 Annabelle Lee, by Edgar Allen Poe, read for LibriVox.org by David Federman. It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea, that a maiden there lived whom you may know, by the name of Annabelle Lee, and this maiden she lived with no other thought, than to love and be loved by me. I was a child, and she was a child, in this kingdom by the sea, but we loved the love that was more than love, I and my Annabelle Lee, with the love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted her and me, and this was the reason that long ago, in this kingdom by the sea, a wind blew out of a cloud, chilling my beautiful Annabelle Lee, so that her high-born kinsman came and bore her away from me, and shut her up in a sepulcher, in this kingdom by the sea. The angels not half so happy in heaven, when envying her and me. Yes, that was the reason, as all men know, in this kingdom by the sea, that the wind came out of the cloud by night, chilling and killing my Annabelle Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love of those who were older than we, of many far wiser than we, and neither the angels in heaven above nor the demons down under the sea can ever deceiver my soul from the soul of the beautiful Annabelle Lee, for the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabelle Lee, and the stars never rise but I could feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabelle Lee, and so all the night-tide I lie down by the side of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride, in this sepulcher there by the sea, in her tomb by the sounding sea, end of poem, this recording is in the public domain. A Lod of Broken Flutes by Edwin Arlington Robinson. Recorded for LibriVox.org by Shona Brogdon-Sturbel. To A.T. Schumann. In dreams I crossed a barren land, a land of ruin far away. And me hung on every hand a deathful stillness of decay, and silent as in bleak dismay that song should thus forsaken be. On that forgotten ground there lay the broken flutes of Arcady, the forest that was all so grand when pipes and tabers had their sway, stood leafless now. A ghostly band of skeletons in cold array, a lonely surge of ancient spray told of an unforgettable sea. But iron blows had hushed foray the broken flutes of Arcady. No more by summer breezes found. The place was desolate and gray. But still my dream was to command new life into that shrunken clay. I tried it. Yes, you scan today with uncomeserating glee the songs of one who strove to play the broken flutes of Arcady. So, rock, I join the common fray to fight where mammon may decree and leave to crumble as they may, the broken flutes of Arcady. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. A Lot of Dead Friends by Edwin Arlington Robinson. As we, the withered ferns by the roadway lying, time, the jester, spurns all our prayers and prying, all our tears and sighing, sorrow, change, and woe, all our wear and whine for friends that come and go. Life awakes and burns, age and death defying, till at last it learns all but love is dying. Loves the trade we're applying, God has willed it so. Shrouds are what we're buying for friends that come and go. One forever yearns for the thing that's flying everywhere he turns, men to dust are trying, dust that wanders, eyeing with eyes that hardly glow, new faces dimly spying for friends that come and go. And thus we all are nighing the truth we fear to know. Death will end our crying for friends that come and go. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Balls Bluff, A Reverie, October 1861 by Herman Melville, read for LibriVox.org by B. G. Oxford. One noonday at my window in the town I saw a sight, saddest that eyes can see, young soldiers marching lustily unto the wars, with fiefs and flags and mottled pageantry, while all the porches, walks and doors were rich with ladies cheering royally. They moved like Juni morning on the wave. Their hearts were fresh as clover in its prime. It was the breezy summertime, life throbbed so strong. How should they dream that death in a rosy climb would come to thin their shining throng? Youth feels immortal, like the gods sublime. Weeks passed, and at my window, leaving bed by night, I mused, of easeful sleep bereft on those brave boys, ah, war, thy theft. Some marching feet found pause at last by Cliff's Potomac Cleft. Wakeful, I mused, while in the street far footfalls died away till none were left. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Life has loveliness to sell, all beautiful and splendid things, blue waves whitened on a cliff, soaring fire that sways and sings, and children's faces looking up, holding wonder like a cup. Life has loveliness to sell. Music like a curve of gold, scent of pine trees in the rain, eyes that love you, arms that hold, and for your spirit still delight, holy thoughts that star the night, spend all you have for loveliness. Buy it and never count the cost. For one white singing hour of peace count many a year of strife well lost, and for a breath of ecstasy give all you have been, or could be. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Because I could not stop for Death by Emily Dickinson for LibraBox.org, read by Rachel Poulos. Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me. The carriage held but just ourselves, and immortality. We slowly drove, he knew no haste, and I had put away my labor and my leisure too for his civility. We passed a school where children strove at recess in the ring. We passed the fields of Gazingbring. We passed the setting sun. Or rather, he passed us, the doos drew quivering and chill. For only Gossamer, my gown, my tippet, only tall. We passed before a house that seemed a swelling of the ground, the roof was scarcely visible, the cornice in the ground. Since then, to centuries, and yet feels shorter than the day, I first surmised the horse's heads for toward eternity. End of poem. This poem is in the public domain. The Bibliomaniacs Prayer by Eugene Field. Read for LibraBox.org by Carol Stripling. Keep me, I pray, in wisdom's way, that I may true's eternal seek. I need protecting care today. My purse is light. My flesh is weak. So banish from my airing heart all baleful appetites and hints of Satan's fascinating art of first editions and of prints, direct me in some godly walk which leads away from bookish strife, that I, with pious deed and talk, may extra illustrate my life. But if, O Lord, it pleases thee to keep me in temptation's way, I humbly ask that I may be most notably beset today. Let my temptation be a book which I shall purchase, hold, and keep, whereon when other men shall look they'll wail to know I got it cheap. O let it such a volume be as in rare copper plates abounds, large paper, clean and fair to see, uncut, unique, unknown to lowns. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Go from me by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, read for LibriVox.org by Andy. Go from me, yet I feel that I shall stand, henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore alone upon the threshold of my door of individual life I shall command the uses of my soul, nor lift my hand serenely in the sunshine as before. I have the sense of that which I forbore, thy touch upon the palm, the widest land doom takes depart us, leaves thy heart in mine with pulses that beat double. What I do and what I dream include thee, as the wine must taste of its own grapes, and when I sue God for myself, he hears that name of thine, and sees within my eyes the tears of two. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Loss and Gain by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, read for LibriVox.org by Christopher Ongaro. When I compare what I have lost with what I have gained, what I have missed with what attained, little room do I find for pride. I am aware how many days have been idly spent, how like an arrow the good intent has fallen short or been turned aside. But who shall dare to measure loss and gain in this wise? Defeat may be victory in disguise. The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Loss and Gain by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, read for LibriVox.org by David Fetterman. When I compare what I have lost with what I have gained, what I have missed with what attained, little room do I find for pride. I am aware how many days have been idly spent, how like an arrow the good intent has fallen short or been turned aside. But who shall dare to measure loss and gain in this wise? Defeat may be victory in disguise. The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. On a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Goldfishes, by Thomas Gray, read for LibriVox.org by Jason Mills, 4th January 2009. It was on a lofty vase's side, where China's gayest art had died the azure flowers that blow. Demurus of the Tabbykind, the Pensive Selima reclined, gazed on the lake below. Her conscious tale her joy declared. The fair round face, the snowy beard, the velvet of her paws, her coat that with the tortoise vise, her ears of jet, and emerald eyes she saw, and purred applause. Still had she gazed, but amidst the tide two angel forms were seen to glide, the genie of the stream. Their scaly armours, Tyrion Hugh, through richest purple to the view, betrayed a golden gleam. The hapless nymph with wonder saw, a whisker first and then a claw with many an ardent wish she stretched in vain to reach the prize. What female heart can gold despise? What cat's a verse to fish? Prisumptuous made. With luck's intent again she stretched, again she bent, nor knew the gulf between. Malignant fate sat by and smiled. The slippery verge her feet beguiled, she tumbled headlong in. Eight times emerging from the flood she mewed to every watery god some speedy air to send. No dolphin came, no nary had stirred, nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard. A favourite has not friend. From hence ye beauties undiseived. No one false step is near retrieved, and be with caution bold. Not all that tempts your wandering eyes and heedless hearts is lawful prize, nor all that glisters gold. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. On the death of a favourite old spaniel by Robert Southy. Recorded for LibriVox.org by Jess and Mills, 5th January 2009. And they have drowned thee then at last, poor Phyllis. The burden of old age was heavy on thee, and yet thou shouldst have lived. What though thine eye was dim, and watched no more with eager joy the wanted coal that on thy dull sense sunk with fruitless repetition. The warm sun would still have cheered thy slumber. But it's love to lick the hand that fed thee, and though past youth's active season even life itself was comfort. Poor old friend. Most earnestly would I have pleaded for thee. Thou hadst been still the companion of my childish sports, and as I roamed o'er Avon's woody cliffs, from many a daydream has thy short quick bark recalled my wandering soul. I have beguiled often the melancholy hours at school, soured by some little tyrant, with the thought of distant home, and I remembered then thy faithful fondness. For not mean the joy returning at the pleasant holidays I felt from thy dumb welcome. Pensively sometimes I have remarked thy slow decay, feeling myself changed too, amusing much on many a sad vicissitude of life. Ah, poor companion. When thou followed'st last thy master's parting footsteps to the gate that closed for ever on him, thou didst lose thy truest friend, and none was left to plead for the old age of brute fidelity. But fairly well, mine is no narrow creed, and he who gave thee being did not frame the mystery of life to be the sport of merciless man. There is another world, for all that live and move a better one, where the proud bipeds who would feign confine infinite goodness to the little bounds of their own charity may envy thee. End of point. This recording is in the public domain. It is no easy waking, and we win no final peep, but still imperative forces pull us in and sweep us somehow through, summoned by a supreme and confident power, that wakes our sleeping courage like a blow. We rise, half shaken, to the challenging hour, and answer it, and go'st recording is in the public domain. The Sugar Plum Tree, by Eugene Field, read for LibriVox.org by Carol Stripling. Have you ever heard of the Sugar Plum Tree? Tis a marvel of great renown. It blooms on the shore of the Lollipop Sea in the garden of Shutt Eye Town. The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet, as those who have tasted it say, that good little children have only to eat of that fruit to be happy next day. When you've got to the tree, you would have a hard time to capture the fruit which I sing. The tree is so tall that no person could climb to the bowels where the Sugar Plum swing. But up in that tree sits a chocolate cat, and a gingerbread dog prowls below, and this is the way you can thrive to get at those Sugar Plums tempting you so. You say but the word to that gingerbread dog, and he barks with such a terrible zest that the chocolate cat is at once oligog as her swelling proportions attest. And the chocolate cat goes cavorting around from this leafy limb unto that. And the Sugar Plums tumble, of course, to the ground, hooray for that chocolate cat. There are marshmallows, gumdrops, and peppermint canes with striping of scarlet and gold. And you carry away of the treasure that rains as much as your apron can hold. So come, little child, cuddle closer to me in your dainty white nightcap and gown, and I'll rock you away to the Sugar Plum tree in the garden of Shuteye Town. I see the fourfold man, the humanity and deadly sleep, and its fallen emanation, the specter and its cruel shadow. I see the past, present and future, existing all at once before me. O divine spirit, sustain me on thy wings, that I may awake Elbion from his long and cold repose. For Bacon and Newton sheathed in dismal steel their terrors hang, like iron scourges over Elbion. Reasonings like vast serpents enfold around my limbs, bruising my minute articulations. I turn my eyes to the schools and universities of Europe, and there behold the loom of Locke, whose wolf rages dire, washed by the water wheels of Newton. Black the cloth and heavy reese folds over every nation. Cruel works of many wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic, moving by compulsion each other, not like those in Eden, which wheel within wheel, in freedom, revolve in harmony and peace. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. To the Moon by Sir Philip Sidney Read for LibriVox.org by Ann Cheng With how sad steps, O moon, thou climbs the skies, how silently and with how warn a face. What may it be that even in heavenly place, that busy archer his sharp arrows tries? Sure, if that long with lover-quainted eyes can judge of love, thou feels the lover's case. I read it in thy looks, thy languished grace, to me that feel the like, thy state describes. Then even a fellowship, O moon, tell me, is constant love deemed there but want of wit? Are beauties there as proud as here they be? Do they above love to be loved, and yet those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess? Do they call virtue their ungratefulness? End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Universal Prayer by Alexander Pope Read for LibriVox.org by Craig Campbell Father of all, in every age and every climb adored, by saint, by savage and by sage, Jehovah, Jove, or Lord. Thou first great cause, least understood, while my sense confined to know but this, that thou art good, and that myself am blind. Yet gave me in this darkest state to see the good from ill, and, binding nature fast to fate, left free the human will. What conscience dictates to be done, or warns me not to do, this teach me more than hell to shun, that more than heaven pursue. What blessings thou free bounty gives, let me not cast away, for God is paid when man receives, to enjoy is to obey. Yet not to earth's contracted span thy goodness let me bound, or think thee, Lord, alone of man, when thousand worlds are round. Let not this weak, annoying hands presume thy bolts to throw, and teach damnation round the land, that on each I judge thy fault. If I am right thy grace impart, still in the right to stay, if I am wrong, o teach my heart to find that better way. Save me alike from foolish pride, or impious discontent, had ought thy wisdom has denied, or ought thy goodness lent. Teach me to feel in others woe, to write the fault I see, that mercy I to others that mercy show to me. Mean though I am not holy so, since quickened by thy breath, o lead me where so ere I go, through this day's life or death. This day be bred in peace my lot, all else beneath the sand thou knowest if best best bestowed or not, and let thy will be done. To thee whose temple is of space, whose altar earth see skies, when chorus let all beings raise, all natures in sense rise. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Voices of the past by Adelaide Anne Proctor. Read for LibriVox.org by Ruth Golding. You wonder that my tears should flow in listening to that simple strain, that those unskillful sounds should fill my soul with joy and pain. How can you tell what thoughts it stirs within my heart again? You wonder why that common phrase, so all unmeaning to your ear, should stay me in my merriest mood and thrill my soul to hear. How can you tell what ancient charm has made me hold it dear? You marvel that I turn away from all those flowers so fair and bright, and gaze at this poor herb till tears arise and dim my sight. You cannot tell how every leaf breathes of a past delight. You smile to see me turn and speak with one whose converse you despise. You do not see the dreams of old that with his voice arise. How can you tell what links have made him sacred in my eyes? All these are voices of the past, links of a broken chain, wings that can bear me back to times which cannot come again. Yet God forbid that I should lose the echoes that remain. I will not let you say a woman's part must be to give exclusive love alone. Just although I love you so, my heart answers a thousand claims beside your own. I love what do I not love? Earth and air find space within my heart, and myriad things you would not deign to heed are cherished there and vibrate on its very inmost strings. I love the summer with her ebb and flow of light and warmth and music that have nursed her tender buds to blossoms, and you know it was in summer that I saw you first. I love the winter dearly too, but then I owe it so much. On a winter's day bleak cold and stormy you returned again when you had been those weary months away. I love the stars like friends, so many nights I gazed at them when you were far from me till I grew blind with tears those far off lights could watch you whom I longed in vain to see. I love the flowers. Happy hours lie shut up within their petals close and fast. You have forgotten, dear, but they and I keep every fragment of the golden past. I love too to be loved. All loving praise seems like a crown upon my life to make it better worth the giving and to raise still nearer to your own the heart you take. I love all good and noble souls. I heard one speak of you but lately, and for days only to think of it my soul was stirred in tender memory of such generous praise. I love all those who love you, all who owe comfort to you, and I can find regret even for those poorer hearts who once could know and once could love you and can now forget. Well, is my heart so narrow, I who spare love for all these, do I not even hold my favourite books in special tender care and prize them as a miser does his gold? The poets that you used to read to me while summer twilight faded in the sky, but most of all I think are orally because, because, do you remember why? Will you be jealous? Did you guess before I loved so many things, still you the best? Dearest, remember that I love you more. Oh, more a thousand times than all the rest. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Recording can dismarble now the smoothness of that limpid brow, but is a calm like this, in truth, the crowning end of life and youth, and when this boon rewards the dead, are all debts paid, has all been said, and is the heart of youth so light, its steps so firm, its eyes so bright, because on its hot brow there blows a wind of promise and repose, from the far grave to which it goes, because it hath the hope to come one day to harbour in the tomb. Ah, no, the bliss youth dreams is one for daylight, for the cheerful sun, for feeling nerves and living breath, youth dreams a bliss on this side death. It dreams a rest if not more deep, more grateful than this marble sleep. It hears a voice within it tell, calm's not life's crown, though calm is well. Tis all perhaps which man acquires, but tis not what our youth desires. End of poem.