 Are You the New Person Drawn Toward Me? by Walt Whitman. To begin with, take warning. I am surely far different from what you suppose. Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal? Do you think it's so easy to have me become your lover? Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloyed satisfaction? Do you think I am trusty and faithful? Do you see no further than this facade this smooth and tolerant manner of me? Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man? Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all my illusion? End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. For Music by George Gordon Lord Byron. Read for LibriVox.org by Kristen Hughes. There be none of beauty's daughters with a magic like thee. And like music on the waters is thy sweet voice to me. When as if its sound were causing the charmed oceans pausing, the waves lie still and gleaming, and the lulled winds seem dreaming. And the midnight moon is weaving her bright chain or the deep, whose breast is gently heaving as an infant's asleep. So the spirit bows before thee to listen and adore thee, with a full but soft emotion, like the swell of summer's ocean. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Sonnet 14 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Read for LibriVox.org by Anchor Bend. If thou must love me, let it be for naught, except for love's sake only. Do not say, I love her for her smile, her look, her way of speaking gently, for a trick of thought that falls in well with mine and certice brought a sense of pleasant ease on such a day. For these things in themselves, beloved, may be changed or changed for thee, and love so wrought may be unwrought so. Neither love me for thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry. A creature might forget to weep who bore thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby. But love me for love's sake, that evermore thou mayest love on, through love's eternity. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. In the Gold Room, A Harmony by Oscar Wilde. Read for LibriVox.org by Kristen Hughes. Her ivory hands on the ivory keys strayed in a fitful fantasy, like the silver gleam when the poplar trees rustle their pale leaves listlessly, or the drifting foam of a restless sea, when the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze. Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold, like the delicate garsome tangles spun on the burnished disc of the marigold, or the sunflower, turning to meet the sun when the gloom of the jealous night is done, and the spear of the lily is orialled. And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine burnt like the ruby fire, set in the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine, or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate, or the heart of the lotus drenched and wet with the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Is Love Then So Simple? by Irene Rutherford MacLeod. Read for LibriVox.org by Corrie Samuel, in England 2007. Is Love Then So Simple, my dear? The opening of a door, and seeing all things clear I did not know before. I had thought it unrest and desire, soaring only to fall, annihilation and fire. It is not so at all. I feel no desperate will, but I think I understand, many things, as I sit quite still, with eternity in my hand. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Lebel Down Sun Massey by John Keats. Read for LibriVox.org by Joanne Ship. Oh, what can ale thee night at arms alone in paley-laughtering? And the sedges withered from the lake, and no birds sing. Oh, what can ale thee night at arms so haggard and so woe be gone? The squirrel's granaries fall, and the harvest's done. I see a lily on thy brow, with anguished moist and fever due. An on thy cheek a fading rose, fast withereth too. I met a lady in the meads for beautiful a fairy's child, and her hair was long, her foot was light, and her eyes were wild. I made a garland for her head, and bracelets, too, and fragrant zone, and she looked at me as she did love, and made sweet moe. I sat on my pacing steed, and nothing else saw old day long, and for sideways would she lean and sing a fairy's song. She found me roots of brother's sweet, and honey-wild, and manadoo, and sure in language strange she said, I love thee, true. She took me to her elfin grot, and there she wept in sightful sore, and there I shut her wild-sad eyes with kisses for. And there she lulled me asleep, and there I dreamed, oh, woe be tied, the latest dream I ever dreamt on the cold hillside. I saw pale kings and princes, too, pale warriors, death-pale where they all, and who cried, la beldam san moussi hath thee enthrall. I saw their starved lips in the gloom with hoard warning-gaped wide, and I woke and found me here on the cold hillside. And this is why I sojourn here alone and paley-laughtering, though the sedges withered from the lake, and no birds sing. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Lonely Wife, translated from the Chinese of Li Po by Florence Ashkoff. English version by Amy Lowell. Red for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake. The mist is thick. On the wide river the water-plants float smoothly. No letters come, none go. There is only the moon shining through the clouds of a hard jade-green sky, looking down at us so far divided, so anxiously apart. All day, going about my affairs, I suffer and grieve and press the thought of you closely to my heart. My eyebrows are locked in sorrow. I cannot separate them. Nightly, nightly, I keep ready half the quilt and wait for the return of that divine dream which is my lord. Beneath the quilt of the firebird, on the bed of the silver-crested love pheasant, nightly, nightly I drow's alone. The red candles in the silver candlesticks melt, and the wax runs from them, as the tears of your so unworthy one escape and continue constantly to flow. A flower-face endures but a short season, yet still he drifts along the river Shao and the river Shang. As I toss on my pillow, I hear the cold nostalgic sound of the water-clock. Sheng, Sheng! It drips, cutting my heart in two. I rise adorned in the hall of pictures they come and tell me that the snow-flowers are falling. The reed-blind is rolled high, and I gaze at the beautiful, glittering, primeval snow whitening the distance, confusing the stone steps and the courtyard. The air is filled with its shining. It blows far out like the smoke of a furnace. The grass-blades are cold and white, white, like jade-girdle pendants. Surely the immortals in heaven must be crazy with wine to cause such disorder, seizing the white clouds, crumpling them up, destroying them. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. For LibriVox.org by Anchor Bend. The grey sea and the long black land, and the yellow half-moon, large and low, and the startled little waves that leap in fiery ringlets from their sleep as I gain the cove with pushing prow, and quench its speed in the slushy sand. Two. Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach, three fields to cross till a farm appears. A tap at the pane, the quick, sharp scratch and blue spurt of a lighted match, and a voice less loud through its joys and fears than the two hearts beating each to each of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Nymphs Reply to the Shepherd by Sir Walter Rolly. If all the world and love were young, and truth in every shepherd's tongue, these pretty pleasures might me move to live with thee, and be thy love. Time drives the flocks from field to fold, when rivers rage and rocks grow cold, and Philomel becomeeth dumb, the rest complains of cares to come. The flowers too fade, and wanton fields to wayward winter reckoning yields. A honey-tongue, a heart of gall is fancy's spring, but sorrows fall. Thy gowns, thy shoes, thy beds of roses, thy cap, thy kirtle, and thy poses soon break, soon wither, soon forgotten, in folly-ripe, in reason, rotten. Thy belt of straw, and ivy buds, thy coral clasps, and amber studs, all these in me no means can move to come to thee, and be thy love. But could youth last, and love still breed? Had joys no date, nor age no need? Then these delights my mind might move to live with thee, and be thy love. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. O'Don Melancholy by John Keats. Read for LibriVox.org by Caitlyn Hire. No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist wolf-spain tight-rooted for its poisonous wine, nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed by nightshade, ruby grape of proser pine. Make not your rosary of you-berries, nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be your mournful psyche, nor the downy owl a partner in your sorrow's mysteries. For shade to shade will come too drowsily and drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. But when the melancholy fit shall fall, sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, that fosters the droop-headed flowers all, and hides the green hill in an April shroud. Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, or on the rainbow of the salt-sand wave, or on the wealth of globed peonies. Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, imprison her soft hand and let her rave and feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. She dwells with beauty, beauty that must die, and joy whose hand is ever at his lips bidding adieu, an aching pleasure nigh, turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips. I, in the very temple of delight, veiled melancholy has her sovereign shrine, though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue can burst joy's grape against his pallet fine. His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, and be among her cloudy trophies hung. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe Red for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake of Long Branch, New Jersey Come, live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove, that valley groves hills and fields, woods or steepy mountain yields. And we will sit upon the rocks, seeing the shepherds feed their flocks by shallow rivers, to whose falls melodious birds sing madrigals. And I will make the beds of roses, and a thousand fragrant posies, a cap of flowers, and a curdle embroidered all with leaves of myrtle, a gown made of the finest wool, which from our pretty lambs we pull, fair line slippers for the cold, with buckles of the purest gold, a belt of straw and ivy buds, with coral clasps and amber studs. And if these pleasures may thee move, come, live with me and be my love. The shepherd's swains dance and sing for thy delight each may morning. If these delights thy mind may move, then live with me and be my love. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns. Red for LibriVox.org by Paul Z. February the 9th, 2007, Hong Kong. All my loves like a red, red rose that's newly sprung in June. All my loves like the melody that's sweetly played in tune. As fair art thou, my bonilla, so deep in love am I, and I will love thee still, my dear, till all the seas gang dry, till all the seas gang dry, my dear, and the rocks melt with the sun. And I will love thee still, my dear, while the sands of life shall run. And fair thee will my only love, and fair thee will a while, and I will come again, my love, though it were ten thousand miles. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. She walks in beauty by George Gordon, Lord Byron. Red for LibriVox.org by Reynard. She walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climbs and starry skies. And all that's best of dark and bright, meeting her aspect and her eyes. Thus mellowed to that tender light, which heaven to Gordy dade in eyes, one shade the more, one ray the less, had half impaired that nameless grace, which waves in every raven tress, or softly lightens her face, where thoughts serenely sweet express how pure, how dear their dwelling place. And on that cheek, and all that brow, so soft, so calm yet eloquent, the smiles that win the tints that glow, but tell of days in goodness spent, a mind at peace with all below, a heart whose love is innocent. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. She was a Phantom of Delight by William Wordsworth. Red for LibriVox.org by Kristen Hughes. She was a Phantom of Delight when first she gleamed upon my sight. A lovely apparition, sent to be a moment's ornament. Her eyes as stars of twilight fair, like twilight's two, her dusky hair. But all things else about her, drawn from maytime and the cheerful dawn. A dancing shape, an image gay, to haunt, to startle, and waylay. I saw her upon nearer view, a spirit, yet a woman too. Her household motions light and free, and steps of virgin liberty. Accountance, in which did meet sweet records, promises as sweet. A creature not too bright or good for human nature's daily food. For transient sorrows, simple wiles, praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. And now I see with eyes serene, the very pulse of the machine. A being breathing thoughtful breath. A traveller between life and death. The reason firm, the temperate will, endurance, foresight, strength, and skill. A perfect woman, nobly planned, to warn, to comfort, and command. And yet a spirit still and bright, with something of angelic light. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Gordon. By James Russell Lowell. Read for LibriVox.org. By J. W. McKelvin. God makes itch nights, all white and still, furs you can look or listen. Moonshine and snow on field and hill, all silence and all glisten. Zeke'll crep up quite unbeknown, and peaked in through the winder. And there sought holy all alone, with no one nigh to hinder. A fireplace fell to the room's one side, with half a quart of wood in. There weren't no stoves, till comfort died, and break ye to a pudding. The walnut logs shot sparkles out toward the puttiest blesser, and little flames danced all about the chinny on the dresser. Again the chimney crooknecks hung, and in amongst them rusted the old queen's arm that grandther young fetched back from conquered busted. The very room, cause she was in, seemed warm from floor to ceiling, and she looked full as rosy again as the apple she was peeling. It was kind of kingdom-come to look on such a blessed quitter. A dog rose blushing to a brook, ain't modest or nor sweeter. He was six foot a man, a one, clear grin and human nater. None couldn't quicker pitch a ton, or draw a furrer straighter. He'd sparked it with a full twenty gals. He'd squired them, danced them, drove them. Fussed this one, and then that by spells. All is, he couldn't love them. But long of her his veins had run all crinkly like curled maple. The side she brashed felt full of sun as a south slope in April. She thought no vice had set a swing as his in the choir. My, when he made all hundred ring, she know the lord was nigh. And she blushed scarlet right in prayer when her new meetin' bunnet felt somehow through its crown a pair of blue eyes sought upon it. That night I tell ye, she looked some. She seemed to have got a new soul, for she felt certain sure he'd come down to her very shoe sole. She heared a foot and noted to a raspin' on the scraper, always to once her feelings flew like sparks and burnt up paper. He kinda littered on the mat some doubtful of the sequel. His heart kept goin' pity pat, but hern went pity sequel. And yet she gettin' her cheer a jerk as though she wished him further. And on her apples kept to work, parin' away like murder. You want to see my pie, I suppose? Well, no, I come designin' to see my ma. She's sprinklin' clothes again tomorrow's ironin'. To say why gals act so or so or don't would be presumin'. Maybe to mean yes and say no comes natural to women. He stood a spell on one foot first and stood a spell on the other. And on which one he felt the worst he couldn't have told you another. Said he, I'd better call again. Says she, think lightly, mister. That last word pricked him like a pen and, well, he up and kissed her. And mob I'm by upon him slips, hold he set pale as ashes. All kinda smiley round the lips and teary round the lashes. For she was just the quiet kind whose natures never vary, Like streams that keep a summer mind snow-head in January. The blood closed round her heart felt glued too tight for all expressin', Till mothers see how matters stood and get them both her blessin'. Then her red comeback like the tide down to the Bay of Fundy. And all I know is they was cried at meetin' come next Sunday. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. To Augusta by George Gordon Lord Byron Read for LibriVox.org by Kristen Hughes Though the day of my destiny's over and the star of my fate hath declined, Thy soft heart refused to discover the faults which so many could find. Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted, it shrunk not to share it with me, And the love which my spirit hath painted, it never hath found but in thee. Then when nature around me is smiling, the last smile which answers to mine, I do not believe it beguiling, because it reminds me of thine. And when winds are at war with the ocean, as the breasts I believed in with me, If their billows excite in emotion, it is that they bear me from thee. Though the rock of my last hope is shivered, and its fragments are sunk in the wave, Though I feel that my soul is delivered to pain, it shall not be its slave. There is many a pang to pursue me. They may crush, but they shall not condemn. They may torture, but shall not subdue me. It is of thee that I think, not of them. Though human, thou didst not deceive me, though woman, thou didst not forsake. Though loved, thou forborous to grieve me, though slandered, thou never couldst shake. Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me, though parted, it was not to fly. Though watchful, it was not to defame me, nor mute, that the world might belie. Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it, nor the war of the many with one. If my soul was not fitted to prize it, it was folly not sooner to shun. And if dearly that error hath cost me, and more than I once could foresee, I have found that whatever it lost me, it could not deprive me of thee. From the wreck of the past which hath perished, thus much I at least may recall, it hath taught me that what I most cherished deserved to be dearest of all. In the desert a fountain is springing, in the wide waste there still is a tree, and a bird in the solitude singing, which speaks to my spirit of thee. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. To A Beautiful Quaker by George Gordon, Lord Byron Read for LibriVox.org by Reynard Sweet girl, though only once we met, that meeting I shall near forget, and though we may near meet again, remembrance will thy form retain. I would not say, I love, but still, my senses struggle with my will. In vain to drive thee from my breast, my thoughts are more and more repressed. In vain I check the rising size, another to the last replies, perhaps this is not love, but yet our meeting I can near forget. What though we never silence broke, our eyes a sweeter language spoke, the tongue in flattering falsehood deals, and tell the tale it never feels, deceit the guilty lips impart, and hush the mandates of the heart. But souls interpret as the eyes, spurns such restraint, and scorn disguise, as thus our glances oft conversed, and all our bosoms felt rehearsed. No spirit from within reproved us, say rather, twas the spirit moved us. Though what they uttered I repress, yet I conceived doubt partly guess, for as on thee my memory ponders. Perchance to me, thine also wonders? This for myself at least I'll say, thy form appears through night through day. Awake with it my fancy teams, in sleep its smiles in fleeting dreams. The vision charms the hours away, and bids me curse or aura's ray, or breaking slumbers of delight, which make me wish for endless night. Since, oh, what ere my future fate? Shall joy or woe my steps await? Tempted by love, by storms beset, thine image I can near forget. Alas, again no more we meet, no more our former looks repeat, then let me breathe this parting prayer, the dictate of my bosom's care. May heaven so guard my lovely quaker, that anguish never can her take her, that peace and virtue ne'er forsake her, but bliss be I her heart's partaker. Oh, may the happy mortal fated to be by dearest ties related, for her each hour new joys discover, and lose the husband in the lover. That fair bosom never know what tears to fill the restless woe, which stings the soul with vain regret of him who never can forget. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. How vast the difference seems of yay from nay just now. Yet this same sun will slant its beams at no far day on our two mounds, and then what will the difference weigh? Yet I will see thee, maiden dear, and make the most I can of what remains to us amid this break's samarayan through which we grope, and from whose thorns we ache, while still we scan round our frail faltering progress for some path or plan. By briefest meetings something sure is one. It will have been. Nor God nor demon can undo the done, unsight the scene, make muted music be as unbegun, though things to rean soon in their bondage till oblivion supervene. So to the one long sweeping symphony from time's remote till now of human tenderness shall we supply one note, small and untraced, yet that will ever be somewhere afloat amid the spheres as part of sick life's antidote. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. To my dear and loving husband by Anne Bradstreet, read for LibriVox.org by Catherine Monachia. If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were loved by wife, then thee. If ever wife were happy in a man, compare with me ye women if you can. I prized thy love more than whole minds of gold, or all the riches that the east doth hold. My love is such that rivers cannot quench, nor ought but love from thee give recompense. Thy love is such I can no way repay. The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray. Then while we live in love, let so persevere, that when we live no more, we may live ever. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Songs of Love by James H. Cousins. Recorded for LibriVox.org by Peter Yersley. I will row my boat on Macross Lake when the gray of the dove comes down at the end of the day, and a quiet like prayer grows soft in your eyes, and among your fluttering hair the red of the sun is mixed with the red of your cheek. I will row you, O boat of my heart, till our mouths have forgotten to speak in the silence of love, broken only by trout that spring and are gone, like a fairy's finger that casts a ring with the luck of the world for the hand that can hold it fast. I will rest on my oars, my eyes on your eyes, till our thoughts have passed from the lake and the sky and the rings of the jumping fish, till our ears are filled from the reeds with a sudden swish and a sound like the beating of flails in the time of corn. We shall hold our breath while a wonderful thing is born from the songs that were chanted by bards in the days gone by. For a wild, white swan shall be leaving the lake for the sky with the curve of her neck stretched out in a silver spear. Oh, then when the creek of her wings shall have brought her near, we shall hear again a swish and a beating of flails and a creaking of oars and a sound like the wind in sails as the mate of her heart shall follow her into the air. Oh, wings of my soul, we shall think of angus and chire and etyne and mid-ear that were changed into wild, white swans to fly round the ring of the heavens through the dusks and the dawns, unseen by all but true lovers till judgment day, because they had loved for love only. Oh, love, I will say for a woman and man with eternity ringing them round and the heavens above and below them a poor thing it is to be bound to four low walls that will spill like a peddler's pack and a quilt that will run into holes and a churn that will dry and crack. Oh, better than these a dream in the night or our heart's mute prayer that, O Donahue, the enchanted man should pass between water and air and say, I will change them each to a wild, white swan.