Classic Poetry Aloud

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Classic Poetry Aloud episodes

October 16, 2007 Past and Present by Thomas Hood
Hood read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
Giving voice to classic poetry.
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Past and Present
by Thomas Hood (1799 – 1845)
I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day:
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.
I remember, I remember
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups—
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,—
The tree is living yet!
I remember, I remember
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow.
I remember, I remember
The fir trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance;
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from heaven
Than when I was a boy.
2 min
October 15, 2007 The Human Seasons by John Keats
John Keats read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
Giving voice to classic poetry.
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The Human Seasons
by John Keats (1795 – 1821)
Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:—
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring's honey'd cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness—to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook:
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
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/
4 min
October 12, 2007 If Thou Must Love Me by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
Giving voice to classic poetry.
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If Thou Must Love Me
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806 – 1861)
Sonnets from the Portuguese iv
If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love's sake only. Do not say,
'I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'—
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry:
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.
Comments
For all the Sonnets from the Portuguese, visit http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2002
2 min
October 10, 2007 What is Life? by John Clare
Clare read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
Giving voice to classic poetry.
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What is Life?
by John Clare (1793 – 1864)
And what is Life? An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still-repeated dream.
Its length? A minute's pause, a moment's thought.
And Happiness? A bubble on the stream,
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.
And what is Hope? The puffing gale of morn,
That of its charms divests the dewy lawn,
And robs each flow'ret of its gem -and dies;
A cobweb, hiding disappointment's thorn,
Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise.
And what is Death? Is still the cause unfound?
That dark mysterious name of horrid sound?
A long and lingering sleep the weary crave.
And Peace? Where can its happiness abound?
Nowhere at all, save heaven and the grave.
Then what is Life? When stripped of its disguise,
A thing to be desired it cannot be;
Since everything that meets our foolish eyes
Gives proof sufficient of its vanity.
'Tis but a trial all must undergo,
To teach unthankful mortals how to prize
That happiness vain man's denied to know,
Until he's called to claim it in the skies.
Comments
For more information on this unjustly neglected 19th Century poet, visit http://www.johnclare.org.uk/
2 min
October 09, 2007 The Harlot’s House by Oscar Wilde
Wilde read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
Giving voice to classic poetry.
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The Harlot’s House
by Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900)
We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.
Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The "Treues Liebes Herz" of Strauss.
Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.
We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.
Like wire-pulled automatons,
Slim silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow quadrille.
They took each other by the hand,
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.
Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed
A phantom lover to her breast,
Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.
3 min
October 08, 2007 To Celia by Ben Johnson
Johnson read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
Giving voice to classic poetry.
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To Celia
by Ben Johnson (1572 – 1637)
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup
And I'll not look for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much honouring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not wither'd be.
But thou thereon didst only breathe
And sent'st it back to me;
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
Not of itself but thee!
2 min
October 05, 2007 O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman
Whitman read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
Giving voice to classic poetry.
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O Captain! My Captain!
by Walt Whitman (1819 – 1892)
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
3 min
October 04, 2007 Solitude by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Wilcox read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
Giving voice to classic poetry.
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Solitude
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850 – 1919)
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.
Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.
Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.
2 min
October 03, 2007 Binsey Poplars by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Manley Hopkins read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
Giving voice to classic poetry.
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Binsey Poplars
felled 1879
by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844 – 1889)
My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
All felled, felled, are all felled;
Of a fresh and following folded rank
Not spared, not one
That dandled a sandalled
Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow and river and wind-wandering weed-winding bank.
O if we but knew what we do
When we delve or hew—
Hack and rack the growing green!
Since country is so tender
To touch, her being só slender,
That, like this sleek and seeing ball
But a prick will make no eye at all,
Where we, even where we mean
To mend her we end her,
When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
Strokes of havoc únselve
The sweet especial scene,
Rural scene, a rural scene,
Sweet especial rural scene.
3 min
October 02, 2007 On first looking into Chapman’s Homer by John Keats
Keats read by Classic Poetry Aloud:
http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/
Giving voice to classic poetry.
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On first looking into Chapman’s Homer
by John Keats (1795 – 1821)
Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow’d Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
You can find more readings of Keats' poetry at:
http://classicpoetryaloud.wordpress.com/category/John-Keats/
2 min

About Classic Poetry Aloud

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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.