Contemplations by Anne Bradstreet. Rating by Bologna Times. Some time now passed, and the autumnal tied, when Phoebus wanted but one hour to bed. The trees all richly clad, yet void of pride, were gilded o'er by his rich golden head. Their leaves and fruits seemed painted but was true, of green, of red, of yellow mixed hue. Wrapped were my senses at this delectable view. I wished not what to wish, yet sure thought I, if so much excellence abide below, how excellent is he that dwells on high, whose power and beauty by his works we know. Sure he is goodness, wisdom, glory, light, that hath this underworld so richly died. More heaven than earth was here, no winter and no night. Then on a stately oak I cast mine eye, whose ruffling top the clouds seem to aspire. How long since thou wast in thine infancy, thy strength and stature, more thy years admire, hath hundred winters past since thou wast born, or thousand since thou breakest thy shell of horn? If so, all these are not eternity doth scorn. I heard the merry grasshopper then sing. The black clad cricket bear a second part. They kept one tune, and played on the same string. Being to glory in their little art, shall creatures object thus their voices raise, and in their kind resound their masters praise, whilst I, as mute, can warble forth no higher lays. When I behold the heavens as in their prime, and then the earth, though old, still clad in green, the stones and trees insensible of time, nor age nor wrinkle on their front are seen. If winter come, and greenness then do fade. A spring returns, and they more youthful made. But man grows old, lies down, remains where once he's laid. End of poem. This reading is in the public domain. To a lady on her remarkable preservation in a hurricane in North Carolina by Phyllis Wheatley. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. Though thou dost hear the tempest from afar, and feltest the horrors of the watery war, to me unknown yet on this peaceful shore, me thinks I hear the storm tumultuous roar. And how stern Boris, with impetuous hand, compelled the narrate to usurp the land, rose the daughters of the man, and slow ascending glided o'er the plain. Till Aolus in his rapid chariot drove, in gloomy grandeur from the vault above. Furious he comes, his winged sons obey, their frantic sire and madden all the sea. The bellows rave, the wind's fierce tyrant roars, and with his thundering terror shakes the shores. Broken by waves the vessel's frame is rent, and stroves with planks the watery element. But thee, Maria, a kind Nared's shield, preserved from sinking, and thy form upheld, and sure some heavenly oracle designed, at that dread crisis to instruct thy mind, things of eternal consequence to weigh, and to thine heart just feelings to convey, of things above, and of the future doom, and what the births of the dread world to come. From tossing seas I welcome thee to land, resign her, Nared, towards thy God's command, thy spouse late buried, as thy fears conceived, again returns, thy fears are all relieved. My daughter blooming with superior grace, again thou seest, again thine arms embrace. O come, and joyful, show thy spouse his heir, and with the blessings of maternal care. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Star-Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. O say can you see, by the dawn's early light, what so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming, whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, or the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming, and the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave, or the land of the free and the home of the brave. On the shore dimly seen, through the mists of the deep, where the foes haughty host in dread silence proposes, what is that which the breeze, or the towering steep, as it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses. Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, in full glory reflected, now shines on the stream, to the Star-Spangled Banner, o long-made wave, or the land of the free and the home of the brave. And where is that band, who so vauntingly swore, that the havoc of war and the battle's confusion? A home and a country should leave us no more. The blood has washed out their foul footsteps pollution. And no refuge could save the hireling and slave, from the terror of flight and the gloom of the grave, and the Star-Spangled Banner and triumph doth wave, or the land of the free and the home of the brave. O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand, between their loved homes and the war's desolation, blessed with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land praise the power that hath made, and preserved us a nation, then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, and this be our motto, and God is our trust, and the Star-Spangled Banner and triumph shall wave, or the land of the free and the home of the brave. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Home Sweet Home by John Howard Payne. Mid-pleasures and palaces, though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, which, seek through the world, is near met with elsewhere.  An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain, O give me my lowly thatched cottage again, the birds singing gaily that came at my call, give me them, and the peace of mind dearer than all.  How sweet it is to sit beneath a fun father's smile, and the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile, let others delight, bid new pleasures to roam, but give me, O give me, the pleasures of home.  To thee I'll return, overburdened with care, the heart's dearest solace will smile on me there. No more from that cottage again will I roam, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.  End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. THE WILD HONEYSUCKLE by Philip M. Frineau. This is a Librebox recording. All Librebox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. Fair flower, that does socomely grow, hid in the silent dull retreat, untouched thy helmet blossoms blow, unseen thy little branches greet, no roving foot shall crush thee here, no busy hand provoke a tear. By nature's self, in white arrayed, she bade thee shunned the vulgar eye, and planted here the guardian shade, and sent soft waters murmuring by, thus quietly thy summer goes, thy days declining to repose. Smit with those charms that must decay, I'd grieve to see your future doom.  The flowers that did in eaten bloom, I'm pitying frost, and autumn's power shall leave no vestige of this flower. From morning suns and evening dews, at first thy little being came. If nothing wants, you nothing lose. For when you die, you are the same. The space between is but an hour, the frail duration of a flower. But of poem this recording is in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Tons. To him who in the love of nature holds, communion with her visible forms, she speaks a various language. For his gayer hours she has a voice of gladness, and a smile and eloquence of beauty, and she glides into his darker musings, with a mild and healing sympathy, that steals away their sharpness ere he is aware. When thoughts of the last bitter hour come like a blight over thy spirit, and sad images of the stern agony, and shroud and pawl, and breathless darkness, and the narrow house make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart, go forth under the open sky, and list to nature's teachings, while from all round earth and her waters, and the depths of air, comes a still voice. Yet a few days, and thee, the all-beholding sun, shall see no more in all his course, nor yet in the cold ground, where thy pale form was laid, with many tears, nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist thy image. Earth that nourished thee shall claim thy growth, to be resolved to earth again, and lost each human face, surrendering up thine individual being, shalt thou go, to mix forever with the elements, to be a brother to the insensible rock, and to the sluggish clod, which the rude swaying turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould. Yet not to thine eternal resting place, shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish to couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down with patriarchs of the infant world, with kings, the powerful of the earth, the wise, the good, fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past, all in one mighty sepulchre. The hills rock-ribbed, and ancient as the sun, the veils stretching in a pensive quietness between, the venerable woods, rivers that move in majesty, and the complaining brooks that make the meadows green, and poured round all, old oceans gray, and melancholy waste, are but the solemn decorations all of the great tomb of man. The golden sun, the planets, all the infinite host of heaven, are shining on the sad abodes of death, through the still laps of ages. All that tread the globe are but a handful to the tribes that slumber in its bosom. Take the wings of mourning, pierce the barken wilderness, or lose thyself in the continuous woods where rolls the Oregon, and here's no sound, save his own dashing. Yet the dead are there, and millions in those solitudes, since first the flight of years began, have laid them down in their last sleep. The dead reign there alone. So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw in silence from the living, and no friend take note of thy departure? All that breathe will share thy destiny.  The solemn brood of care plod on, and each one as before will chase his favorite phantom. Yet all these shall leave their mirth and their employments, and shall come and make their bed with thee. As the long train of ages glides away, the sons of men, the youth and life's green spring, and he who goes in the full strength of years, matron and maid, the speechless babe, and the gray-headed man, shall one by one be gathered to thy side, by those who in their turn shall follow them. So live, that when thy summons comes to join, the innumerable caravan which moves to that mysterious realm, where each shall take his chamber in the silent halls of death, thou go not, like the quarry slave at night, scourged to his dungeon. But, sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams. End of poem. The Village of Blacksmith by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times After a spreading chestnut-tree, the village smithy stands, the smith, a mighty man is he, with large and sinewy hands, and the muscles of his brawny arms are strong as iron bands. His hair is crisp and black and long, his face is like the tan, his brow is wet with honest sweat, he earns whatever he can, and looks the whole world in the face, for he owes not any man. Weekend, week out, from morn till night, you can hear his bellows blow, you can hear him swing his heavy sledge with measured beat and slow, like a sexton ringing the village bell when the evening sun is low. And children coming home from school, look in at the open door, they love to see the flaming forge and hear the bellows roar, and catch the burning sparks that fly like chaff from a threshing floor. He goes on Sunday to the church, and sits among his boys. He hears the parson pray and preach, he hears his daughter's voice. Singing in the village choir, and it makes his heart rejoice. It sounds to him like her mother's voice, singing in paradise. He needs must think of her once more, how in the grave she lies, and with his hard rough hand he wipe a tear out of his eyes. Toiling, rejoicings, sorrowing, onward through life he goes.  Something attempted, something done, has earned a night's repose. Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend, for the lesson thou hast taught. Thus at the flaming forge of life our fortunes must be wrought. Thus on its sounding anvil shaped, each burning deed and thought. End of poem. This recording is in the Public Domain. Seed Time and Harvest by John Greenleaf Whittier. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the Public Domain, reading by Bologna Times. As o'er his furrowed fields which lie beneath the coldly dropping sky, yet chill with winter's melted snow the husband men goes forth to sow. Thus freedom, on the bitter blast, the ventures of thy seed we cast, and trust to warmer sun and rain to swell the germ and fill the grain. Who calls thy glorious service hard, who deems it not its own reward? Who, for its trials, counts it less, a cause of praise and thankfulness? It may not be our lot to wield, the sickle in the ripen field, nor ours to hear on summer eaves, the reaper's song among the sheaves. Yet where our duty's task is wrought, and unison with God's great thought, the near and future blend in one, and what so air is willed is done. And ours the grateful service whence comes, day by day the recompense, the hope, the trust, the purpose stayed, the fountain, and the noonday shade. And where this life, the utmost span, the only end and aim of man, better the toil of fields like these than waking dream and slothful ease.  End of Pong This recording is in the Public Domain. The Snowstorm by Ralph Waldo Emerson This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the Public Domain. Reading By Bologna Times Announced by all the trumpets of the sky arrives the snow, and driving o'er the fields seems nowhere to a light. The whited air hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, and veils the farmhouse at the garden's end. The sled and traveller stopped, the couriers' feet delayed, all friends shut out. The housemates sit around the radiant fireplace, enclosed in a tumultuous privacy of storm. Come and see the North Wind's masonry, out of an unseen quarry evermore furnished with tile the fierce artificer curves his white bastions with projected roof round every windward stake or tree or door, speeding the myriad-handed his wild work so fanciful, so savage, not cares he for number or proportion. Mockingly, uncoup or kennel, he hangs Perrion wreaths. A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn, fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall, maugher the farmer's size, and at the gate a tapering turret overtops the work and when his hours are numbered and the world is all his own, retiring as he were not, leaves when the sun appears, astonished art to mimic in slow structures, stone by stone, built in an age the mad wind's night work, the frolic architecture of the snow. End of poem This recording is in the public domain. In vain by Emily Dickinson. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. I cannot live with you. It would be life, and life is over there behind the shelf. The sexton keeps the key, too, putting up our life, his porcelain, like a cup, discarded of the housewife, quaint or broken, a newer severess pleases, old one's crack. I could not die with you, for one must wait to shut the other's gaze down. You could not, and I could I stand by and see you freeze, without my right of frost, death's privilege.  Let new grace grow plain and foreign on my homesick eye, except that you, then he, shone closer by. They judge us, how? For you served heaven, you know. Or sought to, I could not. Because you saturated sight, and I had no more eyes, for sordid excellence, as paradise. And where you lost, I would be, though my name rang loudest on the heavenly fame, and where you saved, and I condemned to be, where you were not, that self, were hell to me. So we must keep apart, you there, I hear, with just the door ajar, that oceans are, and prayer, and that pale sustenance, despair, end of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Woodman, spare that tree, by George P. Morris. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. Woodman, spare that tree, touch not a single bow, in youth it sheltered me, and I'll protect it now, towards my forefather's hand, that placed it near his cot. There Woodman, let it stand, thy ax shall harm it not. That old familiar tree, whose glory and renown, are spread o'er land and sea, and what's thou hew it down? Woodman, for bear thy stroke, cut not its earthbound ties, oh, spare that aged oak, now towering to the skies. When but an idle boy, I sought its grateful shade, and all their gushing joy, here too my sisters played. My mother kissed me here, my father pressed my hand. Forgive this foolish tear, but let that old oak stand. My heart strings round thee cling, close as thy bark, old friend. Here shall the wild bird sing, and still thy branches bend. Old tree, the storm still brave, and Woodman, leave the spot, while I have a hand to save. Thy ax shall harm it not. End of palm. This recording is in the public domain, Spring by Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain, reading by Bologna Times. Oh, the world looks glad, for the spring has smiled, and the birds are come with their wood-nuts wild, and the waters leap with the joyous sound, like freedom's voice, when a chain's unbound. And soon, with its bloom, will the earth be gay, for the air is bland as the breath of May. Sunshine and buds, and all glorious things, will give to the hours their downiest wings. Nature has burst from her wintry tomb, wreathed with the glory of brightening bloom. Fedders of frost work are gently unbound, blossoms and flowers are clustering round. Tones that know, not the blighting of care, sunshine and gladness, may smilingly wear. But for the broken and desolate heart, springtime at last, has no balm to impart. Tones that are hushed, it awakens no more. Friends that are gone, it can never restore. Yet into the mourner, one hope it may bring, tis the type of eternities, glorious spring. End of palm. This recording is in the public domain. Lenore by Edgar Allan Poe. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. Ah, broken is the golden bowl, the spirit flown forever. Let the bell toll. A saintly soul floats on the Stygian River. And, Guidevere, hast thou no tear, weep now or never more. See on yon drear and rigid beer, low lies thy love, Lenore. Come, let the burial rite be read, the funeral song be sung, an anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young. A dirge for her, the doubly dead, and that she died so young. Because ye loved her for her wealth, and hated her for her pride. And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her that she died. How shall the ritual then be read? The requiem, how be sung? By you, by yours, the evil eye, by yours, the slanderous tongue. That did to death the innocence, that died and died so young. To Kevimus, but rave not thus, and let a Sabbath song, go up to God so solemnly, the dead may feel no wrong, the sweet Lenore hath gone before, with hope that flew beside, leaving thee wild for the dear child, that should have been thy bride. For her, the fair and debaunare, that now so lowly lies, the life upon her yellow hair, but not within her eyes.  Avant, to-night, my heart is light, no dirge will I appraise, but waft the angel on her flight with a pain of old days. Let no bell-toll lest her sweet soul, admit its hallowed mirth, should catch the note, as it doth float above the damned earth. To friends above, from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven, from hell unto a highest state, far up within the heaven, from grief and groan to a golden throne beside the king of heaven. End of Poem This recording is in the Public Domain. Reading by Bologna Times. Superb and soul upon a plummet spray, that o'er the general leafage boldly grew, he summed the woods in song, or tipic drew, the watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay of languid doves, when long their lovers stray, and all bird's passion plays, that sprinkle do, at morn, in break, or bosky avenue, what air birds did, or dreamed, this bird could say. Then down he shot, bounced eerily along this ward, twitched in a grass-hopper, made song, mid-flight, perched, pranked, and to his art again. Sweet science, this large riddle read me plain. How may the death of that dull insect be, the life of yawn-trim Shakespeare on the tree? End of Poem. This recording is in the Public Domain. The Path That Leads to Home. By Edgar A. Guest. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the Public Domain. Reading by Bologna Times. The Little Path That Leads to Home. This is the road for me. I know no finer path to Rome, with finer sights to see. With thorough fares the world would slide, that lead to wonders new, but he who treads them leaves behind the tender things, and true. O North and South and East and West, the crowded roadways go, and sweating brow and weary breast, are all they seem to know.  Across the world the gleaming steel holds out its lure for men. But no one finds his comfort real, till he comes home again. And chartered lanes now line the sea, for weary hearts to roam. But O, the finest path to me, is that which leads to home. Tis there I come to laughing eyes, and find a welcome true.  And O, when every day is done, upon that little street, a pair of rosy youngsters run, to me with flying feet. The world with myriad paths is lined, but one alone for me, one little road where I may find the charms I want to see. Though thorough fares majestic call, the multitude to Rome, I would not leave to know them all, the path that leads to home. End of Poem This recording is in the public domain. The march into Virginia, ending in the first Manassas, July 1861, by Herman Melville. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Rating by Bologna Times. Did all the lets and bars appear, to every just or larger end, whence should come the trust and cheer?  Age finds place in the rear, all wars are boyish, and are fought by boys. The champions and enthusiasts of the state, turbid artars and vain joys, not barenly abate. Stimulants to the power mature, preparatives of fate. Who here forecasteth the event? At heart, but spurns at precedent, and warnings of the wise, condemned for closures of surprise. The banners played, the bugles call, the air is blue and prodigal. No burying party, pleasure would, no picnic party in the may. Ever went less loath than they, into that leafy neighborhood. Embarkately they filed toward fate, mollocks uninitiate, expectancy and glad surmise of battle's unknown mysteries. All they feel is this, tis glory, a rapture sharp, though transitory, yet lasting in beloral story. So they gaily go to fight, chatting left and laughing right.  I give you fair warning before you attempt me further, I am not what you supposed, but far different. Who is he that would become my follower? Who would sign himself a candidate for my affections? The way is suspicious, the result uncertain, perhaps destructive. You would have to give up all else, I alone would expect to be your soul and exclusive standard. Your novitiate would even then be long and exhausting, the whole past theory of your life and all conformity to the lives around you would have to be abandoned. Therefore release me now before troubling yourself any further. Let go your hand from my shoulders, put me down and depart on your way. Or else by stealth and some wood for trial, or back of a rock in the open air, for in any roof room of a house I emerge not, nor in company, and in libraries I lie as one dumb, a gock, or unborn, or dead. But just possibly with you on a high hill, first watching lest any person for miles around approaches unawares, or possibly with you sailing at sea, or on the beach of the sea, or some quiet island, here to put your lips upon mine, I permit you, with the comrade's long dwelling kiss, or the new husband's kiss, for I am the new husband and I am the comrade. Or if you will, thrusting me beneath your clothing, where I may feel the throbs of your heart, or rest upon your hip, carry me when you go forth over land or sea, for thus merely touching you is enough, is best, and thus touching you would I silently sleep and be carried eternally. But these leaves conning you, con at peril, for these leaves and me you will not understand, they will elude you at first, and still more afterward, I will certainly elude you. Even while you should think you had unquestionably caught me, behold, already you see I have escaped from you. For it is not for what I have put into it that I have written this book, nor is it by reading it, you will acquire it, nor do those note me best, who admire me, and vauntingly praise me, nor will the candidates for my love, unless at most of very few, prove victorious, nor will my poems do good only, they will do just as much evil, perhaps more, for all is useless without that which you may guess at many times, and not hit that which I hinted at, therefore release me, and depart on your way. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. May by Helen Hunt Jackson. This is a LibriBox recording. All LibriBox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. A month when they who love must love and wed. Were one to go to worlds where may is not, and seek to tell the memories he had brought, from earth of thee, what were most fitly said. I know not if the rosy showers shed, from apple-bows, or if the soft green rot in fields, or if the robins call be fraught, the most with thy delight. Perhaps they read the best, who in the ancient time did say, that worked the sacred month unto the old, no blossom blooms upon thy brightest day, so subtly sweet as memories which enfold, in aged hearts which, in thy sunshine lie, to sum themselves once more before they die. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Twenty Among the Nightingales. By T. S. Eliot. This is a LibriBox recording. All LibriBox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. Eight-necked Sweeney spreads his knees, letting his arms hang down to laugh. The zebra stripes along his jaw, swelling to maculet, giraffe. The circles of the stormy moon slide westward toward the river plate. Death and the raven drift above, and Sweeney guards the horned gate. Gloomy Orion and the dog are veiled and hushed, the shrunken seas. The person in the Spanish cape tries to sit on Sweeney's knees. Slips and pulls the tablecloth, overturns a coffee-cup, reorganized upon the floor, she yawns and draws a stocking up. The silent man in mocha-brown sprawls at the wind of sill and gapes. The waiter brings in oranges, bananas, figs, and hot-house grapes. The silent vertebrate and brown contracts and concentrates with draws. Rachel, knee Rabenevich, tears at the grapes with murderous paws. She and the lady in the cape are suspect, thought to be in league. Over the man with heavy eyes declines the gambit, shows fatigue. Leaves the room and reappears outside the window, leaning in. Branches of wisteria circumscribe a golden grin. The host with someone indistinct converses at the door apart. The nightingales are singing nearer, the convent of the Sacred Heart, and sang within the bloody wood when Agamemnon cried aloud, and let their liquid droppings fall, to stain the stiff dishonored shroud. End of poem. This recording is in the Public Domain. A late walk by Robert Frost. This is the LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the Public Domain. Reading by Bologna Times. When I go up through the mowing field, the headless aftermath, smooth late, like thatch, with a heavy dew, half closes the garden path. And when I come to the garden ground, the whir of sober birds up from the tangle of withered weeds, is sadder than any words. A tree beside the wall stands bare, but a leaf that lingered brown, disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought, come softly rattling down. I end not far from my going forth by picking the faded blue of the last remaining Aster flower to carry again to you. End of poem. This recording is in the Public Domain. Sheltered Garden by H.D. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the Public Domain. Reading by Bologna Times. I have had enough. I gasp for breath. Every way ends. Every road, every footpath leads at last to the hill-crest. Then you retrace your steps, or find the same slope on the other side, precipitate. I have had enough. Border-pinks, clove-pinks, wax-lillies, herbs, sweet-crests, oh, for some sharp swish of a branch. There is no scent of resin in this place. No taste of bark, of coarse weeds, aromatic, astringent. Only border, on border, of scented pinks. Have you seen fruit under cover, that wanted light, pears wadded in cloth, protected from the frost, melons almost ripe, smothered in straw? Why not let the pears cling to the empty branch? All your coaxing will only make a bitter fruit. Let them cling, ripen of themselves, test their own worth, nipped, shriveled by the frost, to fall at last, but fair, with a russet coat. Or the melon, let it bleached yellow in the winter light, even tart to the taste. It is better to taste a frost, the exquisite frost, than of wadding and of dead grass. For this beauty, beauty without strength, chokes out life. I want wind to break, scatter these pink stalks, snap off their spiced heads, fling them about with dead leaves, spread the pass with twigs, limbs broken off, trail great pine branches hurled from some far wood, right across the melon patch, break pear and quints, leaf half-trees, torn, twisted, but showing the fight was valiant. Oh, to blot out this garden, to forget, to find a new beauty, and some terrible wind tortured place. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Pauline Barrett. By Edgar Lee Masters. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Almost the shell of a woman, after the surgeon's knife, and almost a year to creep back into strength, to the dawn of our wedding, decennial, found me my seeming self again. We walked the forest together, by a path of soundless moss and turf. But I could not look in your eyes, and you could not look in my eyes. For such sorrow was ours, the beginning of gray in your hair, and I but a shell of myself. And what did we talk of? Sky and water, anything, most, to hide our thoughts. And then your gift of wild roses, set on the table to grace our dinner. Poor heart, how bravely you struggled, to imagine and live a remembered rapture. Then my spirit rooped as the night came on, and you left me alone in my room for a while, as you did when I was a bride. Poor heart. And I looked in the mirror, and something said, one should be all dead, when one is half-dead, nor ever mock life, nor ever cheat love. And I did it, looking there in the mirror. Dear, have you ever understood? End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Springfield Magical by Vechel Lindsey This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times In this city, the city of my discontent, sometimes there comes a whisper from the grass. Romance, romance is here, no Hindu town, is quite so strange, no citadel of brass, by Sinbad found, held half such love and hate, no picture-palace and a picture-book, such webs of friendship, beauty, greed, and fate. In this the city of my discontent, down from the sky, up from the smoking deep, wild legends new and old burn round my bed, while trees and grass and men are wrapped in sleep, angels come down with Christmas in their hearts, gentle whimsical laughing heaven sent, and for a day fair peace have given me, in this the city of my discontent. End of poem This recording is in the public domain. Sonnets by Edna St. Vincent Millay This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times 1. Thou art not lovelier than lilacs, no, nor honeysuckle, Thou art no more fairer than small white single poppies. I can bear thy beauty, though I've been before thee, though from left to right not knowing where to go. I turn my troubled eyes, nor here nor there, find any refuge from thee, yet I swear, so has it been with mist, with moonlight so. Like him who day by day unto his drought of delicate poison adds him one drop more till he may drink unharmed the death of ten. Even so, in your debuty, who have quaffed each hour more deeply than the hour before, I drink and live what has destroyed some men, too. Time does not bring relief. You all have lied, who told me time would ease me of my pain. I miss him in the weeping of the rain. I want him at the shrinking of the tide. The old snows melt from every mountainside, and last year's leaves are smoke in every lane. But last year's bitter loving must remain, heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide. There are a hundred places where I fear to go, so with his memory they brim, and entering with relief some quiet place, where never fell his foot or shone his face. I say there is no memory of him here, and so stand stricken, so remembering him three. Mindful of you the sodden earth and spring, and all the flowers that in the springtime grow, and dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow rising of the round moon, all throats that sing, that summer through, and each departing wing, and all the nests that the buried branches show, and all winds that in any weather blow, and all the storms that the four seasons bring. You go no more on your exultant feet, a paths that only missed in morning new, or watch the wind, or listen to the beat of a bird's wings too high an air to view. But you are something more than young and sweet, and fair, and the young ear remembers you four. Not in this chamber, only at my birth, when the long hours of that mysterious night were over, and the morning was in sight. I cried, but in strange places, step and furth. I have not seen, through alien grief and mirth, and never shall one room contain me quite who, in so many rooms, first saw the light, child of all mothers native of the earth. So is no warmth for me at any fire today, when the world's fire has burned so low. I kneel, spending my breath in vain desire, at that cold hearth, which one time roared so strong, and straightened back in wariness, and longed to gather up my little gods and go. Five. If I should learn, in some quite casual way, that you were gone, not to return again. Right from the back page of a paper, say, held by a neighbor in a subway train, how, at the corner of this avenue, and such a street, so are the papers filled, a hurrying man, who happened to be you, at noon today, had happened to be killed. I should not cry aloud, I could not cry aloud, or wring my hands in such a place. I should but watch the station lights rush by, with a more careful interest on my face, or raise my eyes, and read with greater care, where to store furs, and how to treat the hair. End of poems. This recording is in the public domain. Manhattan by Lola Ridge. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. Out of the night you burn, Manhattan, in a vesture of gold, span of innumerable arcs, flaring and multiplying, gold at the uttermost circles fading into the tenderest hint of jade, or fusing in tremulous twilight blues, robing the far-flung offices, sentilent storied, forking flame, or soaring to luminous amethyst over the steeples oriole. Diaphanous gold, veiling the Woolworth, urgently rising, slender and stark, Malifluous shrill as a vendor's cry, and towers squatting graven and cold on the velvet bales of the dark, and the singers appraising indolent idols' eye, and night like a purple cloth unrolled, nebulous gold, throwing an ephemeral glory about life's vanishing points, wherein you burn, you of unknown voltage whirling on your axis, scrawling vermillion signatures over the night's velvet hoarding, insolent, towering, spherical, two apaces ever shifting. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Ships that pass in the night. By Paul Lawrence Dunbar. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing. I look far out into the pregnant night, where I can hear a solemn booming gun, and catch the gleaming of a random light that tells me that the ship I seek is passing, passing. My tearful eyes, my soul's deep hurt, are glassing. Where I would hail, and check that ship of ships, I stretch my hands imploring, cry aloud. My voice falls deep afoot for mine own lips, and but its gust doth reach that vessel, passing, passing. O earth, O sky, O ocean, both surpassing, O heart of mine, O soul that dreads the dark. Is there no hope for me? Is there no way that I may sight and check that speeding bark, which out of sight and sound is passing, passing. End of palm. This recording is in the public domain. O Black and Unknown Bards. By James Weldon Johnson. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. O Black and Unknown Bards of long ago, how came your lips to touch the sacred fire?  Who first from midst his bonds lifted his eyes, who first from out the still watch, lone and long, feeling the ancient faith of prophet's rise within his dark-kept soul, burst into song? Part of what slave poured out such melody as, Still Away to Jesus! On its strains his spirit must have nightly floated free, though still about his hands he felt his chains. Who heard great Jordan's role? Who starward eye saw chariot swing low? And who was he that breathed that comforting melodic sigh? Nobody knows, to trouble assay. What merely living clawed, what captive thing could up toward God through all its darkness grope, and find within its deadened heart to sing these songs of sorrow, love, and faith, and hope? How did it catch that subtle undertone that note in music heard not with the ears? How sound the elusive reed so seldom blown, which stirs the soul, or melts the heart to tears? Not that great German master in his dream of harmonies that thundered amongst the stars at the creation ever heard a theme nobler than Go Down Moses, Markets bars, how like a mighty trumpet call they stir the blood, such are the notes that men have sung, going to valorous deeds such tones there were that helped make history when time was young. There is a wide, wide wonder in it all, that from degraded rest and servile toil the fiery spirit of the seer should call these simple children of the sun and soil.   You sang far better than you knew, the songs that, for your listeners, hungry hearts sufficed, still live. But more than this to you belongs. You sang a race from wood and stone to Christ. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Heart of a Woman by Georgia Douglas Johnson. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain, reading by Bologna Times. The Heart of a Woman goes forth with the dawn, as a lone bird, soft-winging, so restlessly on. A far or life's turrets and veils does it roam. In the wake of those echoes a heart calls home. The Heart of a Woman falls back with the night, and enters some alien cage and its plight, and tries to forget it has dreamed of the stars, while it breaks, breaks, breaks on the sheltering bars. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. By Anne Spencer. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. We trekked into a far country, my friend and I. Our deeper content was never spoken, but each knew all the other said. He told me how calm his soul was laid by the lack of anvil and strife. The woollen kestrel, I said, mutes his mating note to please the harmony of this sweet silence. And when all the days end, we laid tired bodies against the loose warm sands, and the air fleeced its particles for a coverlet. When star after star came out to guard their lovers in oblivion, my soul so leapt that my evening prayer stole my morning song. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Queen Anne's Lace. By William Carlos Williams. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. Her body is not so white as anemone petals, nor so smooth, nor so remota-thing. It is a field of the wild carrot taking the field by force. The grass does not raise above it. Here is no question of whiteness, white as can be, with a purple mole at the center of each flower. Each flower is a hand span of her whiteness. Wherever his hand has lain there is a tiny purple blossom under his touch, to which the fibers of her being stem one by one each to its end, until the whole field is a white desire, empty, a single stem, a cluster, flower by flower, a pious wish to whiteness, gone over or nothing. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Wild Peaches. By Eleanor Wiley. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Recording by Bologna Times. 1. When the world turns completely upside down, you say we'll immigrate to the eastern shore, aboard a riverboat, from Baltimore, we'll live among wild peach trees, miles from town. You'll wear a coon skin cap and eye a gown. Homespun died butternut's dark gold color, lost like your lotus-eating ancestor. We'll swim in milk and honey till we drown. The winter will be short, the summer long, the autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot, tasting of cider and of scuppernong, all season sweet but autumn best of all, the squirrels and their silver fur will fall, like falling leaves, like fruit before your shot. 2. The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass, like bloom on grapes of purple, brown and gold. The misted early mornings will be cold, the little puddles will be rooted with glass. The sun, which burns from copper into brass, melts these at noon and makes the boys unfold their knitted mufflers full as they can hold, fat pockets dribble chestnuts as they pass. Things grow wild and pigs can live in clover, a barrel of salted herrings lasts a year. The spring begins before the winter's over. By February you may find the skins of garter-snakes and water moccasins, dwindled and harsh, dead white and cloudy clear. 3. When April pours the colors of a shell upon the hills, when every little creek is shot with silver from the Chesapeake, and shawls new-minted by the ocean swell, when strawberries go begging and the sleek blue plums lie open to the black bird's beak, we shall live well, we shall live very well. The months between the cherries and the peaches are brimming carnigocopias, which spill fruits red and purple, somber bloomed and black. Then down rich fields and frosty river-beaches will trample bright persimmons, while we kill bronze-partridge speckled quail and canvas-back. 4. Down to the puritan marrow of my bones there's something in this richness that I hate. I love the look austere, immaculate, of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones. There's something in my very blood that owns bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate, a thread of water churned to milky spade, streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones. I love those skies, then blue or snowy gray, those fields sparse-planted, rendering meager sheaves, that spring briefer than Apple Blossom's breath, summer so much too beautiful to stay, swift autumn like a bonfire of leaves, and sleepy wetter like the sleep of death. End of poem. This recording is in the Public Domain. Spring Night by Sarah Teesdale. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the Public Domain. Reading by Bologna Times. The park is filled with night and fog, the veils are drawn about the world, the drowsy lights along the paths are dim and purled, gold and gleaming the empty streets, gold and gleaming the misty lake, the mirrored lights like sunken swords, glimmer and shake. Oh! is it not enough to be here with this beauty over me? My throat should ache with praise, and I should kneel and joy beneath the sky. Oh! Beauty! Are you not enough? Why am I crying after love? With youth, a singing voice, and eyes to take earth's wonder with surprise. Why have I put off my pride? Why am I unsatisfied? I, for whom the pensive night binds her cloudy hair with light. I, for whom all beauty burns, like incense and a million urns. Oh! Beauty! Are you not enough? Why am I crying after love? End of poem. This recording is in the Public Domain. More Not the Dead by Ralph Chaplin. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the Public Domain. Reading by Bologna Times. More Not the Dead, that in the cool earth lie, dust unto dust. The calm, sweet earth that mothers all who die, as all men must. More Not your captive comrades, who must dwell, too strong to strive. Within each still bound coffin of a cell, buried alive. But rather more in the apathetic throng, the cowed and the meek, who see the world's great anguish, and it's wrong, and dare not speak. End of poem. This recording is in the Public Domain. Poem 12 by Ezra Pound. From Hugh Sowan Mauberly Part 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the Public Domain. Reading by Bologna Times. Daphne, with her thighs in bark, stretches toward me her leafy hands. Subjectively, in the stuffed satin drawing-room, I await the Lady Valentine's commands. Knowing my coat has never been of precisely the fashion to stimulate in her a durable passion. Doubtful, somewhat of the value of well-gowned approbation, of literary effort, but never of the Lady Valentine's vocation. Poetry, her border of ideas, the edge uncertain, but a means of blending with other strata, where the lower and higher have ending. A hook to catch the Lady Jane's attention, a modulation toward the theatre. Also in the case of revolution, a possible friend and comforter. On the other hand, the soul, which the highest cultures have nourished, to Fleet Street, where Dr. Johnson flourished. Beside this thoroughfare, the sale of half-hose has long since superseded the cultivation of Pyrene roses. End of poem. This recording is in the Public Domain. Reformers, A Hymn of Hate by Dorothy Parker. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the Public Domain. Reading by Bologna Times.  They raise my blood pressure. They are the prohibitionists, the fathers of bootlegging. They made us what we are today. I hope they're satisfied. They can prove that the Johnstown flood and the blizzard of 1888 and the destruction of Pompeii were all due to alcohol. They have figured it out that anyone who would give a Gendesi a friendly look is just wasting his time out of jail, and anyone who would stay under the same roof with a bottle of scotch is right in line for a cozy seat in the electric chair. They fix things all up pretty for us. Now that they have dried up the country, you can hardly get a drink unless you go in and order one. They are in a nasty state over this light wines and beer idea. They say that lips that touch liquor shall never touch wine. They swear that the Eighteenth Amendment shall be improved upon. Over their dead bodies, fair enough. Then there are the suppressors of vice. The boys who made the name of Cable a household word. Their aim is to keep art and letters in their place, if they see a book which does not come right out and say that the doctor brings babies in his little black bag, or find a painting of a young lady showing her without her rubbers. They call out the militia. They have a mean eye for dirt. They can find it, in a copy of what Katie did at school, or a snapshot of Aunt Bessie in bathing at Sandy Creek, or a picture postcard of moonlight in Bryant Park. They are always running around suppressing things, beginning with their desires. They get a lot of excitement out of life. They are constantly discovering the new Rabelais, or the twentieth century, Hogarth. Their leader is regarded as the representative of Comstock here on earth. How does that song of Tostes go? Good-bye, Sumner, good-bye, good-bye. There are the movie censors. The motion picture is still in its infancy. They are the boys who keep it there.  They fix up all the historical events so that their own mothers wouldn't know them. They make Duberry, Mrs. Louie, fifteenth, and show that Anthony and Cleopatra were like brother and sister, and announce Salamé's engagement to John the Baptist, so that the audience won't go and get ideas in their heads. They insist that Sherlock Holmes is made to say, Quick Watson, the crochet needle, and the state pays them for it. They say they are going to take the sin out of cinema. If they perish in the attempt, I wish to God they would. And then there are the all-American crabs, the brave little band that is against everything. They have got up the idea that things are not what they were when Grandma was a girl. They say they don't know what we're coming to, as if they had just written the line. They are always running a temperature over the modern dances, or the new skirts, or the goings-on of the younger set. They can barely hold themselves in when they think of the menace of the drama. They seem to be going ahead under the idea that everything but the passion play was written by Avery Hopwood. They will never feel really themselves until every theatre in the country is raised. They are forever signing petitions, urging that cigarette smokers should be deported, and that all places of amusement should be closed on Sunday, and kept closed all week. They take everything personally. They go about shaking their heads, and sighing, It's all wrong, it's all wrong. They said it.  They raise my blood pressure. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Lilux by Amy Lowell. This is a LibreBox recording. All LibreBox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. Lilux, false blue, white, purple, color of lilac. Your great puffs of flowers are everywhere in this, my new England. Among your heart-shaped leaves, orange orials hop, like music box birds, and sing their little weak soft songs in the crooks of your branches. The bright eyes of song sparrows sitting on spotted eggs, piercelessly through the light and shadow of all springs. Lilux in door-yards, holding quiet conversations with an early moon. Lilux watching a deserted house, saddling sideways into the grass of an old road. Lilux, wind-beaten, staggering under a lopsided shock of bloom, above a cellar dug into a hill. You are everywhere. You were everywhere. You tapped the window when the preacher preached his sermon, and ran along the road beside the boy going to school. You stood by pasture-bars to give the cows good milking. You persuaded the housewife that her dish-pan was of silver, and her husband an image of pure gold. You flaunted the fragrance of your blossoms through the wide doors of custom houses. You and sandalwood and tea, charging the noses of quill-driving clerks. When a ship was in from China, you called to them, Goose quill men, goose quill men, may is the month for flitting, until they arrived on their high stools, and wrote poetry on their letter sheets behind the propped up ledgers, paradoxical New England clerks, writing inventories and ledgers, reading the song of Solomon at night, so many verses before bedtime. Because it was the Bible, the dead fed you amid the slant stones of graveyards.  You are of the green sea and of the stone hills which reach a long distance. You are of elm-shaded streets with little shops where they sell kites and marbles. You are of great parks where everyone walks and nobody is at home. You cover the blind sides of greenhouses and lean over the top to say a hurryward through the glass to your friends, the grapes inside. Lilacs, false blue, white, purple, color of lilac, you have forgotten your eastern origin. The veiled women with eyes like panthers, the swollen, aggressive turbines of jeweled poshes. Now you are a very decent flower, a reticent flower, a curiously clear-cut candied flower, standing beside clean doorways, friendly to a house-cat and a pair of spectacles, making poetry out of a bit of moonlight and a hundred or two sharp blossoms. Maine knows you, has for years and years, New Hampshire knows you, and Massachusetts and Vermont, Cape Cod starts you along the beaches to Rhode Island, Connecticut takes you from a river to the sea. You are brighter than apples, sweeter than tulips. You are the great flood of our souls bursting above the leaf-shapes of our hearts. You are the smell of all summers, the love of wives and children, the recollection of the gardens of little children. You are state houses and charters, and the familiar treading of the foot to and fro on a road it knows. Maine is lilac here in New England. Maine is a thrush singing sun-up on a tip-top ash tree. Maine is white clouds behind pine trees, puffed out and marching upon a blue sky. Maine is a green as no other. Maine is much sun through small leaves. Maine is soft earth and apple blossoms and windows open to a south wind. Maine is a full light wind of lilac, from Canada to Narragansett Bay. Lilacs, false blue, white, purple, color of lilac, heart-leaves of lilac all over New England, roots of lilac under all the soil of New England, lilac in Maine because I am New England, because my roots are in it, because my leaves are of it, because my flowers are for it, because it is my country, and I speak to it of itself, and sing of it with my own voice, since certainly it is mine. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Tetelestai by Conrad Aiken. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Reading by Bologna Times. How shall we praise the magnificence of the dead? The great man humbled, the haughty brought to dust. Is there a horn we should not blow as proudly, for the meanest of us all, who creeps his days, guarding his heart from blows, to die obscurely? I am no king, have laid no kingdom's waste. Taken no prince's captive, led no triumphs of weeping women through long walls of trumpets. Say, rather I am no one, or an atom. Say, rather, two great gods in a vault of starlight. Play ponderingly at chess. And at the game's end one of the pieces, shaken, falls to the floor, and runs to the darkest corner, and that peace, forgotten there. Left motionless, is I. Say that I have no name, no gifts, no power. Am only one of millions, mostly silent. One who came with lips and hand and a heart, looked on beauty, and loved it, and then left it. Say that the fates of time and space obscured me. Led me a thousand ways to pain, bemused me, wrapped me in ugliness, and like great spiders dispatched me at their leisure. Well what then, should I not hear, as I lie down in dust, the horns of glory, blowing above my burial, too. Morning and evening opened and closed above me. Houses were built above me. Trees let fall, yellowing leaves upon me. Hands of ghosts, rain has showered its arrows of silver upon me, seeking my heart. Winds have roared and tossed me. Music and long blue waves of sound has borne me. A helpless weed to shores of unthought silence. Time above me, within me, crashed its gongs of terrible warning, sifting the dust of death. And here I lie. Blow now your horns of glory harshly over my flesh.  Canopus, denib, regal. Let me, as I lie down, hear in this dust. Here, far off, your whispered salutation. Roar now above my decaying flesh, you winds. Whirl out your earth-sense over this body. Tell me of ferns and stagnant pools, wild roses, hillsides. Anoint me, rain, let crash your silver arrows on this hard flesh. I am the one who named you. I lived in you, and now I die in you. I, your son, your daughter, treader of music, lie broken, conquered. Let me not fall in silence. Three, I, the restless one, the circular of circles, herdsmen and roper of stars, who could not capture the secret of self. I, who was tyrant to weaklings, striker of children, destroyer of women, corruptor of innocent dreamers, and laughered beauty. I, too easily, brought to tears and weakness by music, baffled and broken by love, the helpless beholder of the war in my heart of desire with desire, the struggle of hatred with love, terror with hunger. I, who laughed without knowing the cause of my laughter, who grew without wishing to grow, a servant to my own body, loved without reason, the laughter and flesh of a woman, enduring such torments to find her. I, who at last grow weaker, struggle more feebly, relent in my purpose, choose for my triumph an easier end, look backward at earlier conquests, or, caught in the web, cry out in a sudden and empty despair. Tetelest I, pity me now.  Four. Look! this flesh how it crumbles to dust, and is blown, these bones how they grind in the granite, of frost and are nothing, this skull how it yawns for a flicker of time in the darkness, yet laughs not, and sees not. It is crushed by a hammer of sunlight, and the hands are destroyed. Press down through the leaves of the jasmine. Dig through the interlaced roots. Nevermore will you find me. I was no better than dust, yet you cannot replace me.  Does it stir? Does it sing? Has it lips? And a heart? Does it open its eyes to the sun? Does it run? Does it dream? Does it burn with a secret, or tremble in terror of death? Or ache with tremendous decisions? Listen! It says, I'd lean by the river. The willows are yellowed with bud. White clouds roar up from the south, and darken the ripples. But they cannot darken my heart.  Rain falls on the water, and pelts it, and rings it with silver. The willow trees glisten. The sparrows chirp under the eaves. But the face in my heart is a secret of music. I wait in the rain, and am silent. Listen again. It says, I have worked. I am tired. The pencil dulls in my hand. I see through the window walls upon walls of windows, with faces behind them. Folk floating up to the sky, and ascension of seagulls. I am tired. I have struggled in vain. My decision was fruitless. Why then do I wait, with darkness so easy at hand? But tomorrow, perhaps, I will wait and endure till tomorrow. Or again, it is dark. The decision is made. I am vanquished by terror of life. The walls mount slowly about me in coldness. I had not the courage. I was forsaken. I cried out, was answered by silence. Teteleste. Five. Hear how it babbles.  With its voices and visions, tread on it. Forget it. Turn homeward, with dreams in your brain. This, then, is the humble, the nameless, the lover, the husband and father, the struggler with shadows, the one who went down under shoutings of chaos, the weakling who cried his forsaken like Christ on the darkening hilltop. This, then, is the one who implores, as he dwindles to silence.