Short Poetry Collection 273 by Various read by Various | Full Audio Book

Afternoon in February by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Read for LibriVox.org by Phil Schempf The day is ending, the night is descending, The marsh is frozen, the river dead, Through clouds like ashes the red sun flashes, On village windows that glimmer red, The snow recommences, the buried fences Mark no longer the road or the plain, while through the meadows, like fearful shadows, slowly passes a funeral train. The bell is pealing, and every feeling within me responds to the dismal knell. Shadows are trailing, my heart is bewailing, and tolling within like a funeral bell. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Ballad of Ladies' Names by William Ernest Henley Read for LibriVox.org By Ikeshire Browns for Lelage Jones for Lelia Robinson's bosom for Beatrice glows Smith is a hamlet before Ophelia The glamour stays if the reason goes Every lover the years discloses Of a beautiful name made free One befriends, and all others are foes Anna's the name of names for me Sentiment hallows the vows of Delia Sweet simplicity breeds from Rose Courtly memories glitter in Celia Rosalind savours of quips and hoes Araminta of wits and bow Prue of puddings and coralie All of sawdust and spangled shows Anna's the name of names for me Fie upon Caroline, Naj, Emilia These I reckon the essence of prose Cavalier Catherine, called Cornelia Portia's masterful Roman nose Maud's magnificence, Totty's toes Pull and bet with the twang of the sea Nell's impertinence, Pamela's woes Anna's the name of names for me Envoy Ruth, like a gilly flower, smells and blows Sylvia, prattles of arcady Sybil mystifies Connie crows Anna's the name of names For me End of poem This recording is in the public domain Bright Bindings by County Cullen Read for LibriVox.org by Winston Tharp Your love to me was like an unread book Bright-backed, with smooth white pages yet unslit Fondly as a lover, foolishly I took it from its shelf one day and opened it. Here shall I read, I thought, beauty and grace, The soul's most high and awful poetry. Alas for lovers and the faith they place in love, Alas for you, alas for me. I have but read a page or two at most, The most my horror-blinded eyes may read. I find here but a windy, tapering ghost, Where I sought flesh gifted to ache and bleed. Yet back you go, though counterfeit you be, I love bright books, even when they fail me. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. chieftain's dirge till the wail was wed to the rolling surge they played him home with a sorrowful will to his grave at the foot of the holy hill and the pipes went mourning all the way strong hands that had struck for right all the day all the day folded now in the dark of earth the veiled dawn of the upper way strong hands that struck with his from days that were to the day that is carry him now from the house of woe, to ride the way the chief must go, and his peers went mourning all the way, son and brother at his right hand, all the way, all the way, and oh for them, and oh for her, who stayed within the dowie day, son and brother and near of kin, go out with the chief who never comes in, and of all who loved him far and near, t'was the nearest most that held him dear, And his kin went mourning all the way The clan went on with the pipes before All the way, all the way A wider clan than ever he knew Followed him home that Dowie day And who were they of the wider clan? The landless man and the no-man's man The man that lacked and the man unlearned The man that lived but as he earned And the clan went mourning all the way THE HEART OF NEW ZEALAND WENT BESIDE, ALL THE WAY, ALL THE WAY, TO THE RESTING PLACE OF HER HIGHLAND CHIEF. MUCH SHE THOUGHT SHE COULD NOT SAY. HE FOUND HER A LAND OF MANY DOMAINS, MAIDEN FOREST AND FELLOW PLAINS. HE LEFT HER A LAND OF MANY HOMES, THE PEARL OF THE WORLD, where the sea-wind roams, and New Zealand went mourning all the way. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. it heard, then why keep ever near it? End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Carpe Diem by William Shakespeare. Read for LibriVox.org by Roger Smith. Carpe Diem. Oh, mistress mine, where are you roaming? Oh, stay in here. Your true love's coming. They can sing both high and low. Trip no further. Pretty sweeting. Journey's end in lovers meeting every wise man's son doth know what is love tis not hereafter present mirth hath present laughter what's to come is still unsure in delay there lies no plenty then come kiss me sweet and twenty use of stuff will not endure end of recording this recording is in the public domain The Coal Picker by Amy Lowell, read for LibriVox.org by Larry Wilson. He perches in the slime, inert, bedaubed with iridescent dirt. The oil upon the puddles dries to colors like a peacock's eyes, and half-submerged tomato cans shine scaly as leviathans, oozingly crawling through the mud. The ground is here and there bestud, with lumps of only part burned coal. His duty is to glean the whole, to pick them from the filth, each one, to hoard them for the hidden sun, which glows within each fiery core, and waits to be made free once more. Their sharp and glistening edges cut his stiffened fingers. Through the smut gleam red the wounds which will not shut. Wet through and shivering he kneels And digs the slippery coals Like eels they slide about His force all spent he counts his small accomplishment A half a dozen clinker coals Which still have fire in their souls Fire, and in his thought there burns The topaz fire of votive urns He sees it fling from hill to hill And still consumed as burning still Higher and higher leaps the flame The smoke in ever-shifting frame He sees a Spanish castle old With silver steps and paths of gold From myrtle bowers comes the plash of fountains And the emerald flash of parrots in the orange trees Whose blossoms pasture hummingbees He knows he feeds the urns whose smoke bears visions That his master stroke is out of dirt and misery To light the fire of poesy. He sees the glory, yet he knows That others cannot see his shows. To them his smoke is sightless, Black his votive vessels, But a pack of old discarded shards. His fire a peddler's, Still to him the pyre is incensed, An enduring gulf. He sighs and grubs another coal. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. my life in hand, and venture out to sea. We may not tell thee where to sail, nor what the dangers are. Each sailor soundeth for himself, each hath a separate star. Each sailor soundeth for himself, and on the awful sea, what we have learned is ours alone, we may not tell it thee, come back, oh ghostly mariners, ye who have gone before, I dread the dark impetuous tides, I dread the farther shore, tell me the secrets of the waves, say what my fate shall be, quick, for the mighty winds are up and will not wait for me. Hail and farewell, O Voyager. Thyself must read the waves. What we have learned of sun and storm lies with us in our graves. What we have learned of sun and storm, is ours alone to know. The winds are blowing out to sea. Take up thy life, and go. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. February by John Clare. Read for LibriVox.org by Phil Shim. The snow has left the cottage top. The thatch moss grows in brighter green. And eaves in quick succession drop, where grinning icicles have been, Pit-patting with a pleasant noise, in tubs set by the cottage door, While ducks and geese, with happy joys, plunge in the yard-pond brimming o'er. The sun peeps through the window-pane, which children mark with laughing eye, And in the wet streets steal again, to tell each other spring is nigh. Then as young hope the past recalls in playing groups they often draw to build beside the sunny walls their springtime huts of sticks or straw and often pleasures dreams they high round homesteads by the village side scratching the hedgerow mosses by where painted putty shells abide mistaking off the ivy spray for leaves that come with budding spring and wondering in their search for play, white birds delay to build and sing. The milkmaid singing leaves her bed, as glad as happy thoughts can be, while magpies chatter o'er her head, as jocund in the change as she. Her cows around the closes stray, nor lingering wait the foddering boy, tossing the molehills in their play, and staring round with frolic joy. The shepherd now was often seen, near warm banks for his hook to bend or o'er a gate or stile to lean chatting to a passing friend ploughmen go whistling to their toils and yoke again the rusted plough and mingling o'er the mellow soils boys shout and whips are noising now the barking dogs by lane and wood drive sheep afield from foddering ground and echo in her summer mood briskly mocks the cheering sound the flocks as from a prison broke shake their wet fleeces in the sun while following fast a misty smoke reeks from the moist grass as they run no more behind his master's heels the dog creeps on his winter pace but cocks his tail and o'er the fields runs many a wild and random chase following in spite of chiding calls the startled cat with harmless glee scaring her up the weed-green walls or mossy mottled apple-tree as crows from morning perches fly he barks and follows them in vain e'en larks will catch his nimble eye and off he starts and barks again with breathless haste and blinded guess oft following where the hare hath gone forgetting in his joy's excess his frolic puppy days are done the hedgehog from his hollow root sees the wood-moss clear of snow and hunts the hedge for fallen fruit crab hip and winter bitten sloe but often checked by sudden fears as shepherd-dog his haunt espies he rolls up in a ball of spears and all his barking rage defies the gladdened swine bolt from the sty and round the yard in freedom run or stretching in their slumbers lie beside the cottage in the sun the young horse whinnies to his mate and sickening from the thresher's door grubs at the straw-yard's banded gate longing for freedom on the moor the small birds think their wants are o'er to see the snow-hills fret again and from the barn's chaff-littered door betake them to the greening plain the woodsman's robin startles coy nor longer to his elbow comes to peck with hunger's eager joy among mossy stulps the littered crumbs neath hedge and walls that screen the wind the gnats for play will flock together and e'en poor flies some hope will find to venture in the mocking weather from out their hiding-holes again with feeble pace they often creep along the sun-warmed window-pane like dreaming things that walk in sleep the mavis thrush with wild delight upon the orchard's dripping tree mutters to see the day so bright fragments of young hope's poesy and oft dame stops her buzzing wheel to hear the robin's note once more who tootles while he pecks his meal from sweet brier hips beside the door the sunbeams on the hedges lie the south-wind murmurs summer soft the maids hang out white clothes to dry around the elder skirted croft a calm of pleasure listens round and almost whispers winter by while fancy dreams of summer sound and quiet rapture fills the eye thus nature of the spring will dream while south winds thaw but soon again frost breathes upon the stiffening stream and numbs it into ice the plain soon wears its morning garb of white and icicles that fret at noon will eat their icy tails at night beneath the chilly stars and moon nature soon sickens of her joys and all is sad and dumb again save merry shouts of sliding boys about the frozen furrowed plain the foddering boy forgets his song and silent goes with folded arms and cradling shepherds bend along crouching to the whizzing storms floods of the moon by mary mcdougall we cannot breast the white floods of the moon they soon will rise and sweep all earth and sky, come my beloved, while there yet is time, before they reach us and we drown and die, oh sweet mad sweeping flood tides of the moon, the moon has swept away the anchored stars, its white floods rise and pour upon the town, oh my beloved we have stayed too long, the wild moon floods have caught us and we drown, Oh, sweet, mad, sweeping flood tides of the moon End of poem This recording is in the public domain A Foggy Morning by Thomas Fleming Day Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachok Seaward driving like a shriving grey monk cloaked in grey Through the crowded ship and shrouded buoy-bound reaches of the bay Misty moving phantoms proving, Vessels creeping slowly past, Hark, the droning foghorn moaning, From the steamer looming vast, Bellboy telling when the swelling, Swell of ocean rocks its boat, Where the ledges, granite edges, Threaten ships that overflowed, Canvas dripping, dew streams slipping, down the black and swollen gear. Helmsman peering, at the steering compass, through a watery blear. Top sails dimming, in the swimming vapor sea, that floats o'erhead. And the singing seamen, swinging, constantly, the pilot lead. Sun uprising, with surprising mystic glory, haunts the shroud, red and rolling, through the shoaling, eastward verges, of the cloud, spars uplifting, on the shifting billows, of the fading mist, seem suspended, on extended, rippling ropes, of amethyst, Day star bursting, hotly thirsting Drains the fog with fervid lips Sunlight flashing, shows us dashing Past the port, the town, the ships End of poem This recording is in the public domain From the Cliff by Thomas Fleming Day Read for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachok The wind is fresh, the wind is foul The clouds are long and low and grey, The rocky headland wears a cowl, And looks a monk who kneels to pray, And tell his beads for parting souls, While out beyond the bar there rolls A sullen swell, and white and high, Along the cliffs the breakers fly. Roar, roar, O sea, thy stormy song Appals the weak, but nerves the strong. Look, yonder bark with puffing sail Has turned her bow to win the sea. She fears to meet the rising gale With reef and rockland on her lee, And as she luffs the blast to greet By halyard, clew, and straining sheet, All, all, alert her seamen stand, and watch with anxious eye the land roar roar o sea thy stormy song appals the weak but nerves the strong then tack on tack she weathers out her topsail shiver in the wind down goes the helm she flies about and leaping off soon leaves behind the rocky dangers and has passed the headland when the wrathful blast bursts from the cloud and wild and grand hurls in the sea against the land roar roar o sea thy stormy song appalls the weak but nerves the strong end of poem this recording is in the public domain i am not yours by Sarah Teasdale read for LibriVox.org by Winston Tharp i am not yours not lost in you not lost although i long to be lost as a candle lit at noon lost as a snowflake in the sea you love me and i find you still, a spirit beautiful and bright. Yet I am I, who long to be lost as a light is lost in light. Oh, plunge me deep in love, put out my senses, leave me deaf and blind, swept by the tempest of your love, a taper in a rushing wind. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. If, by Rudyard Kipling, read for LibriVox.org If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs And blaming it on you if you can trust yourself When all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too If you can wait and not be tired by waiting Or being lied about, don't deal in lies Or being hated, don't give way to hating And yet, don't look good, nor talk too wise If you can dream, and not make dreams your master If you can think, and not make thoughts your aim If you can meet with triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools Or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools if you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it all on one turn of pitch and toss and lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss if you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they're gone and so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will Which says to them, hold on If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue Or walk with kings, nor lose the common touch If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you If all men count with you, but none too much If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds worth of distance run Yours is the earth and everything that's in it And which is more, you'll be a man, my son End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. and then jests about the trenches, and makes quips about bombs and typewriter guns, yet in his soul, vast stretches eternity, and light and darkness forever contend, and in his heart is rising, a great tide of revolt, which will sweep away this man-made hell, As he makes shiny mouth harps and red-flowered carpets And jests about war, I marvel at man End of poem This recording is in the public domain It is a beauteous evening, calm and free By William Wordsworth Read for LibriVox.org by Ike Sher It is a beauteous evening, calm and free The holy time is quiet as an un Breathless with adoration The broad sun is sinking down in his tranquility. The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea. Listen, the mighty being is awake, and doth with his eternal motion make a sound like thunder everlastingly. Dear child, dear girl that walk'st with me here, if thou appear untouched by solemn thought, thy nature is not therefore less divine. Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year, And worships at the temple's inner shrine God being with thee When we know it not End of poem This recording is in the public domain Lively Hope and Gracious Fear Only Hymn 52 By William Cooper Read for LibriVox.org By Larry Wilson I was a groveling creature once And basely cleaved to earth I wanted spirit to renounce the clod That gave me birth but god has breathed upon a worm and sent me from above wings such as clothe an angel's form the wings of joy and love with these to Pisgah's top i fly and there delighted stand to view beneath a shining sky the spacious promised land the lord of all the vast domain has promised it to me the length and breadth of all the plain as far as faith can see How glorious is my privilege! To thee for help I call. I stand upon a mountain's edge. O save me, lest I fall. Though much exalted in the Lord, my strength is not my own. Then let me tremble at his word, and none shall cast me down. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Madrigal by William Shakespeare. Read for LibriVox.org by Roger Smith. madrigal take oh take those lips away that so sweetly were forsworn and those eyes the break of day lights that do mislead the morn but my kisses bring again bring again seals of love but sealed in vain sealed in vain end of recording this recording is in the public domain a man in love by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu read for librivox.org by public domain scholar a man in love the man who feels the dear disease forgets himself neglects to please the crowd avoids and seeks the groves and much he thinks when much he loves pressed with alternate hope and fear sighs in her absence sighs when near the gay the fond the fair the young those trifles pass unseen along, to him a pert and separate throng, but most he shuns, the vain coquette, when Thames her false affected wit, the minstrel sound, the flowing bowl, oppress and hurt the amorous soul, tis solitude alone can please, and give some intervals of ease, he feeds the soft distemper there, and fondly courts the distant fair, to balls the silent shade prefers, and hates all other charms but hers. When thus your absent swain can do, Molly, you may believe, am true. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. A Maori Lander in England by Dora Wilcox. Read for LibriVox.org by B. White Scandal. Woes me, in Kedar's tents I live by Babylonian waters. And oh, my English friends, forgive one of Zealandia's daughters. For when I praised a paddock green that lay in sun and shadow, you stared at me. Oh, yes, you mean that field or yonder meadow? And when, forgetting time and place, I prattled of a farre, you murmured, What a curious phrase! Is it a term, Maori? And when, upon a summer's day, I spoke of Creek Unwary, you answered, That's the brook. do pray consult your dictionary and when one day he came in view who's told in song and story i cried tanakwe is it you my well-known friend so hoary i've met you where the doe grows in wilds gorgeous eerie i've seen you on the plains where flows the swift Waikariri were you on some upcountry run once rabbiter or dagger oh welcome welcome wandering one My dear familiar Swagger, but Swagger, Swagger where, I say, are pannikin and Billy? Oh, come away, you cried, away, how can you be so silly? How can you show such crazy joy? We hold an evil odour, this horrid tramp, whom yonder boy would call, we think, a roader. We went, but sweetly on my ear, attuned to notes colonial, for Swagger, Creek, and Paddock Deer, e'en in this land baronial. So, when I err in speech, forgive one of Zealandia's daughters, for now in Kedar's tents I live. By Babylonian Waters. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Miners by Wilfred Owen. Read for LibriVox.org. by larry wilson there was a whispering in my heart a sigh of the cold grown wistful of a former earth it might recall i listened for a tale of leaves and smothered ferns front force and the low slide lies before the fawns my fire might show steam phantoms simmer from time's old cauldron before the birds made nests in summer or men had children but the coals were murmuring of their mine and moans down there of boys that slept wry sleep and men writhing for air and i saw white bones in the cinder shard bones without number for many hearts with coal are charred and few remember i thought of some who worked at dark pits of war and died digging the rock where death reputes peace lies indeed comforted years will sit soft-chaired in rooms of amber the years will stretch their hands well cheered by our life's embers the centuries will burn rich loads with which we groaned whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids while songs are crooned but they will not dream of us poor lads lost in the ground the mountain by Mary McDougall, read for LibriVox.org by Newgate Novelets. Purple and rose the mountain goes, and the thought in her heart no mortal knows. The great black pines make mystic signs, and draw on the sky strange secret lines. Oh, mountain old, how can you hold the thought of your heart so long untold? End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Mountain Spirit, A Glimpse of Mount Cook by John McLennan, read for LibriVox.org by Beeswax Candle Saw ye a peak mid the ranges, majestic where peaks are high? Cradled in billows a sombre mist, above where the cares fly? Yon is a resting place reserved for kingly folk alone. None but the bravest feet may touch the mountain spirit's throne. Watch ye at night, o'er the ranges, through earth's remotest ways? Like shades of far-off splendour steal A nameless purple haze Tis a carpet of ether weaving With restfulness replete Laid down where gullyways would chafe The mountain spirit's feet Heard ye the north wind chasing Repose from the digger's hut Where the rumbling sluice had ceased to flow And the hydrant lips were shut By the hand of icy winter Ye trembled at the noise Not recognising in your dread The mountain spirit's voice Felt ye a heart-deep loneliness Come o'er ye as winter creeps When twilight set on your furry roof Away from the mountain peaks A longing to leave the paths and plains Wherever the feet might rove For a hut on the shady range to share The mountain spirit's love Daughters of pine-clad valleys Sons of Zalandia's state Children of splendour The spirit calls How long shall your answer wait The claim on the mountain range is yours However its peaks may rise For ye are the spirit's heirs Whose throne cloud-lapped in the ranger's lies End of poem This recording is in the public domain My Days by Isaac Rosenberg Read for LibriVox.org by M. Lee My days are but the tombs of buried hours Which tombs are hidden in the pilot years But from the mounds there spring up many flowers, whose beauty well repays their cost of tears. Time, like a sexton, pile with mold on mold, minutes on minutes till the tombs are high. But from the dust there falls some grains of gold, and the dead corpse leaves what will never die. It may be but a thought, the nursling seed, of many thoughts, of many a high desire. Some little act that stirs a noble deed, like breath rekindling a smoldering fire. They only live who have not lived in vain, for in their works, their life returns again. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. On a Lady Singing by Isaac Rosenberg Read for LibriVox.org by Anne Lee She bade us listen to the singing lark In tones far sweeter than its own For fear that she should cease and leave us dark We built the bird a vaunted throne shrouding her gracious glory giving ways from sceptered hands of starred humility, praising herself the more and giving praise to music blest than she, end of poem, this recording is in the public domain. Two cherry lips, one chubby nose, Only two little hands, ten little toes, Only a golden head, curly and soft, Only a tongue that wags loudly and oft, Only a little brain, empty of thought, Only a little heart troubled with nought, Only a tender flower sent us to store, Only a life to love while we are here, a baby small never at rest small but how dear to us god knoweth best end of poem this recording is in the public domain sea drift by Thomas Bailey Aldrich read for librivox.org by Feynman see where she stands on the west sea sands looking across the water wild as the night But wilder still The face of the fisher's daughter What does she there In the lightning's glare What does she there I wonder What dread demon Drags her forth In the night and wind and thunder Is it the ghost That haunts this coast The cruel waves mount higher And the beacon pierces The stormy dark With its javelin of fire Beyond the light of the beacon bright A merchant man is tacking The hoarse wind whistling through the shrouds And the brittle topmast cracking The sea it moans over dead men's bones The sea it foams in anger The curlew swoop through the resonant air With a warning cry of danger The starfish clings to the seaweed's rings In a vague, dumb sense of peril And the spray, with its phantom fingers Grasps at the mullein, dry and sterile Oh, who is she that stands by the sea In the lightning's glare undaunted Seems this now like the coast of hell By one white spirit haunted The night draws by and the breakers die Along the ragged ledges The robin stirs in its drenched nest The hawthorn blooms on the hedges In shimmering lines through the dripping pines The stealthy morn advances And the heavy sea fog straggles back Before those bristling lances Still she stands on the wet sea sands the morning breaks above her and the corpse of a sailor gleams on the rocks what if it were her lover end of poem this recording is in the public domain The song of the old mother by William Butler Yeats read for librivox.org by Thomas Copeland I rise in the dawn and I kneel and blow till the seed of the fire flicker and glow and then I must scrub and bake and sweep till stars are beginning to blink and peep but the young lie long and dream in their bed of the matching of ribbons the blue and the red and their day goes over in idleness and they sigh if the wind but lift up a tress while I must work because I am old and the seed of the fire gets feeble and cold through the young and awkward hours by e e cummings Read for LibriVox.org by Winston Tharp Through the young and awkward hours, my lady perfectly moving, Through the new world, scarce astir, my fragile lady wandering, In whose perishable poise is the mystery of spring, With her beauty more than snow, dexterous and fugitive, My very frail lady drifting distinctly, Moving like a mist in the uncertain morning With April feet like sudden flowers The poem, this recording, is in the public domain To a Wreath of Snow by Emily Bronte Read for LibriVox.org by Phil Schempf O transient voyager of heaven O silent sign of winter skies What adverse wind thy sail has driven To dungeons where a prisoner lies Methinks the hands that shut the sun So sternly from this morning's brow Might still their rebel task have done And checked a thing so frail as thou They would have done it had they known The talisman that dwelt in thee For all the suns that ever shone Have never been so kind to me For many a week and many a day My heart was weighed with sinking gloom When morning rose in morning gray and faintly lit my prison room, but angel-like when I awoke, thy silvery form so soft and fair, shining through darkness sweetly spoke, of cloudy skies and mountains bare, the dearest to a mountaineer, who all life long has loved the snow, that crowned her native summit's drear, better than greenest plains below, and voiceless, soulless messenger, thy presence waked a thrilling tone, that comforts me while thou art here, and will sustain when thou art gone. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. A Wet Sheet and a Flowing Sea by Allan Cunningham Read for LibriVox.org by Fenman A wet sheet and a flowing sea, a wind that follows fast, and fills the white and rustling sail, and bends the gallant mast, and bends the gallant mast, my boys, while, like the eagle free, away the good ship flies, and leaves old England on the lee. Oh, for a soft and gentle wind, I heard a fair one cry, but give to me the snoring breeze, And white waves heaving high And white waves heaving high, my boys The good ship tight and free The world of waters is our home And merry men are we There's tempest in yon horned moon And lightning in yon cloud And hark the music mariners The wind is piping loud the wind is piping loud my boys the lightning flashes free while the hollow oak our palace is our heritage the sea and a poem this recording is in the public domain when by thomas fleming day read for librivox.org by bruce kachok when western winds are blowing soft across the island sound when every sail that draws aloft is swollen true and round when yellow shores along the lee slope upward to the sky when opal bright the land and sea in changeful contact lie when idle yachts at anchor swim above a phantom shape when spires of canvas dot the rim which curves from cape to cape when seaweed strewn the ebbing tide pours eastward to the main when clumsy coasters side by side tack in and out again when such a day is mine to live what has the world beyond to give End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Winter by William Shakespeare. Read for LibriVox.org by Roger Smith. Winner. When icicles hang by the wall, and Dick the shepherd blows his nail, and Tom bears logs into the hall, and milk comes frozen, almond pale. When blood is nipped, and ways be foul, then nightly sings the starring owl, A merry note While Greasy Joan doth kill the pot When all around the wind doth blow And coughing drowns the parson's saw And birds sit brooding in the snow And Marian's nose looks red and raw When roasted crab sits in the bowl Then nightly sings the starring owl A merry note While Greasy Joan doth kneel the pot End of recording This recording is in the public domain.