Classic Poetry Aloud

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The Witches from Macbeth by William Shakespeare Oct 31, 2007

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A halloween special from Classic Poetry Aloud.... MACBETH: ACT 1, SCENE 1 SCENE I. A desert place. Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches First Witch When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain? Second Witch When the hurlyburly's done, When the battle's lost and won. Third Witch That will be ere the set of sun. First Witch Where the place? Second Witch Upon the heath. Third Witch There to meet with Macbeth. First I come, Graymalkin! Second Paddock calls. Third Anon. ALL Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air. ACT 3, SCENE 5 SCENE I. A cavern. In the middle, a boiling cauldron. Thunder. Enter the three Witches First Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd. Second Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined. Third Harpier cries 'Tis time, 'tis time. First Round about the cauldron go; In the poison'd entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone Days and nights has thirty-one Swelter'd venom sleeping got, Boil thou first i' the charmed pot. ALL Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. Second Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg and owlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. ALL Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. Third Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf, Witches' mummy, maw and gulf Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark, Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark, Liver of blaspheming Jew, Gall of goat, and slips of yew Silver'd in the moon's eclipse, Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips, Finger of birth-strangled babe Ditch-deliver'd by a drab, Make the gruel thick and slab: Add thereto a tiger's chaudron, For the ingredients of our cauldron. ALL Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble. Second Cool it with a baboon's blood, Then the charm is firm and good.

Nature by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Oct 30, 2007

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Longfellow read by Classic Poetry Aloud: http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/ Giving voice to the poetry of the past. --------------------------------------------------- Nature by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 – 1882) As a fond mother, when the day is o’er, Leads by the hand her little child to bed, Half willing, half reluctant to be led, And leave his broken playthings on the floor, Still gazing at them through the open door, Nor wholly reassured and comforted By promises of others in their stead, Which, though more splendid, may not please him more; So Nature deals with us, and takes away Our playthings one by one, and by the hand Leads us to rest so gently, that we go Scarce knowing if we wish to go or stay, Being too full of sleep to understand How far the unknown transcends the what we know.

One Word is too Often Profaned by Percy Bysshe Shelley Oct 29, 2007

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Shelley read by Classic Poetry Aloud: http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/ Giving voice to the poetry of the past. --------------------------------------------------- One Word is too Often Profaned by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 – 1822) One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdain'd For thee to disdain it. One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother, And pity from thee more dear Than that from another. I can give not what men call love; But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above And the Heavens reject not: The desire of the moth for the star, Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar From the sphere of our sorrow?

Remember by Christina Georgina Rossetti Oct 26, 2007

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Christina Georgina Rossetti read by Classic Poetry Aloud: http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/ Giving voice to classic poetry. --------------------------------------------------- Remember by Christina Georgina Rossetti (1830 – 1894) Remember me when I am gone away, Gone far away into the silent land; When you can no more hold me by the hand, Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay. Remember me when no more day by day You tell me of our future that you plann'd: Only remember me; you understand It will be late to counsel then or pray. Yet if you should forget me for a while And afterwards remember, do not grieve: For if the darkness and corruption leave A vestige of the thoughts that once I had, Better by far you should forget and smile Than that you should remember and be sad.

To Sleep by John Keats Oct 25, 2007

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Keats read by Classic Poetry Aloud: http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/ Giving voice to classic poetry. --------------------------------------------------- To Sleep by John Keats O soft embalmer of the still midnight! Shutting with careful fingers and benign Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower'd from the light, Enshaded in forgetfulness divine; O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close, In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes, Or wait the amen, ere thy poppy throws Around my bed its lulling charities; Then save me, or the passèd day will shine Upon my pillow, breeding many woes; Save me from curious conscience, that still lords Its strength for darkness, burrowing like a mole; Turn the key deftly in the oilèd wards, And seal the hushèd casket of my soul. Comments You can find more readings of Keats' poetry at: http://classicpoetryaloud.wordpress.com/category/John-Keats/ For more on Keats, visit http://www.john-keats.com/

Summer Night by Alfred Lord Tennyson Oct 24, 2007

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Tennyson read by Classic Poetry Aloud: http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/ Giving voice to classic poetry. --------------------------------------------------- Summer Night by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809 – 1892) Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white; Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk; Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font: The firefly wakens: waken thou with me. Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost, And like a ghost she glimmers on to me. Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars, And all thy heart lies open unto me. Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me. Now folds the lily all her sweetness up, And slips into the bosom of the lake: So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip Into my bosom and be lost in me. Comments For more readings of Tennyson on Classic Poetry Aloud, visit: http://classicpoetryaloud.wordpress.com/category/alfred-lord-tennyson/

Good-bye by Ralph Waldo Emerson Oct 22, 2007

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Emerson read by Classic Poetry Aloud: http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/ Giving voice to classic poetry. --------------------------------------------------- Good-bye by Ralph Waldo Emerson, (1803 – 1882) Good-bye, proud world! I’m going home: Thou art not my friend, and I’m not thine. Long through thy weary crowds I roam; A river-ark on the ocean brine, Long I’ve been tossed like the driven foam; But now, proud world! I’m going home. Good-bye to Flattery’s fawning face; To Grandeur with his wise grimace; To upstart Wealth’s averted eye; To supple Office, low and high; To crowded halls, to court and street; To frozen hearts and hasting feet; To those who go, and those who come; Good-bye, proud would! I’m going home. I am going to my own hearth-stone, Bosomed in yon green hills alone— A secret nook in a pleasant land, Whose groves the frolic fairies planned; Where arches green, the livelong day, Echo the blackbird’s roundelay, And vulgar feet have never trod A spot that is sacred to thought and God. O, when I am safe in my sylvan home, I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; And when I am stretched beneath the pines, Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and the pride of man, At the sophist schools and the learned clan; For what are they all, in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?

Occasional Miscellany Number 2 Oct 20, 2007

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To a Fat Lady Seen From the Train by Frances Cornford (1886-1960) O why do you walk through the fields in gloves, Missing so much and so much? O fat white woman whom nobody loves, Why do you walk through the fields in gloves, When the grass is soft as the breast of doves And shivering sweet to the touch? O why do you walk through the fields in gloves, Missing so much and so much? The Fat White Woman Speaks by G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936) Why do you rush through the field in trains, Guessing so much and so much? Why do you flash through the flowery meads, Fat-head poet that nobody reads; And why do you know such a frightful lot About people in gloves as such? And how the devil can you be sure, Guessing so much and so much, How do you know but what someone who loves Always to see me in nice white gloves At the end of the field you are rushing by, Is waiting for his Old Dutch? Two Limerick by Ronald Knox There was young man who said ‘God Must think it exceedingly odd If he finds that this tree Continues to be When there’s no one about in the quad.’ Dear Sir, Your astonishment’s odd: I am always about in the quad. And that’s why the tree Will continue to be, Since observed by Yours faithfully, God. Two Epigrams on Physicists Nature and nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, `Let Newton be!' and all was light. It did not last: the Devil, shouting "Ho, Let Einstein be" restored the status quo. Two Quatrains by Edna Saint Vincent Millay My candle burns at both ends; It will not last the night; But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends It gives a lovely light. Was it for this I uttered prayers, And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs, That now, domestic as a plate, I should retire at half-past eight?

The Daffodils by William Wordsworth Oct 19, 2007

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Wordsworth read by Classic Poetry Aloud: http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/ Giving voice to classic poetry. --------------------------------------------------- The Daffodils by William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850) I wander'd lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretch'd in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced, but they Outdid the sparkling waves in glee:— A poet could not but be gay In such a jocund company! I gazed, and gazed, but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Oct 18, 2007

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Longfellow read by Classic Poetry Aloud: http://www.classicpoetryaloud.com/ Giving voice to classic poetry. --------------------------------------------------- A Psalm of Life by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 – 1882) TELL me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream!— For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul. Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, Is our destined end or way; But to act, that each to-morrow Find us farther than to-day. Art is long, and Time is fleeting, And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave. In the world's broad field of battle, In the bivouac of Life, Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife! Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant! Let the dead Past bury its dead! Act,—act in the living Present! Heart within, and God o'erhead! Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sands of time; Footprints, that perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, Seeing, shall take heart again. Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate; Still achieving, still pursuing, Learn to labor and to wait.

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