Classic Poetry Aloud

Classic Poetry Aloud

By Classic Poetry AloudArtsBooks
Download on the App Store

  • Favorites

    165

    Followers

  • Typical duration

    2 min

    per episode

Based on Podcast App listening data

Classic Poetry Aloud episodes

  • Crossing the Bar by Alfred Lord Tennyson
    Tennyson read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
    http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
    Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
    ---------------------------------------------------
    Crossing the Bar
    by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892)
    SUNSET and evening star,
    And one clear call for me!
    And may there be no moaning of the bar,
    When I put out to sea,
    But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
    Too full for sound and foam,
    When that which drew from out the boundless deep
    Turns again home.
    Twilight and evening bell,
    And after that the dark!
    And may there be no sadness of farewell,
    When I embark;
    For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
    The flood may bear me far,
    I hope to see my Pilot face to face
    When I have crossed the bar.
    2 min
  • The Nile by Leigh Hunt
    Leigh Hunt read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
    http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
    Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
    ---------------------------------------------------
    The Nile
    by James Henry Leigh Hunt (1784 – 1859)
    It flows through old hushed Egypt and its sands,
    Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream,
    And times and things, as in that vision, seem
    Keeping along it their eternal stands,--
    Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands
    That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme
    Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam,
    The laughing queen that caught the world's great hands.
    Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,
    As of a world left empty of its throng,
    And the void weighs on us; and then we wake,
    And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along
    Twixt villages, and think how we shall take
    Our own calm journey on for human sake.
    2 min
  • Say not the Struggle Naught Availeth by Arthur Hugh Clough
    Clough read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
    http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
    Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
    ---------------------------------------------------
    Say not the Struggle Naught Availeth
    by Arthur Hugh Clough (1819 – 1861)
    Say not the struggle naught availeth,
    The labour and the wounds are vain,
    The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
    And as things have been they remain.
    If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
    It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
    Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
    And, but for you, possess the field.
    For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
    Seem here no painful inch to gain,
    Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
    Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
    And not by eastern windows only,
    When daylight comes, comes in the light;
    In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
    But westward, look, the land is bright!
    2 min
  • Winter Nightfall by Robert Bridges
    Bridges read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
    http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
    Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
    ---------------------------------------------------
    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
    2 min
  • The Conqueror Worm by Edgar Allan Poe
    Poe read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
    http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
    Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
    ---------------------------------------------------
    The Conqueror Worm
    by Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849)
    Lo! 't is a gala night
    Within the lonesome latter years.
    An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
    In veils, and drowned in tears,
    Sit in a theatre to see
    A play of hopes and fears,
    While the orchestra breathes fitfully
    The music of the spheres.
    Mimes, in the form of God on high,
    Mutter and mumble low,
    And hither and thither fly;
    Mere puppets they, who come and go
    At bidding of vast formless things
    That shift the scenery to and fro,
    Flapping from out their condor wings
    Invisible Woe.
    That motley drama—oh, be sure
    It shall not be forgot!
    With its Phantom chased for evermore
    By a crowd that seize it not,
    Through a circle that ever returneth in
    To the self-same spot;
    And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
    And Horror the soul of the plot.
    But see amid the mimic rout
    A crawling shape intrude:
    A blood-red thing that writhes from out
    The scenic solitude!
    It writhes—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
    The mimes become its food,
    And over each quivering form
    In human gore imbued.
    Out—out are the lights—out all!
    And over each quivering form
    The curtain, a funeral pall,
    Comes down with the rush of a storm,
    While the angels, all pallid and wan,
    Uprising, unveiling, affirm
    That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
    And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.
    3 min
  • To One Who has been Long in City Pent by John Keats
    Keats read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
    http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
    Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
    ---------------------------------------------------
    To One Who has been Long in City Pent
    by John Keats (1795 – 1821)
    To one who has been long in city pent,
    ’Tis very sweet to look into the fair
    And open face of heaven,—to breathe a prayer
    Full in the smile of the blue firmament.
    Who is more happy, when, with hearts content,
    Fatigued he sinks into some pleasant lair
    Of wavy grass, and reads a debonair
    And gentle tale of love and languishment?
    Returning home at evening, with an ear
    Catching the notes of Philomel,—an eye
    Watching the sailing cloudlet’s bright career,
    He mourns that day so soon has glided by:
    E’en like the passage of an angel’s tear
    That falls through the clear ether silently.
    Comments
    You can find more readings of Keats' poetry at:
    http://classicpoetryaloud.wordpress.com/category/John-Keats/
    For more on Keats, visit http://www.john-keats.com/
    2 min
  • On His Blindness by John Milton
    Milton read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
    http://classicpoetryaloud.podomatic.com/
    Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
    ---------------------------------------------------
    On His Blindness
    by John Milton (1608 – 1674)
    When I consider how my light is spent
    E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,
    And that one Talent which is death to hide,
    Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent
    To serve therewith my Maker, and present
    My true account, least he returning chide,
    Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,
    I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
    That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
    Either man's work or his own gifts, who best
    Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State
    Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
    And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:
    They also serve who only stand and waite.
    2 min
  • To Milton by Oscar Wilde
    Wilde read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
    http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
    Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
    ---------------------------------------------------
    To Milton
    by Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)
    Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed away
    From these white cliffs and high-embattled towers;
    This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours
    Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey,
    And the age changed unto a mimic play
    Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours:
    For all our pomp and pageantry and powers
    We are but fit to delve the common clay,
    Seeing this little isle on which we stand,
    This England, this sea-lion of the sea,
    By ignorant demagogues is held in fee,
    Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land
    Which bare a triple empire in her hand
    When Cromwell spake the word Democracy!
    2 min
  • The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy
    Hardy read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
    http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
    Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
    ---------------------------------------------------
    The Darkling Thrush
    by Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928)
    I leant upon a coppice gate
    When Frost was spectre-gray,
    And Winter’s dregs made desolate
    The weakening eye of day.
    The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
    Like strings of broken lyres,
    And all mankind that haunted nigh
    Had sought their household fires.
    The land’s sharp features seem’d to be
    The Century’s corpse outleant,
    His crypt the cloudy canopy,
    The wind his death-lament.
    The ancient pulse of germ and birth
    Was shrunken hard and dry,
    And every spirit upon earth
    Seem'd fervourless as I.
    At once a voice arose among
    The bleak twigs overhead
    In a full-hearted evensong
    Of joy illimited;
    An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
    In blast-beruffled plume,
    Had chosen thus to fling his soul
    Upon the growing gloom.
    So little cause for carollings
    Of such ecstatic sound
    Was written on terrestrial things
    Afar or nigh around,
    That I could think there trembled through
    His happy good-night air
    Some blessèd Hope, whereof he knew
    And I was unaware.
    2 min
  • Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
    Poe read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
    http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
    Giving voice to the poetry of the past.
    ---------------------------------------------------
    Annabel Lee
    by Edgar Allan Poe (1809 – 1849)
    It was many and many a year ago,
    In a kingdom by the sea,
    That a maiden there lived whom you may know
    By the name of Annabel Lee;
    And this maiden she lived with no other thought
    Than to love and be loved by me.
    I was a child and she was a child,
    In this kingdom by the sea,
    But we loved with a love that was more than love,
    I and my Annabel Lee;
    With a love that the wingèd seraphs of heaven
    Coveted her and me.
    And this was the reason that, long ago,
    In this kingdom by the sea,
    A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
    My beautiful Annabel Lee;
    So that her highborn kinsmen came
    And bore her away from me,
    To shut her up in a sepulchre
    In this kingdom by the sea.
    The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
    Went envying her and me;
    Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
    In this kingdom by the sea)
    That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
    Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
    But our love it was stronger by far than the love
    Of those who were older than we,
    Of many far wiser than we;
    And neither the angels in heaven above,
    Nor the demons down under the sea,
    Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
    Of the beautiful Annabel Lee:
    For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams
    Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
    And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes
    Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
    And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
    Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,
    In her sepulchre there by the sea,
    In her tomb by the sounding sea.
    3 min

About Classic Poetry Aloud

From the publisher's feed

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 poetry. For us, it's all about the listening, and how hearing a poem can make it more accessible, as well as heightening its emotional impact.

Best of Classic Poetry Aloud

Ranked by our users in the last 21 days

  1. Number 1: 620. The Snow Storm by Ralph Waldo Emerson
    3 min
  2. Number 2: 619. If by Rudyard Kipling
    2 min
  3. Number 3: 621: Annabel Lee by Edgar Allan Poe
    3 min

More shows like Classic Poetry Aloud

This American Life by This American Life

This American Life

91,032 Listeners

The Moth by The Moth

The Moth

26,814 Listeners

TED Talks Daily by TED

TED Talks Daily

10,929 Listeners

Lore by Aaron Mahnke

Lore

45,002 Listeners

Philosophize This! by Stephen West

Philosophize This!

15,237 Listeners

The New Yorker: Fiction by The New Yorker

The New Yorker: Fiction

3,341 Listeners

Poetry Off the Shelf by Poetry Foundation

Poetry Off the Shelf

441 Listeners

The New Yorker: Poetry by The New Yorker

The New Yorker: Poetry

517 Listeners

The Daily by The New York Times

The Daily

111,856 Listeners

Poetry with Simon Armitage by Oxford University

Poetry with Simon Armitage

14 Listeners

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily by American Public Media

The Slowdown: Poetry & Reflection Daily

1,220 Listeners

You're Dead to Me by BBC Radio 4

You're Dead to Me

3,213 Listeners

Poetry Unbound by On Being Studios

Poetry Unbound

3,591 Listeners

The Rest Is History by Goalhanger

The Rest Is History

15,770 Listeners

The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

The Ezra Klein Show

15,823 Listeners