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Color - Countee Cullen · Sergeant York and His People

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  Speaker 1: Section zero of color. This is a LibriVox recording. All
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Read by
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Mike Overbye Midland, Washington, Color by Counte Cullen to you
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: who read my book. Soon every sprinter, however, fleet, comes
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  Speaker 1: to a winter of sure defeat. Though he may race
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  Speaker 1: like the hunted dough, time has a pace to lay
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  Speaker 1: him low. Soon, We who sing, however high, must face
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  Speaker 1: the thing we cannot fly. Yea, though we fling our
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  Speaker 1: notes to the sun, time will outsing us every one.
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  Speaker 1: All things must change. As the wind is blown. Time
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  Speaker 1: will estrange the flesh from the bone. The dream shall
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  Speaker 1: elude the dreamer's clasp, and only its hood shall comfort
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  Speaker 1: his grasp. A little while, too brief at most, and
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  Speaker 1: even my smile will be a ghost, a little space,
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  Speaker 1: a finger's crook. And who shall trace the path I took?
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  Speaker 1: Who shall declare my whereabouts? Say if in the air
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  Speaker 1: my being shouts along light ways, or if in the
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  Speaker 1: sea or deep earth stays the germ of me? Ah?
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  Speaker 1: None knows, none, save but too well the cryptic one
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  Speaker 1: who will not tell this is my hour to wax
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  Speaker 1: and climb, flaunt a red flower in the face of time,
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  Speaker 1: and only an hour time gives. Then snap goes the flower,
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  Speaker 1: and dried is the sap juice of the first grapes
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  Speaker 1: of my vine. I proffer your thirst, my own heart's whine.
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  Speaker 1: Here of my growing a red rose sways, seed of
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  Speaker 1: my soul and work of my days. I run, but
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  Speaker 1: times abreast with me. I sing, But he climbs with
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  Speaker 1: my highest sea drink, while my blood colors the wine
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  Speaker 1: reach while the bud is still on the vine. Then
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  Speaker 1: when the hawks of death tear at my throat, till
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  Speaker 1: song and breath ebb note by note, turn to this
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  Speaker 1: book of the mellow word for a singing. Look at
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  Speaker 1: the stricken bird, Say this is the way he chirped
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  Speaker 1: and sung in the sweet hey day when his heart
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  Speaker 1: was young. Though his throat is bare by death, defiled song,
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  Speaker 1: labored there and bore a child. When the dreadful axe
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  Speaker 1: rives me apart, when the sharp wedge cracks my arid heart,
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  Speaker 1: turn to this book of the singing me for a springtime.
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  Speaker 1: Look at the wintry tree, Say thus it was weighed
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  Speaker 1: with flower and fruit. Ere the axe was laid unto
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  Speaker 1: its root, though the blows fall free on a gnarled trunk.
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  Speaker 1: Now once he was a tree with a blossomy bow.
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  Speaker 1: End of section zero, Section one of Color by Counte Cullen.
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  Speaker 1: The Librovox according is in the public domain, read by
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  Speaker 1: Mike Overby, Midland, Washington, Color one. Yet do I marvel?
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  Speaker 1: I doubt not God as good, well meaning kind? And
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  Speaker 1: did he stoop to quibble? Could tell why the little
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: buried mole continues blind? Why flesh that mirrors him must
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: some day die? Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus is
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: baited by the fickle fruit. Declare, if merely brute caprice
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: doom sissyphus to struggle up a never ending stare inscrutable,
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  Speaker 1: his ways are and immune to ca atochism by a
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  Speaker 1: mind too strewn with petty, cares to slightly understand what
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  Speaker 1: awful brain compels his awful hand. Yet do I marvel
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  Speaker 1: at this curious thing to make a poet black and
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  Speaker 1: bid him sing? End of section one, Section two of
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  Speaker 1: Color by Counte Cullen. This Liebrivox according is in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain, read by Mike Overbye, Midland, Washington, Color two.
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  Speaker 1: A song of praise for one who praised his lady's
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  Speaker 1: being fair. You have not heard my love's dark throat,
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  Speaker 1: slow fluting like a read release the perfect golden note.
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  Speaker 1: She caged there from my need. Her walk is like
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  Speaker 1: the replica of some barbaric dance, wherein the soul of
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  Speaker 1: Africa is winged with arrogant and yet so light. She
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  Speaker 1: steps across the ways her shore feet pass. She does
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  Speaker 1: not dent the smoothest moss or bend the thinnest grass.
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  Speaker 1: My love is dark as yours is fair, yet lovelier.
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  Speaker 1: I hold her than listless maids with pallid hair and
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  Speaker 1: blood that's thin and colder. You proud and to be pitied.
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  Speaker 1: One gaze on her in despair, then seal your lips
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  Speaker 1: until the sun discovers one is fair. End of section two,
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  Speaker 1: Section three of Color by Countay Cullen. This LibriVox according
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  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Mike overby Midland, Washington,
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  Speaker 1: Color three, Brown boy to brown Girl, Remembrance on a
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  Speaker 1: hill for Yolande, as surely as I hold your hand
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  Speaker 1: in mine, as surely as your crinkled hair belies the
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  Speaker 1: enamored sun. Pretending that he dies while he still loiters
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  Speaker 1: in its glossy shine, as surely as I break the
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  Speaker 1: slender line that Spider linked us with. In no least
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  Speaker 1: wise am I uncertain that these alien skies do not
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  Speaker 1: our whole life, measure and confine no less. Once in
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  Speaker 1: a land of scarlet suns and brooding winds, before the
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  Speaker 1: hurricane bore down upon us, long before this pain, we
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  Speaker 1: found a place where quiet water runs. I held your
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  Speaker 1: hand this way upon a hill, and felt my heart forbear.
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  Speaker 1: My pulse grows still. End of section three, Section four
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  Speaker 1: of color by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. Read by Mike Overbye, Miland, Washington, color four.
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  Speaker 1: A brown girl dead with two white roses on her breasts,
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  Speaker 1: white candles at head and feet, dark Madonna of the grave,
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  Speaker 1: she rests Lord death has found her sweet. Her mother
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  Speaker 1: pawned her wedding ring to lay her out in white.
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  Speaker 1: She'd be so proud, she'd dance and sing to see
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  Speaker 1: herself tonight. End of section four, Section five of color
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  Speaker 1: by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Read by Mike Overby, Midland, Washington, color five to a
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  Speaker 1: brown girl for Roberta. What if his gladnce is bold
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  Speaker 1: and free, his mouth the lash of whips, so should
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  Speaker 1: the eyes of lovers be, and so a lover's lips.
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  Speaker 1: What if no puritanic strain confines him to the nice,
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  Speaker 1: he will not pass this way again, nor hunger for
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  Speaker 1: you twice, since in the end consort together Magdalene and
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  Speaker 1: marry youth. Is the time for careless weather. Later lass
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  Speaker 1: be wary. End of section five, Section six of Color
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  Speaker 1: by Counte Cullen. The sleepervox according is in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: Read by Mike Overbee, Midland, Washington, Color six to a
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  Speaker 1: brown boy, that brown girl's swagger gives a twitch to
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  Speaker 1: beauty like a queen lad Never damn your body's it
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  Speaker 1: when loveliness is seen, for there is ample room for
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  Speaker 1: bliss in pride, in clean brown limbs and lips. Know
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  Speaker 1: better how to kiss than how to raise white hymns.
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  Speaker 1: And when your body's death gives birth to soil for
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  Speaker 1: spring to crown, men will not ask if that rare
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  Speaker 1: earth was white flesh once or brown. End of section six,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Section seven of Color by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox recording
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  Speaker 1: is in the public Domain, read by Mike Overbye, Midland, Washington,
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  Speaker 1: Color seven. Black Magdalens. These have no Christ to spit in,
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  Speaker 1: stoop to write upon the sand, inviting him that has
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  Speaker 1: not sinned, to raise the first rude hand. And if
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  Speaker 1: he came, they could not buy rich ointment for his feet.
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  Speaker 1: The body's sail scarce yields enough to let the body eat.
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  Speaker 1: The chaste clean ladies passed them by and draw their
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  Speaker 1: skirts aside. But magdalens have a ready laugh. They wrap
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  Speaker 1: their wounds in pride. They fare full ill, since Christ
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  Speaker 1: forsook the cross to mount a throne, and Virtue still
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  Speaker 1: is stooping down to cast the first hard stone. End
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  Speaker 1: of section seven, Section eight of color by Counte Cullen.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox according is in the public domain, read by
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  Speaker 1: Mike Overby, Midland, Washington, Color eight. Atlantic city waiter with
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  Speaker 1: subtle poise. He grips his tray of delicate things to eat,
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  Speaker 1: choice viands to their mouths. Half way. The ladies watch
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  Speaker 1: his feet go, carving dexterous avenues through sly intricacies ten
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  Speaker 1: thousand years on jungle clues alone, shaped feet like these
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  Speaker 1: for him to be humble, who is proud, needs colder artifice,
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  Speaker 1: though half his pride is disavowed in vain, the sacrifice
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  Speaker 1: sheer through his acquiescent mask of bland gentility. The jungle
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  Speaker 1: flames like a copper cask set where the sun strikes free.
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  Speaker 1: End of section eight, Section nine of color by Counte Cullen.
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  Speaker 1: This LibriVox according is in the public domain. Read by
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  Speaker 1: Mike Overby, Midland, Washington, Color nine, near white, ambiguous of race.
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  Speaker 1: They stand by one, disowned scorn of another, not knowing
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  Speaker 1: where to stretch a hand, and cry, my sister or
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  Speaker 1: my brother. End of section nine, Section ten of color
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  Speaker 1: by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain,
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  Speaker 1: read by Mike Overby, Midland, Washington, Color ten. To blow
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  Speaker 1: for Donald Duff. Locked arm in arm, they cross the way,
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  Speaker 1: the black boy and the white, the golden splendor of
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  Speaker 1: the day, the sable pride of night from lowered blinds.
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  Speaker 1: The dark folk stare and hear the fair folk talk,
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  Speaker 1: indignant that these two should dare in unison, to walk,
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  Speaker 1: oblivious to look and word. They pass and see no
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  Speaker 1: wonder that lightning brilliant as a sword should blaze the
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  Speaker 1: path of thunder. End of section ten, Section eleven of
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  Speaker 1: color by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox according is in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. Read by Mike Overby, Midland, Washington, Color eleven.
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  Speaker 1: Harlem Wine. This is not water running here, these thick,
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  Speaker 1: rebellious streams that hurtle flesh and bone, past fear, down
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  Speaker 1: alleyways of dreams. This is a wine that must flow on,
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  Speaker 1: not caring how nor where. So it has ways to
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  Speaker 1: flow upon where song is in the air. So it
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  Speaker 1: can woo an artful flute with loose elastic lips. Its
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  Speaker 1: measurement of joy compute with blithe ecstatic hips. End of
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  Speaker 1: section eleven, Section twelve of color by Countey Cullen. This
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox according is in the public domain. Read by Mike Overby, Midland, Washington,
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  Speaker 1: Color twelve. Simon the Cyrenian speaks. He never spoke a
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  Speaker 1: word to me, and yet he called my name. He
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  Speaker 1: never gave a sign to me, and yet I knew
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  Speaker 1: and came. At first. I said, I will not bear
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  Speaker 1: his cross upon my back. He only seeks to place
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  Speaker 1: it there because my skin is black. But he was
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  Speaker 1: dying for a dream, and he was very meek, and
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  Speaker 1: in his eyes there shone a gleam men journey far
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  Speaker 1: to seek. It was himself my pity bot I did
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  Speaker 1: for Christ alone what all of Rome could not have
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  Speaker 1: wrought with bruise of lash or stone. End of section twelve,
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  Speaker 1: Section thirteen of Color by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox recording
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  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Mike Overby, Midland, Washington,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Color thirteen incident for Eric Wahrond. Once riding in old Baltimore,
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  Speaker 1: heart filled, head filled with glee. I saw a Baltimorean
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  Speaker 1: keep looking straight at me. Now I was eight and
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  Speaker 1: very small, and he was no whit bigger, and so
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  Speaker 1: I smiled, But he poked out his tongue and called
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  Speaker 1: me nigger. I saw the whole of Baltimore from May
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  Speaker 1: until December, of all the things that happened there, that's
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  Speaker 1: all that I remember. End of section thirteen, Section fourteen
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  Speaker 1: of Color by Count A. Cullin. This LibriVox according is
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Mike Overbye, Midland, Washington,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Color fourteen two. Who crossed the line? She crosses from
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  Speaker 1: where she stood. The air she craved smoked with the
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  Speaker 1: smell of pine. It was too much to bear. She
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  Speaker 1: braved her gods and crossed the line, and we were
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  Speaker 1: hurt to see her go, with her fair face and
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  Speaker 1: hair and veins too thin and blue to show what
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  Speaker 1: mingled blood flowed there. We envied her awhile who still
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: pursued the hated track. Then we forgot her name, until
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  Speaker 1: one day her shade came back, calm as a wave
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  Speaker 1: without a crest, sorrow proud and sorrow wise, with trouble,
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  Speaker 1: sucking at her breast, with tear disdainful eyes, she slipp'd
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  Speaker 1: into her ancient place, and no word asked, gave none.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Only the silence in her face said seats were dear
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  Speaker 1: in the sun. End of section fourteen. Section fifteen of
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  Speaker 1: color by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: public domain. Read by Mike Overby Midland, Washington, Color fifteen two.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Who crossed a line he crosses, he rode across like
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: a cavalier, spurs clicking hard and loud, and where he tarried,
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  Speaker 1: dropped his tear on heads he left low bowed, but
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: even Stephen he cried and struck his steed, an urgent blow.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: He swore by youth, he was a bach with savage
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: oats to sow, to even up some standing scores from
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: every flower bed he passed. He pluck'd by threes and
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: fours till Wheel's world in his head. But long before
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: the drug could tell, he took his anodyne with scornful grace.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: He bowed farewell and retraversed the line end of section fifteen.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: Section sixteen of Color by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox recording
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Mike Overby Midland, Washington,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: Color sixteen, Saturday's Child. Some are teethed on a silver
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: spoon with the stars strung for a rattle. I cut
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: my teeth as the black raccoon for implements of battle.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Some are swaddled in silk and down and heralded by
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: a star. They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: on a night that was black as tar. For some
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: Godfather and God Dame, the opulent fairies be Dame. Poverty
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: gave me my name, and pain. Godfathered me for I
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: was born on Saturday, bad time for planting a seed
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: was all my father had to say, and one mouth
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: more to feed. Death cut the strings that gave me
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: life and handed me to sorrow. The only kind of
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: middle wife. My folks could beg or borrow. End of
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: section sixteen, Section seventeen of Color by Counte Cullen. This
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Mike Overbye, Midland, Washington,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Color seventeen The Dance of Love after reading Renee Moron's Batullah.
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: All night we danced upon our windy hill, your dress
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: a cloud of tangled midnight hair, and love was much
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: too much for me to wear my leaves. The killer
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: roared above his kill, but you danced on. And when
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: some star would spill its red and white upon you,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: whirling there, I sensed a hidden beauty in the air.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Though you danced on my heart and I stood still.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: But suddenly a bit of morning crept along your trembling
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: sides of ebony. I saw the tears your tired limbs
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: had wept, and how your breasts heaved high, how languidly
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: your dark arms moved. I drew you close to me.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: We flung ourselves upon our hill and slept end of
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: section seventeen, Section eighteen of Color by Counte Cullen. This
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: LibriVox according is in the public domain. Read by Mike Overbee, Midland, Washington,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Color eighteen pagan prayer. Not for myself I make this prayer,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: but for this race of mine that stretches forth from
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: shadowed places, dark hands, for bread and wine. For me,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: my heart is pagan mad. My feet are never still.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: But give them hearths to keep them warm in homes
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: high on a hill. For me, my faith lies fallowing.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: I bow not till I see. But these are humble
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: and believe. Bless their credulity. For me, I pay my
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: debts in kind and see no better way. Bless these
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: who turn the other cheek for love of you and
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: pray Our Father God, our brother Christ. So are we
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: taught to pray? Their kinship seems a little thing who
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: sorrow all the day, our Father God, our brother Christ.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Or are we bastard kin that to our plaints your
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: ears are closed, your doors barred from within, Our Father God,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: our Brother Christ. Retrieve my race again? So shall you
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: compass this black sheep, this pagan heart. Amen end of
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: section eighteen, Section nineteen of color by Counte Cullen. This
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Mike Overbee, Midland, Washington,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Color nineteen. Wisdom cometh with the years. Now I am
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: young and credulous. My heart is quick to bleed at
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: courage in the tremulous slow sprouting of a seed. Now
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: I am young and sensitive. Man's lack can stab me through.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: I own no stitch I would not give to him
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: that asked me to. Now I am young and a
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: fool for love. My blood goes mad to see a
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: brown girl past me, like a dove that flies melodiously.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: Let me be lavish of my tears and dream that
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: false is true. Though wisdom cometh with the years, the
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: barren days come too. End of section nineteen, Section twenty
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: of Color by Count A. Cullen. This LibriVox recording is
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Mike Overbee, Miland Washington,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Color twenty. To my fairer brethren, though I score you
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: with my best treble, circumstance must confirm the verdict, lest
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: it be laid to chance insufficient that I match you
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: every coin you flip. Your demand is that I catch
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: you squarely on the hip. Should I wear my reads
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: a bit rakishly and proud I have bought my right
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: to it? Let it be allowed. End of Section twenty
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: twenty one of Color by COUNTE Cullen. The LibriVox recording
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Read by Mike Overby, Midland, Washington,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Color twenty one, Fruit of the Flower. My father is
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: a quiet man, with sober, steady ways for simile a
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: folded fan. His nights are like his days. My mother's
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: life is puritan, no hint of cavalier. A pool so
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: calm your shore, it can have little depth to fear.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: And yet my father's eyes can boast how full his
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: life has been. There haunts them. Yet the languid ghost
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: of some still sacred sin. And though my mother chance
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: of God and of the mystic river, I've seen a
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: bit of checkered sod at all her flesh a quiver.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Why should he deem it pure mischance. A son of
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: his is fain to do a naked tribal dance each
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: time he hears the rain. Why should he think it
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: devil's art that all my songs should be of love
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: and lover's broken heart and wild sweet agony. Who plants
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: a seed begets a bud extract of that same root.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Why marvel at the hectic blood that flushes this wild fruit?
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: End of section twenty one. Section twenty two of color
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Read by Mike Overbye, Midland, Washington, Color twenty two. The
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: shroud out of color for Llewellyn Ransom Lord, being dark,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: I said, I cannot bear the further touch of earth
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: the scented air. Lord, being dark, forewilled to that despair,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: My color shrouds me in. I am as dirt beneath
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: my brother's heel. There is a hurt in all the
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: simple joys which to a child are sweet. They are contaminate,
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: defiled by truths of wrongs. The childish vision fails to
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: see too great a cost this birth entails. I strangle
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: in this yoke, drawn tighter than the worth of bearing
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: it just to be man. I am not brave enough
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: to pay the price in full. I lack the strength
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: to sacrifice. I who have burn'd my hands upon a star,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: and climb'd high hills at dawn to view the far
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: illimitable wonderments of Earth, for whom all cups have dripp'd
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: the wine of mirth, for whom the sea has strain'd
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: her honey'd throat till all the world was see and
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I a boat unmoor'd on what strange quest I will'd
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: to float, who wore a many color'd coat of dreams,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Thy gift, O Lord, I whom sun dabbl'd streams have wash'd,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: whose bare brown thighs have held the sun incarcerate until
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: his course was run, I who consider'd man a high,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: perfected glass where loveliness could lie reflected. Now that I
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: sway athwart Truth's deep abyss, denuding man for what he
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: was and is, shall breath and being so so invigal
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: me that I can damn my dreams to hell and
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: be content each new born day, anew to see the
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: steaming crimson vintage of my youth in Carnadine, the altar
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: slab of truth. Or hast thou Lord, somewhere I cannot
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: see a lamb imprisoned in a bush for me. Not.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: So then, let me render one by one thy gifts,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: while still they shine. Some little sun yet gilds these thighs.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: My coat, albeit worn, still holds its colors fast, albeit torn,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: My heart will laugh a little. Yet if I may
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: win of thee this grace, Lord, on this high and
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: sacrificial hill TwixT earth and sky, to dream still pure
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: all that I loved and die. There is no other
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: way to keep secure my wild chimeras grave locked against
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: the lore of truth. The small hard teeth of worms,
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: yet less envenomed than the mouth of truth, will bless
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: them into dust and happy nothingness. Lord, thou art God,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: and I, Lord, what am I but dust? With dust
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: my place? Lord, Let me die across the earth's warm,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: palpitating crust. I flung my body in embrace. I thrust
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: my mouth into the grass and sucked the dew, then
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: gave it back in tears. My anguish drew so hard
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: I pressed against the ground. I felt the smallest sand
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: grain like a knife, and smelt the next year's flowering.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: All this to speed my body's dissolution. Feign to feed
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: the worms, and so I groaned and spent my strength
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: until all passions spent. I lay full length and quivered
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: like a flayed and bleeding thing. So lay till lifted
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: on a great black wing that had no mate nor
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: flesh apparent trunk to hamper it with me. All time
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: had sunk into oblivion. When I awoke, the wing hung
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: poised above two cliffs that broke the bowels of the earth.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: In twain and cleft, the seas apart below above to
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: left till right. I saw what no man saw before Earth,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: Hell and Heaven sign you vein and core. All things
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: that swim or walk, or creep or fly, all things
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: that live and hunger, faint and die, were made majestic then,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: and magnified by sight, so clearly purged and deified. The
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: smallest bug that crawls was taller than a tree. The
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: mustard seed loomed like a man. The earth that rides
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: eternally with pain of birth and woe of taking back
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: her slain, laid bare her teeming bosom to my sight,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: and all was struggle, gasping breath and fight. A blind worm.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Here dug tunnels to the light. And there a seed,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: racked with heroic pain, thrust eager tentacles to sun and rain.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: It climbed, it died. The old love conquered me to
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: weep the blossom it would never be. But here a
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: bud one light, It burst and flowered into a rose
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: whose beauty challenged coward. There was no thing alive save
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: only I, that held life in contempt and longed to die.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: And still I writhed and moaned. The curse, the curse
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: than animated death. Can death be worse? Dark child of sorrow,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: mine no less? What art of mine can make thee
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: see and play thy part? The key to all strange
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: things is in thy heart. What voice was this that
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: coursed like liquid fire along my flesh and turned my
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: hair to wire? I raised my burning eyes, beheld a
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: field all multitudinous with carnal yield, a grim ensanguined mead,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: whereon I saw evolve the ancient fundamental law of tooth
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: and talon, fist and nail and claw. There, with the
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: force of living, hostile hills whose clash the hemm'd in
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: veil with clamor fills with greater din contended fierce majestic
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: wills of beast with beast of man, with man in strife.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: For love of what my heart despised for life, that,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: unto me at dawn was now a prayer for night.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: At night, a bloody heart wrung tear for day again
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: for this these groans from tangled flesh and interlocked bones.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: And no thing died that did not give a testimony
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: that it longed to live. Man strange composite blend of
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: brute and God pushed on nor backward, glanced where last
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: he trod. He seemed to mount a misty ladder, flung
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: pendant from a cloud, yet never gained a rung. But
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: at his feet another tugged and clung. My heart was
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: still a pool of bitterness. Would yield not else, not else,
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: confess I spoke, although no form was there to see.
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: I knew an ear was there to hear. Well, let
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: them fight they can, whose flesh is fair? Crisp lightning flashed,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: A wave of thunder shook my wing, A pause, and
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: then a speaking look. I scarce dared try my ears
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: or eyes for awe of what they heard, and dread
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: of what they saw. For privileged beyond degree, this flesh
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: beheld God and his heaven in the mesh of Lucifer's revolt.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Saw Lucifer glow like the sun and like a dulcimer.
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: I heard his sin sweet voice break on the yell
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: of God's great warriors, Gabriel, Saint Clair and Michael Is,
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: Raphael and Raphael and Strange. It was to see God
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: with his back against a wall, to see christ Hew
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: and hack to Lucifer, pressed by the mighty pair and
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: losing inch by inch clawed at the air with fevered wings,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: then lost beyond repair, he tricked a mass of stars
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: into his hair. He filled his hands with stars, crying
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: as he fell. A star's a star, although it burns
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: in hell. So God was left to his divinity, omnipotent,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: at that most costly fee. There was a lesson here.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: But still the clad in me was sickophant until the
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: rod and cried, why mock me? Thus am I a God?
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: One trial? More this failing? Then I give you leave
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: to die, no further need to live. Now suddenly a
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: strange wild music smote accord long impotent in me. A
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: note of jungles, primitive and subtle throbbed against my echoing breast,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: and tom Tom's sobbed in every pulse beat of my frame.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: The din, a hollow log bound with a python's skin,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: can make rot every nerve to ecstasy. And I was
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: wind and sky again, and see and all sweet things
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: that flourish being free, till all at once the music
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: changed its key, and now it was of bitterness and death.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: The cry the lash extorts the broken breath of liberty
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: in chained, And yet there ran through all a harmony
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: of faith in man a knowledge all would end as
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: it began. All sights and sounds and aspects of my
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: race accompanied this melody, kept pace with it with music.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: All their hopes and hates were charged not to be
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: downed by all the fates. And somehow it was borne
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: upon my brain. How being dark and living through the
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: pain of it is courage more than angels have. I
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: knew what storms and tumults lashed the tree that grew
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: this body, That I was, this cringing eye that feared
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: to contemplate a changing sky. This that I groveled, whining.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: Let me die while others struggled in life's abatoir. The
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: cries of all dark people near or far were billowed
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: over me, a mighty surge of suffering, in which my
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: puny grief must merge and lose itself. I had no
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: further claim to urge for death. In shame. I raised
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: my dust grimed head, And though my lips moved, not
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: God knew, I said, Lord, not for what I saw
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: in flesh or bone of pharaoh men not raised on
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: faith alone, Lord, I will live, Persuaded by mine own.
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: I cannot play the recreant to these. My spirit has
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: come home that sailed the doubtful seas with the whiz
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: of a sword that severs space. The wing dropped down
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: at a dizzy pace and flung me on my hill,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: flat on my face. Flat on my face, I lay,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: defying pain, glad of the blood in my smallest vein,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: and in my hands I clutched a loyal dream, still
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: spitting fire, bright twist and coil and gleam and chisel
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: like a hound's white tooth. Oh I will match you. Yet,
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: I cried to truth. Right glad I was to stoop
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: to what I once had spurned. Glad even unto tears,
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: I laughed aloud. I turned upon my back, and though
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the tears for joy would run, my sight was clear.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: I looked and saw the rising sun. End of section
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: twenty two. Section twenty three of color by Counte Color.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: Mike Overby, Midland, Washington, Color twenty three Heritage for Harold Jackman,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: What is Africa to me? Copper sun or scarlet sea,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: jungle star or jungle track, Strong bronzed men or regal
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: black women from whose loins I sprang when the birds
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: of Eden sang one, three centuries removed from the scenes
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: his father's loved spicy grove cinnamon tree. What is Africa
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: to me? So I lie, who all day long want
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: no sound except the song sung by wild barbaric birds, goading,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: massive jungle herds, juggernauts of flesh that pass, trampling tall
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: defiant grass, where young forest lovers lie plighting troth beneath
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: the sky. So I lie, who always hear, though I
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: cram against my ear both my thumbs and keep them
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: there great drums throbbing through the air. So I lie,
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: whose fount of pride, dear distress, and joy alide is
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: my somber flesh and skin, with the dark blood damned within,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: like great pulsing tides of wine that I fear must
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: burst the fine channels of the chafing net, where they
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: surge and foam and fret. Africa a book one thumbs
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: listlessly till slumber comes. Unremembered. Are her bats circling through
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the night, her cats crouching in the river reeds, stalking
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: gentle flesh that feeds by the river brink. No more
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: does the bugle throated roar cry that monarch claws have
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: leapt from the scabbards where they slept, silver snakes that
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: once a year doff the lovely coats you where seek
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: no covert in your fear, lest a mortal eye should see.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: What's your nakedness to me? Here? No leprous flowers rear,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: fierce corollas in the air, hear no bodies sleek and wet, dripping,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: mingled rain and sweat tread the savage measures of jungle
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: boys and girls in love. What is last year's snow
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: to me? Last year's anything? The tree budding yearly must
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: forget how it's past a rose or set bow and blossom,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: flower fruit? Even what shy bird with mute wonder at
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: her travail there, meekly labored in its hair, one three
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: centuries removed from the scenes his father's loved spicy grove
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: cinnamon tree. What is Africa to me? So I lie,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: who find no peace night or day, no slight release
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: from the unremittent beat made by cruel, padded feet walking
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: through my body street, up and down they go and back,
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: treading out a jungle track. So I lie, who never
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: quite safely sleep from rain at night. I can never
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: rest at all when the rain begins to fall like
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: a soul gone mad with pain. I must match its
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: weird refrain. Ever, must I twist and squirm, writhing like
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: a bated worm, while its primal measures drip through my body? Crying, strip,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: doff this new exuberance. Come and dance the lover's dance
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: in an old, remembered way. Rain works on me night
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: and day. Quaint outlandish heathen gods black men fashion out
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: of rods, clay and brittle bits of stone, in a
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: likeness like their own. My conversion came high Christ. I
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: belong to Jesus Christ, preacher of humility. Heathen God are
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: not to me, father son and holy ghost. So I
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: make an idle boast Jesus of the twice turned cheek
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: lamb of God. Although I speak with my mouth, thus
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: in my heart do I play a double part. Ever
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: at thy glowing altar, must my heart grow sick and falter?
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Wishing he I served were black, thinking then it would
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: not lack precedent of pain to guide it. Let who
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: would or might deride it? Surely then this flesh would
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: know yours had borne a kindred woe. Lord, I fashion
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: dark gods too daring even to give you dark, despairing
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: features where crowned with dark, rebellious hair, patience wavers just
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: so much as mortal grief compels, while touches, quick and
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: hot of anger rise to smitten cheek and weary eyes. Lord,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: forgive me if my need sometimes shapes a human creed
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: all day long and all night through one thing, only
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: must I do quench my pride and cool my blood,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: lest I perish in the flood lest a hidden ember
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: set timber that I thought was wet, burning like the
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: driest flax, melting like the merest wax. Lest the grave
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: restore its dead. Not yet has my heart or head
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: in the least way realized they and I are civilized.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: End of section twenty three, Section twenty four of Color
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox according is in the public domain.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: Read by Mike overby Midland, Washington, epitaphs one for a poet.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: I have wrapped my dreams and a silken cloth, and
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: laid them away in a box of gold, where long
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: will cling the lips of the moth. I have wrapped
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: my dreams in a silken cloth. I hide no hate.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: I am not even wroth who found her its breath,
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: so keen and cold. I have wrapped my dreams in
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: a silken cloth and laid them away in a box
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: of gold. End of section twenty four, Section twenty five
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: of Color by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: the public domain, read by Mike overby Midland, Washington. Epitaph
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: two for my grandmother, this lovely flower fell to seed,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: worked gently, sun and rain. She held it as her
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: dying creed that she would roh again. End of section
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: twenty five, Section twenty six of Color by Count A. Cullen.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: The LibriVox recordings in the public domain, read by Mike
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: overby Midland, Washington. Epitaphs three for a cynic birth is
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: a crime all men commit. Life gives them time to
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: atone for it. Death ends the rhyme as the price
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: for it. End of section twenty six, Section twenty seven
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: of Color by Count Ay Cullen. This LibriVox recording is
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: in the public domain, read by Mike overby Midland, Washington.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Epitaphs four for a singer death clogged. This flute at
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: its highest note song sleeps here mute in this breathless throat.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: End of section twenty seven, Section twenty eight of Color
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: by Countay Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain,
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: read by Mike overby Midland, Washington Epitaphs five for a
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: virgin for forty years, I shunned the lust inherent in
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: my clay death only was so amorous I let him
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: have his way. End of section twenty eight. Section twenty
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: nine of Color by Countay Cullen. This LibriVox recording is
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: in the public domain, read by Mike Overby Midland, Washington,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: Epitaph's six for a lady, I know she even thinks
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: that up in heaven, her class lies late and snores,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: while poor black cherubs rise at seven to do celestial chores.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: End of section twenty nine, Section thirty of Color by
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: Countey Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: read by Mike overby Midland Washington, Epitaphs seven for a
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: lovely lady, A creature slender as a read and sad
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: eyed as a doe lies here. But take my word
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: for it, and do not pry below. End of section
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: thirty Section thirty one of Color by Counte Cullen. This
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by Mike
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: overby Midland, Washington. Epitaphs eight for an atheist mountains cover
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: me like rain, billows, whirl and rise, hide me from
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: the stabbing pain in his reproachful eyes end of section
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: thirty one, Section thirty two of Color by Count A. Cullen.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Mike Overby Midland, Washington. Epitaphs nine for an evolutionist and
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: his opponent showing that our ways agreed death is proof
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: enough body seeks the primal clay soul transcends the slough
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: end of section thirty two, Section thirty three of Color
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: by COUNTA. Culin. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: Read by Mike overby Midland, Washington. Epitaphs ten for an anarchist,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: what matters that I stormed and swore, not Samson with
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: an ass's jaw, Not though a forest of hair he
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: wore could break deaths at a Mantyne law end of
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: section thirty three, Section thirty four of Color by COUNTA. Culen.
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: Mike overby Midland Washington, halfs eleven. For a magician, I
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: whose magic could explore ways others might not guess or see.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: Now embarred behind a door that has no open sesame
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: end of section thirty four, Section thirty five of Color
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox according is in the public domain.
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: Read by Mike overby Midland, Washington, Epitaphs twelve. For a pessimist,
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: he wore his coffin for a hat, calamity his cape,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: while on his face a death's head sat and waved
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: a bit of crape. End of section thirty five, Section
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: thirty six of Color by Countay Cullen. This LibriVox recording
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain, read by Mike Overby Midland, Washington,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: Epitaphs thirteen. For a mouthy woman, God and the devil
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: still are wrangling, which should have her? Which repel? God
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: wants no discord in his heaven. Satan has enough in hell.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: End of section thirty six, Section thirty seven of Color
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: read by Mike overby Midland, Washington, Epitaphs fourteen. For a philosopher,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: here lies one who tried to solve the riddle of
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: being and breath, The wee blind mole that gnaws his
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: bones tells him the answer is death. End of section
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: thirty seven, Section thirty eight of Color by Count A Culen.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox according is in the public domain, read by
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: Mike overby Midland, Washington, epitaphs fifteen. For an unsuccessful sinner,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: I boasted, My sins were sure to sink me out
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: of all sound and sight of glory, And the most
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: I've won for all my pains is a century of
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: purgatory end of section thirty eight, Section thirty nine of
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Color by Count A. Cullen. This LibriVox according is in
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: the public domain, read by Mike overby Midland Washington Epitaphs sixteen.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: For a fool on earth, the wise man makes the
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: rules and is the fool's adviser. But here the wiser
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: as the fools, and no man is the wiser. End
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: of section thirty nine, Section forty of Color by Countey Cullen.
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox according is in the public domain, read by
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: Mike overby Midland Washington, Epitaphs seventeen. For one who gaily
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: sowed his oats. My days were a thing for me
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: to live, for others to deplore. I took of life
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: all it could give, rind, inner, fruit, and core. End
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: of section forty section forty one of color by count
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: A Cullen. This LibriVox according is in the public domain,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: read by Mike overby Midland, Washington Epitaphs eighteen for a
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: skeptic blood brother unto Thomas, whose weak faith doubt kept
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: in trammels. His little credence strained at gnats, but grew
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: robust on camels. End of section forty one, section forty
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: two of color by count A Cullen. This LibriVox according
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain, read by Mike overby Midland,
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: Washington Epitaphs nineteen four. Fatalist life ushers some as airs
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: elect to weather, wind and gale. Here lies a man
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: whose ships were wrecked ere he could hoist a sail.
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: End of section forty two, section forty three of color
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain,
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: read by Mike overby Midland, Washington, Epitaphs twenty for Daughters
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: of Magdalen. Ours is the ancient story Delicate flowers of sin,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: lilies arrayed in glory that would not toil nor spin.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: End of section forty three, Section forty four of color
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: read by Mike Overbye, Midland, Washington. Apaitaphs twenty one. For
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: a wanton to men, no more than so much cover
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: for them to doff or try. I found in death
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: a constant lover here in his arms I lie end
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: of section forty four, Section forty five of color by
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: Counte Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: read by Mike Overbee, Midland, Washington. Apitaphs twenty two for
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: a preacher vanity of vanities, All is vanity, yea, even
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: the rod he flays you with crumbled and turned to clay.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: End of section forty five, Section forty six of color
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: by Countay Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: read by Mike Overby, Midland, Washington. Epitaphs twenty three for
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: one who died singing of death, he whose might you
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: sang so well living, will not let you rust death
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: has set the golden bell pealing in the courts of
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: dust end of section forty six, Section forty seven of
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: color by count Ay Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: the public domain, read by Mike Overby, Midland, Washington, Epitaphs
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: twenty four for John Keats apostle of beauty, not writ
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: in water, nor in mist, sweet lyric throat, thy name,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: thy singing lips, that cold death kissed have seared his
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: own with flame end of section forty seven, Section forty
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: eight of color by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: in the public domain, read by Mike Overbye, Midland, Washington,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Epitaphs twenty five for Hazel Hall, American poet, soul troubled
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: at the febril ways of breath, her timid breast shot
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: through with faint alarm. Yes, I'm a stranger here, she
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: said to death. It's kind of you to let me
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: take your arm. End of section forty eight, section forty
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: nine of color by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: in the public domain, read by Mike Overby, Midland, Washington,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: Epitaphs twenty six for Paul Lawrence Dunbar born of the
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: sorrowful of heart, mirth was a crown upon his head.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: Pride kept his twisted lips apart in jest to hide
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: a heart that bled. End of section forty nine, Section
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: fifty of color by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Mike Overby, Midland, Washington,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: Epitaphs twenty seven for Joseph Conrad, not of the dust,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: but of the wave, his final couch should be. They
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: lie not easy in a grave, who once have known
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: the sea? How shall Earth's meager bed enthrall the heartiest
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: seamen of them all? End of section fifty section fifty
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: one of color by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Mike Overbye, Midland, Washington,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: Epitaphs twenty eight For myself, what's in this grave is
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: worth your tear. There's more than the eye can see.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: Folly and pride and love lie here buried alive with me.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: End of section fifty one, Section fifty two of color
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: by Count A Cullen. This is a LibriVox recording. All
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. Read by Mike Overby, Midland, Washington,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: Epitaphs twenty nine All the dead priest and layman, virgin strumpet,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: good and ill commingled sleep, waiting till the dreadful trumpet
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: separates the wolves and sheep. End of section fifty two,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Section fifty three of Colour by Count Ay Cullen. This
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by Mike
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: Overby Midland, Washington. For love's sake, one, Oh, for a
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: little while, be kind for ruth marine, Oh, for a
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: little while, be kind to me, who stands in such
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: imperious need of you, And for a fitful space. Let
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: my head lie haply on your passion's frigid breast, although
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: yourself no more resigned to me than on all bitter yesterdays.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: I knew this half a loaf from sumptuous crumbs, your shy,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: renegging hand lets fall shall make me blessed. The sturdy
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: homage of a love that throws its strength about you
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: dawn and dusk at bed and board is not for scorn.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: When all is said with final aimen certitude, who knows
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: but Divus found a matchless fragrance fled when Lazarus no
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: longer shocked his nose end of section fifty three, Section
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: fifty four of Color by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox recording
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain, read by Mike overby Midland Washington,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: for love's sake. Two, If you should go, love, leave
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: me like the light the gently passing day, we would
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: not know but for the night, when it has slipped away,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: go quietly. A dream, when done, should leave no trace
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: that it has lived, except a gleam across the dreamer's face.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: End of section fifty four, Section fifty five of Color
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox according is in the public domain,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: read by Mike overby Midland Washington, for love's sake. Three
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: to one who said me nay this much the gods
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: vouchsafe to day that we two lie in the clover,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: watching the heavens dip and sway with galleons sailing over.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: This much is granted for an hour. That we are
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: young and tender, that I am be and you are
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: flower honeymouth than swaying slender. This sweet of sweets is
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: ours now to wander through the land, plucking an apple
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: from its bough, to toss from hand to hand. Nothing
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: is certain joy nor sorrow except the hour we know it.
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: Oh where my heart to day tomorrow? Who knows where
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: the winds will blow it? End of section fifty five,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: Section fifty six of Color by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain, read by Mike overby Midland, Washington,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: for love's sake, for advice to youth, for guillume, since
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: little time is granted here for pride in pain or play,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: since blood soon cools before that fear that makes our
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: prowess clay. If lips to kiss are freely met, lad
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: be not proud nor shy. There are no lips where
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: men forget and undesiring lie. End of section fifty six,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: Section fifty seven of Color by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: according is in the public domain, read by Mike Overby Midland, Washington,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: for love's sake. Five Caprice, I'll tell him when he comes,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: she said, body and baggage to go, though the night
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: be darker than my hair, and the ground be hard
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: with snow. But when he came, with his gay black
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: head thrown back and his lips apart, she flipped a
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: light hair from his coat and sobbed against his heart.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: End of section fifty seven, Section fifty eight of Color
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: read by Mike Overby Midland, Washington, for Love's sake. Six Sacrament.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: She gave her body for my meat, her soul to
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: be my wine, and prayed that I be made complete
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: in sunlight and starshine. With such abandoned grace she gave
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: of all that passion taught her. She never knew her
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: tidle wave cast bread on the stagnant water. End of
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: section fifty eight, Section fifty nine of Color by Counte Cullen.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: Mike Overby Midland, Washington, for love's Sake. Seven Bread and wine,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: from death of Star to new Star's birth. This ache
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: of limb, this throb of head, this sweaty shop, this
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: smell of earth. For this we pray give daily bread,
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: then tenuous with dreams the night, the feel of soft
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: brown hands in mine, strength from your lips for one
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: more fight. Bread's not so dry when dipped in wine.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: End of section fifty nine, Section sixty of by Count
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: A Cullen. This LibriVox according is in the public Domain,
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: read by Mike Overbee, Midland, Washington. For Love's Sake, eight
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: Spring reminiscence. My sweet you sang, and sweet I sang,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: and sweet we sang together, glad to be young as
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: the world was young. Two colts too strong for a tether.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: Shall ever as spring be like that spring, or apple
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: blossoms as white? Or ever clover smell like the clover
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: we lay upon that night? Shall ever your hand lie
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: in my hand pulsing to it? I wonder? Or have
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: the gods, being jealous gods envied us our thunder? End
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: of section sixty Section sixty one of color by Count
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: A Cullen Li LibriVox co is in the public domain,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: read by Mike Overbee, Midland, Washington, Veria. One suicide chant.
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: I am the seed the sower sowed. I am the
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: deed his hand bestowed upon the world. Censure me not
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: if a rank weed flood the garden plot instead of
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: a bud to be unfurled, Bridle your blame. If the
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: deed proves less than the brooded fame with which it
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: came from nothingness. The seed of a weed cannot be flowered,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: nor a hero's deed spring from a coward, pull up
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: the weed, bring plow and mower, then fetch new seed
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: for the hand of the sower. End of section sixty
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: Onection sixty two of Color by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain, read by Mike Overbee, Midland, Washington, Veria. Two.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: She of the dancing Feet sings to Oddie Graham, And
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: what would I do in Heaven? Pray me with my
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: dancing feet and limbs like apple boughs that sway when
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: the gusty rain winds beat? And how would I thrive
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: in a perfect place where dancing would be sin with
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: not a man to love my face, nor an arm
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: to hold me in? The seraphs and the cherubim would
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: be too proud to bend to sing the fairy tunes
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: that brim my heart from end to end. The wistful
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: angels down in hell will smile to see my face
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: and understand because they fell from that all perfect place.
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: End of section sixty two, Section sixty three of Color
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: read by Mike Overbye in Midland, Washington, Veria. Three. Judas
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: is scariot. I think when Judas's mother heard his first
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: faint cry that night that he was born, that worships
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: stirred her at the sound in sight, she thought this
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: was as fair a frame as flesh and blood had worn.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: I think she made this lovely name for him, Star
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: of my mourn, As any mother's son, he grew from
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: spring to crimson spring. I think his eyes were black
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: or blue, his hair curled like a ring. His mother's
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: heart strings were a lute, wherein all day he played,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: she listened, wrapped, abandoned mute to every note he made.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: I think he knew the growing Christ and played with
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: Mary's son, And where mere mortal craft sufficed there Judas
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: may have won. Perhaps he little cared or knew so
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: folly wise is youth, that he whose hand his hand
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: clung to was flesh embodied truth. Until one day he
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: heard young Christ, with far off eyes agleam, tell of
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: a mystic solemn tryst between him and dream. And Judas
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: listened wonder eyed until the Christ was through. Then said,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: and I though good, betide or ill, will go with you.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: And so he followed heard Christ preach, saw how by
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: miracle the blind man saw the dumb God's speech. The
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: leper found him well. And Judas, in those holy hours
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: loved Christ and loved him much. And in his heart
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: he sensed dead flowers bloom at the Master's touch. And
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: when Christ felt the death hour creep with sullen, drunken lurch,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: he said to Peter, feed my sheep and build my
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: holy church. He gave to each the special task that
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: should be his to do. But reaching one, I hear
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: him ask what shall I give to you? Then Judas,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: in his hot desire, said, give me what you will.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: Christ spoke to him with words of fire. Then Judas,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: you must kill one whom you love, one who loves
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: you as only God's son can. This is the work
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: for you to do to save the creature. Man and
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: men to come will curse you on name and hold
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: you up to scorn. In all the world will be
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: no shame like yours. This is love's thorn. It takes
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: strong will of heart and soul. But man is under ban. Think, Judas,
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: can you play this role in Heaven's mystic plan? So
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: Judas took the sorry part, went out and spoke the word,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: and gave the kiss that broke his heart. But no
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: one knew or heard, and no one knew what poison
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: ate into his palm that day, where bright and damned
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: the monstrous weight of thirty white coins lay. It was
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: not death that Judas found upon a kindly tree. The
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: man was dead long ere he bound his throat as
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: final fee. And who can say if on that day,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: when gates of pearl swung wide, Christ did not go
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: his honored way with Judas by his side. I think
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: somewhere a table round owns Jesus as its head, and
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: there the saintly twelve are found, who followed where he led,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: And Judas sits down with the rest, and none shrinks
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: from his hand, For there the worst is as the best,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: and there they understand. And you may think of Judas
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: friend as one who broke his word, whose neck came
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: to a bitter end for giving up his lord. But
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: I would rather think of him as the little Jewish
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: lad who gave young Christ heart, soul and limb and
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: all the love he had. End of section sixty three,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: Section sixty four of color by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: according is in the Public Dome main read by Mike Overbee, Midland, Washington, Veria.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: Four The wise for a Lain Locke. Dead men are wisest,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: for they know how far the roots of flowers go,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: how long a seed must rot to grow. Dead Men
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: alone bear frost and rain on throbless heart and heatless brain,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: and feel no stir of joy or pain. Dead Men
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: alone are satiate. They sleep and dream and have no
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: weight to curb their rest of love or hate. Strange
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: men should flee their company, or think me strange who
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: long to be wrapt in their cool immunity? End of
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: section sixty four, Section sixty five of Color by Counte Culin.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: Mike Overby, Midland, Washington, Veria. Five. Mary, mother of Christ.
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: That night she felt those searching hands grip deep upon
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: her breast. She laughed and sang a silly tune to
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: lull her babe to rest. That night she kissed his
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: coral lips. How could she know the rest? End of
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: section sixty five, Section sixty six of Color by Counte Culin.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Read by
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: Mike Overby, Midland, Washington, Veria. Six. Die soul. There is
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: no stronger thing than song in sun and rain and
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: leafy trees. It wafts the timid soul along on crested
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: waves of melodies body, but leaves the body bear to
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: feed its hunger with its very need soul. Although the
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: frenzied belly writhes, yet render up in song your tithes.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: Song is the weakling's oaken rod, his jacob's ladder, dropped
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: from God body. Song is not drink. Song is not meat,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: nor strong thick shoes for naked feet. Soul who sings
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: by unseen hands is fed with honeyed milk and warm
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: white bread. His ways and pastures green are lead, and
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: perfumed oil illumes his head. His cup with wine is surfeited,
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: and when the last lone is read, he sings among
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: the lipless dead with singing stars to crown his head body,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: but will song by a wooden box the length of
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: me from tow to crown, to keep me safe from
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: carrion flocks when singing's done and lyre laid down. End
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: of section sixty six, Section sixty seven of Color by
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: Counte Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: Read by Mike Overbee, Midland, Washington, Veria. Seven, in memory
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: of Colonel Charles Young. Along the shore, the tall thin
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: grass that fringes that dark river, while sinuously soft feet pass,
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: begins to bleed and quiver. The great dark voice breaks
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: with a sob across the womb of night. Above your grave,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: the tom tom's throb, and the hills are weird with light.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: The great dark heart is like a well drained bitter
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: by the sky, and all the honeyed lies they tell
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: come there to thirst and die. No lie is strong
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: enough to kill the roots that work below. From your
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: rich dust, and slaughtered will a tree with tongues will grow.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: End of section sixty seven, Section sixty eight of color
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox according is in the public domain.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: Read by Mike Overbye, Midland, Washington, Veria. Eight. To my friends,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: you feeble few that me somewhat more than all I am. Base,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: clay and spittle join'd to shape an aimless whim substantial
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: coin'd amiss one idle hour. This heart, though poor, O
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: golden host I count upon the ends of one bare
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: hand with fingers still to spare, is rich enough for
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: this to harbor there in opulence its frugal need of friends.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: Let neither lose his faith, lest by such loss each
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: find insufferable his daily cross. And be not less immovable
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: to me, not less lovely, all and stanch than my
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: heart is. In brief, these fine heroics. Come to this,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: my friends. If you are true I needs must be
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: end of section sixty eight, Section sixty nine of Color
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: Read by Mike Overby Midland Washington, Varia. Nine. Gods, I
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: fast and pray and go to church and put my
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: penny in. But God's not fooled by such slight tricks,
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: and I'm not saved from sin. I cannot hide from
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: him the gods that revel in my heart, nor can
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: I find an easy word to tell them to depart.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: God's alabaster turrets gleam too high for me to win
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: unless he turns his face and lets me bring my
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: own gods in end of section sixty nine, Section seventy
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: of Color by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: the public domain, read by Mike Overby Midland Washington, Veria.
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: Ten to John Keats's poet at springtime for Carl van Vechten.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: I cannot hold my peace, John Keats. There never was
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: a spring like this. It is an echo that repeats
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: my last year's song and next year's bliss. I know,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: in spite of all men say of beauty, you have
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: felt her most yea, even in your grave, her way
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: is laid poor, troubled lyric ghost. Spring never was so
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: fair and dear as beauty makes her seen this year.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: I cannot hold my piece, John Keats. I am as
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: helpless in the toil of spring as any lamb that
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: bleats to feel the solid earth recoiled beneath his puny legs.
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: Spring beats her tocsin, call to those who love her,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: and lo the dogwood petals cover her breast with drifts
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: of snow, and sleek white gulls fly screaming to her,
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: and hover about her shoulders and kiss her cheek, while
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: white and purple lilacs muster a strength that bears them
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: to a cluster of color and odor. For her sake,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: all things that slept are now awake, And you and
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: I shall we lie still, John Keats, while beauty summons us,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: somehow I feel your sensitive will is pulsing up some
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: tremulous sap road of a maple tree, whose leaves grow
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: music as they grow, Since your wild voice is in them,
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: a harp that grieves for life, that opens death's dark door.
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: Though dust, your fingers still can push the vision splendid
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: to a berth, though now they work as grass in
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: the hush of the night, on the broad sweet page
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: of the earth. John Keats is dead, they say, But
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: I who hear your full insistent cry in bud and blossom,
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: leaf and tree know John Keats still writes poetry. And
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: while my head is earthward bowed to read new life
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: sprung from your shroud. Folks seeing me must think it
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: strange that merely spring should so derange my mind. They
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: do not know that you, John Keats, keep revel with me. Two.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: End of section seventy Section seventy one of Color by
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: Countey Cullen. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: Read by Mike Overbye, Midland, Washington, Varia eleven ongoing for
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: Willard Johnson. A grave all too weak a thing to
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: hold my fancy long. I'll bear a blossom with the spring,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: or be a blackbird's song. I think that I shall
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: feed with these melt into earth like snow, be food
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: for hungry growing trees, or help the lilies blow. And
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: if my love should lonely walk quite of my nearness fain,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: I may come back to her and talk in liquid
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: words of rain. End of section seventy one, Section seventy
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: two of Color by Countey Cullen. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Read by Mike Overbye, Midland, Washington,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: Varia twelve. Harsh world that lashest me for Walter White,
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: harsh whirl that lashest me each day. Dub me not
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: cowardly because I seem to find no sudden way to
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: throttle you or clip your claws. No force compels me
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: to the wound whereof my body bears the scar. Although
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: my feet are on the ground, doubt not, my eyes
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: are on a star. You cannot keep me captive. World entrammeled, chained,
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: spit on, and spurned, more free than all your flags unfurled.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: I give my body to be burned. I mount my
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: cross because I will I drink the hemlock which you
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: give for wine, which you withhold. And still because I
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: will not die. I live. I live because an ember
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: in me smolders to regain its fire. Because what is
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: and what has been not yet have conquered my desire.
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: I live to prove the groping clod is surely more
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: than simple dust. I live to see the breath of
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: God beatify the carnal crust. But when I will, world,
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: I can go. Though triple bronze should wall me round,
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: slip past your guard, as swift as snow, translated without
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: pain or sound. Within myself is launched the key to
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: that vast room of couches laid for those too proud
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: to live and see their dreams of light eclipsed in shade.
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: End of section seventy two, Section seventy three of Color
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: by Counte Cullen. This LibriVox according is in the public domain.
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: Read by Mike Over, Midland, Washington, Veria. Thirteen requiescum I
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: am for sleeping and forgetting all that has gone before.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: I am for lying still and letting who will beat
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: at my door? I would my life's cold sun were
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: setting to rise for me no more. End of section
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: seventy three, end of Color by Counte Cullen