 We sat at the window, by Thomas Hardy, read for LibriVox.org by Carolyn Francis. We sat at the window looking out as the rain came down in silken strings that Swithins Day. Each gutter and spout babbled unchecked in the busy way of witless things. Nothing to read, nothing to see seemed in that room for her and me on Swithins Day. We were irked by the scene, by our own selves, yes, for I did not know, nor did she infer how much there was to read and guess by her and me, and to see and crown by me and her. Wasted were two souls in their prime, and great was the waste that July time when the rain came down. Out of the past there rises a week, who shall read the years, oh? Out of the past there rises a week, enringed with the purple zone. Out of the past there rises a week, when thoughts were strung too thick to speak, and the magic of its lineaments remains with me alone. In that week there was heard a singing, who shall spell the years, the years? In that week there was heard a singing, and the white owl wondered why. In that week, yea, a voice was ringing, and forth from the casement were candles flinging, radiance that fell on the deardar, and lit up the path thereby. Could that song have a mocking note, who shall unroll the years, oh? Could that song have a mocking note, to the white owl's sense as it fell? Could that song have a mocking note, as it trilled out warm from the singer's throat, and who was the mocker, and who the mocked, when too, felt all was well? In a tedious trampling crowd yet later, who shall bear the years, the years? In a tedious trampling crowd yet later, when silvery singings were dumb. In a crowd uncaring what time might fate her, mid-merks of night I stood to await her, and the twanging of iron wheels gave out the signal that she was come. She said with a travel-tired smile, who shall lift the years, oh? She said with a travel-tired smile, half-scared, by scene so strange. She said, outworn by mile on mile, the blurred lamps warning her face the while, Oh, love, I am here, I am here with you! Ah, that there should have come a change! O the doom by someone spoken! Who shall unseal the years, the years? Oh, the doom that gave no token, when nothing of bale saw we! Oh, the doom by someone spoken! Oh, the heart by someone broken! The heart whose sweet reverberances are all time leaves to me! Afternoon service at Melstock, by Thomas Hardy, read for LibriVox.org by Craig Allen. On afternoons of drowsy calm we stood in the paneled pew, singing one voice to Tate and Brady's Psalm to the tune of Cambridge New. We watched the elms, we watched the rooks, the clouds upon the breeze, between the wiles of glancing at our books and swaying like the trees. So mindless were those outpourings, though I am not aware, that I have gained by subtle thought on things since we stood solming there. End of poem This recording is in the public domain. First sight of her and after by Thomas Hardy. Recorded for LibriVox.org by Craig Allen. A day is drawing to its fall I had not dreamed to see. The first of many to enthrall my spirit will it be? Or is this eve the end of all such new delight for me? I journey home the pattern grows, of moonshades on the way. Soon the first quarter, I suppose, sky-glancing travellers say, I realise that it, for those, has been a common day. End of poem This recording is in the public domain. She looked like a bird from a cloud on the clammy lawn, moving alone, bare-browed in the dim of dawn. The candles alight in the room for my parting meal made all things without doors loom, strange, ghostly, unreal. The hour itself was a ghost, and it seemed to me then, as of chances the chance further most I should see her again. I beheld not where all was so fleet that a plan of the past which had ruled us from birth-time to meet was in working at last. No prelude did I there perceive to a drama at all, or foreshadow what fortune might weave from beginning so small. But I rose as if quick by a spur I was bound to obey, and stepped through the casement to her, still alone in the grey. I am leaving you, farewell, I said, as I followed her on, by an alley bare-bowls overspread. I soon must be gone. And then the scale might have been turned against love by a feather, but crimson one cheek of hers burned when we came in together. At a bygone western country fair I saw a giant led by a dwarf, with a red string like a long thin scarf. How much he was the stronger there, the giant seemed unaware. And then I saw that the giant was blind, and the dwarf, a shrewd-eyed little thing, the giant, mild timid, obeyed the string, as if he had no independent mind, or will of any kind. Wherever the dwarf decided to go, at his heels the other trodded meekly, perhaps I know not reproaching weakly, like one fate bade that it must be so, whether he wished or know. Various sights in various clines I have seen, and more I may see yet, but that sight never shall I forget, and have thought at the sorriest of pantomimes, if once a hundred times. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Five Students by Thomas Hardy, read for LibriVox.org by James Gladwin. The Five Students The sparrow dips in his wheel-rutt bath, the sun grows passion-eyed, and boils the dew to smoke by the paddock path, as strenuously we stride, five of us, dark he, fair he, dark she, fair she, I, all beating by. The air is shaken, the high-road hot, shadowless, swoons the day, the greens are sobered and cattle at rest, but not we on our urgent way, four of us, fair she, dark she, fair he, I are there, but one elsewhere. Autumn moulds the hard-fruit mellow, and forward still we press, through moors, briar meshed plantations, clay pits yellow, as in the spring hours, yes, three of us, fair he, fair she, I as here to four, but fallen one more. The leaf drops. Earthworms draw it in at night-time noiselessly. The fingers of birch and beech are skeleton-thin, and yet on the beat are we, two of us, fair she, I, but no more left to go, the track we know. Icicles tag the church aisle-leads, the flag-rope gibbers' horse, the home-bound foot-folk wrap their snowflake-heads, yet I still stork the course. One of us, dark and fair he, dark and fair she, gone. The rest, earn on. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Afterwards, by Thomas Hardy, read for LibriVox.org by James Gladwin. In the present has latched its poston behind my tremulous stay, and the May month flaps its glad green leaves like wings, delicate-filmed as new-spun silk. Will the neighbours say? He was a man who used to notice such things. If it be in the dusk, when, like an eyelids, soundless blink, the dew-fall-hawk comes crossing the shade to a light upon the wind-walked upland thorn, a gazer may think, to him this must have been a familiar sight. If I pass, during some nocturnal blackness, moth-y and warm, when the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn, one may say, he strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm, but he could do little for them, and now he is gone. If, when hearing that I have been stilled at last, they stand at the door, watching the full-starred heavens that winter sees, will this thought rise on those who will beat my face no more? He was one who had an eye for such mysteries. And will any say, when my bell of quittance is heard in the gloom, and a crossing breeze cuts a pause in its outrollings, till they rise again as they were a new bell's boom. He hears it not now, but used to notice such things. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Background and the Figure, Lovers' Ditty, by Thomas Hardy I think of the slope where the rabbits fed, of the para-winks rockwork lair, of the fuchsias ringing their bells of red, and the something else seen there. Between the blooms where the sod-bast bright, by the bobbing fuchsia trees, was another and yet more isam-sight, the sight that richened these. I shall seek those beauties in the spring, when the days are fit and fair, but only as foils to the one more thing that also will flower there. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Figure in the Scene, by Thomas Hardy Red for LibriVox.org by Cricket It pleased her to step in front and sit where the cragged slope was green, while I stood back that I might pencil it with her amid the scene, till it gloomed and reigned, but I kept on, despite the drifting wet that fell and stained my draught, leaving for curious quizzings yet the blots ingrained. And thus I drew her there alone, seated amid the gauze of moisture hooded, only her outline shone with rainfall marked across. Even past our stay, yet her rainy form is the genius still of that spot immutable, yeah, though the place now knows her no more and has known her not ever since that day. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Young Church Warden, by Thomas Hardy Red for LibriVox.org by Cricket When he lit the candles there and the light fell on his hand, and it trembled as he scanned her and me, his vanquished air hinted that his dream was done, and I saw he had begun to understand. When Love's vial was on strung, saw I wish the hand that shook had been mine that shared her book, while that evening him was sung, his the victors, as he lit candles where he had bidden a sit with vanquished look. Now her dust lies listless there, his the far from tending hand, what avails the victory scanned? Does he smile from upper air? Ah, my friend, your dream is done, and is you who have begun to understand. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Dolls, by Thomas Hardy Red for LibriVox.org by Leanne Howlett Whenever you dress me dolls, Mammy, why do you dress them so, and make them gallant soldiers, whenever a one I know, and not as gentle ladies with frills and frocks and curls, as people dress the dollies of other little girls? Ah, why did she not answer? Because your Mammy's heed is always gallant soldiers, as well may be indeed. One of them was your daddy, his name I must not tell. He's not the dad who lives here, but one I love too well. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Life Laughs Onward, by Thomas Hardy Red for LibriVox.org by Leanne Howlett Rambling I looked for an old abode, where, years back, one had lived I knew. This sighted dwelling duly showed, but it was new. I went where, not so long ago, the sod had riven two breasts asunder. Daisy's throw gaily there, as though no grave were under. I walked along a terrace where loud children gambled in the sun. The figure that had once sat there was missed by none. Life laughed and moved on unsubdued. I saw that old succumbed to young, twas well. My too regretful mood died on my tongue. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Pink Frog, by Thomas Hardy Red for LibriVox.org by Leanne Howlett Oh, my pretty Pink Frog, I shan't be able to wear it. Why is he dying just now? I hardly can bear it. He might have contrived to live on, but they say there's no hope whatever, and must I shut myself up and go out never? Oh, my pretty Pink Frog, puffs sleeved and accordion pleaded. He might have passed in July, and not so cheated. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Peace Offering, by Thomas Hardy Red for LibriVox.org by David Butler It was but a little thing, yet I knew it meant to me ease from what had given a sting to the very bird singing laterally. But I would not welcome it, and for all I then declined, oh, the regretting's infinite, when the night processions flit through the mind. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Glimpse, by Thomas Hardy Red for LibriVox.org by David Barnes She sped through the door, and following in haste and stirred to the core I entered hot-faced. But I could not find her. No sign was behind her. Where is she, I said? Who? They asked that sat there. Not a soul's come in sight. A maiden with red hair. Ah, they paled. She is dead. People see her at night, but you are the first on whom she has burst in the keen common light. It was ages ago, when I was quite strong. I have waited since, oh, I have waited so long. Yea, I set me to own the house, where now lone I dwell in void rooms, booming hollow as tombs. But I never come near her, though nightly I hear her. And my cheek has grown thin, and my hair has grown grey, with this waiting therein. But she still keeps away. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Pedestrian, an Incident of 1883 By Thomas Hardy Red for LibriVox.org by David Barnes Sir, will you let me give you a ride? Knox Vainett, and the Heath is wide. My fight on Lantern shone on one young, fair, even fresh, but burdened with flesh. A leavened satchel at his side, his breathing short, his coat undone. Tos as if his corpulent figure slopped with the shake of his walking when he stopped. And though the night's pinch grew acute, he wore but a thin, wind-thridded suit. Yet well-shaped shoes for walking in, artistic beaver, cane-gold topped. Alas, my friend, he said with a smile, I am daily bound to foot ten mile, wet, dry, or dark, before I rest. Six months to live, my doctors give me as my prospect here at best, unless I vamp my sturdiest. His voice was that of a man refined, a man one well could feel of mind, quite winning in its musical ease, but in mould maligned by some disease. And I asked again, but he shook his head, then, as if more were due, he said, A student was I of Schopenhauer, Kant, Hegel, and the fountained bower of the muses too knew my regard. But ah, I fear me, the grave gapes near me. Would I could this gross sheath discard and rise an ethereal shape unmarred? How I remember him, his short breath, his aspect marked of early death, as he dropped into the night forever, one caught in his prime of high endeavour, from all philosophies soon to sever, through an unconscious trick of time. He often would ask us that, when he died, after playing so many to their last rest, if out of us any should hear abide, and it would not task us, we would with our loots play over him, by his grave brim, the psalm he liked best, the one whose scent suits Mount Ephraim, and perhaps we should seem to him in death's dream like the Seraphim. As soon as I knew that his spirit was gone, I thought this is due, and spoke there upon. I think, said the vicar, a red-serve is quicker than vials out of doors in these frosts and whores. That old-fashioned way requires a fine day, and it seems to me it had better not be. Hence, that afternoon, though never knew he that his wish could not be, to get through it faster, they buried the master without any tune. But was said that when at the dead of next night the vicar looked out, there struck on his ken, thronged round about, where the frost was graying the head-stone grass, a band all in white, like the saints in church-glass, singing and playing the ancient stave by the choir master's grave. Such the tenor man told when he had grown old. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Memorial Brass, 1860-something, by Thomas Hardy, read for LibriVox.org, by David Barnes. Why do you weep there, oh sweet lady? Why do you weep before that brass? I am a mere student sketching the medieval. Is some late death lined there, alas? Your fathers? Well, all pay the debts that paid he. Young man, oh, I must tell, my husbands. And under his name I set mine, and my death. Its date left vacant, till my heirs should fill it, stating me faithful till my last breath. Madam, that you are a widow, wakes my wonder. Oh, wait, for last month I remarried, and now I fear it was a deed amiss. We've just come home, and I am sick and saddened at what the new one will say to this. And will he think, think that I should have tarried? I may add surely, with no wish to harm him, that he is a temper, yes, I fear. And when he comes to church next Sunday morning and sees that written, oh dear, oh dear. Madam, I swear your beauty will disarm him. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Paying Calls by Thomas Hardy Read for LibriVox.org By David Barnes I went by footpath and by style, beyond where bustle ends, strayed here a mile and there a mile, and called upon some friends. On certain ones I had not seen for years past, did I call, and then on others who had been the oldest friends of all. It was the time of mid-summer, when they had used to roam, but now, though tempting was the air, I found them all at home. I spoke to one and other of them, by mound and stone and tree. Of things we had done ere days were dim, but they spoke not to me. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Upper Birch Leaves by Thomas Hardy Read for LibriVox.org By David Barnes Warm yellowy-green in the blue serene, how they skip and sway on this autumn day. They cannot know what has happened below, that their bowels down there are already quite bare, that their own will be when a week has passed, for they jig as in glee to this very last. But no, there lies at times in their tune a note that cries what at first I fear I did not hear. Oh, we remember at each wind's hollow, though life holds yet. We go hence soon, for it is November, but that you follow you may forget. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. He fears his good fortune, by Thomas Hardy Read for LibriVox.org By David Barnes There was a glorious time, at an epoch of my prime, morning's barrel be spread, and evening's golden red, nothing grey. And in my heart I said, however this chance to be, it is too full for me, too rare, too rapturous, rash, its spell must close with a crash some day. The radiance went on, and on, and yet an on, and sweetness fell around, like manor on the ground. I have no claim, said I, to be thus crowned. I am not worthy this. Must it not go amiss? Well, let's the end foreseen come duly. I am serene. And it came. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Jubilate by Thomas Hardy Read for LibriVox.org By David Barnes The very last time I ever was here, he said, I saw much less of the quick than I saw of the dead. He was a man I had met somewhere before, but how or when I now could recall no more. The heezy, mazy moonlight, at one in the morning, spread out as a sea across the frozen snow, glazed to live sparkles, like the great breastplate adorning the priest of the temple, with oorim and thumim aglow. The yew-tree arms glued hard to the stiff, stark air, hung still in the village sky as theatre scenes, when I came by the churchyard wall, and halted there, at a shot-in sound of fiddles and tambourines. And as I stood harkening, dulcimers, hoat boys and shawms, and violin cellos, and the three-stringed double bass joined in, and were intermixed with the singing of psalms. And I looked over at the dead men's dwelling-place. Through the shine of the slippery snow I now could see, as it were through a crystal roof, a great company of the dead, minuetting in stately step underground, to the tune of the instruments I had before heard sound. It was Eden new, and dancing they sang in a chore. We are out of it all, yea, in little ease, cramped no more. And their shrouded figures pacing with joy I could see, as you see the stage from the gallery, and they had no heed of me. And I lifted my head, quite dazed, from the churchyard wall, and I doubted not that it warned I should soon have my call, but then in the ashes he emptied the dregs of his cup, and onward he went, and the darkness swallowed him up. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. I thought my heart, by Thomas Hardy, read for LibriVox.org by David Barnes. I thought my heart that you had healed of those sore smartings of the past, and that the summers had oversealed all mark of them at last. But closely scanning in the night I saw them standing crimson-bright, just as she made them. Nothing could fade them, yea, I can swear that there they were, they still were there. Then the vision of her who cut them came, and looking over my shoulder said, I am sure you deal me all the blame for those sharp smarts and red, but meet me, dearest, to-morrow night, in the churchyard at the moon's half-height. And so strange a kiss shall be mine, I wish, that you'll cease to know if the wounds you show be there or no. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Shadow on the Stone by Thomas Hardy. Read for LibriVox.org by David Butler. I went by the druid-stone that broods in the garden, white and lone, and I stopped and looked at the shifting shadows that, at some moments, fall their own, from the tree hard by with a rhythmic swing, and they shaved in my imagining to the shade that a well-known head and shoulders threw there when she was gardening. I thought her behind my back, yea, her I long had learned to lack, but I said, I am sure you're standing behind me, though how do you get into this old track? And there was no sound but the fall of a leaf as a sad response, and to keep down grief I would not turn my head to discover that there was nothing in my belief. Yet I wanted to look and see that nobody stood at the back of me, but I thought once more, nay, I'll not envision a shape which, somehow, there may be. So I went on softly from the glade and left her behind me, throwing her shade. As she were indeed in apparition, my head unturned, lest my dream should fade. End of Poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Nettles by Thomas Artie, read for LibriVox.org by Wynne Rola. This den is the grave of my son, whose heart she won, and Nettles grow upon his mound, and she lives just below. How he abraded me and left, and how our lives were cleft, because I said she was hard, unfeeling, caring but to wed. Well, to see this sight I have faired these miles, and her firelight smiles from her window there, whom he left his mother to cherish with tender care. It is enough. I'll turn and go. Yes, Nettles grow where lone lies he, who spurred me for seeing what he could not see. End of Poem. This recording is in the public domain. On a Midsummer Day by Thomas Artie, read for LibriVox.org by Peter Yersley. I idly cut a parsley stalk, and blew therein towards the moon. I had not thought what ghosts would walk with shivering footsteps to my tune. I went, and knelt, and scooped my hand, as if to drink into the brook, and a faint figure seemed to stand above me with the bygone look. I lipped through rhymes of chance, not choice. I thought not what my words might be. There came into my ear a voice that turned a tender averse for me. End of Poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Faded Face by Thomas Artie, read for LibriVox.org by Peter Yersley. How was this I did not see such a look as here was shown where its womanhood had blown past its first felicity? But I did not know you young, Faded Face, know you young. Why did time so ill-bested that I heard no voice of yours hail from out the curved contours of those lips when rosy red? Weeded not the song say sung, Faded Face, song say sung. By these blanchings blooms of old, and the relics of your voice, leaving's rare of rich and joist from your early tone and mould, let me mourn. I, sorrow-rung, Faded Face, sorrow-rung. End of Poem. This recording is in the public domain. Transformations by Thomas Hardie, read for LibriVox.org by David Barnes. One of this you is a man my grand-sire knew, bosomed here at its foot. This branch may be his wife, a ruddy human life now turned to a green chute. These grasses must be made of her who often prayed last century for repose, and the fair girl long ago whom I often tried to know may be entering this rose. So they are not underground, but as nerves and veins abound in the growths of upper air, and they feel the sun and rain and the energy again that made them what they were. End of Poem. This recording is in the public domain. In a waiting room by Thomas Hardie, read for LibriVox.org by David Barnes. On a morning sick as the day of doom, with the drizzling gray of an English May, there were few in the railway waiting room. About its walls were framed and varnished, pictures of liners, fly-blown, tarnished. The table bore a testament for traveller's reading, if such wise bent. I read it, on and on, and thronging the Gospel of St. John were figures, additions, multiplications, by some one scrawled with sundry emendations, not scoffingly designed, but with an absent mind. Plainly a bagman's counts of cost, what he had profited, what lost. And whilst I pondered if there could have been any particle of a soul in that poor man at all, to cipher rates of wage upon that printed page, there stood in the charmless scene, and stood over me and the scribbled book, to lend the hour's mean hue a smear of tragedy to, a soldier and wife, with haggard look subdued to stone by strong endeavour. And then I heard, from a casual word, they were parting, as they believed for ever. But next there came, like the eastern flame of some high altar, children, a pair, who laughed at the fly-blown pictures there. Here are the lovely ships that we, mother, are by-and-by going to see. When we get there, it is most sure to be fine, and the band will play, and the sun will shine. It rained on the skylight with a din, as we waited, and still no train came in. But the words of the child, in the squalid room, had spread a glory through the gloom. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Clockwinder by Thomas Hardy, read for LibriVox.org by David Barnes. It is dark as a cave, or a vault in the nave, when the iron door is closed, and the floor of the church relayed, with trowel and spade. But the parish-clark cares not for the dark, as he winds in the tower at a regular hour the rheumatic clock, whose dilatory knock you can hear when praying at the day's decaying, or at any lone while from a pew in the aisle. Up, up from the ground, round and around, in the torrent's stare he clambers to where the wheel-work is, with its tick-click whiz, reposefully measuring each day to its end, that mortal man spend in sorrowing and pleasuring, nightly thus does he climb to the trackway of time. Him I followed one night to this place without light, and ere I spoke heard him say word by word at the end of his winding, the darkness un-minding. So I wipe out one more, my dear, of the sore, sad days that still be, like a drying dead sea, between you and me. Who she was no man knew. He had long borne him blind to all womankind, and was ever one who kept his past out of view. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. In a Whispering Gallery by Thomas Hardy, read for LibriVox.org by David Barnes. That whisper takes the voice of a spirit's compassionings close but invisible, and throws me under a spell that the kindling vision it brings. And for a moment I rejoice, and believe in transcendent things that would mould from this muddy earth a spot for the splendid birth of everlasting lives, where too no night arrives. And this gaunt gray gallery, a tabernacle of worth on this drab aired afternoon, when you can barely see across its haze lacune, if opposite ought there be a fleshed humanity, where with I may commune, or if the voice so near, be a soul's voice floating here. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. This Heart. A Woman's Dream by Thomas Hardy. Read for LibriVox.org by Corey Samuel. At midnight, in the room where he lay dead, whom in his life I had never clearly read. I thought, if I could peer into that citadel, his heart, I should at last know, full and well, what hereto had been known to him alone, despite our long sit-out of years foreflown. And if, I said, I do this for his memory's sake, it would not wound him, even if he could wake. So I bent over him. He seemed to smile with a calm confidence, the whole long while that I, withdrawing his heart, held it, and bit by bit, perused the unguessed things found written on it. It was inscribed like a terrestrial sphere, with quaint vermiculations close and clear, his graving. Had I known, would I have risked the stroke its reading brought, and my own heart my broke? Yes. There at last, eyes opened, did I see his whole sincere symmetric history. There were his truth, his simple single-mindedness, strained may be by time's storms, but there no less. There were the daily deeds from son to son, in blindness, but good-faith that he had done. There were regrets, at instances wherein he swerved, as he conceived, from cherishings I had deserved. There were old hours, all figured down as bliss. He was spent with me. How little had I thought this! Then those when, at my absence, whether he slept or waked, though I knew not to was so, his spirit ached. There, that when we were severed, how day dulled, till time joined us anew, was chronicled, and arguments and battlings in defence of me, that heart recorded clearly and rudderly. I put it back, and left him as he lay, while pierced the morning, pink, and then the gray into each dreary room and corridor around, where I shall wait, but his step will not sound. End of poem. This recording is in a public domain. To Shakespeare, after three hundred years, by Thomas Hardy, read for LibriVox.org by Corrie Samuel. Bright baffling soul, least capturable of themes, thou, who displayed to life of commonplace, leaving no intimate word or personal trace of high design outside the artistry of thy penned dreams, still shalt remain at heart, unread eternally. Through human orbits thy discourse today, despite thy formal pilgrimage, throbs on in harmonies that cow oblivion. And, like the wind, with all uncared effect, maintain a sway and not foredesired, in tracks unchosen and unchecked. And yet, at thy last breath, with mindless note, the borough clocks but samely tongued the hour, the avon just as always glassed the tower. Thy age was published on thy passing-bell, but in due rote, with other dwellers' death accorded a like knell. And at the strokes, some townsmen, met maybe and thereon queried by some squire's good dame driving in shopwood, may have given thy name, with, yes, a worthy man and well to do, though, as for me, I knew him but by just a neighbour's nod, tis true. If faith, few knew him much here, save by word, he having elsewhere led his busier life, though to be sure he left with us his wife. Ah! one of the tradesmen's sons I now recall. Witty, I've heard. We did not know him. Well, good day, death comes to all. So, like a strange bright bird we sometimes find to mingle with the barn door brooder while, then vanish from their homely domicile. Into man's poesy we what not went's, flew thy strange mind, lodged there a radiant guest, and spared for ever thence. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Sweet things by Thomas Hardy, read for LibriVox.org by Corey Samuel. Sweet cider is a great thing, a great thing to me, spinning down to Weymouth Town by Ridgway Thirstyly, and made in Mistress Summoning who tend the hostelry, oh, cider is a great thing, a great thing to me. The dance it is a great thing, a great thing to me, with candles lit and partners fit for night-long revelry, and going home when day dawning peeps pale upon the lee. Oh, dancing is a great thing, a great thing to me. Love is, yea, a great thing, a great thing to me, when having drawn across the lawn in darkness silently, a figure flits like one a wing out from the nearest tree. Oh, love is, yes, a great thing, a great thing to me. Will these be always great things, great things to me? Let it befall that one will call, soul, I have need of thee. What then, joy-jaunts, impassioned flings, love and its ecstasy, will always have been great things, great things to me? Before Knowledge, by Thomas Artie, read for Librevox.org, by Wen Rola. When I walked, rose-less tracks and wide, ere dawned your date for meeting me. Oh, why did you not cry, aloo, across the stretch between and say? We move, while years as yet divide, on closing lines which, though it be you know me not, nor I know you, will intersect and join some day. Then well, I had borne each scraping torn, but the winters froze and grew no rose, no bridge bestowed the gap at all, no shape you showed, and I heard no call. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. An Uprating by Thomas Artie, read for Librevox.org, by Wen Rola. Now I am dead, you sing to me the songs we used to know, but while I lived, you had no wish or care for doing so. Now I am dead, you come to me in the moonlight, comfortless. Ah, what would I have given alive to win such tenderness? When you are dead and stand to me not different as now. But like again will you be cold as when we lived, or how? End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Old Excursions by Thomas Artie, read for Librevox.org, by Peter Yersley. What's the good of going to Ridgeway, Kern or Sidling Mill, or to Yellum Hill, blithely bearing Castor Bridgeway, as we used to do? She will no more climb up there, or be visible anywhere in those haunts we knew. But tonight, while walking weary, near me seemed her shade come as to her to up-braid this my mood in deeming dreary scenes that used to please, and if she did come to me still solicitous there may be good in going to these. So I'll care to Rome to Ridgeway, Kern or Sidling Mill, or to Yellum Hill, blithely bearing Castor Bridgeway, as we used to do, since her fasm may flit out there, and may greet me anywhere in those haunts we knew. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Paths of Former Time by Thomas Artie, read for Librevox.org, by Peter Yersley. No, no, it must not be so. They are the ways we do not go. Still chew the kind, and moo, in the meadows we used to wander through. Still purl the rifulettes, and curl towards the weirs with a musical swirl. Haymakers, as in former years, rake rolls into heaps that the pitchfork rears. Those crack on the turfy track, the wagon pursues with its toppling pack. Why then shun, since summer's not done, all this, because of the lack of one? Had you been, sharer of that scene, you would not ask while it bites in keen. Why it is so, we can no more go by the summer paths we used to know. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Moments of Vision by Thomas Hardy, read for Librevox.org, by Priya India. Moments of Vision, that mirror which makes of men a transparency, who holds that mirror and bids us such a breast-pair spectaclesy of you and me? That mirror whose magic penetrates like a dart, who lifts that mirror and throws our mind back on us and our heart, until we start? That mirror works well in these night hours of ache. Why in that mirror are things we never see ourselves once take when the world is awake? That mirror can test each model when unaware, yeah, that strange mirror may catch his life.