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Shropshire Lad, A
A Shropshire Lad is a cycle of sixty-three poems by the English poet Alfred Edward Housman. A Shropshire Lad was first published in 1896 at Housman's own expense after several publishers had turned it down. At first the book sold slowly, but during the Second Boer War, Housman's nostalgic depiction of rural life and young men's early deaths struck a chord with English readers and the book became a bestseller. Later, World War I further increased its popularity. -
Shropshire Lad, A (version 2)
This is a lovely collection of melodic poems, many melancholy in tone, many featuring Housman's constant theme of living this short life to the fullest. -
Shropshire Lad (Version 3)
Composed while Housman was living in London, and mostly before he even visited the county of Shropshire, A Shropshire Lad is a cycle of 63 poems which describe an idyllic rural existence, but with the main theme being young mens' early deaths. This led its popularity during the Second Boer War, and then later during WWI. -
To Be a Pilgrim
From John Bunyan's classic, The Pilgrim's Progress, we find the poem To Be a Pilgrim, an inspiring reminder of who we are in Christ. This was the weekly poem for March 8-15, 2015. -
Ottawa Folk Festival Robert Service Collection
On August 13-15, 2010, A hearty band of volunteers, led by Bob Ledrew and Sean McGaughey, recorded selections from the Spell of the Yukon by Robert Service with patrons, musicians and organizers of the festival. We chose Robert Service because he is an iconic Canadian poet. It was our intention to record the whole volume, but the festival was disrupted by torrential rains on its final day. -
Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses, The
Known as the Bard of the Yukon and as a people's poet, Robert Service immortalized his experience with the Yukon and its gold rush and this collection of poetry. While some poems are anecdotal and amusing, others capture the raw brilliance that frontiers evoke and the ever pioneering spirit of man. Alternately titled Songs of a Sourdough in the United Kingdoms. -
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 -
In Flanders Fields and Other Poems
John McCrae, physician, soldier, and poet, died in France a Lieutenant-Colonel with the Canadian forces.
The poem which gives this collection of his lovely verse its name has been extensively reprinted, and received with unusual enthusiasm.The volume contains, as well, a striking essay in character by his friend, Sir Andrew MacPhail. -
Fables for the Frivolous
One of the earliest works by the American parodist, Guy Wetmore Carryl, these fables are adapted from Jean de La Fontaine’s original writings. The fables are written in verse, and are light-hearted re-tellings of fables from two centuries before, each ending with a moral and a pun. Among the more celebrated of the fables are The Persevering Tortoise and the Pretentious Hare, The Arrogant Frog and the Superior Bull, and The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven. (Summary written by Chriss)
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Beauties of Tennyson
A collection of Tennyson's poetry. -
Wine, Water and Song
A collection of 16 poems by G.K. Chesterton. All of the poems in this book, except for "The Strange Ascetic" are taken from "The Flying Inn", a book by the same author. -
Dogs Of Boytown
This collection of stories about dogs and the people they own was published in 1918. The story proceeds leisurely with much information about different breeds of dogs. The author obviously likes both boys and dogs. ( David Wales) -
Bib Ballads
Ring Lardner is a typical parent when his first child is born, full of wonder and the rest of the usual emotions as he watches his little son grow. He wrote a series of 29 short poems on various facets of parenthood. -
Songs of Action
This is a collection of poems by Arthur Conan Doyle centering around the theme of war, action and adventure. -
Introducing Irony (Version 2)
Maxwell Bodenheim was once known as the King of Greenwich Village Bohemians after moving to New York after being one of the founders of the The Chicago Literary Times. But his life took a downward spiral and he became a panhandler and led a desultory life, finally ending in his murder along with his third wife in a Bronx apartment. The title of this book characterizes the tone of these 22 poems and 10 small stories, full of dark cynicism and twisted irony, with titles such as “Seaweed From Mars” and “ Insanity.” -
Advice: A Book of Poems
41 brief poems covering an assortment of subjects. -
Tree with a Bird in it
Tree with a Bird in it: a symposium of contemporary American poets on being shown a pear-tree on which sat a grackle is a collection of poems based on a bird in a tree. The author parodies various contemporary poets in 1922 with their versions of a poem based on the aforementioned topic -
Lover's Diary
A collection of 83 rather besotted love sonnets by Gilbert Parker, written early in his career, with an accompanying interesting and someone apologetic Introduction by the author himself. Sir Gilbert Parker, as he came to be known, went on to become politically active, as well as a great story-teller, prolific novelist, and mature poet, centering his stories in the area of Quebec, Canada. -
Inn of Dreams
At age 16, London blueblood Olive Custance already figured in literary circles shared by Oscar Wilde and John Gray. She later wrote for the "Yellow Book", a notorious British quarterly of the late 1890's, featuring poems, essays, short stories and artwork by many well-known writers and artists of the age. In 1902 she married Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas, famed for his relationship with Oscar Wilde. Opals, her first published poetry collection, appeared in 1897 when she was just 23, to be followed by Rainbows (1902), The Blue Bird (1905) and The Inn of Dreams (1911). -
Foliage: Various Poems
W. H. Davies was a Welsh poet and writer. Davies spent a significant part of his life in the United Kingdom and United States, becoming one of the most popular poets of his time. Davies is usually considered one of the Georgian poets, although much of his work is atypical of the style and themes adopted by others of the genre. -
In a Belgian Garden and Other Poems
These magnificent poems written by a lover of the natural splendor of untrodden lands are both thrilling and exhilarating. Visions and observations of the wonders of creation are gradually unlocked and elegantly illustrated in ways hitherto unimagined by the passive observer of the eclectic world that surrounds us, while sparing no omission of the very obvious and egregious rampant destruction, both physical and moral, of the Great War.
Frank Oliver Call, the poet, the educator, the skillful wordsmith takes us on a journey to lands near and far, both those untouched by the ravages of civilization and those savagely ravaged by that same civilization run amok. While deftly expressing his love and awe for the raw beauty of nature and his condemnation for "Death's dark wing" that had drifted over places tranquil and serene he once cherished, the poet concedes that much of life and its possible purpose is not nor never can be understood by us mortals. However, recognizing the imperative nature of life itself Call goes on to acknowledge that, "onward driven must our frail barques go," while adding the plea, "O God, that we might know, might only know!"
Come, then, come on this magical exploration of an era since passed, an era of beauty but one of death, destruction and devastation. Let us appreciate the prescience of this poet's description of lives altogether too able to be transformed in an instant from peace to furious frenzy. And let us dream, dream of how idyllic life could, should and just may possibly one day be. -
Hoofs of Pegasus
Maria Letitia Stockett was a highly respected English teacher in Baltimore, Maryland, but also well-known as an author. In addition to her poetry she wrote Baltimore: A Not Too Serious History in 1928, and America, First, Fast & Furious . This is a collection of her short lyrical poems of nature, sentient and spirit. -
Ballads of a Bohemian
Ballads of a Bohemian is a collection of poems tied together by the narration of the "author" Stephen Poore. The poems speak of bohemian life in Paris before the war, his experiences during World War I and its aftermath. -
Prophet (version 3)
The Prophet is a book of 26 prose poetry fables written in English by the Lebanese-American poet and writer Kahlil Gibran. It was originally published in 1923 by Alfred A. Knopf. It is Gibran's best known work. The Prophet has been translated into over 108 different languages, making it one of the most translated books in history, and it has never been out of print. The prophet, Al Mustafa, has lived in the city of Orphalese for 12 years and is about to board a ship which will carry him home. He is stopped by a group of people, with whom he discusses topics such as life and the human condition. The book is divided into chapters dealing with love, marriage, children, giving, eating and drinking, work, joy and sorrow, houses, clothes, buying and selling, crime and punishment, laws, freedom, reason and passion, pain, self-knowledge, teaching, friendship, talking, time, good and evil, prayer, pleasure, beauty, religion, and death -
Flowers of Evil
This is a collection of French poems by Charles Baudelaire, originally titled "Les Fleurs du mal." It was popular in the symbolist and modernist movements of the 19th century, and the poems are about decadence and eroticism. -
Ballad of the White Horse (Version 2)
The Ballad of the White Horse is a poem by G K Chesterton about the idealized exploits of the Saxon King Alfred the Great, published in 1911. Written in ballad form, the work is usually considered an epic poem. The poem narrates how Alfred was able to defeat the invading Danes at the Battle of Ethandun under the auspices of God working through the agency of the Virgin Mary. In addition to being a narration of Alfred's militaristic and political accomplishments, it is also considered a Catholic allegory. Chesterton incorporates a significant amount of philosophy into the basic structure of the story. -
Prufrock and Other Observations
Prufrock and Other Observations was published in 1917 in a print run of only 500 copies by Egoist Press in London. It features The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, possibly Eliot’s most famous work, a stream-of-consciousness monologue of a man facing insecurity, uncertainty, and his own inertia. Originally written in 1911 and published in 1915 at the encouragement of Ezra Pound, Prufrock is commonly cited as a work marking the start of the modern poetry era. The collection also includes poems like Portrait of a Lady and Rhapsody on a Windy Night -- featuring detailed character studies, observations on the isolation of present-day society, and grappling with post-war disillusionment. -
Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, The
A collection of poems by Australian poet Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson, picturesque glimpses into life in the Bush. From the preface: "A number of these verses are now published for the first time, most of the others were written for and appeared in 'The Bulletin' (Sydney, N.S.W.), and are therefore already widely known to readers in Australasia." -
Georgics: A Poem of the Land
A poem by the Latin poet Virgil, the second of his three known works. "Georgic" means "to work the land," and on such matters of labour Virgil dwells and celebrates. In a dramatic survey of practices including agriculture, viticulture, animal husbandry, and bee-keeping, as well as the themes and mythos of labour, pastoral life, the glory of Roman citizenship, and the chaos that disrupts the fruitfulness of our daily lives, Virgil weaves a lyrical tapestry of both Greek and Roman thread portraying the complex relationship between humanity and the divine. -
Barrack-Room Ballads
Barrack-Room Ballads is a collection of poems by Rudyard Kipling which describe life in the British Army, particularly in India, in his time. The poems are written in the voice and language of soldiers of that time. The collection includes some of his best known poems. -
Poems (Wilfred Owen)
A collection of poems by the English war poet and soldier of the First World War, Wilfred Owen. Owen is regarded by historians as the leading poet of the First World War, known for his war poetry on the horrors of trench and gas warfare. It stood in stark contrast to both the public perception of war at the time, and to the confidently patriotic verse written earlier by war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Only five of Owen's poems had been published before his death, one of which was in fragmentary form. Only one week before the end of the war, whilst attempting to traverse a canal, he was shot in the head and killed. -
Rhymes of a Red Cross Man
Robert Service was born in Lancashire, England, but at age 21 moved to Canada and eventually ended up in the Yukon during the gold rush. His poems "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee" helped secure his reputation as the “Bard of the Yukon.” During World War I, Service was an ambulance driver and stretcher bearer for the Red Cross. This volume of poems springs from these experiences during the war. -
Tortoises
Tortoises is a collection of six poems by D.H. Lawrence inspired by his observation of tortoises going about their business, wild in the landscape of his home. They reveal something about tortoises, about the man watching them, and perhaps about the relationship of each with nature, where they dwell and develop through a lifetime, interconnected. -
Burning Wheel
Though Aldous Huxley is best known for his later novels and essays, he started his writing career as a poet. The Burning Wheel is his first work, a collection of thirty poems that pay homage in style to poets who wrote in the Romantic or the French symbolist styles. Many of the poems deal with themes of light, darkness, sight, music, art, war, and idealism vs. realism. Though the optimism in his early works waned as he became older, his characteristically optimistic and determined point of view shines through. -
April Twilights and Other Poems
A selection of thirty-six poems by American writer Willa Cather. -
Bars and Shadows: The Prison Poems of Ralph Chaplin
Ralph Chaplin and many other prominent members of the Industrial Workers of the World were imprisoned under the Espionage Act of 1917 as the United States entered World War I. As with Socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs, these activists were accused of undermining recruiting efforts and the draft - even of encouraging soldiers to desert. Though they never gained the universal popularity of his anthem "Solidarity Forever," the poems and songs in this volume - composed during his four years in prison - represent the defiant attitude of a true rebel in the face of persecution. -
Poems of Progress and New Thought Pastels
This book contains 2 poetry bundles by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, containing many better- or lesser-known poems. -
Poems of Purpose
This is a volume of poems by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, published in 1919. -
Rain and Roses
One reviewer describes these poems as "dainty." Each reflect a delicacy of feeling and sentiment of home, love and nature. Jeannette Fraser Henshall is also author of an earlier volume of poetry, "Star Dust." -
Leaves of Grass (version 2)
In honour of Walt Whitman's 200th birthday (31 May 2019) we bring you a solo recording of his seminal work Leaves of Grass.Originally published in 1855, the work started as a collection of 12 unnamed poems. However, Whitman spent most of his life writing and re-writing Leaves of Grass, resulting in many different editions published throughout his life. The final collection, which is recorded here, is a compilation of about 400 poems separated into 35 books.
This book is notable for its discussion of delight in sensual pleasures, and exalting the body and the material world. At the time, such candid displays were considered highly immoral, which led to reviews considering it "offensive", "obscene", "a mass of stupid filth", or suggesting it should have been burned after writing. Leaves of Grass even became banned in various locations, which only led to increased sales, with some printings even selling out on the first day. To this day, the work's legacy remains strong, and is one of the most important collections of American poetry.
Among some of the best known poems contained in this work are "O captain! My captain!", "I sing the body electric", and "Song of Myself".
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Songs of Innocence and Experience (version 2)
"Innocence" and "Experience" are definitions of consciousness that rethink Milton's existential-mythic states of "Paradise" and "Fall". Blake categorizes our modes of perception that became standard in Romanticism: childhood is a state of innocence rather than original sin, but not immune to the fallen world (experience). The first part of this volume mainly shows happy, innocent perception in pastoral harmony, whereas the second part also deals with darker themes. ( Foon) -
Poems
A concise collection of poems translated from the great German poet Rilke into formal English verse. Although the translation may be freer than some modern texts, this selection, which spans early and later writings and includes a preface refreshingly focused on the poet's artistic development, provides a nice entrée into Rilke's world. -
Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Raven Edition, Volume 5
This, the last of 5 volumes containing Poe's works, contains a collection of both prose and poetry. -
Complete Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe
In placing before the public this collection of Edgar Poe's poetical works, it is requisite to point out in what respects it differs from, and is superior to, the numerous collections which have preceded it. Until recently, all editions, whether American or English, of Poe's poems have been verbatim reprints of the first posthumous collection, published at New York in 1850.
In 1874 I began drawing attention to the fact that unknown and unreprinted poetry by Edgar Poe was in existence. Most, if not all, of the specimens issued in my articles have since been reprinted by different editors and publishers, but the present is the first occasion on which all the pieces referred to have been garnered into one sheaf. Besides the poems thus alluded to, this volume will be found to contain many additional pieces and extra stanzas, nowhere else published or included in Poe's works. Such verses have been gathered from printed or manuscript sources during a research extending over many years.
In addition to the new poetical matter included in this volume, attention should, also, be solicited on behalf of the notes, which will be found to contain much matter, interesting both from biographical and bibliographical points of view. -
Gardener
Most of the lyrics of love and life, the translations of which from Bengali are published in this book, were written much earlier than the series of religious poems contained in the book named Gitanjali. The translations are not always literal—the originals being sometimes abridged and sometimes paraphrased. (The preface to the 1915 edition) ( Rabindranath Tagore) -
New Life (La vita nuova)
One of Dante's earliest works, La vita nuova or La vita nova (The New Life) is in a prosimetrum style, a combination of prose and verse, and tells the story of his youthful love for Beatrice. The prose creates the illusion of narrative continuity between the poems; it is Dante's way of reconstructing himself and his art in terms of his evolving sense of the limitations of courtly love (the system of ritualized love and art that Dante and his poet-friends inherited from the Provençal poets, the Sicilian poets of the court of Frederick II, and the Tuscan poets before them). Sometime in his twenties, Dante decided to try to write love poetry that was less centered on the self and more aimed at love as such: he intended to elevate courtly love poetry, many of its tropes and its language, into sacred love poetry. Beatrice for Dante was the embodiment of this kind of love—transparent to the Absolute, inspiring the integration of desire aroused by beauty with the longing of the soul for divine splendor. -
Milton's Minor Poems
“On Shakespear 1630” typifies much of Milton’s poetry. By some miracle never yet explained, at age 24 he managed to get a 16-line encomium included in the Second Folio of the Bard’s collected works, 1632. Quite a coup! And this brand new M.A., never before published, used this brief poem to contradict Shakespeare’s chief rival, the great Ben Jonson, whose 80-line panegyric had graced the First Folio eleven years earlier. Jonson had said that Shakespeare’s monument was this living book, but Milton says, no, it is rather the readers who, stunned by the poet’s verse, become living statues in his honor.
You will find the same audacity here in the minor poems as in Paradise Lost, which treats of “things unattempted yet in prose of rime.” You can hear it in the college student’s satirical invitation (likely to the classmate next on the program) “Rivers arise . . . ,” a travesty of the epic catalogue of rivers; and in his affectionately irreverent epitaph on Hobson (of “Hobson’s choice”), the stage coach driver for the boys of Cambridge; and again in a second epitaph on the same subject but offering a shameless burlesque of “Metaphysical” conceits. Even in his paraphrase of Psalm VII, where he takes issue with the King James Version on two points of grammar at the end of the second stanza, he is clearly the man who will write “How few somtimes may know, when thousands err.”
Yet for all Milton’s iconoclasm, he knows discipline. Some of the later sonnets undertake topics, express attitudes, and employ metrical devices which, by straining the delicate sonnet form almost—but not quite—to the breaking point, create such power as was never before borne by any sonnet. Such is the power of poetic discipline wedded to poetic genius.
But it is in “Lycidas” that Milton faces the ultimate test of inspiration vs. authority. He piles into the poem every known convention of the pastoral elegy form and even drags in by the heels St. Peter, who, as father of the Church, was a pastor, and these provide the cage within which he must work. Yet he brings them to life with such convincing shifts of sentiment—blaming, wishful thinking, savage resentment, brave facing of the truth, and finally acceptance—that they cease to be confining; sincerity transmutes his cage into his language, sincerity belying artifice -
Lines, On Hearing That Lady Byron Was Ill
Here is a bitterly sarcastic poem wherein a jilted Lord Byron spits out his distain for his estranged wife, Lady Byron, laying a curse upon her, accusing her of being a "moral Clytemnestra" (wife of Agamemnon, who conspired with her lover Aegisthus to murder her husband). The Byrons were only together 2 years before she fled to the safety of her parents' estate with their infant daughter and refused to see him henceforth, due to his debauchery, cruelty, and profligate spending of her money. Lord Byron was run out of Parlaiment and fled England for his scandalous behavior, and especially for having had an incestuous affair with his half-sister (with whom he had another daughter). But as he was a Lord, (and as he was a typical man of the period who considered himself his wife's Lord to do with as he pleased), he always blamed Lady Byron's high morals, unwillingness to speak up for him in public (he considered her silence treason), and what he perceived as her "unforgiveness" for his downfall. He often waged war with her in public through his poetry. Lord Byron left such a large body of letters, essays and "worlds' best" poetry, some don't realize he died at age 36. -
Goblin Market and Other Poems
Goblin Market and Other Poems (1862) is British writer Christina Rossetti's first book of poetry. The title poem is her most famous work: a creepy and sensual tale of two sisters' temptation to eat forbidden fruits. The poems explore themes of death, faith, isolation, and love, with a section of devotional pieces at the end. -
Spring Harvest
G.B. Smith is best known for his close friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien, who would go on to write the fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings. He was a talented poet and attended Oxford. In 1915, he fought for England in World War I, and died of wounds received in 1916. After his death, this volume of his poetry was published by Tolkien and dedicated to Smith's mother.