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- 25,65,67,70,68
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Giaour, The
"The Giaour" is a poem by Lord Byron first published in 1813 and the first in the series of his Oriental romances. "The Giaour" proved to be a great success when published, consolidating Byron's reputation critically and commercially. -
Essay on Criticism, An
An Essay on Criticism was the first major poem written by the English writer Alexander Pope (1688-1744). However, despite the title, the poem is not as much an original analysis as it is a compilation of Pope's various literary opinions. A reading of the poem makes it clear that he is addressing not so much the ingenuous reader as the intending writer. It is written in a type of rhyming verse called heroic couplets. -
Parting
Volunteers bring you 15 recordings of Parting by Charlotte Brontë. This was the Weekly Poetry project for October 25th, 2009. -
Music On Christmas Morning
Volunteers bring you 12 recordings of Music On Christmas Morning by Anne Bronte.
Published in the 1846 collection Poems By Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell under Anne's nom de plume 'Acton Bell'.
This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for November 29th, 2009. -
Past Days
Volunteers bring you 12 recordings of Past Days by Emily Brontë . This was the Weekly Poetry project for November 28th, 2010
Anne Brontë was a British novelist and poet, the youngest member of the Brontë literary family. She wrote a volume of poetry with her sisters (Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, 1846) and in short succession she wrote two novels. Agnes Grey, based upon her experiences as a governess, was published in 1847. Her second and last novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall appeared in 1848. Anne's life was cut short with her death of pulmonary tuberculosis when she was 29 years old. She published under the androgynous pen name Acton Bell.
Please note, at the time of this poetry project, the Gutenburg index was mis-interpreted and this poem was mistakenly attributed to Emily Brontë / Ellis Bell. The recorded LibriVox introductions will reflect this mistake. -
Lines Written From Home
Volunteers bring you 13 recordings of Lines Written From Home by Anne Brontë. This was the Weekly Poetry project for October 3rd, 2010.
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Consolation, The
Volunteers bring you 11 recordings of The Consolation by Anne Brontë. This was the Weekly Poetry project for March 14th, 2010. -
Visionary, The
Volunteers bring you 18 recordings of "The Visionary" by Ellis Bell (Emily Brontë). This was the weekly poem for January 1, 2012.
The first 12 lines originally appeared in one of a large group of Gondal poems, the word coming from the name of a fictitious island kingdom in a fantasy created by Emily and her sister Anne. When Emily finally consented to have some of her poems published in 1846, along with those of sisters Charlotte and Anne, she selected parts of the Gondal poems and removed all reference to the fantasy land. However, this poem first appeared in a new, expanded edition of the sisters' poetry (in 1850, after both Emily and Anne had died) and was apparently derived as follows:
"The Visionary (October 9, 1845)
This poem is part of the same Gondal poem from which Emily carved "The Prisoner. A Fragment." Charlotte Brontë took lines 1-12 of Emily's original poem, "Julian M. and A.G Rochelle," and added 8 lines of her own. Thus, the positive ending in which the watcher has a spiritual experience is Charlotte's and the watcher may be seen as Emily rather than a Gondal character. In Charlotte's version, it is hard to explain the guiding light in the window of stanze 2.
This account is fully supported by other sources. So the poem, as it was published in 1850, is a combination of work by Emily and Charlotte. Charlotte is accused by critics of using a heavy hand in editing some of Emily's formerly unpublished poems for the 1850 volume. -
Appeal
Volunteers bring you 24 recordings of Appeal by Anne Brontë. This was the Weekly Poetry project for February 5, 2012.
Appeal appears in 'Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell,' the first book ever published by the Bronte sisters. This book, a collection of poems by all the sisters, was first published in 1846 but did not sell at that time. After the sisters had made their names as novelists (and, sadly, after the deaths of Anne and Emily) a second edition was published in 1850 and became a commercial success.
In order to be taken seriously as poets and authors all three sisters adopted male pen names. Anne's particular pseudonym was Acton Bell. -
Pool, The
Volunteers bring you 20 recordings of The Pool by Paul Laurence Dunbar. This was the Weekly Poetry project for May 20, 2012.
Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) was an African American poet, novelist, and playwright of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Much of his popular work in his lifetime used a Negro dialect, which helped him become one of the first nationally-accepted African American writers. Much of his writing, however, does not use dialect; these more traditional poems have become of greater interest to scholars. -
Love and Friendship
Volunteers bring you 17 recordings of Love and Friendship by Emily Brontë. This was the Weekly Poetry project for July 17, 2011.
Emily Jane Brontë was an English novelist and poet, now best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, a classic of English literature. Emily was the second eldest of the three surviving Brontë sisters, between Charlotte and Anne. She published under the pen name Ellis Bell. -
Winter (Stevenson)
Volunteers bring you 20 recordings of Winter by Robert Louis Stevenson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for November 22nd, 2009. -
Raven, The
Perhaps Edgar Allen Poe's most famous poem, the "Raven" is a macabre exploration of a man, his memories of Lenore, and the black bird that interrupts his studies on a dark December night, with tap-tap-tapping at his chamber door. -
Geography and Plays
Geography and Plays is a 1922 collection of Gertrude Stein's "word portraits," or stream-of-consciousness writings. These stream-of-consciousness experiments, rhythmical essays or "portraits", were designed to evoke "the excitingness of pure being" and can be seen as literature's answer to Cubism, plasticity, and collage. Although the book has been described as "a marvellous and painstaking achievement in setting down approximately 80,000 words which mean nothing at all," it is considered to be one of Stein's seminal works. -
Song of the Soldiers' Wives
Thomas Hardy is regarded as one of the best English novelists. His novels are heartbreaking, unconventional, sad and lyrical. He also wrote many poems. This is one of the best. This is the weekly poem for the week starting at 5 August 2012. -
Summer Shower
Volunteers bring you 13 recordings of Summer Shower by Emily Dickinson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 10th, 2010. -
Eirik the Red's Saga
In this saga, the events that led to Eirik the Red's banishment to Greenland are chronicled, as well as Leif Eirikson's discovery of Vinland the Good (a place where wheat and grapes grew naturally), after his longboat was blown off-course. By geographical details, this place is surmised to be present-day Newfoundland, and is likely the first European discovery of the American mainland, some five centuries before Christopher Columbus's journey. -
To Lesbia
Volunteers bring you 13 different recordings of To Lesbia by Caius Valerius Catullus (translation by Richard Burton.) This was the weekly poetry project for the week of August 5th, 2007. -
Soldier, The
Volunteers bring you 20 recordings of The Soldier by Rupert Brooke. This poem was written, as the concluding part of a series of sonnets, on the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Brooke, himself, died the following year on his way to a battle at Gallipoli.
This was the Weekly Poetry project for November 8th, 2009. -
Channel Passage, A
Volunteers bring you 10 recordings of A Channel Passage by Rupert Brooke. This was the weekly poetry project for August 30th, 2009. -
Success
Volunteers bring you 15 recordings of Success by Rupert Brooke. This was the weekly poetry project for April 19th, 2009. -
Hill, The
Volunteers bring you 15 recordings of The Hill by Rupert Brooke. This was the Weekly Poetry project for May 15, 2011.
Rupert Chawner Brooke was an English poet known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War (especially The Soldier). He was also known for his boyish good looks, which prompted the Irish poet William Butler Yeats to describe him as "the handsomest young man in England". -
Call
Volunteers bring you 19 recordings of The Call by Rupert Brooke. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for April 21st, 2013. -
Wild Swans at Coole, The
The Wild Swans at Coole is a collection of poems by William Butler Yeats, first published in 1917. It is also the name of a poem in that collection. The Wild Swans at Coole is in the "middle stage" of Yeats' writing and is concerned with, amongst other themes, Irish nationalism and the creation of an Irish aesthetic. -
Diary of an Old Soul
George MacDonald, a Scottish pastor, wrote these short poems, one for each day of the year, to help him with the severer misfortune he was experiencing. The poems are filled with hope and promises of Christ, yet, he also writes about his doubts. These poems are wonderful to listen to for people of any religion. -
Epigram, engraved on the Collar of a Dog
Volunteers bring you 15 recordings of Epigram by Alexander Pope. This was the Weekly Poetry project for August 8th, 2010. -
Ballad of Another Ophelia
Volunteers bring you 16 recordings of the haunting Ballad of Another Ophelia by D. H. Lawrence. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for March 24, 2013. -
Symphony in Yellow
Volunteers bring you 21 recordings of Symphony in Yellow by Oscar Wilde. This was the Weekly Poetry project for March 18, 2012.
Oscar Wilde, an Irish author who lived for much of his life in London, is most famous for his witty, satirical plays. He also worked for some time as a journalist.
Much of his poetry was written early in his career, with a notable exception being The Ballad of Reading Gaol. This poem, Symphony in Yellow, is probably one of his earlier works; in it he describes London in a flattering manner something he was disinclined to do after his trial and imprisonment. -
Ballad of Reading Gaol, The
Wilde’s meditation on capital punishment, the Ballad of Reading Gaol comes after he was convicted and imprisoned under charges of gross indecency. The charges stemmed from his affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, the son of the Marquis of Queensberry. It relates the story of an execution of a man who murdered his wife which Wilde witnessed during his internment. Published in 1898, it was Wilde’s last published poem as he would die in 1900 from cerebral menengitis, caused by syphilis. -
Ballad of Reading Gaol, The (version 2)
In 1895, Oscar Wilde was sentenced to 2 years of hard labor for acts of ‘gross indecency’. During his time at Reading Gaol, he witnessed a rare hanging, and in the three years between his release and his untimely death in 1900, was inspired to write the following poem, a meditation on the death penalty and the importance of forgiveness, even for (and especially for) something as heinous as murdering one’s spouse; for even the murderer, Wilde argues, is human and suffers more so for being the cause of his own pain, for ‘having killed the thing he loved’; for everyone is the cause of someone else’s suffering and suffers at the hands of another. It is this that Jesus Christ could see; he could continue to see the beauty of our humanity, despite all that we may do to each other, and encouraged us to love each other just the same.
“The Ballad of Reading Gaol” was published in 1898 and would gain Wilde greater recognition as a poet (in addition to being a great playwright); although his only other volume of poetry, one of his earliest works that he’d published, was also well-received. Sadly, ‘The Ballad’ would be his last.
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Drinking Alone by Moonlight
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Poems
Originally published in 1916, this book of poetry by G.K. Chesterton includes 59 poems on a variety of subjects. Included in this are war poems, love poems, religious poems, ballades and more -
Petals
Volunteers bring you 15 recordings of Petals by Amy Lowell. This was the Weekly Poetry project for November 27, 2011.
Amy Lawrence Lowell (February 9, 1874 – May 12, 1925) was an American poet of the imagist school from Brookline, Massachusetts who posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1926. Lowell was born into Brookline's prominent Lowell family, sister to astronomer Percival Lowell and Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell.
She never attended college because her family did not consider that proper for a woman, but she compensated with avid reading and near-obsessive book collecting. She lived as a socialite and travelled widely, turning to poetry in 1902 after being inspired by a performance of Eleonora Duse in Europe. In the post-World War II years, Lowell, like other women writers, was largely forgotten, but with the renaissance of the women's movement in the 1970s, women's studies brought her back to light. According to Heywood Broun, however, Lowell personally argued against feminism. Her poem, “Petals” is published in her collection A Dome of Many-Colored Glass (1912). -
All Round the Year
A light and whimsical collection of poems by the celebrated children's author E Nesbit, in collaboration with Saretta Nesbit. -
Wit and Humor of America, The Vol 06
The Wit and Humor of America is a 10 volume series. In this, the sixth volume, 55 short stories and poems have been gathered from 42 authors. This volume is sure to delight listeners. -
Casey at the Bat
Volunteers bring you 12 recordings of Casey at the Bat by Ernst Lawrence Thayer. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for December 16, 2012.
Ernst Thayer was an American writer and poet who wrote "Casey at the Bat", the "single most famous baseball poem ever written" according to the Baseball Almanac. -
Passing of the Year, The
Volunteers bring you 8 recordings of The Passing of the Year by by Robert W. Service. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for December 18, 2011.
Robert William Service was a poet and writer who has often been called "the Bard of the Yukon". This poem taken from Rhymes of a Rolling Stone, published in 1912. -
Faults
Volunteers bring you 22 recordings of Faults by Sara Teasdale. This was the Weekly Poetry project for March 7th, 2010. -
Book of Old English Ballads, A
In this selection... the aim has been to bring within moderate compass a collection of these songs of the people which should fairly represent the range, the descriptive felicity, the dramatic power, and the genuine poetic feeling of a body of verse which is still, it is to be feared, unfamiliar to a large number of those to whom it would bring refreshment and delight. -
Drinking Song, A
Volunteers offer you 12 different recordings of A Drinking Song from The Green Helmet and Other Poems (1912) by William Butler Yeats. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of April 11th, 2010. -
If
This popular piece was voted Britain’s favourite poem in a BBC opinion poll in 1995. -
In a Garden
Volunteers bring you 16 different recordings of In a Garden by Amy Lowell. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of October 14th, 2007. -
Stupidity
Volunteers bring you 15 recordings of Stupidity by Amy Lowell. This was the Weekly Poetry project for October 31st, 2010. -
In Flanders Fields
Volunteers bring you seven different readings of John McCrae’s In Flanders Field, a weekly poetry project. -
My Heart and Lute
Volunteers bring you 12 recordings of My Heart and Lute by Thomas Moore . This was the Weekly Poetry project for December 12th, 2010
"My Heart and Lute" is a song/poem by Thomas Moore.In Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, Alice recognizes the tune used in the song called Haddocks' Eyes sung by the White Knight. -
So Warmly We Met
Volunteers bring you 19 recordings of So Warmly We Met by Thomas Moore. This was the Weekly Poetry project for August 22nd, 2010. -
To...With all my soul
Volunteers bring you 22 recordings of To...:"With all my soul, then, let us part" by Thomas Moore. This was the Weekly Poetry project for May 16th, 2010. -
Day-Dream
Volunteers bring you 9 recordings of The Day-Dream by Sir Thomas Moore. This was the fortnightly poetry project for July 12th, 2009. -
Drink To Her
Volunteers bring you 18 recordings of Drink To Her by Thomas Moore. This was the weekly poetry project for July 5th, 2009. -
In the Morning of Life
Volunteers bring you eight recordings of In the Morning of Life by Thomas Moore. This was the Weekly Poetry project for September 13th, 2009. -
Bilingual Versions - Alice's in Wonderland (English – Spanish)
This book tells of a girl named Alice falling through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures.