The spiritual ethos and the philosophical outlook that the Bhagvad - Gita postulates paves the way for the liberation of man, who, as Rousseau said, ‘being born free, is everywhere in chains’. But equally it is a mirror of human psychology, which enables man to discern his debilities for appropriate redressal. All the same, the boon of an oral tradition that kept it alive for over two millennia became its bane with the proliferation of interpolations therein. Besides muddying its pristine philosophy, these insertions affect the sequential conformity and structural economy of the grand discourse...

This is a collection of 23 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for March 2015. Two poems of medium length in this collection: #04 "Copernicus" (13:38) is from the volume "Watchers of the Sky" by Alfred Noyes. #12 "A Joyful Meditation of the Coronation of King Henry the Eighth" (14:12). The original text was published as an eight-page pamphlet. In the surviving copy, the bottoms of the pages have been cropped. A total of three lines are therefore missing, and a further three have been reconstructed from their surviving portions...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 14 recordings of "Sunset in the Tropics." This is the Weekly Poetry for the week of August 10, 2014.The author of this poem, James Weldon Johnson, served as U. S. Consul to Venezuela and Nicaragua, was an early leader in the NAACP and contributed to the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. He had a broad appreciation for black artists, musicians and writers, and worked to heighten awareness of their creativity. (from Wikipedia)

Peer is a dreamer, liar, excellent storyteller and an irresponsible person who avoids all problems. He uses and discards women and looks towards the grandiose, the unattainable. Despite of this, one can't help but like and feel sorry for Peer, as it is easy to recognize something of yourself in him. Peer Gynt is the most well known Norwegian play throughout history and is based loosely on the folklore about Per Gynt. It is a dramatic poem in five acts, and has been aptly described as the story of a life based on procrastination and avoidance. The play is said to be a confrontation with the flock mentality Ibsen meant to recognize the typical Norwegian.

This is a collection of 29 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for January 2014.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 9 recordings of A Health by Edward Coote Pinkney. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for February 19, 2012.Edward Coote Pinkney was an American poet, lawyer, sailor, professor, and editor. Born in London in 1802, Pinkney made his way to Maryland. After attending college, he joined the United States Navy and traveled throughout the Mediterranean and elsewhere. He then attempted a law career but was unsuccessful and attempted to join the Mexican army, though he never did...

This story presents through letters, poems and third-person commentary the love affair between a young man named Freeman Jones and a married woman named Elinor, lady of the castle he is visiting in Scotland. Events in the affair are traced from initial attraction through seduction to (somewhat) graphic sexual encounters and their aftermath. (Allegedly based on a real-life scandal, the author, in re-issuing his story two years later, transplanted the action to Italy, renaming the principals Fernando Jeronimi and Leonora.)

This is a collection of 27 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for June 2014.

Full of delightful fairy tales, charming poems and engaging stories, this is the second volume of the "My Bookhouse" series for little ones. Originally published in the 1920's as a six volume set, these books, edited by Olive Beaupre Miller, contained the best in children's literature, stories, poems and nursery rhymes. They progressed in difficulty through the different volumes.

The Fasti is a Latin poem in six books, written by Ovid and believed to have been published in 8 AD. The Fasti is organized according to the Roman calendar and explains the origins of Roman holidays and associated customs, often through the mouths of deities and with multiple aetiologies. The poem was left unfinished when the poet was exiled to Tomis, so only the first six months of the year appear in the poem.

This is a collection of poems read by LibriVox volunteers for October 2012.

The work was composed between 1790 and 1793, in the period of radical foment and political conflict immediately after the French Revolution. The title is an ironic reference to Emanuel Swedenborg's theological work Heaven and Hell published in Latin 33 years earlier. Swedenborg is directly cited and criticized by Blake several places in the Marriage. Though Blake was influenced by his grand and mystical cosmic conception, Swedenborg's conventional moral structures and his Manichean view of good...

LibriVox readers bring you 19 recordings of The Red Cross Spirit Speaks by John H. Finley.At this time of year, all around the world, we remember the fallen and those who served their countries in time of war and other calamity. This poem reminds us of the dedication of the Red Cross, and the comfort they brought and, together with the Red Crescent, still bring, to the wounded, dying and distressed. John Huston Finley headed the Red Cross Commission in Palestine during the First World War.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 16 recordings of A Ruined Reversolet by C. J. Dennis. This was the Weekly Poetry project for October 28, 2012.Clarence James Dennis was an Australian poet and journalist. In his varied career, he worked as a barman, shearer, solicitor's clerk, newspaper proprietor and (as do many Australians) a civil servant, before settling down in a rural retreat at Toolangi, in the Dandenong Ranges, east of Melbourne.His most famous work is "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke", a verse novel written in an Australian vernacular and first published in 1915...

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.

This is a collection of 25 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for January 2013.

Sappho lived in the Greek-speaking Aeolian islands off the coast of Turkey. She is one of the very few female poets from antiquity. Although her work was very popular in ancient Greece and Rome, only small fragments survive today. This book includes translations of these fragments, as well as a poem from Ovid's Heroides, "Sappho to Phaon," a fictional letter from Sappho to her assumed lover.

In Edwy, Ann Radcliffe gives us a delightful piece of poetic moonshine, whose eponymous hero seeks assistance from the world of faerie in order to spy on his girlfriend, Aura, and see if she really loves him. He does this by venturing unseen into Windsor Forest at night to trap the love-fay, Eda, who, once spellbound, must reveal all and let him remotely view Aura's activities by means of a magic mirror cut from crystal. In addition to this early form of cyberstalking, Edwy, on his night-journey into the forest gets to witness a royal procession of the Fairie Queen, followed by midnight revels of elves and spirits...

This is a collection of 21 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for February 2013.

Emily Dickinson is one of the most intriguing of American poets. Since she grew increasingly reclusive, very few of her poems were published until after her death. This collection includes two letters Dickinson wrote to her friends on the occasion of the deaths of her friend, Mr. Humphrey, and her brother, Austin. The rest of collection consists of her poetry on the subject of death.

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.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 11 recordings of She sweeps with many-colored Brooms by Emily Dickinson. This was the Weekly Poetry project for February 24, 2013.Dickinson was a prolific private poet, but fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems were published during her lifetime. The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Dickinson’s poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often use slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation.

This is a collection of poems read by LibriVox volunteers for March 2013.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 13 recordings of The Wish by Abraham Cowley. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for February 24, 2013. Abraham Cowley (/ˈkuːli/) was a leading English poet in the 16th century.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 8 recordings of The Voyage to Vinland by James Russell Lowell. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for March 10, 2013.Although this version of the poem is sometimes printed separately, it is really only part of a longer poem (approximately one fifth of the whole). The complete work has 3 parts and this is only part of the last section. Only about one fourth of Gudrida's song of prophecy is included here.

This is a collection of poems read by LibriVox volunteers for April 2013.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 15 recordings of Mis' Smith,/em>, by Albert Paine. This was the Weekly Poetry project for April 7th, 2013.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 18 recordings of At Ease on Lethe Wharf, by Helen Coale Crew. This was the Weekly Poetry project for April 14th, 2013.Helen Coale Crew was an American poet and novelist. Her touching evocation of forgetfulness comes from the Chicago Anthology, published in 1916. Lethe refers to the first river that souls bound for the Elysian Fields, the Heaven of the ancient Greeks, had to cross. Drinking from the river was said to have the effect of expunging all memories.

This is a collection of poems read by LibriVox volunteers for May 2013.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 10 recordings of The Hillside Thaw by Robert Frost. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for May 5th, 2013.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 21 recordings of Mastery by Sara Teasdale. This was the Weekly Poetry project for April 28th, 2013.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 14 recordings of The Conscientious Deacon by Vachel Lindsay. This was the Weekly Poetry project for May 5th, 2013.Vachel Lindsay described this poem as "a song to be syncopated as you please". According to Wikipedia he is considered the father of modern singing poetry (as he referred to it) in which verses are meant to be sung or chanted. His extensive correspondence with the poet Yeats details his intentions to revive the musical qualities in poetry as had been practised by the ancient Greeks. (Introduction by Ruth Golding)

A few years ago, while recovering from an illness, I conceived the idea of writing some reminiscent lines on country life in the Wayne Highlands. And during the interval of a few days I produced some five hundred couplets,—a few good, some bad and many indifferent—and such speed would of necessity invite the indifferent. A portion of these lines were published in 1907. However, I had hoped to revise and republish them, with additions of the same type, at a later date as a souvenir volume of verses for those who spend the summer months among these hills—as well as for the home-fast inhabitants...

This is a collection of 24 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for December 2014.

This is a collection of poems read by LibriVox volunteers for June 2013.

LibriVox readers bring you 16 recordings of "To a Faded Rose" by Maurice Switzer. This was the Weekly Poetry selection for June 16, 2013.

The Seasons is a series of four long poems in blank verse by the Scottish poet James Thomson, each poem describing one of the four seasons. The poems are replete with various scenes of nature described with loving detail, as well as Thomson's view of the proper relationship between humans and nature, which anticipates the attitudes of the Romantics. "Spring," which was published in 1728, first brought Thomson to mainstream attention. He followed it up with "Summer," "Winter," and "Autumn," publishing all four as The Seasons in 1730...

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.

In 1892, two of Australia's best poets came up with a scheme to make some money. They arranged to have an argument in the Weekly Bulletin, and since they were being paid by the word, this let them fire back and forth, being sent beer money with each salvo. A couple of other poets also joined in, and their work is seminal to the development of the Bush ethos in Australia. The first eight files are the original form of the poems, and the second eight are later republications by the authors, in their own collections.

This is a collection of poems read by LibriVox volunteers for August 2013.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 11 recordings of The Compliment by Eugene Field. This was the Weekly Poetry project for September 1, 2013.

Librivox volunteers bring you eight readings of End of Harvest, by William Bell Scott. This is the fortnightly poetry project for November 9, 2014.

This is a collection of 25 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for November 2014.

This is a collection of 29 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for October 2013.

“Civilization sinks and swims, but the old facts remain—the sun smiles, knowing well its strength.” Edward Carpenter (1844-1929) wrote his prose poem, Towards Democracy, styled after Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, in a summer burst of creativity. “Early in 1881, no doubt as the culmination and result of struggles and experiences that had been going on, I became conscious that a mass of material was forming within me, imperatively demanding expression . . .” An English intellectual, Carpenter was in rebellion against Victorian prudery...

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.

This is a collection of 20 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for November 2013.

This collection of hymns have been translated from the poetry to the Latin church, arranged in the order of the Christian year. "This volume is intended for hours of devotion, and the vast storehouse of sacred poetry of the Latin Church has been put under tribute to supply the material," writes the author, Reverend John Brownlie, in the preface. The collection includes hymns for Christmas, Easter, All Saints' Day, Advent, and more.

Maude is a novella by Christina Rossetti, written in 1850 but published posthumously in 1897. Considered by scholars to be semi-autobiographical, the protagonist is 15-year-old Maude Foster, a quiet and serious girl who writes poetry that explores the tensions between religious devotion and worldly desires. The text includes several of Rossetti's early verses, which were later published as part of her collections of poetry.

Clement Clarke Moore (July 15, 1779 – July 10, 1863) was an American Professor of Oriental and Greek Literature, as well as Divinity and Biblical Learning, at the General Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He is the author of the yuletide poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas", which later became famous as "'Twas the Night Before Christmas". This poem seems to be a 'moral' version of "The NIght Before Christmas".

The translation of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald has remained the most celebrated rendering in English of the Persian poet's work. While several other scholars produced their own translations of the Rubaiyat, yet others contented themselves by just paraphrasing the work of Fitzgerald. This recording features three reworkings of previously published translations. Arthur Guiterman and Ruel William Whitney based their renderings on the Fifth Edition of Fitzgerald's translation and Richard Le Gallienne, a distinguished poet in his own right, compiled his version from a variety of sources, in particular the prose translation by Justin Huntly McCarthy...

This is a collection of 19 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for May 2014.

In tribute to the first real snowfall this year.

Librivox volunteers bring you 12 readings of Oh! Where Do the Fairies Hide Their heads by Thomas Haynes Bayly. Oh! Where do the fairies hide their heads, When snow lies on the hills, When frost has spoiled their mossy beds, And crystallized their Rills? Beneath the moon they cannot trip In circles o’er the plain; And draughts of dew they cannot sip, Till green leaves come again.This was the weekly poetry project for February 15, 2015.

Jessie Pope was an extremely patriotic English poet, writer and journalist, who remains best known for her patriotic motivational poems published during World War I. This poem is from Paper Pellets (1907), an anthology of humorous verse.

This is very short, but it is a book with lots of pictures, and it will be even better if you can look at the pictures in the book at http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44898 while you listen to the verses. There are many short verses: the first verses tell you how to make a blottentot with a blot of ink on a piece of paper. You then fold the paper and press it gently to spread out the ink into peculiar shapes. The rest of the verses describe the funny creatures which you can make. I'm sure it could...

Letitia Elizabeth Landon was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L. E. L.

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

LibriVox volunteers bring you ten recordings of "A Summer Night in the Beehive." The Weekly Poem for August 24, 2014 brings us the night sounds of the meadow in summer.