Short Poetry Collection 150 by Various — Free Audiobook

1 01 - America for Me 2:28

2 02 - An Argument 0:52

3 03 - As imperceptibly as Grief 1:03

4 04 - At Sea 1:15

5 05 - The Ballad of the Black Fox Skin 10:00

The Ballad of the Black Fox Skin by Robert W. Servus.

There was claw-fingered Kitty and Windy Ike, living the life of shame, when unto them in the long, long night came the man who had no name, bearing his prize of a black fox-pelt, out of the wild he came. His cheeks were blanched as the flume-head foam when the brown spring freshets flow. Deep in their dark, sin-calcined pits were his sombre eyes aglow. They knew him far for the fitful man who spat forth blood on the snow. Did ever you see such a skin, quoth he? There's naught in the world so fine, such fullness of fur as black as the night, such lustre. Such size, such shine. It's life to a one-lunged man like me. It's London, it's women, it's wine. The moose-hides call it the devil-fox, and swore that no man could kill, that he who hunted it sooner late must surely suffer some ill.

But I laughed at them, and their old squaw-tails. I'm laughing still. For look ye. The skin, it's smooth as sin, and black as the core of the pit. By gun or by trap, whatever the hap, I swore I would capture it. By star and by star, afield and afar, I hunted and would not quit. For the devil-fox it was swift and sly, and it seemed to fleer at me. I would wake in fright by the camp-fire light, hearing its evil glee. Into my dream its eyes would gleam, and its shadow would I see. It sniffed and ran from the ptarmigan I had poisoned to excess. Unharmed it sped from my wrathful lead. Twas if I shot by gas. Yet it came by night in the stark moonlight to mock at my weariness. I tracked it up where the mountains hunch like the vertebrae of the world.

I tracked it down to the death-still pits where the avalanches hurled. From the glooms to the sacrodotal snows where the carded clouds are curled. From the vastitudes where the world protrudes through clouds like seas upshould. I held its track till it led me back to the land I had left of old. The land I had looted many moons. I was weary and sick and cold. I was sick, soul-sick, of the futile chase. And there and then I swore the foul fiend-fox might scatheless go, for I would hunt no more. Then I rubbed mine eyes in a vast surprise. It stood by my cabin door. A rifle raised in the wraith-like gloom, and a vengeful shot that sped, A howl that would thrill a cream-faced corpse, and the demon fox lay dead.

Yet there was never a sign of wound, and never a drop he bled. So that was the end of the great black fox, and here is the prize I've won. And now for a drink to cheer me up, I've mushed since the early sun. We'll drink a toast to the sorry ghost of the fox whose race is run. Now claw-finger, kitty, and windy Ike, bad as the worst were they. In their road-house down by the river trail they waited and watched for prey. With wine and song they joyed night long, and they slept like swine by day. For things were done in the midnight sun that no tongue will ever tell, and men there be who walk earth free, but whose names are written hell. Are writ in flames with the guilty names of Fournier and La Belle.

Put not your trust in a poke of dust, would ye sleep the sleep of sin. For there be those who would rob your clothes ere yet the dawn comes in. And a prize likewise in a woman's eyes is a peerless black fox-skin. Put your faith in the mountain cat, if you lie within his lair. Trust the fangs of a mother wolf and the claws of a lead-ripped bear. But, oh, of the wiles and the gold-toothed smiles of a dance-hall wench, beware. Wherefore it was beyond all laws the lusts of man restrain, a man drank deep and sank to sleep, never to wake again. And the Yukon swallowed through a hole the cold corpse of the slain. The black fox skin a shadow cast from the roof nigh to the floor, and sleek it seemed, and soft it gleamed, and the woman stroked it o'er, and the man stood by with a brooding eye, and gnashed his teeth, and swore.

When thieves and thugs fall out and fight, there's fell arrears to pay, and soon or late sin meet its fate, and so it fell one day. That claw-fingered kitty and windy Ike, fanged up like dogs at bay. The skin is mine, all mine, she cried. I did the deed alone. It's share and share with guilt-yoked pair, he hissed in pregnant tone. And so they snarled like malamutes over a mildewed bone. And so they fought by fear untaught till haply it befell. One dawn of day she slipped away to Dawson Town to sell, the fruit of sin, this black fox-skin that had made their lives a hell. She slipped away as still he lay. She clutched the wondrous fur. Her pulses beat, her foot was fleet, her fear was as a spur.

She laughed with glee. She did not see him rise and follow her. The bluffs up rear and grimly peer far over Dawson Town. They see its lights a-blaze o' nights, and harshly they look down. They mock the plan and plot of man with grim, ironic frown. The trail was steep. "'Twas at the time when swiftly sinks the snow. All honeycombed the river-ice was rotting down below. The river chafed beneath its rind with many a mighty throw. And up the swift and oozy drift a woman climbed in fear, clutching to her a black fox fur as if she held it dear, and hard she pressed it to her breast. Then Windy Ike drew near. She made no moan. Her heart was stone. She read his smiling face, and like a dream flashed all her life's dark horror and disgrace, a moment only with a snarl.

He hurled her into space. She rolled for nigh an hundred feet. She bounded like a ball. From crag to crag she caromed down through snow and timber fall. A hole gaped in the river ice. The spray flashed. That was all. A bird sang for the joy of spring, so piercing, sweet, and frail. And blinding bright, the land was dight in gay and glittering mail, and with a wondrous black fox-skin a man slid down the trail. A wedge-faced man there was who ran along the river-bank, who stumbled through each drift and slew, and ever slipped and sank, and ever cursed his maker's name, and ever hooch he drank. He traveled like a hunted thing, hard-harried, sore distressed. The old Grand Mother Moon crept out from her cloud-quilted nest.

The aged mountains mocked at him in their primeval rest. Grim shadows diapered the snow. The air was strangely mild. The valley's girth was dumb with mirth, the laughter of the wild, the still sardonic laughter of an ogre or a child. The river writhed beneath the ice. It groaned like one in pain, and yawning chasms opened wide and closed and yawned again, and sheets of silver heaved on high until they split in twain. From out the road-house by the trail they saw a man afar, make for the narrow river reach where the swift cross-currents are, where, frail and worn, the ice is torn and the angry waters jar. But they did not see him crash and sink into the icy flow. They did not see him clinging there, gripped by the under-toe, clawing with bleeding finger-nails at the jagged ice and snow.

They found a note beside the hole where he had stumbled in. Here met his fate by evil luck a man who lived in sin. And to the one who loves me least I leave this black fox-skin. And strange it is, for though they searched the river all around, no trace or sign of black fox-skin was ever after found. Though one man said he saw the tread of hoofs deep in the ground.

6 06 - The Burning Babe 1:33

7 07 - Discovered 1:17

8 08 - Iris 1:26

9 09 - Keep Going 1:51

10 10 - The Light on the Wreck 1:59

11 11 - A Man Of Many Parts 1:28

12 12 - The Mental Traveller 4:23

The Mental Traveller by William Blake.

I traveled through a land of men, a land of men and women, too, and heard and saw such dreadful things as cold earth-wanderers never knew. For there the babe is born in joy, That was begotten in dire woe, just as we reap in joy the fruit which we in bitter tears did sow. And if the babe is born a boy, he's given to a woman old, who knells him down upon a rock, catches his shrieks in cups of gold. She binds iron thorns around his head, and pierces both his hands and feet, and cuts his heart out of his side, to make it feel both cold and heat. Her fingers number every nerve, Just as a miser counts his gold. She lives upon his shrieks and cries, and she grows young as he grows old. Till he becomes a bleeding youth, and she becomes a virgin bright.

Then he rends up his manacles, and pins her down for his delight. He plants himself in all her nerves, just as a husband mun his mould, and she becomes his dwelling-place and garden fruitful seventyfold. An aged shadow soon he fades, Wandering round an earthly cot, Fulfilled all with gems and gold, which he by industry had got. And these are the gems of the human soul, The rubies and pearls of a lovesick eye, The countless gold of an aching heart, The martyrs groan and the lovers sigh. They are his meat, they are his drink, He feeds the beggar and the poor, And the wayfaring traveller for ever open is his door, His grief is their eternal joy, They make the roofs and walls to ring, till from the fire on the hearth a little female babe does spring, and she is all of solid fire and gems and gold that Nani's hand dare stretch to touch her baby form, or wrap her in his swaddling band.

But she comes to the man she loves, if young or old, or rich or poor. They soon drive out the aged host, the beggar at another's door. He wanders weeping far away, until some other take him in, aft blind and age-bent, sore distressed, Until he can a maiden win, and to allay his freezing age, the poor man takes her in his arms. The cottage fades before his sight, the garden and its lovely charms. The guests are scattered through the land, for the eye altering alters all. The senses roll themselves in fear, and the flat earth becomes a ball. The stars, sun, moon all shrink away, a desert vast without a bound, and nothing left to eat or drink, and the dark desert all around. The honey of her infant lips, the bread and wine of her sweet smile, the wild game of her roving eye, does him to infancy beguile.

For as he eats and drinks, he grows younger and younger every day, and on the desert wild they both wander in terror and dismay. Like the wild stag she flees away, her fear plants many a thicket wild, while he pursues her night and day, by various arts of love beguiled, by various arts of love and hate, Till the wide desert planted o'er, with labyrinths of wayward love, where roams the lion-wolf and boar, till he becomes a wayward babe, and she a weeping woman old. Then many a lover wanders here, the sun and stars are nearer old. The trees bring forth sweet ecstasy to all who in the desert roam, till many a city there is built, and many a pleasant shepherd's home. But when they find the frowning babe, Terror strikes through the region wide.

They cry, The babe, the babe is born, and flee away on every side. For who dare touch the frowning form, his arm is withered to its root. Lions, boars, wolves, all howling flee, and every tree does shed its fruit. And none can touch that frowning form, except it be a woman old. She nails him down upon the rock, and all is done, as I have told.

13 13 - Never give all the heart 1:07

14 14 - NO! 1:32

15 15 - November 0:52

16 16 - Private Theatricals 1:38

17 17 - The Snows They Melt The Soonest 1:41

18 18 - The Southerly Buster 3:25

The Southerly Buster by Henry Lawson.

The Southerly Buster. There's a wind that blows out of the south in the drought, and we pray for the touch of his breath, when Sirocco's come forth from the north-west and north, or in dead calms of fever and death. With eyes glad and dim, we should sing him a hymn, for depression and death are his foes, and he gives us new life for the bread-winning strife, when the glorious old Southerly blows. Old Southerly, buster your forces you muster, where seldom a wind bloweth twice, and your whitecaps have hint of the snowcaps and glint of the faraway barriers of ice. No wind the wide sea on can sing such a peon. Or do the great work that you do. Our own winden only, from seas wild and lonely, old southerly buster, to you.

Oh, the city is baked, and its thirst is unslaked, though it swallows ice-drinks by the score, and the blurred sky is low, and the air seems aglow, as if breezes would cool it no more. We are watching all hands where the post office stands. We are watching out hopefully too. For a red light shall glower from the post office tower when the southerly buster is due. The yachts run away at the end of the day from the breakers commencing to comb, for a few he may swamp in the health-giving romp with the friendly old southerly home. But he never drowns one, for the drowning is done by the fools or the reckless in sport, and the alleys and slums shall be cooled when he comes. With the weary wind-jammers to port.

Oh, softly he plays through the city's hot ways, To the beds where their calling come quick. He is gentle and mild round the feverish child, And he cools the hot brow of the sick. Clearing drought-hazy skies up the north coast he hies, Till the mouths of our rivers are fair, And along the sea, too, he has good work to do, For he takes the old timber-tubs there. Tis a glorious mission, old Sydney's physician, broom-bucket and cloth of the East. Tis a breeze and a sprayer that answers our prayer, and it's free to the greatest and least. The red lamp's a warning to drought and at scorning, a sign to the city at large. Hence headache and worry, despondency hurry, old southerly busters in charge. Old southerly buster, your forces you muster, where seldom a wind bloweth twice, and your whitecaps have hint of the snowcaps and glint of the faraway barriers of ice.

No wind the wide sea on can sing such a peon, or do the great work that you do. Our own wind and only, from sea's wild and lonely, old southerly buster, to you.

19 19 - Thanksgiving 2:21

20 20 - The Teak Forest 5:43

The Teague Forest by Laurence Hope.

Whether I loved you, who shall say? Whether I drifted down your way in the endless river of chance and change, and you woke the strange unknown longings that have no names, but burn us all in their hidden flames, who shall say?

Life is a strange and a wayward thing. We heard the bells of the temples ring, the married children, in passing, sing. The month of marriage, the month of spring, was full of the breath of sunburnt flowers that bloom in a fiercer light than ours, and, under a sky more fiercely blue, I came to you.

You told me tales of your vivid life, where death was cruel and danger-rife, of deep, dark forests, of poisoned trees, of pains and passions that scorch and freeze, of southern noontides and eastern nights, where love grew frantic with strange delights, while men were slaying and maidens danced, till I, who listened, lay still entranced. Then, Swift as a swallow heading south, I kissed your mouth.

One night, when the plains were bathed in blood from sunset light in a crimson flood, we wandered under the young teak-trees, whose branches wind in the light night breeze. He led me down to the water's brink, the spring where panthers come to drink at night. There is always water here, be the season never so parched and sere.

Have we souls of beasts in the forms of men? I fain would have tasted your life-blood then.

The night fell swiftly, this sudden land, can never lend us a twilight strand, twixt the daylight shore and the ocean night, but takes, as it gives, at once, the light. We laid us down on the steep hill-side, while far below us wild peacocks cried, and we sometimes heard in the sunburnt grass, The stealthy steps of the jungle pass. We listened, knew not whether they went, On love or hunger the more intent, And under your kisses I hardly knew Whether I loved or hated you. But your words were flame, and your kisses fire, And who shall resist a strong desire? Not I, whose life is a broken boat On a sea of passions adrift afloat.

Whether I came in love or hate, that I came to you was written by fate, in every hue of the blood-red sky, in every tone of the peacock's cry, while every gust of the jungle night was fanning the flame you had set alight. For these things have power to stir the blood and compel us all to their own chance mood. And to love or not we are no more free than a ripple to rise and leave the sea.

We are ever and always slaves of these, the suns that scorch and the winds that freeze, of the faint sweet scents of the sultry air, of the half-heard howl from the far-off lair. These chance things master us ever, compel to the heights of heaven, the depths of hell. Whether I love you? You do not ask, nor waste yourself on the thankless task. I give your kisses at least return, what matter whether they freeze or burn? I feel the strength of your fervent arms, what matter whether it heals or harms?

You are wise, you take what the gods have sent, you ask no questions but rest content. So I am with you to take your kiss, and perhaps I value you more for this. For this is wisdom, to love, to live, to take what fate, or the gods, may give, to ask no question, to make no prayer, to kiss the lips and caress the hair, speed passion's ebb as you greet its flow, to have, to hold, and, in time, let go.

And this is our wisdom. We rest together on the great lone hills in the storm-filled weather, and watch the skies as they pale and burn, the golden stars in their orbits turn, while love is with us, and time and peace, and life has nothing to give but these. But whether you love me, who shall say, or whether you, drifting down my way in the great sad river of chance and change, with your looks so weary and words so strange, Lit my soul from some hidden flame to a passionate longing without a name. Who shall say? Not I, who am but a broken boat, content for a while to drift afloat in the little noontide of love's delights between two nights.

21 21 - A Tom O' Bedlam Song 7:17

A Timber Bedlam Song From the hag and hungry goblin that into rags would rend ye, All the spirits that stand by the naked man, In the book of moons defend ye, That of your five sound senses ye never be forsaken, Nor never travel from yourselves with time abroad, To beg your bacon. Now never sing any food and feeding, money, drink, or clothing. Come dame or maid, be not afraid. Poor Tom will injure nothing. Of thirty bare years have I twice twenty been enraged, and of forty been three times. Endurance, soundly caged, in the lovely lofts of Bedlam, instable, soft and dainty, brave bracelet-strong, sweet whips, ding-dong, and a wholesome hunger plentiful Tea. Yet did I sing, any food and feeding, money, drink or clothing.

Come dame or maybe not afraid, poor town will injure nothing.

With a thought I took for maudlin, and a cruise of cockle-pottage, and a thing thus tall, Sky, bless you all. I fell into this dotage. I slept not since the conquest. Till then I never waked till the roguish boy of love where I lay me found and stripped me naked. Yet do I sing any food and feeding, money, drink, or clothing? Come dame or maid, be not afraid. Poor Tom will injure nothing. When shot, I have shone my sow's face and swigged. My haunted barrel in an oaken inn, do I pawn my skin as a suit of gilt apparel. The moon's my constant mistress, and the lonely owl my marrow. The flaming drink, and the night crow make me music to my sorrow.

Yet do I sing any food and feeding, money, drink, or clothing? Come day, my maid, be not afraid. Poor Tom will injure nothing. The palsy plead these pounces when a prig your pigs are pulling, your culvers take, oh, mateless mate. Your chanticleer and sullen when a want provide with hump me a sup, and when be night dead. To repose in pause with waking souls, and never am affrighted. Yet do I sing any food and feeding, money, drink, or clothing. Come, dame or maid, be not afraid. Poor Tom will injure nothing. I know more than Apollo, for oft when he lies sleeping, I behold the stars at mottled wares, and the rounded welkin weeping. The moon embraces her shepherd, and the Queen of love, a warrior, while the first doth haunt the stars of the morn, and the next the heavenly farrier.

And yet do us sink any food and feeding, money, drink, a clothing, can tame a maid. Be not afraid. Poor time will injure nothing.

With a host of furious fancies, whereof I am commander. With a burning spear and a horse of air. To the wilderness I wandered with a night of ghosts and shadows. I summoned them to turning ten leagues beyond the wide world's end. I methinks it is no journey. Yet do us sing any food? And feeding, money, drink, a clothing. Come, dame, or maid, be not afraid. Poor Tom will injure nothing.

22 22 - The Two Songs 1:29

23 23 - Up-Hill 0:52

24 24 - The Wizard's Funeral 1:22

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