 THE BLUEBIRD by John Burroughs RedFearlyPrivox.org by Alan Davis Drake A wistful note from out the sky, Pure, pure, pure, in plaintive tone, As if the wanderer were alone, And hardly knew to sing or cry. But now a flash of eager wing, Flitting, twinkling by the wall, In pleading's sweet and amorous call, Ah, now I know his heart doth sing. O bluebird, welcome back again, Thy azure coat and ruddy vest Are hues that April loveth the best. Warm skies above the furrowed plain, The farm boy hears thy tender voice, And visions come of crystal days, With sugar camps in maple ways, And scenes that make his heart rejoice. The lucid smoke drifts on the breeze, The steaming pans are mantling white, And thy blue wings a joyous sight Among the brown and leafless trees. Now loosened currents glance and run, And buckets shine on sturdy bowls, The forest folk peep from their holes, And work his play from sun to sun. The downy beats his sounding limb, The nut-hatch pipes his nasal call, And robin perched on treetop tall, Heavenward lifts his evening hymn. Now go and bring thy homesick bride, Persuade her, here is just the place To build a home and found a race In downy cell, my lodge besides. And a poem this recording is in the public domain. Bones by Carl Sandberg. Read for LibriVox.org by Clarica. Sling me under the sea. Pack me down in the salt and wet. No farmer's plow shall touch my bones. No hamlet hold my jaws, And speak how jokes are gone, And empty is my mouth. Long green-eyed scavengers shall pick my eyes. Purple fish play hide and seek, And I shall be song of thunder, crash of sea, Down on the floors of salt and wet. Sling me under the sea. End of poem this recording is in the public domain. The Builders by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Read for LibriVox.org by Michael Robinson, Carbondale, Illinois. All are architects of fate, Working in these walls of time. Some with massive deeds and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme. Nothing useless is or lo, Each thing in its place is best. And what seems but idle show Strengthens and supports the rest. For the structure that we raise, Time is with materials filled. Our todays and yesterdays Are the blocks with which we build. Truly shape and fashion these, Leave no yawning gaps between. Think not, because no man sees. Such things will remain unseen. In the elder days of art, Builders wrought with greatest care, Each minute an unseen part, For the gods see everywhere. Let us do our work as well, Both the unseen and the seen. Make the house where gods may dwell Beautiful, entire, and clean. Else our lives are incomplete, Standing in these walls of time. Broken stairways where the feet Stumble as they seek to climb. Build today, then, strong and sure, With a firm and ample base, And ascending and secure shall Tomorrow find its place. Thus alone can we attain To those turrets where the eye Sees the world as one vast plain, And one boundless reach of sky. The end, this poem, is in the public domain. The Daisy Follows Soft the Sun, by Emily Dickinson. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Daisy Follows Soft the Sun, and when his golden walk is done, sits shyly at his feet, He waking finds the flower near, Where for marauder art thou here? Because, sir, love is sweet. We are the flower, thou the sun, Forgive us if as days decline, We nearer steal to thee, Inamored of the parting west, The peace, the flight, the amethyst, Night's possibility. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. I have not found thee in the tents, In the broken darkness. I have not found thee at the well-head, Among the women with pitchers. Thine arms are as a young sapling under the bark, Thy face as a river with lights. White as an almond are thy shoulders, As new almonds stripped from the husk. They guard thee not with eunuchs, Not with bars of copper, Guilt turquoise and silver Are in the place of thy rest. A brown robe with threads of gold woven in patterns Hast gathered about thee. O Nathat ikanay, tree at the river. As a rillet among the sedge are thy hands upon me, Thy fingers a frosted stream. Thy maidens are white like pebbles, Their music about thee. There is none like thee among the dancers, None with swift feet. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. He was Cromwell's measure or degree, Unknown to him as to his horse, If he than his groom be better or worse. He works, plots, fights in rude affairs, With squires, lords, kings, his craft compares. Till late he learned, through doubt and fear, Broad England harbored not his peer. Obeying time, the last to own the genius From his cloudy throne. For the provision is allied unto the thing so signified. Or say, the foresight that awaits Is the same genius that creates. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Give All to Love by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake. Give all to love. Obey thy heart. Friends, kindred, days, estate, Good fame, plans, credit, and the muse. Nothing refuse. Tis a brave master. Let it have scope. Follow it utterly, hope beyond hope. High and more high, it dives into noon. With wings unspent, untold intent. But it is a God, knows its own path and the outlets of the sky. It was never for the mean, it requireeth courage stout. Souls above doubt, valor unbending. It will reward. They shall return more than they were. And ever ascending. Leave it all for love. Yet, hear me, yet, one word more thy heart beloved. One pulse more of firm endeavor. Keep thee to-day. Tomorrow, forever, free as an Arab of thy beloved. Cling with life to the maid. But when the surprise, first vague shadow of surmise, flits across her bosom young, of a joy apart from thee. Free be she, fancy free. Nor thou detain her vesture's hem, nor the palest rose she flung from her summer diadem. Though thou loved her as thyself, as a self of purer clay, though her parting dims the day, stealing grace from all alive, heartily know when half gods go, the gods arrive. A Glimpse by Walt Whitman Read for LibriVox.org by Lauda, Italy, November 2007 A Glimpse Through an interstice court of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar room. Around the stove, late over winter night, and diarrhea remarked, seated in a corner. Over youth who loves me, and whom I love, silently approaching and sitting himself near, that he may hold me by the hand. A long while, amid the noises of coming and going, of drinking and oath and smutty jest, there we too, content. Happen been together, speaking little, perhaps not a word. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Invocation by Clara Shanafelt Read for LibriVox.org by Clarica O glassblower of time, hast blown all shapes at thy fire? Can't thou know lovelier bell, no clearer bubble, clear as delight inflate me? Worthy to hold such wine, as was never yet trod from the grape, since the stars shed their light, since the moon troubled the night with her beauty? End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. June's Coming By John Burroughs Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake Now have come the shining days when field and wood are robed anew, and o'er the world a silver haze mingles the emeralds with the blue. Summer now doth clothe the land in garments free from spot or stain, the lustrous leaves, the hills untanned, the vivid meads, the glockest grain. The day looks new, a coin unworn, freshly stamped and heavenly mint, the sky keeps on its look of mourn, of age and death there is no hint. How soft the landscape near and far, a shining veil the trees unfold, the day remembers moon and star, a silver lining hath its gold. Again I see the clover bloom, and wade in grasses, lush and sweet, again has vanished all my gloom with daisies smiling at my feet. Again from out the garden hives the exodus of frenzied bees, the humming cyclone onward drives, or finds repose amid the trees. At dawn the river seems a shade, a liquid shadow deep as space, but when the sun, the mist has laid, a diamond shower smites its face. The seasons tide now nears its height, and gives to earth an aspect new. Now every shoal is hid from sight, with current fresh as morning dew, and of poem this recording is in the public domain. This is a LibriVax recording. All LibriVax recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVax.org. Recording by Laura, Rome, Italy, November 2007. Music When Soft Voices Die by Percy Bish Shelley Music When Soft Voices Die vibrates in the memory, orders when sweet violets sicken live within the sands they quicken. Rose lives when the rose is dead, are heaped for the beloved's bed, and so thy thoughts, when thou art gone, love itself shes lumber on. End of Music When Soft Voices Die by Percy Bish Shelley Davis Drake Serene I hold my hands and wait, nor care for wind, nor tide, nor sea. I rave no more against time or fate, for lo, my own shall come to me. I state my haste, I make delays, for what avails this eager pace? I stand amid the eternal ways, and what is mine shall know my face. A sleep awake by night or day, the friends I seek are seeking me. No wind can drive my bark astray, nor change the tide of destiny. What matter if I stand alone? I wait with joy the coming years. My heart shall reap when it has sown. And gather up its fruits of tears. The stars come nightly to the sky. The tidal wave comes to the sea, nor time, nor space, nor deep nor high, can keep my own away from me. The waters know their own, and draw the brook that springs in yonder heights. So flows the good with equal law, unto the soul of pure delights. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Prize, we sought, is won. The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, while follow eyes, the steady kill, the vessel grim and daring. But oh heart, heart, heart, oh the bleeding drops of red, where on the deck my captain lies, fallen, cold, and dead. Oh captain, my captain, rise up and hear the bells. Rise up, for you the flag is flung, for you the bugle trills, for you bouquets and ribboned wreaths, for you the shores are crowding, for you they call the swaying mass their eager faces turning. Here, captain, dear father, this arm beneath your head, it is some dream that on the deck you've fallen, cold, and dead. My captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still. My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse, nor will. The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done. From fearful trip the victorship comes in with object one. Exult, oh shores, and ring, oh bells. But I, with mournful tread, walk the deck my captain lies, fallen, cold, and dead. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Partridge by John Burroughs. Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake. List the booming from afar, soft as hum of roving bee. Vague as when on distant bar fall the cataracts of the sea. Yet again a sound astray. Was it the humming of the mill? Was it cannon leagues away, or dynamite beyond the hill? Tis the grouse with kindled soul, wistful of his maiden nest, sounding forth his vernal roll on his love in kindled breast. List his fervid morning drum, list his summons soft and deep, calling spice-bush till she come, waking blood-root from her sleep. Ah, ruffled drummer, let thy wings beat a march the days will heed. Wake and spur the tardy spring till minstrel voices jock and ring. And spring is spring in very deed. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Tired. We were very merry. We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. It was bare and bright and smelled like a stable. But we looked into a fire. We leaned across a table. We lay on a hilltop underneath the moon. And the whistles kept blowing, and the dawn came soon. We were very tired. We were very merry. We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear. From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere. And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold. And the sun rose dripping, a bucket full of gold. We were very tired. We were very merry. We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry. We hailed good-morrow, mother, to a shawl-covered head. And bought a morning paper, which neither of us read. And she wept, God bless you, for the apples and pears. And we gave her all our money, but our subway fares. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. For he can make the welkin ring and do it at his leisure. At ease, he sits upon the pool. And void of fuss or trouble makes Vesper music fit for kings from out an empty bubble. A long-drawn out and tolling cry that drifts above the chorus of shriller voices from the marsh that April nights send over us. A tender monotone of song, with vernal longings blending. That rise from the ponds and pools, and seems at times unending. A linkage chain of bubbling notes when birds have ceased their calling, that lulls the ear with soothing sound, like voice of water falling. It is the knell of winter dead, goodbye his icy fetter. Blessings on the warty head, no bird could do it better. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. I know you, blusterer. I know you, wild one. I know your mysterious call. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. the land or sea, as I behold young evening star, which yet beholds not me. This morning I climbed the misty hill, and roamed the pastures through. How danced I form before my path, amid the deep I do. When the red bird spread his sable wing, and showed his side of flame, when the rosebud ripened to the rose, in both I read thy name. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Your pool of ink, your scratchy pen, have moved the lives of unborn men, and watched young people breathing hard put heaven on a postal card. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Two in the Campania by Robert Browning. Read by Jezebel for LibriVox.org 2007 I wonder do you feel today, as I have felt since, hand in hand we sat down on the grass, to stray in spirit better through the land, this morn of Rome in May. For me I touched a thought I know has tantalized me many times, like turns of thread the spiders throw mocking across our path, for rhymes to catch at and let go. Help me to hold it. First it left the yellowing fennel, run to seed there, branching from the brickwork's cleft, some old tombs ruin. Yonderweed took up the floating weft, where one small orange cup amassed, five beetles, blind and green they grope among the honey-meal, and last everywhere on the grassy slope I traced it, hold it fast. The champagne with its endless fleece of feathery grasses everywhere, silence and passion, joy and peace, and everlasting wash of air, Rome's ghost since her decease. Such life here through such lengths of hours, such miracles performed in play, such primal naked forms of flowers, such letting nature have her way while heaven looks from its towers. How say you, let us, oh my dove, let us be unashamed of soul as earth lies bare to heaven above. How is it under our control to love or not to love? I would that you were all to me, you that are just so much, no more, nor yours, nor mine, nor slave, nor free. Where does the fault lie? What the core of the wound since wound must be? I would I could adopt your will, see with your eyes and set my heart beating by yours, and drink my fill at your soul's springs, your part my part in life for good and ill. No, I yearn upward, touch you close, then stand away. I kiss your cheek, catch your soul's warmth, I pluck the rose and love it more than tongue can speak. Then the good minute goes. Already, how am I so far out of that minute? Must I go still like the thistle ball, no bar, onward whenever light winds blow, fixed by no friendly star? Just when I seemed about to learn, where's the thread now? Off again, the old trick, only I discern infinite passion and the pain of finite hearts that yearn.