Latest / James Allen Works Collection / Farmer's Bride (Version 2) - Charlotte Mew
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: The Farmer's Bright a collection of poems by Sharlocke Mew
- 0:05Speaker 1: read FORI LibriVox dot Org by Michael Maggs. The Farmer's
- 0:10Speaker 1: Bride three summers since I chose a maid, too young, maybe,
- 0:17Speaker 1: but more as to do at ourvest time than bide
- 0:20Speaker 1: and woo. When us was wed, she turn'd afraid of
- 0:24Speaker 1: love o me and all things human, Like the shot
- 0:28Speaker 1: of a winter's day. Her smile went out, and twasn't
- 0:32Speaker 1: a woman more like a little frightened fay. One night
- 0:37Speaker 1: in the fall she runned away out mong the sheeper be,
- 0:43Speaker 1: they said, shall properly have been a bed. But sure
- 0:48Speaker 1: enough she wasn't there lyin awake, with her wide brown stair,
- 0:53Speaker 1: so over seven acre field, and up long across the
- 0:57Speaker 1: down wheat chaster fly like a hare before our lanterns,
- 1:03Speaker 1: the church town, all in a shiver and a scare.
- 1:06Speaker 1: We caught her, fetched her home at last, and turned
- 1:10Speaker 1: the key upon her fast. She does the work about
- 1:15Speaker 1: the house as well as most, but like a mouse,
- 1:19Speaker 1: happy enough to chat and play with birds and rabbits
- 1:22Speaker 1: and such as they, so long as men folk keep away,
- 1:27Speaker 1: not near, not near her eyes beseech when one of
- 1:31Speaker 1: us comes within reach. The women say that beasts in
- 1:35Speaker 1: stall look round like children at her call. I've hardly
- 1:39Speaker 1: heard her speak at all. Shy as a leveret, swift
- 1:44Speaker 1: as he straight, and slight as a young larch tree,
- 1:48Speaker 1: sweet as the first wild violet. She to her wild self.
- 1:53Speaker 1: But what to me? The short day shorten, and the
- 1:57Speaker 1: oaks are brown. The blue smoke rises to the low
- 2:01Speaker 1: gray sky. One leaf in the still air falls slowly down.
- 2:07Speaker 1: The magpie spotted feathers lie on the black earth, spread
- 2:11Speaker 1: white with rime, the berries redden up to Christmas time?
- 2:17Speaker 1: What was Christmas time? Without there be some other in
- 2:21Speaker 1: the house than we. She sleeps up in the attic
- 2:27Speaker 1: there alone, poor maid, is but a stair betwixt us,
- 2:32Speaker 1: Oh my God, the down, the soft young down of her,
- 2:38Speaker 1: the brown, the brown of her, her eyes, her hair,
- 2:44Speaker 1: her hair. End of poem. This recording is in the
- 2:51Speaker 1: public domain. Fame by Are Not Mew read for LibriVox
- 3:02Speaker 1: dot Org by Michael Maggs. Fame sometimes in the overheated house,
- 3:11Speaker 1: but not for long. Smirking and speaking rather loud, I
- 3:17Speaker 1: see myself among the crowd where no one fits. The
- 3:21Speaker 1: singer to his song or sifts, the unpainted from the
- 3:25Speaker 1: painted faces of the people who are always on my stair.
- 3:30Speaker 1: They were not with me when I walked in heavenly places.
- 3:35Speaker 1: But could I spare in the blind Earth's great silences
- 3:39Speaker 1: and spaces, the din, the scuffle, the long stare, if
- 3:44Speaker 1: I went back and it was not there? Back to
- 3:48Speaker 1: the old known things that are the new, the folded
- 3:52Speaker 1: glory of the gorse, the sweet briar air, to the
- 3:57Speaker 1: larks that cannot praise us, knowing nothing of what we do,
- 4:02Speaker 1: and the divine wise trees that do not care yet
- 4:07Speaker 1: to leave fame still with such eyes, and that bright
- 4:12Speaker 1: hair God, if I might, and before I go, hence,
- 4:19Speaker 1: take in her stead to our tossed bed, one little dream,
- 4:25Speaker 1: no matter how small, how wild. Just now I think
- 4:31Speaker 1: I found it in a field, under a fence, a frail,
- 4:35Speaker 1: dead newborn lamb, ghostly and pitiful and white, A blot
- 4:42Speaker 1: upon the night, the Moon's dropped child. End of poem.
- 4:51Speaker 1: This recording is in the public domain. The Narrow Door
- 5:00Speaker 1: by Charlotte mw Read for LibriVox dot Org by Michael Maggs.
- 5:06Speaker 1: The Narrow Door, The Narrow Door, The narrow Door on
- 5:12Speaker 1: the three steps, of which the cafe children play mostly
- 5:16Speaker 1: at shop with pebbles from the shore. It is always
- 5:20Speaker 1: shut this narrow door, but open for a little while
- 5:25Speaker 1: to day, and round it, each with pebbles in his hand.
- 5:31Speaker 1: A silenced crowd the cafe children stand to see the
- 5:35Speaker 1: long box jerking down the bend of twisted stair, then
- 5:41Speaker 1: set on end, quite filling up the narrow door, till
- 5:45Speaker 1: it comes out and does not go in anymore. Along
- 5:51Speaker 1: the key you see it wind the slow black line.
- 5:56Speaker 1: Someone pulls up the blind of the small window just
- 6:00Speaker 1: above the narrow door. Tien cavoudouachete Renee cries may boorcatsu
- 6:10Speaker 1: designre Jean replies, and one pays down with pebbles from
- 6:15Speaker 1: the shore. End of poem. This recording is in the
- 6:22Speaker 1: public domain. The Fete by Charlotte Meu read for librovox
- 6:32Speaker 1: dot Org by Michael Maggs The Fete to night again,
- 6:40Speaker 1: the moon's white match stretches across the dormitory floor while outside,
- 6:47Speaker 1: like an evil cat that Pierre prowls down the dark corridor,
- 6:52Speaker 1: planning I know to pounce on me in spite for
- 6:55Speaker 1: getting leave to sleep in town last night. But it
- 6:59Speaker 1: was none of us that made that noise. Only the
- 7:02Speaker 1: old brown owl that hoots and flies out of the ivy,
- 7:07Speaker 1: he will say it was us boys, signor mon dieu,
- 7:11Speaker 1: the sacrest soul of spies. He would like to catch
- 7:16Speaker 1: each dream that lies hidden behind our sleepy eyes, their
- 7:22Speaker 1: dream but mine. It is the moon and the wood
- 7:26Speaker 1: that sees all my long life. How I shall hate
- 7:30Speaker 1: the trees in the place darm the dusty plains, all
- 7:36Speaker 1: summer through, dozed with the market women in the sun,
- 7:40Speaker 1: and scarcely stirred to see the quiet things that crossed
- 7:44Speaker 1: the square, a tiny funeral, the flying shadow of a bird,
- 7:49Speaker 1: the humpbacked barber Celestine le Maire, old Madame Michel in
- 7:54Speaker 1: a three wheeled chair and filing past the vespers too,
- 7:59Speaker 1: and the dumaiselle of the Pulsiena, towed like a ship
- 8:04Speaker 1: through the harbor, bar safe into port. While a patija
- 8:09Speaker 1: zoo perhaps makes nothing of the look they shot at
- 8:12Speaker 1: you see, said defon dou mecha vulevu. It was the sun.
- 8:19Speaker 1: The sunshine weaves a pattern on dull stones. The sunshine
- 8:24Speaker 1: leaves the portraiture of dreams upon the eyes before it dies.
- 8:30Speaker 1: All summer through the dust hung white upon the drowsy plains,
- 8:35Speaker 1: till suddenly they woke with the autumn rains. It is
- 8:40Speaker 1: not only the little boys who have hardly got away
- 8:44Speaker 1: from toys, but I who am seventeen next year. Some
- 8:49Speaker 1: nights in bed have grown cold to hear the lonely
- 8:53Speaker 1: passion of the rain, which makes you think of being
- 8:56Speaker 1: dead and of somewhere living. To lay your head as
- 9:01Speaker 1: if you were a child again, crying for one thing
- 9:06Speaker 1: known and near your empty heart, to still the hunger
- 9:11Speaker 1: and the fear that pelts and beats with it against
- 9:14Speaker 1: the pane. But I remember smiling too at all the
- 9:20Speaker 1: sun's soft tricks, and those autumn dreads in winter time,
- 9:25Speaker 1: when the gray light broke slowly through the frosted window
- 9:29Speaker 1: lace to drag us shivering from our beds, And when
- 9:33Speaker 1: at dusk the singing wind swung down straight from the
- 9:37Speaker 1: stars to the dark country roads beyond the twinkling town,
- 9:43Speaker 1: striking the leafless poplar boughs as he went by, like
- 9:47Speaker 1: some poor stray dog by the wayside, lying dead. We
- 9:53Speaker 1: left behind us the old world of dread aye, and
- 9:57Speaker 1: the wind as we strode whistling on under the winter sky.
- 10:03Speaker 1: And then in spring for three days came the fair.
- 10:07Speaker 1: Just as the plains were starting into bud. Above the caravans,
- 10:12Speaker 1: you saw the dancing bear pass on his chain and
- 10:16Speaker 1: heard the jingle and the thud. Only four days ago
- 10:21Speaker 1: they let you out of this dull show to slither
- 10:25Speaker 1: down the montaigneuse and chaff the man la tete de
- 10:29Speaker 1: vaux hit slick the bull's eye at the tear, spin
- 10:34Speaker 1: round and round to your head, went queer on the
- 10:37Speaker 1: porc rulan oh la la la fete vapru d'uva a
- 10:44Speaker 1: lotete a tete with the girl who sugars the quoth
- 10:48Speaker 1: pouvrete how thin she was, but she smiled you bet
- 10:53Speaker 1: as she took your tip. One does not forget the
- 10:56Speaker 1: good days, monsieur said, with a grace. But sacrebleu, what
- 11:02Speaker 1: a ghost of a face, and no fun too for
- 11:06Speaker 1: the demoselle of the Pasiona, who were hurried past with
- 11:10Speaker 1: the oh cusebu a kelle belle. A lupdog's life from
- 11:16Speaker 1: first to last. The good nights are not made for sleep,
- 11:22Speaker 1: nor the good days for dreaming. In and at the end,
- 11:26Speaker 1: in the big circus tent, we sat and shook and
- 11:29Speaker 1: stewed like sin. Some children there had got but were
- 11:35Speaker 1: sent from the south, perhaps a red bouquet of roses,
- 11:39Speaker 1: sweetening the fetid air with scent from gardens by some
- 11:43Speaker 1: faraway blue bay. They threw one at the dancing bear.
- 11:48Speaker 1: The white clown caught it from Saint Remy's tower. The
- 11:53Speaker 1: deep slow bell told out the hour. The black clown
- 11:58Speaker 1: with his dirty grin lay sprawling in the dust. As
- 12:02Speaker 1: she rode in. She stood on a white horse. And
- 12:08Speaker 1: suddenly you saw the bend of a far off road
- 12:11Speaker 1: at dawn, with knights riding by a field of spears.
- 12:17Speaker 1: Then the gallant day go out in storm, with ragged clouds,
- 12:21Speaker 1: low down, sullen and gray, against red heavens, wild and awful,
- 12:28Speaker 1: such a sky as witnesses against you at the end
- 12:31Speaker 1: of a great battle, bugles blowing blood and dust. The
- 12:37Speaker 1: old mort dartha fight you must it died in anger,
- 12:43Speaker 1: But it was not death that had you by the throat,
- 12:46Speaker 1: stopping your breast. She looked like victory. She rode by way,
- 12:53Speaker 1: she laughed at the black clown, and then she flew
- 12:56Speaker 1: a bird above us on the wing of her white arms,
- 13:00Speaker 1: And you saw through a rent in the old tent,
- 13:03Speaker 1: a patch of sky with one dim star. She flew,
- 13:08Speaker 1: but not so high. And then she did not fly.
- 13:13Speaker 1: She stood in the bright moonlight at the door of
- 13:16Speaker 1: a strange room. She threw her slippers on the floor. Again.
- 13:21Speaker 1: Again you heard the patter of the rain, the starving rain.
- 13:26Speaker 1: It was this thing, summer, was this the golden mist
- 13:31Speaker 1: in your eyes? Oh God, it dies. But after darth
- 13:41Speaker 1: to night, the splendor and the sting blows back and
- 13:45Speaker 1: catches at your breath. The smell of beasts, the smell
- 13:49Speaker 1: of dust, the scent of all the roses in the world,
- 13:53Speaker 1: the sea, the spring, the beat of drums, the pad
- 13:57Speaker 1: of hoofs, music, the dree, the dream, the enchanted thing.
- 14:05Speaker 1: At first you scarcely saw her face. You knew the
- 14:08Speaker 1: maddening feet were there. What called was that half hidden
- 14:13Speaker 1: white unrest to which now and then she pressed her
- 14:17Speaker 1: finger tips. But as she slackened pace and turned and
- 14:21Speaker 1: looked at you, it grew quite bare. There was not
- 14:26Speaker 1: anything you did not dare Like trumpeters. The hours passed
- 14:31Speaker 1: until the last day of the fair. In the plus
- 14:36Speaker 1: dull all afternoon, the building birds had sung. Soon soon
- 14:41Speaker 1: the shuttered streets slept son that night it was full moon.
- 14:47Speaker 1: The path into the woods was almost white. The trees
- 14:51Speaker 1: were very still and seemed to stare not far before
- 14:56Speaker 1: your soul. The dream flits on, but when you touch
- 15:00Speaker 1: it it is gone, and quite alone your soul stands there,
- 15:07Speaker 1: Mother of Christ. No one has seen your eyes. How
- 15:11Speaker 1: can men pray? Even unto you, there were only wolf's
- 15:15Speaker 1: eyes in the wood. My mother is a woman too.
- 15:20Speaker 1: Nothing is true that is not good. With that quick
- 15:23Speaker 1: smile of hers, I have heard her say. I wish
- 15:27Speaker 1: I had gone back home to day. I should have
- 15:30Speaker 1: watched the lights that so gently dies from our high
- 15:34Speaker 1: window in the Paris skies, the long straight chain of
- 15:39Speaker 1: lamps hung out along the sand. I would have turned
- 15:43Speaker 1: to her and let the rain beat on her breast
- 15:46Speaker 1: as it does against the pane. Nothing will be the
- 15:51Speaker 1: same again. There is something strange in my little mother's eyes.
- 15:57Speaker 1: There is something new in the old heavenly air of spring,
- 16:02Speaker 1: the smell of beasts, the smell of dust, the enchanted thing.
- 16:09Speaker 1: All my life long I shall see moonlight on the
- 16:13Speaker 1: fern and the black trunks of trees. Only the hair
- 16:19Speaker 1: of any woman can belong to God. The stalks are
- 16:24Speaker 1: cruelly broken. Where we trod, there have been violets there.
- 16:29Speaker 1: I shall not care as I used to do when
- 16:32Speaker 1: I see the bracken burn. End of poem. This recording
- 16:40Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Beside the bed, by shall
- 16:49Speaker 1: it mew red for LibriVox dot org by Michael MagX.
- 16:55Speaker 1: Beside the bed, someone has shut the shining eyes, eyes
- 17:00Speaker 1: straightened and folded, the wandering hands quietly covering the unquiet breast,
- 17:08Speaker 1: so smoothed and silenced. You lie like a child, not
- 17:12Speaker 1: again to be questioned or scolded. But for you, not
- 17:17Speaker 1: one of us believes that this is rest. Not so
- 17:23Speaker 1: to close the windows down can cloud and deaden the
- 17:27Speaker 1: blue beyond, or to screen the wavering flame subdue its breath.
- 17:33Speaker 1: Why if I lay my cheek to your cheek, your
- 17:37Speaker 1: gray lips like dawn, would quiver and redden, breaking into
- 17:43Speaker 1: the old odd smile of this fraud of death. Because
- 17:49Speaker 1: all night you have not turned to us or spoken,
- 17:52Speaker 1: it is time for you to wake. Your dreams were
- 17:56Speaker 1: never very deep. I, for one, have seen the thin, bright,
- 18:02Speaker 1: twisted threads of them, dimmed suddenly and broken. This is
- 18:08Speaker 1: only a most piteous pretense of sleep. End of poem.
- 18:16Speaker 1: This recording is in the public domain. In Nunhead Cemetery
- 18:25Speaker 1: by Charlotte Mew read for LibriVox dot Org by Michael
- 18:30Speaker 1: Maggs In Nunhead Cemetery, it is the clay that makes
- 18:36Speaker 1: the earth stick to his spade. He fills in holes
- 18:40Speaker 1: like this year after year. The others have gone. They
- 18:44Speaker 1: were tired and half afraid. But I would rather be
- 18:49Speaker 1: standing here. There is nowhere else to go. I have
- 18:54Speaker 1: seen this place from the windows of the train that's
- 18:57Speaker 1: going past against the sky. This is rain on my face.
- 19:03Speaker 1: It was raining here when I saw it last. There
- 19:07Speaker 1: is something horrible about a flower. This broken in my
- 19:13Speaker 1: hand is one of those he threw in just now.
- 19:17Speaker 1: It will not live another hour. There are thousands more.
- 19:22Speaker 1: You do not miss a rose. One of the children
- 19:26Speaker 1: hanging about pointed at the whole dreadful heap and smiled
- 19:31Speaker 1: this morning after that was carried out. There is something
- 19:36Speaker 1: terrible about a child. We were like children last week
- 19:42Speaker 1: in the strand. That was the day you laughed at
- 19:45Speaker 1: me because I tried to make you understand the cheap,
- 19:49Speaker 1: stale chap I used to be before I saw the
- 19:53Speaker 1: things you made me see. This is not a real place.
- 20:00Speaker 1: Perhaps by and by I shall wake. I am getting
- 20:04Speaker 1: drenched with all this rain. To morrow I will tell
- 20:08Speaker 1: you about the eyes of the crystal Palace train looking
- 20:12Speaker 1: down on us, and you will laugh, and I shall
- 20:15Speaker 1: see what you see again. Not here, not now, we said,
- 20:23Speaker 1: not yet across our low stone parapet will the quick
- 20:27Speaker 1: shadows of the sparrows fall. But still it was a
- 20:31Speaker 1: lovely thing through the gray months to wait for spring,
- 20:35Speaker 1: with the birds that go a gipsying in the parks
- 20:38Speaker 1: till the blue seas call. And next to these you
- 20:43Speaker 1: used to care for the lions in Trafalgar Square, who
- 20:47Speaker 1: will stand and speak for London when her bell of
- 20:50Speaker 1: judgment tolls, And the gulls at Westminster that were the
- 20:55Speaker 1: old sea captain's souls. To day again the brown tied
- 21:02Speaker 1: splashes step by step the river stair, and the gulls
- 21:07Speaker 1: are there. By a month we have missed our day.
- 21:13Speaker 1: The children would have hung about round the carriage and
- 21:16Speaker 1: over the way as you and I came out. We
- 21:21Speaker 1: should have stood on the gull's black cliffs and heard
- 21:25Speaker 1: the sea and seen the moon's white track. I would
- 21:30Speaker 1: have called. You would have come to me and kiss
- 21:33Speaker 1: me back. You have never done that. I do not
- 21:38Speaker 1: know why I stood staring at your bed and heard you.
- 21:43Speaker 1: Though you spoke so low that I could not reach
- 21:46Speaker 1: your hands, your little head. There was nothing we could
- 21:51Speaker 1: not do, you said, and you went, and I let
- 21:55Speaker 1: you go. Now I will burn you back. I will
- 22:02Speaker 1: burn you through, though I am damned for it. We
- 22:06Speaker 1: too will lie and burn here where the starlings fly,
- 22:11Speaker 1: to these white stones from the wet sky. Dear you
- 22:17Speaker 1: will say, this is not I. It would not be you.
- 22:23Speaker 1: It would not be you. If for only a little
- 22:28Speaker 1: while you will think of it, you will understand. If
- 22:33Speaker 1: you will touch my sleeve and smile as you did
- 22:36Speaker 1: that morning in the strand. I can wait quietly with you,
- 22:42Speaker 1: or go away if you want me to God? What
- 22:46Speaker 1: is God? But your face has gone and your hand.
- 22:52Speaker 1: Let me stay here too. When I was quite a
- 22:57Speaker 1: little lad, at Christmas time, we went half mad for
- 23:02Speaker 1: joy of all the toys we had, And then we
- 23:06Speaker 1: used to sing about the sheep the shepherds watched by night.
- 23:10Speaker 1: We used to pray to Christ to keep our small
- 23:14Speaker 1: soul safe till morning light. I am scared. I am
- 23:20Speaker 1: staying with you to night. Put me to sleep. I
- 23:27Speaker 1: shall stay here. Here you can see the sky. The
- 23:32Speaker 1: houses in the streets are much too high. There is
- 23:36Speaker 1: no one left to speak to there. Here they are everywhere,
- 23:42Speaker 1: and just above them, fields and fields of roses lie.
- 23:47Speaker 1: If he would dig it all up again, they would
- 23:51Speaker 1: not die. End of poem. This recording is in the
- 23:57Speaker 1: public domain. The Pedlar by Shallope Mew Read philibrovox dot
- 24:08Speaker 1: Org by Michael Maaggs. The Pedlar lend me a little while,
- 24:15Speaker 1: the key that locks your heavy heart, and I'll give
- 24:19Speaker 1: you back rarer than books and ribbons and beads bright
- 24:23Speaker 1: to sea, this little key of dreams out of my pack.
- 24:29Speaker 1: The road, the road beyond men's bolted doors. There shall
- 24:34Speaker 1: I walk, and you go free of me? For yours
- 24:38Speaker 1: lies north across the moors, and mine's south to what sea.
- 24:45Speaker 1: How if we stopped and let our solemn souls go by,
- 24:49Speaker 1: while my gay ghost caught and kissed yours as ghosts
- 24:54Speaker 1: don't do, And by the wayside this forgotten you and
- 24:59Speaker 1: I sat, and we're twenty two. Give me the key
- 25:05Speaker 1: that locks your tired eyes, and I will lend you
- 25:09Speaker 1: this one from my pack, brighter than colored beads and
- 25:14Speaker 1: painted books. That make men wise. Take it no, give
- 25:19Speaker 1: it back. End of poem. This recording is in the
- 25:26Speaker 1: public domain. Peasureess by Charlocke Mew read for librovox dot
- 25:36Speaker 1: Org by Michael Maggs. Peasureess. Down the long Key, the
- 25:43Speaker 1: slow boats glide, while here and there a house looms
- 25:48Speaker 1: white against the gloom of the water side, and some
- 25:52Speaker 1: high window throws a light as they sail out into
- 25:56Speaker 1: the night. A dawn they will bring in again to
- 26:01Speaker 1: women knitting on the key, who wait for him, their
- 26:04Speaker 1: man of men. I stand with them and watch the sea,
- 26:09Speaker 1: which may have taken mine from me, Just so the
- 26:14Speaker 1: long days come and go the knights, Ma duay, The
- 26:19Speaker 1: nights are cold. Our lady's heart is as frozen snow.
- 26:24Speaker 1: Since this one sin I have not told, And I
- 26:28Speaker 1: shall die or perhaps grow old before he comes. The
- 26:34Speaker 1: foreign ships bring many, a one of faith and name
- 26:37Speaker 1: as strange as his, to buy your lips a gold
- 26:41Speaker 1: piece for a scarlet shame like mine, But mine was
- 26:46Speaker 1: not the same. One night was ours, one short gray
- 26:51Speaker 1: day of sudden sin, unshrived, untold. He found me, and
- 26:58Speaker 1: I lost the way to paradise for him. I sold
- 27:03Speaker 1: my soul for love and not for gold he bought
- 27:07Speaker 1: my soul. But even so my face is all that
- 27:11Speaker 1: he has seen. His is the only face I know.
- 27:16Speaker 1: And in the dark church, like a screen it shuts
- 27:20Speaker 1: God out. It comes between while in some narrow foreign street,
- 27:26Speaker 1: all loitering on the crowded key, who knows what others
- 27:31Speaker 1: he may meet to turn his eyes away from me?
- 27:35Speaker 1: Many affair to such as he. There is but one
- 27:40Speaker 1: for such as I to love, to hate, to hunger.
- 27:44Speaker 1: For I shall perhaps grow old and die with one
- 27:49Speaker 1: short day to spend and store one night in all
- 27:54Speaker 1: my life no more, Just so the long day come
- 28:00Speaker 1: and go. Yet this one sin I will not tell,
- 28:05Speaker 1: though Mary's heart is as frozen snow, and all nights
- 28:10Speaker 1: are cold. For one warned too well. But oh madue
- 28:16Speaker 1: the knights of Hell. End of poem. This recording is
- 28:24Speaker 1: in the public domain. The Changeling by Charlotte mw Read
- 28:33Speaker 1: for LibriVox dot Org by Michael Maggs. The Changeling toll
- 28:40Speaker 1: no bell for me, dear father, dear mother, waste no sighs.
- 28:45Speaker 1: There are my sisters, There is my little brother who
- 28:48Speaker 1: plays in the place called Paradise. Your children, all your children,
- 28:54Speaker 1: forever but I so wild. Your disgrace with a queer
- 29:00Speaker 1: round face was never never, I know, but half your child.
- 29:06Speaker 1: In the garden at play all day last summer, far
- 29:10Speaker 1: and away, I heard the sweet tweet tweet of a
- 29:13Speaker 1: strange newcomer, the dearest, clearest call of a bird. It
- 29:19Speaker 1: lived down there in the deep green hollow, my own
- 29:24Speaker 1: old home. And the fairy say the word of a
- 29:27Speaker 1: bird is a thing to follow. So I was away
- 29:31Speaker 1: for a night and a day one evening too, By
- 29:36Speaker 1: the nursery fire, we snuggled close and sat round so still,
- 29:41Speaker 1: when suddenly, as the wind blew higher, something scratched on
- 29:45Speaker 1: the window sill. A pinched brown face peered in. I shivered.
- 29:52Speaker 1: No one listened or seemed to see. The arms of
- 29:56Speaker 1: it waved, and the wings of it quivered. Wooh, I
- 29:59Speaker 1: knew it come for me, summer as bad as bad
- 30:03Speaker 1: can be. All night long, they danced in the rain,
- 30:09Speaker 1: round and round in a dripping chain. They threw their
- 30:12Speaker 1: caps at the window pane, tried to make me scream
- 30:16Speaker 1: and shout, and fling the bedclothes all about. I meant
- 30:21Speaker 1: to stay in bed that night, And if only you
- 30:25Speaker 1: had left a light, they never would have got me out.
- 30:31Speaker 1: Sometimes I wouldn't speak, you see, or answer when you
- 30:35Speaker 1: spoke to me, because in the long still dusks of spring,
- 30:40Speaker 1: you can hear the whole world whispering. The shy green
- 30:45Speaker 1: grass is making love, the feathers grow on the deer
- 30:49Speaker 1: gray dove, the tiny heart of the red start beat,
- 30:53Speaker 1: the patter of the squirrel's feet, the pebbles pushing in
- 30:58Speaker 1: the silver streams, the rushes talking in their dreams, the
- 31:03Speaker 1: swish of the bat's black wings, the wild wood bluebells,
- 31:08Speaker 1: sweet ting tings, humming and hammering at your ear. Everything
- 31:14Speaker 1: there is to hear in the heart of hidden things,
- 31:18Speaker 1: but not in the midst of the nursery riot. That's
- 31:23Speaker 1: why I wanted to be quiet. Couldn't do my sums
- 31:28Speaker 1: or sing or settle down to anything. And when for
- 31:33Speaker 1: that I was sent upstairs, I did kneel down to
- 31:36Speaker 1: say my prayers. But the king who sits on your
- 31:41Speaker 1: high church steeple has nothing to do with us fairy people.
- 31:47Speaker 1: Times I pleased you, dear father, dear mother, learned all
- 31:51Speaker 1: my lessons and liked to play, and dearly I loved
- 31:56Speaker 1: the little pale brother whom some other bird might have
- 32:00Speaker 1: called away. Why did they bring me here to make
- 32:04Speaker 1: me not quite bad and not quite good? Why unless
- 32:09Speaker 1: they're wicked, do they want in spite to take me
- 32:14Speaker 1: back to their wet wild wood. Now every night I
- 32:19Speaker 1: shall see the windows shining, the gold lamps glow, and
- 32:24Speaker 1: the fire's red gleam, while the best of us are
- 32:27Speaker 1: twining twigs, and the rest of us are whining in
- 32:31Speaker 1: the hollow by the stream. Black and chill are their
- 32:36Speaker 1: nights on the world, And they live so long, and
- 32:39Speaker 1: they feel no pain. I shall grow up, but never
- 32:44Speaker 1: grow old. I shall always always be very cold. I
- 32:49Speaker 1: shall never come back again. End of poem. This recording
- 32:57Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Ken by Charlotte mw Read
- 33:06Speaker 1: for librovox dot Org by Michael max Ken. The town
- 33:13Speaker 1: is old and very steep, a place of bells and cloisters,
- 33:17Speaker 1: and gray towers, and black clad people walking in their sleep,
- 33:22Speaker 1: and none a priest, a woman taking flowers to her
- 33:27Speaker 1: new grave, and watched from end to end by the
- 33:31Speaker 1: great church above through the still hours. But in the
- 33:36Speaker 1: morning and the early dark the children wake to dart
- 33:40Speaker 1: from doors and call down the wide crooked street, where
- 33:45Speaker 1: at the bend before it climbs up to the park.
- 33:48Speaker 1: Ken's is the gabled house facing the castle wall. When
- 33:54Speaker 1: first I came upon him there suddenly on the half
- 33:58Speaker 1: lit stair, I think, think, I hardly found a trace
- 34:02Speaker 1: of likeness to a human face in his And I said, then,
- 34:08Speaker 1: if in his image God made men, some other must
- 34:12Speaker 1: have made poor. Can But for his eyes, which looked
- 34:17Speaker 1: at you as two red wounded stars might do, he
- 34:22Speaker 1: scarcely spoke you, scarcely heard his voice broke off in
- 34:27Speaker 1: little jars to tears. Sometime an uncouth bird, he seem'd
- 34:33Speaker 1: as he plowed up the street, groping with gnarred, high
- 34:37Speaker 1: lifted feet and arms thrust out as if to beat
- 34:41Speaker 1: always against a threat of bars, and oftener than not
- 34:47Speaker 1: there be a child just higher than his knee, trotting
- 34:52Speaker 1: beside him through his dim long twilight. This at least
- 34:58Speaker 1: shone clear that all the children and the deer whom
- 35:03Speaker 1: every day he went to see out in the park
- 35:07Speaker 1: belonged to him. God help the fault that next him sits.
- 35:13Speaker 1: He fidgets so with his poor wits, the neighbor said,
- 35:17Speaker 1: on Sunday nights, when he will go to church to
- 35:21Speaker 1: see the lights, though for these he used to fix
- 35:26Speaker 1: his eyes upon a crucifix in a dark corner, staring
- 35:32Speaker 1: on till everybody else had gone. And sometimes in his
- 35:38Speaker 1: evil fits, you could not move him from his chair.
- 35:42Speaker 1: You did not look at him as he sat there,
- 35:46Speaker 1: biting his rosary to bits, while pointing to the Christ.
- 35:50Speaker 1: He tried to say, take it away. Nothing was dead,
- 35:57Speaker 1: he said, a bird if he picked up a broken wing,
- 36:01Speaker 1: a perish leaf, for any such thing was just a rose.
- 36:06Speaker 1: And once, when I had said he must not stand
- 36:10Speaker 1: and knock there any more, he left a twig on
- 36:13Speaker 1: the mat outside my door. Not long ago, the last
- 36:19Speaker 1: thrush stiffened in the snow, while black against the sullen sky,
- 36:24Speaker 1: the sighing pines stood by. But now the wind has
- 36:29Speaker 1: left our rattle pane to flutter the hedge sparrow's wing.
- 36:34Speaker 1: The birches in the wood are red again. And only
- 36:38Speaker 1: yesterday the larks went up a little way to sing
- 36:42Speaker 1: what lovers say who loiter in the lanes. To day
- 36:46Speaker 1: the buds begin to talk of may with learned rooks
- 36:50Speaker 1: on city trees. And if God please, with all of these,
- 36:56Speaker 1: we too shall see another spring. But in that red
- 37:02Speaker 1: brick barn upon the hill, I wonder can one own
- 37:07Speaker 1: the deer? And does one walk with children still as
- 37:12Speaker 1: one did? Here? Do roses grow beneath those twenty windows
- 37:19Speaker 1: in a row? And if some night, when you have
- 37:23Speaker 1: not seen any light, they cannot move you from your chair?
- 37:29Speaker 1: What happens there? I do not know. So when they
- 37:35Speaker 1: took ken to that place, I did not look. After
- 37:40Speaker 1: he called and turned on me his eyes these I
- 37:46Speaker 1: shall see. End of poem. This recording is in the
- 37:52Speaker 1: public domain. Acqua pontil Shallop Mew read for LibriVox dot
- 38:02Speaker 1: Org by Michael Maggs A quabon, Dear, seventeen years ago,
- 38:09Speaker 1: you said something that sounded like good bye. And everybody
- 38:14Speaker 1: thinks that you are dead, But I so I, as
- 38:20Speaker 1: I grow stiff and cold to this and that, say
- 38:23Speaker 1: goodbye too. And everybody sees that I am old, but you.
- 38:30Speaker 1: One fine morning in a sunny lane, some boy and
- 38:34Speaker 1: girl will meet and kiss and swear that nobody can
- 38:38Speaker 1: love their way again, while over there you will have smiled.
- 38:44Speaker 1: I shall have tossed your hair. End of poem. This
- 38:51Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. The Quiet House by
- 39:01Speaker 1: Charlotte Mew read for librovox dot Org by Michael Max
- 39:07Speaker 1: The quiet house. When we were children, old nurse used
- 39:13Speaker 1: to say the house was like an auction or a
- 39:16Speaker 1: fair until the lot of us were safe in bed.
- 39:20Speaker 1: It has been quiet as the countryside since Ted and Janey,
- 39:24Speaker 1: and then mother died, and Tom crossed father and was
- 39:28Speaker 1: sent away after the lawsuit. He could not hold up
- 39:32Speaker 1: his head, poor father, and he does not care for
- 39:36Speaker 1: people here or to go anywhere. To get away to
- 39:41Speaker 1: aunt's for that week end was hard enough. Since then
- 39:46Speaker 1: a year ago, he scarcely lets me slip out of
- 39:49Speaker 1: his sight. At first, I did not like my cousin's friend.
- 39:55Speaker 1: I did not think I should remember him. His voice
- 39:58Speaker 1: has gone, his face is growing dim, And if I
- 40:03Speaker 1: like him now, I do not know. He frightened me
- 40:07Speaker 1: before he smiled. He did not ask me if he might.
- 40:11Speaker 1: He said that he would come one Sunday night. He
- 40:15Speaker 1: spoke to me as if I were a child. No
- 40:19Speaker 1: year has been like this that has just gone by.
- 40:23Speaker 1: It may be that what father says is true. If
- 40:27Speaker 1: things are so, it does not matter why. But everything
- 40:32Speaker 1: has burned, and not quite through. The colors of the
- 40:37Speaker 1: world have turned to flame. The blue, the gold has
- 40:41Speaker 1: burned in what used to be such a leaden sky.
- 40:46Speaker 1: When you are burned quite through, you die, red is
- 40:51Speaker 1: the strangest pain to bear. In spring, the leaves on
- 40:56Speaker 1: the budding trees. In summer, the row ouses are worse
- 41:00Speaker 1: than these, more terrible than they are sweeter. Rose can
- 41:05Speaker 1: stab you across the street deeper than any knife, and
- 41:11Speaker 1: the crimson haunts you everywhere. Thin shafts of sunlight, like
- 41:17Speaker 1: the ghosts of red and swords, have struck our stair,
- 41:21Speaker 1: as if coming down you had spilt your life. I
- 41:26Speaker 1: think that my soul is red, like the soul of
- 41:29Speaker 1: a sword or a scarlet flower. But when these are dead,
- 41:34Speaker 1: they have had their hour. I shall have had mine too,
- 41:39Speaker 1: For from head to feet I am burned and stabb'd
- 41:43Speaker 1: half through, And the pain is deadly sweet. The things
- 41:49Speaker 1: that kill us seem blind to the death they give.
- 41:54Speaker 1: It is only in our dream the things that kill
- 41:58Speaker 1: us live. The room is shut where mother died. The
- 42:04Speaker 1: other rooms are as they were. The world goes on
- 42:08Speaker 1: the same outside. The sparrows fly across the square, the
- 42:13Speaker 1: children play as we four did there. The trees grow
- 42:18Speaker 1: green and brown and bare. The sun shines on the
- 42:22Speaker 1: dead church spire, and nothing lives here but the fire,
- 42:28Speaker 1: while father watches from his chair. Day follows day the same,
- 42:35Speaker 1: or now and then a different gray till like his hair,
- 42:40Speaker 1: which mother said was wavy once and bright. They will
- 42:45Speaker 1: all turn white to night. I heard a bell again outside.
- 42:52Speaker 1: It was the same mist of fine rain. The lamps
- 42:56Speaker 1: just lighted down the long dim street. No one for me.
- 43:03Speaker 1: I think it is myself I go to meet. I
- 43:07Speaker 1: do not care. Some day I shall not think, I
- 43:13Speaker 1: shall not be. End of poem. This recording is in
- 43:20Speaker 1: the public domain. On the Asylum Road by Shallocke Mew
- 43:30Speaker 1: read for LibriVox dot Org by Michael Maggs. On the
- 43:35Speaker 1: Asylum Road, theirs is the house's windows. Every pane are
- 43:41Speaker 1: made of darkly stained or clouded glass. Sometimes you come
- 43:46Speaker 1: upon them in the lane, the saddest crowd that you
- 43:49Speaker 1: will ever pass. But still we merry town or village
- 43:55Speaker 1: folk throw to their scattered stair a kindly grin, and
- 44:00Speaker 1: think no shame to stop and crack a joke with
- 44:03Speaker 1: the incarnate wages of man's sin. None but ourselves in
- 44:09Speaker 1: our long gallery we meet the moor Hens, stepping from
- 44:14Speaker 1: her reeds with dainty feet. The hare bell bowing on
- 44:18Speaker 1: his stem dance. Not with us their pulses beat to
- 44:23Speaker 1: fainter music, Nor do we to them make their life
- 44:28Speaker 1: sweet the gayest crowd that they will ever pass. Are
- 44:34Speaker 1: we to brother shadows in the lane? Our windows too
- 44:39Speaker 1: are clouded glass to them, Yes, every pane. End of poem.
- 44:48Speaker 1: This recording is in the public domain. Jour des Mours
- 44:58Speaker 1: by Sharlock Mew for LibriVox dot org by Michael Maggs.
- 45:03Speaker 1: Jeurle des morts, simitiel Montpernauth, sweetheart, is this the last
- 45:11Speaker 1: of all our posies and little festivals? My flowers? Are
- 45:16Speaker 1: they but white and wistful ghosts of gayer roses? Shut?
- 45:20Speaker 1: With you in this grim garden? Not to day? Ah, No,
- 45:27Speaker 1: come out with me before the gray gate closes. It
- 45:31Speaker 1: is your fete and here is your bouquet. End of poem.
- 45:38Speaker 1: This recording is in the public domain. The Forest Road
- 45:48Speaker 1: by Charlotte Mew read for LibriVox dot org by Michael
- 45:52Speaker 1: mags The Forest Road, the forest road, the infinite straight road,
- 46:01Speaker 1: stretching away world without end, The breathless road between the
- 46:06Speaker 1: walls of the black, listening trees, the hushed gray road
- 46:12Speaker 1: beyond the window that you shut to night, crying that
- 46:16Speaker 1: you would look at it by day. There is a
- 46:19Speaker 1: shadow there that sings and calls, but not for you,
- 46:24Speaker 1: oh hidden eyes that plead in sleep against the lonely dark.
- 46:30Speaker 1: If I could touch the fear and leave it kissed
- 46:33Speaker 1: away on quiet lids, If I could hush those hands
- 46:38Speaker 1: that are half awake groping for me in sleep, I
- 46:42Speaker 1: could go free. I wish that God would take them
- 46:47Speaker 1: out of mine and fold them like the wings of
- 46:51Speaker 1: frightened birds, shot cruelly down, but fluttering into quietness, so
- 46:56Speaker 1: soon broken forgotten things. There is no grief for them
- 47:01Speaker 1: in the green spring, when the new birds fly back
- 47:04Speaker 1: to the old trees. But it shall not be so
- 47:08Speaker 1: with you. I will look back. I wish I knew
- 47:13Speaker 1: that God would stand smiling and looking down on you
- 47:17Speaker 1: when morning comes, to hold you when you wake closer
- 47:21Speaker 1: than I so gently, though not with famished lips or
- 47:27Speaker 1: hungry arms. He does not hurt the frailest, dearest things
- 47:33Speaker 1: as we do in the dark. See, dear your hair.
- 47:39Speaker 1: I must unloose this hair that sleeps and dreams about
- 47:43Speaker 1: my face, and clings like the brown weed to drowned
- 47:48Speaker 1: delivered things. Tossed by the tired sea back to the beeches.
- 47:55Speaker 1: Oh your hair. If you had lain a long, tined
- 48:00Speaker 1: dead on the rough, glistening ledge of some black cliff,
- 48:04Speaker 1: forgotten by the tide, the raving winds would tear, the
- 48:09Speaker 1: dripping brine, would rust away fold after fold of all
- 48:14Speaker 1: the loveliness that wrapped you round and makes you lying here,
- 48:19Speaker 1: the passionate fragrance that the roses are, but death would
- 48:25Speaker 1: spare the glory of your head. In the long sweetness
- 48:30Speaker 1: of the hair that does not dye, the spray would
- 48:34Speaker 1: leap to it in every storm. The scent of the
- 48:37Speaker 1: unsilenced sea would linger on in those dark waves, and
- 48:42Speaker 1: round the silence that was you. Only the nesting girls
- 48:46Speaker 1: would hear, But there would still be whispers in your hair.
- 48:52Speaker 1: Keep them for me, Keep them for me. What is
- 48:58Speaker 1: the singing on the that makes all other music like
- 49:02Speaker 1: the music in a dream, dumb to the dancing and
- 49:06Speaker 1: the marching feet. You know in dreams you see old
- 49:12Speaker 1: pipers playing that you cannot hear, and ghostly drums that
- 49:16Speaker 1: only seem to beat. This seems to climb. Is it
- 49:22Speaker 1: the music of a larger place? It makes our room
- 49:27Speaker 1: too small? It is like a stair, a calling stairs
- 49:32Speaker 1: that climbs up to a smile you scarcely see, dim
- 49:37Speaker 1: but so waited for. And you know what a smile is,
- 49:41Speaker 1: how it calls. How if I smiled, you always ran
- 49:46Speaker 1: to me. Now you must sleep forgetfully as children do.
- 49:53Speaker 1: There is a spirit sits by us in sleep, nearer
- 49:57Speaker 1: than those who walk with us in the bright day.
- 50:01Speaker 1: I think he has a tranquil saving face. I think
- 50:06Speaker 1: he came straight from the hills. He may have suffered
- 50:11Speaker 1: there in time gone by, and once from those forsaken heights,
- 50:17Speaker 1: looked down lonely himself on all the lonely sorrows of
- 50:23Speaker 1: the earth. It is his kingdom sleep. If I could
- 50:30Speaker 1: leave you there, if without waking you, I could get
- 50:35Speaker 1: up and reach the door we used to go together.
- 50:41Speaker 1: Shut scared eyes, poor desolate, desperate hands. It is not
- 50:46Speaker 1: I who thrust you off. No, take your hands away.
- 50:51Speaker 1: I cannot strike your lonely hands. Yes, I have struck
- 50:56Speaker 1: your heart. It did not come so near. Then lie you,
- 51:02Speaker 1: their dear and wild heart, behind this quivering snow with
- 51:07Speaker 1: two red stains on it. And I will strike and
- 51:12Speaker 1: tem mine out and scatter it to yours. Oh, throbbing dust,
- 51:18Speaker 1: You that were life are little wind blown. Hearts the road,
- 51:25Speaker 1: the road, There is a shadow there. I see my soul.
- 51:31Speaker 1: I hear my soul singing among the trees. End of poem.
- 51:40Speaker 1: This recording is in the public domain. Madeline in Church,
- 51:50Speaker 1: I shall ape Mew read for LibriVox dot Org by
- 51:53Speaker 1: Michael Maggs. Madeline in Church. Here in the darkness, where
- 52:00Speaker 1: this plaster saint stands nearer than God stands to our distress,
- 52:05Speaker 1: and one small candle shines, but not so faint as
- 52:09Speaker 1: the far lights of everlastingness. I'd rather kneel than over
- 52:14Speaker 1: there in open day where Christ is hanging, rather pray
- 52:18Speaker 1: to something more like my own clay, not too divine.
- 52:24Speaker 1: For once, perhaps my little saint, before he got his
- 52:27Speaker 1: niche and crown, at one short strawl about the town.
- 52:32Speaker 1: It brings him closer, just that taint, And any one
- 52:37Speaker 1: can wash the paint of our poor faces, his and mine.
- 52:43Speaker 1: Is that why I see Monty now he call to
- 52:47Speaker 1: any saint, poor boy and good as gold, but still
- 52:52Speaker 1: with just the proper trace of earthliness on his shining
- 52:55Speaker 1: wedding face, And then gone suddenly blank and old. The
- 53:01Speaker 1: hateful day of the divorce. Stuart got his hands down,
- 53:06Speaker 1: of course, crowing like twenty cocks and grinning like a horse.
- 53:11Speaker 1: But Monty took it hard. All said and done, I
- 53:15Speaker 1: liked him best. He was the first. He stands out
- 53:19Speaker 1: clearer than the rest. It seems too funny. All we
- 53:24Speaker 1: other rips should have immortal souls. Monty and Wredge quite
- 53:30Speaker 1: damnably keep theirs afloat while we go down like scuttled ships.
- 53:36Speaker 1: It's funny too, how easily we sink. One might put
- 53:41Speaker 1: up a monument, I think, to half the world and
- 53:44Speaker 1: cut across it lost at sea. I should drown Jim,
- 53:49Speaker 1: poor little sparrow, if I netted him to night. Now
- 53:53Speaker 1: it's no use this penny light, or my poor saint
- 53:57Speaker 1: with his tin pot crown the trees of Calvary, how
- 54:01Speaker 1: where they were? When we are sure that we can
- 54:06Speaker 1: spare the tallest, let us go and strike it down
- 54:10Speaker 1: and leave the other two still standing there. I too
- 54:15Speaker 1: would ask him to remember me if there were any
- 54:18Speaker 1: paradise beyond this earth that I could see, Oh, quiet Christ,
- 54:26Speaker 1: who never knew the poisonous fangs that bite us through
- 54:30Speaker 1: and make us do the things we do. See how
- 54:35Speaker 1: we suffer and fight and die, how helpless and how
- 54:39Speaker 1: low we lie. God holds you, and you hang so high,
- 54:45Speaker 1: though no one looking long at you can think you
- 54:48Speaker 1: do not suffer too. But up there from your still
- 54:54Speaker 1: starlighted tree, what can you know? What can you really
- 54:59Speaker 1: see of this dark ditch? The soul of me? We
- 55:05Speaker 1: are what we are. When I was half a child,
- 55:09Speaker 1: I could not sit watching black shadows on green lawns,
- 55:13Speaker 1: and red carnations burning in the sun without paying so
- 55:18Speaker 1: heavily for it, that joy and pain, like any mother
- 55:22Speaker 1: and her unborn child were almost one. I could hardly
- 55:27Speaker 1: bear the dreams upon the eyes of the white geraniums
- 55:31Speaker 1: in the dusk, the thick, close voice of musk, the
- 55:36Speaker 1: Jessamine music on the thin night air, or sometimes my
- 55:41Speaker 1: own hands about me anywhere, the sight of my own face,
- 55:47Speaker 1: for it was lovely then, even the scent of my
- 55:50Speaker 1: own hair. Oh, there was nothing, nothing that did not
- 55:55Speaker 1: sweep to the high seat of laughing gods, and then
- 55:59Speaker 1: blowed down and beat my soul into the highway dust,
- 56:04Speaker 1: as hoofs do the dropp'd roses of the street. I
- 56:09Speaker 1: think my body was my soul. And when we are
- 56:13Speaker 1: made thus who shall control our hands, our eyes, the
- 56:19Speaker 1: wandering passion of our feet, Who shall teach us to
- 56:23Speaker 1: thrust the world out of a heart, to say till
- 56:27Speaker 1: perhaps in death, when the race is run, and it
- 56:30Speaker 1: is forced from us with our last breath, Thy will
- 56:35Speaker 1: be done, if it is your will that we should
- 56:39Speaker 1: be content with the same bloodless things as pale as
- 56:44Speaker 1: angels smirking by with folded wings. Oh, I know virtue
- 56:50Speaker 1: in the peace. It brings the temperate, well worn smile
- 56:55Speaker 1: that one man gives you when you are ever more
- 56:59Speaker 1: his own. And afterwards the child's for a little while,
- 57:04Speaker 1: with its unknowing and all seeing eyes so soon to change,
- 57:10Speaker 1: and make you feel how quick the clock goes round?
- 57:15Speaker 1: If one had learned the trick, how does one though,
- 57:19Speaker 1: quite early on, of long green pastures under placid skies,
- 57:24Speaker 1: one might be walking now with patient truth? What did
- 57:29Speaker 1: we ever care for it? Who have asked for youth? When, oh,
- 57:34Speaker 1: my God, is his going or has gone? There is
- 57:39Speaker 1: a portrait of my mother at nineteen, with the black
- 57:43Speaker 1: spaniel standing by the garden seat, the dainty head held
- 57:48Speaker 1: high against the painted green, and throwing out the youngest smile,
- 57:54Speaker 1: shy but half haughty and half sweet. A picture then,
- 57:59Speaker 1: but simply youth, or simply spring to me to day,
- 58:04Speaker 1: A radiance on the wall, so exquisite, so heart breaking,
- 58:09Speaker 1: a thing beside the mask that I remember, shrunk and small,
- 58:15Speaker 1: sapless and lined like a dead leaf, all that was
- 58:19Speaker 1: left of, oh, the loveliest face by time and grief.
- 58:26Speaker 1: And in the glass last night I saw a ghost
- 58:29Speaker 1: behind my chair. Yet why remember it when one can
- 58:34Speaker 1: still go moderately gay, or could with any of the
- 58:38Speaker 1: old crew. But oh, these boys, the solemn way they
- 58:44Speaker 1: take you, and the things they say, this I have
- 58:48Speaker 1: only as long as you when you remind them that
- 58:51Speaker 1: you are not precisely twenty two. Though at heart, perhaps God,
- 58:56Speaker 1: if it were only the face, only the hair, if
- 59:01Speaker 1: Jim had written to me as he did to day
- 59:04Speaker 1: a year ago, and now it leaves me cold, I
- 59:09Speaker 1: know what it means, this old, old old aeviksa mayor
- 59:15Speaker 1: avecu to supay, that is not always true. There was
- 59:22Speaker 1: my mother, well, at least the dead, a free yoked
- 59:26Speaker 1: to the man. That father was yoked to the woman.
- 59:29Speaker 1: I am Monty too, the little portress at the convent school,
- 59:34Speaker 1: stewing in hell, so patiently the poor fair boy who
- 59:40Speaker 1: shot himself at x And what of me? And what
- 59:44Speaker 1: of me? But I I paid for what I had,
- 59:48Speaker 1: and they for nothing. No one cannot see how it
- 59:53Speaker 1: shall be made up to them in some serene eternity.
- 59:58Speaker 1: If they were fifty heavens, God could not give us
- 1:00:01Speaker 1: back the child who went or never came here on
- 1:00:07Speaker 1: our little patch of this great earth. The sun of
- 1:00:10Speaker 1: any darkened day, not one of all. The starry buds
- 1:00:14Speaker 1: hung on the hawthorn trees of last year's may no
- 1:00:19Speaker 1: shadow from the sloping fields of yesterday. For every hour
- 1:00:24Speaker 1: they slant across the hedge a different way, the shadows
- 1:00:28Speaker 1: are never the same. Find rest in him, one knows.
- 1:00:35Speaker 1: The parsons tags back to the fold across the evening
- 1:00:39Speaker 1: fields like any flock of buying sheep. Yes, it may
- 1:00:44Speaker 1: be when he has shorn, led us to slaughter, torn
- 1:00:48Speaker 1: the bleating soul in us to rags, For so he
- 1:00:52Speaker 1: giveth his beloved sleep. Oh he will take us, stripped
- 1:00:58Speaker 1: and done, driven into his heart. So we are one
- 1:01:04Speaker 1: then safe, Safe are we in the shelter of his
- 1:01:08Speaker 1: everlasting wings. I do not envy him his victories. His
- 1:01:14Speaker 1: arms are full of broken things. But I shall not
- 1:01:19Speaker 1: be in them. Let him take the finer ones, the
- 1:01:23Speaker 1: easier to break, And they are not gone yet for me.
- 1:01:28Speaker 1: The lights, the colors, the perfumes, though now they speak
- 1:01:33Speaker 1: rather in sumptuous rooms, in silks, and in gem like wines. Here,
- 1:01:39Speaker 1: even in this corner where my little candle shines, and
- 1:01:43Speaker 1: overhead the lancet window glows with golds and crimsons, you
- 1:01:49Speaker 1: could almost drink to know how jewels taste, just as
- 1:01:54Speaker 1: I used to think there was the scent in every
- 1:01:57Speaker 1: red and yellow rose of all the sightsets. But this
- 1:02:02Speaker 1: place is gray and much too quiet. No one here,
- 1:02:08Speaker 1: Why this is awful, This is fear. Nothing to see,
- 1:02:13Speaker 1: no face, nothing to hear except your heart beating in space,
- 1:02:18Speaker 1: as if the world was ended, dead at last, dead soul,
- 1:02:24Speaker 1: dead body, tied together fast, these to go on with
- 1:02:29Speaker 1: and alone to the slow end. No one to sit
- 1:02:34Speaker 1: with really, or to speak to friend to friend out
- 1:02:38Speaker 1: of the long procession, black or white or red. No
- 1:02:43Speaker 1: one left now to say still I am here. Then,
- 1:02:47Speaker 1: see you, dear. They hear your head only the doll's house,
- 1:02:52Speaker 1: looking on the park to night, all nights. I know
- 1:02:56Speaker 1: when the man puts the lights out, very dark, withers
- 1:03:01Speaker 1: upstairs in the blue and gold box of the room,
- 1:03:05Speaker 1: just the maid's footsteps overhead, Then at a silence, and
- 1:03:10Speaker 1: the empty world, the room, the bed, the corpse. No,
- 1:03:16Speaker 1: not quite dead, while this cries out in me, but
- 1:03:20Speaker 1: nearly very soon to be a handful of forgotten dust.
- 1:03:27Speaker 1: There must be someone Christ there, must tell me. There
- 1:03:32Speaker 1: will be someone who if there were no one else,
- 1:03:38Speaker 1: could it be you? How old was Mary, out of
- 1:03:43Speaker 1: whom you cast so many devils? Was she young? Or
- 1:03:48Speaker 1: perhaps for years had sat staring with dry eyes at
- 1:03:52Speaker 1: this and that man going past, till suddenly she saw
- 1:03:56Speaker 1: you on the steps of Simon's house, and stood and
- 1:04:00Speaker 1: looked at you through tears. I think she must have
- 1:04:04Speaker 1: known by those the thing for what it was that
- 1:04:07Speaker 1: had come to her. For some of us there is
- 1:04:11Speaker 1: a passion, I suppose, so far from earthly cares and
- 1:04:15Speaker 1: earthly fears, that in its stillness you can hardly stir,
- 1:04:19Speaker 1: or in its nearness lift your hand so great that
- 1:04:23Speaker 1: you have simply got to stand looking at it through tears,
- 1:04:27Speaker 1: through tears. Then straight from these there broke the kiss.
- 1:04:33Speaker 1: I think you must have known by this the thing
- 1:04:37Speaker 1: for what it was. That had come to you. She
- 1:04:41Speaker 1: did not love you like the rest. It was in
- 1:04:44Speaker 1: her own way, but at worst the best she gave
- 1:04:49Speaker 1: you something altogether new, And through it all from her
- 1:04:54Speaker 1: no word. She scarcely saw you, scarcely heard. Surely you
- 1:05:00Speaker 1: knew when she so touched you with her hair, all
- 1:05:04Speaker 1: by the wet cheek, lying there, and while her perfume
- 1:05:08Speaker 1: clung to you from head to feet all through the day,
- 1:05:12Speaker 1: that you can change the things for which we care,
- 1:05:16Speaker 1: but even you unless you kill us. Not the way
- 1:05:22Speaker 1: this then was peace for her, but passion too. I wonder,
- 1:05:28Speaker 1: was it like a kiss that, once I knew, the
- 1:05:32Speaker 1: only one that I would care to take into the
- 1:05:35Speaker 1: grave with me, to which, if there were afterwards to
- 1:05:40Speaker 1: wake almost as happy as the carven dead in some
- 1:05:45Speaker 1: dim chancel. Lying head by head, we slept with it,
- 1:05:51Speaker 1: but face to face the whole night, through one breath,
- 1:05:56Speaker 1: one throbbing quietness, as if the thing behind our lips
- 1:06:02Speaker 1: was endless, life lost. As I awoke to hear in
- 1:06:07Speaker 1: the strange earthly dawn, his are you there? And lie
- 1:06:12Speaker 1: still listening to the wind outside among the firs. So
- 1:06:20Speaker 1: Mary chose the dream of him for what was left
- 1:06:23Speaker 1: to her of night and day. It is the only truth.
- 1:06:28Speaker 1: It is the dream in us that neither life, nor death,
- 1:06:32Speaker 1: nor any other thing can take away. But if she
- 1:06:36Speaker 1: had not touched him in the doorway of the dream,
- 1:06:40Speaker 1: could she have cared so much? She was a sinner.
- 1:06:45Speaker 1: We are what we are, the spirit afterwards, but first
- 1:06:50Speaker 1: the touch. And he has never shared with me my
- 1:06:56Speaker 1: haunted house beneath the trees of Eden Calvary, with its
- 1:07:02Speaker 1: ghosts that have not any eyes for tears, and the
- 1:07:06Speaker 1: happier guests who would not see, or if they did remember, these,
- 1:07:11Speaker 1: though they lived there a thousand years outside too gravely
- 1:07:18Speaker 1: looking at me, he seems to stand, and looking at him.
- 1:07:23Speaker 1: If my forgotten spirit came unwillingly back, what could it
- 1:07:28Speaker 1: claim of those calm eyes, that quiet speech, breaking like
- 1:07:34Speaker 1: the slow tide upon the beach, the scarred, not quite
- 1:07:39Speaker 1: human hand, unwillingly back to the burdens of old imaginings,
- 1:07:46Speaker 1: When it has learned so long not to think, not
- 1:07:49Speaker 1: to be again again, It would speak, as it has
- 1:07:55Speaker 1: spoken to me, of things that I shall not see.
- 1:08:01Speaker 1: I cannot bear to look at this divinely bent and
- 1:08:05Speaker 1: gracious head. When I was small, I never quite believed
- 1:08:10Speaker 1: that he was dead, and at the convent school I
- 1:08:14Speaker 1: used to lie awake in bed thinking about his hands.
- 1:08:19Speaker 1: It did not matter what they said, he was alive.
- 1:08:23Speaker 1: To me so hurt, so hurt, and most of all
- 1:08:28Speaker 1: in Holy week, when there was no one else to see,
- 1:08:33Speaker 1: I used to think it would not hurt me too,
- 1:08:36Speaker 1: so terribly if he had ever seemed to notice me,
- 1:08:41Speaker 1: or if once he would only speak. End of poem.
- 1:08:50Speaker 1: This recording is in the public domain. Especto Resrettiam by
- 1:09:00Speaker 1: Shallop mw Read for LibriVox dot Org by Michael Max.
- 1:09:06Speaker 1: Specto risaretzionem O King, who hast the key of that
- 1:09:12Speaker 1: dark room, the last which prisons us, but held not
- 1:09:16Speaker 1: thee Thou know'st itst gloom? Dost thou a little love
- 1:09:21Speaker 1: this one shut in to night, young and so piteously alone,
- 1:09:27Speaker 1: cold out of sight. Thou know'st how hard and bear
- 1:09:33Speaker 1: the pillow of that new made narrow bed. Then leave
- 1:09:38Speaker 1: not there so dear a head End of poem. This
- 1:09:45Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. On the Road to
- 1:09:53Speaker 1: the Sea by Shallop mw Read for LibriVox dot Org
- 1:09:57Speaker 1: by Michael Max. On the Road to the Sea, we
- 1:10:03Speaker 1: passed each other turned and stopped for Havna, then went
- 1:10:07Speaker 1: our way. I who make other women smile, did not
- 1:10:11Speaker 1: make you. But no man can move mountains in a day.
- 1:10:16Speaker 1: So this hard thing is yet to do. But first
- 1:10:20Speaker 1: I want your life before I die. I want to
- 1:10:24Speaker 1: see the world that lies behind the strangeness of your eyes.
- 1:10:29Speaker 1: There is nothing gay or green there for my gathering.
- 1:10:32Speaker 1: It may be, yet on brown fields there lies a
- 1:10:36Speaker 1: haunting purple bloom. Is there not something in gray skies
- 1:10:41Speaker 1: and in gray sea? I want what world there is
- 1:10:45Speaker 1: behind your eyes. I want your life, and you will
- 1:10:50Speaker 1: not give it me. Now if I look, I see
- 1:10:55Speaker 1: you walking down the years, young and through august fields,
- 1:11:00Speaker 1: a face, a thought, a swinging dream, perched on a
- 1:11:04Speaker 1: stile I would have liked so vile we are to
- 1:11:09Speaker 1: have taught you tears, but most to have made you smile.
- 1:11:15Speaker 1: To day is not enough or yesterday. God sees it
- 1:11:19Speaker 1: all your length on sunny lawns, the wakeful, rainy nights.
- 1:11:24Speaker 1: Tell me how vain to ask, But it is not
- 1:11:27Speaker 1: a question, just a call. Show me then, only your
- 1:11:32Speaker 1: notched inches climbing up the garden wall. I like you
- 1:11:36Speaker 1: best when you are small. Is this a stupid thing
- 1:11:41Speaker 1: to say, not having spent with you one day. No matter,
- 1:11:46Speaker 1: I shall never touch your hair or hear the little
- 1:11:49Speaker 1: tick behind your breast. Still it is there, and as
- 1:11:54Speaker 1: a flying bird brushes the branches where it may not rest,
- 1:11:58Speaker 1: I have brushed your and and heard the child in you.
- 1:12:03Speaker 1: I like that best, so small, so dark, so sweet.
- 1:12:09Speaker 1: And were you also then too grave and wise? Always?
- 1:12:14Speaker 1: I think? Then put your far off little hand in mine. Oh,
- 1:12:19Speaker 1: let it rest. I will not stare into the early
- 1:12:24Speaker 1: world beyond the opening eyes or vex, or scare what
- 1:12:28Speaker 1: I love best. But I want your life before mine
- 1:12:33Speaker 1: bleeds away, here, not in heavenly, hereafters soon. I want
- 1:12:39Speaker 1: your smile this very afternoon, the last of all my vices.
- 1:12:44Speaker 1: Pleasant people used to say I wanted, and I sometimes
- 1:12:48Speaker 1: got the moon. You know, at dusk the last birds cry,
- 1:12:54Speaker 1: and round the house, the flap of the bat's low flight,
- 1:12:58Speaker 1: trees that go black again the sky, and then how
- 1:13:02Speaker 1: soon the night no shadow of you on any bright
- 1:13:07Speaker 1: road again. And at the darkening end of this what voice?
- 1:13:13Speaker 1: Whose kiss? As if you'd say, it is not I
- 1:13:17Speaker 1: who have walked with you, It will not be I
- 1:13:20Speaker 1: who take away peace, peace, my little handful of the
- 1:13:25Speaker 1: gleaner's grain from your reaped fields at the shut of day? Peace?
- 1:13:33Speaker 1: Would you not rather die reeling with all the cannons
- 1:13:37Speaker 1: at your ear? So at least would I? And I
- 1:13:41Speaker 1: may not be here to night, to morrow morning, or
- 1:13:45Speaker 1: next year, Still I will let you keep your life
- 1:13:49Speaker 1: a little while. See, dear, I have made you smile.
- 1:13:57Speaker 1: End of poem. This recording is in the The Sunlit
- 1:14:07Speaker 1: House by Charlotte Mew read for LibriVox dot Org by
- 1:14:11Speaker 1: Michael Max. The sunlit House white through the gate, it
- 1:14:18Speaker 1: gleamed and slept in shut at sunshine. The parched garden
- 1:14:23Speaker 1: flowers there fallen petals from the beds, unswept like children
- 1:14:28Speaker 1: unloved and ill kept dreamed through the hours. Two blue
- 1:14:35Speaker 1: hydrangers by the blistered door, burnt brown, watched there, and
- 1:14:39Speaker 1: no one in the town cared to go past it
- 1:14:43Speaker 1: night or day. Though why this was, they wouldn't say.
- 1:14:48Speaker 1: But I, the stranger, knew that I must stay pace
- 1:14:53Speaker 1: up the weed grown paths and down till one afternoon.
- 1:14:58Speaker 1: There is just a doubt, But I fancy. I heard
- 1:15:02Speaker 1: a tiny shout from an upper window, A bird flew out,
- 1:15:07Speaker 1: and I went on my way end of poem. This
- 1:15:14Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. The Shade Catchers by
- 1:15:23Speaker 1: Charlotte mw Read for LibriVox dot org by Michael Max
- 1:15:28Speaker 1: The shade Catchers, I think they were about as high
- 1:15:32Speaker 1: as haycocks are. They went running by, catching bits of
- 1:15:37Speaker 1: shade in the sunny street. I've got one, cried sister
- 1:15:41Speaker 1: to brother. I've got two. Now I've got another. But
- 1:15:45Speaker 1: scudding away on their little bare feet, they left the
- 1:15:49Speaker 1: shade in the sunny street. End of poem. This recording
- 1:15:56Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Lsacco Curl by Charlote mw
- 1:16:07Speaker 1: Read for librovox dot org by Michael Maggs. L Sacca Curl, Monmartre.
- 1:16:14Speaker 1: It is dark up here on the heights, between the
- 1:16:18Speaker 1: dome and the stars. It is quiet too, while down
- 1:16:22Speaker 1: there under the crowded lights flares the importunate face of you,
- 1:16:28Speaker 1: dear Paris, of the hot white hands, the scarlet lips,
- 1:16:33Speaker 1: the scented hair, unsulifiavandre fresh all, a thing of gaiety,
- 1:16:40Speaker 1: a thing of sorrow, brought to night, possessed, and tossed
- 1:16:45Speaker 1: back to the mart again to morrow. Worth and over
- 1:16:49Speaker 1: what you cost, well, half your charm is that you
- 1:16:54Speaker 1: are withal like some unpurchasable star, so old, so young,
- 1:17:00Speaker 1: and infinite and lost. It is dark on the dome
- 1:17:06Speaker 1: capped hill, serenely dark, divinely still. Yet here is the
- 1:17:13Speaker 1: man who brought you first, dying of his immortal smart,
- 1:17:17Speaker 1: your lover, the king with the broken heart, who, while
- 1:17:22Speaker 1: you feasting drink your fill, pass round the cup, not
- 1:17:27Speaker 1: looking up, calls down to you. I thirst, a king
- 1:17:33Speaker 1: with a broken heart. Mon dieu, one breaks so many,
- 1:17:38Speaker 1: sella passe quaal to remember all, sell a mare a pois,
- 1:17:44Speaker 1: and the first may come sevieux. Perhaps there is still
- 1:17:50Speaker 1: some keepsake, or one has possibly sold it for a
- 1:17:54Speaker 1: song on a pupatoujio plu lemur, and this one he
- 1:18:01Speaker 1: has been dead so long. End of poem. This recording
- 1:18:08Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Song by Charlotte mw Read
- 1:18:18Speaker 1: for liprivox dot Org by Michael Maggs. Song Love Love Today,
- 1:18:26Speaker 1: My dear love is not always here. Wise maids know
- 1:18:31Speaker 1: how soon grows sere the greenest leaf of spring, but
- 1:18:36Speaker 1: no man knoweth whither it goeth. When the wind bloweth
- 1:18:40Speaker 1: so frail a thing, love love, my dear today have
- 1:18:47Speaker 1: the ship's in the bay. If the bird has come
- 1:18:50Speaker 1: your way, that sings on summer trees, when his song faileth,
- 1:18:55Speaker 1: and the ship sailess no voice availeth to call back
- 1:19:00Speaker 1: these end of poem. This recording is in the public domain.
- 1:19:12Speaker 1: Saturday Market by Charlocke mew Red for LibriVox dot Org
- 1:19:17Speaker 1: by Michael Maggs Saturday Market. Bury your heart in some
- 1:19:24Speaker 1: deep green hollow, or hide it up in a kind
- 1:19:27Speaker 1: old tree. Better still, give it the swallow when she
- 1:19:32Speaker 1: goes over the sea. In Saturday Market, there's eggs a plenty,
- 1:19:38Speaker 1: and dead alive ducks with their legs tied down, gray
- 1:19:42Speaker 1: old gaffers and boys of twenty, girls and women of
- 1:19:45Speaker 1: the town, pitchers and sugar sticks, ribbons and laces, posies
- 1:19:50Speaker 1: and whips, and dicky bird seed, silver pieces and smiling faces.
- 1:19:56Speaker 1: In Saturday Market, they've all they need. What were you
- 1:20:01Speaker 1: showing in Saturday Market that set it grinning from end
- 1:20:05Speaker 1: to end? Girls and gaffhers and boys of twenty. Cover
- 1:20:10Speaker 1: it close with your shawl, my friend. Hasten you home
- 1:20:14Speaker 1: with the laugh behind you, over the down, out of sight.
- 1:20:19Speaker 1: Fasten your door, though no one will find you. No
- 1:20:22Speaker 1: one will look on a market night. See you the
- 1:20:27Speaker 1: shawl is wet. Take out from under the dead red
- 1:20:31Speaker 1: thing in the white of the moon on the flags.
- 1:20:35Speaker 1: Does it stir again? Well? And no wonder? Best make
- 1:20:40Speaker 1: an end of it, Bury it soon. If there is
- 1:20:43Speaker 1: blood on the hearth, or know it, or blood on
- 1:20:47Speaker 1: the stairs. When a murder is over and done, why
- 1:20:51Speaker 1: show it in Saturday market? Nobody cares. Then lie you
- 1:20:58Speaker 1: straight on your bed for a short, short weeping, and
- 1:21:02Speaker 1: still for a long long rest. There's never a one
- 1:21:06Speaker 1: in the town so sure of sleeping as you in
- 1:21:11Speaker 1: the house on the down, with a hole in your breast.
- 1:21:16Speaker 1: Think no more of the swallow, Forget you the sea,
- 1:21:21Speaker 1: never again remember the deep green hollow or the top
- 1:21:26Speaker 1: of the kind old tree. End of poem. This recording
- 1:21:33Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Racum Wood by Charlotte mw
- 1:21:43Speaker 1: Read for LibriVox dot Org by Michael Maggs. Racum Wood
- 1:21:50Speaker 1: some said because he wouldna spake any words to women.
- 1:21:53Speaker 1: But yes, and no, nor put out is an for
- 1:21:56Speaker 1: parson to shake, ye mun bee bird witted. But I
- 1:22:01Speaker 1: do go by the lia the barley that he did so,
- 1:22:05Speaker 1: And I wish no better thing than to hold a
- 1:22:08Speaker 1: rake like Dave in his time, or to see him
- 1:22:12Speaker 1: mow put up in churchyard a month ago. A bitter
- 1:22:17Speaker 1: old soul, he said, But it wasn't a so his art.
- 1:22:22Speaker 1: Wherein Aracum would where he used to go to sit
- 1:22:25Speaker 1: and talk? We a shadder till the sun went low.
- 1:22:29Speaker 1: Though what it's all about us all never know. And
- 1:22:33Speaker 1: there bad no memory in the place of the old
- 1:22:36Speaker 1: man's footmark nor his face Aracum. Would do you think
- 1:22:41Speaker 1: more of a crow? We'll be violets there in the spring,
- 1:22:46Speaker 1: in summer time the spider's lace, and come the fall,
- 1:22:51Speaker 1: the whizzle and race of the dry dead leaves, when
- 1:22:54Speaker 1: the wingea's chase, and on the eve of Christmas fall
- 1:22:59Speaker 1: in snow. End of poem. This recording is in the
- 1:23:06Speaker 1: public domain. See Love by Charlotte mw Read for Librovos
- 1:23:16Speaker 1: dot Org by Michael Max See Love. Tide be run
- 1:23:23Speaker 1: in the great world over twas only last June month.
- 1:23:27Speaker 1: I mind that we was thinkin the toss and the
- 1:23:30Speaker 1: call in the breast of the lover, so ever lasting
- 1:23:34Speaker 1: as the sea. Here's the same little fishes that spur
- 1:23:39Speaker 1: and swim wi the moon's old glymb on the gray
- 1:23:43Speaker 1: wet sand. An im. No more do me nor me
- 1:23:47Speaker 1: to him than the wind goin over my hand. End
- 1:23:54Speaker 1: of poem. This recording is in the public domain. The
- 1:24:03Speaker 1: Road to Karte by Charlotte mu Rode for LibriVox dot
- 1:24:07Speaker 1: org by Michael Maggs. The Road to Karroty. Do you
- 1:24:13Speaker 1: remember the two old people we passed on the road
- 1:24:16Speaker 1: to Karate, resting their sack on the stones by the
- 1:24:20Speaker 1: drenched wayside, looking at us with their lightless eyes through
- 1:24:25Speaker 1: the driving rain, and then out again to the rocks
- 1:24:29Speaker 1: and the long white line of the tide. Frozen ghosts
- 1:24:35Speaker 1: that were children once husband and wife, father, mother, looking
- 1:24:41Speaker 1: at us with those frozen eyes. Have you ever seen
- 1:24:45Speaker 1: anything quite so chilled? Also old? But we, with our
- 1:24:52Speaker 1: arms about each other, we did not feel the cold
- 1:24:59Speaker 1: of poem. This recording is in the public domain. I
- 1:25:09Speaker 1: have been through the Gates by Charlotte mw Read for
- 1:25:12Speaker 1: librovox dot org by Michael Maggs. I have been through
- 1:25:17Speaker 1: the gates. His heart to me was a place of
- 1:25:22Speaker 1: palaces and pinnacles and shining towers. I saw it then,
- 1:25:27Speaker 1: as we see things in dreams. I do not remember
- 1:25:30Speaker 1: how long I slept. I remember the trees and the
- 1:25:35Speaker 1: high white walls, and how the sun was always on
- 1:25:39Speaker 1: the towers. The walls are standing to day, and the
- 1:25:43Speaker 1: gates I have been through, the gates I have groped,
- 1:25:47Speaker 1: I have crept back back. There is dust in the
- 1:25:53Speaker 1: streets and blood. They are empty. Darkness is over them.
- 1:26:00Speaker 1: His heart is a place with the lights gone out,
- 1:26:03Speaker 1: forsaken by great winds, and the heavenly rain, unclean and unswept,
- 1:26:10Speaker 1: like the heart of the holy city, old, blind, beautiful Jerusalem,
- 1:26:18Speaker 1: over which Christ wept. End of poem. This recording is
- 1:26:26Speaker 1: in the public domain. The Senatoph by Charlotte Mew read
- 1:26:36Speaker 1: for Librovox dot Org by Michael Maggs. The Senatoph. Not
- 1:26:43Speaker 1: yet will those measureless fields be green again, where only
- 1:26:47Speaker 1: yesterday the wild, sweet blood of wonderful use was shed.
- 1:26:53Speaker 1: There is a grave whose earth must hold too long,
- 1:26:57Speaker 1: too deep, a stain forever over it. We may speak
- 1:27:02Speaker 1: as proudly as we may tread. But here where the watchers,
- 1:27:07Speaker 1: by lonely hearths from the thrust of an inward sword,
- 1:27:11Speaker 1: have more slowly bled, we shall build the cenotaph victory
- 1:27:18Speaker 1: winged with peace, winged too, at the column's head and
- 1:27:23Speaker 1: over the stairway at the foot. Oh, here leave desolate,
- 1:27:28Speaker 1: passionate hands to spread violets, roses, and laurel with the small, sweet,
- 1:27:35Speaker 1: tinkling country things, speaking so wistfully of other springs from
- 1:27:42Speaker 1: the little gardens of little places where sun or sweetheart
- 1:27:47Speaker 1: was born and bred in splendid sleep, with a thousand
- 1:27:53Speaker 1: brothers to lovers, to mothers. Here too lies he under
- 1:28:00Speaker 1: the purple, the green, the red. It is all young life.
- 1:28:05Speaker 1: It must break some women's hearts to see such a
- 1:28:09Speaker 1: brave gay coverlet to such a bed. Only when all
- 1:28:15Speaker 1: is done and said, God is not mocked, and neither
- 1:28:20Speaker 1: are the dead. For this will stand in our market place?
- 1:28:26Speaker 1: Who'll sell whole? Buy? Will you or I? Lie each
- 1:28:30Speaker 1: to each with the better grace, While looking into every
- 1:28:36Speaker 1: busy haar's and huckster's face as they drive their bargains.
- 1:28:41Speaker 1: Is the face of God and some young, piteous murdered face.
- 1:28:51Speaker 1: End of poem end of the Farmer's Bride by Charlotte Mew.
- 1:28:56Speaker 1: This recording is in the public domain.