Chapters 90
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1 01 - Home Bound by, Joseph Auslander 1:07
Homebound by Joseph Osland. The moon is a wavering rim where one fish slips. The water makes a quietness of sound. Night is an anchoring of many ships, homebound. There are strange tunnelers in the dark, and whirs of wings that die, and hairy spiders spin the silence into nets, and tenators move softly in. I step on shadows, riding through the grass, and feel the night lean cool against my face, and challenged by the sentinel of space, I pass.
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2 02 - America The Beautiful, by Katherine Lee Bates 1:36
America the Beautiful by Catherine Lee Bates.
O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves a grain, for purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain. America! America, God shed his grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. O beautiful for pilgrim feet, Though stern, impassioned stress, A thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness. America, America, God, mend thine every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, Thy liberty and law. O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife, Who more than self their country loved, And mercy more than life. America, America, may God, Thy gold refine, till all success be nobleness and every gain divine. O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears.
America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea.
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3 03 - Yellow Clover, by Katherine Lee Bates 3:59
Yellow Clover by Catherine Lee Bates Must I, who walk alone, come on it still, This puck of plants the wise would do away with, The sunshine slants to play with, Our wee gold-dusty flower, the yellow clover, Which once in parting for a time, that then seemed long, Ere time for you was over, we sealed our own. Do you remember yet, O soul beyond the stars, beyond the utmost dim bars of space? Dear soul, who found earth sweet? Remember by love's grace, in dreamy hushes of the heavenly song, how suddenly we halted in our climb, lingering, reluctant, up that farthest hill. Stooped for the blossoms closest to our feet, and gave them as a token each to each, in lieu of speech, in lieu of words too grievous to be spoken.
Those little gipsy wondering blossoms, wet with a strange dew of tears. So it began, this vagabond, unvalued yellow clover, to be our tenderest language. All the years it lent a new zest to the summer hours, as each of us went scheming to surprise the other with our homely laureate flowers. Sonnets and odes fringing our daily roads. Can Amaranth and Asphodel bring merrier laughter to your eyes? Oh, if the blessed, in their serene abodes, keep any wistful conscience of earth. Not grandeurs, but the childish ways of love, simplicities of mirth, must follow them above with touches of vague homesickness that pass like shadows of swift birds across the grass. Beneath some foreign arch of sky, how many a time the rover you were I, for life oft sundered look from look and voice from voice.
The transient dearth schooling my soul to brook this distance that no messages may span. Would chance upon our wilding by a lonely well, or drowsy water-mill, or swaying to the chime of convent bell, or where the nightingales of old romance with tragical contraltos fill dim solitudes of infinite desire. And once I joyed to meet our peasant Gadabout. A trespasser on trim, seigneurial seat, twinkling a saucy eye as potentates paced by. Our golden cord, our soft pursuing flame from friendship's altar-fire. How proudly we would pluck and tame the dimpling clusters, mutinously gay. How swiftly they were sent, far, far away, on journeys wide, by sea and continent. Green miles and blue leagues over, from each of us to each, that our hearts might reach and touch within the yellow clover.
Love's letter to be glad about like sunshine when it came. My sorrow asks no healing. It is love. Let love, then, make me brave to bear the keen hurts of this careless summer-tide. Ay, of our own poor flower, changed with our fatal hour. For all its sunshine vanished when you died. Only white clover blossoms on your grave.
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4 04 - The Returning, by Sylvester Baxter 1:02
Why should I sing of my present? It is nothing to me or you. Rather, I dream of Dixie and tie ships on the old bayou. Rather, I dream of my packets and the lazy river days. Rather, I dream of my levee and the crimson sunset haze. Rather, I dream of my triumphs, of the days that are long gone by. Rather, I dream of flame-tipped stacks against a saffron sky. Of level lawns of topaz, of level fields of jade, of the rambling pillared mansions that my father's fathers made. Why should I sing of my present? It is nothing to you or me, but the river road, the great road, the high road to the sea. Ay, that is worth the dreaming. Ay, that was worth the pain. Send me back my river, and I shall wake again.
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5 05 - Two Moods From The Hill, by Ernest Benshimol 2:55
Two Moods from the Hill.
I.
Youth. I love to watch the world from here, for all the numberless living portraits that are drawn upon the mind. Far over is the sea, fronting the sand, a few great yellow dunes, a salt marsh stumbling after, rank and green, With brackish gullies wandering in between. All this from the hill. And more, a clump of dwarfed and twisted cedars, sentinels over the marsh, and bright with the sun. A field of daisies wandering in the wind, as though a hidden serpent glided through. A broken wall, a new-ploughed field, and then, the dusty road and the abodes of men surrounding the hill. How small the enclosure is, wherein there lives each phase and passion of life. The distant sail dips in the limpid bosom of the sea, from that far place to wherein state the turf raises a throne for me upon the hill.
Each little love and lust of a living thing can thus be compassed in a rainbow ring and seen from the hill.
Two. Age. Why did I build my cottage on a hill facing the sea? Why did I plan each terraced lawn to slope down to the deep blue billowy breast of hope, surging and sweeping, laughing and leaping, tumbling its garments of foam upon the shore, rustling the sands that know my step no more? I should have found a valley, deep and still, to shelter me. There flows the river. And it seems asleep so far away. Yet I remember whip of wave and roar of wind that rose and smote against the oar, smote and retreated, proud but defeated, while I rejoiced and rode into the brine, drawing on wet and heavy straining line, the great cod quivering from the deepest counterplay. What is the solace of these hills and vales that rise and fall?
What is there glorious in the greenwood glen, or the twittering thrush, or the wing of a darting wren? Give me the gusty, raucous, and rusty call of the sea-gull in the echoing sky, the wild shriek of the winds that cannot die. Give me the life that follows the bending sails, or none at all.
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6 06 - A Banquet, by Ernest Benshimol 1:25
A Banquet, One Memory from Socrates, by Ernest Benjamal, after the song, the love, and after the love, the play, flute-girl and pretty boy blowing, bubbles of sparkling, wine into darkling, beards of a former austerity, stern even now but fast growing. Foolish with less of a stately reserve that held them sedately. Oh, Zeus, what a sight! With the wine dripping off it, the grin of an ass on a bald-pated prophet. After the feast the night, and after the night the day, fool and philosopher stirring, with the day dawning, stretching and yawning, while in each wine throbbing, Desolated brain is the, wheeling and whirring, Of thousands of baths, that the slaking, Of throats will not hinder from aching.
No wine for the brow, that is beating to bursting, But water at morning is quenched for the thirsting.
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7 07 - Song, by George Cabot Lodge 1:39
Earth hushed in twilight, Low through the live oaks, hung heavy with silver, Gemmed with the skylight, under the great wet star, Shaking with light, we jar, lute-voiced, The silence with interveiled music. While under the margined world, the slow sun lingers, flaming Earth's portal. Over the lilac dust spreads his great fingers. Earth is immortal, while the frail beauty dies. Dream in the dreamer's eyes. All the good gladness turns praise for the singers. Hark! Tis the breath of life. Hush, and I need it. Northern, gigantic, questing the silences, herding the sudden foam down the Atlantic. Leaves from the autumn's store, shrill at my desert door. They and I, out of one heart. That is grieving.
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8 08 - The Worlds, by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi 1:56
The Worlds by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi. Read for LibriVox.org by Paul Harvey. I saw an idler on a summer day, Piping with iris by a dancing brook, And all his world with rife with pleasures gay, And languid follies smiled from every nook. I saw an artist in a world of dreams, his rainbow rising from his radiant task, to throw its magic prism beams, or fancy's changeful mask and counter mask. I saw toil stooping underneath a world, whereon his foster brothers lighter tread, his skyward pinions ever closer furled before the grim necessity of bread. I saw a sinner, working hard to be, worthy his death-wage from the mint of time. I saw a sailor, unto whom the sea was hearth and hope and love and wedding chime.
I saw a mother living in her child. I saw a saint among his fellow-men, brave soldiery before my eyes defiled, and solemn-hearted scholars sudden then. I cried, the stars are no less neighborly, in their ethereal remoteness swung, than these near human orbits wherein we live out our lives and speak our chosen tongue. Love seek through all, lest there be one, least soul unlit within the night, and over all the selfsame sun give each creation light.
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9 09 - The Riot, by Gamaliel Bradford 0:59
You may think my life is quiet. I find it full of change, An ever varied diet, As piquant as tis strange. Wild thoughts are always flying, Like sparks across my brain, Now flashing out, now dying. To kindle soon again. Fine fancies set me thrilling, And subtle monsters creep before my sight unwilling. They even haunt my sleep. One broad perpetual riot Enfolds me night and day. You think my life is quiet? You don't know what you say.
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10 10 - Hunger, by Gamaliel Bradford 1:17
I've been a hopeless sinner, but I understand a saint. Their bend of weary knees, and their contortions long and faint, and the endless pricks of conscience, like a hundred thousand pens, a real perpetual penance for imaginary sins. I love to wander widely, but I understand a cell, where you tell and tell your beads because you've nothing else to tell, where the crimson joy of flesh, with all its wild fantastic tricks, is forgotten in the blinding glory of the crucifix. I cannot speak for others, but my inmost soul is torn with a battle of desires making all my life forlorn. There are moments when I would untread the paths that I have trod. I'm a haunter of the devil, but I hunger after God.
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11 11 - Exit God, by Gamaliel Bradford 1:18
Exit God Of old our father's God was real, something they almost saw, which kept them to a stern ideal and scourged them into awe. They walked the narrow path of right most vigilantly well, because they feared eternal night and boiling depths of hell. Now hell was wholly boiled away, and God became a shade. There is no place for him to stay in all the world he made. The followers of William James still let the Lord exist, and call him by imposing names, a venerable list. But nerve and muscle only count gray matter of the brain, and an astonishing amount of inconvenient pain. I sometimes wish that God were back In this dark world and wide For those sonic virtues he might lack He had his pleasant side.
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12 12 - Rousseau, by Gamaliel Bradford 0:41
Rousseau by Gamaliel Bradford. Read for LibriVox.org by A.M.B. 13. That odd, fantastic ass Rousseau declared himself unique. How men persist in doing so puzzles me more than Greek. The sins that tarnish war and thief beset me every day, my most see thorough belief. Inhabit common clay.
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13 13 - John Masefield, by Amy Bridgman 6:00
Macefield himself.
God said and frowned, as he looked on Shropshire clay, Alone, twont do, composite. Would I make this man-child rare? Twere well, methinks, to take a handful from the Stratford tomb and weigh a few of Shelley's ashes. Bunyan may contribute, too, and for my sweet son's sake I'll visit Avalon. Then let me slake the hole with Wycliffe water from the bay. A sailor, he, too godly, though, I fear. Offset it with tobacco. Next I'll find hedge-roses, star-dust, and a vagrant's mind. His mother's heart now let me breathe upon. When west winds blow, I'll whisper in her ear. Apocalypse awaits him. Call him John. 2. His portrait.
A man of sorrows, with such haunted eyes I trow, the master looked across the lake, looked from the Judas heart, so soon to make of him the world's historic sacrifice. Moreover, as I gaze, do more arise. Great souls, great pallid ghosts of pain, who wake and wander yet, All weary men who break their hearts, all hymnlock drunk with growing wise. Hudson adrift, Defoe, the wandering Jew, Tannhauser, Faust, Andrea, Phantoms, all in Macefield's eyes you lodge, and to the wall I turn you, hand a-tremble. Lest you make of mine own stricken eyes a mirror, too, wherein the sad worlds sadder for your sake. 3. His Dauber.
O Macefield's Dauber! You who, being dead, yet speak, heroic, dauntless, flaming soul too suddenly snuffed out. Here, take fresh toll of cognizance, and in your ocean bed serenely rest, assured that who has read what you would fain have pictured of the Pole would gladly match your part against the whole of many a modern artist, Paris Bread. And more than this, if you indeed are his, then by a dual truth he, too, is yours. For, marked and credited by what endures, were it the only thing which bears his name, O deathless soul, I speak you true in this. The dauber has brought Macefield to his fame.
Four. His Gallipoli.
Small wonder, speaks my pensive self. That he whose passion tis to sing of men who fail, belabour'd, broken by the unseen flail, small wonder that be makes Gallipoli. His fervent text. For could there be a costlier failure in Earth's shuddering tale? Think of heroic Sulva's bloody swale, of Anzac's tortured thirst and agony. But as I read, protesting voices cry, Not we, not we who fell among the daffodils, who conquered death among those blistered hills, and found our glory after mortal pain, not we, who failed and lost Gallipoli, the sad, strange failure theirs, who mourn in vain.
V. His Mead.
So, Macefield, have your royal words once more called forth the praise of men, where praise is due. Your great allegiac, tragically true, must leave all Britain prouder than before, and— In spite of all that breaking hearts deplore, and all that anguished consciences must rue, one arrowed gladness surely pierces through from London's centre to Canadian shore. When England, sobbing, mourns Gallipoli, When warm tears flow for Rupert Brooke, and all the splendid youth her error took as hostage from the fields of daffodils, let this a present living solace be. You are not sleeping in those cruel hills.
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14 14 - 1620-1920, by Le Baron Russel Briggs 6:43
1620-1920 by the Baron Russell Briggs.
Before him rolls the dark, relentless ocean. Behind him stretch the cold and barren sands. Wrapped in the mantle of his deep devotion, the pilgrim kneels and clasps his lifted hands. God of our fathers, who hast safely brought us through seas and sorrows, famine, fire, and sword, who in thy mercies manifold hast taught us to trust in thee, our leader, and our Lord. God, who hast sent Thy truth to shine before us, a fiery pillar beaconing on the sea, God, who hast spread Thy wings of mercy o'er us, God, who hast set our children's children free. Freedom Thy newborn nation here shall cherish. Grant us Thy covenant changing sure. Earth shall decay, the firmament shall perish, freedom and truth immortal shall endure.
Face to the Indian arrows, face to the Prussian guns, from then till now the pilgrim's vow has held the pilgrim's sons. He braved the red man's ambush, he loosed the black man's chain, His spirit broke King George's yoke and the battleships of Spain. He crossed the seething ocean. He dared the death-strewn track. He charged in the hell of Saint-Mihiel and hurled the tyrant back. For the voice of the lonely pilgrim, who knelt upon the strand, A people hears three hundred years in the conscience of the land. Daughter of truth and mother of courage, conscience, all hail. Heart of New England, strength of the pilgrims, thou shalt prevail. Look how the empires rise and fall. Athens, robed in her learning and beauty, Rome in her royal lust for power, Each has flourished for her little hour, Risen and fallen and ceased to be, What of her by the western sea, Born and bred as the child of duty, Sternest of them all?
She it is, and she alone. Who built on faith as her corner-stone. Of all the nations, none but she knew that the truth shall make us free. Daughter of courage, mother of heroes, freedom divine. Light of New England, star of the pilgrim, still shalt thou shine. Yet even as we in our pride rejoice, hark to the prophet's warning voice, the pilgrim's thrift is vanished, and the pilgrim's faith is dead, and the pilgrim's god is banished, and mammon reigns in his stead, and work is damned as an evil, and men and women cry. In their restless haste, let us spend and waste and live, for tomorrow we die. And law is trampled under, and the nations stand aghast as they hear the distant thunder of the storm that marches fast, and we— Whose ocean borders, shut off the sound and the sight, we will wait for marching orders.
The world has seen our fight. We have earned our days of revel. On with the dance we cry. It is pain to think. We will eat and drink and live, for tomorrow we die. We have laughed in the eyes of danger. We have given our bravest and best. We have succored the starving stranger. Others shall heed the rest. And the revel never ceases, and the nations hold their breath, and our laughter peals, and the mad world reels to a carnival of death. Slaves of sloth and the senses, clippers of freedom's wings, come back to the pilgrim's army and fight for the King of Kings. Come back to the pilgrim's conscience. Be born in the nation's birth, and strive again as simple men for the freedom of the earth. Freedom a free-born nation shall still cherish.
Be this our covenant, unchanging, sure. Earth shall decay, the firmament shall perish, freedom and truth, immortal, shall endure. Land of our fathers, when the tempest rages, when the wide earth is wracked with war and crime, founded forever on the rock of ages, beaten in vain by surging seas of time, even as the shallop on the breakers riding, even as the pilgrim kneeling on the shore. Firm in thy faith and fortitude abiding, hold thou thy children free for evermore. And when we sail as pilgrims' sons and daughters, the spirits may flower into seas unknown, driving across the waste of wintry waters, the voyage every soul shall make alone. The pilgrim's faith, the pilgrim's courage grant us Still shines the truth that for the pilgrim shone.
We are his seed, nor life nor death shall daunt us. The port is freedom. Pilgrim heart, sail on.
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15 15 - The Cross-Current, by Abbie Farwell Brown 2:39
The Cross Current by Abby Farwell Brown. Read for LibriVox.org by Rebecca Stern.
Through twelve stout generations, New England blood I boast. The stubborn pastures bred them, the grim, uncordial coast. Sedate and proud old cities, loved well enough by me. Then how should I be yearning to scour the earth and sea? Each of my Yankee forebears wed a New England mate. They dwelt and did and died here, nor glimpsed a rosier fate. My clan endured their kindred, but foreigners they loathed, and wandering folk and minstrels and gypsies motley clothed. Then why do patches please me, fantastic wild array? Why have I vagrant fancies for lads from far away? My folk were godly churchmen, or paced in elders' weeds, but all were grave and pious and hated heathen creeds. Then why are Thor and Votan two dread forces still?
Why does my heart go questing for Pan beyond the hill? My people clutched at freedom, though others' wills they chained, but made the law and kept it, and beauty they restrained. Then why am I a rebel to laws of rule and square? Why would I dream and dally, or reckless do and dare? O righteous, solemn grandsires! O dames correct and mild, who bred me of your virtues! Whence comes this changing child? The Thirteenth Generation. Unlucky number, this. My grandma loved a pirate. And all my faults are his. A gallant, ruffled rover with beauty-loving eye, he swept colonial waters of coarser, bloodier fry. He waved his hat to danger, at law he shook his fist. Ah, merrily he plundered, he sang and fought and kissed.
Though none have found his treasure, and none his part would take, I bless that thirteenth lady, who chose him for my sake.
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16 16 - Candlemas, by Alice Brown 1:07
Candlemas by Alice Brown. O hearken, all ye little weeds, that lie beneath the snow, So low, dear hearts, in poverty so low. The sun hath risen for royal deeds, A valiant wind the vanguard leads, Now quicken ye, lest unbored seeds, Before ye rise and blow. O furry living things adream, On winter's drowsy breast, how rest ye there, How softly, safely rest. Arise and follow where a gleam of wizard gold unbinds the stream, and all the woodland winding seam with sweet expectant blest. My birds, come back, the hollow sky is weary for your note. Sweet throat, come back, oh liquid, mellow throat. E'er may's soft minions here would fly, shame on ye laggards to deny, the brooding breasts, the sun-bright eye, the tawny shining coat.
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17 17 - Sunrise On Mansfield Mountain, by Alice Brown 4:01
Sunrise on Mansfield Mountain by Alice Brown. Read for LibriVox.org by Ginny Rosario. O swift forerunners, rosy with the race, Spirits of dawn divinely manifest, Behind your blushing banners in the sky, Daring invaders of night's tenting ground, How do ye strain on forward bending foot, Each to be first in heralding of joy? With silence sandaled, so they weave their way, and so they stand with silence panopled, chanting through mystic symbolings of flame, their solemn invocation to the light. O changeless guardians, O ye wizard first, what strenuous filter feeds your potency, that thus ye rest in sweet wood hardiness, ready to learn of all and utter naught? What breath may move ye, or what breeze invite to odorous hot lendings of the heart?
What wind, but all the winds are yet afar, and e'en the little tricksy zephyr sprites, that fleet before them, like their elfin locks, have lagged in sleep. Nor stir, nor waken yet, To pluck the robe of patient majesty. Too still for dreaming, too divine for sleep, So range the furs, the constant fearless ones, Warders of mountain secrets. There they wait, each with his cloak about him, Breathless, calm, and yet expectant, As who knows the dawn. And all night thrills with memory and desire, Searching in what has been for what shall be. The marvel of the narrow familiar day, sacred investiture of life renewed, the chrism of dew, the coronal of flame, low in the valley lies the conquered rout of man's poor trivial turmoil, lost and drowned, under the mist in gleaming rivers rolled, where oozy marsh contends with frothing main, and rounding all springs one full ambient arch.
One great good limpid world, so still, so still, for no sound echoes from its crystal curve, save four clear notes, the song of that lone bird, who, brave but trembling, tries his morning hymn, and has no heart to finish for the awe and wonder of this pearling globe of dawn. Light! Light eternal, veiling place of stars, light the revealer of dread beauty's face, weaving whereof the hills are lambent clad, mighty libation to the unknown god, cup whereat pine trees slake their giant thirst, and little leaves drink sweet delirium. Being and breath and potion, living soul and all-informing heart of all that lives, how can we magnify thine awful name, save by its chanting, light and light and light, an exhalation from far sky retreats.
It grows in silence as twere self-create, suffusing all the dusky web of night, but one lone corner it invades not yet, where low above a black The old moon, thin as a battered shield, the holy, useless shield of long past wars, dinted and frosty on the crystal dark. But lo, the east, let none forget the east, pathway ordained of old where he should tread. Through some sweet magic common in the skies, the rosy banners are with saffron tinked. The saffron grows to gold.
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18 18 - Burnt Are The Petals Of Life, by Elsie Pumpelly Cabot 0:57
Burnt are the petals of life as a rose fallen and crumbled to dust. Blackened the heart of the past is, ashes that must, forever be sifted, more precious than sunbeams, that open the budding tomorrow. Once was a passion completed, too perfect, that gods have not broken to borrow. Blackened the heart of the past is, ashes that must, forever be sifted, O loving tomorrow. The rose of the past is, life eternity's dust.
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19 19 - Four Fountains. After Respighi, by Jessica Carr 0:59
Four Fountains After Raspegi Fresh mists of Roman dawn, For water search the cattle, Faintly on damp air sounds the shepherd's horn, Above fountain, Julia's prattle, Triton, joyous and loud, Of NAD summons troops, A frenziedly leaping and mingling crowd, Dancing, pursuing groups, At high noon the trumpets peal, Neptune's chariot passes by, Trains of sirens, tritons, Trevi's jets heal, Then trumpets' echoes sigh, Tolling bell and sunset, Twittering birds and calm, Medici's fountain, shimmering net, Into the night brings balm.
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20 20 - In The Trolley Car, by Ruth Baldwin Chenery 1:32
The mother, all unheeding, sat afar. Her splendid eyes were vague, her lips compressed. One Raphael boy slipped from his father's knee. Climbed to her side and gently stroked her cheek. She turned away and would not hear his plea. She turned away and would not even speak. With trembling lips the child crept back again to the warm shelter of his father's breast. We looked in dignant pity, for till then we thought that mother love bore every test. We rose to go, the father-mother said in deep low tones. Don't tinker hard, you bet. The youngest was to seek, and he is dead. She will be all aright when she forget.
When she forgets, great heart, hold closer yet. Thy precious brood, and let it feel no lack. Until her soul shall wake, but not forget, when the warm tides of love come surging back.
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21 21 - In Irish Rain, by Martha Haskell Clark 1:49
The Great World Stretched Its Arms To Me, And Held Me To Its Breast. They say I've song-birds in my throat, and give me of their best. But sure, not all their gold can buy can take me back again, to little Mago Monagans a-singin' in the rain. The silver-slanting Irish rain, all warm and sweet, that fills. The little bracken lowland pools and drifts across the hills, that turns the hill-grass cool and wet to dusty, childish feet, and hangs above the valley roofs, filled blue with burning peat. And oh, the kindly neighbor folk that called the young ones in, down fragrant yellow tapered paths that thread the brickly wind. The hot, sweet smell of oaten cake, the kettle purring soft, the dear remembered Irish speech, they called to me how oft.
They mind me just a slip o'girl in tattered curdle blue, but oh, they loved me for myself and not for what I do. And never one but had a joy to pass the time of day with little Maggo Monagans a-laughing down the way. There's fifty roofs to shelter me. Where one was set before, but make me free to that again. I'll not be wanting more. But sure I know not tears nor gold can turn the years again to little Mago Monagans a-singin' in the rain. Martha Haskell Clark.
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22 22 - Cretonne Tropics, by Grace Hazard Conkling 1:51
Creton Tropics by Grace Hazard Conkling. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachok.
The Creton in your willow chair shows through a zone of rosy air, a tree of parrots agate-eyed, with blue-green crests and plumes of pride, and beaks most formidably curved. I hear the river, silver-nerved. To their shrill protests make reply, and the palm forest stir and sigh. Curious the spell that colors cast, binding the fancy co-web fast, and you would smile if you could know, I like your Creton parrots so. But I have seen them sail toward night, superbly homeward, the last light lifting them like a purple sea. Scorned and made use of arrogantly, and I have heard them cry aloud from out a tall palm's emerald cloud, and I brought home a brilliant feather, lost like a flake of sunset weather.
Here in the north the sea is white, and mother of pearl in morning light. Quite lovely, but there is a glare that dawns me. Now the willow chair suggests a more perplexing sea, till my heart aches with memory, and parrots die the air around, and I forget the pallid sound.
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23 23 - To Hilda Of Her Roses, by Grace Hazard Conkling 1:17
To Hilda of Her Roses by Grace Hazard Conkling. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuk.
Enough has been said about roses to fill 30 thick volumes. There are as many songs about roses as there are roses in the world. That includes Mexico, the Azores, Oregon, It is a pity your roses are too late for Omar. It is a pity Keats has gone. Yet there must be something left to say of flowers like these. Adventurers, they pushed their way through dewy tunnels of the June night. Now they confer, a little tremulous, dazzled by the yellow sea beach of morning. If Herrick would tiptoe back, if Blake were to look this way, Ledwidge even.
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24 24 - Dandelion, by Hilda Conkling 0:43
You, with your green gun and your yellow beard, Why do you stand so stiff? There is only the grass to fight.
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25 25 - Red Rooster, by Hilda Conkling 0:58
Red Rooster in Your Gray Coop! O stately creature with tail feathers red and blue, yellow and black, you have a comb gay as a parade on your head. You have pearl trinkets on your feet. The short feathers, smooth along your back, are the dark color of wet rocks. Or the rippled green of ships when I look at their sides through water. I don't know how you happened to be made so proud, so foolish, wearing your coat of many colors, shouting all day long your crooked words. Loud, sharp, not beautiful.
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26 26 - Velvets, by Hilda Conkling 1:10
This pansy has a thinking face like the yellow moon. This one has a face with white blots. I call him the clown. Here goes one down the grass with a pretty look of plumpness. She is a little girl going to school with her hands in the pockets of her pinafore. Her name is Sue. I like this one, in a bonnet, waiting. Her eyes are so deep. But these on the other side, these that wear purple and blue, they are the velvets, the king with his cloak, the queen with her gown, the prince with his feather. These are dark and quiet and stay alone. I know you, velvets, color of dark, like the pine tree on the hill when stars shine.
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27 27 - The Moods, by Fanny Stearns Davis 1:48
The Moods by Fanny Stearns Davis. Read for LibriVox.org by Paul Harvey. The moods have laid their hands across my hair. The moods have drawn their fingers through my heart. My hair shall nevermore lie smooth and bright, but stir like tide-worn seaweed in my heart, shall nevermore be glad of small sweet things, a wild rose or a crescent moon, a book, of little verses or a dancing child. My heart, Turns crying from the rose and book, my heart turns crying from the thin bright moon, and weeps with useless sorrow for the child. The moods have loosed a wind to vex my hair, and made my heart too wise that was a child. Now I shall blow like smitten candle flame. I shall desire all things that may not be.
The years, the stars, the souls of ancient men, all tears that must, and smiles that may not be. Yes, glimmering lights across a windy ford, and vagrant voices on a darkened plain, and holy things, and outcast things, and things far too remote, frail-bodied to be plain. My pity and my joy are grown alike. I cannot sweep the strangeness from my heart. The moods have laid swift hands across my hair. The moods have drawn swift fingers through my heart.
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28 28 - Hill-Fantasy, by Fanny Stearns Davis 6:17
Hill Fantasy by Fanny Stearns Davis. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachok.
Siteth by the red cairn, a brown one, a hoofed one, high upon the mountain, where the grasses fail, where the ash trees flourish far, their blazing bunches to the sun, a brown one, a hoofed one, pipes against the gale. I was on the mountain. Wandering, wandering, no one but the pine trees and the white birch knew. Over rocks I scrambled, looked up and saw that strange thing, peeked ears and sharp horns, pricked against the blue. Oh, and how he piped there, piped up on the high reeds, till the blue air crackled like a frost film on a pool. Oh, and how he spread himself like a child whom no one heeds, tumbled, chuckling in the brook, all sleek and kind and cool. He had berries twixt his horns, crimson red as cochineal.
Bobbing, wagging wantonly, they tickled him, and oh, how his deft lips puckered round the reed and seemed to chase and steal. Sky music, earth music. Tree music low. I said, Good day thou. He said, Good day thou. Wiped his reed against the spotted doe skin on his back. He said, Come up here, and I will teach thee piping now, while the earth is singing so, for tunes we shall not lack. Up scrambled I, then, furry fingers helping me. Up scrambled I. So we sat beside the cairn. Broad into my face laughed that horned thing so naughtily. Oh, it was a rascal of a woodland setter's bairn. So blow and so, thou. Move thy fingers faster, look. Move them like the little leaves and whirling midges, so. Soon t'will twist like tendrils, and out twinkle like the lost brook.
Move thy fingers merrily, and blow, blow. Blow. Brown one. Poof it one. Be time to keep me straight. Kick it on the red stone. Whistle in my ear. Brush thy crimson berries in my face. Then hold thy breath for... Wait. Joy comes bubbling to my lips. I pipe. Oh, here. Blue sky. Art glad of us. Green wood. Art glad of us? Old hard-heart mountain, dost thou hear me, how I blow? Far away the sea isles swim in sun-haze luminous. Each one has a color like the seven-splendored bow. Wind, wind, wind, dost thou mind me, how I pipe now? Chipmunk chattering in the beach, rabbit in the break. Furry arm around my neck, O, thou art a brave one, thou. Satyr, little satyr friend, my heart with joy doth ache. Sky music, earth music, tree music, tremulous.
Water over steaming rocks, water in the shade. Storm tune and sun tune, how they flock up unto us. Sitting by the red cairn, gay and unafraid. Brown one, hoofed one, give me nimble hoofs, thou. Give me furry fingers and a secret furry tail. Pleasant are thy smooth horns, if their like were on my brow. Might I not abide here till the strong sun fail? Oh, the sorry brown eyes. Oh, the soft kind hand touch, sudden brush of velvet ears across my wind-cooled cheek. Playmate, pipemate, thou askest one good boon too much. I could never find thee horns, though day long I seek. Yet keep the pipe, thou, I will cut another one. Keep the pipe and play on it for all the world to hear. Ah, but it was good once to sit together in the sun, though I have but half a soul, it finds thee very dear.
Wise thing, mortal thing, yet my half-soul fears thee. Take the pipe and go thy ways, quick now, for the sun reels across the hot west and stumbles dazzled to the sea. Take the pipe and, oh! One kiss, then run, run, run, run. Silence on the mountain. Lonely stands the high cairn, all the leaves a-shivering, all the stones dead gray. O thou cold small pipe, which way is fled that setter's bairn? I am lost and all alone, and down drops the day. I was on the mountain, wandering, wandering. There I got this pipe of dreams, strange when I blow. Something deep as human love starts a-crying troubling. Is it only sky music, earth music, lo?
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29 29 - The Mirage, by Nathan Haskell Dole 0:54
The Mirage by Nathan Haskell Dole. Read for LibriVox.org. Across the bay are low-lying cliffs, where stand fishermen's cottages. I can barely distinguish them with the naked eye. But today the cliffs are lifted, escarped, perpendicular. Mysterious. Inaccessible. And those sordid dwellings have become the magnificent fortified castles of sea kings.
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30 30 - The Road Beyond The Town, by Michael Earls, S.J. 1:37
The Road Beyond the Town by Michael Earles, S.
J. A road goes up a pleasant hill, and a little house looks down. Ah, but I see the roadway still, and the day I left the town. The day I left my father's home, it's many years ago. And a heart and hope were brave to roam, the long, long road I know. The long, long road by hill and plain, it's tired the heart might be. But hope stayed bright in sun or rain, and a voice that called me, a voice that called me over the hill and out of the little town. Ah, but I see the roadway still, and the good house looking down. The house that spake me never a no, as I started brave away, but said with a blessing, Go, and followed me. Every day. It followed me down the road of years, for a father's heart is true, and joy is sweet in a mother's tears, for the deeds her child may do, the poor little deeds all powerless for the kingdom of God would be.
Save in his mercy will he bless the road that goes with me, the road that left a pleasant hill, where a little house looks down. Ah, but I bless the roadway still, and the land beyond the town.
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31 31 - The Lilac, by Walter Prichard Eaton 1:21
The Lilac by Walter Pritchard Eden. Read for LibriVox.org by I.C. Gaw. 2021, South Carolina. The scent of lilac in the air hath made him drag his steps and paws. Whence comes this scent within the square, where endless dusty traffic roars. A pushcart stands beside the curb, with fragrant blossoms laden high. Speak low, nor stare, lest we disturb his sudden reverie. He sees us not, nor heeds the din of clanging car and scuffling throng. His eyes see fairer sights within, and memory hears the robin's song as once it trilled against the day, and shook its slumber in a room where drifted with the breath of May the lilac's sweet perfume. The heart of boyhood in him stirs, The wonder of the morning skies, Of sunset gold behind the firs, Is kindled in his dreaming eyes.
How far off is this sordid place? As, turning from our sight away, He crushes to his hungry face a purple lilac spray.
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32 32 - God, Through His Offspring Nature, Gave Me Love, by Charles Gibson 1:24
God, through his offspring nature, gave me love. God, through his offspring nature, gave me love, though man in opposition saith me nay, and taketh from my heart its life to-day. As through the valley of the world I rove, still unaccompanied within the grove that doth enamored beings hold at play, my spirit must pursue its lonely way, and strive to pluck some flowers that bloom above. O wherefore then doth nature give desire to have that which mankind may not possess? And force him to endure on earth hell's fire, And live in one perpetual distress. Some evil power must such love inspire, And with it masquerade in Cupid's dress.
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33 33 - To Music, by Maude Gordon-Roby 1:18
To Music by Maude Gordon-Robe. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachock. Music, the language, the atmosphere of the soul. Fly back where melodies like lilies grow. My weary heart is bending low. Fly higher yet to joyful realms above. Where holy angels dwell in love. Fly higher still, and hear the angel throng, and bring to me their glory song. Ah, music, thou and I above the world may dwell where heaven with shining song is pearled. While sun and moon and all the planets roll, I'll love thee. Music. Language of my soul. Music lark from on high. Song that doth fly. Spark of the sky.
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34 34 - The Voice In The Song, by Mary Gertrude Hamilton 1:51
The Voice in the Song by Mary Gertrude Hamilton. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuk.
High in the apple-bough, jauntily swinging, hid by the branches in bridal array, straight from his heart, all his life in his singing, chants a wee bird lures his mate with his lay. Sweet, sweet, my sweet. Here I entreat, say love together, this bright sunny weather. Gold of the west we shall weave in a nest. Have no fear, trust me, dear. Sunshine of May that will gild every day. Pledge I to thee, if thou'd hearken to me. Lo, in the light, through the gay branches streaming. Quivering in answer to all the birds sings. Warm on a breath leaps a soul with love gleaming. Speeds to its mate on its glittering wings. Dear on thy breast, earth yields its best. Loud in the singing, I heard thy call ringing.
Pleading and strong in the voice of the song. Whisper, lo. Yes, just so, softly revealing the depth of thy feeling, words in whose fire glow thy love and desire.
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35 35 - Hymns And Anthems Sung At Wellesley College, by Caroline Hazard 4:38
1. Mount Carmel Where art thou, O my Lord? Mount Carmel saw the throng of priests and heard the song. To Baal was their call, for morn till night did fall. Where art thou, O my Lord? Again Mount Carmel heard not in the spoken word, not in the earthquake's shock, not in the rending rock. Where art thou, O my Lord? The still voice softly speaks. Each soul it swiftly seeks, not in the thunder roll, but in the inmost soul. II. Vesper Hymn. Send peaceful sleep, O Lord, this night, to keep us till the morning light, and let no vision of alarm come near to do Thy children harm. Within Thy circling arms we lie, O God, in Thine infinity. Our souls in quiet shall abide, beset with love on every side. 3.
This is that bread. This is that bread that came down from heaven. He that eateth of this bread shall live for ever. Bread on which angels feed, Bread for the spirit's need, by faith receiving. New life do, thou impart, New strength to every heart, Pure love of God thou art to us believing. IV. O Slow of Heart.
O Slow of Heart to believe. Ought Christ not to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? Quicken, Lord, my fainting heart! Touch my eyes, that they may see. Let me know thee as thou art, life in immortality.
V. All hail to thee, child Jesus. All hail to thee, child Jesus, as the brooding darkness flies at the swift approach of day. Son of Righteousness, arise, chase the gloom of night away. Great Prince of Peace, come to thine own, and build in every heart thy throne. Come to share thy healing balm on all nations of the earth. Child Jesus, come with holy calm, how we hail thy wondrous birth. Great Prince of Peace, come to thine own, and build in every heart thy throne. All hail to thee, Child Jesus.
VI. THE WINE-PRESS. Who is this that comes from Edom in such glorious array, with his festal garments gleaming, traveling on his royal way, with a face majestic, calm, and grave? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Why is thy apparel crimson? Why is all thy garments pride stained as in the time of vintage, and with the blood-red color dyed? Because of helpers I had none, I have trodden the wine-press alone. 7. Waken, shepherds. Angels. Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna, shepherds. Waken, shepherds, waken. Whence this glowing light? E'er the dawn of morning, solemn signs of warning, portent of affright.
Angels. Courage, shepherds, courage! Banish your dismay, for ye all are saved in the town of David. Christ is born today. Shepherds. Hearken, shepherds, hearken! Hear the angels sing! Jehovah sends a token, He Himself hath spoken, to proclaim our King. Angels. Hasten, shepherds, hasten! This shall be your sign. Where the kine are stabled in a manger cradled, lies the Child Divine. Shepherds and Angels Angels, shepherds, people, shout the glad refrain, joy to every nation, bringing full salvation, Christ has come to reign. Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna.
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36 36 - Reuben Roy, by Harold Crawford Stearns 2:04
Peering at numbers on the posts, but most discreet. For when a woman came outdoors, or slyly peeped and stared, He turned away, took off his hat, and scratched his head. I watched him from my garden wall, perhaps an hour or more. For something in his attitude, the clothes he wore, awoke the dimmest memories of when I was a boy, and knew the story of a man named Reuben Roy. It seems that Reuben went to see the night his wife decried, the fence he built before their house and up the side. He wanted it, but she did not, because it hid from view the spot in which her mignonette and tulips grew. Nobody saw his face again, but each year, unawares, he sent a sum for taxes due and fence repairs. My curiosity aroused, I sauntered forth to see whether this individual were really he.
"'Who were you looking for?' I asked. His eyes, like two bright pence, sparkled at mine, and then he said, "'A fence. Somebody burned it, Halloween, when people were in bed.
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37 37 - Country Road, by Marie Louise Hersey 0:52
Country Road by Marie Louise Hersey. I can't forget a gaunt gray barn, like a face without an eye, that kept recurring by field and tarn under a Cape Cod sky. I can't forget a woman's hand, roughened and scarred by toil, that beckoned clear-eyed children tanned. By sun and wind and soil. Beauty and hardship, bent and bound, under the selfsame yoke. Babies with bare knees, plump and round, and stooping woman folk.
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38 38 - Wreaths, by Carolyn Hillman 1:12
Wreaths by Carolyn Hillman. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachuk.
Red wreaths hang in my neighbor's window. Green wreaths in my own. On this day I lost my husband. On this day you lost your boy. On this day Christ was born. Red wreaths, green wreaths, hang in our windows. Red for a bleeding heart, green for grave grass. Mary, Mother of Jesus, look down and comfort us. You too, new passion. You too, new pain. Comfort us, who are not brides of God, nor bore God. On Christmas Day, hang wreaths. Red for new pain. Green for spent passion.
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39 39 - Memphis, by Gordon Malherbe Hillman 2:07
The Returning by Sylvester Baxter.
We long for her. We yearn for her. Yes, ardently we yearn for her return. Recalling those beloved days, days intimate with ways of friends so near to us, and life so dear to us, we yearn unspeakably for her return. And come, she must. Yet while we trust, We soon may see the passing of this agony, which makes intrusive years still seem a fearsome dream. We know that when she comes, she really comes not back again. She'll come in other guise, and under fairer skies, and yet to bitter pain. That day she went away, our homes with laughing youth were filled. Where then was happiness is now distress, the laughter stilled. For when she left, youth followed her. We stayed bereft. So all our golden joy for what she brings must carry gray alloy.
The sorrow that she cannot lay, the misery that she cannot stay, while all the gladsome songs she sings must bear for undertones, old sighs and echoed moans. As they who go away in flush of youth may come quite worn and gray, and bringing naught but roof, so when the strife shall cease, And when she comes at last, when all the armies vast shall at her feet kneel down to greet thrice welcome peace, this world will be so changed, so many dear ones dead, so many friends estranged, so many blessings fled, so many wonted ways forever barred, so many coming days forever marred, that then she truly comes not back again, she the peace we knew, Yet how we long for her, how ardently we yearn for her return.
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40 40 - Saint Columbkille, by E.J.V. Huiginn 2:20
St. Column Kill by E.J. V. Heugen Read for LibriVox.org by Jeff Roberts Column Kill, St. Column Kill, You naughty man, St. Column Kill, Why did you, Finian Salter, take, And secretly a copy make? You know, t'was such a naughty thing, For one descended from a king, To lock himself into a cell, "'Twas far from right, you knew it well." And copy Finian Salter through, against his will, as well you knew. And then to think a common bird should feel such shame that when he heard the breathing spy outside your door and felt your sainthood was no more, should through the crack attack the spy and in a rage pluck out his eye, as if that saintly Irish crane would hide from all your saintship's stain. I grieve to think that you did add.
Sin unto sin, is it too bad? For Finian could not you persuade to yield the copy that you made, until the king on his behalf ruled to each cow belongs her calf. And then you grew so mad you swore on Aaron's face you'd look no more, and cross the sea the picks to save, because you so did misbehave. To dear St. Finian, faith twas ill, for you to act so, column kill. And Saint you were no doubt, no doubt. What pity twas you were found out. We know an angel, snob or fool. To Ciarans showed a common rule, an axe and augur and a saw, and told the saint, it was the law of heaven that Columkill should be far, far above such saints as he. For Columkill contempted a crown, while he these homely tools laid down, to serve the Lord, and that the Lord To each would give his due reward.
I wonder if that angel knew that Christ these tools had laid down too. O column kill, O column kill, a saint like you must have his will. But for myself, I'd rather be the common sinner that you see than to make a crane ashamed of me. And angels talk such idiocy.
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41 41 - Miss Doane, by Winifred Virginia Jackson 1:34
Miss Doan by Winifred Virginia Jackson. Read for LibbyVox.org by M. Lee. Miss Doan was 60, probably. She rented third-floor room that opened on an air shaft full of cooking smells and gloom. She worked in Philanthropic Man's well-known department store. Cashiered in basement, hot and close, for forty years or more. Each night when she came home, she'd stand a moment in the hall before she went into her room with low and tender call. And often I would hear her voice, repeat a childish prayer, or read some old, old fairy tale of Princess Grand and Fair. One night I went to visit her. And spied in a little chair, a great wax doll in dainty dress, and curls of flaxen hair. I praised the doll, its prettiness.
Miss Doan said I'm alone. She comforts me. I want it so. A child to call my own. Each night I hear her softly sing a childish lullaby, but once and just before she died, I heard her cry and cry.
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42 42 - Fallen Fences, by Winifred Virginia Jackson 3:33
Fallen Fences by Winifred Virginia Jackson. Read for LibriVox.org by Ginny Rosario. The woods grew dark, black shadows rocked, and I could scarcely see My way along the old tote road that long had seemed to me. To wind on aimlessly, but now came full to life the rain, would soon strike down, ahead I saw a clearing and a lane. Between gray fallen fences and wide grayer grim stone walls, so grim and gray I shrank from thought of weary aching spalls. On stony knoll great aspens swayed and swung in browsing teeth, of wind slim silvered yearling shook and shivered underneath. Beyond some ancient oak trees bent and wrangled over roof, of weather-beaten house and barn whose sag bespoke no hoof, and ivy crawled up either end, of house to chimney where it lashed in futile anger at the wind-wolves of the air.
I thought the house abandoned, and I ran to get inside, when suddenly the old front door was opened and flung wide, and she stood there, with hand on knob, as I went swiftly in, then closed the door most softly on the storm and shrieking din. A space I stood and looked at her, so young t'was passing strange, that fifty years or more had gone and brought no new styles change. The sweetness, daintiness of her, in starched and dotted gown, of creamy whiteness over hoops, with ruffles winding down. We had not much to say, and yet, of words I felt no lack, her smiles slipped into dimples, stopped, a moment then dropped back. I felt her pride of race, her taste in silken rug and chair, and quaintly fashioned furniture of patterns old and rare.
On windowsill a rosebush stood, t'was bringing rose to bud. One full bloomed there, but yesterday dropped petals red as blood. Quite soon she asked to be excused for just a moment and... Went out returning with a tray in either slender hand. My glance could not but linger on each thin and lovely cup. This came, dear thing, from home, she sighed, the while she raised it up. And when the storm was done, and I arose reluctantly, to go she too was loath to have me go, it seemed to me. When I reached old Joe Weber's place upon the corner road, I went into the upper field where Joe, round-shouldered, hoed. Potatoes culling them with hoe and practiced calloused hand in rounded piles that brownly glowed upon the fresh-turned land.
Say, Joe, I said, who is that girl with beauty's smiling charm that lives beyond that hemlock growth on that old grown-up farm? Joe listened while I told him where I'd been that afternoon, then straightened from his hoe and hummed before he spoke a tune. They come to that old place to live some sixty years ago. Just where they come from, who they were, why, no one got to know. And then one day he hired Hen's red racker and the gig. We never heard from him, nor could we track the hoss or rig. Hen waited about a week, and then he went to see the wife. He found her in the setten room. She'd taken of her life. And no one's lived in that house since. Some say tis haunted, but I ain't no use for foolishness, so while I says, tut tut.
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43 43 - Cross-Currents, by Winifred Virginia Jackson 0:54
Gaw, 2021, South Carolina They wrapped my soul in elder down. They placed me warm and snug in carved chair, Set me with care upon an old prayer rug. They cased my feet in golden shoes that hurt at toe and heel, My restless feet With youth all fleet, nor asked how they might feel. And now they wonder where I am, and search with shrill cold cry. But I crouch low where tall reeds grow, and smile as they pass by.
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44 44 - The Farewell, by Winifred Virginia Jackson 0:35
C. Gaw, 2021, South Carolina What is more beautiful than thought, soul-fed, That I may be the crimson of a rose when dead? My soul, so light a joy and grief will be, That it will gently press the brown earth down on me.
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45 45 - Song, by Oliver Jenkins 1:23
Song by Oliver Jenkins. Read for LibriVox.org. Let me be great, as stars are great, Singing of love, not of hate. Love for sweet and simple things, Like clouds and seashell whisperings. Cool autumn winds, pale dew-kissed flowers, thin coils of smoke, and granite towers. Snow-capped mountain peaks that flash high above a river's crash. Shrill songs of birds' and children's laughter, soft gray shadows trailing after. Sunbeam sprites that seek the woods and lose themselves in solitudes. All these I'll love, never hate, and loving them I will be great.
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46 46 - Love Autumnal, by Oliver Jenkins 1:01
Love Autumnal by Oliver Jenkins. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuk.
My love will come in autumn time, when leaves go spinning to the ground, and wistful stars in heaven chime with the leaves sound. Then we shall walk through dusty lanes. And pause beneath low-hanging boughs, and there, while soft-hued beauty reigns, we'll make our vows. Let others seek in spring for sighs.
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47 47 - Echoes, by Ruth Lambert Jones 1:19
Echoes by Ruth Lambert Jonan.
Traveling at dusk the noisy city street, I listened to the newsboys' strident cries of extra as with flying feet. They strove to gain this man or that their prize, but one there was with neither shout nor stride, and, having bought from him, I stood nearby. Pondering the cruel crutches at his side, blaming the crowd's neglect and wondering why. When suddenly I heard a gruff voice greet the cripple with, "'On time to-night?' Then, as he handed out the sheet, the youngsters answer, "'You're all right. My, the reg'lars are a little late. They'll find I'm short one paper when they come. You see, a strange guy bought one in the wait.' I thought twould cheer him up. He looked so glum. So sheepishly I laughed and went my way, for I had found a city's heart that day.
Ruth Lambert Jonan.
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48 48 - War Pictures, by Ruth Lambert Jones 1:16
War Pictures by Ruth Lambert Jones.
German Retreat from R.S. Official films. They came after Corrine and her minstrels had ministered to fame. After Corrine and her minstrels had pigeon-toed away, We saw where bits of churches and bits of horses lay. We saw bleak desolation. We saw no unscathed tree. We shivered in our comfort and murmured, Can it be? But later, walking homeward, repeating, Is it true? We brushed a khaki shoulder and asked no more.
We knew.
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49 49 - An Old Song, by Arthur Ketchum 1:00
I thought that luck loved every man, and time his only foe. And love was like a hawthorn bush that blossomed every May, and had but to choose his flower, for that's the young lad's way. Oh, youths, a thriftless squanderer, it's easy come and spent. And heavy is the going now, where once the lightfoot went. The hawthorn bush puts on its white, the throstle whistles clear. But spring comes once for every man, just once in all the year.
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50 50 - Roadside Rest, by Arthur Ketchum 0:59
Roadside Rest by Arthur Ketchum.
Such quiet sleep has come to them. The springs and autumns pass, Nor do they know if it be snow or daisies in the grass. All day the birches bend to hear the river's undertone. Across the hush a fluting thrush sings even song alone. But down their dream there drifts no sound. The winds may sob and stir. On the still breast of peace they rest, and they are glad of her. They ask not any gift. They mind nor any foot that fares. Unheatedly life passes by. Such quiet sleep is theirs.
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51 51 - Old Lizette On Sleep, by Agnes Lee 1:44
Old Lisette on Sleep, by Agnes Lee.
Bed is the boon for me. It's well to bake and sweep. But hear the word of old Lisette. It's better than all to sleep. Summer and flowers are gay, and morning light and dew. But aged eyelids love the dark, where never a light peeps through. What? Open-eyed, my dears, thinking your hearts will break. There's nothing, nothing, nothing, I say, that's worth the lying awake. I learned it in my youth, love I was dreaming of. I learned it from the needlework that took the place of love. I learned it from the years and what they brought about. From song and from the hills of joy, where sorrow sought me out. It's good to dream in turn. And turn and dream, or fall, to comfort with my pack of bones, and know of nothing at all.
Yes, never know at all. If prowlers mew or bark, nor wonder if it's three o'clock, or four o'clock of the dark. When the longer shades have fallen, and the last weariness has brought the sweetest gift of life, the last forgetfulness. If a sound as of old leaves stir the last bed I keep, then say, my dears, it's old Lisette. She's turning in her sleep. Agnes Lee.
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52 52 - Motherhood, by Agnes Lee 2:02
Motherhood by Agnes Lee. Read for LibriVox.org by Jeff Roberts. Mary, the Christ long slain, passed silently, following the children joyously astir, under the cedrus and the olive tree, pausing to let their laughter float to her, each voice an echo of voice more dear. She saw a little price in every face, when, lo, another woman gliding near. Yearned o'er the tender life that filled the place. And Mary sought the woman's hand and spoke, I know thee not, yet know thy memory tossed, With all a thousand dream their eyes evoke, Who brings to thee a child beloved and lost? I too have rocked my little one. Oh, he was fair, yea, fairer than the fairest sun, And like its rays through amber spun, His sun-bright hair.
Still I can see it shine and shine. Even so, the woman said, was mine. His ways were ever darling ways, and Mary smiled. So soft, so clinging, glad relays. A love were all his precious days, my little child, my infinite star, my music fled. Even so was mine, the woman said. Then whispered Mary, tell me thou of thine, and she, Oh, mine was rosy as a bough, blooming with roses sent somehow to bloom for me. His balmy fingers left a thrill within my breast that warms me still. Then gave she down some wild, darker hour, and said when Mary questioned, knowing not, Who art thou, mother of so sweet a flower? I am the mother of Ascariot.
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53 53 - Essex George, by Cabot Lodge 2:44
The Lord of the Rings. Thy hills are kneeling in the tardy spring, and wait in supplication's gentleness, the certain resurrection that shall bring a robe of verdure for their nakedness, thy perfumed valleys where the twilights dwell, thy fields within the sunlight's living coil, Now promise, while the veins of nature swell, eternal recompense to human toil, and when the sunset's final shades depart, the aspiration to completed birth is sweet and silent. As the soft tears start, we know how wanton and how little worth are all the passions of our bleeding heart that vex the awful patience of the earth. Two. Thine are the large winds and the splendid sun, gluttin' the spread of heaven to the floor of waters, rhythmic from far shore to shore, and thine the stars revealing one by one, thine the grave lucent night's oblivion, the tawny moon that waits below the skies.
Strange is the dawn that smote their blistered eyes, who watched from Calvary when the deed was done. And thine the good brown earth that bears its breast, to thy benign October, thine the trees, lusty with fruitage in the late year's rest. And thine the men, whose blood has glorified the name with liberty in divine decrees. The men who loved thy soil, and fought and died. Three. Toward thine eastern window, when the morn steals through the silver mesh of silent stars, I come unlaurelled from the strenuous wars, where men have fought and wept and died, forlorn. But here, across the early fields of corn, the living silence dwelleth, and the gray-sweet earth mist, while afar the lisp of spray breathes from the ocean like a triton's horn.
Open thy lattice, for the gauge is one, for which this earth has journeyed through the dust of shattered systems, Cold about the sun, Unproved by sin, by mighty lives impearled. A voice cries through the sunrise, Time is just, And falls like dew God's pity on the world.
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54 54 - The Song of the Wave, by George Cabot Lodge 2:39
The Song of the Wave by George Cabot Lodge. Read for LibriVox.org by Charles Boyles.
This is the song of the wave, the mighty one, child of the soul of silence, beating the air to sound, white as a live terror, as a drawn sword. This is the wave. This is the song of the wave, the white-maned steed of the tempest. Whose veins are swollen with life, and whose flanks abide the four winds. This is the wave. This is the song of the wave. The dawn leaped out of the sea, and the waters lay smooth as a silver shield, and the sun rays smote on the waters like a golden sword. Then a wind blew out of the morning, and the waters wrestled, and the wave was born. This is the song of the wave. The wind blew out of the noon, and the white sea birds, like driven foam, This is the song of the wave.
The wind blew out of the sunset, and the west was lurid as hell. The black clouds closed like a tomb, for the sun was dead. Then the wind smote full as the breath of God, and the wave called to its brothers. This is the crest of life. This is the song of the wave, that rises to fall. Rises the sheer green wall like a barrier of glass, that has caught the soul of the moonlight. Caught and prisoned the moonbeams, its edge is frittered to foam. This is the wave. This is the song of the wave, of the wave that falls, wild as a burst of day-gold blown through the colors of morning. It shivers to infinite atoms up the rumbling steep of sand. This is the wave. This is the song of the wave that died in the fullness of life, the prodigal this that lavished its largest of strength in the lust of attainment, aiming at things for heaven too high.
Sure, in the pride of life, in the richness of strength, so tried it the impossible height till the end was found. Where ends the soul that yearns for the fillet of morning stars, the soul in the toils of the journeying worlds? Whose eye is filled with the image of God, and the end is death.
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55 55 - Frimaire, by Amy Lowell 1:25
Dearest, we are like two flowers, blooming in the garden, a purple aster flower and a red one, standing alone in a withered desolation. The garden plants are shattered and seeded, one brittle leaf scrapes against another, fiddling echoes of a rush of petals, now only you and I nodding together. Many were with us. They have all faded. Only we are purple and crimson. Only we in the dew-clear mornings, smarten into color as the sun rises. When I scarcely see you in the flat moonlight, and later when my cold roots tighten, I am anxious for morning. I cannot resist in fear of what may happen. You are I, and I am a coward. Surely, frost should take the crimson, purple, is a finer color, very splendid in isolation.
So we nod above the broken stems of flowers almost rotted. Many mornings there cannot be now for us both. Ah, dear, I love you.
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56 56 - Patterns, by Amy Lowell 5:31
Patterns by Amy Lowell. Read for LibriVox.org by Nicholas Aducci.
I walk down the garden paths, and all the daffodils are blowing, and the bright blue squills. I walk down the patterned garden paths in my stiff brocaded gown, with my powdered hair and jeweled fan. I too am a rare pattern as I wander down the garden paths. My dress is richly figured, and the train makes a pink and silver stain on the gravel and the thrift of the borders. Just a plate of current fashion, tripping by in high-heeled ribbon shoes. Not a softness anywhere about me, only whalebone and brocade, and I sink on a seat in the shade of a lime tree. For my passion wars against the stiff brocade. The daffodils and squills flutter in the breeze as they please, and I weep. For the lime tree is in blossom, and one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.
And the splashing of water drops in the marble fountain comes down the garden paths. The dripping never stops. Underneath my stiffened gown is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin. A basin in the midst of hedges grown so thick she cannot see her lover hiding. But she guesses he is near, and the sliding of the water seems the stroking of a dear hand upon her. What is summer in a fine brocaded gown? I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground, all the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground. I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the paths, and he would stumble after, bewildered by my laughter. I should see the sun flashing from his sword hilt and the buckles on his shoes.
I would choose to lead him in a maze along the patterned paths. A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover, till he caught me in the shade, and the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me, aching, melting, unafraid. With the shadows of the leaves and the sun drops, and the plopping of the water drops, all about us in the open afternoon, I am very like to swoon with the weight of this brocade. For the sun sifts through the shade. Underneath the fallen blossom in my bosom is a letter I have hid. It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke. Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell died in action Thursday's Sunday night. As I read it in the white morning sunlight, the letters squirmed like snakes.
And the answer, madam? Said my footman. No, I told him. See that the messenger takes some refreshment. No. No answer. And I walked into the garden, up and down the patterned paths in my stiff, correct brocade. The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun, each one. I stood upright, too, held rigid to the pattern. By the stiffness of my gown, up and down I walked, up and down. In a month, he would have been my husband. In a month, here, underneath this lime, we would have broke the pattern. He for me, and I for him. He as Colonel, I as Lady, on this shady seat. He had a whim, that sunlight carried blessing. And I answered, It shall be as you have said. Now he is dead. In summer and in winter I shall walk up and down the patterned garden paths.
In my stiff, brocaded gown the squills and daffodils will give place to pillared roses and to asters and to snow. I shall go up and down in my gown, gorgeously arrayed, boned and staid, and the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace by each button, hook, and lace. For the man who should loose me is dead, fighting with the Duke in Flanders in a pattern called a war. Christ, what are patterns for?
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57 57 - A Bather, by Amy Lowell 2:42
Thick dappled by circles of sunshine and fluttering shade, your bright naked body advances, blown over by leaves. Half quenched in their various green, just a point of view showing, a knee or a thigh, sudden glimpsed, then at once blotted into the filmy and flickering forest to start out again. Triumphant in smooth, supple roundness, edge sharp as white ivory. Cool, perfect, with rose rarely tinting your lips and your breasts, swelling out from the green in the opulent curves of ripe fruit and hidden like fruit by the swift intermittence of leaves. So, clinging to branches and moss, You advance on the ledges of rock which hang over the stream. With the wood smells about you, the pungence of strawberry plants and of gum-oozing spruces, while below runs the water impatient, impatient to take you, to splash you, to run down your sides, to sing you of deepness, of pools.
Brown and golden, with brown and gold flags on their borders. Of blue, lingering skies floating solemnly over your beauty. Of undulant waters of sway in the effort to hold you. To keep you submerged and quiescent, while over you glories the summer. Oread, Dryad, or Nyad, or just. I am a woman, clad only in youth and in gallant perfection. Standing up in a green burst of sunshine, you dazzle my eyes. Like a snow star, a moon, your effulgence burns up in a halo. For you are the chalice which holds all the races of men. You slip into the pool, and the water folds over your shoulder. And over the tree-tops the clouds slowly follow your swimming, and the scent of the woods is sweet on this hot summer morning.
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58 58 - Leprechauns and Cluricauns, by Dennis A. Mccarthy 2:11
Leprechauns and Cluricons by Dennis A. McCarthy Read for LibriVox.org by Nicholas Aduci Over where the iris hedges are with blossoms white as snow, Over where the limestone ledges through the soft green grasses show, There the fairies may be seen in their jackets of red and green. Leprechauns and clericons, and the other ones I wean. And, bedad, it is a wonder to behold the way they act. They're the lads that seldom blunder. Wise and wary, that's the fact. You may hold them with your eye. Look away, and off they fly. Leprechauns and clericons, bedad, but they are sly. They have heaps of gold and treasure hid away within the ground, and where they spend their days in leisure, and where fairy joys abound.
But to mortals not a guinea will they give no, not a penny, leprechauns and clericons. Their gold is seldom found. Maybe of a morning early, as you pass a lonely raft, you may see a little curly-headed fairy in your path. He'll be working at a shoe, but he'll have his eye on you. Leprechauns and clericons, they know just what to do. Visions of a life of riches surely will before you flash. You'll no longer dig the ditches. You'll be well supplied with cash, and you'll seize the little man, and you'll hold him, if you can. Leprechauns and clericons, "'Tis there the slippery clam."
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59 59 - L'envoi Dorothea, by Lawrence Mann 1:39
L'Envoie by Dorothy Lawrence Mann. Read for LibriVox.org by Nicola Seducci. When the time for parting comes, and the day is on the wane, and the silent evening darkens over hill and over plain, and earth holds no more sorrow, no more grief, and no more pain, shall we weary for the battle and the strife? When at last the trail is ending, and the stars are growing near, and we breathe the breath of conquest, and the voices that we hear are the great companions' voices that have hallowed year on year, shall we know an instant's grieving as we pass? Shall we pause a fleeting moment ere we grasp the eager hands, take one last Long look of wonder at the dimming of the lands. Love the earth one glowing moment ere we pass from its demands.
Call all beauty in its essence as we gaze. Or with not one backward longing shall we leap the last abyss. Scale the highest crags glad-hearted, fearful only lest the bliss of an earth-remembering instant. Should delay the great sun's kiss, consuming us within the flame.
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60 60 - To Imagination, by Dorothea Lawrence Mann 3:15
What visions sought! Of pictures magical thy eyes unfold! What triumphs of celestial wonders wrought! What marvels from a breath of beauty rolled! Skyward and seaward on the clouds are scrolled! A mystic imagery of castled thought. A thousand worlds to lose or win in mold. A radiant iridescence swiftly caught of ever-changing glory, fancy fraught. Blue wonder of the sea and luminous sky. A thousand wonders in thy dreamlit face. Eyes that beheld afar the turret's high of Ilium and the transient mortal grace. Of Deirdre's sadness, all the conquering race of Athens, eyes that saw Eden's beauty lie in passionate adoration. Visions trace across the tender brooding of the sigh that wrecked a city and made chieftains die.
Forward, not backward, turns the mystic shine of those far-seeing orbs that track the gleam. The fleecy marvel of the cloud is line on line the wizard tracery of a dream. O lad, who buildest not of things that seem beyond what bounds of visioning divine came that far smile from what long strayed sunbeam? Caught thou the radiance from what fostering vine? The power to build and mold the deep design? Knowest thou the secret that thy brush would tell? Is all the dream a bubbled splendor white? Beyond those castles, cloudbound, does there dwell the eternal silence of the dark or light? Will thy hand hold the pen which shall indict the symboled mystery? Write the final knell of rainbow fancy is the distant sight, a nothing less encircled by the spell.
Of gleaming bubbles wrought of beauty's shell, in vain to question where the mystery of youth's short golden dream is lord and king. The eyes that farthest gaze in ecstasy were never meant to paint the immortal thing. They see nor understand the joy they bring. The misty baubles of the sky and sea sail on. Dream still, bright-vision boy, and fling the glittering mantle of thy thoughts that flee, weaving us evermore thy shining pageantry.
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61 61 - Dragon, by Jeanette Marks 1:09
Dragon by Jeanette Marks. Read for LibriVox.org by Andrew Gontz. Some saw a dragon eating up the light. A ho, a ho, a ho, ho, ho. Some heard a lost bird riding out the night. A ho, a ho, a ho, ho, ho. But I saw a low dark hill with its twisted back, two wings of flame from the green cloud rack. A sprawling flank overlaid with leaf, glitter and gleam and shine like steel, crackle and lash like a serpent's tail. And I heard the wind draw out of the west and wail, dance and stagger and jig and reel, with the long, low sound of a life in grief. I saw a life in grief, a ho, a ho, a ho, ho, ho, ho, dance and stagger and jig and reel. Aho, aho, aho, ho, ho, ho.
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62 62 - Green Golden Door, by Jeanette Marks 1:00
Echoes and airs and minstrelses, Love and hope that he called his, Fear and hurt and a man's own sin, Casting them forth and sucking them in, Green Golden Door, swing out, swing out. Green golden door, swing in, swing in. Show me the youth that will not die. Tell me the dream that has not waked. Seek me the heart that has never ached. Green golden door, swing out, swing out. Green golden door, swing in, swing out. Long is the wailing of man's breath. Short is the wail of death.
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63 63 - Sleepy Hollow, Concord, by John Clair Minot 1:15
Four graves there are upon the wooden crest, Each one a shrine to pilgrims ever dear. Uncovered, mute, are those who tarry here. Romance's dreaming master lies at rest, Beneath the cedars, near is one whose breast. Held Mother Nature's lore beyond the seer and sage. There, one who saw her duty clear, her name by little man and woman blessed. For friends who walked and conquered its pleasant ways, long years ago, they dwelt and worked apart. But now the world has crowned them with its bays, and holds them close forever to its heart. O sacred hill, their genius guarding stays, and from its slopes shall never love depart.
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64 64 - The Sword Of Arthur, by John Clair Minot 2:52
The Sword of Arthur by John Clare Minot. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachock.
A castle stands in Yorkshire. O, the hill is fair and green, and far beneath it lies a cave no living man has seen. It is the cave enchanted. O, seek it, ere ye die. And there King Arthur and his knights in dreamless slumber lie. One time a peasant found it. Oh, the years have hurried well. It was the day of fate for him, and this is what befell. Upon a couch of crystal, oh, heart be pure and strong. He saw the king, and close beside. The armored knights a throng, and all of them were sleeping. Praise God who sendeth rest, the sleep that comes when strife is done and ended every quest. Beside the good King Arthur, how high is your desire? His sword within its scabbard lay, the sword with blade of fire.
Now had the peasant known it, oh, if we all could know, he should have drawn that wondrous blade before he turned to go. If but his hand had touched it, the sword still lieth there. He would have felt in every vein a lofty purpose thrill. If but his hand had drawn it, The sword still lieth there. A kingly way he would have walked, wherever he might fare. But no, he fled affrighted. Oh, pitiful, the cost! And then he knew, but lo, the way into the cave was lost. He searched forever after. All this was long ago. But nevermore that crystal cave his eager eyes could know. Pray, God, ye have the vision, O search in every land, To seize the sword that Arthur bore when it lies at your hand.
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65 65 - The Divine Forest by, Charles R. Murphy 2:58
The Divine Forest by Charles R. Murphy. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachock.
If there be leaves on the forest floor, dead leaves there are, and nothing more. If trunks of trees seem sentinels, for what their vigil no man tells. And if you clasp these guardian trees, nothing there is to hurt or please. Only the dead roof of the forest drops, gently down and never stops, and roofs you in and roofs you under, mute and away from life's dim thunder. And if there come eternal spring, it is but more disheartening. For autumn takes the spring and summer. Autumn that is the latest comer, with the springtime's misty wonder, and the summer's yield of gold, weighs you down and weighs you under, to where the blackened leaves are mulled. The lone gift of the forest is ever new, eternity where dwell, not you.
The forest, excepting, heeds you not, excepting all, you are forgot. If there be leaves on the forest floor, dead leaves there are, and nothing more. Once the forest spoke, but now is silent, save in the skyward branches, whence no sound seems to touch ear of any man below, or else no longer the man knows how to hear. Such men build roofs to keep the forest out. Yet all their roofs are built of the forest's self. Only they make the dead tree, a shield against the living. Such lapsing of the forest, then, they use and turn it into countless lowly dwellings. Sometimes they even cut the living down to leaven the dead roofs they would erect, though some of these low roofs are lovely there. Beneath the guardianship of forest trees, and some yearn upward as with thought of wings.
Yet the eyes of the dwellers therein are dark to the upper forest, and they, fearful of the windy freedom of its top, they have forgotten that the greatest roof is but a banner, and that it was a tree that made a cross.
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66 66 - Magic, by Edward J. O'brien 3:12
I ran into the sunset light as hard as I could run. The treetops bowed in sheer delight as if they loved the sun, and all the songs of little birds who laughed and cried in silver words were joined as they were one. And down the streaming golden sky a lark came circling with a cry of wonder-weaving joy, and all the arch of heaven rang where meadowlands of dreaming hang as when I was a boy. And through the ringing solitude in pulsing lovely amplitude a mist hung in a shroud, as though the light of loneliness turned pure delight to holiness and bathed it in a cloud. I stripped my laughing body bare and plunged it into that holy air that washed me like a sea, and raced against its silver tide that stroked my eager glancing side and made my spirit free.
Across the limits of the land the wind and I swept hand in hand beyond the golden glow. We danced across the ocean plain like thrushes singing in the rain a song of long ago. And on into the silver night we strove to win the race with light, and bring the vision home, and bring the wonder home again unto the sleeping eyes of men across the singing foam. And down the river of the world our glowing limbs in glory swirled as spring within a flower, and stars in music of delight streamed gaily down our shoulders white like petals in a shower. And tears of awful wonder ran down my cheeks to hear the clan of beauty chaunting white the prayer too deep for living word, or sight of man or winging bird or music over forest heard at falling of the night.
And dropping slowly as the dew on grasses that the winds renew in urge of flooding fire, and softly as the hushing boughs the gentle airs of dawn arouse to cradle morning's choir. The murmur of the singing leaves around the secret flame, like mating swallows neath the eaves in rustling silence came, and flowing through the silent air, creation fluttered in a prayer, descending on a spiral stair and calling me by name. It nestled in my dreaming eyes like heaven in a lake, and softened hope into surprise for very beauty's sake. And silence blossomed into morn whose fragrant rosy-breasted dawn could scarcely bear to break. I sang into the morning light as loud as I could sing. The treetops bowed in sheer delight before the slanting wing, and all the songs of little birds who laughed and cried in silver words adored the risen spring.
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67 67 - Michael Pat, by Edward J. O'brien 1:55
Michael Patt by Edward J. O'Brien. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuk. To Anna Hempstead Branch. Old Michael Patt, he said to me, he saw an angel in a tree. He knew I'd never, never doubt him, for what would heaven be without them? The angel laughed for very glee and sang out loud, Hi! Come with me. Old Michael felt a creeping kind of wonder in his humble mind, and hardly knowing what to say, ran where the angel showed the way. The lambs were running on the hills. Glad laughter echoed from the rills, and many hidden little birds talked pleasant things in singing words. He followed up a mountain then, and saw a crowd of singing men. Approaching to a crown of light, wherein they took a fresh delight.
He danced and sang and whooped and crew, to see the Lord of all he knew, surrounded by the living songs of stars and men in countless throngs. And then he died to life again, and shoveled with the strength of ten. He taught me how to say my letters and take my hat off to my betters, and when I asked for fairy stories, he told me of angelic glories. He was a lovely farmer. He had seen an angel in a tree.
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68 68 - Song, by Edward J. O'brien 0:54
Song from Flesh-A-Gorgian Ode by Edward J. O'Brien. Ebb on with me across the sunset tide, and float beyond the waters of the world, the light of evening slipping from my side, thy softened voice in waves of silence furled. Flow on into the flaming morning wine, drowning the land in color. Then on high, rise in thy candid innocence and shine, like to a poplar straight against the sky.
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69 69 - In Memoriam: Francis Ledwidge, by Norreys Jephson O'connor 1:30
In Memoriam, Francis Ledwidge, Killed in Action, July 31, 1917, by Norris Jefferson O'Connor. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuk.
Soldier and singer of Aaron, what may I fashion for thee? What garland of words or of flowers, singer of sunlight and showers? The wind on the lee, of clouds and the houses of Aaron, we cabins white on the plain, and bright with the colors of even. Beauty of earth and of heaven, outspread beyond slain. Slain, where the Easter of Patrick flamed on the night of the gale. Guard both the honor and story. Of him who has died for the glory that crowns Innisfail, Soldier of right and of freedom, I offer thee song and not tears, With Brian and Red Hugh O'Donnell, The chiefs of Tyrone and Triconnell, Live on through the years.
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70 70 - Evensong, by Norreys Jephson O'connor 1:15
Evensong by Norris Jepson O'Connor. A shepherd piping, Herald of the night, Who comes with silence up the colored vale, Treading low gently, Clad in grayish white, poignantly piping, Sound your reedy wail, For day departed, moves in funeral train. Tended by twilight and in deepest rose, the splendid sunset melts beneath the main, while sweet the sea wind with cool softness blows, as when a mother gathers to her breast, the child who frets for dad's remembered smart. Now light fades quickly in the ashen west, and night peace falls across my troubled heart. Flutes for the night through let my mind be still, and God keep safe with him my stubborn will.
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71 71 - The Prophet, by Josephine Preston Peabody 3:13
The Prophet by Josephine Preston Peabody. Read for LibriVox.org by M. Lee. All day long he kept the sheep, far and early from the crowd, on the hills from steep to steep, where the silence cried aloud, and the shadow of the cloud wrapped him in a noonday sleep, where he dipped The waters cool, filling boyish hands from thence. Something breathed across the pool, stir of sweet enlightened mints. And he drank with thirsty scents till his heart was brimmed and full. Still the hovering voice unshed, and the vision unbeheld, and the mute sky overhead, and his longing still withheld. Even when the two tears welled, salt upon that lonely bread, vaguely blessed in the leaves, dim companioned in the sun, eager mornings, wistful eyes, very hunger drew him on, and tomorrow ever shone with the glow the sunset weaves.
Even so, to that young heart, words in hands and men were dear. And the stir of Lane and Mart, after day-long vigil here, sunset called and he drew near, still to find his path apart. When the bell with gentle tongue called the herd bells home again, through the purple shades he swung, down the mountains through the glen, towards the sound of fellow men, even from the light that clung. Dimly, too, as cloud on cloud, came that silent flock of his, thronging whiteness in a crowd, after homing twos and threes, with the longing memories of all white things dreamed and vowed, through the fragrances alone, by the sudden silent brook, from the open world unknown, to the close of speech and book. There to find the foreign look in the faces of his own.
Sharing was beyond his skill. Shyly yet he made a say. Sought to dip and share and fill. Heart's desire from day to day. But their eyes, some foreign way, looked at him and he was still. Last he reached his arms to sleep, where the vision waited dim. Still beyond some deep on deep, and the darkness folded him, eager heart and weary limb. All day long he kept the sheep.
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72 72 - Harvest-Moon: 1914, by Josephine Preston Peabody 2:25
Over the glimmering field and bleeding furrows With their sodden yield of sheaves that still did writhe After the scythe. The teeming field and darkly overstrewn with all the garnered fullness of that noon. Two looked upon each other. One was a woman men called their mother, and one the harvest moon. And one the harvest moon, who stood, who gazed on those unquiet gleanings where they bled, till the lone woman said, But we were crazed. We should laugh now together, I and you, we two. You, for your dreaming it was worth a star's while to look on and light the earth. And I, forever telling to my mind, glory it was and gladness to give birth to humankind. Yes, I that ever thought it not amiss to give the breath to men.
For men to slay again, lording it over anguish, but to give my life that men might live for this. You will be laughing now, remembering I called you once Dead World and Barren Thing. Yes, so we named you then, you far more wise than to give life to men.
Over the field. That there gave back the skies a shattered upward stare from blank white eyes. Striving a while, through many a bleeding dune of throbbing clay, but dumb and quiet soon, she looked and went her way, the harvest moon.
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73 73 - Horseman Springing From The Dark: A Dream, by Lilla Cabot Perry 1:01
Horsemen springing from the dark, a dream, by Lilla Cabot Perry. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Gachuk.
Horsemen springing from the dark, horsemen flying wild and free, tell me what shall be thy road, whither speedest far from me? From the dark into the light, from the small unto the great. From the valleys dark I ride, O'er the hills to conquer fate. Take me with thee, horseman mine, Let me madly rode with thee. As he turned, I met his eyes. My own soul looked back at me.
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74 74 - Three Quatrains, by Lilla Cabot Perry 1:29
Roxanne Maxwell. The Cup. She said, Lift high the cup. Of her arm's weariness she gave no sign, but smiling raised it up, that none might see or guess it held no wine.
Forgive me not. Hate me, and I shall know Some of love's fire still burns within your breast. Forgiveness finds its home in hearts at rest. On dead volcanoes only lies the snow.
The Rose One deep red rose I dropped. Unto his grave, so small a thing to give, so great a friend. Yet well he knew that it was my heart I gave, and must fare on without it to the end.
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75 75 - A Valentine Unsent, by Margaret Perry 1:00
Unloved, unwelcome, and apart from every joy today. Once long ago your tale was new. Days distant, yet so dear. Why say her lover still is true, when that is all her fear? Why thus recall another's pain, her tender heart to fret? Best let her think he loves again, who never can forget.
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76 76 - Shipbuilders, by Arthur Stanwood Pier 2:09
Shipbuilders by Arthur Stanwood Peer. Read for LibriVox.org by Rebecca Stern.
The German people reared them an idol made of wood, and Hindenburg before them, lifelike and stupid, stood. To clothe him all in iron, and thus his sole express, with nails and spikes they covered his wooden nakedness. And when they thus had clothed him, all in a suit of mail, still came they wild-eyed looking for space to drive a nail. Whenever Teuton airmen slay boys and girls at play, or U-boats drowning babies create a holiday, then, gathering round their statue, a happy German throng drive nails into the idol to make him still more strong. Avenge the babes, shipbuilders, that on the seas have died. Avenge the little children murdered for Wilhelm's pride. Come, gather at the shipyards and let your hammers ring, for more than ships and cargoes waits on your fashioning.
Come, gather at the shipyards, with every bolt you drive, bethink you tis the Kaiser whose brutish head you writhe. Come gather at the shipyards and swing with might and main, tis Tirpitz and the Crown Prince that you today have slain. Come gather at the shipyards and heat the metal hot, for it is Bethmann Holweg you're boiling in the pot. Come gather at the shipyards, and when the day is done, you've spent it in driving spikes in Hindenburg the Hun. Come gather at the shipyards, And toil with healthy hate. For only you can save the world. The Hun is at the gate.
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77 77 - Unfading Pictures, by Louella C. Poole 2:50
Unfading Pictures by Luella C. Poole The air from the sea came, blowing in again, mixed with the perfume of the flowers. The old-fashioned furniture, brightly rubbed and polished, by aunt's involliable chair, and table by the round green fan in the bow-window, the draguette-covered carpet, the cat, the kettle-holder, the two canaries, the old china, and wonderfully out of keeping with the rest, My dusty self upon the sofa, taking note of everything. David Copperfield Chapter 13. How many are the scenes he limned, with artist strokes clear-cut and free? Our Dickens, time shall not efface. Their charm and they will ever grace, the halls of memory. Often again we turn to them, to contemplate in pleased review.
And like some picture on the screen, comes now to mind a favorite scene. His master pencil drew. Upon a sofa, stretched in sleep, I see a small lad, spent and worn. And by the window, stern and grim, a silent figure watching him, so dusty, ragged, torn. Ah, now she rises from behind, the round green fan beside her chair. Poor fellow, croons and pity lends. Her voice new softness, and she bends, and brushes back his hair. Then in his sleep he softly stirs. Was that a dream, these murmured words? He wakes. There by the casement sat. Miss Trotwood still. Close by, her cat, and her canary birds. The peaceful calm of that quaint room, its marks of comfort everywhere, old china and mahogany, and blowing in fresh from the sea.
The perfume laid an air. Poor little pilgrim, so bereft, so weary at his journey's end. What joy must then have filled his soul to reach at last such happy goal, to find—oh, such a friend! And then night came, and from his bed he saw the sea, moonlit and bright, and dreamed there came, to bless her son, his mother with her little one, adown that path of light. Ah, greater blessing I'd not crave When my life's pilgrimage is o'er Then such repose, content and love, Some shining path that leads above To dear ones gone before. Luella C. Poole.
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78 78 - With Waves And Wings, by Charlotte Porter 1:57
With Waves and Wings by Charlotte Porter. Read for LibriVox.org by Leo Behe.
Waves and wings and growing things, As through the glad in sight ye flow and flit and glow, Ye win me so, in soul to go. I too am waves, I too am wings, And kindred motion. In me springs.
With thee I pass glad growing grass. I climb the air with lissom mean. Unsheathing keen the vivid sheen of springing green. I thrill the crude, exalt the crass, fine-flexed and fluent from earth's mass.
And impulse craves with thee sea waves. To make all mutable the floor of Earth's firm shore, With flashing pore whose brimming o'er, Impassioned motion loves and laves and livens somber slumbering caves.
Then soaring where the wild birds fare, My song would sweep the windy lair Of Heaven's choir pulsing desire for starry fire. Then soaring where the wild birds fare, my song would sweep the windy lyre of heaven's choir, pulsing desire for starry fire, abashing chilling vagues of air, with throbbing of warm breasts that dare.
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79 79 - Blueberries, by Frank Prentice Rand 1:29
Blueberries by Frank Prentice Rand. Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachok.
Upon the hills of Garlingtown, beneath the summer sky, in many pleasant pastures, on sunny slopes and high, their skins abloom with dusty blue, asleep the berries lie. And all the lads of Garlingtown, and all the lasses, too, still climb the tranquil hillsides, a merry barefoot crew, still homeward plod with unfilled pails and mouths of berry blue. And all the birds of Garlingtown, when flocking back to nest, remember well the patches where berries are the best. They pick the ripest ones at dawn and leave the lads the rest. Upon the hills of Garlingtown, when berry-time was o'er, I looked into the sunset and saw an open door, and from the hills of Garlingtown I went and came no more.
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80 80 - Nocturne, by William Roscoie Thayer 0:57
Nocturne, by William Rosu Thayer. Night of infinite power, and infinite silence in space, From you may mortals infer, if ever the scope divine. The jealous sun conceals all but his arrogant face. You bid the Milky Way and a million suns to shine. Each star to numberless planets gives light and motion and heat, but you dismantle them all, the nearest and most remote, and the lustres of all the suns are but spangles under your feet. Mere bubbles and beads of noon, they circle and shine and float.
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81 81 - Envoi, by William Roscoe Thayer 0:48
Envoy by William Roscoe Thayer. Read for LibriVox.org. I walked with poets in my youth, because the world they drew was beautiful and glorious beyond the world I knew. The poets are my comrades still, but dearer than in youth. For now I know that they alone picture the world of truth.
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82 82 - There Where the Sea, by Marie Tudor 2:39
There were the sea enwrapped, a strip of land and wind-swept dune, where nature was quiescent in the glimmering noonday sun of early June. The placid sea lay shimmering in a midst of blue, from which the sky now drew, Its wealth of hue and color. One heard but the deep breathing of the ocean, as it breathed along the shore in even motion. Among the pines and listless of the scene, Athias and Alicus lay, within the heart of each hunger, for the unknown gift of life. Here, from day to day, they met and dreamed away. The soft, unflooding days of spring, now turning to the summer, Alias, I'm faint with all the fire in my blood, and I would plunge into the quiet blue, and lose all sense of time and you.
Atheus, I, too, would plunge and swim with you. Duffing her robe, the maid stood in her beauty, calm and sure and unafraid. The sinuous splendor of her limbs, a silent symphony of curving line, which reached its final note, in breast and rounded throat. He had not known that flesh could be so fair. Each movement which she made wove o'er his sense a deeper spell. Her beauty swept him like a flame, and caught him unaware. She looked into his eyes, then dropping hers before that burning gaze, softly turned and crept with sunlit shoulders, down among the boulders, to the sea, secure within its covering depth. She called to him to follow. She led him out along the tide, with swift, unerring stroke, nor paused till he was at her side.
With conquering arm, he seized her, and from her brow tossed back the dripping locks and sought her lips. Her eyes closed, as all her body yielded to his kiss. Then home he bore her to the shore, with in his heart a song of triumph. In hers a newborn joy of womanhood, so spring for them passed on to summer. Marie Tudor.
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83 83 - Marriage, by Marie Tudor 0:53
You, who have given me your name, and with your laws have made me wife, to share your failures and your fame, whose words have made me yours for life. What proof have you that you hold me, that in reality I'm one? With you through all eternity, what proof when all is said and done? In spite of all the laws you've made, I'm free. I am no part of you. But wait, the last word is not said. You're mine, for I'm myself and you. All through my veins where flows your blood, in you there's no part of me. By virtue of my motherhood, through me you will live eternally.
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84 84 - Pity, by Harold Vinal 1:04
Pity by Harold Vanell. Read for LibriVox.org by April 6090. Oh, do not pity me because I gave. My heart when lovely April with a gust, Swept down the singing lanes with a cool wave. And do not pity me because I thrust, Aside your love that once burned as a flame. I was as thirsty as a windy flower, That bears its bosom to the summer shower. And to the unremembered winds that came, pity me most for moments yet to be, in the far years when someday I shall turn, toward this strong path up to our little door, and find it barred to all my ecstasy. No sound of your warm voice the winds have borne, only the crying sea upon the shore.
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85 85 - A Rose To The Living, by Nixon Waterman 0:44
Gall 2021, South Carolina A Rose to the Living is more than sumptuous wreaths to the dead. In filling love's infinite store, A Rose to the Living is more. If graciously given before the hungering spirit is fled, A Rose to the Living. Is more than sumptuous wreaths to the dead.
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86 86 - The Storm, by G.O. Warren 0:49
The Storm by G. O. Warren. Read for LibriVox.org by I. C. Gaw, 2021, South Carolina. She reached for sunset fires and lived with stars in the sea. The mountains for her temple, the storm for priests had she. Together a libation they poured to the God she knew, such wine as ageless heavens and lonely wisdom brew. Now she has done with worship, for all her rites are the same, yet the storm keeps green forever the moss upon her name.
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87 87 - Where They Sleep, by G.O. Warren 1:04
Where They Sleep by G. O. Warren. Read for LibriVox.org by I. C. Gaw, 2021, South Carolina. The fog in rolling, dark and still, lies deep upon the crowded dead as flooding sea upon the sands and quenches starlight overhead. Long have they slept. Their separate dust has mingled with a nameless mold. Only the slower crumbling stones still tell so much as may be told. And now in shoreless fog adrift, like some lone mariner gliding by, I lean above the drowning graves and wonder when I too shall lie. Wherevermore the tides of night and earth will hide my lonely rest, and time will bid my love forget to read the stone upon my breast.
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88 88 - Beauty, by G.O. Warren 1:10
Beauty by G. O. Warren. Not flesh alone am I, when I can be, so swiftly caught in beauty's shimmering thread, whose slender fibers, woven, held by me, with their frail strength my following heart have led. Yea, not all mortal, not all death, my mind. When, watching by lone twilight waters brim, I tremblingly decipher, as they wind, her deathless hieroglyphs, though strange and dim.
So for this faith, when thou my dust shalt bring, to dust, remember well, great alchemist, yearly to change my wintry earth to spring, that I with beauty Still may keep my tryst.
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89 89 - Comrades, by George Edward Woodberry 3:17
Where are the friends that I knew in my main, in the days of my youth, in the first of my roaming? We were dear, we were leal, oh, far we went straying. Now never a heart to my heart comes homing. Where is he now, the dark boy slender, who taught me bareback, stir up in rains? I love him, he loved me, my beautiful, tender, tamer of horses on grass-grown plains. Where is he now, whose eyes swam brighter, softer than love in his turbulent charms, who taught me to strike and to fall, dear fighter, and gathered me up in his boyhood arms, taught me the rifle, and with me went riding, suppled my limbs to the horseman's war. Where is he now? For whom my heart's biding, biding, biding, but he rides far.
O love that passes the love of woman, who that hath felt it shall never forget, when the breath of life with a throb turns human, and a lad's heart is to a lad's heart set. Ever, for ever, lover and rover, they shall cling, nor each from other shall part. Till the rains of the stars in the heavens be over, and life is dust in each faithful heart. They are dead, the American grasses under. There is no one now who presses my sides. By the African chots I am riding asunder, and with great joy ride I, the last great ride. I am fae, I am fine, of sudden dying. Thousands of miles, there is no one near. And my heart, all the night, it is crying, crying in the bosoms of dead lads, darling dear. Hearts of my music, them dark earth covers, comrades to die and to die for were they.
In the width of the world there is no such rovers. Back to back, breast to breast, it was ours to stay, and the highest on earth was the vow that we cherished. To spur forth from the crowd, and come back nevermore, and to ride in the track of great souls perished, till the nest of the lark shall roof us o'er. Yet lingers a horseman on Altai highlands, who hath the joy of me, riding the tartar glissade, and one far-faring o'er orient islands, whose blood yet glints with my blade's accolade. North, west, east, I fling you my last hallooing. Last love to the breasts where my own has bled. Through the reach of the desert my soul leaps pursuing. My star where it rises, a star of the dead.
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90 90 - The Flight, by George Edward Woodberry 1:55
The Flight by George Edward Woodbury. Read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. One. O wild heart, track the land's perfume. Beech-roses and moor heather, all fragrances of urban bloom, fail out at sea together. O follow where aloft find room, lark-song and eagle-feather. All ecstasies of throat and plume melt High on yon blue weather. O leave on sky and ocean lost, the flight creation dareth. Take wings of love that mounts the most. Find fame the furthest fareth. Thy flight, albeit amid her host, thee to-night starlike beareth, flying thy breast on heaven's coast, the infinite outweareth. II. Dead o'er us roll celestial fires. Mute stand earth's ancient beaches. Old thoughts, old instincts, old desires.
The passing hour outstretches. The soul creative never tires. Evokes, adores, beseeches. And that heart most the god inspires, whom most its wildness teaches. For I will course through falling years, and stars and cities burning. And I will march through dying cheers, Past empires unreturning. Ever the world flame reappears, where mankind power is earning. The nation's hopes, the people's tears, one with the wild heart yearning. End of Anthology of Massachusetts Poets, edited by William Stanley Braithwaite.