Speaker 1: Section one of eight Harvard Poets. This is a LibriVox recording.
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Speaker 1: by Wooly B woolyb dot blog dot com. Eight Harvard Poets,
Speaker 1: Section one Poems by e Estlen Cummings. Thou in whose sword,
Speaker 1: great story shine the deeds? Thou, in whose sword, great
Speaker 1: story shine the deeds of history her heroes sounds the
Speaker 1: tread of those vast armies, of the marching dead, with
Speaker 1: the standards, and the neighing of great steeds moving to
Speaker 1: war across the smiling meads. Thou by whose page we
Speaker 1: break the precious bread of dear communion with the past,
Speaker 1: and wed to valor battle with heroic breeds. Thou fraisar
Speaker 1: for that Thou didst love the pen, while others wrote
Speaker 1: in steel, except all praise of after ages and of
Speaker 1: hungering days, for whom the old glories move The old
Speaker 1: trumpets cry, who gavest as one of those immortal men
Speaker 1: his life, that his fair city might not die? A
Speaker 1: chorus girl, when thou hast taken thy last applause and
Speaker 1: when the final curtain strikes the world away, leaving to
Speaker 1: shadowy silence and dismay that stage which shall not know
Speaker 1: thy smile again, lingering a little while I see them,
Speaker 1: then ponder a tinsel part they let thee play. I
Speaker 1: see the red mouth tarnished, the face gray, and the smileless,
Speaker 1: silent eyes of Magdalen. The lights have laughed their last.
Speaker 1: Without the street darkling awaiteth her whose feet have trod
Speaker 1: the silly souls of men to gold and dust. She
Speaker 1: pauses on the lintle of defeat. Her heart breaks in
Speaker 1: a smile, and she is lust mine also, little painted
Speaker 1: poem of God. This is the garden. Colors come and go,
Speaker 1: frail azures fluttering from night's outer wing, strong silent greens,
Speaker 1: serenely lingering, absolute lights like baths of golden snow. This
Speaker 1: is the garden. Purr's lips do blow upon cold flutes
Speaker 1: within wide glooms, and sing apart celestial to the quivering
Speaker 1: string invisible faces, hauntingly and slow. This is the garden.
Speaker 1: Time shall surely reap, and on death's blade lie many
Speaker 1: a flower curled in other lands where other songs be sung,
Speaker 1: Yet stand they hear enraptured as among the slow, deep trees,
Speaker 1: perpetual of sleep, some silver fingered fountain steals the world.
Speaker 1: It may not always be so. And I say that,
Speaker 1: if your lips, which I have loved, should touch another's,
Speaker 1: and your dear fingers clutch his heart as mine in
Speaker 1: time not far away, If on another's face your sweet
Speaker 1: hair lay in such a silence as I know, or
Speaker 1: such great writhing words as uttering over much stand helplessly
Speaker 1: before the spirit at bay, if this should be, I say,
Speaker 1: if this should be, you of my heart, send me
Speaker 1: a little word, that I may go unto him and
Speaker 1: take his hands, saying, accept all happiness from me. Then
Speaker 1: shall I turn my face and hear one bird sing
Speaker 1: terribly afar in the lost lands Crepuscule. I will wait
Speaker 1: out till my thighs are steeped in burning flowers. I
Speaker 1: will take the sun in my mouth and leap into
Speaker 1: the ripe air, alive with closed eyes, to dash against darkness.
Speaker 1: In the sleeping curves of my body, shall enter fingers
Speaker 1: of smooth mastery with chasteness of sea girls. Will I
Speaker 1: complete the mystery of my flesh. I will rise after
Speaker 1: a thousand years lipping flowers, and set my teeth in
Speaker 1: the silver of the moon, venus over silent waters, day
Speaker 1: descending night, descending floods, the gentle glory of the sunset
Speaker 1: in a golden greeting splendidly to westward, as pale twilight
Speaker 1: trembles into darkness, comes the last light's gracious exhortation, lifting
Speaker 1: up to peace. So when life shall falter, standing on
Speaker 1: the shores of the eternal God, may I behold my
Speaker 1: sunset flooding over silent waters. The lover speaks your little
Speaker 1: voice over the wires, came leaping. I felt suddenly dizzy
Speaker 1: with the jostling and shouting of merry flowers, we skipping,
Speaker 1: high heeled flames courtesied before my eyes or twinkling over
Speaker 1: to my side, looked up with impertinently exquisite faces. Floating
Speaker 1: hands were laid upon me. I was whirled and tossed
Speaker 1: into delicious dancing up up with the pale important stars
Speaker 1: and the humorous moon. Dear girl, how I was crazy?
Speaker 1: How I cried when I heard over time and tied
Speaker 1: in death, leaping sweetly your voice epitaph, tumbling hair, picker
Speaker 1: of buttercups, violets, dannedlions and the big bullying daisies through
Speaker 1: the field wonderful with eyes a little sorry another cubs
Speaker 1: also picking flowers. End of section one. Recording by WALLYB.
Speaker 1: Wallyb dot blog dot com.
Speaker 2: Section two of eight Harvard Poets. This is a LibriVox recording.
Speaker 2: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
Speaker 2: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
Speaker 2: by Michelle Good Eight Harvard Poets. Section two poems by S.
Speaker 2: Foster Damon in Ksu patuit deus. The little clattering stones
Speaker 2: along the street dance with each other round my swimming feet.
Speaker 2: The street itself, as in some crazy dream, streaks past
Speaker 2: a half perceived material stream brighter than early dawn's most
Speaker 2: brilliant dye are blown, clear bands of color through the
Speaker 2: sky that swirl and sweep and meat to break and
Speaker 2: foam like rainbow veills upon a bubble's dome. Yours are
Speaker 2: the songs that burst about my ears, or blow away
Speaker 2: as many colored spheres. You are the star that made
Speaker 2: the skies all bright, yet tore itself away in flaming flight.
Speaker 2: You are the tree that suddenly awoke. You are the
Speaker 2: rose that came to life and spoke, guided by you,
Speaker 2: how we might stroll towards death, our only music, one
Speaker 2: another's breath. Through gardens intimate with hollyhocks, where silent poppies
Speaker 2: burned between the rocks, by pools where birches bend to confidants,
Speaker 2: above green waters scummed with lily plants. There we might wonder,
Speaker 2: you and I alone, Through gardens filled with marble seats,
Speaker 2: moss grown and fountains, water threads that winds disperse, while
Speaker 2: in the spray the birds sit and converse, And when
Speaker 2: the fire flies mixed their circling glow through the dark plants.
Speaker 2: Then gently, might I know your lips light as the
Speaker 2: wings of the dragon flies, merely dreams fluttering in my eyes.
Speaker 2: You thought I had forgotten. You thought I had forgotten. Well,
Speaker 2: I had, although I never guessed I could forget those
Speaker 2: few great moments when we both went mad. The other
Speaker 2: day at some one's tea, we met, smiling, gaily bowed,
Speaker 2: and went our several ways, complaisant with successful coldness. Yet
Speaker 2: suddenly I was back in the old days, before you
Speaker 2: felt we ought to drift apart. It was some trick
Speaker 2: the way your eyebrows, raise your hands, some vivid trifle
Speaker 2: with a start. Then I remembered how I lived alone,
Speaker 2: writing bad poems and eating out my heart, all for
Speaker 2: your beauty. How the time has flown Venice in a sunset,
Speaker 2: glowing of crimson and gold. She lies the glory of
Speaker 2: the world, a beached king's galley whose sails are furled.
Speaker 2: Who is hung with tapestries, rich and old, beautiful as
Speaker 2: a woman is she a woman whose autumn of fire
Speaker 2: is here, proud and calm at the end of the year,
Speaker 2: with the grace that now is majesty. The sleeping waters
Speaker 2: bathe her sides, the warm blue streams of the Adrian Sea.
Speaker 2: She dreams and drowses, and languorously swayed in the swaying
Speaker 2: of the tides. She is a goddess left for us,
Speaker 2: veiled with the softening veils of time. Her blue vein
Speaker 2: breasts are now sublime, her molded torso glorious. The pity
Speaker 2: that we must come and go, while the old gold
Speaker 2: and the marble stays forever, gleaming its soft, strong blaze,
Speaker 2: calm in the early evening glow, And still the sensitive
Speaker 2: silhouettes of the gondolas pass and leave no track light
Speaker 2: on the tides, as lilies and black in the rippling
Speaker 2: waters of long sunsets the new macabre. The pleasant graveyard
Speaker 2: of my soul, with sentimental ciple trees and flowers, is
Speaker 2: filled that I may stroll in meditation at my ease.
Speaker 2: The little marble stones are lost in flowers surging from
Speaker 2: the dead, Nor is there any mournful goes to wait
Speaker 2: until the night is sped. And while night rustles through
Speaker 2: the trees, dragging the stars along, I know the moon
Speaker 2: is rising on the breeze, quivering as in a river's flow.
Speaker 2: And ah, that moon of silver sheen. It is my
Speaker 2: heart hung in the sky, and no clouds ever float
Speaker 2: between the grave flowers and my heart on high. I
Speaker 2: do not read upon each stone the name that once
Speaker 2: was carved there. I merely note new blossoms blown, and
Speaker 2: breathe the perfume of the air. Thus walk I through
Speaker 2: my wonderland, while all the evening is a tune beneath
Speaker 2: the cypress trees that stand like candles to the barren
Speaker 2: moon to war. The music beats up the chasmed street,
Speaker 2: then flares from around the curve. The cheers break out
Speaker 2: from the waving crowd. Our soldiers march superb over the
Speaker 2: track lined city street. The young men, the grinning men pass.
Speaker 2: Last night they danced to that very tune. To day
Speaker 2: they march away tomorrow, perhaps no band at all, or
Speaker 2: the band beside the grave above, in the long blue
Speaker 2: strip of sky. The whirling pigeons, the thoughtless pigeons pass.
Speaker 2: Another band beats down the street. Contending rhythms clash, new
Speaker 2: melodies when place, then fade, and the flashing legs move
Speaker 2: past down the cheering, gray paved street. The fringed flags,
Speaker 2: the erect flags pass calm day with rollers always. The
Speaker 2: ships that move in mystery on the dim horizon, shadow
Speaker 2: filled sails of dreams, sliding over the blue gray ocean,
Speaker 2: far from the rock edged shore, where willow green waves
Speaker 2: are rushing and white foam. People leap to stand erect
Speaker 2: for the moment. Ho Ye sails that seem to wander
Speaker 2: in dream filled meadows, say, is the shore where I
Speaker 2: stand the only field of struggle? Or are ye hit
Speaker 2: and battered out there by waves and wind gusts as
Speaker 2: ye tack over a clashing sea of watery echoes phonograph tango.
Speaker 2: Old dances are simplified of their yearning, bleached by time.
Speaker 2: Yet from one black disk we tasted again the bite
Speaker 2: of crude Spanish passion. He had got into her courtyard.
Speaker 2: She was alone that night. Through the black night rain.
Speaker 2: He sang to her window bars, love me, love ah,
Speaker 2: love me. If you will not, I can follow into
Speaker 2: the highest of mountains, and there in the wooden cabin
Speaker 2: I will strangle you for your lover. That was but
Speaker 2: rustling of tripping plants in the dark. More tightly under
Speaker 2: his cloak, he clasped his guitar. Love ah, love me,
Speaker 2: love me. If you will do this, I can buy
Speaker 2: a fringed silk scarf of yellow, a high comb carved
Speaker 2: of tortoise. Then we will dance in the plaza. She
Speaker 2: was alone that night. He had broken into her courtyard.
Speaker 2: Above the gurgling gutters, he heard surely a door unchained.
Speaker 2: The passage was black, but he risked it death in
Speaker 2: the darkness, or her hot arms. Love love me ah,
Speaker 2: A good old tune, she murmured, And I found we
Speaker 2: were dancing decoration. A little pagan child God plays beyond
Speaker 2: the far horizon haze, and underneath the twilight trees he
Speaker 2: blows a bubble to the breeze, which is borne upward
Speaker 2: in the night and makes the heavens shine with light.
Speaker 2: But soon it sinks to Earth again, and hidding hills
Speaker 2: it bursts, and then with foam the skies are splashed
Speaker 2: and spray, And that's how all the stars are made. Thrinity,
Speaker 2: she is lain with high things and with low She
Speaker 2: lies with shut eyes, rocked in the eternal flow of silence.
Speaker 2: Evermore desperately immortal she she stands with wide hands dim
Speaker 2: through the veil of eternity, behind the supreme door. End
Speaker 2: of section two. Recording by Michelle Good, Huntsville, Alabama.
Speaker 3: Section three of eight Harvard Poets. This is a LibriVox recording.
Speaker 3: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
Speaker 3: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox or recording by
Speaker 3: Larry Wilson, Eight Harvard Poets, Section three poems by J. R.
Speaker 3: Dos Passos. The Bridge, The lonely Bridge cuts dark across
Speaker 3: the marsh, whose long pools glow with the light of
Speaker 3: a flaring summer sunset. At this end, limp of bushes overhang,
Speaker 3: palely reflected in the amber colored water. Among them a
Speaker 3: constant banjo, twanging of frogs and shrilling of toads and
Speaker 3: of insects, rises and falls in coarse, rhythmic and stirring
Speaker 3: dark with crumbling railing and planks. The bridge leads into
Speaker 3: the sunset. Across it many lonely figures, their eyes aflare
Speaker 3: with the sunset, their faces glowing with its colors. Tramp
Speaker 3: pass me through the evening. I am tired of sitting
Speaker 3: quiet among the bushes of the shore, while the dark
Speaker 3: bridge stretches onward and the long pools gleam with light.
Speaker 3: I am tired of the shrilling of insects and the
Speaker 3: croaking of frogs in the rushes. For the wild rice
Speaker 3: in the marsh pools waves its beckoning streamers in the wind,
Speaker 3: and the red sky glory fades. Salvation Army. A drum
Speaker 3: pounds out the hymn loud with gaudy angels, tinsel cherubim
Speaker 3: to drown the fanfare of the street, and with exultant
Speaker 3: lilting beat to mingle the endless rumbles of carts, the
Speaker 3: scrape of feet, the noise of march, the dinning market stalls,
Speaker 3: where women shout their wares and meat hangs out grotesque
Speaker 3: distorted by the gas flares light into one sacred rhythm
Speaker 3: for the devil's spite. A woman's thin, raucous voice carries
Speaker 3: the tune, bids men rejoice, bathe in God's mercy, draw
Speaker 3: near and learn salvation. See with their own eyes. The
Speaker 3: mystery cymbals at the hands of a tired girl, slim
Speaker 3: wisp amid the swirl of crowded streets take up the
Speaker 3: tune monotonously. Importune faces are wan and the arc light's
Speaker 3: livid glare. A wind gust carries the band's flare of
Speaker 3: song in noisy etoes, echoing round lonely back street corners,
Speaker 3: till with distance dimming, it fades away among the silent
Speaker 3: dark array of city houses, where no soul stirs, the
Speaker 3: crowd thins. The players are alone in their faith's raucous monotone,
Speaker 3: loud with gaudy angel's tensil cherubim. A drum pounds out
Speaker 3: the hymn incarnation incessantly. The long rainfalls slanting on black
Speaker 3: walls which glisten gold, where a street lamp shines in
Speaker 3: a shop window spangled in long lines, my rain drops
Speaker 3: all aglow. An Italian woman's face flames into my soul,
Speaker 3: as I go hastily by in the turbulent darkness, an oval,
Speaker 3: olive face with the sweetly sullen grace of the virgin.
Speaker 3: When first she sees amid her garden's silver lilies, the
Speaker 3: white robed angel gleam and softly, as by a sultry dream,
Speaker 3: feels all her soul subdued into the fire and radiance
Speaker 3: of her ecstasy. So in some picture on which, as
Speaker 3: on a liar, an old Italian painter laboriously has played
Speaker 3: his soul away, his love, all his desire for fragrant
Speaker 3: things afar from earth, shines the madonna, as with a
Speaker 3: veil overlaid by incense, smoke and dust age old at
Speaker 3: whose feet, in time of dearth or need, a myriad
Speaker 3: men have laid their sorrows and a room in bold
Speaker 3: incessantly the long rainfalls, slanting on black walls, but through
Speaker 3: the dark interminable streets, along pavements, where a rain beats
Speaker 3: its sharp tattoo, and gas lamps shine greenish gold in
Speaker 3: their solitude. The vision flames through my mood of that
Speaker 3: Italian woman's face, through the dripping window pane memory between
Speaker 3: rounded hills, white with patches of buckwheat, whose fragrance fills
Speaker 3: the little breeze that makes the birch leaves quiver beside
Speaker 3: a rollicking, swift river, light green in the deeps like
Speaker 3: your eyes in sunshine winds the canal lazy and brown
Speaker 3: as a water snake, full of dazzle and sheen. Where
Speaker 3: the breeze sweeps the water with gossamer garments that shake
Speaker 3: the reeds standing sentinel and the marginal line of birches
Speaker 3: and willows. Our little steamer pulls its with jingle of
Speaker 3: bells and panting throb of old engines in stiff array.
Speaker 3: The water reeds wave and solemnly sway to the wash
Speaker 3: and swell of our passing among the reeds. The ripples
Speaker 3: sob and die away, till the canal is still again,
Speaker 3: save for a kingfisher's flashing across the noon's shimmer. I
Speaker 3: stood beside you in the bough, watched the sunlight lose
Speaker 3: itself among your hair, that the breeze tugged at, bright
Speaker 3: as the shattered sun rays. Where the prow cut the
Speaker 3: still water, The warm light caught and tangled there red
Speaker 3: gold amid your hair. You were very slim in your
Speaker 3: blue serge dress. We talked of meaningless things. Education agreed
Speaker 3: that unless something were changed, disaster would come to the nation.
Speaker 3: You smiled when I pointed where a group of birches
Speaker 3: shivered in the greenwood shadow up to their knees in water,
Speaker 3: white and fair as dryads bathing. A row of flat
Speaker 3: white houses, and a wharf glided in sight. The hoarse
Speaker 3: whistle shrieked for landing bells jangled. You were standing a
Speaker 3: slim blue figure amid the wharf's crowd. The little steamer
Speaker 3: creaked against the side loud screamed the whistle again monotonously.
Speaker 3: The solemn reeds waved to our Passing ahead. The canal shimmered,
Speaker 3: blotched green by the water weeds, with a grinding swing
Speaker 3: and seesaw of sound. The steamer slunk down the canal.
Speaker 3: I never even knew your name. That night, From a
Speaker 3: dingy hotel room, I saw the moon like a golden gong,
Speaker 3: redly loom across the lake, like a golden gong in
Speaker 3: a temple which a priest ere long will strike into
Speaker 3: throbbing song to wake some silent, twinkling city to prayer.
Speaker 3: The lake waves were flakes of red gold burnished to
Speaker 3: copper gold, red as the tangled gleam of sunlight in
Speaker 3: your hair, Saturnalia in Earth's womb, the old gods stir
Speaker 3: fierce Thonian deities of old time, with cymbals and rattle
Speaker 3: of castanets and shriek of slughorns. The north wind bows
Speaker 3: the oak, and the moaning fir on russet hills and
Speaker 3: by roadsides stiff with rime in nature dead, the life
Speaker 3: god's stir from Rhadamanthus in the isles where Saturn rules
Speaker 3: the age of gold come old old ghosts of bygone gods,
Speaker 3: while dim mists Earth's outline blur and drip all night
Speaker 3: from lichen green roof tiles in men's hearts. The mad
Speaker 3: gods rise and fill the streets with reveling, with torchlight
Speaker 3: that glances on frozen pools, with tapers starring the thick
Speaker 3: fogged night, a dance like strayed fireflies, meddim mad throngs,
Speaker 3: whose Saturn's oriasons sing in driven clouds. The old gods
Speaker 3: come when fogs the face of Apollo have veiled, a
Speaker 3: fear of things unhallowed, strange, and a fierce free joy
Speaker 3: flares in the land men mutter runs in a language
Speaker 3: dead by night, with rumbling drum in quaking grows, where
Speaker 3: the woodland spirits are hailed to Earth's brood of souls
Speaker 3: of old. With covered heads and aspen wands, mist shrouded
Speaker 3: priests do ancient rites. The black ram's fleece is stained
Speaker 3: with blood that steams dull red on the frozen ground,
Speaker 3: and pale votaries shiver with the cold that numbs the
Speaker 3: earth and etches pattern mirrors on the ponds when that april.
Speaker 3: Is it the song of the meadow lark off the
Speaker 3: brown sere salt marshes, or the eager patches in dooryards
Speaker 3: of yellow and pale lily crocuses, or else the suburban
Speaker 3: street golden with sunlight and bare branches of elm trees
Speaker 3: twined in the delicate sky. Or is it the merry
Speaker 3: piping of a distant hurdy gurdy that makes me so
Speaker 3: weary and faint with desire for strange lands and new scents,
Speaker 3: For the rough rhythm clank of train couplings at night,
Speaker 3: and the stormy, gay tinted sunrises that shade with purple
Speaker 3: the contours of far off, unfamiliar hills, night piece. A
Speaker 3: silver web. Has the moon spun a silver web upon
Speaker 3: all the sky, where the frail stars quiver everyone like
Speaker 3: tangled gnats that hum and die. The Moon has tangled
Speaker 3: the dull night in her silver skein, and set alight
Speaker 3: each dew damp branch with milky flame and huge The
Speaker 3: moon broods on the night. My soul is caught in
Speaker 3: the web of the moon, like a shrilling gnat, and
Speaker 3: a spider's web, importunate memory shrill on my ears, like
Speaker 3: the gnats that die in the spider's web, lovely as death.
Speaker 3: In the moon's shroud were town streets, gray houses, dim,
Speaker 3: full of strange peace in the silent night. As we walked,
Speaker 3: our footsteps clattered loud. We felt the night as a
Speaker 3: troubled song. Oh, the triumphing sense of life, a throb
Speaker 3: behind those walls in the dark streets, Like the sound
Speaker 3: of a river, swift unseen, flowing in darkness. Oh, the
Speaker 3: hoarse half heard murmur swirling beneath the snowy beauty of moonlight.
Speaker 3: And that other night when the river rippled with faint
Speaker 3: spears of street lights vaguely reflected gray, the evening like
Speaker 3: an opal low a gray moon, shrouded in sea fog, air,
Speaker 3: pregnant with spring, rasp of my steps beside the lapping water,
Speaker 3: within the dark, down the worn out years, a sob
Speaker 3: of broken loves, old pain, of dead farewells, and one
Speaker 3: face fading into gray. A silver web has the moon
Speaker 3: spun a silver web over all the sky in her
Speaker 3: flooding glory. One by one, like gnats in a web,
Speaker 3: the stars die. End of section three.
Speaker 4: Section four of eight Harvard Poets. This is a LibriVox recording.
Speaker 4: Recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
Speaker 4: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Ellen Preckle,
Speaker 4: Eight Harvard Poets, Section four poems by Robert Pillier. Four
Speaker 4: sonnets from a sonnet sequence one quickly and pleasantly, The
Speaker 4: seasons blow over the meadows of eternity, as wave on wave,
Speaker 4: the pulsings of the sea merge and are lost each
Speaker 4: and the others flow. Time is no lover. It is
Speaker 4: only he that is the one unconquerable foe. He is
Speaker 4: the sudden tempest none can know. Wing it with swift winds,
Speaker 4: the nun may hope to flee, fair child of loveliness,
Speaker 4: These endless fears are nought to us. Let us be
Speaker 4: gods of stone, and set our images beyond the years,
Speaker 4: on some high mount where we can be alone, and
Speaker 4: thou shalt ever be as now thou art, and I
Speaker 4: shall watch THEE with untroubled heart. Two, Then judge me
Speaker 4: as thou wilt. I cannot flee. I cannot turn away
Speaker 4: from THEE forever, for there are bonds that wisdom cannot sever,
Speaker 4: and slaves with souls far freer than the free. Such
Speaker 4: strong desires the universal Giver, with unknown plan has buried
Speaker 4: deep in me, that the exquisite joy of watching THEE
Speaker 4: has dominated all my life's endeavor. Thou weariest of having
Speaker 4: me so near, I feel the scorn thou hast within
Speaker 4: thy heart, And yet thy face has never seemed so
Speaker 4: dear as now when I am minded to depart, though
Speaker 4: thou shouldst drive me. Hence I love THEE so that
Speaker 4: I would watch THEE when thou dost not know. Three,
Speaker 4: Fly joyous wind through all the wakened earth. Now, when
Speaker 4: the portals of the dawn outpour a myriad of wonders
Speaker 4: from the radiant store of springs, deep passion and loud
Speaker 4: ringing mirth. Cry to the world that I despair no more.
Speaker 4: Heart greets my heart, and hope has proved its worth.
Speaker 4: Fly where the legions of the sun have birth. Chant
Speaker 4: everywhere and everywhere, adore, circle the basking hills in fragrant flight,
Speaker 4: shout rapture, rapture. If sweet sorrow passes, and whisper low
Speaker 4: in intimate delight, my love song to the undulating grasses.
Speaker 4: Grief is no more. Love rises with the spring, Oh,
Speaker 4: fly free, wind and rapture, rapture, sing four long after
Speaker 4: both of us are scattered dust, and some strange souls
Speaker 4: perchance shall read of thee finding the yearnings that have
Speaker 4: crushed from me these poor confessions of my love and
Speaker 4: trust I know how misinterpreted will be these lines, or
Speaker 4: men will laugh, or more unjust thinking, not once of love,
Speaker 4: but only lust will stain the vesture of our memory.
Speaker 4: And yet a few there may be who will feel
Speaker 4: my deep devotion and my true desires, and know that
Speaker 4: these unhappy words reveal only new images in changeless fires.
Speaker 4: And they perchance will linger with a sigh to think
Speaker 4: that beauty such as thine must die. A sea gull
Speaker 4: gray wings, o gray wings against a cloud, over the
Speaker 4: rough waves flashing. Whose was the scream startling and loud
Speaker 4: keen through the skies. Was it thine over the moaning
Speaker 4: wind and the whine of the wide seas dashing? Whose
Speaker 4: was the scream that I heard in the midst of
Speaker 4: the hurrying air? Was it thine lost bird? Or the
Speaker 4: voice of an old despair chanting from years long dead
Speaker 4: inexorable spirit flying on tempest, wings that passed and fled
Speaker 4: through the storm, crying doomsday. The garlands and the songs
Speaker 4: of May shall welcome in the judgment day. About the
Speaker 4: basking country side blossoms, the souls of them that died,
Speaker 4: oh dead, awake, arise in bloom upon the joyous dawn
Speaker 4: of doom. They rise up from the bleeding earth in
Speaker 4: gracious legions of rebirth, each as a flower or a
Speaker 4: tree of verdant immortality, and host of glad voiced angels
Speaker 4: sing in the rippling groves of spring. From the grave
Speaker 4: of youth there grows a passionately petalled rose, where the
Speaker 4: virgin whitely lies a lily fair as paradise. And in
Speaker 4: that old oak's leafy glee, some gouty sire makes sport
Speaker 4: of me o dead of yore and yesterday, all hail,
Speaker 4: the resurrecting may beside you in the flowering grass. The
Speaker 4: feet of youth and love shall pass, and we that
Speaker 4: greet you with a smile shall join you in a
Speaker 4: little while to a pass piers by Scarlattie, strange little tune,
Speaker 4: so thin and rare, like scents of roses long ago,
Speaker 4: quavering lightly upon the strings of a violin, and dying
Speaker 4: there with a dancing flutter of delicate wings. Thy courtly joy,
Speaker 4: thy gentle woe, thy gracious gladness, and plaintive fears are
Speaker 4: lost in the clamorous age we know, and pale like
Speaker 4: a moon in the lurid day. A phantom of music
Speaker 4: strangely fled from the princely halls of the quiet dead,
Speaker 4: down the long lanes of the vanished years, echoing frailly
Speaker 4: and far away elegy for antinous come. Let us hasten
Speaker 4: hence and weep no more. The sinking sea flows on
Speaker 4: its tranquil ways, night looms so greenly at the eastern door,
Speaker 4: and trails the last cloud into lifeless haze. Antinuous is dead.
Speaker 4: We kneel before the portals of our past in vain
Speaker 4: nor raise the laughing phantoms of our yesterdays. Upon this
Speaker 4: desolate and empty shore. Now deepening pools of shadow overflow
Speaker 4: into the sea of dark afar off bell sobs with
Speaker 4: a sweet vibration, long and low, a last farewell for evermore, farewell,
Speaker 4: And will he wake and hear? We cannot tell and
Speaker 4: will he answer? Ah, we do not know. Song, Oh
Speaker 4: Crimson Rose, Oh Crimson Rose, crushed lightly into little hands.
Speaker 4: A child's soft kiss was in your heart, A child's
Speaker 4: warm breath was in your soul. The child is gone,
Speaker 4: oh Crimson Rose. And stained and hardened are the hands.
Speaker 4: And who shall find your golden heart? And who shall
Speaker 4: kiss your withered soul? Happy are you, o, Crimson Rose?
Speaker 4: But I have stains upon my hands. You died with
Speaker 4: kisses in your heart. I live with sorrow in my soul.
Speaker 4: My peace I leave with you. He pondered long and
Speaker 4: watched the darkening space close the red portals. Whence the
Speaker 4: hours had run as like young wistful angels. One by
Speaker 4: one the stars cast timid flowers about his face. YEA,
Speaker 4: now another scarlet day is done. He cried in anguish,
Speaker 4: and with sudden grace, stretched forth his arms as though
Speaker 4: he would erase the few dim embers of the scattered sun.
Speaker 4: The scarlet day is done, and soon the light will
Speaker 4: wake again, My desecrated skies, Oh that another dawn might
Speaker 4: never rise, My foolish children, through the vast of night.
Speaker 4: The young stars shivered in a silver hoard before the
Speaker 4: infinite sorrow of their lord. The recompense. When the last
Speaker 4: song is sung and the last spark of light dies
Speaker 4: out forever and the dark, the voiceless, dark, eternal, shrouds
Speaker 4: the earth, when the last cries of pain and shouts
Speaker 4: of mirth sink in the desolate silences of space. Where
Speaker 4: then shall flower the beauty of your face, O love,
Speaker 4: the laughing youth, the rose in hand. In what unknown
Speaker 4: and undiscovered land shall flower then the beauty of your face.
Speaker 4: I know not, but I know that all returns at last, unchanged,
Speaker 4: and to the heart that yearns shall be repaid all
Speaker 4: loneliness and loss. Some time, with the shadowy sails shall
Speaker 4: fly across the shoreless ocean of infinity. A ship from
Speaker 4: out the past, and the great sea of life shall
Speaker 4: bear you from the strange worlds, over the waves and
Speaker 4: back again to the old lover. Yes, in some future
Speaker 4: far beyond surmise. You will dream here with half remembering eyes,
Speaker 4: and I shall write these words content but while in
Speaker 4: the slow round of time to see you smile. End
Speaker 4: of section four.
Speaker 5: Section five of eight Harvard Poets. This is a LibriVox recording.
Speaker 5: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
Speaker 5: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Eight
Speaker 5: Harvard Poets, Section five Poems by R. S. Mitchell. Poppy
Speaker 5: song one footsteps soft as fall the roses petals on
Speaker 5: a dewy lawn, shaken when the wind uncloses golden gateways
Speaker 5: for the dawn. Laughter light as is a swallows chatter
Speaker 5: in the evening sky, lafted upward from the hollows where
Speaker 5: the limpid waters lie. Faint, as is the willows by
Speaker 5: the margin of the lake, trembling into tiny billows, that
Speaker 5: the silent tear drops make phantoms fitful and uncertain, as
Speaker 5: the pearly autumn rain sweeping on in cloudy curtain down
Speaker 5: the wide way of the plain. Two Oh, unhappy now
Speaker 5: to waken, when the dream had scarce begun out of
Speaker 5: gentle twilight, taken into realms of burning sun. Oh unhappy
Speaker 5: now to find me lost neath heavens hot with noon,
Speaker 5: all that fairy land behind me, poppy fields and rising moon,
Speaker 5: dropbridge and port color, screeching bugles braying soon and late.
Speaker 5: Who are they that come beseeching calling at my castle gate?
Speaker 5: Drive them hence, for they encumber days and nights with
Speaker 5: waking pain. Tell them that I lie and slumber under
Speaker 5: poppies wet with rain. Who art thou that bendest raying
Speaker 5: over me with claspid palms, dim through searching darkness, saying
Speaker 5: words of prayer and murmured psalms. Who art thou that
Speaker 5: kneelest weeping by the border of my bed? Seest thou,
Speaker 5: for I was but sleeping, dreaming only, and not dead.
Speaker 5: Three phantoms flitting and uncertain, sweeping round the endless playing
Speaker 5: autumn twilight's dusky curtain, drowsy poppies drenched with rain, love,
Speaker 5: dream strange that on warp and wolf of dreams, fancy
Speaker 5: should weave the web of truth. And yet this very
Speaker 5: figment seems part of a half forgotten youth, stolen from
Speaker 5: days I thought were sped out of the world beyond
Speaker 5: the dead. Smiled she not when at the edge of
Speaker 5: evening we walked alone, plucking spring's blossoms from the hedge,
Speaker 5: that she might wear them as her own. Or do
Speaker 5: I hold a hopeless tryst here with a shadow made
Speaker 5: of mist? Now as will crumple rose leaves pent by
Speaker 5: fingers we can never know, rouse with the richness of
Speaker 5: their scent, thoughts of a summer long ago. All the
Speaker 5: expanse of land and sea speaks with a thousand tongues
Speaker 5: to me. Twas from coast we watched slow form out
Speaker 5: of the frosty ocean's breath, the blue gray ramparts of
Speaker 5: the storm, flashing with signal fires of death, whilst with
Speaker 5: a murmur far and wide, swept in the low wind
Speaker 5: with the tide. Then, at last, when lips were dumb
Speaker 5: with fear of parting, did we wend along the meadow
Speaker 5: lanes that come from nowhere and nothing end, and smiling kiss,
Speaker 5: though ill at ease under the rustling orchard trees. But
Speaker 5: will the promise give and keep? Can the heart love
Speaker 5: still went? Tis dead? What if the spirit wake from sleep,
Speaker 5: never recall the words it said? Dwell in a dreamland,
Speaker 5: or else be lost in life's eternity, the island of
Speaker 5: death There is an island in a silent sea that
Speaker 5: rises four rough, rugged walls on high above the ocean,
Speaker 5: in calm majesty, a mountain of despair against the sky.
Speaker 5: About its summit, soaring seagulls fly or rest them in
Speaker 5: its lofty cypress trees, and greet the black barge bearing
Speaker 5: those who die upon our earth to everlasting ease and
Speaker 5: pleasant lives that know not man's eternities. White halls and
Speaker 5: palaces their dwellings stand. These shadowy souls are all unknown
Speaker 5: to graves, and live faint phantoms in a fairy land
Speaker 5: of dreams and idleness. They hear the waves sing, and
Speaker 5: the winds come calling from the caves of night beyond
Speaker 5: the ocean, and the cry of screaming gulls stare at
Speaker 5: each ship that braves this wilderness of waters, and glides
Speaker 5: by in awe struck silence, ever fearing to draw high.
Speaker 5: The sun descending sows the sea with gold and shower
Speaker 5: splendor through the fading skies, whilst from the murky waters
Speaker 5: they behold the moon, a shape of silver. Slow arise,
Speaker 5: and every evening, as the daylight dies, there comes that
Speaker 5: bark of death, whose white sail seems an angel in
Speaker 5: the dark a while it lies below them in the harbor.
Speaker 5: Then there gleams a new shape on the stairs up
Speaker 5: to that land of dreams from the Arabian nights. Then
Speaker 5: as the whispering evening crossed the sea, sweeping the waters
Speaker 5: with her veil of gray, wave worn and weary of
Speaker 5: the ocean, we beheld the inchanted island far away, half
Speaker 5: hidden in the twilight.
Speaker 1: Low.
Speaker 5: It lay on the horizon like a lazy cloud, its
Speaker 5: coast encompassed with long lines of spray. We spread the sails,
Speaker 5: and swiftly the ship plowed the purple path ahead until
Speaker 5: the surf sang loud between the cliffs. By the faint stars,
Speaker 5: we found a gloomy gait, and boldly sailing in, watched
Speaker 5: the dark mountains slowly chasing round, and heard faint echoes
Speaker 5: of the ocean's din melting like spirit's voices, fleet and thin.
Speaker 5: When of a sudden, as we faltered nigh out of
Speaker 5: the hills where only night had been a mist of
Speaker 5: minarets and towers high rose like the yellow light of morning.
Speaker 5: In the sun gazing, we drifted towards that golden bloom
Speaker 5: of palaces whose light glowed on our sail. There we floated,
Speaker 5: rapt in wild perfume. Then music burst upon us in
Speaker 5: a gale, grave deep toned trumpets, and the lyres long wail,
Speaker 5: and farther the faint sound of singing men. We grasped
Speaker 5: our oars, but slowly, as will pale the morning star.
Speaker 5: The vision faded. Then the empty dark swept in, and
Speaker 5: all was night again. Threnodie, have you forgotten me? O,
Speaker 5: my beloved, have you deserted me? Now? In the autumn,
Speaker 5: See where the swallows fly south over the ocean. Soon
Speaker 5: will the winter wind sweep the aegean Up from the
Speaker 5: vineyard comes music of laughter. Far through the valleys they
Speaker 5: gather the harvest. Westward, the evening star sinks in the mountains.
Speaker 5: Pale neth rising moon lies mytilene here where the headland
Speaker 5: looks wide o'er the water. I have brought laurel leaves
Speaker 5: decking your barrel. Why do I linger now vainly lamenting? Oh?
Speaker 5: It is lonely, love, lonely in lavaux helen Again the
Speaker 5: voices of the hunting horns and the new moon low
Speaker 5: lying on the hills tell that the summer night is
Speaker 5: on its way. O languid heart, shalt thou much longer
Speaker 5: watch this pale procession of the silent hours melt into
Speaker 5: shadows of unending years, much longer feed on jeurning and despair,
Speaker 5: and all the anguish of departed time. Tomorrow is as
Speaker 5: yesterday to day, no nearer than the morning when there
Speaker 5: stood in Lydda's palace asking for my hand, tall Menelaeus
Speaker 5: with his yellow hair. No nearer now than the first
Speaker 5: time these hands dared linger in caress upon the curls
Speaker 5: of him whose dark eyes laughed their love to mine.
Speaker 5: Tis only as if one short, restless sleep lay over
Speaker 5: the wide chasm of the years, beyond which loom lost
Speaker 5: faith and ruined Troy. The night wind brings as twenty
Speaker 5: summers since the silver breasted swallows from the Nile to
Speaker 5: quiet Sparta, nestled in her hills, locked inland, from the
Speaker 5: voices of the sea, and far across the porticoes. I
Speaker 5: hear the ivory shuttle singing in the loom midst maiden's
Speaker 5: chatter as in olden daze, and men still murmur as
Speaker 5: they pass me by. Lo look at her, the wonder
Speaker 5: of the world beauteous, helen less Amodian's queen. I watched
Speaker 5: them gaze intently on my face, as they would keep
Speaker 5: it in their memory forever, and the very while they gaze,
Speaker 5: I see the flame of Troy gleam in their eyes.
Speaker 5: I think sometimes I have already passed into the kingdom
Speaker 5: of untroubled death, and wandering lonely amongst them I knew
Speaker 5: in Hylas, or in land beyond the seas. Behold each
Speaker 5: shadow as it passes by, shrink half involuntarily, and turn
Speaker 5: and veil its face, and vanish in the gloom. Whilst
Speaker 5: out of that dim distance, whence my steps are moving,
Speaker 5: and to which they shall return after an interval of
Speaker 5: endless years. There comes a voice that calls me from
Speaker 5: afar Art thou not Helen doward of the gods with
Speaker 5: all that man can covet wert thou not created the
Speaker 5: most beautiful of earth? And is not beauty, wisdom, wisdom, power?
Speaker 5: What hast thou done with their almighty gift? And then
Speaker 5: ere I would answer? Silence falls around me, and the
Speaker 5: dark divides, and I see the blue twilight on the
Speaker 5: Spartan hills. Largo Thou only from this sorrow wert relief
Speaker 5: in violent death, grave deity of rest, wherein all things
Speaker 5: to pass somehow seem the best that ever could have
Speaker 5: come to be. Proud grief, her lustrous torch hath lighted
Speaker 5: in this brief, dim time before the dark, when the
Speaker 5: wide west fades, where illimitable skies suggest days vanished in
Speaker 5: the beauty of belief. As one unto a battle come
Speaker 5: that stands aloof a while, beholding friend and foe, clashing
Speaker 5: in conflict till his soul commands, He too, pressed on
Speaker 5: whither the bugles blow, lifting his eye sees over wasted lands,
Speaker 5: life's dust and shadow drifting too and fro Lazarus. At
Speaker 5: morn we passed a hall where song and dance had been,
Speaker 5: and wine flowed free, and where mid recks of revelry
Speaker 5: had laid the feasters all night long. They saw us
Speaker 5: through the midst of dawn, and turning, called us to
Speaker 5: their feast. The sound of lutes and symbols ceased, but
Speaker 5: one he fixed his gaze upon, in whose wide eyes
Speaker 5: there seemed to be behind the laughing wine flushed face
Speaker 5: and tilted ivy Crown's gay grace, faint glimpses of eternity,
Speaker 5: then sad the master bowed his head, and through the
Speaker 5: rosy twilight, Dim walked up and softly spake to him,
Speaker 5: art thou not he that late was dead? The drinker
Speaker 5: raised his cup on high and murmured, Priest of Nazareth,
Speaker 5: I am he thou didst raise from death? Lo thus
Speaker 5: I wait again to die a crucifix. This was the
Speaker 5: cross of God on which men's eyes dwelt with the
Speaker 5: love of dead divinity. As they who by the desolate
Speaker 5: orient sea in battle made their sainted sacrifice, dreaming their
Speaker 5: boundless striving, should devise a symbol whereby men might know
Speaker 5: that he who wins his way on earth to victory, thus,
Speaker 5: in his consummated sorrow dies. All things are sacred to
Speaker 5: that tender sight times ancient altars, whence strange incense curled
Speaker 5: innocent to the unknown gods. The light of love is thine.
Speaker 5: Faith's manner is unfurled, even where the furthest watchmen through
Speaker 5: the night call on the cloud wrapped ramparts of the world.
Speaker 4: Neath.
Speaker 5: Somehow the spirit of that day, rain, cloud, streets and
Speaker 5: brooding air determined me to live and dare living to
Speaker 5: laugh the world away. As in a crystal dreamers see
Speaker 5: out of unwinding midst a rise the splendors of some paradise,
Speaker 5: woven of gold and ivory. Deep in the globe of thought,
Speaker 5: I saw dawn from tempestuous dust that formed, towards which
Speaker 5: the endless age's storm uproarious to break with awe of
Speaker 5: all things ignorant yet wise, sitting enthroned at life's last goal,
Speaker 5: dividing body from the soul, looking at each with flameless eyes, immutable, unknown,
Speaker 5: unsung through triumph and delight unearned through sorrow undeserved, I
Speaker 5: learned salvation from thy wordless tongue. Then, flying the embracing
Speaker 5: gloom of burnt out days and parted desire, I built
Speaker 5: my soul and altar fire of laughter in the face
Speaker 5: of doom. A farewell, nay, by this desolate sea, our
Speaker 5: troubled ways shall separate forever. Swift hath sped the hour
Speaker 5: of youth, and yet to hang the head lamenting lost
Speaker 5: things of departed days were only from that shadowland to
Speaker 5: rise a wraith, that whispering of the quiet dead would
Speaker 5: mimic the strange life of love. Instead, let us relent
Speaker 5: and hail the past with praise. Go then, and should
Speaker 5: inevitable fate lead us at last beyond the world of men,
Speaker 5: where laurel and applause contend no more. Whether the soul
Speaker 5: takes silence for its mate, there might we meet, and,
Speaker 5: smiling once again, clasp hands and part upon some windy shore.
Speaker 5: End of section five. Recording by Todd.
Speaker 6: Section six of eight Harvard Poets. This is a LibriVox recording.
Speaker 6: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
Speaker 6: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
Speaker 6: by Phil Shamp eight Harvard Poets, Section six Poems by
Speaker 6: William A. Norris of too much song? Sedges? Have you
Speaker 6: sung too much? Sedges? Gray along the shore? Can this
Speaker 6: autumn tempest touch answering chords? And you no more? Is
Speaker 6: the summer all forgot?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 6: The ice is dark and strong, that has bound you
Speaker 6: to the spot. Did you die of too much song?
Speaker 6: Something in me is a heart played by every wanton breeze,
Speaker 6: Moaning soft and piping sharp are its wondrous melodies? Is
Speaker 6: the playing overfast? Though the answer now is strong, like
Speaker 6: the sedges at the last, Will it die of too
Speaker 6: much song? Wherever my dreams go, wherever my dreams go.
Speaker 6: You are always there. And you and I have gone
Speaker 6: to many a land, seeing high hills at dawn, and
Speaker 6: desert sand temples and mosques and people bowed in prayer.
Speaker 6: We too have preyed in many places where beauty is come.
Speaker 6: As I have clasped your hand, and through long silence
Speaker 6: learned to understand the dumb, sweet language of your eyes
Speaker 6: and hair. We have been lovers in all fair romances.
Speaker 6: Beyond the rising nor the sunken sun. There have been
Speaker 6: foes to meet, and I have done great deeds beneath
Speaker 6: the splendor of your glances. And yet I dreamed alone.
Speaker 6: You could not guess what joy you brought into my loneliness.
Speaker 6: Out of the littleness, out of the littleness that wraps
Speaker 6: my days, the oppressive mist of gray and common things.
Speaker 6: Sometimes my dream, on its audacious wings, dripping with golden
Speaker 6: fire above the haze, flashes and veers against the sudden
Speaker 6: blaze of sunlight. There no other wings may gleam, but
Speaker 6: only yours, companioning my dream in its strange flight up
Speaker 6: new and radiant ways. And once I thought, in a
Speaker 6: far solid tude, the black waves moaned and broke unutterably
Speaker 6: on a stern cliff, where hand in hand we stood.
Speaker 6: There were none near us when the dark had gone,
Speaker 6: only the clean wind of a sailless sea, and you
Speaker 6: and I alone in the great dawn nahunt last night.
Speaker 6: The sea was an enchanted moan, and a pale pathway
Speaker 6: that the moonlight made all night. It sorrowed in the dark, alone,
Speaker 6: groping with ghostly fingers, half afraid up the great rocks,
Speaker 6: and sobbing back again, weary of search, yet still unsatisfied.
Speaker 6: It seemed to have the voice of all dead men
Speaker 6: and all fair women who had ever died. But now
Speaker 6: the sun has risen, and the spray leaps into the
Speaker 6: sudden light. Along the shore, each little waves caught a
Speaker 6: golden ray, as if the dawn had never come before.
Speaker 6: Beyond the cliffs, brown fishing boats go by under the
Speaker 6: reach of the wide laughing sky, quisoub luna errant in
Speaker 6: a strange land. They dwell, too far away from sunlight
Speaker 6: and the common mirth of men ever to come with
Speaker 6: an arc casual kin. We see them not, But if
Speaker 6: by chance we stray down Cypress Isles, where the wan
Speaker 6: summer day draws to a thin and sickly close we
Speaker 6: hear murmur of mad speech by some watery weir, or
Speaker 6: languid laughter and faint sound of play. They never see
Speaker 6: the dawn, like the pale moths that haunt lugubrious shadows
Speaker 6: of dim trees. They celebrate their lunar mysteries at woodland shrines,
Speaker 6: where with green thyris rods and weak limbs wrapped in
Speaker 6: silken sensuous cloths, they chant the names of their dead
Speaker 6: pagan gods across the taut strings, Across the taut strings
Speaker 6: of my yearning soul, pass fingers of all fleet and
Speaker 6: beautiful things, comings of dawn and moonlight, glimmerings, midsummer hush
Speaker 6: and sabbath bells that toll over road fields, a sound
Speaker 6: of thrushes wings near sunset hour, a girl with lips apart,
Speaker 6: wonder and laughter. These things have touched my heart and
Speaker 6: left their music lingering on its strings. At twilight of
Speaker 6: some gray, eventual year, a few late friends will turn
Speaker 6: with trembling breath from the raw mound of earth that
Speaker 6: hides my face. Yet I shall still find beauty even
Speaker 6: in death. And some lone traveler of the night will
Speaker 6: hear an echo of music in that quiet place escape.
Speaker 6: They danced beneath the stars, a crazy rout with antic
Speaker 6: steps that had some little grace, and one leapt high
Speaker 6: with song in frenzied shout, and one ran silent with
Speaker 6: a gleaming face. They danced until the shy moon, looking down,
Speaker 6: deemed herself lost above some Grecian glade a mile away.
Speaker 6: The trim New England town echoed the bacchanalien din they made,
Speaker 6: and still they danced until the moon sank low, blushing
Speaker 6: a little, and night's diadem of stars grew pale before
Speaker 6: the eastern glow, And with the dawn their keepers came
Speaker 6: for them on a street corner. But all the time
Speaker 6: you spoke, I did not hear the words you said.
Speaker 6: I only heard a far faint sound of summer waters,
Speaker 6: and a clear calling of music from some lonely star.
Speaker 6: I thought I heard the lisp of falling dew in
Speaker 6: a dark meadow where no breezes stirred. Then all at once,
Speaker 6: the noisy street, and you smiling at me, because I
Speaker 6: had not heard sea burial over the sands. The swollen
Speaker 6: tide came creeping over the sands beneath the gleaming moon.
Speaker 6: At first it seemed a child's uncertain croon, and then
Speaker 6: a sound of many mourners weeping. Then all at once
Speaker 6: a crested wave was sweeping around the still form in
Speaker 6: the moonlight, there, twining its silver fingers in her hair,
Speaker 6: And yet it could not rouse her from her sleeping.
Speaker 6: With dawn, the tide went seaward, burying her in its
Speaker 6: strong arms that clung so tenderly, and laid her in
Speaker 6: a strange place far away, where the tall seaweeds rise
Speaker 6: and never stir. And there she sleeps, while pass alternately
Speaker 6: the brooding night and the green luminous day.
Speaker 4: End of Chapter six, Section seven of eight Harvard Poets.
Speaker 4: This is a lubrivox recording. All Lubervox recordings were in
Speaker 4: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer his
Speaker 4: visitly revoxtt worg recording by Ellen Prepple, Eight Harvard Poets,
Speaker 4: Section seven Poems by Dudley Poor. A Renaissance picture, calm,
Speaker 4: little figure ivy crowned. How long beneath the barren trade
Speaker 4: where this pale, martyred god has found surcease from his
Speaker 4: long agony. You watch with an untroubled gaze, life moved
Speaker 4: on its accustomed ways. Within your childish heart, there dwells
Speaker 4: no sorrow that uprising dims your eye. Whence not a
Speaker 4: tear drop wells for pity of those rhythm limbs, or
Speaker 4: for the travail of a race consummate in one lifeless face.
Speaker 4: Though tinkling caravans go by forever over twilight sands, with
Speaker 4: Myrrh and Cassia laden high for other shrines in other lands.
Speaker 4: No weight of grief thereat you know, but softly on
Speaker 4: your handpipes blow from what dim mountain have you strayed?
Speaker 4: Where ringed by the Hellenic seas, you dwelt in an
Speaker 4: untrodden glade sacred to woodland deities along whose faint paths
Speaker 4: went at dawn and dymion, Or a dancing fawn from
Speaker 4: groves where sacrificing throngs called you by some fair Grecian name,
Speaker 4: with ritual meat and charric songs. Strange that to this
Speaker 4: dark hill you came to seek, unmindful of their loss,
Speaker 4: a refuge underneath the cross. There is some deeper secret
Speaker 4: lies hidden out of human sight. In keeping of those
Speaker 4: tranquil eyes that shine with such immortal light, and in
Speaker 4: their shadows gleam and glow. While still upon your pipes
Speaker 4: you blow all but inscrutable. Your gaze declares your place
Speaker 4: is even here, sharing this martyr's cup of praise, and
Speaker 4: yere I sadly westering year till the last altar lights
Speaker 4: grow dim, dividing sovereignty with him the philosopher's garden. Some
Speaker 4: strange and exquisite desire has thrilled this flowering almond tree,
Speaker 4: whose branches shake so wistfully. Else Wherefore does a gloom
Speaker 4: in fire? Why scatter pollen on the air, marry its
Speaker 4: pale buds, each to each the year's unkindly tempests bear,
Speaker 4: or to the calm, clear sunlight reach. Yet I can
Speaker 4: give that hope no name, nor that divine emotion share,
Speaker 4: for though I see it flowering there, because our speech
Speaker 4: is not the same, the passionate secret must lie hid,
Speaker 4: burdened with unexpressed delight, where none of all man's race
Speaker 4: can bid it forth or voice its beauty. Right. There's
Speaker 4: naught in Earth or Heaven knows that hope for which
Speaker 4: our being longs. The stars are busied with their songs.
Speaker 4: The universal springtime flows from sun to sun in scorn
Speaker 4: of man, careless if he be quick or dead, or
Speaker 4: if this earth as it began, be voiceless and untenanted.
Speaker 4: The Tree of Stars there stands a tree where no
Speaker 4: man knows, and like an earthly tree it grows, save
Speaker 4: that upon its branches wide the earth and all the stars,
Speaker 4: beside the chilly moon and the great sun. The little planets,
Speaker 4: one by one are hung like fruit to redden there
Speaker 4: and ripen in the heavenly air. And when the seeds
Speaker 4: are round and full, the watchful gods will come and
Speaker 4: pull the ripened fruit from off the tree. And then
Speaker 4: that heavenly company will bear the shining planets in and
Speaker 4: garner them in a deep bin, and sort them out,
Speaker 4: and save the seed to plant new trees in time
Speaker 4: of need. After rain all day, the heavy skies have lowered,
Speaker 4: long beaten by autumnal rain. The lilac's withered leaves lie showered,
Speaker 4: where little rain pools star the plain. All things that
Speaker 4: for a season flowered sink back to earth again. Strange
Speaker 4: then that with the years decrease, and out of gathering dusk,
Speaker 4: you rise, seeking loves, ultimate surcease. Phantom whose memory haunted
Speaker 4: eyes know that there never can be peace. Hooked for
Speaker 4: till memory dies in vain, where these dead leaves lie strown,
Speaker 4: where all things bending earthward fail. Like a young spirit,
Speaker 4: newly flown flower, fragile blossom, like and pale, you search
Speaker 4: and must fly back a blown rose leaf on the
Speaker 4: cold gale. You might have rested, But for this that
Speaker 4: love's intense flame, burning through the shuddering body with a kiss,
Speaker 4: woke in the prisoned spirit too, so keen an ecstasy
Speaker 4: of bliss, as could for all they made amiss, nor
Speaker 4: life nor death undo cor cordium. Deep in a heart,
Speaker 4: beneath or hanging boughs, Love built himself a house, And
Speaker 4: whoso entered in love bade him stay, nor ever from
Speaker 4: that feast, to come away dissatisfied or weary of the
Speaker 4: fair Love set him there forever through the groves and blades,
Speaker 4: kind thoughts went softly to and fro, and memories, like
Speaker 4: white footed maids with gentle tread, would come and go
Speaker 4: among the ever garrulous trees and through the branches overhead.
Speaker 4: I know not what spirits strayed, or what commandment spirits
Speaker 4: led their maize dances, but one blade so deftly on
Speaker 4: the psaltery, that they for joy must needs keep singing.
Speaker 4: All the chambers of Love's house with that sweet minstrelsy
Speaker 4: were ringing. Faces to the windows, came tears to happy eyelids,
Speaker 4: started feeling as by sudden flame their cares and their
Speaker 4: sad hearts disparted, each old, clinging, sorrow dead, All whoever
Speaker 4: guested there to each other, murmuring said, in this heart
Speaker 4: breathe purer air. The thoughts that move across the sky
Speaker 4: have had a more mysterious birth. Our lovelier float, more
Speaker 4: state lily, then clouds across the sky of earth. All
Speaker 4: guests within that heart's deep wood, all friends together in
Speaker 4: that house high converse, held with an aerial brood, with spirit,
Speaker 4: folk kept delicate, caroused. None ever turned ungreeted from that door.
Speaker 4: Sorrow himself was guessed a weary while. But yesterday, when
Speaker 4: I passed by, once more met me no welcoming smile,
Speaker 4: nor any breath, the unwavering branch to stir silent, each
Speaker 4: glad aerial chorister. Three darsy poppies rooted by the wall,
Speaker 4: lonely and tall. Then as I leaned above their crimson bloom,
Speaker 4: the flower of day grew old and withered. Night with
Speaker 4: a sigh, sat down beside her loom, winding her shuttle
Speaker 4: with a silver thread. Suddenly from the starlit planes of air, ethereal,
Speaker 4: tumult airy tempest, blue, immortal music, showering everywhere, flashed to
Speaker 4: the earth in an harmonious dew leaped, jubilant from cloud
Speaker 4: to craggy cloud, binding the moon in a melodious chain,
Speaker 4: storming the troubled stars, a luminous crowd, dropping in fiery
Speaker 4: streaks to Earth again from out the windows of God's house,
Speaker 4: faint as a far echoing wave, the angels, bending their
Speaker 4: calm brows, song for song in answer, gave and faster
Speaker 4: than a falcon, flies thronging spirits in a cluster, passed
Speaker 4: before my dazzled eyes, shedding in aerial luster, burning with
Speaker 4: translucent fire, shaking from their dewy wings, wild, ineffable desire
Speaker 4: of starry and immortal things, torturing with delicious pain, past
Speaker 4: telling sweet the bewildered heart, piercing the poor mortal brain
Speaker 4: with beauty, a keen, fiery dart ah, even as an
Speaker 4: oracle whose soul a God has breathed upon the beauteousness
Speaker 4: unbearable possessed me so all strength was gone. Smitten by
Speaker 4: a barbed joy, My sense, with rapturous pain, grew dim
Speaker 4: joy pierced me as it would destroy. Still higher rose
Speaker 4: the celestial hymn. And then of all that starry throng
Speaker 4: that streamed toward the upper sky, one spirit darted down
Speaker 4: again and stood upon a bough near by. Even I
Speaker 4: unsealed thy sight, he said, alas that shape I did
Speaker 4: not know, for he was so transfigured, so circled by
Speaker 4: the unearthly glow of his pulsating ori. All I, who
Speaker 4: so well the flesh had known, I did not know
Speaker 4: the soul. With troubled eyes, he bended down, and all
Speaker 4: about me where I stood, every blossom, every tree, all
Speaker 4: the branches of that wood were trembling in their ecstasy.
Speaker 4: They knew ere I had half divined. But at his voice,
Speaker 4: old dreams awoke in dusty chambers of the mind. And
Speaker 4: when again he softly spoke, with sudden tears, mine eyes
Speaker 4: were wet and lowlier still. He bent his head. Dost thou,
Speaker 4: dear friend, not know me? Yet? Yes, for I know
Speaker 4: thy voice, I said, dear phantom, this immortal guise, this
Speaker 4: disembodied self of thine hath dazed my unacquainted eyes. Thou
Speaker 4: dweller on the steps divine, Thou image of a God's desire,
Speaker 4: Thou spark of the celestial flame. Art fashioned out of
Speaker 4: wind and fire and elements without a name, What sacred
Speaker 4: fingers mingled them and trembled with a god's delightight. Thy
Speaker 4: body is a burning gem. Thy limbs are crest a light.
Speaker 4: A glory hands about thy head. For thou in thine
Speaker 4: immortal lot, in Heaven's own light, Art garmented, I know THEE,
Speaker 4: Yet I know THEE not. Then he with shining eyes
Speaker 4: half shut, radiantly standing there, I did but change my
Speaker 4: leafy hut or a mansion in the air, the eerie wood,
Speaker 4: the enchanted ground, the dim bird, haunted blades. We trod
Speaker 4: grew all untuneful. When I found a dwelling in the
Speaker 4: heart of God, I latched the gate of dawn of day.
Speaker 4: I planted poppies by the door to his retreats. I
Speaker 4: came away, and I shall wander thence no more. The
Speaker 4: windy heights are all my love, the sphirial lights, the
Speaker 4: spiral chimes, the trailing fires, the hosts that move in
Speaker 4: concourse through sidereal climes. I trooped with the celestial choirs.
Speaker 4: We have not any wish to thee sad pilgrims torn
Speaker 4: by sad desire, wayfarers of mortality. The husk of flesh
Speaker 4: we have put by the dark seed, planted in the earth,
Speaker 4: have blossomed in the upper sky in airy gardens, have
Speaker 4: new birth. There did he make an end for Oh
Speaker 4: those spirits singing darted by again, and at the showering
Speaker 4: sound he trembled. So I saw his earthly dalliance give
Speaker 4: him pain, and cried in sorrow, Oh, my friend, farewell
Speaker 4: Now from the luminous paradisal bands, Gabriel israepel Ithuriel beckoned
Speaker 4: to you with their exulting hands. The withered leaf, the
Speaker 4: faded flower, be mine. The withered leaf, the faded flower
Speaker 4: be mine. The broken shrine, all things that, knowing beauty
Speaker 4: for a day, have passed away to dwell in the
Speaker 4: illimitable wood of quietude, undying, radiant, young past years among
Speaker 4: no blighting wind on their beauty blows. The altar glows
Speaker 4: with flames, unquenchable and bright by day by night, Secure
Speaker 4: from envious time's deflowering breath, they know no death, but silently,
Speaker 4: imperishably fair, grow lovelier. There he who adores too much
Speaker 4: the impending hour, the budding flower, who knows not with
Speaker 4: what dies. An hour that's dead, is garmented, who walks
Speaker 4: with glimmering shapes companion us. He cannot guess with how
Speaker 4: great love and thankfulness I praise the yesterdays. End of
Speaker 4: section seven.
Speaker 3: Section eight of eight Harvard Poets. This is a LibriVox recording.
Speaker 3: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
Speaker 3: information or to volunteer, please visit brivox dot org. Recording
Speaker 3: by Larry Wilson, Eight Harvard Poets, Section eight Poems by
Speaker 3: Cuthbert Wright. The end of it we met, and on
Speaker 3: the decorous drive touched hands. Goodbye. A pleasant trip to you,
Speaker 3: I said. The sunlight slept upon the still uplands, your
Speaker 3: figure fading in the dusty red. I watched a while,
Speaker 3: then turned with casual face to where a torrent glimmered
Speaker 3: down a glade. No human voice troubled the lovely place,
Speaker 3: only the fall a cruel music made a time. I
Speaker 3: lay and marked with curious stare the keen sun lances
Speaker 3: quiver on the lawn and thought on shrines, all voiceless
Speaker 3: now and there the holy genius of their boughs withdrawn
Speaker 3: till with hoarse cry the train that you were on
Speaker 3: stabbed the indifference of the empty air. Then I awoke
Speaker 3: and knew that you were gone. The New Platonist circa.
Speaker 3: Sixteen forty. Our loves as flowers fall to dust, the
Speaker 3: noblest singing hath an end. No man to his own
Speaker 3: soul may trust, nor to the kind arms of his friend.
Speaker 3: Yet I have glimpsed by lonely tree, bright baths of immortality.
Speaker 3: My faultless teachers bid me fair the cypress path of
Speaker 3: blood and tears, treading the thorny world to where the
Speaker 3: painful cross of Christ appears. Twas on another summer hill.
Speaker 3: I met you first, my miracle. The painted windows burn
Speaker 3: and flame up through the music haunted air. These were
Speaker 3: my gods. And then you came, with flowers crowned and
Speaker 3: sun kissed hair, making this northern river seem some laughter
Speaker 3: girdled Grecian stream. When the fierce foreman of our race
Speaker 3: marshals his lords of lust and pride, you spring within
Speaker 3: a moment's space, full armed and smiling, to my side. Oh,
Speaker 3: golden heart. The love you gave me alone has saved
Speaker 3: and yet will save me perchance. We have no perfect
Speaker 3: city beyond the rack of these Our wars till death
Speaker 3: alone and sacred pity wash with long sleep our wounds
Speaker 3: and scars. So much the more I praise in measure
Speaker 3: the generous gods for you, my treasure. The room over
Speaker 3: the river, good night, my love, Good night. The wan
Speaker 3: moon holds her lantern high and softly, threads with nodding light,
Speaker 3: the violet posterns of the sky below. The tides run
Speaker 3: swift and bright into the sea. Odors and sounds come
Speaker 3: in to us faint with the passion of this night.
Speaker 3: One little dream hangs luminous above you in the scented light.
Speaker 3: Roses and mist, stars and bright dew draw down to you.
Speaker 3: How often in the dewy break I've heard above the
Speaker 3: sigh weirs, the night birds singing for your sake, his
Speaker 3: lonely song of love and tears. He too, sad heart
Speaker 3: hath turned to rest, and sleep is best flower of
Speaker 3: my soul. Let us be true to youth and love
Speaker 3: and all delight, clean and refreshed, and one with you.
Speaker 3: I would be ever as to night, and heed not
Speaker 3: what the day will bring, nor anything. And now the
Speaker 3: moon is safe away, far off her carriage. Lampion's flare
Speaker 3: lost in the sunken roads of day, they vanish in
Speaker 3: the icy air. Good Night, my love, good night, good
Speaker 3: night the fiddler. Once more, I thought I heard him plain,
Speaker 3: that unseen fiddler in the lane, under the timid twilight moon,
Speaker 3: playing his visionary strain. No other soul was in the place,
Speaker 3: as up the hill I came apace. Though once I
Speaker 3: heard him every day, I never once have seen his face.
Speaker 3: It was my immemorial year when rhymes came fast and
Speaker 3: blood beat clear, He too, perchance, was then alive. Now
Speaker 3: separate ghosts we wander here. Sometimes his ghostly rondolais broke
Speaker 3: on my dream at dawn of day, and through my
Speaker 3: open windows stole the perfumed marvel of the may. Sometimes
Speaker 3: at midnight lanes I heard the twitter of a darkling bird,
Speaker 3: as hidden from the ashen moon. The pathos of his
Speaker 3: music stirred, Oh, happy time, How goodly seemed the dauntless,
Speaker 3: timeless dream I dreamed, those dear imaginary sins, the joys
Speaker 3: that in one torrent streamed when the moon and stars
Speaker 3: go out for a I am dead and cast away.
Speaker 3: This autumn city I have loved will know me not,
Speaker 3: but he will stay in faded suburbs. He will play
Speaker 3: some other boy's brief morn away till sapphire windows palely
Speaker 3: burn amid the undefeated gray. And yet sometimes I seem
Speaker 3: to know I shall not scape his phantom bow. More
Speaker 3: paramount than death or pain, This ghost will follow me
Speaker 3: where I go, in some well kept, untrouble hell, where
Speaker 3: frustrate souls like mine may dwell. I shall look up
Speaker 3: and hear his note coming across the asphodel. No shades
Speaker 3: will gather at his tune to dance their ghostly rigged doon.
Speaker 3: Only that lonely voice will cleave the everlasting afternoon. Falstaff's
Speaker 3: page to Reginald Sheffield. In blaze of curls and cowslip
Speaker 3: colored coat, he pranks away before the wheezy night tall
Speaker 3: windsor shows no blossom like this white by park, or
Speaker 3: sedgy pool, or bearded moat. A skylark burbles in that
Speaker 3: milk white throat, And I have heard him down a
Speaker 3: singing stream. Ere the brute morn shattered by happy dream
Speaker 3: upon the sill and weeping. I awoke. We had a
Speaker 3: music once, a poesy, sweet as a maiden, lisom as
Speaker 3: this lad full of merriment and gentle joy, that other
Speaker 3: England lives and laughs in thee a peal of Morris music,
Speaker 3: blithe and glad, Thou spray of a bloom, thou flower
Speaker 3: of a boy. A dull Sunday after w C. It
Speaker 3: has been a long day, a long long day, And
Speaker 3: now in floods of twilight, in long green waves of sunset,
Speaker 3: softly flowing evening. It is evening over the great towns.
Speaker 3: It is evening in our hearts. And though the last rail,
Speaker 3: tendrils and flowers of incense have long ago uncurled themselves.
Speaker 3: Around the cynical cathedral, I hear the thin white voices
Speaker 3: of children, little girls and little boys, calling the name
Speaker 3: of Jesus and his most sacred heart, singing about a
Speaker 3: kind of perish heaven, a little walled city, all golden
Speaker 3: and laelac, like the one seen by Francois Villon's mother
Speaker 3: in an old, bituminous, smoke bitten painting of the Middle Ages.
Speaker 3: And in this faith she wished to live and die.
Speaker 3: End of Section eight end of eight Harvard Poets