The soul of Irish wit is captured in this unique tale of a barstool philosopher, the concluding story from 'Here Are Ladies' by James Stephens. (Introduction by iremonger)

James Weldon Johnson was an American author, educator, lawyer, diplomat, songwriter, and civil rights activist. Johnson is best remembered for his leadership within the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), where he started working in 1917, being chosen as the first black executive secretary of the organization, effectively the operating officer. He was first known for his writing, which includes poems, novels, and anthologies collecting both poems and spirituals of black culture.

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best selling author, born in the town of Greenfield, Indiana. During his lifetime he was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively. His poems tended to be humorous or sentimental, and of the approximately one thousand poems that Riley authored, the majority are in dialect.

James Whitcomb Riley was an American writer, poet, and best-selling author. During his lifetime he was known as the "Hoosier Poet" and "Children's Poet" for his dialect works and his children's poetry respectively. His poems tended to be humorous or sentimental, and of the approximately one thousand poems that Riley authored, the majority are in dialect. Riley began his career writing verses as a sign maker and submitting poetry to newspapers. Thanks in part to an endorsement from poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, he eventually earned successive jobs at Indiana newspaper publishers during the latter 1870s...

Several of La Fontaine’s fables, translated into English by W. T. Larned.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 8 recordings of The Old Man and the Ass by Jean de La Fontaine. (There was no translator acknowledged in the text.) This was the Weekly Poetry project for July 7, 2013.Jean de La Fontaine was the most famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional languages.According to Flaubert, he was the only French poet to understand and master the texture of the French language before Hugo...

Jean McKishnie Blewett (4 November 1862 – 19 August 1934) was a Canadian journalist, author and poet. Blewett was a regular contributor to The Globe, a Toronto newspaper and in 1898 became editor of its Homemakers Department. In 1919, assisted by the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire, she published a booklet titled Heart Stories to benefit war charities. During this time she regularly lectured on topics such as temperance and suffragism. She used the pseudonym Katherine Kent for some of her writing...

Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend; a highly successful scholar, but also dissatisfied with his life, and so makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust is a tragic play in two parts. It is Goethe's most famous work and considered by many to be one of the greatest works of German literature.This first part of Faust is not divided into acts, but is structured as a sequence of scenes in a variety of settings. After a dedicatory poem and a prelude in the theatre, the actual plot begins with a prologue in Heaven and Scene 1 in Faust's study.

Also known as the "Roman Elegies," Erotica Romana is von Goethe's literary tribute to human sexuality and eroticism. Written in 24 elegies to emulate classical Roman elegy writers such as Tibullus, Propertius, and Catullus, von Goethe creates a lyrical work of art that has often been subject to censorship.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and statesman. His body of work includes epic and lyric poetry written in a variety of metres and styles; prose and verse dramas; memoirs; an autobiography; literary and aesthetic criticism; treatises on botany, anatomy, and colour; and four novels. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters, and nearly 3,000 drawings by him are extant.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 20 recordings of November by John Clare. This was the Weekly Poetry project for November 18, 2012John Clare was an English poet, the son of a farm labourer, who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation of its disruption. His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and he is often now considered to be among the most important 19th-century poets. His biographer Jonathan Bate states that Clare was "the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self". (

A 750-line idyllic poem about a snow-storm from the narrator’s childhood.

John Greenleaf Whittier was an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Frequently listed as one of the Fireside Poets, Whittier was influenced by the Scottish poet Robert Burns.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 11 recordings of The Frost Spirit by John Greenleaf Whittier. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for October 28, 2012.John Greenleaf Whittier was an influential American Quaker poet. He is considered one of the Fireside Poets and was influenced by Robert Burns.

Early poems of this famous English lyric poet, in which he openly expresses indebtedness to, and reverence for, his poetic predecessors, especially Spenser, into whose chivalric world he boldly ventures; and also for Milton, and the classic poets. There are also glimpses of his personal, family and political relationships. These poems are of medium length and often pastoral and contemplative in nature with many classical references. His lyric genius and love for humanity are clearly displayed.( Peter Tucker)

Magnificent in its scale and scope, this monumental poem by the blind poet John Milton was the first epic conceived in the English language. It describes an omniscient, all powerful God, the Fall of Man, the Temptation in the Garden of Eden, the disgraced angel who later becomes known as Satan, the Angelic Wars fought by Archangels Michael and Raphael and the Son of God who is the real hero of this saga. The poet John Milton was more than sixty years old when he embarked on this immense work of literary creation...

Paradise Regained is a poem by the 17th century English poet John Milton, published in 1671. It is connected by name to his earlier and more famous epic poem Paradise Lost, with which it shares similar theological themes. Based on the Gospel of Luke’s version of the Temptation of Christ, Paradise Regained is more thoughtful in writing style, and thrives upon the imagery of Jesus’ perfection in contrast to the shame of Satan.

“The Sun to me is darkAnd silent as the Moon,When she deserts the nightHid in her vacant interlunar cave.”Milton composes his last extended work as a tragedy according to the classical Unities of Time, Place and Action. Nevertheless it “never was intended for the stage” and is here declaimed by a single reader.Samson the blinded captive, in company with the Chorus of friends and countrymen, receives his visitors on their varying missions and through them his violent story is vividly recalled...

"I think that I shall never see, a poem as lovely as a tree; A tree whose hungry mouth is presd against the sweet earth's flowing breast ...". Almost all of us, including myself of course, have heard and enjoyed those famous words which begin Kilmer's poem, Trees. There is even a National Forest in the United States named in honor of this poem. Here is a recording of the entire book of poems in which it was first published in 1914. Joyce Kilmer was an American writer and poet mainly remembered for...

This is a book of poems by Joyce Kilmer. It includes several of his religious poems and poems about World War I, in which the author himself lost his life in 1918.

Kabir (1440 - 1518) was a mystic poet and saint of India, whose writings have greatly influenced the Bhakti movement.The name Kabir comes from Arabic Al-Kabir which means 'The Great' - the 37th Name of God in the Qur'an.Kabir was influenced by the prevailing religious mood of his times, such as old Brahmanic Hinduism, Hindu and Buddhist Tantrism, the teachings of Nath yogis and the personal devotionalism of South India mixed with the imageless God of Islam. The influence of these various doctrines is clearly evident in Kabir's verses...

This charming little book compiles together a number of recipes, set out in an easy to understand manner, along with a poetic story about the stages of bread production. This book was produced as a promotional for a flour production company called Pillsbury. This is a "modern" update compared to the original edition of the book. This version has exact oven temperature settings for each recipe included in a preface for the book, along with more precise suggestions for the baking time. The book has been written for children, however I am certain that adults could enjoy the book equally as much as a child would.

Adela Florence Nicolson was an English poet who wrote under the pseudonym Laurence Hope. She was born in England and joined her father in 1881, who was employed in the British Army at Lahore (The traditional capital of Punjab for a millennium, Lahore was the cultural centre of the northern Indian subcontinent which extends from the eastern banks of the Indus River to New Delhi.) Her father was editor of the Lahore arm of The Civil and Military Gazette, and it was he who in all probability gave Rudyard Kipling (a contemporary of his daughter) his first employment as a journalist...

This volume contains stories, poems, myths, and facts about lots of different birds, intended for teaching children. It is divided into nine parts, each covering a different type of bird.

This is a compilation and publication of sleep-related poetry, exalting the delight of sleep, as well as bemoaning the lack of it. (written by Clarica)

The Hunting of the Snark is a long nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll describing the adventures of ten weirdly assorted characters as they pursue an elusive creature known as a snark.

A collection of Tennyson's poetry : 1 The Brook - 00:16 2 Song from "Maud" - 1:20 3 A Farewell - 2:34 4 Song from “Maud” - 3:26 5 Break, Break, Break - 4:53 6 From “Locksley Hall”- 5:43 7 Song from “Maud” - 6:43 8 Song from “The Princess” - 7:43 9 Lillian - 8:37 10 Ring out, Wild Bells - 9:52 11 From “The Princess” - 11:27 12 Song From “The Princess” - 12:43 13 From “Enoch Arden” - 13:58 14 From “Enoch Arden” - 15:36 15 The Charge of the Light Brigade- 16:56 16 From “The May Queen” - 18:51 17 Song from “The Princess” - 19:36 18 From “Harold” - 20:14 19 From “The Revenge” - 21:28 (From Sam Stinsson)