The English Romantic Period in literature featured a towering group of excellent poets: Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats. If we add in forerunners Burns and Blake, we have perhaps an unmatchable collection of writers for any era. Of these, Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the brightest and best, coupling a giant intellect with a highly emotional and impetuous nature. He was always a champion of liberty, but was largely ignored when he tried to promote political and social reform. He...

The Masque of Anarchy was Shelley's response to the Peterloo massacre at St Peter's Fields, Manchester, where 18 died and hundreds were injured, after Hussars charged into a rally for parliamentary reform. Written in Italy in 1819, the poem was not published until 1832, ten years after Shelley's death. This reading is from the first published edition with the addition of three words that were inserted in full only in later additions ('Eldon' in Stanza IV and 'Bible' and 'Sidmouth' in Stanza VI). The poem is preceded by Leigh Hunt's preface to the 1932 edition and followed by Harry Buxton Forman's 1887 lecture on the poem to the Shelley Society.

LibriVox volunteers bring you eight recordings of "To A Skylark." This is the Fortnightly Poetry for August 8, 2014.To A Skylark was completed by Shelley in late June 1820. It was inspired by an evening walk in the country near Livorno, Italy, with his wife Mary Shelley, and describes the appearance and song of a skylark they come upon.

Philip Max Raskin was a Jewish poet about whose life not much can be found today. His poetry, however, lives on, and some poems are still well-known today. This volume contains a series of love-poems, sometimes conveying hope and happiness, sometimes longing and disappointment. - Summary by Carolin

Phillis Wheatley was the first African-American to publish a book of poetry in 1773. Born in West Africa, she was sold into slavery at age seven, and bought by a wealthy Massachusetts family who taught her to read and write. Her extraordinary literary gifts led to the publication of her "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral," and to her eventual emancipation by her owners. Although some of the poems demonstrate an apparent acceptance of the racist values of the white slave-owning classes (which viewed Africans as savage), Wheatley's considerable talents simultaneously contradicted these stereotypes.

volunteers bring you 14 recordings of To S. M. A Young African Painter, On Seeing His Works. This was the Weekly Poetry project for April 28, 2019. ------ The Authoress, Phillis Wheatley, was a Negro Servant To Mr. John Wheatley, Of Boston, In New-England. She was the first published African-American female poet, Wheatley was emancipated shortly after the publication of her book. - Summary by wikipedia

The Symposium (Ancient Greek: Συμπόσιον) is a philosophical book written by Plato sometime after 385 BCE. On one level the book deals with the genealogy, nature and purpose of love, on another level the book deals with the topic of knowledge, specifically how does one know what one knows. The topic of love is taken up in the form of a group of speeches, given by a group of men at a symposium or a wine drinking party at the house of the tragedian Agathon at Athens. Plato constructed the Symposium as a story within a story within a story...

The Metamorphoses of Ovid is probably one of the best known, certainly one of the most influential works of the Ancient world. It consists of a narrative poem in fifteen books that describes the creation and history of the world through mythological tales, starting with a cosmogony and finishing with the deification of Julius Caesar. Published around 8 AD, the Metamorphoses are a source, sometimes the only source, for many of the most famous ancient myths, such as the stories of Daedalus and Icarus, Arachne or Narcisus...

The Aeneid is a Latin epic written by Virgil in the 1st century BC that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who traveled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. The first six of the poem’s twelve books tell the story of Aeneas’ wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem’s second half treats the Trojans’ ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed. The poem was commissioned from Vergil by the Emperor Augustus to glorify Rome...

This book of poems, written between 42 en 39 BC, was a bestseller in ancient Rome, and still holds a fascination today. Held to be divinely inspired not only by the Romans themselves, but by the Medieval Catholic church, The Eclogues is one of the most beloved collections of Latin short poetry.

The Ars Poetica, by Horace, also known as Epistula ad Pisones, is a treatise on poetry written in the form of a letter, and published around 18 B.C. In it, Horace defines and exemplifies the nature, scope and correct way of writing poetry. This work, inspired by the book of the same name by Aristotle, is one of the most influential in Latin literature, and the source of famous concepts in poetics, such as “in medias res” and “ut pictura poesis”. The text itself is a poem in 476 dactilic hexameters...

Robert Fuller Murray was a Victorian poet. Although born in the United States, Murray lived most of his life in the United Kingdom, most notably in St Andrews, Scotland. He wrote two books of poetry and was published occasionally in periodicals.

Gitanjali is a collection of 103 poems in English, largely translations by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. This volume became very famous in the West, and was widely translated into other languages. In England a slender volume was published in 1913, with an exhilarating preface by W. B. Yeats. In the same year, Rabindranath became the first non-European to win the Nobel prize.

Rabindranath Tagore, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped Bengali literature and music, as well as Indian art with Contextual Modernism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. In translation his poetry was viewed as spiritual and mercurial; however, his "elegant prose and magical poetry" remain largely unknown outside Bengal. Tagore introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit...

This is a volume of poetry by Radclyffe Hall. The poet and novelist led a highly scandalous lifestyle for the norms of her contemporary society, living openly lesbian in Germany and England. Some of the poems in this volume are also love poems to other women, a fact which was not generally known at the time the book was published. - Summary by Carolin

This is a volume of poetry by Radclyffe Hall. At the time of publication of this novel, Radclyffe Hall was living in Bad Homburg in Germany, in a lesbian relationship. Some of the poems in this volume are love poems, and to spare the public's delicate sensibilities, the names of the people to whom the poems were dedicated are removed. - Summary by Carolin

A concise collection of poems translated from the great German poet Rilke into formal English verse. Although the translation may be freer than some modern texts, this selection, which spans early and later writings and includes a preface refreshingly focused on the poet's artistic development, provides a nice entrée into Rilke's world.

Best known for her mystical writing, IntraMuros, Rebecca Ruter Springer was also a sensitive poet. This a short volume of her poems celebrating the sea. - Summary by Larry Wilson

volunteers bring you 22 recordings of A Wife, by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. This was the Weekly Poetry project for June 13, 2021. ------ Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish playwright and poet. In this little gem, he turns an intended insult on its head. - Summary by TriciaG

Librivox volunteers bring you seven readings of A Hymn of the Nativity, Sung by the Shepherds by Richard Crashaw. This was the fortnightly poem for December 7 - December 21, 2014. - Ann Boulais

At this time of year, we dedicate the Fortnightly Poetry project to the fallen in war. This poem, written at a time when the average life expectancy of an officer at the front was a mere six weeks, vividly demonstrates a young officer's expectation and acceptance of his own death.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 14 recordings of At the Club by Richard Hovey. This was the Weekly Poetry project for August 3, 2013.Richard Hovey was an American poet. Graduating from Dartmouth College in 1885, he is known in part for penning the school Alma Mater, Men of Dartmouth. He collaborated with Canadian poet Bliss Carman on three volumes of "tramp" verse: Songs from Vagabondia (1894), More Songs from Vagabondia (1896), and Last Songs from Vagabondia (1900), the last being published after Hovey's death.

"Lucasta" is of Latin origin meaning "Pure Light". Besides the dedication of the first poem to his wife, Anne Lovelace, this selection of poems are written from the viewpoint of a soldier who is going off to war - to his lover, who is the love of his life, his Lucasta. While pouring his heart out with memories of her beauty and the joy's that they have shared, he fears she will think badly of him for leaving, and will not wait for him. Therefore, he makes pleas for her loyalty, her love, for her understanding, and for the sacrifice he feels he must make.

This is a volume of poetry by English poet Richard Middleton. While hardly known to readers anymore today, Middleton's poems, stories, and essays were all very highly regarded during his lifetime and after his untimely death, having won the admiration of many of his contemporary critics and writers whose fame endured longer than that of Middleton himself. A look into this volume of poetry should convince the reader or listener that Middleton's poetry certainly deserves much more attention than is currently given it. - Summary by Carolin

Librivox volunteers bring you 10 readings of The Sonnet by Richard Watson Gilder. This was the weekly poetry project for October 5, 2014.

Ring Lardner is a typical parent when his first child is born, full of wonder and the rest of the usual emotions as he watches his little son grow. He wrote a series of 29 short poems on various facets of parenthood.

Robert Bridges, who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1913, published three versions of his sonnet sequence, The Growth of Love:1876 - 24 sonnets1889 - 79 sonnets1898 - 69 sonnetsThe second edition, which is the subject of this recording, was re-published in 1894, with an extensive introduction from another celebrated poet, Lionel Johnson.The title of the work is a little misleading, as it suggests a process of development, a deepening understanding, by which one arrives at a more comprehensive appreciation of the mysterious entity which we call love...

This is a collection of poetry by Robert Bridges. This collection also contains some poems written right after World War I, reflecting the state of international politics very impressively. "This miscellaneous volume is composed of three sections. The first twelve poems were written in 1913, and printed privately by Mr. Hornby in 1914. The last of these poems proved to be a “war poem,” and on that follow eighteen pieces which were called forth on occasion during the War, the last being a broadsheet on the surrender of the German ships...

volunteers bring you 21 recordings of Sonnet 38 from The Growth of Love by Robert Bridges. This was the Weekly Poetry project for August 9, 2020. ------ Robert Bridges was the English Poet Laureate from 1913 until his death. A physician by training, he retired from practice in 1882 and devoted the remainder of his life to literary pursuits. This poem comes from 1898 edition of a sonnet collection entitled the Growth of Love. - Summary by Algy Pug

Pippa Passes was a dramatic piece, as much play as poetry, by Robert Browning published in 1841 as the first volume of his Bells and Pomegranates series. The author described the work as the first of a series of dramatic pieces. His original idea was of a young, innocent girl, moving unblemished through the crime-ridden neighbourhoods of Asolo. The work caused outrage when it was first published, due to the matter-of-fact portrayals of many of the area’s more disreputable characters – notably the adulterous Ottima – and for its frankness on sexual matters...

Robert Browning is still well-known today as a distinguished English poet. His poetry is still widely read, recited, and taught in schools. In this little volume, Rose Porter has compiled a collection of his poems concerning Easter. - Summary by Carolin

Browning, when at his best in vigor, clearness, and beauty, is peculiarly a poet for young people. His freedom from sentimentality, his liveliness of conception and narration, his high optimism, and his interest in the things that make for the life of the soul, appeal to the imagination and the feelings of youth. - TEACHERS' COLLEGE, NEW YORK, July, 1899.