Classic Poetry Aloud

By Classic Poetry Aloud

Classic Poetry Aloud gives voice to poetry through podcast recordings of the great poems of the past. Our library of poems is intended as a resource for anyone interested in reading and listening to p... more

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FAQs about Classic Poetry Aloud:

How many episodes does Classic Poetry Aloud have?

The podcast currently has 609 episodes available.

Classic Poetry Aloud episodes:

December 06, 2013 611. Winter Nightfall by Robert Bridges
Robert Bridges read by Classic Poetry Aloud
www.classicpoetryaloud.com
Twitter: @classicpoetry
Facebook: www.facebook.com/poetryaloud
Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
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Winter Nightfall
by Robert Bridges (1844 - 1930)
The day begins to droop,—
Its course is done:
But nothing tells the place
Of the setting sun.

The hazy darkness deepens,
And up the lane
You may hear, but cannot see,
The homing wain.

An engine pants and hums
In the farm hard by:
Its lowering smoke is lost
In the lowering sky.

The soaking branches drip,
And all night through
The dropping will not cease
In the avenue.

A tall man there in the house
Must keep his chair:
He knows he will never again
Breathe the spring air:

His heart is worn with work;
He is giddy and sick
If he rise to go as far
As the nearest rick:

He thinks of his morn of life,
His hale, strong years;
And braves as he may the night
Of darkness and tears.
Reading © Classic Poetry Aloud, 2007.
...more
2min
December 05, 2013 610. Remember by Christina Georgina Rossetti
Christina Georgina Rossetti read by Classic Poetry Aloud
www.classicpoetryaloud.com
Twitter: @classicpoetry
Facebook: www.facebook.com/poetryaloud
Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
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Remember
by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 – 1894)

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
Reading © Classic Poetry Aloud, 2007.
...more
2min
December 04, 2013 609. Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats
John Keats read by Classic Poetry Aloud
www.classicpoetryaloud.com
Twitter: @classicpoetry
Facebook: www.facebook.com/poetryaloud
Giving voice to poetry of the past.
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Ode on a Grecian Urn
by John Keats (1795-1821)

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea-shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.

O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty',—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Reading © Classic Poetry Aloud, 2007.
...more
4min
December 03, 2013 608. A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns
Robert Burns read by Classic Poetry Aloud
www.classicpoetryaloud.com
Twitter: @classicpoetry
Facebook: www.facebook.com/poetryaloud
Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
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My Luve's Like a Red, Red Rose
by Robert Burns (1759 –1796)
My luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June.
My luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.
Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun!
O I will luve thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve,
And fare-thee-weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!
Reading © Classic Poetry Aloud 2009
...more
2min
December 02, 2013 607. The Lost Mistress by Robert Browning
Robert Browning read by Classic Poetry Aloud
www.classicpoetryaloud.com
Twitter: @classicpoetry
Facebook: www.facebook.com/poetryaloud
Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
---------------------------------------------
The Lost Mistress
by Robert Browning (1812 – 1889)
All 's over, then: does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?
Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!
And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that, to-day;
One day more bursts them open fully
—You know the red turns gray.
To-morrow we meet the same then, dearest?
May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merest
Keep much that I resign:
For each glance of the eye so bright and black,
Though I keep with heart's endeavour,—
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stay in my soul for ever!—
Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;
I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!
Reading © Classic Poetry Aloud, 2008.
...more
2min
November 29, 2013 606. The Rhodora by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson read by Classic Poetry Aloud
www.classicpoetryaloud.com
Twitter: @classicpoetry
Facebook: www.facebook.com/poetryaloud
Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
---------------------------------------------
The Rhodora
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 – 1882)
On Being Asked Whence Is the Flower
In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,
I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,
Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,
To please the desert and the sluggish brook.
The purple petals, fallen in the pool,
Made the black water with their beauty gay;
Here might the red-bird come his plumes to cool,
And court the flower that cheapens his array.
Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why
This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,
Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never thought to ask, I never knew:
But, in my simple ignorance, suppose
The self-same Power that brought me there brought you.
Reading © Classic Poetry Aloud, 2008.
...more
2min
November 28, 2013 605. The Garden of Love by William Blake
William Blake read by Classic Poetry Aloud
www.classicpoetryaloud.com
Twitter: @classicpoetry
Facebook: www.facebook.com/poetryaloud
Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
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The Garden of Love
by William Blake (1757 – 1827)
I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen;
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
So I turned to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore.
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tombstones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.
Reading © Classic Poetry Aloud, 2008.
...more
1min
November 27, 2013 604. Forget Not Yet by Sir Thomas Wyatt
Sir Thomas Wyatt read by Classic Poetry Aloud
www.classicpoetryaloud.com
Twitter: @classicpoetry
Facebook: www.facebook.com/poetryaloud
Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
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Forget not yet
by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503 – 1542)

The Lover Beseecheth his Mistress not to Forget his Steadfast Faith and True Intent

Forget not yet the tried intent
Of such a truth as I have meant;
My great travail so gladly spent,
Forget not yet!

Forget not yet when first began
The weary life ye know, since whan
The suit, the service, none tell can;
Forget not yet!

Forget not yet the great assays,
The cruel wrong, the scornful ways,
The painful patience in delays,
Forget not yet!

Forget not! O, forget not this!—
How long ago hath been, and is,
The mind that never meant amiss—
Forget not yet!

Forget not then thine own approved,
The which so long hath thee so loved,
Whose steadfast faith yet never moved:
Forget not this!
Reading © Classic Poetry Aloud 2009
...more
2min
November 26, 2013 603. Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold read by Classic Poetry Aloud
www.classicpoetryaloud.com
Twitter: @classicpoetry
Facebook: www.facebook.com/poetryaloud
Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
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Dover Beach
by Matthew Arnold (1822 – 1888)
The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand;
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the A gaean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.
Reading © Classic Poetry Aloud, 2007.
...more
3min
November 25, 2013 602. The Drum by John Scott
John Scott read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com
Twitter: @classicpoetry
Facebook: www.facebook.com/poetryaloud

Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
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The Drum
by John Scott (1731 – 1783)

I hate that drum's discordant sound,
Parading round, and round, and round:
To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields,
And lures from cities and from fields,
To sell their liberty for charms
Of tawdry lace and glitt'ring arms;
And when Ambition's voice commands,
To fight and fall in foreign lands.

I hate that drum's discordant sound,
Parading round, and round, and round:
To me it talks of ravaged plains,
And burning towns and ruin'd swains,
And mangled limbs, and dying groans,
And widow's tears, and orphans moans,
And all that Misery's hand bestows,
To fill a catalogue of woes.

Reading © Classic Poetry Aloud, 2007.
...more
2min

FAQs about Classic Poetry Aloud:

How many episodes does Classic Poetry Aloud have?

The podcast currently has 609 episodes available.

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