel Nemes, Reno, Nevada. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Chamomile Tea by Catherine Mansfield, read for LibriVox.org by Thomas Peter. Outside the sky is light with stars. There's a hollow roaring from the sea, and alas, for the little almond flowers. The wind is shaking the almond tree. How little I thought a year ago in that horrible cottage upon the lee that he and I should be sitting so and sipping a cup of Chamomile Tea. Light as feathers, the witches fly. The horn of the moon is plain to see. By a firefly under a jonquil flower a goblin toasts a bumblebee. We might be fifty. We might be five. So snug, so compact, so wise are we. Under the kitchen table leg, my knee is pressing against his knee. Our shutters are shut. The fire is low. The tap is dripping peacefully. The sospin shadows on the wall are black and round and plain to see. The End of Poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, read for LibriVox.org by Ian King and Newgate Novelist. Dying in his absence abroad and referring to the poem in which he recorded the sweetness of her eyes. On the door you will not enter. I have gazed too long, adieu. Hope withdraws her per adventure. Death is near me, and not you. Come, O lover, close and cover these poor eyes you called Iween. Sweetest eyes were ever seen. When I heard you sing that burden in my vernal days and bowers, other praises disregarding, I but hearkened that of yours. Only saying, in heart playing, Blessed eyes, mine eyes have been, if the sweetest his have seen. But all changes. At this vesper, cold the sun shines down the door. If you stood there, would you whisper, Love, I love you. As before, death pervading now and shading eyes you sang of, That, yestrine, has the sweetest ever seen. Yes, I think were you beside them near the bed I die upon, though their beauty you denied them as you stood there, looking down. You would truly call them duly, for the love's sake found therein. Sweetest eyes were ever seen. And if you looked down upon them, and if they looked up to you, all the light which has forgone them would be gathered back anew. They would truly be as duly love transformed to beauty's sheen. Sweetest eyes were ever seen. But, Ami, you only see me in your thoughts of loving man, smiling soft, perhaps, and dreamy, through the wavings of my fan, and unwitting, go repeating in your reverie, Sirene. Sweetest eyes were ever seen. While my spirit leans and reaches from my body still and pale, feign to hear what tender speech is in your love to help my bail. O my poet, come and show it. Come of latest love to glean. Sweetest eyes were ever seen. O my poet, O my prophet, when you praised their sweetness so, did you think, in singing of it, that it might be near to go? Had you fancies from their glances, that the grave would quickly screen sweetest eyes were ever seen? No reply. The fountain's warble in the courtyard sounds alone. As the water to the marble, so my heart falls with a moan from love sighing to this dying, death for runneth love to win. Sweetest eyes were ever seen. Will you come, when I'm departed, where all sweetnesses are hid, where thy voice, my tender hearted, will not lift up either lid? Cry, O lover, love is over. Cry beneath the cypress green. Sweetest eyes were ever seen. When the angelus is ringing near the convent will you walk, and recall the choral singing which brought angels down our talk? Spirit shriven, I viewed heaven till you smiled. Is earth unclean? Sweetest eyes were ever seen. When beneath the palace lattice you ride slow as you have done, and you see a face there that is not the old familiar one. Will you oftly, murmur softly? Here ye watched me, mourn and aean. Sweetest eyes were ever seen. When the palace ladies sitting round your gitan shall have said, Poet, sing those verses written for the lady who is dead. Will you tremble yet to assemble, or sing hoarse with tears between? Sweetest eyes were ever seen. Sweetest eyes, how sweet in flowings the repeated cadences, though you sang a hundred poems, still the best one would be this. I can hear it, twist my spirit, and the earth-noise intervene. Sweetest eyes were ever seen. But the priest waits for the praying, and the choir are on their knees, and the soul must pass away in strains more solemn high than these. Miserere for the weary. Oh, no longer for Catrine. Sweetest eyes were ever seen. Keep my ribboned, take and keep it. I have loosed it from my hair, feeling, while you overweep it, not alone in your despair. Since with saintly watch unfaintly, out of heaven shall owe you lean. Sweetest eyes were ever seen. But, but now, yet unremove it up to heaven, they glisten fast. You may cast away, beloved, in your future, all my past. Such old phrases may be praises for some fairer bosom queen. Sweetest eyes were ever seen. Eyes of mine, what are you doing? Faithless, faithless, praised amiss, if a tear beyond your showing dropped for any hope of his. Death has boldness, besides coldness, if unworthy tears to mean. Sweetest eyes were ever seen. I will look out to his future. I will bless it till it shine. Should he ever be a suitor, unto sweeter eyes than mine, sunshine gild them, angels shield them, whatsoever rise terrine. Be the sweetest his have seen. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allan Poe. Read for LibriVox.org by Cornel Nemesh. Reno, Nevada. Lo, this is a gala night within the lonesome latter years. An angel tronged, bewinged, bedied in veils and drowned in tears. Sit in a theater to see a play of hopes and fears, while the orchestra breathes fitfully the music of the spheres. Mimes in the form of god on high, mutter and mumble low. And hither and thither fly, mere puppets day who come and go at bidding of vast, formless things, that shift the scenery to and fro, flapping from out their conder wings in a visible wall. Oh, that motley drama, oh, be sure it shall not be forgot, with its phantom chase forevermore by a crowd that size it not, through a circle that ever returned into the self-same spot. And much of madness and more of sin and horror, the soul of the plot. But see, amid the mimic-route, a growling shape intrude. A blood-red thing that rides from out the scenic solitude. It rides, it rides with mortal pangs, the mimes become its food. And seraph sob, adverming fangs in human gore, imbued. Out, out are the lights, out all. And over each quivering form, the curtain, a funeral pole, comes down. With the rush of a storm, while the angels, all pallid in the one, uprising unveiling, affirm that the play is the tragedy. Man, and it's hero, the conqueror worm. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Consolation of the Night by Carl Johann Philipp Spitter. Translated by H. Phillips Jr. Read for LibriVox.org, when you get novelist. More no more, thou saddened child. More no more, thy life so young. Many a pleasure must run wild. Many a grief be sadly sung. Doth the day dawn, beautyous break, far off colours, sparkling blend? More no more, if night or take. Story heaven is still night's friend. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Down by the Sea by Rebecca Ruter Springer. Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. Down by the Sea, down by the Sea, our spirits partake of its mystery. Our souls are uplifted and float away to the beautiful realms of cloudless day, while strains of melody soft and low come with the waves in their solemn flow. The world has no charms there for you or for me, and we almost wonder if evil can be down by the sea. Down by the sea, down by the sea that Christ who died for you and me, while yet upon earth oftentimes would walk, and with his loved disciples talk, he must have loved its solemn tongues, even its tempest and his moans, for oft he sought on vended knee the Father's loving face to see, down by the sea. Down by the sea, down by the sea the wonderful men of Galilee, the hungry thousands who begged for bread from five small loaves were amply fed, and when their hunger was satisfied by him whom soon they crucified, he taught them, oh so tenderly, lessons of trust and charity, down by the sea. Down by the sea, down by the sea he healed the sick, made the blind to see, the lame to walk, and the dumb to sing praises to Jesus their Lord and King. Devils cast out till they begged to flee with the frightened swine down into the sea, down by the sea. Once when a storm raged o'er the deep within the ship he lay asleep, but when the frightened sailors cried to him for help their bark to guide, he calmed the tempest by his will, said to the mad waves, peace be still. At once his voice the waves obey, and in the haven the good ship lay down by the sea. Once in the midnight dark and lone a soft light through the tempest shone, and as they called upon his name walking on stormy waves he came, and when a frightened still they prayed, he called his eye, be not afraid. Ah, blessed voice they calms each fear, when winds are high and storms are near upon life's sea. Down by the sea, down by the sea I whisper, save your come to me, unseal my eyes that I may see the pathway thou dismarked for me. Guide my poor stumbling feet and show them how with thee to safely go. Unloose my faltering tongue to sing the praises of my Savior King, and let my holiest lessons be taught me from day to day by thee down by the sea. Down by the sea the crystal sea where all the redeemed shall be, where you and I beloved shall go, our crimson robes washed white as snow. In Christ's dear blood what hymns of praise through countless angels we shall raise. There are all our loved ones we shall see. Think what a meeting that will be, down by the sea. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. And two by two. On they passed, and on they passed, town fellows all, from the first to the last, born in the moonlight of the lane, quenched in the heavy shadow again. Schoolmates marching as when we played at soldiers once, but now more stayed. Those were the strangest sights to me, who were drowned, I knew, in the awful sea. Straight and handsome folk, bent and weak, too. Some that I loved, and gasped to speak to. Some but a day in their churchyard bed, some that I had not known were dead. A long, long crowd, where each seemed lonely. Yet of them all there was one, one only, raised ahead, or looked my way. She lingered for a moment, she might not stay. How long since I saw that fair pale face, ah, mother dear, might I only place my head on thy breast a moment to rest, while thy hand, on my cheerful cheek, were pressed. On, on, a moving bridge they made, across the moon-stream, from shade to shade. Young and old women and men, many long forgotten, but remembered then. And first there came a bitter laughter, a sound of tears the moment after, and then a music so lofty and gay that every morning, day by day, I strived to recall it, if I may. And of poem. This reading is in the public domain. With thee, O, let me rise, as larks harmoniously, and sing this day thy victories, then shall the fall further the flight in me. My tender age and sorrow did begin, and still with sickness and shame, thou disso punnest sin, that I became most thin. With thee, let me combine and feel thy victory, for if I imp my wing on thine, affliction shall advance the flight in me. And of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Let me sing Germania's glory, hearken to my noblest strains, while my spirit tells the story, thrilling bliss runs through my veins. Time's book is before me lying, all things that have happened here, good with evil ever vying, all before my gaze stands clear. From the Frenchman's distant nation, hell approached with impious hand, bringing shame and desecration on our much-loved German land. All our faith and virtue soiling, all our heavenly yearnings fled, all we deemed of worth dispoiling, giving sin and pain instead. German shame to Gild refusing, dark the German sun soon grew, and a mournful voice accusing pierced the German oak trees through. Now the sun once more is glancing, and the oak trees roar with joy. The avengers are advancing, shame and sorrow to destroy. And deceits, proud altars, hateful totter, fall with hideous sound. Every German heart is grateful, free is German holy ground. Seeest the glare, yon mountain alluming? See, what can that wild flame be? Yes, that fire proclaims the blooming image pure of Germany. From the night of sin emerging, Germany uninjured stands. Wildly is the spot still surging, where that fair form burst her bands. On the old oak stems in splendor glorious blossoms fast unfold, foreign blossoms fall, and tender breezes greet us as of old. All that's virtuous is returning, all that's good appears once more, and the German, fondly yearning, is exulting as of yore. Ancient manners, ancient German virtues, and heroic deeds, valiantly each son of Hermon waves his sword and proudly bleeds. Heroes never doves in gender, lion like is Hermon's race, yet may love's religion tender, while near Valor take its place. Germans, through their sorrows lonely, learned price gentle word to prize. Their land genders brethren only, and humanity is wise. Once again returns the glorious noble love of Minstrel's song, while becoming the victorious breasts of German heroes strong. As they to the war are going with the Frank to cross the sword, to take signal vengeance glowing for their perfidity abhorred. And at home no labor-heating woman plies her gentle hand, tins the sacred wounds all bleeding in defense of fatherland. In her black dress-robed, entrancing looks the beauteous German dame, decked with flowers and jewels glancing, diamond girded to her frame. But a nobler, prouder feeling threw me at her vision thrills, when beside the sick bed kneeling acts of mercy she fulfills. Heavenly angels she resembles when the last drought she supplies to the wounded man, who trembles, smiles his grateful thanks, and dies. He to whom to die tis given on the battlefield is blessed, but a foretaste tis of heaven dying on a woman's breast. Poor, poor sons of France, fate ever unto you unkind has been. On the scenes banks beauty never save in search of gold is seen. German women, German women, what a charm the words convey. German women, German women, flourish on for many a day. All our daughters like Louisa, all our sons like Frederick B., hear me in the grave, Louisa, ever flourish, Germany. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Gone. By Adam Lindsay Gordon. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuk. In Cullen Street standeth a statue tall, a statue tall on a pillar of stone, telling its story to great and small of the dust reclaimed from the sand-waste loan. Weary and wasted and worn and won, feeble and faint and languid and low, he lay on the desert a dying man, who has gone, my friends, where we all must go. There are perils by land and perils by water. Short, I wean, are the obsequies of the landsmen lost, but they may be shorter, with the mariner lost in the trackless seas. And well for him, when the timbers start, and the stout ship reels and settles below, who goes to his doom with as bold a heart as that dead man gone, where we all must go. Man is stubborn his rights to yield, and redder than dews at eventide, are the dews of battle, shared on the field by a nation's wrath or a despot's pride. But few who have heard their death knell roll, from the cannon's lips where they faced the foe, have fallen as stout and steady of soul, as that dead man gone, where we all must go. Traverse, yonspacious burial ground, many are sleeping soundly there, who passed with mourners standing around, kindred and friends and children fair. Did he envy such ending? Twer hard to say. Had he caused to envy such ending? No, can the spirit feel for the senseless clay, when it once has gone, where we all must go. What matters the sand, or the whitening chalk, the blighted herbage, the blackening log, the crooked beak of the eagle-hawk, or the hot red tongue of the native dog, that couch was rugged, those sextons rude, yet in spite of a leaden shroud, we know that the bravest and fairest are earthworms' food, when once they've gone, where we all must go. With the pistol clenched in his failing hand, with the death mist spread or his fading eyes, he saw the sun go down on the sand, and he slept, and never saw it rise. T'was well. He toiled till his task was done, constant and calm in his latest throw. The storm was weathered, the battle was won, when he went, my friends, where we all must go. God grant that whenever, soon or late, our courses run, and our goal is reached, we may meet our fate as steady and straight, as he whose bones in yon desert bleached. No tears are needed, our cheeks are dry, we have none to waste upon living woe. Shall we sigh for one who has ceased to sigh, having gone, my friends, where we all must go. We tarry yet, we are toiling still, he is gone, and he fares the best. He fought against odds, he struggled uphill, he has fairly earned his season of rest. No tears are needed, fill out the wine, let the goblets clash, and the grape juice flow. Ho, pledge me a death drink, comrade mine, to a brave man gone where we all must go. And a poem, this recording is in the public domain. Yarn, thereon spun of thy wheel. Make me thy loom, then, knit therein this twine, and make thy Holy Spirit, Lord, wind quills. Then weave the web thyself, the yarn is fine. Thine ordinances make my fulling mills. Then dye the same in heavenly colors choice, all pinked with varnished flowers of paradise. Then clothe therewith mine understanding, will, affections, judgment, conscience, memory. My words and actions that their shine may fill my ways with glory, and thee glorify. Then mine apparel shall display before ye, that I am clothed in holy robes for glory. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. I know that I shall meet my fate, somewhere among the clouds above. Those that I fight, I do not hate. Those that I guard, I do not love. My country is Kiltarton Cross. My countrymen, Kiltarton's poor. No likely end could bring them loss, or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty, bad me fight. Nor public man, nor cheering crowds. A lonely impulse of delight drove to this tumult in the clouds. I balanced all, brought all to mind. The years to come seemed waste of breath, a waste of breath the years behind, in balance with this life, this death. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. I sing not of wars nor invasions. I tell you a merry tale, how Fisher and Covey were mad, sir, and sent all the people to jail. But Covey could not bear a rival. She thought it a terrible case, that first they should gaze on Kate Fisher, and then come and stare in her face. Indeed, if I were but misgunning, they might have done just as they chose. But now I am merry to Covey, they shall not tread on my toes. I'll make my case known to the king, the monarch I know he adores me, and won't suffer any such thing. Then straightway to court she retakes her. I'm come, sir, to make my complaint. I can't walk in the park for your subjects, they stare without any restraint. Shut, shut up the park, I beseech you. Lay a text upon staring so hard. Or if you're afraid to do that, sir, I'm sure you will grant me a guard. The boon thus requested was granted. The warriors were drawn up with care. With my slaves and my guards I'm surrounded. Come stare at me now if you dare. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Ladies Body Down by Anonymous Read for LibriVox.org by Sonya Ladies Body Down I know moonrise, I know star-rise. Ladies Body Down I walk in the moonlight, I walk in the star-light, to lay this body down. I walk in the graveyard, I walk through the graveyard, to lay this body down. I lie in the grass and stretch out my arms. Ladies Body Down I go to the judgment in the evening of the day, when I lay this body down. And my soul and your soul will meet in the day, when I lay this body down. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Locksley Hall by Alfred Lord Tennyson Read for LibriVox.org by Josh Kibbe Comrades, leave me here a little while as yet is early morn. Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle horn. Tis the place and all around it, as evolved the Curlew's call, dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall. Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracks, and the hollow ocean ridges roaring into cataracts. Many a night from yonder ivy decasement, air I went to rest, did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the west. Many a night I saw the pleads rising through the mellow shade, glitter like a swarm of fireflies tangled in a silver braid. Here about the beach I wandered, nourishing a youth sublime, with the fairy tales of science in the long result of time. When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed, when I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed. When I dipped into the future far as human I could see, saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that would be. In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast, in the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest. In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove, in the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. Then her cheek was pale and thinner, then should be for one so young, and her eyes on all my emotions with the mute observance hung. And I said, my cousin, Amy, speak, and speak the truth to me, trust me, cousin, all the current of my being sets to thee. On her pallid cheek and forehead came a color and a light, as I have seen the rosy red fleshing in the northern light. And she turned, her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs, all the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes, saying, I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong, saying, dost thou love me, cousin? Weeping, I have loved thee long. Love took up the glass of time, and turned it in his glowing hands. Every moment lightly shaken ran itself in golden sands. Love took up the harp of life, and smote on all the cords with might, smote the cord of self, that trembling past in music out of sight. Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring, and her whisper thronged my pulses with the fullness of the spring. Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, and our spirits rushed together at the touching of the lips. Oh, my cousin, shallow-hearted, oh, my Amy, mine no more! Oh, the dreary, dreary moorland, oh, the barren, barren shore! Falser than all fancy fathoms, falser than all songs of song, puppet to a father's threat, and servile to a shrewish tongue. Is it well to wish thee happy, having known me, to decline, on a range of lower feelings and a narrower heart than mine? Yet it shall be, though shot lower to his level day by day, which is fine within the growing course to sympathize with clay. As the husband is, the wife is, thou art mated with a clown, and the grossness of his nature will have weight to drag thee down. He will hold thee, when his passion shall have spent its novel force, something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse. What is this? His eyes are heavy. Think not they are glazed with wine. Go to him. It is thy duty. Kiss him. Take his hand in thine. It may be my lord is weary, that his brain is overwrought. Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him with thy lighter thought. He will answer to the purpose, easy things to understand, better thou were dead before me, though I slew thee with my hand. Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the heart's disgrace, rolled in one another's arms, and silent in a last embrace. Cursed be the social wants, that sin against the strength of youth, cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth. Cursed be the sickly forms, that air from honest nature's rule, cursed be the gold that guilds the straightened forehead of the fool. Well, tis well that I should bluster, that's thou lessen worthy proved. Would do God, for I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved. Am I mad, that I should cherish that which bears but bitter fruit? I will pluck it from my bosom, though my heart be at the root. Never, though my mortal summers to such length of year should come, as the many wintered crow that leads the clanging rickery home. Where is comfort, in division of the records of the mind? Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I knew her kind? I remember one that perished, sweetly did she speak and move, such a one do I remember, whom to look at was to love. Can I think of her as dead, and love her for the love she bore? No. She never loved me truly. Love is love for evermore. Comfort? Comfort scorned of devils. This is truth the poet sings, that a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things. Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy heart be put to proof, in the dead unhappy night and when the rain is on the roof. Like a dog he hunts in dreams, and thou art staring at the wall, where the dying night lamp flickers, and the shadows rise and fall. Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing to his drunken sleep, to thy widowed marriage pillows, to the tears that thou wilt weep. Thou shall tear the never-never, whispered by the phantom years, and a song from out the distance, in the ringing of thine ears. And an eye shall vex thee, looking ancient kindness on thy pain, turn thee, turn thee on thy pillow, get thee to thy rest again. Nay, but nature brings thee solace, for a tender voice will cry, tis a purer life than thine, a lip to drain thy trouble dry. Baby lips will laugh me down, my latest rival brings thee rest. Baby fingers, wax and touches, press me from the mother's breast. Oh, the child, too, clothes the father with a dearness not his due. Half is thine and half is his, it will be worthy of the two. Oh, I see the old and formal, fitted to thy petty part, with a little horrid of maxims preaching down a daughter's heart. They were dangerous guides, the feelings, she herself was not exempt. Truly she herself had suffered, perish and thy self-contempt. Overlive it, lower yet, be happy, wherefore should I care? I myself must mix with action, lest I wither by despair. What is that which I should turn to, lighting upon days like these? Every door is barred with gold and opens but to golden keys. Every gate is thronged with suitors, all the markets overflow, I have but an angry fancy, what is that which I should do? I had been content to perish falling on the foeman's ground, when the ranks are rolled in vapor and the winds are laid with sound. But the jingling of the guinea helps the hurt that honour feels, and the nations do but murmur, snarling at each other's heels. Can I but relive in sadness? I will turn that earlier page, hide me from my deep emotion, oh thou wondrous mother age. Make me feel the wild pulsation that I felt before the strife, when I heard my days before me and the tumult of my life, yearning for the large excitement that the coming years would yield, eager hearted as a boy when first he leaves his father's field, and at night, along the dusky highway near and nearer drawn, sees in heaven the light of London flaring like a dreary dawn, and his spirit leaps within him to be gone before him then, underneath the light he looks at in among the throngs of men. Men, my brothers, men the workers ever reaping something new, that which they have done but earnest of the things that they shall do. For I dipped into the future far as human I could see, saw the vision of the world and all the wonder that would be. Saw the heavens fill with commerce, arguses of magic sails, pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales. Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there reigned a ghastly dew, from the nation's airy navies grappling in the central blue, far along the worldwide whisper of the south wind rushing warm, with the standards of the people plunging through the thunderstorm. To the war drum throbbed no longer, and the battle flags were furled, in the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World. There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, and the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law. So I triumphed ere my passion sweeping through me left me dry, left me with the pulsied heart, and left me with the jaundice to high. I, to which all order festers all things here are out of joint, science moves but slowly, slowly creeping on from point to point. Slowly comes a hungry people, as a lying creeping nire, glares at one that nods and winks behind a slowly dying fire. Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, and the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns. What is that to him that reaps not harvest of his youthful joys, though the deep heart of existence beat forever like a boy's? Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and I linger on the shore, and the individual withers and the world is more and more. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, full of sad experience moving toward the stillness of his rest. Hark! my merry comrades call me, sounding on the bugle horn, they to whom my foolish passion were a target for their scorn. Shall it not be scorn to me to harp on such a mouldered string? I am shamed through all my nature to have loved so slight a thing. Weakness to be wroth with weakness, woman's pleasure, woman's pain. Nature made them blinder motions bounded in a shallower brain. Woman is the lesser man, and all thy passions matched with mine are as moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine. Here, at least, where nature sickens, nothing. Ah, for some retreat, deep and yonder shining orient, where my life began to beat, where, in wild Morata battle, fell my father evil-starred, I was left to trample Dorphin, and his selfish uncle's ward, or to burst all links of habit, there to wander far away, on from island unto island at the gateways of the day. Larger constellations burning, mellow moons and happy skies, breaths of tropic shade and palms and cluster, knots of paradise. Never comes the traitor, never floats an European flag, slides the bird, or lustrous woodland swings the trailer from the crag. Droops the heavy blossomed bower, hangs the heavy-fruited tree, summer aisles of Eden lying in dark purple spheres of sea. There, me thinks would be enjoyment more than in this march of mind, in the steamship, in the railway, in the thoughts that shake mankind. There the passions cramped no longer shall have scope and breathing space. I will take some savage woman, she shall rear my dusky race. Iron-jointed, supple-synured, they shall dive and they shall run, catch the wild goat by the hair, and hurl their lances in the sun. Whistle back the parrot's call, and leap the rainbows of the brooks, not with blinded eyesight pouring over miserable books. Fool, again the dream, the fancy, but I know my words are wild, but I count the gray barbarian lower than the Christian child. I, to herd with narrow foreheads, vacant of glorious gains, like a beast with lower pleasures, like a beast with lower pains. Mated with a squalid savage, what to me were sun or climb? I, the heir of all the ages, in the foremost files of time. I, that rather held it better, men should perish one by one, than that earth should stand at gaze like Joshua's moon in Agilan. Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us range, let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change. Through the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger day, better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay. Mother Age, for mine I knew not, help me as when life begun. Rift the hills and roll the waters, flash the lightning's way the sun. Oh, I see the crescent promise of my spirit hath not set, ancient founts of inspiration well through all my fancy yet. Howsoever these things be, along farewell to Luxley Hall. Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof tree fall. Comes a vapor from the margin, blackening over Heathen Holt, cramming all the blast before it in its breast a thunderbolt. Let it fall on Luxley Hall with rain or hail or fire or snow, for the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Luxley Hall Sixty Years After by Alfred Lord Tennyson read for Librevox.org by Josh Kivvy. Late, my grandson. Half the morning have I paced these sandy tracks, watched again the hollow ridges roaring into cataracts, wandered back to living boyhood while I heard the curlews call, I myself so close on death, and death itself in Luxley Hall. So your happy suit was blasted, she the faultless, the divine. And you, like an boyish babble, this boy-love of yours with mine? I myself have often babbled doubtless of a foolish past. Babble, babble, our old England may go down in babble at last. Curse him, curse your fellow victim, call him dotered in your rage, eyes that lured a doting boyhood well might fool a dotered's age. Jilted for a wealthier, wealthier? Yet perhaps she was not wise. I remember how you kissed the miniature with those sweet eyes. In the hall there hangs a painting, Amy's arms about my neck. Happy children in a sunbeam sitting on the ribs of wreck. In my life there was a picture, she that clasped my neck had flown. I was left within the shadows sitting on the wreck alone. Yours has been a slighter ailment, will you sicken for her sake? You, not you, your modern amorest is of easier earthlier make. Amy loved me, Amy failed me, Amy was a timid child. But your Judith, but your worldling, she hath never driven me wild. She that holds the diamond necklace dear than the golden ring. She that finds a winter sunset fair than a morn of spring. She that in her heart is brooding on his briefer lease of life, while she vows till death shall part us. She the would-be widow-wife. She the worldling born of worldlings. Father, mother, be content. Even the homely farm can teach us there is something in descent. Yonder in that chapel, slowly sinking now into the ground, lies the warrior, my forefather, with his feet upon the hound. Crossed, for once he sailed the sea to crush the Muslim in his pride. Dead the warrior, dead his glory, dead the cause in which he died. Yet how often I and Amy in the moldering isle have stood, gazing for one pince of moment on that founder of our blood. There again I stood today, and whereof old we knelt in prayer, close beneath the casement crimson with the shield of loxley. There, all in white Italian marble, looking still as if she smiled, lies my Amy dead in childbirth, dead the mother, dead the child. Dead, and sixty years ago, and dead her aged husband now, I, this old white-headed dreamer, stooped and kissed her marble brow. Gone the fires of youth, the follies, furies, curses, passionate tears, gone like fires and floods and earthquakes of the planet's dawning years. Fires that shook me once, but now to silent ashes fallen away, cold upon the dead volcano sleeps the gleam of dying day. Gone the tyrant of my youth, and a mute below the chancel stones, all his virtues, I forgive them, black and white above his bones. Gone the comrades of my bivouac, some in fight against the foe, some through age and slow diseases, gone is all on earth will go. Gone with whom for forty years my life in golden sequence ran. She, with old the charm of woman, she with all the breadth of man. Strong in will, and rich in wisdom, Edith, loyal, lowly, sweet, feminine to her inmost heart and feminine to her tender feet. Very woman of very woman, nurse-savailing body and mind, she that linked again the broken chain that bound me to my kind. Here today was Amy with me, while I wandered down the coast. Near us Edith's holy shadow smiling at the slighter ghost. Gone our sailor son thy father, Leonard, early lost at sea. Thou alone my boy of Amy's kin, and mine art left me. Gone thy tender natured mother, wearying to be left alone, pining for the stronger heart that once had beat beside her own. Truth, for truth is truth, he worshipped being true as he was brave. Good, for good is good, he followed yet he looked beyond the grave. Wiser there than you, that crowning barren death as lord of all, deem this over-tragic drama's closing curtain is the pawl. Beautiful was death in him who saw the death but kept the deck, saving woman and their babes in sinking with the sinking wreck. Gone forever, ever? No, for since our dying race began, ever, ever and forever was the leading light of man. Those that in barbarian burials killed the slave and slew the wife, felt within themselves the sacred passion of the second life. Indian warriors dream of ample hunting grounds beyond the night. Even the black Australian dying hopes he shall return a white. Truth, for truth, and good for good, the good, the true, the pure, the jest. Take the charm forever from them, and they crumble into dust. Gone the cry of forward, forward, lost within a growing gloom, lost, or only heard in silence from the silence of a tomb. Half the marvels of my mourning triumphs over time and space, stale by frequency, shrunk by usage into commonest commonplace. Forward rang the voices then, and of the many mine was won. Let us hush this cry of forward till ten thousand years have gone. Far among the vanished races, old Assyrian kings would play, captives whom they caught in battle iron-hearted victors they. Ages after, while in Asia, he that led the wild moguls, Timur built his ghastly tower of eighty thousand human skulls. Then, and here in Edward's time, an age of noblest English names, Christian conquerors took and flung the conquered Christian into flames. Love your enemy, bless your haters, said the greatest of the great. Christian love among the churches looked the twin of heathen hate. From the golden alms of blessing man had coined himself a curse, Rome of Caesar, Rome of Peter, which was cruel or which was worse. France had shown a light to all men, preached a gospel, all men's good. Celtic Demos, Rosa Demon, shrieked and slaked the light with blood. Hope was ever on her mountain, watching till the day begun, crowned with sunlight over darkness from the still unrizen sun. Have we grown at last beyond the passions of the primal clan? Kill your enemy for you hate him, still your enemy was a man. Have we sunk below them, peasants maining the helpless horse and drive, innocent cattle under thatch, and burn the kindlier brutes alive? Brutes, the brutes are not your wrongers, burnt at midnight found it mourn, twisted hard in mortal agony with their offspring born unborn. Clinging to the silent mother, are we devils, are we men? Sweet St. Francis of Assisi would the tea were here again. He, that in his Catholic illness used to call the very flowers, sisters, brothers, and the beasts whose pains are hardly less than ours. Chaos, cosmos, cosmos, chaos. Who can tell how all will end? Read the wide world's annals, you, and take their wisdom for your friend. Hope the best, but hold the present fatal daughter of the past. Shape your heart to front the hour, but dream not that the hour will last. Aye, if dynamite and revolver leave you courage to be wise. When was age so crammed with menace, madness, written spoken lies? Envy wears the mask of love, and laughing sober fact to scorn. Cry is to weakest as to strongest. E are equals equal born. Equal born? Oh yes, if yonder hill be level with the flat. Charmus orator, till the lion look no larger than the cat. Till the cat through that mirage of overheated language loom larger than the lion, deem us end in working its own doom. Russia bursts our Indian barrier. Shall we fight her? Shall we yield? Pause. Before you sound the trumpet, hear the voices from the field. Those three hundred millions under one imperial scepter now. Shall we hold them? Shall we lose them? Take the suffrage of the plow. Nehe, but these would feel and follow truth if only you and you rivals of realm ruining party when you speak were wholly true. Plowmen, shepherds of eye found, and more than once and still could find, sons of God and kings of men in utter nobleness of mind, truthful, trustful, looking upward to the practised hustings liar, so the higher wields the lower, while the lower is the higher. Here and there a cotter's babe is royal born by right divine. Here and there my lord is lower than his oxen or his swine. Chaos cosmos, cosmos chaos, once again the sickening game. Freedom, free to slay herself and dying while they shout her name. Step by step we gain the freedom known to Europe, known to all. Step by step we rose to greatness through the tungsters we may fall. You that woo the voices, tell them old experience is a fool. Teach your flattered kings that only those who cannot read can rule. Pluck the mighty from their seat, but set no meek ones in their place. Pillory wisdom in your markets pelt your awful utter face. Tumble nature, heel o'er head and yelling with the yelling street. Set the feet above the brain and swear the brain is in the feet. Bring the old dark ages back without the faith, without the hope. Break the state, the church, the throne, and roll their ruins down the slope. Authors, atheists, essayist, novelist, realist, rhymester, play your part. Paint the mortal shame of nature with the living hues of art. Rip your brother's vices open, strip your own foul passions bare. Down with reticence, down with reverence, forward, naked, let them stare. Feed the budding rose of boyhood with the drainage of your sewer. Send the drain into the fountain, lest the stream should issue pure. Set the maiden fancies wallowing in the trials of Zolaism. Forward, forward, eye, and backward, downward into the abyss. Do your best to charm the worst to lower the rising race of men. Have we risen from out the beast, then back into the beast again? Only dust to dust for me that's sicken at your lawless din. Dust in, wholesome old world dust before the newer world begin. Heated am I, you, you wonder, while it scarce becomes mine age. Patience, let the dying actor mouth his last upon the stage. Cries of unprogressive dotage air the doter to fall asleep. Noises of a current narrowing, not the music of a deep. Eye, for doubtless I am old, and to think gray thoughts for I am gray. After all the stormy changes shall we find a changeless may? After madness, after massacre, Jacobinism and Jacquerie, some divine are forced to guide us through the days I shall not see? When the schemes and all the systems, kingdoms and republics fall, something kindlier, higher, holier, all for each and each for all? All the full brain, half-brain races, led by justice, love, and truth. All the millions one at length, with all the visions of my youth? All diseases quenched by science, no man halt or deaf or blind, stronger ever born of weaker, lustier body larger mind? Earth at last a warless world, a single race, a single tongue. I have seen her far away, for is not earth as yet so young? Every tiger madness muzzled, every serpent passion killed, every grim ravine a garden, every blazing desert tilled. Robed in universal harvest, up to either pole she smiles, universal ocean softly washing all her warless aisles. Warless? When her tins are thousands, and her thousands millions, then all her harvest all too narrow. Who can fancy warless men? Warless? War will die out late then. Will it ever? Later soon. Can it, till this outworn earth be dead as yon dead earth the moon? Dead, the new astronomy calls her, on this day and at this hour, in this gap between the sand hills, whence you see the loxley tower. Here we met, our latest meeting, Amy, sixty years ago. She and I, the moon was falling greenish through a rosy glow. Just above the gateway tower, and even where you see her now? Here we stood and clasped each other, swore the seeming deathless vow. Dead, but how her living glory lights the hall, the dune, the grass. Yet the moonlight is the sunlight, and the sun himself will pass. Venus near her, smiling downward at this earthlier earth of ours, closer on the sun, perhaps a world of never fading flowers. Hesper, whom the poet called the bringer home of all good things, all good things may move in Hesper, perfect peoples, perfect kings. Hesper, Venus, we were native to that splendor, or in Mars, we should see the globe we grown in, fairest of their evening stars. Could we dream of wars and carnage, craft and madness, lust and spite? Raw ring London, raving Paris, in that point of peaceful light? Might we not, in glancing heavenward, on a star so silver-faire, yearn and clasp the hands and murmur, would do God that we were there? Forward, backward, backward forward in the immeasurable sea, swayed by vaster ebbs and flows, than can be known to you or me? All the suns, are these but symbols of innumerable man, man or mind that sees a shadow of the planner or the plan? Is there evil but unearth, or pain in every people's fear? Well, be grateful for the sounding watchword, evolution here. Evolution ever climbing after some ideal good, and reversion ever dragging evolution in the mud. What are men that he should heed us, cried the king of sacred song, insects of an hour that hourly work their brother-insect wrong? While the silent heavens roll, and suns along their fiery way, all their planets whirling round them, flash a million miles a day. Many an eon molded earth before her highest man was born. Many an eon too may pass when earth is manless and forlorn. Earth so huge, and yet so bounded, pools of salt and plots of land, shallow skin of green and azure, chains of mountain, grains of sand. Only that which made us meant us to be mightier by and by. Set the sphere of all the boundless heavens within the human eye. Since the shadow of himself, the boundless through the human soul, boundless inward in the atom, boundless outward in the whole. Here is Loxley Hall, my grandson. Here the lion-guarded gate. Not tonight in Loxley Hall. Tomorrow, you, you come so late. Wrecked, your train. Or all but wrecked. A shattered wheel. A vicious boy. Good, this forward, you that preach it, is it well to wish you joy? Is it well that while we range with science glorying in the time, city children soak and blacken soul and sense in city slime? There among the glooming alleys, progress haunts on posied feet. Crime and hunger cast our maidens by the thousand on the street. There the master scrimps his haggard simstress of her daily bread. There a single sordid attic holds the living and the dead. There the smoldering fire of fever creeps across the rotted floor, and the crowded couch of incest in the warrens of the poor. Nay, your pardon, cry your forward, yours are hope and deuth but I. Eighty winters leave the dog too lame to follow with the cry. Lame and old, and past his time, and passing now into the night. Yet I would the rising race were half as eager for the light. Light the fading gleam of even, light the glimmer of the dawn, age to eyes may take the growing glimmer for the gleam withdrawn. Far away beyond her myriad coming changes earth will be something other than the wildest modern guests of you and me. Earth may reach her earthly worst, or if she gain her earthly best, would she find her human offspring this ideal man at rest? Forward then, but still remember how the course of time will swerve, crook and turn upon itself in many a backward streaming curve. Not the hall tonight, my grandson. Death and silence hold their own. Leave the master in the first dark hour of his last sleep alone. Worthier soul was he than I am, sound and honest, rustic squire, kindly landlord, boom companion, youthful jealousy as a liar. Cast the poison from your bosom, oust the madness from your brain. Let the trampled serpent show you that you have not lived in vain. Youthful, youth and age are scholars yet but in the lower school, nor is he the wisest man who never proved himself a fool. Yonder lies our young sea village, art and grace are less and less. Science grows and beauty dwindles, roofs of slated hideousness. There is one old hostel left us where they swing the luxly shield, till the peasant cow shall but the lion peasant from his field. Poor old heraldry, poor old history, poor old poetry passing hints, in the common delus drowning old political common sense. Poor old voice of A.T. crying after voices that have fled. All I loved are vanished voices, all my steps are on the dead. All the world is ghost to me, and as the phantom disappears, forward far and far from here is all the hope of eighty years. In this hostel, I remember, I repent adore his grave. Like a clown, by chance he met me, I refused the hand he gave. From that casement where the trailer mantles all the moldering bricks, I was then in early boyhood Edith but a child of six, while I sheltered in this archway from a day of driving showers, peeped the winsome face of Edith like a flower among the flowers. Here tonight, the hall to-morrow, when they told the chapel bell, shall I hear in one dark room a wailing, I have loved thee well. Then appeal the chicks the portal, one has come to claim his bride. Her that shrank and put me from her shrieked and started from my side. Silent echoes, you, my Leonard, use and not abuse your day. Move among your people, know them, follow him who led the way. Strove for sixty widowed years to help his homely or brother-men, served the poor, and built the cottage, raised the school, and drained the fin. Here's he now, the voice that wronged him. Who shall swear it cannot be? Earth would never touch her worst, or one in fifty such as he. ere she gain her heavenly best, a God must mingle with the game. Nay, there may be those about us whom we neither see nor name. Felt within us as ourselves, the powers of good, the powers of ill, stroing balm or shedding poison in the fountains of the will. Follow you the star that lights a desert pathway, yours or mine, forward till you see the highest human nature is divine. Follow light, and do the right, for man can half control his doom, till you find the deathless angel seated in the vacant tomb. Forward let the stormy moment fly and mingle with the past, I that loathe have come to love him, love will conquer at the last. Gone at eighty, mine own age, and I and you will bear the paw. Then I leave thee, lord and master, latest lord of Loxley Hall. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Reply to Loxley Hall sixty years after, by Barton Lomax Pittman. Red, Philippe of Lox.org, by Josh Kibbe. Nay, my grand sire, though you leave me latest lord of Loxley Hall, speak of Amy's heavenly graces in the frailty of her fall. Point me to the shield of Loxley, hanging in this mansion lone, I must turn from such sad splendor ere my heart be changed to stone. While you, prait of pride and sestral, and the dead dreams of your youth, I, despite my birth and lineage, am a battler for the truth. To the work-worn, half-starved, peasants of this realm my heart goes out. Those who, plundered and forgotten, find this life a ruthless route. And the rustling robes of Amy bloomed the roses that had fled, from the cheeks of popper maidens forced into the brothel bed. In her saintly smiles and glances flashed the sunlight that was shut, by the iron hand injustice from the cotter's humble hut. Nay, it is wrong that we should range with science-glorying in the time, while we force our brother mortals into squalor, need, and crime. Wicked, we should pose as Christians singing songs to God on high, heedless of as tortured creatures who in popper prisons lie. Christless is the crime of turning creed-stopped ears to teardrop shed, by the women whom oppression robs of virtue for their bread. Satan's blush would mental crimson could he see the stunted child, slaving in our marks and markets helpless, hopeless, and reviled. See its pallid face uplifted from the whirling factory wheels, tear-stained with grief and anguish of a baby brain that reels, tortured in life's budding springtime, toiling on with stifled cries, seeing through its tears refracted, rippling cascades as your skies. Skies and birds and flowery meadows made for children wealthy-born, while God's outcasts, with their parents, robbed and drudging, live forlorn. Men in whom the fires of hope have sunk into assorted spark, mothers rearing helpless infants for the brothel's dawnless dark. While this world seems far too crowded to provide us work for all, acres spread their untilled bosoms, while the nations rise and fall. Nature's door-house, made for all men, is monopolized by some, robbing labor of its produce, making Alm's house jail and slum. Side by side with art and progress creeps the haggard specter want, creeps the frightful phantom hunger with its bloodless body gaunt. Wider, wider spreads the chasm, tweaks the wealthy and the poor, social discontent declaring that such wrongs cannot endure. And this yawning of the chasm is the curse of every race, as it saps and kills its manhood ere it reached the zenith place. Spartan valor, Grecian learning, Roman honor had their day, but land plunder rose among them, dooming death by slow decay. Shall we wait for evolution, let it right these monstrous wrongs, while the helpless young and tender writhe and groan neath social thongs? Nay, tis better all should perish in a battle for the right, than let philosophic cowards keep us in this Stygian night. Luxly Hall has now a master who would claim the earth for all, who would make the titled idler cease to rob his tenant thrall. Wreck the church and state, if need be, better such an time will rise, but who from this glorious purpose never more will turn his eyes. Never, till the arms of Nature clasp and joy her outcast child, long since driven from the meadow and the dell and woodland wild, till to each belongs the produce of his hand and heart and brain, and glad heralds of millennium thrill along our path of pain. Though the world has piled its faggots round the great and good and brave, thrust its socrates the hemlock, scourged its Jesus to the grave, though its sneer has chilled the tender, and its frown has cursed the good, while its Nero sways the scepter and its imid dies in blood. Yet in truth there is a power that through ceaseless cycles slow will inscribe with the doom of error in an ever-fadeless glow, that will trample on oppression, burst the chains and crush the throne, rearing on the blood and ruin, justice reign from zone to zone. Idealistic dreamer, say you, in your youth you once felt so? Well, I only pray life's sunset, bowing down my head with snow, shall not swerve me from my purpose, though the victor laurels twine, in my reach and if forsaking my convictions they are mine. Do not so condemn the realists, rhymesters, authors, and their way, just because they point about us to the errors of today? Spare them, though they gaze not upward from our self-wrought piteous plight, for though blinded and despairing they are struggling toward the light. Let the realist dip his falcon in the boiling blood of life, tracing in heart-rending horror all the harry wrongs and strife, till the world shall sick and sadden of its folly and its sin, hearkening through the roar of traffic to the still small voice within. Voice, which murmurs Christ's own message as we circle round the sun, that though greed and creed divide us, still humanity is one. One in all its godlike longing, one in all its hopes and fears, with its cavillries, scaffolds, hemlocks, and its seas of unshed tears. Then this star of sorrow, swinging through the vast immortal void, shall regenerated slumber while man's heart is overjoyed, thrilled with yearning's altruistic, triumphing oar-clods of clay, as we march into the love-light of the grand millennial day. End of poem This recording is in the public domain. Loves Language by Ella Wheeler Wilcox Read for LibriVox.org by Michelle Fry, Baton Rouge, Louisiana How does love speak in the faint flush upon the tell-tale cheek and in the pallor that succeeds it by the quivering lid of an averted eye, the smile that proves the patent to a sigh? Thus death loves speak. How does love speak by the uneven heart throbs and the freak of bounding pulses that stand still and ache while new emotions like strange barges make along vain channels their disturbing course, still as the dawn and with the dawn's swift force? Thus death loves speak. How does love speak in the avoidance of that which we seek, the sudden silence and reserve when near, the eye that glistens with an unshed tear, the joy that seems the counterpart of fear as the alarmed heart leaps in the breast and knows and names and greets its godlike guest? Thus death loves speak. How does love speak in the proud spirit suddenly grown meek, the haughty heart grown humble, in the tender and unnamed light that floods the world with splendor in the resemblance which the fond eyes trace in all fair things to one beloved face, in the shy touch of hands that thrill and tremble in looks and lips that can no more disemble, thus death loves speak? How does love speak in the wild words that uttered seems so weak they shrink ashamed to silence in the fire that glance strikes with glance swift flashing high and higher like lightnings that proceed the mighty storm in the deep soulful stillness in the warm and passioned tide that sweeps through throbbing veins between the shores of keen delight and pains in the embrace where madness melts in bliss and in the convulsive rapture of a kiss? Thus death loves speak. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Lyric 74 by Sappho Read for LibriVox.org by Mike Overby Midland Washington If death be good, why do the gods not die? If life be ill, why do the gods still live? If love be not, why do the gods still love? If love be all, what should men do but love? End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Lyric 78 by Sappho Read for LibriVox.org by Mike Overby Midland Washington Once on the shining street in the heart of a seaboard town as I waited behold there came the woman I loved as when in the early spring a daffodil blooms in the grass golden and gracious and glad the solitude smiled End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Lyric 77 by Sappho Read for LibriVox.org by Mike Overby Midland Washington Hour by hour I sit watching the silent door shadows go by on the wall and steps in the street expectation and doubt flutter my timorous heart so many hurrying home and thou still away End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Meeting by Catherine Mansfield Read for LibriVox.org by Thomas Peter We started speaking looked at each other then turned away The tears kept rising to my eyes but I could not weep I wanted to take your hand but my hand trembled You kept counting the days before we should meet again but both of us felt in our hearts that we parted forever and ever The ticking of the little clock filled the quiet room Listen I said it is so loud like a horse galloping on a lonely road as loud as that a horse galloping past in the night You shut me up in your arms But the sound of the clock stifled our hearts beating You said I cannot go All that is living of me is here forever and ever Then you went The world changed The sound of the clock grew fainter dwindled away became a minute thing I whispered in the darkness if it stops I shall die 1911 End of poem. This recording is in the public domain Milk for the Cat by Harold Monroe Read for LibriVox.org by Dale Grossman When the tea is brought at five o'clock and all the neat curtains are drawn with care the little black cat with bright green eyes is suddenly purring there At first she pretends having nothing to do she has come in merely to blink by the grate but though the tea may be late or the milk may be sour she is never late and presently her agate eyes take a soft large milky haze and her independent casual glance becomes a stiff hard gaze then she stamps her claws or lifts her ears or twists her tail and begins to stir till suddenly all her life body becomes one breathing trembling purr The children eat and wiggle and laugh the two old ladies stroke their silk but the cat is grown small and thin with desire transformed to a creeping lust for milk the white saucer like some full moon descends at last from the clouds of the table above she sighs and dreams and thrills and glows transfigured with love she nestles over the shining rim buries her chin in the creamy sea her tail hangs loose each drowsy paw is doubled under each bending knee a long dim ecstasy holds her life her world is an infinite shapeless white till her tongue has curled the last half drop then she sinks back into the night draws and dips her body to heap her sleepy nerves in the great arm chair lies defeated and buried deep three or four hours unconscious there and of poem this recording is in the public domain In the Orchard by Haljin and Charles Swinburne read for LibriVox.org by a new gate novelist Proven Solburden Leave go my hands, let me catch breath and see let the dew fall drench either side of me clear apple leaves are soft upon that moon seen side long like a blossom in the tree ah god, ah god, the day should be so soon the grass is thick and cool it lets us lie kissed upon either cheek and either eye I turn to thee as some green afternoon turns towards sunset and is loath to die ah god, ah god, that day should be so soon lie closer, lean your face upon my side feel where the dew fell that has hardly dried hear how the blood beats that went nigh to swoon the pleasure lives there when the senses died ah god, ah god, that day should be so soon oh my fair lord I charge you leave me this is it not sweeter than a foolish kiss nay take it then my flower my first in june my rose so like a tender mouth it is ah god, that day should be so soon love till dawn sundern night from day with fire dividing my delight and my desire the crescent life and love the plenalune love me though dusk begin and dark retire ah god, ah god, that day should be so soon ah my heart fails my blood draws back I know when life runs over life is near to go and with the slain of love loves ways are strewn and with their blood if love will have it so god that day should be so soon ah do thy will now slay me if thou wilt there is no building now the walls are built no quarrying now the cornerstone is hewn no drinking now the vine's whole blood is spilt ah god, ah god, that day should be so soon ay slay me now, nay for I will be slain pluck thy red pleasure from the teeth of pain break down thy vine ere yet grape gatherers prune slay me ere day can slay desire again ah god, ah god, that day should be so soon yay with thy sweet lips with thy sweet sword yay take life and all for I will die I say love I gave love is life a better boon for sweet night's sake I will not live till day ah god, ah god, that day should be so soon nay I will sleep then only, nay but go ah sweet too sweet to me my sweet I know love sleep and death go to the sweet same tune hold my hair fast and kiss me through it so ah god, ah god, that day should be so soon end of poem this recording is in the public domain oh solitude if I must with thee dwell by John Keats read for Libervox.org by Winston Tharp oh solitude if I must with thee dwell let it not be among the jumbled heap of murky buildings climb with me the steep nature's observatory once the dell its flowery slopes its rivers crystals swell may seem a span let me thy vigils keep amongst bow's pavilion where the deer's swift leap startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell but though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind whose words are images of thoughts refined is my soul's pleasure and it sure must be among the highest bliss of humankind when to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee end of poem this recording is in the public domain Over the Land is April by Robert Louis Stevenson read for Libervox.org by Stefan Over the Land is April over my heart a rose over the high brown mountain the sound of singing goes say love do you hear me hear my sonnet's ring over the high brown mountain love do you hear me sing by highway love and by way the snows succeed the rose over the high brown mountain the wind of winter blows say love do you hear me hear my sonnet's ring over the high brown mountain I sound the song of spring I throw the flowers of spring do you hear the song of spring hear you the songs of spring end of poem this recording is in the public domain The Owlet by Madison K. Wine read for Libervox.org by Neema The Owlet 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 with the dusk and do with a pair of horns as thin as thorns and face a bubble blue who 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 mist rise and veil the skies and round the height and whispering flight the night when sounds and sighs then in the woods again it cries the owlet cries a shivering voice that calls in fright and wandering fright who is it who is it who who walks with a shuffling shoe with the gusty trees with a face none sees and a form is 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 mere now far now near a jack-o-lantern foots then oar of 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-wormed crew above the mire with a corpse light fire is only dead man do who who who who who is it who is it who end of poem this recording is in the public domain the paradox from the complete poems of paul lorenz dunbar read for LibriVox.org by dale growthman i am the mother of sorrows i am the ender of grief i am the bud and the blossom i am the late-falling leaf i am thy priest and thy poet i am thy surf and thy king i cure the tears of the heart-sick when i come near they shall sing white are my hands as the snow drops swart are my fingers as clay dark is my frown as the midnight fair is my brow as the day battle and war are my minions doing my will as divine i am the calmer of passions peace is a nursing of mine speak to me gently or curse me seek me or fly from my sight i am thy fool in the morning thou art my slave in the night down to the grave i will take thee out from the noise and the strife then shall thou see me and know me death then no longer but life then shall thou sing at my coming kiss me with passionate breath clasp me and smile to have thought me ought save the fulmin of death come to me brother when weary come when thy lonely heart swells i'll guide thy footsteps and lead thee down where the dream woman dwells end of poem this recording is in the public domain a perpetual sabbath by joseph von eichendorf read for LibriVox.org the favored ones the loved of heaven god sends to roam the world at will his wonders to their gaze are given by field and forest stream and hill the dollars who at home are staying are not refreshed by morning's ray they grovel earthborn calls obeying and petty cares beset their day the little brooks or rocks are springing the larks gay carol fills the air why should not i with them be singing a joyous anthem free from care i wander on in god confiding for all are his would field and fell or earth and skies he still presiding for me will order all things well end of poem this recording is in the public domain a prayer in spring by robert frost read for LibriVox.org by phil shampf who give us pleasure in the flowers today and give us not to think so far away as the uncertain harvest keep us here all simply in the springing of the year oh give us pleasure in the orchard white like nothing else by day like ghosts by night and make us happy in the happy bees the swarm dilating round the perfect trees and make us happy in the darting bird that suddenly above the bees is heard the meteor that thrusts in with needle bill and off a blossom in midair stands still for this is love and nothing else is love the which it is reserved for god above to sanctify to what far ends he will but which it only needs that we fulfill end of poem this recording is in the public domain the prophet by alexander pushkin read for LibriVox.org by larry wilson tormented by the thirst for the spirit i was dragging myself in a somber desert and a six-winged seraph appeared then to me on the parting of the rose with fingers as light as a dream my eyes he touched and my eyes opened wise like the eyes of a frightened eagle he touched my ears and they filled with din and ringing and i heard the trembling of the heavens and the flight of the angels wings and the creeping of the polyps in the sea and the growth of the vine in the valley he took hold of my lips and out he tore my sinful tongue with his empty and false speech and the fang of the wise serpent between my terrified lips he placed with bloody hand an opie cut with sword my breast and he took out my trembling heart and a coal with flaming blaze into the open breast he shoved like a corpse i lay in the desert and the voice of god unto me called arise oh prophet and listen and guide be thou filled with my will and going over land and sea fire with the word the hearts of men 1826 in the poem this recording is in the public domain