 The Cap and Bells, by William Butler Yates, read for LibriVox.org by Dina Meilinger in January 2010. The jester walked in the garden. The garden had fallen still. He baked his soul-rise upward and stand on her window sill. It rose in a straight blue garment when owls began to call. It had grown wise tongues by thinking of a quiet and light footfall. But a young queen would not listen. She rose in her pale night gown. She drew in the heavy casement and pushed the latches down. He baked his heart go to her when the owls called out no more. In a red and quavering garment it sank to her through the door. It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming of a flutter of flower-like hair, but she took up her fan from the table and waved it off in the air. I have Cap and Bells, he pondered. I will send them to her and die. And when the morning whitened, he loved them where she went by. She laid them upon her bosom, under a cloud of her hair, and her red lips sang them a love song. To a star's grew out of the air. She opened her door and her window, and the heart and the soul came through. To her right hand came the red one. To her left hand came the blue. They set up a noise like crickets, a chattering wise and sweet, and her hair was a folded flower and a quiet of love in her feet. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Desert by Matilda Blind Uncircumscribed, unmeasured, vast, eternal as the sea, what lacks the tidal sea thou hast, profound stability. Beneath the sun that burns and brands, in hushed noon's halting breath, calm as the sphinx upon thy sands, thou art, nay, calm as death. The desert foxes hide in holes, the jackal seeks his lair, the somber rocks like reddening coals, glow lurid in the glare. Only some vulture far away, bald-headed, happy-eyed, flaps down on lazy wing to pray, on what has lately died. No palm-tree lifts a lonely shade, no dove is on the wing, it seems a land which nature made without a living thing. Or wreckage of some older world, ere children grew, or flowers, when rocks and hissing stones were hurled in hot volcanic showers. The solemn blue bends over all, far as winged thought may flee, roll ridges of black mountain wall and flat sands like the sea. No trace of footsteps to be seen, no tent, no smoking roof. Nay, even the vagrant bee-sharing keeps warily aloof. But yon mid-tumbled hillocks prone, some human form I scan, a human form indeed, but stone. A cold, colossal man. How came he here mid-piling sands, like some huge cliff in Isle, Osiris-wise with folded hands, mute spirit of the wild? Ages ago the hands that hewed and in the living rock, carved this colossus granite-hewed and curled each crispy lock. Ages ago have dropped to rest and left him passive, prone, forgotten on earth's barren breast, half-statue and half-stone, and Persia-ruled and Palestine, and o'er her violet seas, arose with marble gods divine, the grace of god-like grease, and roam the mistress of the world amid her dear dem, of eastern empires set in pearl, the scarab's mystic gem. P'chancy has been lying here since first the world began, poor titan of some earlier sphere of prehistoric man, to whom we are as idle flies that fuss and buzz their day, while still immutable he lies, as long ago he lay, and purpled in the afterglow, thou with the sun alone, of all the stormy waste below, art king but king of stone. Uncircumscribed, unmeasured, vast, eternal as the sea, the present here becomes the past. For all futurity. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar of a surf-tormented shore, and I hold within my hand greens of the golden sand, how few yet how they creep through my fingers to the deep, while I weep, while I weep. O God, can I not grasp them with a tighter clasp? O God, can I not save one from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem, is but a dream within a dream? End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Easter 1916 By William Butler Yates Read for LibriVox.org By Lucy Perry I have met them at close of day, coming with vivid faces from counter or desk among grey eighteenth-century houses. I have passed with a nod of the head, or polite meaningless words, or have lingered a while and said polite meaningless words, and thought before I had done of a mocking tale or jive to please a companion around the fire at the club, being certain that they and I, but lived where motley is worn, all changed, changed utterly, a terrible beauty is born. That woman's days were spent in ignorant goodwill, her nights in argument until her voice grew shrill. What voice more sweet than hers, when young and beautiful she rode to Harrier's? This man had kept a school and rode our winged horse, this other his helper and friend was coming into his force. He might have won fame in the end, so sensitive his nature seemed, so daring and sweet as thought. This other man I had dreamed, the drunken, vain glorious lout, he had done most bitter wrong to some who were near my heart. Yet I number him in the song. He too has resigned his part in the casual comedy. He too has been changed in his turn, transformed utterly, a terrible beauty is born. Hearts with one purpose alone, through summer and winter, seem enchanted to a stone, to trouble the living stream. The horse that comes from the road, the rider, the birds that range from cloud to tumbling cloud, minute by minute change. A shadow of cloud on the stream changes minute by minute. A horse hoof slides on the brim and a horse splashes with it, where long-legged moorhens die and hens to moor cocks call, minute by minute they live. The stone's in the midst of all. Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. Oh, when may it suffice? That is heaven's part, our part, to murmur name upon name, as the mother names her child, when sleep at last has come, on limbs that run wild. What is it but nightfall? No, no, not night but death. Was it needless death, after all? For England may keep faith for all that is done and said. We know their dream, enough to know they dreamed in the dead. And what if excess of love bewildered them till they died? I write it out in a verse. Macdonough and McBride and Connolly and Pierce, now and in time to be, wherever green is worn, are changed, changed utterly. A terrible beauty is born. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. January 2010. Edward. Why does your brain sit wrapped with blood, Edward, Edward? Why does your brain sit wrapped with blood, and why is he sad, gangie, oh? Oh, I had killed me hawks, he did, Mr. Mithra. Oh, I had killed me hawks, he did, and I had no matter but he, oh. Your hawkest blood was never say, read, Edward, Edward. Your hawkest blood was never say, read, my dear son, I tell thee, oh. Oh, I had killed me read, won't steed, Mr. Mithra. Oh, I had killed me read, won't steed, that erst was se faire and frio. Your steed was old, and he had got mare, Edward, Edward. Your steed was old, and he had got mare. Some other duel ye did thee, oh. Oh, I had killed me fodder, dear, Mr. Mithra. Oh, I had killed me fodder, dear, alas, and way is me, oh. And what in penance would ye do ye for that, Edward, Edward? And what in penance would ye do ye for that, my dear son, now tell me, oh? I'll set me feet in yonder boat, Mr. Mithra. I'll set me feet in yonder boat, and I'll fare over the sea, oh. And what will ye do with your towers in your haw, Edward, Edward? And what will ye do with your towers in your haw, that were se faire to sea, oh? I'll let them stand till they down for, Mithra, Mithra. I'll let them stand till they down for, for here never mare I'm on I be, oh. And what will ye leave to your bans and your wife, Edward, Edward? And what will ye leave to your bans and your wife when ye gang over the sea, oh? The wildest room, let them beg for life, Mithra, Mithra. The wildest room, let them beg for life, for them never mare will I see, oh. And what will ye leave to your aim, Mithra, dear, Edward, Edward? And what will ye leave to your aim, Mithra, dear, my dear son, now tell me, oh? The coast I hail, Frémée, so ye bear, Mithra, Mithra, the coast I hail, Frémée, so ye bear, so counsel ye gave to me, oh. And upon this recording is in the public domain. The plowman homeward plods his weary way, and leaves the world to darkness, and to me. Now feds the glimmering landscape on the site, and all the air a solemn stillness holds. Serve where the beetle wheels his droning flight, and drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds. Serve that, from yonder ivy mantled tower, the moping owl does to the moon complain of such as wandering near her secret bower, molest her ancient solitary reign. Beneath those rugged elms, that ye trees shed, where heaves the turf in many a moulding heap, each in his narrow cell for ever laid, the rude forefathers of the hamlets sleep. The breezy call of incense-breathing moan, the swallow twitchering from the straw-built shed, the cocks shrill clarion or the echoing horn, no more shall rouse them from their lowly bed. For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn, or busy housewife ply her evening care, no children run to lisp their sighs return, or climb his knees the envid kiss to share. Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield, their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke, how jockened did they drive their team afield, how bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke. Let not ambition mock their useful toil, their homely joys, and destiny obscure, nor grandeur here with a disdainful smile the short and simple annals of the poor. The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, and all that beauty, all that wealth air gave, a words alike the inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave. Nor you ye proud, impute to these the fault if memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise, where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault of the peeling anthem swells the note of praise. Can storied urn or animated bust, back to its mansion call the fleeting breath, can honour's voice provoke the silent dust, or flattery soothe the dull cold ear of death. Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid some heart once pregnant with celestial fire, hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, or weight to ecstasy the living liar. But knowledge, to their eyes, her ample page rich with the spoils of time, did nare unroll, chill penury repressed their noble rage, and froze the genial current of the soul. Fullmenia gem of purest gray serene, the dark unfathomed caves of ocean-bear. Fullmenia flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air. Some village hampton, that with dauntless breast the little tyrant of his fields withstood, some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest. Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood. The plaws of listening senates to command, the threats of pain and ruin to despise, to scatter plenty or a smiling land and read their history in a nation's eyes, their lot for bad. Nor circumscribed alone their growing virtues, but their crimes confined, for bad to wade through slaughter to a throne, and shut the gates of mercy on mankind. The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide, to quench the blushes of ingenuous shame, or heap the shrine of luxury and pride with incense kindled at the muses' flame. Far from the madding-crowd's ignoble strife their sober wishes never learned to stray. Along the cool sequestered veil of life they kept the noiseless tenor of their wear. Yet even these bones from insult to protect, some frail memorial still erected nigh, with uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked, implores the passing tribute of a sigh. Their name, their years, spelt by thumb-lettered muse, the place of fame and the elegy supply, and many a holy text around she strews, that teach the rustic moralist to die. For who, to dumb forgetfulness of prayer, this pleasing anxious being air resigned, left the warm precincts of the cheerful day, nor cast one longing, lingering look behind? On some fond breast the parting soul relies, some pious drops the closing eye requires, even from the tomb the voice of nature cries, even in our ashes live their wanted fires. For thee, who, mindful of the none who dead, dust in these lines their oidless tale relate, if chanced by lonely contemplation led some kindred spiritual inquire thy fate? Happily some hoary-headed swan may say, oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn, brushing with hasty steps the Jews are where to meet the sun upon the upland lawn. There at the foot of yonder-nodding beach, that wreathes its old fantastic roots so high, his listless length at noon tide would he stretch, and pour upon the brook that babbles by. Hoard by Yon Wood, no smiling as in scorn, muttering his wayward fancies he would row of. Now drooping, warful one, like one for loin, or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. One moan I missed him on the customed hill, along the heath, and near his favourite tree. Another came, nor yet beside the rill, nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he. The next, with dirges due in sad array, slow through the church-way path we saw him borne. Approach and read, for thou canst read, the lair graved on the stone beneath Yon aged thorn, the epitaph. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, a youth to fortune and to fame unknown. Fair science frowned not on his humble birth, and melancholy marked him for her own. Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere. Heaven did a recompense as largely send. He gave to misery all he had, a tear. He gained from heaven, to as all he wished, a friend. Nor father seek his merits to disclose, or draw his frailties from their dread abode. Though they are like in trembling hope repose, the bosom of his father and his god. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Fear no more the heat of the sun, nor the furious winter's rages. Thou thy worldly task hast done, home are gone, and tame thy wages. Golden lads and girls all must, as chimney-sweepers come to dust. Fear no more the frown of the great, thou art past the tyrant's stroke. Care no more to clove and eat, to thee the reed is as the oak. The scepter, learning, physic must all follow this and come to dust. Fear no more the lightning flash, nor the all-dread thunder-stone. Fear not slander, censure, rash, thou hast finished joy and moan. Or lovers young, or lovers must consign to thee and come to dust. No exorciser harm thee, nor no witchcraft charm thee. Ghost unlaid for bear thee, nothing ill come near thee. Quiet consummation have, and renowned be thy grave. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. First Love by John Clare I never was struck before that hour with love so sudden and so sweet. A phase had bloomed like a sweet flower and stole my heart away complete. My face turned pale as deadly pale. My legs refused to walk away. And when she looked, what could I ale? My life and all seemed turned to clay. And then my blood rushed to my face and took my eyesight quite away. The trees and bushes round the play seemed midnight at noonday. I could not see a single thing. Words from my eyes did start. They spoke as cords do from the string and blood burned round my heart. Our flowers the winter's choice is love's bed always snow. She seemed to hear my silent voice, not love's appeal to know. I never saw so sweet a phase as of that I stood before. My heart has left its dwelling place and can return no more. End of Poem This recording is in the public domain. Gunga Dean by Rudyard Kipling This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. You may talk o' Gin and Beer when you're quartered safe out here, and you're sent to penny fights and alders shot it. But if it comes to slaughter, you will do your work on water, and you'll lick the bloomin' boots of him that's got it. Now an injious sunny climb where I used to spend my time, a servant of Her Majesty the Queen. Of all them black-faced crew, the finest man I knew was our regimental behisity, Gunga Dean. It was Dean, Dean, Dean, you lumpin' luck of brick dust, Gunga Dean. Hi, slippy hither-row, water, get it, penny-low, you squiggy-nosed ol' idle Gunga Dean. The uniform he wore was nothing much before, and rather less than after that behind. For a twisty piece of rag and a goat-skin water-bag was all the field-equipment he could find. When the sweatin' troop-train lay in a sightin' through the day where the eat would make your bloomin' eyebrows crawl, we shouted Harry by till our throats were bricky dry, then we whopped him cause he couldn't serve us all. It was Dean, Dean, Dean, you heathen, where the mischief have you been? You'll put some Jewelty in it, or I'll marry you this minute if you don't fill up my helmet, Gunga Dean. He would doten-carry one till the longest day was done, and he didn't seem to know the use of fear. If we charged or broke or cut, you could bet your bloomin' nut. He'd be waitin' fifty paces right flank rear. With his musseg on his back, he would skip with our attack and watch us till the bugles made retire. And for all his dirty eyed, he was white, clear white inside when he went to tend the wounded under fire. It was Dean, Dean, Dean, where the bullets kickin' dust-spots on the green. When the cartridges ran out, you could hear the front-file shout, Hi, ammunition mules and Gunga Dean! I shan't forget the night when I dropped behind the fight where the bullet where my belt plate should have been. I was chokin' mad with thirst, and the man that spied me first was our good ol' grinning gruntin' Gunga Dean. He lifted up my head, and he plugged me where I bled, and he dove me off a pint of water, green. It was crawlin' and it stunk, but of all the drinks I've drunk, I'm grateful as to the one from Gunga Dean. It was Dean, Dean, Dean, here's a beggar with a bullet through his spleen. He's chawin' up the ground, and he's kickin' all around. For God's sakes, get the water, Gunga Dean. He carried me away to wear a duly-lay, and a bullet come and drill the beggar clean. He put me safe inside, and just before he died, I hope you liked your drink, said Gunga Dean. So I'll meet him later on in the place where he is gone, where there's always double-drill and no canteen. It'll be squattin' on the coals, givin' drink to poor damn souls, and I'll get a swiggin' hell from Gunga Dean. Dean, Dean, Dean, you Lazarusian leather, Gunga Dean. Though I've belt you and flayed you by the living God that made you, you're a better man than I am, Gunga Dean. End of Gunga Dean by Rudyard Kipling. Recorded by James Christopher, JxChristopher at yahoo.com. Hap by Thomas Hardy. Read for LibriVox.org by James Martin. Hap. If but some vengeful God would call to me from up the sky, and laugh, thou suffering thing, know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, that thy love's loss is my hate's profaning. Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die. Stealed by the sense of Ier unmerited, half-eased, and that a powerfuller than I had willed and meet'd me, the tears I shed. But not so. How arrives it, joy lies slain, and why unblooms the best hope ever sown? Crass casualty obstructs the sun and rain, and dicing time for gladness casts a moan. These purblind doomsters had as readily strone blisses about my pilgrimage, as pain. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Hate by James Stevens. Read for LibriVox.org by Ryan Dressler. My enemy came nigh, and I stared fiercely in his face. My lips went writhing back in a grimace, and stern I watched him with a narrow eye. Then as I turned away, my enemy, that bitter-hardened savage, said to me, Someday when this is past, when all the arrows that we have are cast, we may ask one another why we hate, and fail to find a story to relate. It may seem then to us a mystery that we should hate each other. Thus said he, and did not turn away, waiting to hear what I might have to say, but I fled quickly, fearing had I stayed, I might have kissed him as I would have made. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Homeopathic Soup. Author unknown. Read for LibriVox.org by Ruth Golding. Take a robin's leg. Mind the drumstick merely. Put it in a tub, filled with water nearly. Set it out of doors in a place that's shady. Let it stand a week, three days if for a lady. Drop a spoonful of it in a five-pale kettle, which may be made of tin or any baser metal. Fill the kettle up. Set it on a boiling. Strain the liquor well to prevent its oiling. One atom add of salt, for the thickening one rice-kernel, and use to light the fire the homeopathic journal. Let the liquor boil half an hour, no longer. If it is for a man, of course you'll make it stronger. Should you now desire that the soup be flavoury, stir it once around with a stalk of savoury. When the broth is made, nothing can excel it. Then, three times a day, let the patient smell it. If he chanced to die, say it was nature did it. If he chanced to live, give the soup the credit. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Mementes Words by Edward Rowland-Sill Read for LibriVox.org by Shulif Amalihem What spiteful charm steals unawares, wherever lovers come, and drips the nimblest brain and scares the bravest feelings dumb. We had one minute at the gate before the others came. Tomorrow it would be too late, and whose would be the blame? I gazed at her. She glanced at me. Alas! the time sped by. How warm it is today, said she. It looks like rain, said I. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Neutral Tones by Thomas Hardy Read for LibriVox.org by James Martin We stood by a pond that winter day, and the sun was white as though chidden of God, and a few leaves lay on the starving sod that had fallen from an ash and were gray. Your eyes on me were as eyes that rove over tedious riddles of years ago, and some words played between us, too, and fro, on which lost more by our love. The smile in your mouth was the deadest thing alive enough to have strength to die, and a grin of bitterness swept thereby, like an ominous bird, a wing. Since then, keen lessons that love deceives and rings with wrong have shaped to me your face, and the God-cursed sun, and a tree, and a pond edged with grayish leaves. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Night Patrol by Arthur Graham West Read for LibriVox by Sue Anderson The Night Patrol, France, March, 1916 Over the top, the wires thin here unbarbed, plain rusty coils, not staked and low enough, full of old tins, though. When you're through all three, aim quarter left for fifty yards or so, then straight for that new piece of German wire, see if it's thick and listen for a while for sounds of working, don't run any risks, about an hour now, over. And we placed our hands on the topmost sandbags, leapt and stood a second with curved backs, then crept to the wire, wormed ourselves tinkling through, glanced back, and dropped. The sodden ground was splashed with shallow pools and tufts of crackling corn stalks two years old, no man had reaped, and patches of spring grass. Half seen as Rosen sank the flares were strewn with the wrecks of our attack, the bandoliers, packs, rifles, bayonets, belts, and haversacks, shell fragments, and the huge whole forms of shells shot fruitlessly, and everywhere the dead. Only the dead were always present, present as a vile, sickly smell of rottenness. The rustling stubble and the early grass, the slimy pools, the dead men stank through all, pungent and sharp. As bodies loomed before and as we passed, they stank, then dulled away to that vague fetter all encompassing, infecting earth and air. They lay all clothed, each in some new and piteous attitude, that we well marked to guide us back. As he, outside our wire, that lay on his back and crossed his legs crusader-wise, I smiled at that and thought on Alaya and his temple church. From him at quarter left lay a small corpse, down in a hollow huddled as in bed, that one of us put his hand on unawares. Next was a bunch of half a dozen men, all blown to bits, an archipelago of corrupt fragments, vexing to us three who had no light to see by save the flares. On such a trail, so lit, for ninety yards we crawled on belly and elbows, till we saw, instead of lumpage dead before our eyes, the stakes and cross-lines of the German wire. We lay in shelter of the last dead man, ourselves as dead, and heard their shovels ring, turning the earth, then talk and cough at times. A sentry fired and a machine-gun spat. They shot a flare above us when it fell and spluttered out in the pools of no man's land. We turned and crawled past the remembered dead, past him and him and them and him, until, for he lay some way apart, we caught the scent of the crusader and slid past his legs and through the wire and home and got our rum. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Nonsense Drawleries. The Owl and the Pussycat. The Duck and the Kangaroo. By Edward Lear. Red for LibriVox Org. By Janney Meisberger. The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat. They took some honey and plenty of money wrapped up in a five-pound note. The Owl looked up to the stars above and sang to a small guitar. Oh, lovely Pussy, oh Pussy, my love, what a beautiful Pussy you are, you are, you are. What a beautiful Pussy you are! Pussy said to the Owl, You elegant fowl, how charmingly sweet you sing. Oh, let us be married too long we have tarried, but what shall we do for a ring? They sailed away for a year and a day to their land with the bong-tree-crows, where in a wood a piggy-wick stood, with a ring at the end of his nose, his nose, his nose, with a ring at the end of his nose. Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling your ring? said the piggy, I will. So they took it away and were married next day by the turkey who lives on the hill. They dined on mints and slices of quints which they ate with a roncible spoon. And hand in hand on the edge of the sand they danced by the light of the moon, the moon, the moon, they danced by the light of the moon. The duck and the kangaroo said the duck to the kangaroo, God gracious, how you hop over the fields and the water too as if you would never stop. My life is a bore in this nasty pond, and I long to go out in the world beyond, I wish I could hop like you, said the duck to the kangaroo. Please give me a ride on your back. I would sit quite still and say nothing but quack the whole of the day long through. And we'd go to the D and the jelly-bow-lee over the land and over the sea. Please take me a ride, O'Doo, said the duck to the kangaroo. Said the kangaroo to the duck. This requires some little reflection. Perhaps on the whole it might bring me luck, and there seems but one objection, which is, if you'll let me speak so bold, your feet are unpleasantly wet and cold, and probably give me the room it is, said the kangaroo. Said the duck, as I sat on the rocks I thought over that completely, and I bought four pairs of worsted socks which fit my web-feet neatly. And to keep out the cold I bought a cloak, and every day a cigar I'll smoke, all to follow my own dear true love of the kangaroo. Said the kangaroo, I'm ready, all in the moonlight pale, but to balance me well, dear duck, sit steady and quite at the end of my tail. So away they went to the hop and abound, and they hopped the whole world three times round. And who's so happy, O'Doo, as the duck and the kangaroo? End of Nonsense Drawlaries The Owl and the Pussycat The Duck and the Kangaroo Recording by Channy This recording is in the public domain. The Retreat by Henry Vaughan Read for LibriVox.org by Algie Pug Happy those early days when I shined in my angel infancy, before I understood this place appointed for my second race, or taught my soul to fancy ought but a white celestial thought. When yet I had not walked above a mile or two from my first love, and looking back at that short space, would see a glimpse of his bright face, went on some gilded cloud or flower, my gazing soul would dwell an hour, and in those weaker glories spies some shadows of eternity, before I taught my tongue to wound my conscience with a sinful sound, or had the black art to dispense a several sin to every sense, but felt through all his fleshly dress bright shoots of everlastingness. O, how I long to travel back and tread again that ancient track, that I might once more reach that plain where first I left my glorious train, from whence the enlightened spirit sees that shady city of palm trees. But, ah, my soul would too much stays drunk and staggers in the way, some men of forward motion love but I by backward steps would move, and when this dust falls to the urn in that state I came, return. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Rubaiyat of O, how dry I am, with apologies to Omar by J. L. Duff. Read for LibriVox.org by Nullifidian. Number one. Whale, for the law has scattered into flight, those drinks that were our sometime dear delight, and still the morals tinkers plot and plan, new sterner stricter statutes to indict. Number two. After the phantom of our freedom died, me thought a voice within the tavern cried, drink coffee lads for that is all that's left, since our land of the free is washed and dried. Number three. The hags indeed are gone, and on the nose that burgeoned once with color of the rose, a deathly pallor sits, while down the lane where once drove Johnny Walker, water goes. Number four. Come fill the cup, and in the coffee house, we'll learn a new and temperate corouse. The bird of time flies with a steadier wing, but roosts with sleepless eye, a coffee souse. Number five. Each mourn a thousand recipes, you say. Yes, but where matched the beer of yesterday, and those spring months that used to bring the Bach, seen very long ago, and far away? Number six. A book of blue laws underneath the bow, a pot of tea, a piece of toast and thou, beside me sighing in the wilderness. Wilderness? It's desert sister now. Number seven. Some for a Sunday without paint, and some sigh for nebri at paradise to come, while moonshine takes the cash, no credit goes, and real old stuff demands a premium. Number eight. The scanty stock we set our hearts upon, still dwindles and declines until anon, like snow upon the desert's dusty face, it lights us for an hour and then is gone. Number nine. Ah, my beloved, fill the cup that clears today of past regrets and future fears. Tomorrow? Why tomorrow I may be in Canada, or Scotland, or Algiers. Number ten. Yes, make the most of what we still may spend, the last drop's lingering taste may yet transcend anticipation's bliss. Though we are left sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and sans end. Number eleven. A like for those who for the draught prepared, and those who like myself more poorly fared, fond memory weaves rosy at shrouds to dress departed spirits we have loved. And shared. Number twelve. Myself, when young, did eagerly frequent the gilded bar and all my lucre spent for bottled joyousness, but evermore came out less steadily than in I went. Number thirteen. The legal finger writes, and having writ moves on, and neither thirst nor wit has lured it back to cancel half a line to give a man excuse for being lit. Number fourteen. And build the bootlegger, the infidel, when he takes my last scent just for a smell of hooch, I wonder what bootleggers buy, one half so precious as the stuff they sell. Number fifteen. O bill who dost with white mule and with gin beset the road I am to wander in, if I am garnered of the law wilt thou all piously impute my fall to sin? Number sixteen. Yon rising moon that looks for us again, how oft hereafter will she wax and wane, but, oh, how oft before we have beheld six moons arise who now seek to in vain. Number seventeen. And when thyself at last shall come to trip down that dim dock where Charon loads his ship, I'll meet thee on the other wharf if thou wilt promise to have something on thy hip. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Snow in the Suburbs by Thomas Hardy read for LibriVox.org by John Nixon, the supercargo. Every branch big with it, bent every twig with it, every fork like a white web foot, every street and pavement mute. Some flakes have lost their way and grope back upward when, meeting those meandering down, they turn and descend again. The palings are glued together like a wall and there is no waft of wind with the fleecy fall. A sparrow enters the tree whereon immediately a snow-lump thrice his own slight size descends on him and showers his head and eyes and overturns him and nearing earns him and lights on a nether twig when its brush starts off a volley modding lumps with a rush. The steps are a blanched slope up which with feeble hope a black cat comes wide-eyed and thin and we take him in. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Sonnet 54 from Amoreti by Edmund Spencer read for LibriVox.org by Leonard Wilson from Springfield, Ohio, January 2010. Of this world's theatre in which we stay my love, like the spectator, idly sits beholding me that all the pageants play disguising diversely my troubled wits. Sometimes I joy when glad occasion fits and mask and mirth like to a comedy. Soon after, when my joy to sorrow flits I wail and make my woes a tragedy. Yet she, beholding me with constant eye delights not in my mirth nor rues my smart. But when I laugh she mocks and when I cry she laughs and hardens evermore her heart. What then can move her? If nor mirth nor moan she is no woman but a senseless stone. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Sonnet 62 by Edmund Spencer read for LibriVox.org The weary year his race now having run the new begins his compast course anew with show of morning mild he hath begun betokening peace and plenty to ensue. So let us which this change of weather view change eek our minds and former lives amend. The old year's sins for past let us eschew and fly the faults with which we did offend. Then shall the new year's joy forth freshly send into the glooming world his gladsome ray. And all these storms which now his beauty blend shall turn to calms and timely clear away. So likewise love cheer you your heavy sprite and change old year's annoy to new delight. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Read by Alan Davis Drake. The Three Fishes by Charles Kingsley Read for LibriVox.org by Ruth Golding Three Fishes went sailing away to the west away to the west as the sun went down. Each thought on the woman who loved him the best and the children stood watching them out of the town. For men must work and women must weep and there's little to earn and many to keep though the harbour bar bemoaning. Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower and they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down. They looked at the squall and they looked at the shower and the night rack came rolling up ragged and brown. But men must work and women must weep though storms be sudden and waters deep and the harbour bar bemoaning. Three corpses lay out on the shining sands in the morning gleam as the tide went down and the women are weeping and ringing their hands for those who will never come home to the town. For men must work and women must weep and the sooner it's over the sooner to sleep and goodbye to the bar and its moaning. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. A Takata of Goluppies by Robert Browning Read for LibriVox.org by Algie Pug. O Goluppie Baldissaro, this is very sad to find. I can hardly misconceive you. It would prove me deaf and blind. But although I take your meaning, it is with such a heavy mind. Here you come with your old music and here's all the good it brings. What? They lived once thus at Venice? Were the merchants were the kings? Were St. Mark's is? Were the doges used to wed the sea with rings? I, because the sea is the street there and is arched by what you call Shylock's Bridge with houses on it where they keep the carnival. I was never out of England. It's as if I saw it all. Did young people take their pleasure when the sea was warm in May? Balls and masks began at midnight, burning ever to midday when they make up fresh adventures for the morrow, do you say? Was a lady such a lady cheeks so round and lips so red on her neck the small face buoyant like a bell flower on its bed? Or the breast superb abundance where a man might face his head? Well, and it was graceful of them, they'd break-talk off and afford she to bite her mask's black velvet, he to finger on his sword while you sat and played to carters dately at the clavichord. What? Those lesser-thirds so plaintive, sixth diminished, sigh on sigh, told them something? Those suspensions, those solutions must we die. Those commiserating sevenths, life might last, we can but try. Were you happy? Yes. And are you still as happy? Yes. And you? Then more kisses. Did I stop them when a million seemed so few? Hark, the dominance persistence till it must be answered to. So an octave struck the answer. Oh, they praised you, I dare say. Brave galope, that was music, good alike at grave and gay. I could always leave off talking when I hear a master play. Then they left you for their pleasure, till in due time, one by one, some with lives that came to nothing, some with deeds as well undone, death stepped tacitly and took them where they never see the sun. But when I sit down to reason, think to take my stand, nor swerve. While I triumph or a secret rung from nature's close reserve, in you come with your cold music, till I creep through every nerve. Yes, you, like a ghostly cricket, creaking where a house was burned, dust and ashes dead and done with, Venice spent what Venice earned. The soul doubtless is immortal, where a soul can be discerned. Yours for instance, you know physics, something of geology, mathematics are your pastime, souls shall rise in their degree, butterflies made red extinction, you will not die, it cannot be. As for Venice and her people, merely born to bloom and drop, here on earth they bore their fruit each, mirth and folly with a crop, what of soul was left I wonder when the kissing had to stop. Dust and ashes, so you creak it, and I want the heart to scold, dear dead women, with such hair too, what's become of all the gold used to hang and brush their bosoms. I feel chilly and grown old. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. To Papa, by Louisa May Alcott, www.wetfullibrarybox.org by Lidu Ayur. In high Olympus' sacred shade, a gift Minerva wrought for her beloved philosopher, immersed in deepest thought, a shield to God's aged breast with its enchanted mesh, when he his nectar and ambrosia took to strengthen and refresh. Long may he live to use the life the hidden goddess gave to keep unspotted to the end, the gentle, just and brave. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes. This debt we pay to human guile with torn and bleeding hearts. We smile and mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be over-wise and counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us while we wear them on. Nay, let them only see us while we wear the mask. We smile, but oh, Christ our cries to thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh, the clay is vile beneath our feet and along the mile. But let the world dream otherwise. We wear the mask. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Wild Swans at Cool by William Butler Yeats. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Stephen Carney. The trees are in their autumn beauty. The woodland paths are dry. Down to the October twilight the water mirrors a still sky. Upon the brimming water among the stones are nine and fifty swans. The nineteenth autumn has come upon me since I first made my count. I saw before I had well finished all suddenly mount and scatter, wheeling in great broken rings upon their clamorous wings. I have looked upon those brilliant creatures and now my heart is sore. All's changed since. Fearing a twilight the first time on this shore the bell-beat of their wings above my head is trod with a lighter tread. Unwearyed still, lover by lover they paddle in the cold, companionable streams or climb the air. Their hearts have not grown old. Passion or conquest wonder where they will attend upon them still. But now they drift on the still water, mysterious, beautiful, among what rushes will they build a lake's edge or pool to light men's eyes when I awake some day to find they have flown away.