“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!

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

volunteers bring you 18 recordings of Inscription For A Stone by William Cowper. This was the Weekly Poetry project for May 12, 2019. ------ INSCRIPTION FOR A STONE Erected at the sowing of a grove of oaks at Chillington, the Seat of T. Giffard, Esq, 1790

volunteers bring you 8 recordings of The Negro's Complaint by William Cowper. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for February 9, 2020. ------ Cowper, an English poet, wrote a poem called "The Negro's Complaint" which rapidly became very famous, and was often quoted by Martin Luther King Jr. during the 20th century civil rights movement. - Summary by Wikipedia

LibriVox volunteers bring you 14 recordings of The Journey of Life by William Cullen Bryant. This was the Weekly Poetry project for December 23, 2012.William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. His poetry has been described as being "of a thoughtful, meditative character, and makes but slight appeal to the mass of readers." (

LibriVox volunteers bring you 14 recordings of Midsummer by William Cullen Bryant. This was the Weekly Poetry project for June 23, 2013.This poem taken from the Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant, Household Edition.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 11 recordings of A Song For New Year's Eve by William Cullen Bryant. This was the Weekly Poetry project for December 30, 2012.William Cullen Bran was an American Romantic poet. He wrote this poem in 1859. We are recording it to celebrate the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013.

William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. He is also remembered as one of the principal authorities on homeopathy and as a hymnist for the Unitarian Church, both legacies of his father's enormous influence on him. - Summary by Wikipedia

volunteers bring you 16 recordings of Hope by William Dean Howells. This was the Weekly Poetry project for July 7, 2019. ------ A short, vivid seafaring poem that holds out hope for an afterlife, wonderfully crafted by William Dean Howells, an American novelist, literary critic, poet and playwright, nicknamed "The Dean of American Letters". He was particularly known for his tenure as editor of The Atlantic Monthly, as well as for his own prolific writings

Twenty-six stories of first nations' origin rendered in English in verse. The author's dedication claims the stories "help us to understand that the white man and red man are brothers." His Ojibway name was Nwah-ke-nah-go-zid. The content and tone of the poems are distinctly indigenous. An extensive bibliography provides the sources for the stories.

A semi-autobiographical poem in three cantos recounts the wreck of the merchant ship Britannia. Written by William Falconer, a seaman of some experience, who survived one shipwreck himself with only two others of the 50 man crew and eventually perished in the loss of a second ship, the frigate Aurora, 20 years later. The poem is recognized for its realistic portrayal of life aboard an 18th century sailing vessel. - Summary by Fritz

Liber Amoris is unlike anything Hazlitt wrote and probably like nothing you've come across before. On the face of it it tells the story of Hazlitt's infatuation with his landlords daughter. Hazlitt was middle aged and she young and pretty, a bit of a coquette from the sound of it. It turned out badly for Hazlitt and the book tells the story of this doomed love. Critics have always been divided about the merit of the piece. Even those who see its merit often feel more comfortable with his polished literary works, and perhaps rightly so...

W. H. Davies was a Welsh poet and writer. Davies spent a significant part of his life in the United Kingdom and United States, becoming one of the most popular poets of his time. Davies is usually considered one of the Georgian poets, although much of his work is atypical of the style and themes adopted by others of the genre.

William Henry Rhodes will long be remembered by his contemporaries at the Bar of California as a man of rare genius, exemplary habits, high honor, and gentle manners, with wit and humor unexcelled. His writings are illumined by powerful fancy, scientific knowledge, and a reasoning power which gave to his most weird imaginations the similitude of truth and the apparel of facts. W.H.L.B.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 12 recordings of The Flag and the Faithful by William J. Lampton. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 20, 2013.William J. Lampton was the second cousin of Jane Clemens (the youngest of the three daughters of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain.)He launched his jounalist carreer in 1877 by starting the Ashland (Kentucky) Weekly Review, with his father’s money. Lampton wrote several book, as well as humorous poems he called 'yawps'. These were printed in the New York Sun and published in Yawps and Other Things ca. 1900.

William Lisle Bowles was an English priest, poet and critic. The Wainsbeck is a sequestered river in Northumberland, having on its banks "Our Lady's Chapel," three-quarters of a mile west of Bothal. It has been commemorated by Akenside.

Good people all, of every degree,I pray, ye all be warned by me:I advise ye all to pause and think,And never more to taste strong drink. Some people do say it is good when taken in moderation,But, when taken to excess, it leads to tribulation,Also to starvation and loss of reputation,Likewise your eternal soul’s damnation. McGonagall has been widely acclaimed as the worst poet in British history. He campaigned vigorously against excessive drinking, appearing in pubs and bars to give edifying poems and speeches...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 16 recordings of Love is enough by William Morris. This was the Weekly Poetry project for February 17, 2013.William Morris was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and libertarian socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and English Arts and Crafts Movement. He was instumental in establishing the modern fanasty genre, and thus influenced writers such as J. R. R. Tolkien. Morris also wrote and published poetry, fiction, and translations of ancient and medieval texts.

As well as being influential in the Arts and Crafts Movement and writing numerous poems and novels, William Morris was deeply involved in political reform. These poems, the earliest of which were first collected in 1885, reflect his socialist beliefs.

volunteers bring you 16 recordings of "Summer Dawn" by William Morris. This was the Weekly Poetry project for July 10, 2022. ------ When this poem was first published in 1856 it had no title. Subsequently, the 1858 edition gave the sonnet its title of "Summer Dawn." And it is a sonnet, though it does not follow traditional English or Italian models. Perhaps Morris was giving hint of the Provençal 'alba.' These poems in their early form were conversations between two lovers. The requirement is that each stanza end with the word 'alba' [dawn]. Morris ends lines five and eleven this way. - Summary by KevinS

volunteers bring you 17 recordings of The Song of the Waters by William Murray Graydon. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for January 2, 2022. ----- William Murray Graydon, February 4, 1864 – April 5, 1946, was an extremely prolific American writer who also wrote under the pen-names Alfred Armitage, William Murray, and Tom Olliver. He published a wide variety of historical fiction, wilderness and adventure stories and poems, science-fiction, and Sexton Blake boy detective stories. This lovely poem describes what the poet seems to hear the Susquehanna river whispering as it flows by his campsite on a star-lit night...

The order of the poems has been arranged according to age from first through eight grade. The collection of poems in part 1 begins with the simplest nursery rhymes. Grade II begins with The Sleepy Song by Josephine D. Bacon, Grade III begins with Willie Winkle by William Miller. Grade IV begins with John Gilpin by William Cowper. Grades V - VIII are contained in part 2. - Summary by Linette G

The order of the poems have been arranged according to age from first through eight grade. Grades I – IV are contained in part 1. This collection of poems in part 2 begins with Grade V and Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray. Grade VI begins with The Barefoot Boy by John G. Whittier. Grade VII begins with Ye Mariners of England by Thomas Campbell. Grade VIII begins with The Rhodora, On Being Asked, "Whence is the Flower" by Ralph W. Emerson. - Summary by Linette G

For Mother’s Day 2006, we’ve recorded five versions of this tribute to Mothers and their role in shaping the future. The title is very famous out of its context, but now you can hear how it was originally intended.

The Passionate Pilgrim was published by William Jaggard, later the publisher of Shakespeare’s First Folio. The first edition survives only in a single fragmentary copy; its date cannot be fixed with certainty since its title page is missing, though many scholars judge it likely to be from 1599, the year the second edition appeared with the attribution to Shakespeare. This version of The Passionate Pilgrim, contains 15 romantic sonnets and short poems. The works contained, while disputed as to authorship are in this writer’s most humble opinion, among the best of the age.

A selection of Shakespeare’s poems from The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

The Rape of Lucrece (1594) is a narrative poem by William Shakespeare about the legendary Lucretia. Lucrece draws on the story described in both Ovid's Fasti and Livy's history of Rome. In 509 BC, Sextus Tarquinius, son of Tarquin, the king of Rome, raped Lucretia (Lucrece), wife of Collatinus, one of the king's aristocratic retainers. As a result, Lucrece committed suicide. Her body was paraded in the Roman Forum by the king's nephew. This incited a full-scale revolt against the Tarquins led by Lucius Junius Brutus, the banishment of the royal family, and the founding of the Roman republic.

Venus and Adonis is Shakespeare's narrative poem about the love of the goddess Venus for the mortal youth Adonis, dedicated partly to his patron, the Earl of Southampton (thought by some to be the beautiful youth to which many of the Sonnets are addressed). The poem recounts Venus' attempts to woo Adonis, their passionate coupling, and Adonis' rejection of the goddess, to which she responds with jealousy, with tragic results. This recording features three different readers performing the narration, Venus, and Adonis.

This is a volume of ghost stories in verse by William Theodore Parkes. The poems in this volume are often humorous, and written in a parody of ye olde style of poetry."Dealing largely with ghosts and legends embracing a dash of diablerie such as would have been dear to the heart of Ingoldsby. There is a rugged force in 'The Girl of Castlebar' that will always make it tell in recitation; and even greater success in this direction has attended 'The Fairy Queen,' a story unveiling the seamy side, with quaint humour and stern realism...

William Vaughn Moody was an American dramatist and poet. Author of The Great Divide, first presented under the title of The Sabine Woman at the Garrick Theatre in Chicago on April 12, 1906. Moody's poetic dramas included The Masque of Judgment (1900), The Fire Bringer (1904), and The Death of Eve (left undone at his death). He taught English at Harvard and Radcliffe until 1895, when he went to Chicago where he was an instructor at the University of Chicago, and from 1901 to 1907 assistant professor of English and rhetoric.

William Wilfred Campbell was a Canadian author and poet. Some of his poems are among the most famous Canadian poems of all time, and many contemporary Canadians interested in poetry may be familiar with one or two of his poems. The rest of his work is not very well-known today - a pitiful oversight. This collection contains 36 of his poems, and may serve as a good reintroduction into Campbell's poetry. - Summary by Carolin

volunteers bring you 16 recordings of Indian Summer by William Wilfred Campbell. This was the Weekly Poetry project for October 3, 2021. ------ This wonderful poem by William Wilfred Campbell captures the essence of a Canadian Autumn - its sights, smells and sounds - and brings to life the beauty of a land displaying unsurpassed splendor while facing the inevitability of the first of many blankets of snow. - Summary by BruceK

A Collection of poems by the Canadian poet William Wilfred Campbell most of which describe the natural beauty of the Great Lakes region of Ontario. These poems reflect Campbell's deep love of Nature as God's Creation.

Among monuments of narrative poetry, The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet's Mind, by William Wordsworth, occupies a unique place. Wordsworth published the first version of the poem in 1798, but continued to work on it for the rest of his life. The final version, which is the subject of this recording, was published posthumously in 1850, by Wordworth’s widow, Mary. The Prelude is the first major narrative poem in European literature which deals solely with the spiritual journey of the author. In this respect the only predecessor to which it can be compared in Dante’s Divine Comedy, which is similarly a journey from personal confusion to certitude, from ignorance to realization...

Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature. The immediate effect on critics was modest, but it became and remains a landmark, changing the course of English literature and poetry. Most of the poems in the 1798 edition were written by Wordsworth, with Coleridge contributing only four poems to the collection, including one of his most famous works, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"...

The Excursion: Being a portion of The Recluse, a Poem is a long poem by Romantic poet William Wordsworth and was first published in 1814. It was intended to be the second part of The Recluse, an unfinished larger work that was also meant to include The Prelude, Wordsworth's other long poem, which was eventually published posthumously. The exact dates of its composition are unknown, but the first manuscript is generally dated as either September 1806 or December 1809. (Introduction by Wikipedia)

Located in a part of Cumbria that was once part of Lancashire, the River Duddon rises in the high fells of the Lake District and flows for 25 miles through varied scenery before disappearing into the sands between Millom and Barrow-in-Furness. Wordsworth’s series of sonnets, inspired by his walks along the river, were written over a period of years, but are arranged so as to follow its downward course from the fells to the sea. Part One of this reading consists of the 33 sonnets and postscript that were first published as a series in 1820...

In celebration of Saint David's Day 2016 ,.org presents multiple readings of Composed Among the Ruins of a Castle in North Wales by William Wordsworth. Embodying the melancholy of the uniquely welsh word "hiraeth", which roughly translates as a sense of longing for a place that can never be returned to or that never was, this poem is a fitting tribute to the celebration of the patron saint of Wales Summary by Charlotte Duckett

This poem is part of the "Ecclesiastical Sonnets," writen by Wordsworth between 1821 - 22. - Summary by David Lawrence

volunteers bring you 11 recordings of Ode To Duty by William Wordsworth. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for May 31, 2020 ------ “Ode to Duty” is an appeal to the principle of morality for guidance and support. This Fortnightly Poem is taken from The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 3 by William Wordsworth - Summary by Wikipedia

This is a very impressive collection of some of the best sonnets from the pen of the incomparable William Wordsworth. The appreciation that Wordsworth had for the beauty of his surroundings is vibrantly exhibited in these selections, as are his feelings on love, friendship, society, conflict, history, the supernatural and indeed the art of poetry itself. And what better vehicle for the elegant articulation of a master poet's thoughts and inspirations than the sonnet, an art form ideally suited to assertion, verbalization and contemplation...

"Yone Noguchi was an influential Japanese writer of poetry, fiction, essays, and literary criticism in both English and Japanese. Critical evaluations of Noguchi, while varying drastically, have frequently stressed the enigmatic character of his work. Arthur Symons referred to him as a "scarcely to be apprehended personality." Arthur Ransome called him "a poet whose poems are so separate that a hundred of them do not suffice for his expression." Ezra Pound, on first reading The Pilgrimage in 1911 wrote that "His poems seem to be rather beautiful...

Published in 1918, Zora Cross’s book of poems, The Lilt of Life, was her third book of verse, and, like her earlier works, largely focused on her experiences of love, erotic entanglements , and motherhood. Many of the poems are written as an homage to her then-husband, David McKee Wright, whom she met while writing for The Bulletin, where Wright was her editor, causing a significant scandal in Sydney literary circles. - Summary by Elise Dee