Read by the poet: "A Man Who Had Fallen Among Thieve" by e.e. cummings
a man who had fallen among thieves
lay by the roadside on his back
dressed in fifteenthrate ideas
wearing a round jeer for a hat
fate per a somewhat more than less
emancipated evening
had in return for consciousness
endowed him with a changeless grin
whereon a dozen staunch and leal
citizens did graze at pause
then fired by hypercivic zeal
sought newer pastures or because
swaddled with a frozen brook
of pinkest vomit out of eyes
which noticed nobody he looked
as if he did not care to rise
one hand did nothing on the vest
its wideflung friend clenched weakly dirt
while the mute trouserfly confessed
a button solemnly inert.
Brushing from whom the stiffened puke
i put him all into my arms
and staggered banged with terror through
a million billion trillion stars
Source: The Voice of the poet - E. E. Cummings, 1922
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Sonnet 25 by William Shakespeare (read by Simon Callow)
Let those who are in favour with their stars
Of public honour and proud titles boast,
Whilst I, whom fortune of such triumph bars,
Unlook'd for joy in that I honour most.
Great princes' favourites their fair leaves spread
But as the marigold at the sun's eye,
And in themselves their pride lies buried,
For at a frown they in their glory die.
The painful warrior famoused for fight,
After a thousand victories once foil'd,
Is from the book of honour razed quite,
And all the rest forgot for which he toil'd:
Then happy I, that love and am beloved
Where I may not remove nor be removed.
Source: William Shakespeare - Sonnets - Simon Callow
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September 1, 1939 by W. H. Auden (read by Julian Glover)
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
Source: The Poetry Hour
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Read by the poet: "Spring Pools" by Robert Frost
These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods -
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday.
Source: Robert Frost reading his own poems, 1951
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Sonnet 24 by William Shakespeare (read by Sir John Gielgud)
Mine eye hath played the painter and hath steeled,
Thy beauty's form in table of my heart;
My body is the frame wherein 'tis held,
And perspective that is best painter's art.
For through the painter must you see his skill,
To find where your true image pictured lies,
Which in my bosom's shop is hanging still,
That hath his windows glazed with thine eyes.
Now see what good turns eyes for eyes have done:
Mine eyes have drawn thy shape, and thine for me
Are windows to my breast, where-through the sun
Delights to peep, to gaze therein on thee;
Yet eyes this cunning want to grace their art,
They draw but what they see, know not the heart.
Source: William Shakespeare - Sonnets, 1996
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"Open the door to me oh" by Robert Burns (read by Douglas Henshall)
Oh, open the door, some pity to shew,
If love it may na be, Oh;
Tho' thou hast been false, I'll ever prove true,
Oh, open the door to me, Oh.
Cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek,
But caulder thy love for me, Oh:
The frost that freezes the life at my heart,
Is nought to my pains frae thee, Oh.
The wan Moon is setting beyond the white wave,
And time is setting with me, Oh:
False friends, false love, farewell! for mair
I'll ne'er trouble them, nor thee, Oh.
She has open'd the door, she has open'd it wide,
She sees the pale corse on the plain, Oh:
My true love! she cried, and sank down by his side,
Never to rise again, Oh.
Source: The works of Robert Burns, BBC
0 notes
Read by the poet: "Memorabilia" by e.e. cummings
stop look &
listen Venezia*: incline thine
ear you glassworks
of Murano;
pause
elevator nel
mezzo del cammin’ that means half-
way up the Campanile, believe
thou me cocodrillo** —
mine eyes have seen
the glory of
the coming of
the Americans particularly the
brand of marriageable nymph which is
armed with large legs rancid
voices Baedekers Mothers and kodaks
— by night upon the Riva Schiavoni or in
the felicitous vicinity of the de l’Europe
Grand and Royal
Danielli their numbers
are like unto the stars of Heaven…
i do signore
affirm that all gondola signore
day below me gondola signore gondola
and above me pass loudly and gondola
rapidly denizens of Omaha Altoona or what
not enthusiastic cohorts from Duluth God only,
gondola knows Cincingondolanati i gondola don’t
— the substantial dollarbringing virgins
“from the Loggia where
are we angels by O yes
beautiful we now pass through the look
girls in the style of that's the
foliage what is it didn't Ruskin
says about you got the haven’t Marjorie
isn't this wellcurb simply darling”
— O Education: O
thos cook cb- son
(O to be a metope
now that triglyph's here)
Source: The Voice of the poet - E. E. Cummings, 1922
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Sonnet 23 by William Shakespeare (read by Alex Jennings)
As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put beside his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
O'ercharged with burthen of mine own love's might.
O! let my looks be then the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast,
Who plead for love, and look for recompense,
More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.
O! learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.
Source: The Sonnets: William Shakespeare - Alex Jennings, 1997
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"The Children's Hour" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (read by John Lithgow)
Between the dark and the daylight,
When the night is beginning to lower,
Comes a pause in the day's occupations,
That is known as the Children's Hour.
I hear in the chamber above me
The patter of little feet,
The sound of a door that is opened,
And voices soft and sweet.
From my study I see in the lamplight,
Descending the broad hall stair,
Grave Alice, and laughing Allegra,
And Edith with golden hair.
A whisper, and then a silence:
Yet I know by their merry eyes
They are plotting and planning together
To take me by surprise.
A sudden rush from the stairway,
A sudden raid from the hall!
By three doors left unguarded
They enter my castle wall!
They climb up into my turret
O'er the arms and back of my chair;
If I try to escape, they surround me;
They seem to be everywhere.
They almost devour me with kisses,
Their arms about me entwine,
Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen
In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine!
Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti,
Because you have scaled the wall,
Such an old mustache as I am
Is not a match for you all!
I have you fast in my fortress,
And will not let you depart,
But put you down into the dungeon
In the round-tower of my heart.
And there will I keep you forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the walls shall crumble to ruin,
And moulder in dust away!
Source: The Poets' Corner
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Read by the poet: "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Source: Robert Frost reading his own poems, 1951
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Sonnet 22 by William Shakespeare (read by Sir John Gielgud)
My glass shall not persuade me I am old,
So long as youth and thou are of one date;
But when in thee time's furrows I behold,
Then look I death my days should expiate.
For all that beauty that doth cover thee,
Is but the seemly raiment of my heart,
Which in thy breast doth live, as thine in me:
How can I then be elder than thou art?
O! therefore, love, be of thyself so wary
As I, not for myself, but for thee will;
Bearing thy heart, which I will keep so chary
As tender nurse her babe from faring ill.
Presume not on thy heart when mine is slain,
Thou gav'st me thine not to give back again.
Source: William Shakespeare - Sonnets, 1996
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"Paysage Moralisé" by W. H. Auden (read by Sir Alec Guinness)
Hearing of harvests rotting in the valleys,
Seeing at end of street the barren mountains,
Round corners coming suddenly on water,
Knowing them shipwrecked who were launched
for islands,
We honour founders of these starving cities
Whose honour is the image of our sorrow,
Which cannot see its likeness in their sorrow
That brought them desperate to the brink of valleys;
Dreaming of evening walks through learned cities
They reined their violent horses on the mountains,
Those fields like ships to castaways on islands,
Visions of green to them who craved for water.
They built by rivers and at night the water
Running past windows comforted their sorrow;
Each in his little bed conceived of islands
Where every day was dancing in the valleys
And all the green trees blossomed on the mountains,
Where love was innocent, being far from cities.
But dawn came back and they were still in cities;
No marvellous creature rose up from the water;
There was still gold and silver in the mountains
But hunger was a more immediate sorrow,
Although to moping villagers in valleys
Some waving pilgrims were describing islands …
‘The gods,’ they promised, ‘visit us from islands,
Are stalking, head-up, lovely, through our cities;
Now is the time to leave your wretched valleys
And sail with them across the lime-green water,
Sitting at their white sides, forget your sorrow,
The shadow cast across your lives by mountains.’
So many, doubtful, perished in the mountains,
Climbing up crags to get a view of islands,
So many, fearful, took with them their sorrow
Which stayed them when they reached unhappy cities,
So many, careless, dived and drowned in water,
So many, wretched, would not leave their valleys.
It is our sorrow. Shall it melt? Then water
Would gush, flush, green these mountains
and these valleys,
And we rebuild our cities, not dream of islands.
Source: Poetry Album, 1958
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Read by the poet: "Poem, Or Beauty Hurts Mr. Vinal" by e.e. cummings
take it from me kiddo
believe me
my country, ’tis of
you, land of the Cluett
Shirt Boston Garter and Spearmint
Girl With The Wrigley Eyes (of you
land of the Arrow Ide
and Earl &
Wilson
Collars) of you i
sing:land of Abraham Lincoln and Lydia E. Pinkham,
land above all of Just Add Hot Water And Serve–
from every B. V. D.
let freedom ring
amen. i do however protest, anent the un
-spontaneous and otherwise scented merde which
greets one (Everywhere Why) as divine poesy per
that and this radically defunct periodical. i would
suggest that certain ideas gestures
rhymes, like Gillette Razor Blades
having been used and reused
to the mystical moment of dullness emphatically are
Not To Be Resharpened. (Case in point
if we are to believe these gently O sweetly
melancholy trillers amid the thrillers
these crepuscular violinists among my and your
skyscrapers– Helen & Cleopatra were Just Too Lovely,
The Snail’s On The Thorn enter Morn and God’s
In His andsoforth
do you get me?) according
to such supposedly indigenous
throstles Art is O World O Life
a formula: example, Turn Your Shirttails Into
Drawers and If It Isn’t An Eastman It Isn’t A
Kodak therefore my friends let
us now sing each and all fortissimo A-
mer
i
ca, I
love,
You. And there’re a
hun-dred-mil-lion-oth-ers, like
all of you successfully if
delicately gelded (or spaded)
gentlemen (and ladies)– pretty
littleliverpil-
heated-Nujolneeding-There’s-A-Reason
americans (who tensetendoned and with
upward vacant eyes, painfully
perpetually crouched, quivering, upon the
sternly allotted sandpile
–how silently
emit a tiny violetflavoured nuisance: Odor?
ono.
comes out like a ribbon lies flat on the brush
Source: The Voice of the poet - E. E. Cummings, 1922
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Sonnet 21 by William Shakespeare (read by Simon Callow)
So is it not with me as with that Muse,
Stirred by a painted beauty to his verse,
Who heaven itself for ornament doth use
And every fair with his fair doth rehearse,
Making a couplement of proud compare
With sun and moon, with earth and sea's rich gems,
With April's first-born flowers, and all things rare,
That heaven's air in this huge rondure hems.
O! let me, true in love, but truly write,
And then believe me, my love is as fair
As any mother's child, though not so bright
As those gold candles fixed in heaven's air:
Let them say more that like of hearsay well;
I will not praise that purpose not to sell.
Source: William Shakespeare - Sonnets - Simon Callow
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"O Tell Me the Truth about Love" by W. H. Auden (read by Julian Glover)
Some say that Love’s a little boy
And some say it’s a bird,
Some say it makes the world go round
And some say that’s absurd:
But when I asked the man next door
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife was very cross indeed
And said it wouldn’t do.
Does it look like a pair of pyjamas
Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
O tell me the truth about love.
Does its odour remind one of llamas
Or has it a comforting smell?
O tell me the truth about love.
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is
Or soft as eiderdown fluff,
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.
I looked inside the summerhouse,
It wasn’t ever there,
I’ve tried the Thames at Maidenhead
And Brighton’s bracing air;
I don’t know what the blackbird sang
Or what the roses said,
But it wasn’t in the chicken run
Or underneath the bed.
Can it pull extraordinary faces,
Is it usually sick on a swing?
O tell me the truth about love.
Does it spend all its time at the races
Or fiddling with pieces of string,
O tell me the truth about love.
Has it views of its own about money,
Does it think Patriotism enough,
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.
Your feelings when you meet it,
I am told you can’t forget
I’ve sought it since I was a child
But haven’t found it yet;
I’m getting on for thirty five,
And still I do not know
What kind of creature it can be
That bothers people so.
When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I’m picking my nose?
O tell me the truth about love.
Will it knock on my door in the morning
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
O tell me the truth about love.
Will it come like a change in the weather,
Will its greeting be courteous or bluff,
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.
Source: The Poetry Hour
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"The Rhinoceros" by Robert Minhinnick's
"She Walks in Beauty" by Lord Byron
"I Am!" by John Clare
"Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats
"La Belle Dame sans Merci: A Ballad" by John Keats
"Auguries of Innocence" by William Blake
"Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey" by William Wordsworth
"Under Milk Wood" by Dylan Thomas - First Voice Intro
"Ode on Intimations of Immortality" by William Wordsworth
"Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night" by Dylan Thomas
"Ode to the West Wind" by Percy Bysshe Shelley
"The Tyger" by William Blake
"September 1, 1939" by W. H. Auden
"The Solitary Reaper" by William Wordsworth
"This Side Of The Truth" by Dylan Thomas
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"The Jolly Beggars I am a son of Mars" by Robert Burns (read by Douglas Henshall)
I am a son of Mars who have been in many wars,
And show my cuts and scars wherever I come;
This here was for a wench, and that other in a trench,
When welcoming the French at the sound of the drum.
My Prenticeship I past where my Leader breath'd his last,
When the bloody die was cast on the heights of Abram;
And I served out my Trade when the gallant game was play'd,
And the Moro low was laid at the sound of the drum.
I lastly was with Curtis among the floating batt'ries,
And there I left for witness, an arm and a limb;
Yet let my Country need me, with Elliot to head me,
I'd clatter on my stumps at the sound of a drum.
And now tho' I must beg, with a wooden arm and leg,
And many a tatter'd rag hanging over by bum,
I'm as happy with my wallet, my bottle and my Callet,
As when I us'd in scarlet to follow a drum.
What tho', with hoary locks, I must stand the winter shocks,
Beneath the woods and rocks oftentimes for a home,
When the tother bag I sell and the tother bottle tell,
I could meet a troop of Hell at the sound of a drum.
Source: The works of Robert Burns, BBC
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