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By: Thomas Hood (1799-1845) | |
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Death-bed
Thomas Hood was an English poet, author, and humourist, best known for poems such as The Bridge of Sighs and The Song of the Shirt. Hood wrote regularly for The London Magazine, the Athenaeum, and Punch. He later published a magazine largely consisting of his own works. Hood, never robust, lapsed into invalidism by the age of 41 and died at the age of 45. William Michael Rossetti in 1903 called him "the finest English poet" between the generations of Shelley and Tennyson. |
By: Various | |
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Birds and All Nature, Vol. IV, No 6, December 1898
"Birds and All Nature" was a monthly publication of the Nature Study Publishing Company of Chicago. It includes short poems and brief descriptions of birds, animals and other natural subjects with accompanying color plates. The magazine was published from 1897-1907 under the various titles, "Birds," "Birds and all Nature," "Nature and Art" and "Birds and Nature." |
By: Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942) | |
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Watchman and Other Poems
While L. M. Montgomery is better known for her novels, such as Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon, she also wrote hundreds of poems. Her love of beauty, nature, and the sea is evident in this, the only volume of her poetry published during her lifetime. | |
By: Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806-1867) | |
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Belfry Pigeon
Nathaniel Parker Willis, also known as N. P. Willis, was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day. For a time, he was the employer of former slave and future writer Harriet Jacobs. |
By: William Combe (1742-1823) | |
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Tour of Dr. Syntax in Search of the Picturesque
“To bury these, to christen those, And marry such fond folks who chose To change the tenor of their life And risk the matrimonial strife.” This was the humdrum life of Dr. Syntax before he set out on his bizarre and hilarious adventures, presented here in the form of satirical poem in 26 cantos. It’s a lot of fun! |
By: Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) | |
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Song from the Suds
Librivox volunteers bring you 16 readings of A Song from the Suds, by Louisa May Alcott, author of novels like Little Women. This was the fortnightly poem for June 7-21, 2015. |
By: Herbert Allen Giles (1845-1935) | |
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Chinese Poetry in English Verse (古今詩選)
Dear Land of Flowers, forgive me! -- that I tookThese snatches from thy glittering wealth of song, And twisted to the uses of a book Strains that to alien harps can na'er belong. Thy gems shine purer in their native bed Concealed, beyond the pry of vulgar eyes; And there, through labyrinths of language led, The patient student grasps the glowing prize. Yet many, in their race toward other goals, May joy to feel, albeit at second-hand, Some far faint heart-throb of poetic souls Whose breath makes incense in the flowery Land. Introductory poem by H.A.G. |
By: Michael Field (1862/1846-1913/1914) | |
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July
Michael Field was a pseudonym used for the poetry and verse drama of Katharine Harris Bradley (27 October 1846 – 26 September 1914) and her niece and ward Edith Emma Cooper (12 January 1862 – 13 December 1913). As Field they wrote around 40 works together, and a long journal Works and Days. Their intention was to keep the pen-name secret, but it became public knowledge, not long after they had confided in their friend Robert Browning. |
By: Various | |
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Short Poetry Collection 146
This is a collection of 29 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for July 2015. |
By: Henry Kendall (1839-1882) | |
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God Help Our Men at Sea
Kendall was born in a settler's hut by Yackungarrah Creek near Ulladulla, New South Wales, Australia. He was registered as Thomas Henry Kendall, but never appears to have used his first name. His three volumes of verse were all published under the name of "Henry Kendall". ( Wikipedia ) |
By: Julia Caroline Dorr (1825-1913) | |
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Afternoon Songs
This is a volume of poems by Julia Caroline Dorr, part 5 of her collected poems. |
By: Matthew Arnold (1822-1888) | |
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Lake
Matthew Arnold was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. Matthew Arnold has been characterised as a sage writer, a type of writer who chastises and instructs the reader on contemporary social issues. He is sometimes called the third great Victorian poet, along with Alfred, Lord Tennyson and Robert Browning. This week's poem is the first part of Arnold's Lyric Poem 'Switzerland'. |
By: John Donne (1572-1631) | |
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Anniversary Poems
Elizabeth Drury, daughter of Donne's patron, Sir Robert Drury, died in 1610. A year later Donne laments her hyperbolically as the soul of the created universe. In "An Anatomy of the World: The First Anniversary," he poetically scrutinizes that year-old corpse, the world, as if he were performing an autopsy (an "anatomy"). He finds it corrupt in every part, the dead woman having carried with her every spark of goodness it once contained. To commemorate the second anniversary of Miss Drury's death,... |
By: Various | |
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Travels in Lancashire
A collection of fiction, non-fiction and poetry on travels in Lancashire, England, with occasional sorties into adjacent counties. |
By: Michael Field (1862/1846-1913/1914) | |
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September
Michael Field was a pseudonym used for the poetry and verse drama of Katharine Harris Bradley (27 October 1846 – 26 September 1914) and her niece and ward Edith Emma Cooper (12 January 1862 – 13 December 1913). As Field they wrote around 40 works together, and a long journal Works and Days. Their intention was to keep the pen-name secret, but it became public knowledge, not long after they had confided in their friend Robert Browning. |
By: Various | |
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Short Poetry Collection 150
This is a collection of 24 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for November 2015. |
By: Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) | |
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Leaves
Autumn, interchangeably known as fall in North America, is one of the four temperate seasons. Autumn marks the transition from summer into winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March (Southern Hemisphere), when the arrival of night becomes noticeably earlier and the temperature cools considerably. One of its main features is the shedding of leaves from deciduous trees. In North America, autumn is usually considered to start with the September equinox (21 or 22) and end with the winter solstice (21 or 22 December). (Wikipedia) |
By: Various | |
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Short Poetry Collection 149
This is a collection of 38 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for October 2015. |
By: Julia Caroline Dorr (1825-1913) | |
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Later Poems
This is the last volume in Julia Caroline Dorr's collected poems, the Later Poems. |
By: Anonymous | |
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Keepsake (version 2)
This is a cute little volume of poems for children. Listeners may wish to refer to the text to see the pretty illustrations. |
By: Ann Hawkshaw (1812-1885) | |
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Dionysius the Areopagite, with other poems
An early figure in the birth of poetry in industrial Manchester, Ann Hawkshaw published three collections and another was circulated privately. Her first collection. published in Manchester and London in 1842, begins with an epic poem, Dionysius the Areopagite. Based on the New Testament story of the conversion of Dionysius by St Paul, much of the poem centres on the consequences of Dionysius' conversion for his betrothed, Myra, and her sister, Corrina. The collection also includes two of Hawkshaw's most important works, The Past and The Future, and a number of shorter poems on themes of history, loss and faith. |
By: Various | |
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Selection of 19th Century Scientific Verse
In the 18th and early 19th centuries, it was common for discoveries in branches of science such as botany, astronomy and medicine to be described in book-length treatises in verse. By the end of the 19th century this mode of popularising science was falling from favour as the studies of science and the humanities diverged and study became more specialised.This small selection of somewhat lighter-hearted verse written by distinguished scientists and mathematicians of the day includes poems by James Clerk Maxwell, William J. Macquorn Rankine and James Joseph Sylvester. |
By: Hamlin Garland (1860-1940) | |
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In the Autumn Grass
LibriVox volunteers take us out on the prairie among the wind and blue stem with readings of In the Autumn Grass by Hamlin Garland. This is the fortnightly poem for November 8, 2015. |
By: Augusta Webster (1837-1894) | |
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Mother and Daughter
Uncompleted at her death, Augusta Webster's posthumously published sonnet sequence Mother and Daughter celebrates the relationship between a mother and her only child. As well as reflecting on aging and mortality, the sonnets express joy and love. This volume includes seven additional sonnets on other themes. |
By: Helen Hunt Jackson (1830-1885) | |
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November
Helen Maria Hunt Jackson, born Helen Fiske was an American poet and writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government. She described the adverse effects of government actions in her history A Century of Dishonor (1881). Her novel Ramona* (1884) dramatized the federal government's mistreatment of Native Americans in Southern California after the Mexican–American War and attracted considerable attention to her cause. Commercially popular, it was estimated to have been reprinted 300 times and most readers liked its romantic and picturesque qualities rather than its political content... |
By: Various | |
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Christmas in Poetry - Carols and Poems
This is a volume of Christmas poems and carols, by various authors and from various times. |
By: William Cowper (1731-1800) | |
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Retired Cat
William Cowper was an English poet and hymnodist. One of the most popular poets of his time, Cowper changed the direction of 18th century nature poetry by writing of everyday life and scenes of the English countryside. In many ways, he was one of the forerunners of Romantic poetry. His religious sentiment and association with John Newton (who wrote the hymn "Amazing Grace") led to much of the poetry for which he is best remembered. His poem "Light Shining out of Darkness" gave English the phrase: "God moves in a mysterious way/His wonders to perform." Wikipedia |
By: Various | |
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Short Poetry Collection 129
This is a collection of 13 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for February 2014. |
By: Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis (-2nd Cent.) | |
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Satires
Decimus Iunius Iuvenalis, known in English as Juvenal, was a Roman poet active in the late 1st and early 2nd century AD. The details of the author's life are unclear, although references within his text to known persons of the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD fix his terminus post quem (earliest date of composition). The Satires are a collection of satirical poems by Juvenal written in the late 1st and early 2nd centuries AD. Juvenal is credited with sixteen known poems divided among five books; all are in the Roman genre of satire, which, at its most basic in the time of the author, comprised a wide-ranging discussion of society and social mores in dactylic hexameter... |
By: Various | |
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Short Poetry Collection 141
This is a collection of 27 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for February 2015. |
By: Omar Khayyám (1048-1131) | |
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Quatrains of Omar Khayyam of Nishapur
In 1906, Eben Francis Thompson,scholar and poet, published a limited edition of his translation of the Quatrains of Omar Khayyam. This edition contains 878 quatrains, and represents the most extensive translation of Omar's rubai in any language.In the Introduction, Nathan Haskell Dole writes: Mr Thompson has put into English verse this whole body of Persian poetry. It is a marvel of close translation, accurate and satisfactory. He has succeeded in doing exactly what he set out to do - to add nothing and to take nothing away, but to put into the typical quatrain, as determined by Fitzgerald and others, exactly what Omar and his unknown imitators said. |
By: Bhartṛhari (c. 400-500) | |
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Vairagya Shatakam
Vairagya Shatakam is one of the best books that gives the true picture of Renunciation. The book talks on how a common man gets lured by the endless desires which when satisfied fetches him nothing but the desires again. It concludes saying how these unsatiable desires mislead the man from knowing his real nature-omnipotence, omnipresence and omniscience! |
By: Various | |
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Short Poetry Collection 130
This is a collection of 17 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for March 2014. | |
Short Poetry Collection 114
This is a collection of poems read by LibriVox volunteers for November 2012. |
By: Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) | |
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Widow's House
LibriVox volunteers bring you 12 recordings of The Widows' House by Sarah Orne Jewett. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for November 11, 2012.Sarah Orne Jewett was an American novelist and short story writer, best known for her local color works set along or near the southern seacoast of Maine. |
By: Thomas Moore (1779-1852) | |
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Meeting of the Waters
LibriVox volunteers bring you 16 recordings of The Meeting of the Waters by Thomas Moore. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for November 25, 2102. |
By: Anonymous | |
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My Comforter
LibriVox volunteers bring you 17 recordings of My Comforter by anonymous. This was the Weekly Poetry project for November 25, 2012. |
By: Page Andrews (1879-1947) | |
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Dixie Book of Days
The author used a yearly calendar to focus on pieces written by Southern authors. Many of these writers are little known, having created for their own enjoyment or peace of mind, not necessarily for publication. |
By: Various | |
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Short Poetry Collection 115
This is a collection of poems read by LibriVox volunteers for December 2012. |
By: Eugene Field (1850-1895) | |
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Dibdin’s Ghost
LibriVox volunteers bring you 12 recordings of Dibdin’s Ghost by Eugene Field. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for December 30, 2012.This Fortnightly Poem is taken from An American Anthology, 1787–1900, edited by Edmund Clarence Stedman,(1833–1908). |
By: Rudyard Kipling (1868-1936) | |
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Smoke Upon Your Altar Dies
LibriVox volunteers bring you 15 recordings of The Smoke Upon Your Altar Dies by Rudyard Kipling. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 6, 2013.Joseph Rudyard Kipling was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist chiefly remembered for his tales and poems of British soldiers in India, and his tales for children. Kilping was one of the most popular writers in England, in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1907 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, making him the first English-language writer to receive the prize, and to date he remains its youngest recipient... |
By: Various | |
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Long Poems Collection 008
LibriVox’s Long Poems Collection 008: a collection of 14 public-domain poems longer than 10 minutes in length. |
By: C. J. Dennis (1876-1938) | |
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Australaise
LibriVox volunteers bring you 6 recordings of The Austra--laise by C.J.Dennis. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for January 13, 2013.THE AUSTRALAISE is a poem composed by C.J. Dennis, widely considered to the poet laureate of vernacular verse in Australia. It first appeared in his collection, Backblock Ballads and Other Verses, the first edition of which was published in 1913. A source from which Dennis drew inspiration was W.T. Goodge's poem The Great Australian Adjective, which first appeared in the Bulletin in 1898... |
By: Walter Malone (1866-1915) | |
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Opportunity
LibriVox volunteers bring you 19 recordings of Opportunity by Walter Malone. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for January 27, 2013.Walter Malone was born in DeSoto Count, Mississippi. He wrote 2 volumes of poetry before he was 20 years old. He joined his brother in law practice, but continued to publish several collections of his poems over the years. |
By: Hamlin Garland (1860-1940) | |
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Do You Fear the Wind?
LibriVox volunteers bring you 16 recordings of Do You Fear the Wind? by Hamlin Garland. This was the Weekly Poetry project for February 3, 2013.Taken from An American Anthology, 1787–1900, Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). |
By: John Milton (1608-1674) | |
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Paradise Regain'd (version 2)
Having been publicly acknowledged as God's "beloved Son," Jesus retires to the desert to meditate upon what it means to be the Messiah, about whose coming many conflicting opinions have been circulating among the Jews. Although a learned rabbi, Jesus possesses no knowledge beyond what is available to all human beings. Satan also takes a new interest in this favored "son of God" and seeks to learn what threat he constitutes. The poem consists of a debate between these two adversaries, each seeking the same understanding of precisely what mankind's Savior will do in a world where the way to success typically lies through "wealth ... |
By: Thomas Campion (1567-1620) | |
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Thrice Toss Those Oaken Ashes in the Air
LibriVox volunteers bring you 13 recordings of Thrice Toss Those Oaken Ashes in the Air by Thomas Campion. This was the Weekly Poetry project for February 10, 2013.Thomas Campion was an English composer, poet, and physician. He wrote over a hundred lute songs; masques for dancing, and an authoritative technical treatise on music. |
By: Fitz-James O'Brien (1828-1862) | |
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Demon of the Gibbet
LibriVox volunteers bring you 12 recordings of The Demon of the Gibbet by Fitz-James O'Brien. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for February 10, 2013.Fitz James O'Brien was an Irish-born American writer, some of whose work is often considered a forerunner of today's science fiction. After emigrating to the United States in 1852 he contibuted numerous articles in prose and verse to Harpers Magazine, Vanity Fair and Atlantic Monthly. He died IN April 1862 from severe wounds suffered in the American Civil War. |
By: Mary Kyle Dallas (1830-1897) | |
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He’d Nothing but His Violin
LibriVox volunteers bring you 13 recordings of He'd Nothing but His Violin by Mary Kyle Dallas. This was the Weekly Poetry project for March 10, 2013.According to an article in the New York Times, Mary Kyle Dallas was born in Philadelphia, PA and married Jacob A. Dallis when she was twenty. She wrote for the New York Ledger for over fifteen years.A few comments from our readers."What a lovely delicate little piece." (AlanW)"Here is my version of this sweet melodious poem. This one definitely rings a bell with me, as my wife and I were entertainers also (and even still do it occasionally) but not quite under such meager circumstances as this couple." (LenXZ1) |
By: Charles F. Lummis (1859-1928) | |
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Poe-em of Passion
LibriVox volunteers bring you 18 recordings of A Poe-em of Passion by C. F. Lummis. This was the Weekly Poetry project for March 17, 2013, and is an amusing parody of Poe's Annabel Lee. |
By: Jane Taylor (1783-1824) | |
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Star
To take you back to your childhood, LibriVox volunteers bring you 28 recordings of The Star by Jane Taylor. This was the Weekly Poetry project for March 24, 2013. |
By: Unknown | |
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Little Star
LibriVox volunteers bring you 21 recordings of The Little Star, author unknown, which parodies the previous week's children's favourite The Star. This was the Weekly Poetry project for March 31st, 2013. |
By: Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) | |
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Because I Could Not Stop For Death
LibriVox volunteers bring you 15 recordings of Because I Could Not Stop For Death by Emily Dickinson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for May 12, 2013.Despite Dickinson's prolific writing, fewer than a dozen of her poems were published during her lifetime. After her younger sister Lavinia discovered the collection of nearly eighteen hundred poems, Dickinson's first volume was published four years after her death. Until the 1955 publication of Dickinson's Complete Poems by Thomas H. Johnson, her poems were considerably edited and altered from their manuscript versions. Since 1890 Dickinson has remained continuously in print. |
By: Omar Khayyám (1048-1131) | |
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Strophes of Omar Khayyám
One of the earliest versions of Omar Khayyám's quatrains by an American translator is John Leslie Garner's collection, published in 1888. It contains 152 quatrains, which the translator calls "Strophes." The collection is divided into eleven books, introduced by quotations from Bourne's "Anacreon," Leconte de Lisle, Giordano Bruno, Goethe, Alfred de Musset, Paul Bourget, Marcus Antoninus, St. James, Sully-Prudhomme, Edmund Waller, and Escriva.In his preface Garner says : "The collection might have been made much larger, but it was deemed inadvisable, as Omar's themes are not many, and the ever-recurring Wine, Rose, and Nightingale are somewhat cloying to Occidental senses... |
By: Various | |
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Short Poetry Collection 124
This is a collection of poems read by LibriVox volunteers for September 2013. |
By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) | |
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Devil's Bridge
Taken from Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes, Switzerland and Austria: Vol. XVI, edited by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. |
By: Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) | |
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Old Maid (Teasdale)
LibriVox volunteers bring you 10 recordings of The Old Maid by Sara Teasdale. This was the Weekly Poetry project for September 8, 2013. |
By: Various | |
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Short Poetry Collection 131
This is a collection of 13 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for April 2014. |
By: Charles Hamilton Sorley (1895-1915) | |
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Army of Death
Captain Sorley was among 16 Great War poets commemorated in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner. The inscription was written by Wilfred Owen. It reads: "My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity." This is regarded as one of Sorley's finest poems, and was discovered in his kit after his death. |
By: Various | |
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Short Poetry Collection 127
This is a collection of 21 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for December 2013. |