 Adelstrop, by Edward Thomas, read for LibriVox.org by Ruth Golding. Yes, I remember Adelstrop, the name, because one afternoon of heat, the express train drew up there unwontedly. It was late June, the steam hissed, someone cleared his throat. No one left, and no one came on the bare platform. What I saw was Adelstrop, only the name. And willows, willow-herb, and grass, and meadow-sweet, and hay-cocks dry. No wit, less still, and lonely-fair, than the high cloudlets in the sky. And for that minute a blackbird sang close by. And round him, misty-er, father and father, all the birds of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire. End of poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Ant Explorer by Clarence James Dennis, read for LibriVox.org by Ruth Golding. It's a little sugar ant made up his mind to roam, to fare away, far away, far away from home. He had eaten all his breakfast, and he had his Mars consent, to see what he should chance to see, and here's the way he went. Up and down a fern-front, round and round a stone, down a gloomy gully where he loathed to be alone. Up a mighty mountain range, seven inches high, through the fearful forest grass that nearly hid the sky, out along a bracken bridge, bending in the moss, till he reached a dreadful desert that was feet and feet across. It was a dry, deserted desert, and a trackless land to tread. He wished that he was home again and tucked up tight in bed. His little legs were wobbly, his strengths was nearly spent, and so he turned around again, and here's the way he went. Back away from desert lands, feet and feet across, back along the bracken bridge, bending in the moss, through the fearful forest grass shutting out the sky, up a mighty mountain range, seven inches high, down a gloomy gully where he loathed to be alone, up and down a fern-front, and round and round a stone. A dreary ant, a weary ant, resolved no more to roam. He staggered up the garden path, and popped back home. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Bills in Trouble by James Barton Adams This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. I've got a letter parsing from my son way out west, and my old heart is heavy as an anvil in my breast, to think the boy whose future I had once so proudly planned should wander from the path of right and come to such an end. I told him when he left his home not three short years ago, he'd find himself a plowin' in a mighty crooked row. He'd miss his father's counsel, and his mother's prayers too. But he said the farm was hateful, and I guess he'd have to go. I know there's big temptations from a youngster in the west, but I believed our Billy had the courage to resist, and when he left I warned him of the ever-waiting snares, that lie like hidden serpents in life's pathways everywhere. But Bill he promised faithful to be careful and allowed. He'd build a reputation that may make us mighty proud. But it seems as how my counsel sort of faded from his mind, and now the boy's in trouble of the very worstest kind. His letters come so seldom that I somehow sort of knowed that Billy was a tramplin' on a mighty rocky road. But I never once imagined he would bow my head in shame, and the dust waller his old daddy's honored name. He writes from out in Denver. And the story's mighty short. I just can't tell his mother. It would crush her poor old heart. So I reckon, Parson, you might break the news to her. Bill's in the legislature, but he doesn't say what for. End of Bills in Trouble by James Barton Adams. Recorded by Ray Smith, Phoenix, Arizona. My father was a scholar and knew Greek. When I was five years old, I asked him once, What do you read about? The Siege of Troy. What is a Siege? And what is Troy? Where at he piled up chairs and tables for a town, set me atop for Priam, called our cat Helen, enticed away from home, he said, by wicked Paris, who couched somewhere close under the footstool being cowardly, but whom, since she was worth the pains, poor puss, Towser and Tray, our dogs, the Atreidae, sought by taking Troy to get possession of, always when great Achilles ceased to sulk, my pony in the stable, forth would prance and put to flight Hector, our page boy's self. This taught me who was who and what was what. So far, I rightly understood the case at five years old. A huge delight it proved and still proves, thanks to that instructor Sage, my father, who knew better than to in straight learnings full flare on weak-eyed ignorance, or worse yet, leave weak eyes to grow sand blind, content with darkness and vacuity. It happened two or three years afterward that I and playmates playing at Troy's Siege, my father came upon our make-believe. How would you like to read yourself the tale properly told, of which I gave you first merely such notion as a boy could bear? Hope now would give you the precise account of what some day by dint of scholarship you'll hear, who knows, from Homer's very mouth. Learn Greek by all means, read the blind old man sweetest of singers, tuflos which means blind, hedistos which means sweetest. Time enough, try anyhow to master him someday, until when, take what serves for substitute, read Pope by all means. So I ran through Pope, enjoyed the tale, what history so true. Also attacked my primer, duly drudged, grew fitter thus for what was promised next, the very thing itself, the actual words, when I could turn, say, Butman to account. Time passed, I ripened somewhat, one fine day, quite ready for the Iliad, nothing less, there's Hyna where the big books block the shelf, don't skip a word, thumb well the lexicon. I thumbed well and skipped no wise, till I learned who was who, what was what from Homer's tongue, and there an end of learning. Had you asked the all-accomplished scholar 12 years old, who was it, wrote the Iliad? What a laugh! Why, Homer, all the world knows, of his life doubtless some facts exist, it's everywhere. We have not settled though his place of birth. He begged for certain, and was blind beside, seven cities claimed him, Sio with best right, thinks Byron. What he wrote? Those hymns we have, then there's the battle of the frogs and mice, that's all. Unless they dig my gaities up, I'd like that, nothing more remains to know. Thus did youth spend a comfortable time until, what's this the Germans say is fact, that Volf found out first. It's unpleasant work their chop and change, unsettling one's belief, all the same, while we live we learn, that's sure. So I bent brow or prologomenon. And after Volf, a dozen of his like, proved there was never any Troy at all, neither besieges nor besieged, nay worse no actual Homer, no authentic text, no warrant for the fiction I, as fact, had treasured in my heart and soul so long. I mark you, and as fact held still, still holds spite of new knowledge in my heart of hearts, and soul of souls, fact's essence freed and fixed from accidental fancies guardian sheath. Assuredly, thence forward, thank my stars, however it got there, deprive who could, ring from the shrine my precious tenetry, Helen, Ulysses, Hector and his spouse, Achilles and his friend, though Volf, ah, Volf, why must he needs come doubting, spoiler dream. But then, no dreams worth waking, a browning says, and here's the reason why I tell thus much. I, now mature man you anticipate, may blame my father justifiably for letting me dream out my non-age thus, and only by such slow and sure degrees permitting me to sift the grain from chaff, kept truth and falsehood known and named as such, why did he ever let me dream at all, not bid me taste the story in its strength. Suppose my childhood was scarce qualified to rightly understand mythology, silence at least was in his power to keep. I might have, somehow, correspondingly, well who knows by what method, gained my gains being taught by forthrights, not meanderings, my aim should be to loathe like Pellius's son, a liar's hell's gate, love my wedded wife, like Hector, and so on with all the rest. Could not I have ex-cogitated this without believing such men really were? That is, he might have put into my hand the ethics, in translation, if you please, exact, no pretty lying that improves to suit the modern taste, no more, no less. The ethics. It is a treatise I find hard to read or write now that my hair is grey, and I can manage the original. At five years old, how ill had faired its leaves. Now, growing double or the stagerite, at least I soil no page with bread and milk, nor crumple, dogs ear and deface, boy's way. End of development by Robert Browning. This recording is in the public domain. Down by the Sally Gardens, by W.B. Yates, read for LibriVox.org by Sufila Oriano, doubling May 2009. Down by the Sally Gardens, my love and I did meet. She passed the Sally Gardens with little snow-white feet. She bit me, take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree. But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree. In a field by the river, my love and I did stand. And on my leaning shoulder, she laid her snow-white hand. She bit me, take life easy, as the grass grows on the wears. But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Exposure by Wilfred Owen. Read for LibriVox.org by Daniel Hutton. Exposure. Our brains ache, in the merciless, iced east winds that knife us. We'reied, we keep awake, because the night is silent. Low, drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient. Worried by silent centuries' whisper, curious, nervous. But nothing happens. Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire, like twitching agonies of men among its brambles. Northward, incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles. Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war. What are we doing here? The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow. We only know war lasts, rain soaks and clouds sag stormy. Dawn massing in the eastern melancholy army. Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of grey. But nothing happens. Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence. Less deathly than the air that shudders black with snow. With side-long flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew. We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance. But nothing happens. Pale flakes with fingering stealth come feeling for our faces. We cringe in halls, back on forgotten dreams and stare. Snow dazed, deep into grassier ditches. So we drows, sundosed, littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses. Is it that we are dying? Slowly our ghosts drag home, glimpsing the sunk fires, glowsed with crusted dark red jewels. Crickets jingle there. For ours the innocent mice rejoice. The house is theirs, shutters and doors all closed. On us the doors are closed. We turn back to our dying. Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn, nor ever suns smile true on child or field or fruit. For God's invincible string our love is made afraid. Therefore not loathe, we lie out here. Therefore we're born. For love of God seems dying. Tonight this frost will fasten on this mud and us, shriveling many hands, puckering foreheads crisp. The burying party, picks and shovels in shaking grasp, pours over half-known faces. All their eyes are ice, but nothing happens. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. 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 wing on spent, on told intent. But it is a God, knows its own path, and the outlets of the sky. It was never for the mean. It required courage stout, souls above doubt, valor on bending. It will reward. They shall return more than they were, and ever ascending. Leave all for love. Yet hear me, yet one word more thy heart behoved. One pulse more of firm endeavor. Keep thee today, tomorrow, forever, free as an Arab of thy beloved. Cling with life to the maid. But when the surprise, first vague shadows of surmise, flits across her bosom young of a joy apart from thee, free be she, fancy free. Nor thou detain her vestures hem, nor the palest rose she flung from her summer deodam. Though thou loved her as thyself, as a self of purer clay. Though her parting dims the day, stealing grace from all alive. Hardly know when half gods go, the gods survive. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. An Irish airman, Phosesis Thess, by William Butler Yeats, read for Librevox.org by Ellie. I know that I shall meet my fate, somewhere among the clouds above, those that the fight I do not hate, those that the guard I do not love. My country is kilter than cross, my countrymen are kilter than spore, no likely end could bring them loss, or leave them happier than before. Nor law nor duty bade me fight, nor public men nor cheering crowds. A lonely impulse of delight drove to the stone mold in the clouds. I balanced all, brought all to mind. The years to come seemed waste of press. A waste of press, the years behind. In balance with this life this death. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, by William Wordsworth. Recorded for Librevox.org by Ann Archesist. It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, the holy time is quiet as a nun, breathless with adoration. The broad sun is sinking down in its tranquility. The gentleness of heaven broods over the sea. Listen, the mighty being is awake and doth with his eternal motion make a sound like thunder, everlastingly. Dear child, dear girl that walketh with me here, if thou appear untouched by solemn thought, thy nature is not therefore less divine. Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year, and worships at the temple's inner shrine. God be'en with thee when we know it not. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. Tours brillig, and the slithy toves did guire and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogroves, and the mumraths outgrabe. Beware the jabberwock, my son, the claws that bite, the claws that catch. Beware the jab-jab bird, and shun the frumious bandersnatch. He took his vorpal sword in hand, long time the maxem foe he sought, so rested he by the tum-tum tree, and stood a while in thought. And as inoffish thought he stood, the jabberwock, with eyes of flame, came whiffling through the tallgy wood and burbled as it came. One-two, one-two, and through and through the vorpal blade went snicker-snack. He left it dead, and with its head he went gullumping back. And as thou slain the jabberwock, come to my arms, my beamish boy, O frub just day, collu collay, he chortled in his joy. Tours brillig, and the slithy toves did guire and gimble in the wabe. All mimsy were the borogroves, and the mumraths outgrabe. End poem. This recording is in the public domain. An epistle containing the strange medical experience of Karshish, the Arab physician, by Robert Browning. Read for LibriVox.org by EH Blackmore. Karshish, the picker-ap of learnings-crumbs, the not-in-curious in God's handiwork. This man's flesh he hath admirably made, blown like a bubble, kneaded like a paste, to coop up and keep down on earth a space that puff of vapour from his mouth, man's soul. To Arbib, all sagacious in our art, breeder in me of what poor skill I boast, like me inquisitive, how pricks and cracks befall the flesh, through too much stress and strain, whereby the wily vapour-fane would slip back and rejoin its source before the term, and aptest in contrivance, under God, to baffle it by deftly stopping such. The vagrant scholar, to his sage at home, sends greeting, health and knowledge, fame with peace. Three samples of true snake-stone, rare astill one of the other sort, the melon-shaped, but fit a pounded fine for charms than drugs. And right hath now the twenty-second time. My journeys were brought to Jericho. Thus I resume. Who, studious in our art, shall count a little labour unrepaid? I have shed sweat enough, left flesh and bone on many a flinty furlong of this land. Also the countryside is all on fire with rumours of a marching hitherward. Some say Vespasian cometh, some his son. A black link snarled, and pricked a tufted ear. Lust of my blood inflamed his yellow balls. I cried and threw my staff, and he was gone. Twice hath the robbers stripped and beaten me, and once a town declared me for a spy. But at the end I reached Jerusalem. Since this poor covert where I pass the night, this Bethany, lies scarce the distance, thence a man with plague sores at the third degree runs till he drops down dead. Thou laughest here. Sootha delates me, thus reposed and safe, to void the stuffing of my travel script, and share with thee whatever jewellery yields. A viscid collar is observable in tertians, I was nearly bold to say, and falling sickness hath a happier cure than our school what's of. There's a spider here weaves no web, watches on the ledge of tombs, sprinkled with mottles on an ash-gray back, take five and drop them. But who knows his mind the Syrian renegade I trust this to. His service payeth me a sublimit blown up his nose to help the ailing eye. Best wait. I reached Jerusalem at morn, there set in order my experiences, gather what most deserves, and give thee all. Or, I might add, Judea's gum tracker-canth scales off in purer flakes, shines clear aggrained, cracks, twix the pestle, and the porphyry, in fine, exceeds our produce. Sculptisees confounds me crossing so with leprosy, Thou hadst admired one sort I gained at Zohar. But zeal outruns discretion, here I end. Yet stay. My Syrian blinketh gratefully. Protesteth his devotion is my price. Suppose I write what harm's not though he steal. I half resolve to tell thee, yet I blash, what set me off a writing, first of all. An itch I had, a sting to write, a tang, for, be at this town's barrenness, or else the man, and the woman, had something in the look of him, his case has struck me far more than is worth. So pardon if, lest presently I lose in the great press of novelty at hand, the care and pains this somehow stole from me, I bid thee take the thing, while fresh in mind, almost in sight, for, wilt thou have the truth, the very man is gone from me, but now, whose ailment is the subject of discourse. Thus then, and let thy bitter wit help all. Tis but a case of mania, subinduced by epilepsy, at the turning point of trance, prolonged unduly some three days, when, by the exhibition of some drug or spell, exorcisation, stroke of art, unknown to me, and which to her well to know, the evil thing outbreaking all at once, left the man whole and sound of body indeed, but flinging, so to speak, life's gates too wide, making a clear house of it too suddenly, the first conceit that entered, might inscribe whatever it was minded on the wall, so plainly, at that vantage, as it were, first come, first served, that nothing subsequent, a taineth to erase those fancy scrolls, the just returned and new established soul, hath gotten now so thoroughly by heart, that henceforth she will read, or these, or none. And first, the man's own firm conviction, rests that he was dead, in fact they buried him, that he was dead, and then restored to life by a Nazarene physician of his tribe, seeth the same bad rise, and he did rise. Such cases a diurnal there will to cry, not so this figment, not but such a fume, instead of giving way to time and health, should eat itself into the life of life, as saffron-tingeth flesh, blood, bones, and all, for see how he takes up the afterlife. The man, it is one Lazarus, a Jew, sanguine, proportioned, 50 years of age, the body's habit wholly laudable, as much indeed beyond the common health, as he were made and put aside to show. Think, could we penetrate by any drug, and bathe the wearied soul and worried flesh, and bring it clear and fair by three days sleep? Whence has the man the balm that brightens all? This grown man eyes the world now like a child. Some elders of his tribe, I should premise, led in their friend, obedient as a sheep, to bear my inquisition. While they spoke now sharply, now with sorrow, told the case, he listened not, except I spoke to him, but folded his two hands and let them talk, watching the flies that buzzed, and yet no fool. And that's a sample how his years must go. Look, if a beggar, in fixed middle life, should find a treasure, can he use the same with straightened habits, and with tastes starved small, and take it once to his impoverished brain, the sudden element that changes things, that sets the undreamed of rapture at his hand, and puts the cheap old joy in the scorned dust? Is he not such an one, as moves to mirth, wearily parsimonious when no need, wasteful as drunkenness at undue times? All prudent counsel, as to what befits the golden mean, is lost on such an one, the man's fantastic will is the man's law. So here, we call the treasure knowledge, say, increased beyond the fleshly faculty. Heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth, earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven. The man is witless of the size, the sum, the value in proportion of all things, or whether it be little or be much. Discourse to him of prodigious armaments assemble to besiege his city now, and of the passing of a mule with gourds, it is one. Then take it on the other side, speak of some trifling fact. He will gaze rapt with stupor at its very littleness, far as I see, as if in that, indeed, he caught prodigious import whole results. And so will turn to us the bystanders, in ever the same stupor, note this point, that we too see not with his opened eyes. Wonder and doubt come wrongly into play, preposterously, at cross purposes. Should his child sick and unto death, why look for scarce abatement of his cheerfulness or pretemission of the daily craft, while a word, gesture, glance from that same child at play or in the school or lay to sleep, will startle him to an agony of fear, exasperation, just as like. Demand the reason why, it is but a word object, a gesture. He regards thee as our Lord who lived there in the pyramid alone, looked at us, just our mind, when, being young, we both would unadvisedly recite some charms beginning from that book of his, able to bid the sun, throb wide and burst all into stars, as sun's grown old our won't. Thou and the child have each avail alike, thrown o'er your heads, from under which ye both stretch your blind hands and trifle with a match over a mine of Greek fire, did ye know? He holds on firmly to some thread of life, it is the life to lead, perforceedly, which runs across some vast, distracting orb of glory on either side that meager thread, which conscious of, he must not enter yet, the spiritual life, around the earthly life. The law of that is known to him as this, his heart and brain move there, his feet stay here. So is the man perplexed with impulses, sudden to start off crosswise, not straight on, proclaiming what is right and wrong across, and not along, this black thread through the blaze. It should be, balked by, here it cannot be. And off the man's soul springs into his face, as if he saw again and heard again, his sage that bad him rise, and he did rise. Something, a word, a tick of the blood within, admonishes. Then back he sinks at once to ashes, who was very far before, in sedulous recurrence to his trade, whereby he earneth him the daily bread, and studiously the humbler for that pride, professedly the faultier, that he knows God's secret while he holds the thread of life. Indeed the especial marking of the man, is prone submission to the heavenly will, seeing it what it is and why it is. Sayeth, he will wait patient to the last for that same death, which must restore his being to equilibrium, body loosening soul divorced even now, by premature full growth. He will live, nay, it pleaseth him to live, so long as God please, and just how God please. He even seeketh not to please God more, which meaneth otherwise, than as God please. Hence, I perceive not he affix to preach the doctrine of his sect, what ere it be, make proselytes, as madmen thirst to do. How can he give his neighbour the real ground, his own conviction, ardent as he is, call his great truth a lie? Why, still the old, be it as God please, reassureeth him. I probe the sore, as thy disciple should. How, beast, said I, this stolid carelessness sufficeeth thee, when Rome is on her march to stamp out, like a little spark thy town, thy tribe, thy crazy tale, and thee at once. He merely looked with his large eyes on thee. The man is apathetic, you deduce. Contrary wise, he loves both old and young, able and weak, affects the very brutes and birds, how say I, flowers of the field. As a wise workman recognises tools in a master's workshop, loving what they make. Thus is the mad as harmless as a lamb, only impatient, let him do his best, at ignorance and carelessness and sin, an indignation which is promptly curbed. As when in certain travel, I have feigned to be an ignoramus in our art, according to some preconceived design, and have to hear the land's practitioners steeped in conceits of blind by ignorance prattle fantastically on disease its cause and cure, and I must hold my peace. Thou wilt object. Why have I not ere this sought out the sage himself, the Nazarene who wrought this cure, inquiring at the source, conferring with the frankness that befits? Alas, it grieveth me, the learned leech perished in a tumult many years ago, accused, our learnings fate, of wizardry, rebellion, to the setting up a rule and creed prodigious, as described to me. His death, which happened when the earthquake fell, prefiguring, as soon appeared, the loss to occult learning in our Lord the Sage who lived there in the Pyramid alone, was wrought by the mad people, that's their won't, on vain recourse as I conjecture it to his tried virtue for miraculous help. How could he stop the earthquake? That's their way. The other imputations must be lies, but take one, though I loathe to give it thee, in mere respect for any good man's fame, and, after all, our patient Lazarus is stark mad. Should we count on what he says? Perhaps not, though in writing to a leech it is well to keep back nothing of a case. This man, so cured, regards the curer then, as, God forgive me, hoop at God himself, creator and sustainer of the world that came and dwelt in flesh on it a while. Sayeth that such and one was born and lived, taught, healed the sick, broke bread at his own house, then died with Lazarus by for ought I know, and yet was, what I said, nor choose repeat, and must have so avouched himself, in fact, in hearing of this very Lazarus who saith, but why all this of what he saith? Why riot of trivial matters, things of price calling at every moment for remark? I noticed on the margin of a pool, blue-flowering borage, the Aleppo sort, aboundeth, very nitrous. It is strange. Thy pardon for this long and tedious case, which, now that I review it, needs must seem unduly dwelt on, prolexly set forth. Nor I myself discern in what is writ good cause for the peculiar interest, and, or indeed, this man has touched me with. Perhaps the journey's end, the weariness, had wrought upon me first. I met him thus. I crossed a ridge of short, sharp, broken hills, like an old lion's cheek-teeth. Out there came a moon made like a face, with certain spots multi-form, manifold and menacing. Then a wind rose behind me. So we met in this old sleepy town at unaware, the man and I. I said thee what is writ, regarded as a chance, a matter risked to this ambiguous Syrian. He may lose or steal or give at thee with equal good. Jerusalem's repose shall make amends for time this letter wastes, thy time and mine, till when, once more thy pardon and farewell. The very God. Think, Arbib. Does thou think? So the all great were the all loving, too. So through the thunder comes a human voice saying, O heart I made, a heart beats here. Face my hands fashioned, see it in myself. Thou hast no power, nor maced conceive of mine, but love I gave thee with myself to love, and thou must love me who have died for thee. The madman said he said so. It is strange. End of an epistle containing the strange medical experience of Qashish, the Arab physician, by Robert Browning. This recording is in the public domain. And a bird flew up out of the turret above the traveller's head. And he smote upon the door again a second time. Is there anybody there? he said. But no one descended to the traveller. No head from the leaf-ringed still leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, where he stood perplexed and still. But only a host of phantom listeners, that dwelt in the lone house then, stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight, to that voice from the world of men. Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, that goes down to the empty hall. Harkening in an air stirred and shaken, by the lonely traveller's call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness, their stillness answering his cry. While his horse moved cropping the dark turf, near the starred and leafy sky. For he suddenly smote on the door, even louder, and lifted his head. Tell them I came, no one answered. But I kept my word, he said. Never the least stir made the listeners, though every word he spake fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house from the one man left awake. Aye, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, and the sound of iron on stone. And how the silence surged softly backward, when the plunging hooves were gone. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot Read by Bologna Times. This is a LibriVox recording. Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized upon a table. Let us go through certain half-deserted streets, the muttering retreats of restless nights in one night-cheap hotels, and sawed us restaurants with oyster shells. Streets that follow like a tedious argument of insidious intent to lead you to an overwhelming question. Oh, do not ask. What is it? Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the windowpains, the yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the windowpains, licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, lingered upon the pools that stand and drains, let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, and seeing that it was a soft October night, cold once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time, for the yellow smoke that slides along the street, rubbing its back upon the windowpains, there will be time, there will be time, to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet. There will be time to murder and create, and time for all the works and days of hands that lift and drop a question on your plate. Time for you, time for me, and time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go, talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time to wonder, do I dare and do I dare? Time to turn back and descend the stair, with a bald spot in the middle of my hair. They will say, how his hair is growing thin! My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, my necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pen, they will say. But how his arms and legs are thin! Do I dare disturb the universe? In a minute there is time, for decisions and revisions, which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all. Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons. I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. I know the voice is dying with a dying fall, beneath a music from a farther room. So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all. The eyes that fix you in formulated phrase, and when I am formulated, sprawling on a pen, when I am penned and wriggling on the wall, then how should I begin? To spit out all the butt ends of my days and ways. And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all. Arms that are bracelets and white and bare, but in the lamp light down with light brown hair. Is it perfume from a dress that makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? Shall I say? I have gone at dusk through narrow streets, and watched the smoke that rises from the pipes of lonely men and shirtsleeves leaning out of windows. I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across the floors of silent seas. And the afternoon the evening sleeps so peacefully, smooth by long fingers, asleep, tired, or at malingers, stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, though I have seen my head, grown slightly bald, brought in upon a platter. I am no prophet, and here's no great matter. I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, and I have seen the eternal footman hold my coat and snicker, and in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, after the cups, the marmalade, the tea, among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me? Would it have been worthwhile to have bitten off a matter with a smile, to have squeezed the universe into a ball, to roll it toward some overwhelming question, to say, I am Lazarus, come from the dead, come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all. If one, settling a pillow by our head, should say, that is not what I meant at all, that is not it at all. And would it have been worth it, after all? Would it have been worthwhile? After the sunsets, and the door yards, and the sprinkled streets, after the novels, after the tea cups, after the skirts that trail along the floor, and this, and so much more. Is it impossible to say just what I mean? But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves and patterns on a screen, would it have been worthwhile? If one, settling a pillow, are throwing off a shawl, and turning toward the window, should say, that is not it at all, that is not what I meant at all. No, I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be. Am an attendant lord, one that will do, to swell a progress, start a scene or two. Advise the prince, no doubt, an easy tool, differential, glad to be of use, politic, cautious, and meticulous, full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse. At times, indeed, almost ridiculous, almost at times, the fool. I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled, shall I part my hair behind, do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves, combing the white hair of the waves blown back, when the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea, by sea girls reathed with seaweed red and brown, till human voices wake us, and we drown. This recording is in the public domain. I know not if the rosy showers shed from apple boughs, or if the soft green wrought in fields, or if the robins call be fraught the most with thy delight. Perhaps they read the best, who in the ancient times did say, thou wert the sacred month unto the old. No blossom blooms upon thy brightest day, so subtly sweet as memories which unfold in aged hearts, which in thy sunshine lie, to sound themselves once more before they die. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. I have seen the romantic nuans in Taiwan. My life closed twice before its close, yet remains to see. If immortality unveil a third event to me, so huge, so hopeless to conceive, as leaves that twice befell, parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Psalm 27 from the King James Version of the Bible, read for LibriVox.org by Amy G. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat at my flesh, they scumbled and fell. Though a host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple. For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion. In the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me. He shall set me upon a rock. And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me. Therefore will I offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy. I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the Lord. Here, O Lord, when I cry with my voice, have mercy also upon me, and answer me. When thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart said unto thee, Thy face, Lord, will I seek. Hide not thy face far from me, put not thy servant away in anger. Thou hast been my help, leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up. Teach me thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies. Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies, for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty. I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Sea Rose by H.D. Read for LibriVox.org by Floyd Wilde. Sea Rose Rose Harsh Rose Marred and with stint of petals, meager flower, thin, sparse of leaf. More precious than a wet rose, single on a stem. You are caught in the drift, stunted with a small leaf. You are flung on the sand. You are lifted in the crisp sand that drives in the wind. Can the spice rose drip such acrid fragrance, hardened in a leaf? End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Soup by Carl Sandburne. Read for LibriVox.org by Harry Coffield. I saw a famous man eating soup. I say he was lifting a fat broth into his mouth with a spoon. His name was in the newspapers that day, spelled out in tall black headlines, and thousands of people were talking about him. When I saw him, he sat bending his head over a plate, putting soup in his mouth with a spoon. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Sun Has Set by Emily Bronte. Read for LibriVox.org by Neeraja Nagarajan. The sun has set and the long grass now waves dreamily in the evening wind, and the wild bird has flown from that old gravestone in some warm nook, a couch to find. In all the lonely landscape round, I see no light and hear no sound, except the wind that far away comes sighing over the healthy sea. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Sun Rising by John Dunne. Read for LibriVox.org by John Nixon. The Supercargo of www.thesupercargo.com. Busy old fool unruly sun, why dust thou thus through windows and through curtains call on us? Must to thy motions lovers seasons run, saucy, pedantic, rich, go chide late schoolboys and sour apprentices, go tell court huntsmen that the king will ride, call country ants to harvest office's love, all alike knows season knows, nor climb, nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time. Thy beams so reverent and strong, why shouldst thou think? I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink, but that I would not lose her sight so long, if her eyes have not blinded thine look, and tomorrow late tell me whether both the indias of spice and mine be where thou left them, or lie here with me. Ask for those kings whom thou sourced yesterday, and thou shalt hear all here in one bed lay. She is all states, and all princes, I, nothing else is, princes do but play us, compared to this all honors mimic, all wealth alchemy, thou, sun, art half as happy as we, in that the world's contracted thus, thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be to warm the world, that's done in warming us. Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere, this bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere. The tide rises, the tide falls, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, read for LibriVox.org by John L. The tide rises, the tide falls, the twilight darkens, the curlew calls, along the sea sands damp and brown the traveller 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 efface the footprints in the sands, and the tide rises, the tide falls. The morning breaks, the steeds in their stalls stamp and they as the hostler calls. The day returns, but never more returns the traveller to the shore, and the tide rises, the tide falls. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain, read by John Nell. A Winter Night by Sarah Teasdale Read for LibriVox.org by Bologna Times My window-pane is starred with frost. The world is bitter, cold to-night. The moon is cruel, and the wind is like a two-edged sword to smite. God pity all the homeless ones, the beggars pacing to and fro. God pity all the poor to-night, who walk the lamplit streets of snow. My room is like a bit of June. Warm and close, curtained, fold, unfold. But somewhere, like a homeless child, my heart is crying in the cold. End of