Chapters 20
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1 Asleep 0:43
A Sleep A Sleep A Sleep O sleep a little while, White Pearl, and let me kneel, and let me pray to thee, and let me call heaven's blessing on thine eyes. And let me breathe into the happy air that doth unfold and touch thee all about, vows of my slavery, my giving up, My sudden adoration. My great love.
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2 Change Upon Change 1:43
Change upon Change by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Five months ago the stream did flow. The lilies bloomed within the sedge, and we were lingering to and fro, where none will track thee in this snow, along the stream beside the hedge.
Ah, sweet! Be free to love and go, for if I do not hear thy foot, the frozen river is as mute. The flowers have dried down to the root. And why, since these be changed since May, shouldst thou change less than they?
And slow, slow is the winter's snow. The tears have drifted to mine eyes. And my poor cheeks, five months ago, Set blushing at thy praises so, Put paleness on for a disguise.
Ah, sweet, be free to praise and go, For if my face is turned too pale, It was thine oath that first did fail. It was thy love proved false and frail. And why, Since these be changed now, should I change less than thou?
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3 Ebb 0:32
I know what my heart is like since your love died. It is like a hollow ledge, holding a little pool left there by the tide, a little tepid pool drying inward from the edge.
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4 Full of Life Now Compact Visible 1:21
Full of Life Now, Compact, Visible. I, forty years old, the eighty-third year of the States, To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence, To you, yet unborn, these seeking you. To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence, to you yet unborn, these seeking you. When you read these, I, that am visible, am become invisible. Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me. Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your comrade. Be it as if I were with you. Be not too certain, but I am now with you.
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5 Genesis 0:37
Genesis by John Hall Ingham. Read for LibriVox.org by Clarica.
Did chaos form, and water, air, and fire? Rocks, trees, the worm, work toward humanity, that man at last, beneath the churchyard spire, might be once more the worm, the rock, the tree.
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6 I Heard It Was Charged Against Me 1:07
I hear it was charged against me.
I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy institutions. But really, I am neither for nor against institutions. What, indeed, have I in common with them? Or what with the destruction of them? Only I will establish, in the Manhattan, and in every city of these states, inland and seaboard, and in the fields and woods, and above every keel, little or large, that dents the water, without edifice or rules or trustees or any argument, the institution of the dear love of comrades.
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7 The Lady's Yes 1:54
The Lady's Yes, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Yes, I answered you last night. No, this morning, sir, I say. Colors seen by candle-light will not look the same by day. When the tabers played their best, lamps above and laughs below, Love me sounded like a jest, fit for yes or fit for no. Call me false or call me free. Vow whatever light may shine. No man on your face shall see any grief for change on mine. Yet the sin is on us both. Time to dance is not to woo. Woo our light makes fickle troth. Scorn of me recoils on you.
Learn to win a lady's faith, nobly, as the thing is high, bravely, as for life and death, with a loyal gravity. Lead her from the festive boards, point her to the starry skies, guard her by your truthful words, peer from courtship's flatteries.
By her truth she shall be true, ever true as wives of yore. And her yes, once said to you, shall be yes for evermore.
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8 The Look 0:29
The Look by Sara Teasdale.
Streffan kissed me in the spring, Robin in the fall, But Colin only looked at me and never kissed at all. Streffan's kiss was lost in jest, Robin's lost in play, But the kiss in Colin's eyes haunts me night and day.
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9 A Man's Requirements 2:39
A Man's Requirements Love me sweet with all thou art, Feeling, thinking, seeing. Love me in the lightest part, Love me in full being. Love me with thine open youth In its frank surrender, With the vowing of thy mouth. With its silence tender. Love me with thine azure eyes, made for earnest grantings. Taking color from the skies, can heaven's truth be wanting? Love me with their lids that fall, snow-like at first meeting. Love me with thine heart that all neighbors then see beating. Love me with thine hand stretched out, freely open-minded. Love me with thy loitering foot, hearing one behind it.
Love me with thy voice that turns, sudden faint above me. Love me with thy blush that burns when I murmur, Love me.
Love me with thy thinking soul, Break it to love-sighing. Love me with thy thoughts that roll on through living, dying. Love me in thy gorgeous airs when the world has crowned thee. Love me kneeling at thy prayers with the angels round thee. Love me pure as muses do up the woodlands shady. Love me gaily, fast and true, as a winsome lady.
Through all hopes that keep us brave, farther off or nigher, love me for the house and grave, and for something higher. Thus, if thou wilt prove me, dear, woman's love no fable, I will love thee half a year. As a man is able.
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10 Night-Wind 1:21
Night Wind by Beatrix de Maris Lloyd.
Like some great pearl from out the Orient, upheld by unseen hands, in its rich weight an offering to adorn a queen's proud state.
That offering, to adorn a queen's proud state, that some dependent princeling did present, The moon, slow rises into night's dark tent. The pulseless air, with longings vague, befrate, now quickens neath her gaze, now doth inflate the still-poised midnight clouds in heaven pent. With jealous haste he draws them o'er her face, and by his right forbids all other eyes to note her beauty and to praise her grace. Then up on lovers' wings to her he flies, impatient for the joy of her embrace, and, to the earth, are wafted down his sighs.
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11 Not Heat Flames Up and Consumes 1:25
Not Heap Flames Up and Consumes Not heat flames up and consumes Not sea waves hurry in and out Not the air delicious and dry The air of ripe summer Bears lightly along white down-balls Of myriads of seeds. Wafted Sailing gracefully, to drop where they may. Not these! O none of these more than the flames of me, consuming, burning for his love whom I love! O none more than I hurrying in and out! Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? O I the same! O, nor downballs, nor perfumes, nor the high rain-emitting clouds are borne through the open air, any more than my soul is borne through the open air, wafting in all directions, O love, for friendship, for you.
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12 Ode to Stephen Dowling Bots 1:33
Ode to Stephen Dowling Botts by Mark Twain. And did young Stephen sicken? And did young Stephen die? And did the sad hearts thicken? And did the mourners cry? No, such was not the fate of young Stephen Dowling Botts, though sad hearts round him thickened. Was not from sicknesses shots. No whooping cough did rack his frame, nor measles drear with spots. Not these impair'd the sacred name of Stephen Dowling-Botz. Despised love struck not with woe, that head of curly knots, nor stomach troubles laid him low, young Stephen Dowling-Botz. Oh, no! Then list with tearful eye, whilst I his fate do tell, his soul did from his cold world fly by falling down a well. They got him out and emptied him. Alas, it was too late.
His spirit was gone for to sport aloft in the realms of the good and great.
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13 The Prairie-Grass Dividing 1:26
The Prairie Grass Dividing, its special odor breathing. I demand of it the spiritual corresponding. Demand the most copious and close companionship of men. Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings. Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious. Those that go their own gate, erect, stepping with freedom and command, leading not following. Those with a never-quelled audacity. Those with sweet and lusty flesh, clear of taint. Those that look carelessly in the faces of presidents and governors as to say, Who are you? Those of earth-born passion, simple, never constrained, never obedient. Those of inland America.
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14 She Walks In Beauty 1:35
She Walks in Beauty She Walks in Beauty like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes.
Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less, Had half impaired the nameless grace, Which waves in every raven tress, Or softly lightens o'er her face.
Where thoughts serenely sweet express How pure, how dear, their dwelling place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, The smiles that win, the tints that glow, But tell of days in goodness spent, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent.
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15 That Shadow My Likeness 0:49
That Shadow, My Likeness, That Goes To and Fro, Seeking a livelihood, Chattering, chafing. How often I find myself standing, And looking at it where it flits! How often I question and doubt Whether that is really me! But among my lovers, and caroling these songs, oh, I never doubt whether that is really me.
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16 This Moment Yearning and Thoughtful 1:04
This moment, yearning and thoughtful, sitting alone. It seems to me there are other men in other lands yearning and thoughtful. It seems to me that I can look over and behold them in Germany, Italy, France, Spain. Or far, far away, in China, or in Russia or Japan, talking other dialects. And it seems to me if I could know these men, I should become attached to them as I do men in my own lands. Oh, I know we would be brethren and lovers. I know I should be happy with them.
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17 The Three Fishers 1:32
The Three Fishers by Charles Kingsley. Three fishers went sailing away to the west, away to the west as the sun went down. Each thought on the woman who loved him the best, and the children stood watching them out of the town. For men must work, and women must weep, and there's little to earn and many to keep. Though the harbor bar be moaning. Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower, and they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down. They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower, and the night-rack came rolling up, ragged and brown. But men must work, and women must weep, though storms be sudden and waters deep, and the harbor bar be moaning. Three corpses lay out on the shining sands, in the morning gleam as the tide went down, and the women are weeping and wringing their hands for those who will never come home to the town.
For men must work, and women must weep, and the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep, and good-bye to the bar and its moaning.
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18 To The Secret Rose 2:11
By Caitlin Cooper, in Covington, Louisiana, December 22, 2007. Far off, most secret and inviolate rose, and fold me in my hour of hours, were those who sought thee at the Holy Sepulchre, or in the wine-vat, Dwell beyond the stir and tumult of defeated dreams, and deep among pale eyelids, heavy with the sleep men have named beauty. Your great leaves enfold the ancient beards, the helms of ruby and gold of the crowned magi, and the king whose eyes saw the pierced hands and rude of elder rise in druid vapor, and make the torches dim, till vain frenzy awoke and he died. And him who met Fan walking among flaming dew by a gray shore where the wind never blew, and lost the world in Ymir for a kiss, and him who drove the gods out of their lists until a hundred morns had flowered red, feasted and wept the barrows of his dead, and the proud dreaming king who flung the crown in sorrow away, and calling bard and clown, dwelt among wine-stained wanderers in deep woods.
And him who sold tillage and house and goods, and sought through lands and islands numberless years, until he found with laughter and with tears a woman of so shining loveliness that men threshed corn at midnight by a tress, a little stolen tress. Ay, to await the hour of thy great wind of love and hate, when shall the stars be blown about the sky, like the sparks blown out of a smithy and die? Surely thine hour has come, thy great wind blows, far off, most secret and inviolate rose.
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19 To a Lady, Asking him how Long he would Love her 0:58
Sir George Etheridge, to a lady asking him how long he would love her.
It is not, Celia, in our power, to say how long our love will last. It may be we within this hour may lose those joys we now do taste. The Blest That immortal be, from change in love, our only free. Then, since we mortal lovers are, ask not how long our love will last, but while it does, let us take care, each minute be with pleasure past. Were it not madness to deny to live, because we are sure to die?
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20 Youth, Day, Old Age, and Night 0:57
Youth, large, lusty, loving. Youth full of grace, force, fascination. Do you know that old age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination? Day full-blown and splendid. Day of the immense sun. Action, ambition, laughter. The night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep, and restoring darkness.