 Aftermath by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, read for LibriVox.org by Rhonda Fetterman. When the summer fields are moan, when the birds are fledged and flown, and the dry leaves strew the path with the falling of the snow, with the cawing of the crow, once again the fields we mow and gather in the aftermath. Not the sweet new grass with flowers is this harvesting of ours, not the upland clover bloom, but the rowan mixed with weeds, tangled tufts from marsh and meads, where the poppy drops its seeds in the silence and the gloom. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Alley by Lola Ridge, read for LibriVox.org by Shona Bogdan Sturble. Because you are four years old, the candle is all dressed up in a new frill, and stars nod to you through the hole in the curtain, except the big stiff planets too fat to move about much. And you curtsy back to the stars when no one's looking. You feel sorry for the poor wooden chair that knows it isn't nice to sit on, and no one is sad but mama. You don't like mama to be sad when you are four years old, so you pretend you like the bitter gold pale tea. You pretend if you don't drink it up pretty quick, a little goldfish will think it is a pond and come and get born in it. It's hot in our street, and the breeze is a dirty little broom that sweeps dust into our room and bits of paper out of the alley. You are not led to play with the children in the alley, but you must be very polite, so you pass them and say good day, and when they fling banana skins, you fling them back again. There is no one to play with, and the flies on the window buzz and buzz. You can pull out their legs and stick pins in their bodies, but still they buzz, and mama says, when Nero was a little boy, he caught flies on his mama's window and pulled out their legs and stuck pins in their bodies, and nobody loved him. Buzz, blue-bellied flies, buzz, nasty black wheel of mama's machine. You are the biggest fly of all, you have the loudest buzz. I hear you at dawn before the locus, but I like the picture of the flood and the little babies getting drowned. If I were there, I would save them, but as I can't save them, I like to watch them getting drowned. When mama buys a fling hoe, he smiles very wide and picks her the largest loquats. The greens man gave her a cabbage, and she held it against her black bodice and said what a beautiful green it was and put it on the table as though it had been a flower. But next day we boiled and ate it with salt. It was our dinner. Christmas day, I found Janie on my pillow. Janie is made of rubber. Her red and blue jacket won't come off. Christmas dinner was green and white, chicken and lettuce and peas, and drops of oil on the salad, smiley and full of light, like the gold on the lady's teeth. But mama said politely, thank you, we are dining out. She wouldn't let you take one pea to put in the hole where the whistle was at the back of Janie's head, so Janie should have some dinner. So you went to the park with biscuits and black tea in a bottle. You feel very sad when you climb on the fence to watch mama out of sight. The women in the alley poke their heads out of doorways and watch her too. You know her by the way she holds her shoulders till she is only a speck in a chain of specks till she has swallowed up. But suppose that day after day you were to watch for her face and it didn't come back. Suppose it were to drop out of the string of white faces like the pearl out of my chain I never found again. Mabel minds you while mama is out. She washes while she sings. Three blind mice, they all run away from the farmer's wife who cut off their tails with a carving knife. Wind blows out Mabel's sheets, wave you blow in a bag before you burst it. Wind has a soapy smell. It's heavier than sun that lies all over you without any weight and makes you feel happy and crinkly like bubbling water. There's no sun on the empty house. It's like a slide looking house. You can't see in its windows that watch you out of their corners. Perhaps there's a big spider there spinning great threads over the windows till they look like dead people's faces. Jimmy says, Jimmy's hair is white as a white mouse. Flashes are gold as mama's wedding ring and his mouth feels cool and smooth like a flower wet with rain. You wouldn't believe Jimmy was different till he showed you. Blind wet sheets flapping on the lines. Sun in your eyes, dark gold sun full of little black spots. You have to blink and blink round eyes of Jimmy. Jimmy's blue jumper, blue shadow of wall. All the world's holding still as when a clock stops. Streets still, people still. No streets, no people, only sky and wall. Sun glaring bright as God down at you and Jimmy. Shadow like a purple cloth trailing off the wall. Wild wet sheets flapping in the wind. Big slipper feet flapping too. Big balloon face rushing up the alley. How's his closing up again? Windows looking round. Mabel pulls you in the gate and shakes you and tells you not to tell your mama. And you wonder if God has spoiled Jimmy. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Cargos by John Masefield. Recorded for LibriVox.org by Gabriel Lambrick. Queen Quareem of Nineveh from Distant to Fear. Rowing home to Haven in sunny Palestine with a cargo of ivory and apes and peacocks, sandalwood, cedarwood and sweet white wine. Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus, dipping through the tropics by the palm green shores with a cargo of diamonds, emeralds, amethysts, topazes and cinnamon and gold moydours. Dirty British coaster with a salt caked smokestack butting through the channel in the Mad March days with a cargo of tine coal, road rails, piglet, firewood, ironware and cheap tin trays. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Cold Heaven by William Butler Yates. Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake. Suddenly I saw the cold and rook-delighting heaven that seemed as though ice burned and was but the more ice. And thereupon, imagination and heart were driven so wild that every casual thought of that and this vanished and left but memories that should be out of season with the hot blood of youth, of love crossed the long ago. And I took all the blame out of all the sense and reason until I cried and trembled and rocked to and fro, riddled with light. Ah, when the ghost begins to quicken, confusion of the deathbed over, is it sent out naked on the roads, as the books say, and stricken by the injustice of the skies for punishment? End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Echoing Green by William Blake. Read for LibriVox.org by Rhonda Thetterman. The sun does arise and make happy the skies. The merry bells ring to welcome the spring. The skylark and thrush, the birds of the bush sing louder around to the bells' cheerful sound while our sports shall be seen on the Echoing Green. Old John with white hair does laugh away care. Sitting under the oak among the old folk, they laugh at our play, and soon they all say, such, such were the joys when we all girls and boys in our youth time were seen on the Echoing Green. Till the little ones weary no more can be merry, the sun does descend and our sports have on end. Round the laps of their mothers, many sisters and brothers, like birds in their nest, are ready for rest, and sports no more seen on the darkening green. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Glory of the Garden by Rudyard Kipling. Read for LibriVox.org by Ruth Golding. Our England is a garden that is full of stately views of borders, beds, and shrubberies, and lawns, and avenues, with statues on the terrace and peacocks strutting by. But the glory of the garden lies in more than meets the eye. For where the old thick laurels grow along the thin red wall, you'll find the tool-and-potting sheds which are the heart of all, the cold frames and the hot houses, the dung-pits and the tanks, the rollers, carts, and drain-pipes with the barrows and the planks. And there you'll see the gardeners, the men and apprentice boys, told off to do as they are bid, and do it without noise. For except when seeds are planted and we shout to scare the birds, the glory of the garden it abideth not in words. And some can pot begonias and some can bud a rose, and some are hardly fit to trust with anything that grows. But they can roll and trim the lawns and sift the sand and loam, for the glory of the garden occupies all who come. Our England is a garden, and such gardens are not made by singing, Oh, how beautiful, and sitting in the shade, while better men than we go out and start their working lives at grubbing weeds from gravel paths with broken dinner knives. There's not a pair of legs so thin, there's not a head so thick, there's not a hand so weak and white, nor yet a heart so sick, but it can find some needful job that's crying to be done, for the glory of the garden glorifyeth every one. Then seek your job with thankfulness and work till further orders, if it's only netting strawberries or killing slugs on borders. And when your back stops aching and your hands begin to harden, you will find yourself a partner in the glory of the garden. Oh, Adam was a gardener, and God who made him sees that half a proper gardener's work is done upon his knees. So when your work is finished, you can wash your hands and pray for the glory of the garden that it may not pass away. And the glory of the garden it shall never pass away. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Happy's England by John Keats, read for LibriVox.org by Sergio Baldelli in Rome, April 2009. Happy's England, I could be content to see no other verger than its own, to feel no other breezes than are blown through its tall woods with the high romances blend. Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment for sky's Italian and an inward groan to sit upon an harp as on a throne and half forget what world or worldling meant. Happy's England, sweet her artless daughters, enough their simple loveliness for me, enough their whitest arms in silence clinging. Yet do I often warmly burn to see beauties of a deeper glance and hear their singing and float with them about the summer waters. End of a poem. This recording is in the public domain. I Love the Athos by Sappho, translated by Bliss Carmen, read for LibriVox.org by Bologna Times. I Love the Athos in the long ago, when the great oleanders were in flower in the broad-herded meadows full of sun, and we would often at the fall of dusk wander together by the silver stream, when the soft grass-heads were all wet with dew, and purple misted in the fading light, and joy I knew, and sorrow at thy voice, and the superb magnificence of love, the loneliness that saddens solitude, and the sweet speech that makes it durable, the better longing and the keen desire, the sweet companionship through quiet days, and the slow, ample beauty of the world, and the unutterable glad release within the temple of the holy night. O Athos, how I love thee long ago, in that fair, perished summer by the sea. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. It Couldn't Be Done by Edgar A. Guest, Read for LibriVox.org by Dan Grzinski. It Couldn't Be Done. Somebody said that it couldn't be done, but he with a chuckle replied that maybe it couldn't, but he would be one who wouldn't say so till he tried. So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin on his face if he worried he hit it. He started to sing as he tackled the thing that couldn't be done, and he did it. Somebody scoffed. He'll never do that. At least no one ever has done it, but he took off his coat and he took off his hat, and the first thing we knew he'd begun it. With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin without any doubting or quit it, he started to sing as he tackled the thing that couldn't be done, and he did it. There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done. There are thousands to prophecy failure. There are thousands to point out to you one by one the dangers that wait to assail you. But just buckle in with a bit of a grin. Just take off your coat and go to it. Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing that cannot be done, and you'll do it. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. TheSuperCargo.com Softly glide to take thy station at my side when later friends and forms are near from these thy traces disappear and scarce a name can I recall of those I value most of all. At times thou hurriest me away and pointing out an earlier day biddest me listen to a song I ought to have forgotten long then looking up I see above the plumage of departing love and when I cry art thou too gone he laughs at me and passes on. Some images, alas, how few still sparkle in the evening dew along my path and must they quite vanish before a deeper night? Keep one memory yet a while and let me think I see it smile. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Mama. By Lola Ridge. Read for LibriVox.org by Shona Brogdon's Trouble. Mama's space is smooth and pale as tea rose leaves. That ivory oval of Aunt Jim you suck the miniature off had black black hair like Mama. Pityty Pat. Mama walks so fast. Street lamps jig without bending a leg. Lights in the windows play twinkling tunes. On crimson and blue bottles like bubbles big as balloons faster and faster and pink light spurts over cakes doing polkas in little white shirts with cake princesses in blounced white skirts. Pityty Pat. Mama walks slower. Slower and slower. Eyes, lamps, stars acres and acres of stars. Bells and sleepily flapping feet. You're glad Mama walks slow. It's nice to be carried along up high near the stars that look at you with a grave great look. Every night Mama sings you to sleep. When she sings, oh for the light of thine eyes Dolores there's a castle on a cliff and the sea roars like lions. It leaps at the castle and the cliff knocks it down but always the sea shakes its flattened head and gets up again. The castle has no roof so the rain spins silvery webs in it and Dolores' face bloats dim and beautiful the way flowers do when they are drowned. Step by white step she goes up the castle stairs but the stair goes up into the sky and the sky keeps going up too and none of them ever get there When Mama sings ba-ba black sheep the stars seem to shine through her voice so everything has to be still and when she has finished singing her song goes up off the earth higher and higher till it is only as big as a tiny silver bird with nothing but moonlight around it. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. A cottage white was standing there among the grand old hills and missed the spreading shady trees were songs of laughing reels. In that dear home my parents lived my brothers large and small with uncles aunts and cousins near and I the pet of all but listened to my children's call I hear their plaintive prayer in fancy now I press soft cheeks and fondly stroke fair hair wide seas may roll between us yet my darlings will life brave perchance be folded to my heart or kiss their mother's grave. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Night Wind by Eugene Field Please visit LibriVox.org This reading is by Mia Capo Have you ever heard the wind go you it is a pitiful sound to hear it seems to chill you through and through with a strange and speechless fear does the voice of the night that broods outside when folks should be asleep and many and many is the time I've cried to the darkness brooding far and wide over the land and the deep whom do you want a lonely night that you wail the long hours through and the night would say in its ghostly way you my mother told me long ago when I was a little tad that when the night went wailing so somebody had been bad and then when I was snug in bed with her I'd been sent with the blankets pulled up round my head I'd think of what my mother'd said and wonder what boy she meant and who's been bad today I'd ask of the wind that hoarsely blew and the wind would say in its meaningful way you that this was true I must allow you'll not believe it though yes though I'm quite the model now I was not always so and if you doubt what things I say suppose you make the test suppose when you've been bad some day and up to bed are sent away from mother and the rest suppose you ask who has been bad and then you'll hear what's true for the wind will moan in its roofless tone you you end of poem this recording is in the public domain Ode recited at the Harvard Commemoration July 21st 1865 by James Russell Lowell read for LibriVox.org by Kalinda weak winged his song nor aims at that clear ethered height wither the brave deeds climb for light we seem to do them wrong bringing our robins leaf to deck their hearse who in warm lifeblood wrote their nobler verse our trivial song to honor those who come with ears attuned to strenuous trump and drum and shaped in squadron straffs their desire live battle-oads whose lines were steel and fire yet sometimes feathered words are strong a gracious memory to buoy up and save from Lethey's dreamless ooze the common grave of the unventurous throng today our reverend mother welcomes back her wisest scholars those who understood the deeper teaching of her mystic tome and offered their fresh lives to make it good no lore of Greece or Rome no science peddling with the names of things or reading stars to find inglorious fates can lift our life with wings far from death's idle gulf that for the many waits and lengthen out our dates with that clear frame whose memory sings in manly hearts to come and nerves them and dilates nor such thy teaching mother of us all nor such the trumpet call of thy diviner mood that could thy sons entice from happy homes and toils the fruitful nest of those half-virtues which the world calls best into war's tumult rude but rather far that stern device the sponsors chose that round thy cradle stood in the dim unventured wood the very toss that lurks beneath the letters unprolific sheath life of what air makes life worth living seed grain of high and prize immortal food one heavenly thing whereof earth hath the giving many loved truth and lavished life's best oil amid the dust of books to find her content at last for garden of their toil with the cast mantle she hath left behind her many in sad faith sought for her many with crossed hands sighed for her but these are brothers fought for her at life's dear peril wrought for her so loved her that they died for her tasting the raptured fleetness of her divine completeness their higher instinct new those love her best who to themselves are true and what they dare to dream of dare to do they followed her and found her where all may hope to find not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind with danger's sweetness round her where faith made whole with deed breeds its awakening breath into the lifeless creed they saw her plumed and mailed with sweet stern face unveiled and all repaying eyes looked proud on them in death our slender life runs rippling by and glides into the silent hollow of the past what is there that abides to make the next stage better for the last is earth too poor to give us something to live for here the chill outlive us some more substantial boon than such as flows and ebbs with fortunes fickle moon the little that we see from doubt is never free the little that we do is but half nobly true with our laborious hiving what men call treasure and the gods call dross life seems a jest of fates contriving only secure in everyone's conniving a long account of nothings paid with loss where we poor puppets jerked by unseen wires after our little hour of strut and rave with all our pace-board passions and desires loves, hates, ambitions, and immortal fires are tossed pell-mail together in the grave but stay, no age was ere degenerate unless men held it at too cheap a rate for in our likeness still we shape our fate ah, there is something here unfathomed by the cynic sneer something that gives our feeble light a high immunity from night something that leaps life's narrow bars to claim its birthright with the hosts of heaven a seed of sunshine that can leaven our earthly dullness with the beams of stars and glorify our clay with light from fountains elder than the day a conscience more divine than we a gladness fed with secret tears a vexing forward-reaching sense of some more noble permanence a light across the sea which haunts the soul and will not let it be still beaconing from the heights of undegenerate years wither leads the path to amplar fates that leads not down through flowery meads to reap an aftermath of youth's vain glorious weeds but up the steep amid the wrath and shock of deadly hostile creeds where the world's best hope and stay by battle's flashes gropes a desperate way and every turf the fierce foot clings to bleeds peace hath her not ignoble wreath ere yet the sharp decisive word light the black lips of cannon and the sword dreams in its easeful sheath but someday the live coal behind the thought whether from Baal's stone obscene or from the shrine's serene of God's pure altar-brot bursts up in flame the war of tongue and pen learns with what deadly purpose it was fraught and helpless in the fiery passion-cott shakes all the pillared state with shock of men someday the soft ideal that we would confronts us fiercely phoboset pursued and cries reproachful was it then my praise and not myself was loved prove now thy truth I claim of thee the promise of thy youth give me thy life or cower in empty phrase the victim of thy genius not its mate life may be given in many ways and loyalty to truth be sealed as bravely in the closet as the field so bountiful is fate but then to stand beside her when Craven Charles derived her to front a lie in arms and not to yield this shows me thanks God's plan and measure of a stalwart man limbed like the old heroic breeds who stand self-poised on manhood solid earth not forced to frame excuses for his birth fed from within with all the strength he needs such was he our martyr chief whom late the nation he had led with ashes on her head wept with the passion of an angry grief give me if from present things I turn to speak what in my heart will beat and burn and hang my wreath on his world-honored urn nature they say doth doubt and cannot make a man save on some worn-out plan repeating us by rote from him her old world molds aside she threw and choosing sweet clay from the breast of the unexhausted west with stuff untainted shaped a hero new wise and steadfast in the strength of God and true beautiful to see once more a shepherd of mankind indeed who loved his charge but never loved to lead one whose meek flock the people enjoyed to be not lured by any cheat of birth but by his clear-grained human worth and brave old wisdom of sincerity they knew that outward grace is dust they could not choose but trust in that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill and supple tempered will that bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust his was no lonely mountain peak of mind thrusting to thin air or our cloudy bars a sea-mark now now lost in vapours blind broad prairie rather genial level-lined fruitful and friendly for all humankind yet also nigh to heaven and loved of loftiest stars nothing of Europe here or then of Europe fronting mournward still ere any names of surf and pier could natures equal scheme to face and thwart her genial will was a type of the true elder race and one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face I praise him not, it were too late and some in native weakness there must be in him who condescends to victory such as the present gives and cannot wait safe in himself as in a fate so always firmly he he knew to bide his time and can his fame abide still patient in his simple faith sublime till the wise ears decide great captains with their guns and drums disturb our judgement for the hour but at last silence comes these are all gone and standing like a tower our children shall behold his fame the kindly earnest brave foreseeing man sagacious patient dreading praise not blame new birth of our new soil the first American long as man's hope in satiate can discern or only guess some more inspiring goal outside of self enduring as the pole along whose course the flying axles burn of spirits bravely pitched earth's manlier brood long as below we cannot find the mead that stills the inexorable mind so long this faith to some ideal good under whatever mortal names it masks freedom, law, country, this ethereal mood that thanks the fates for their severer tasks feeling its challenged pulses leap while others skulk in subterfuges cheap and said in dangers van has all the boon it asks shall win man's praise and woman's love shall be a wisdom that we set above all other skills and gifts to culture dear a virtue round whose forehead we in breath laurels that with a living passion breathe when other crowns grow while we twine them seer what brings us thronging these high rights to pay and seal these hours the noblest of our year save that our brothers found this better way we sit here in the promised land that flows with freedoms honey and milk but was they one at sword and hand making the nettle danger soft for us as silk we welcome back our bravest and our best ah me not all some come not with the rest who went forth brave and bright as any here I strive to mix some gladness with my strain but the sad strings complain and will not please the ear I sweep them for a peon but they wane again and yet again into a dirge and die away in pain in these brave ranks I only see the gaps thinking of dear ones whom the dumb turf wraps dark to the triumph which they died to gain fitlier may others greet the living for me the past is unforgiving I with uncovered head salute the sacred dead who went and who returned not say not so it is not the grapes of Canaan that repay but the high faith that failed not by the way virtue treads paths that end not in the grave no bar of endless night exiles the brave and to the saner mind we rather seem the dead that stayed behind blow trumpets all your exultations blow for never shall their orial presence lack I see them muster in a gleaming row with ever youthful brows that nobler show we find in our dull road their shining track in every nobler moon we feel the orient of their spirit glow part of our life's unalterable good of all our saintly aspiration they come transfigured back secure from change in their high-hearted ways beautiful evermore and with the rays of mourn on their white shields of expectation but is there hope to save even this ethereal essence from the grave whatever escaped oblivion's subtle wrong save a few clarion names or golden threads of song before my musing eye the mighty ones of old sweep by disvoiced now and insubstantial things as noisy once as we poor ghosts of kings, shadows of empire wholly gone to dust and many races nameless long ago to darkness driven by that imperious gust of ever rushing time that here doth blow oh visionary world conditions strange where not abiding is but only change where the deep-volted stars themselves still shift in range will we to more continuance make pretence renown builds tombs a life estate is wit and bit by bit the cunning years steal all from us but woe leaves are we whose decays no harvest so but when we vanish hence shall they lie forceless in the dark below save to make green their little length of sods or deep in pansies for a year or two who now to us are shining sweet as gods was dying all they had the skill to do that were not fruitless but the soul resents such short-lived service as if blind events ruled without her or earth could so endure she claims a more divine investiture of longer tenure than fame's airy rents what air she touches doth her nature share her inspiration haunts the ennobled air gives eyes to the mountains blind ears to the deaf earth voices to the wind and her clear trump sings sucker everywhere by lonely bivouacs to the wakeful mind for soul inherits all that soul could dare yea manhood hath a wider span and larger privilege of life than man the single deed the private sacrifice so radiant now through proudly hidden tears is covered up ere long from mortal eyes with thoughtless drift of the deciduous years but that high privilege that makes all men peers that leap of heart whereby a people rise up to a noble anger's height and flamed on by the fates not shrink but grow more bright that swift validity in noble veins of choosing danger and disdaining shame of being set on flame by the pure fire that flies all contact base but wraps its chosen with angelic might these are imperishable gains sure as the sun, medicinal as light these hold great futures in their lusty reins and certify to earth a new imperial race who now shall sneer who dare again to say we trace our lines to a plebeian race, round head and cavalier dumb are those names ere while in battle loud dream-footed as the shadow of a cloud they flit across the ear that is best blood that hath most iron in it to edge resolve with, pouring without stint for what makes manhood dear tell us not of plantagenets, hapsburgs, and gwellfs whose thin bloods crawl down from some victor in a border brawl how poor their outworn coronets matched with one leaf of that plain civic wreath are brave for honors blaze and shell bequeath through whose desert a rescued nation sets her heel on treason and the trumpet hears shout victory tingling Europe's celloneers with vain resentments and more vain regrets not in anger, not in pride pure from passions mixture rude for ever to base earth allied but with far-heard gratitude still with heart and voice renewed to heroes living and dear martyrs dead the strange should close that cons crates our brave lift the heart and lift the head lofty be its mood and grave not without a marshal ring not without a prouder tread and appeal of exultation little right has he to sing through whose heart in such an hour beats no march of conscious power sweeps no tumult of elation to his no man we celebrate by his country's victories great a hero half and half the whim of fate but the pith and marrow of a nation drawing force from all her men highest, humblest, weakest all for her time of need and then pulsing it again through them till the basis can no longer cower feeling his soul spring up divinely tall touched but in passing by her mantel hem come back then noble pride fortis her dower how could poet ever tower if his passions, hopes and fears if his triumphs and his tears are with his people boom cannon boom to all the winds and waves clash out glad bells from every rocking steeple banners a dance with triumph bend your staves and from every mountain peak let beacon fire to answering beacon speak katahdin tell man adnok white face he and so leap on in light from sea to sea till the glad news be sent across a kindling continent making earth feel more firm and air breath braver be proud for she is saved and all have helped to save her she that lifts up the manhood of the poor she of the open soul and open door with room about her hearth for all mankind the fire is dreadful in her eyes no more from her bold front the helm she doth unbind sends all her handmade armies back to spin and bids her navies that so lately hurled their crashing battle hold their thunders in swimming like birds of calm along the unharmful shore no challenge sends she to the elder world that looked a scans and hated a slight scorn plays o'er her mouth as round her mighty knees she calls her children back and waits the mourn of nobler day and thrown between her subject seas bow down dear land for the has found release thy god in these distempered days hath taught thee the sure wisdom of his ways and through thine enemies hath wrought thy peace bow down in prayer and praise no poorest in thy borders now lift to the juster skies a man's enfranchised brow oh beautiful, my country ours once more smoothing thy gold of war disheveled hair or such sweet brows as never other war and letting thy set lips freed from wrath's pale eclipse the rosy edges of their smile lay bare what words divine of lover or of poet could tell our love and make thee know it among the nations bright beyond compare our lives without thee what all our lives to save thee we wreck not what we gave thee we will not dare to doubt thee but ask whatever else and we will dare end of poem this recording is in the public domain born of your hope is dawn to eyes that wake imagine mourn before the morning break if I to please you whom I feign would please reset myself like new key to old tune chain thought remodeled action very soon my hand would slip from yours and by degrees the loving faulty friend so close to day would vanish in another taker place a stranger with a stranger's scrutiny a new regard an unfamiliar face love me for what I am then if you may but if you cannot love me either way end of poem this recording is in the public domain and now they range busily seeking with a continual change therewith all sweetly did me kiss and softly said dear heart how like you this it was no dream I lay broad waking but all is turned thorough my gentleness into a strange fashion of forsaking and I have leave to go of her goodness and she also to use new fangleness but since that I so kindly am served I would feign know what she have deserved end of poem this recording is in the public domain the sun's damp and brown the traveler hastens toward the town and the tide rises the tide falls darkness settles on roofs and walls but the sea in the darkness calls and calls the little waves with their soft white hands a face of footprints in the sands and the tide rises the tide falls the morning breaks the steeds in their stalls stamp and nay as the hostler calls the day returns but never more returns the traveler to the shore and the tide rises the tide falls end of poem this recording is in the public domain then somewhat seemed to whisper near that thou and I must part I doubted it I felt no fear, no weight upon the heart if ought be fell it love was by and rolled it off again so if there ever was a sigh it was not a sigh of pain I may not call thee back but thou returnest when the hand sleep waves o'er my brow his poppy crested wand then smiling eyes bend over mine then lips once pressed invite but sleep hath given a silent sign and both alas take flight end of poem this recording is in the public domain 2009 the absolutely abstemious ass who resided in a barrel and only lived on soda water and pickled cucumbers the bountiful beetle who always carried a green umbrella when it didn't rain and left it at home when it did the comfortable confidential cow who sat in her red Morocco armchair and toasted her own bread the long fierce duck who caught spotted frogs for her dinner with a runcible spoon the enthusiastic elephant who ferried herself across the water with a kitchen poker and a new pair of earrings the fizzgiggiest fish who always walked about on stilts because he had no legs the good-natured gray gole who carried the old owl and his crimson carpet bag across the river because he could not swim the hasty higgledy-piggledy hen who went to the market in a blue bonnet and shawl and bought a fish for her supper the inventive Indian who caught a remarkable rabbit in a stupendous silver spoon the judicious jubilant J who did up her back hair every morning with a wreath of roses three feathers and a gold pin the kicking kangaroo who wore a pale pink Muslim dress with blue spots the lively learned lobster who mended his own clothes with a needle and thread the melodious meritorious mouse who played a merry minuet on the piano forte the nutritious newt who purchased a round plum pudding for his granddaughter the obsequious ornamental ostrich who wore boots to keep his feet quite dry the perpendicular purple poly who read the newspaper at a parsnip pie with his spectacles the queer, querulous quail who smoked a pipe of tobacco on top of a tin tea kettle the rural runcible raven who wore a white wig and flew away with the carpet broom the scrubious snake who always wore a hat on his head for fear he should bite anybody the tumultuous Tom Tommy tortoise who beat a drum all day long in the middle of the wilderness the umbrageous umbrella maker whose face nobody ever saw because it was always covered by his umbrella the visibly vicious vulture who wrote some verses to reveal cutlet in a volume bad enough to reveal cutlet in a volume bound in vellum the worrying whizzing wasp who stood on a table and played sweetly on a flute with a morning cap the excellent double extra XX imbibing king's zersies who lived a long while ago the youngy bongy bow whose head was ever so much bigger than his body and whose hat was rather small the zigzag zealous zebra who carried five monkeys on his back all the way to the jelliblee end of poem this recording is in the public domain under the rod by Mary Alice Walton read for LibriVox.org by Karen Keeney blind and helpless alone I wait the way seems dark and prayers too late my anguished soul since forth the cry father save me ere I die save me for my children small leave them not to sin and fall sinning forth the saddened call mother come back mother blind and helpless days whereby sick and friendless left to die the darkness deepens as I group afraid to live, afraid to hope tell me of a better land lord I cannot see thy hand around me stills an icy band save me or I perish end of poem this recording is in the public domain before fainting I follow I leave off therefore since in a net I seek to hold the wind who list her hunt I put him out of doubt as well as I may spend his time in vain and grave in in diamonds in letters plain there is written her fair neck round about noly may tongue gare for Caesar's I am and wild to hold though I seem tame end of poem this recording is in the public domain how he rung upon the rain of a wimpling wing in his ecstasy then off off forth on swing as a skates heel sweep smooth on a bow bend the hurl and gliding rebuff the big wind my heart in hiding stirred for a bird the achieve of the mastery of the thing brute beauty and valour and act oh air pride plume hear buckle and the fire that breaks from thee then a billion times told lovelier more dangerous oh my chivalier no wonder of it sheer plod makes plow down silly and shine and blue bleak embers ah my dear fall gall themselves and gash gold vermilion end of poem this recording is in the public domain