Poetry

volunteers bring you 18 recordings of Freshness of Poetic Perception by Paul Hamilton Hayne. This was the Weekly Poetry project for October 7, 2012. Paul Hamilton Hayne was born in Charleston, South Carolina. He left his law practice to persue his literary interests. He became a literaey critic and magazine editor in Grovetown, Georgia, where he lived until his death. (Summary by David Lawrence)...

Poetry, Nature, Philosophy

volunteers bring you 15 recordings of The Legend of Heinz von Stein by Charles Godfrey Leland. This was the Weekly Poetry project for November 11, 2012. Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist who traveled extensively throughout Europe and the US. Leland worked in journalism, and became interested in folklore and folk linguistics, publishing books and articles on American and European languages and folk traditions. He worked in a wide variety of trades, achieved recognition as the author of the comic Hans Breitmann’s Ballads, fought in two conflicts, and wrote what was to become a primary source text for Neopaganism half a century later, Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches. ( Summary from Wikipedia )...

Adventure, Humor, Romance, Poetry

The Lays of Ancient Rome comprise four narrative poems comprised by Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay: recalling popular episodes from Roman historical-legends that were strongly moral in tone: exemplifying Roman virtue against Latine perfidy. The four poems are: - Horatius - Horatius and two companions seek to hold back a large invading Etruscan force at the far end of a bridge over the Tiber River. The trio are willing to lay down their lives so as to prevent the Etruscans crossing and sacking the otherwise ill-defended Rome: it is a desperate gamble to buy enough time for the Romans to destroy the bridge in advance of the hostile army. But will their efforts succeed? - The Battle of Lake Regillus - The Romans take arms against the powerful Latine league headed by the expelled Tarquin nobles. The fighting is desperate and bloody: the event is decided only after the arrival upon the battlefield of the twin gods Castor and Pollux. - Virginia - Virginia is the daughter of Virginius - a poor, honest Roman farmer-citizen. In former years Virginius enlisted as a legionary and shed his blood to fight Rome's enemies: now Virginius - like oth...

Poetry

John Donne was an English Jacobean preacher, sometime lawyer, later in life a Member of Parliament and Royal Chaplain. Marrying for love against the wishes of his influential father-in-law; Donne's career was cast into shadow: forcing him to support his wife, Anne, as best he might under a specter of unforgiving penury. Despite such hardships - perhaps because of them - Donne's writings demonstrate a mastery of poetry layered with metaphysical meaning and mystery: which continues to delight and challenge modern-day readers. Donne's divine poems - the focus of this collection - present profound theological insights using absorbing allegories and beautiful imagery. At the end of Donne's life - as his health deteriorated under illnesses of increasing severity - his poetry served him as: distraction, consolation, and even public confession. With them, Donne cheerfully but soberly faces the limits of his own mortality: and contemplates the mysteries that lie beyond the grave. (Introduction by Godsend)...

Poetry, Religion

The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope, first published anonymously in Lintot's Miscellany in May 1712 in two cantos (334 lines), but then revised, expanded and reissued under Pope's name on March 2, 1714, in a much-expanded 5-canto version (794 lines). The final form was available in 1717 with the addition of Clarissa's speech on good humour. The poem satirizes a petty squabble by comparing it to the epic world of the gods. It was based on an incident recounted by Pope's friend, John Caryll. Arabella Fermor and her suitor, Lord Petre, were both from aristocratic recusant Catholic families at a period in England when under such laws as the Test Act, all denominations except Anglicanism suffered legal restrictions and penalties (for example Petre could not take up his place in the House of Lords as a Catholic). Petre, lusting after Arabella, had cut off a lock of her hair without permission, and the consequent argument had created a breach between the two families. Pope, also a Catholic, wrote the poem at the request of friends in an attempt to comically merge the two. He utilized the character...

Poetry, Satire

volunteers bring you 15 recordings of Early Rising by John Godfrey Saxe. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for December 31, 2010. The words dutiful and pious never applied to the aspiring satirist. Bored by his legal work, Saxe began publishing poems for The Knickerbocker, of which The Rhyme of the Rail is his most famous early work. He soon caught the attention of the prominent Boston publishing house, Ticknor and Fields. Though he received no royalties for his first volume, it ran to ten reprintings and eventually outsold works by Hawthorne and Tennyson....

Poetry, Instruction, Nature, Philosophy, Religion, Humor

The Book of Psalms, commonly referred to simply as Psalms, is a book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible. Taken together, its 150 poems express virtually the full range of Israel's religious faith. They each have a poetic character with frequent use of parallelism. In addition to the title of the collection, which translates as song or hymns from both Hebrew and Greek, superscriptions (or headings) in many of the Psalms provide musical references and some direction, in some cases even references to melodies that would have been well known by early congregations. Songs that can be identified as such in the Psalms include songs of thanksgiving (e.g., Ps 30), hymns of praise (e.g., Ps 117) and royal psalms, which may have been used in coronations and weddings. Identification of some psalms as prayers is also seen within the text, for example in the conclusion to Psalm 72, The prayers of David son of Jesse are ended. The largest category of Psalms, though not grouped as such in the text, is that of lament (expressions of complaint and pleas for help from God). There appears to also have been an instructional function of the psal...

Poetry, Religion

volunteers bring you 11 recordings of Departerd Days by Oliver Wendell Holmes. This was the Weekly Poetry project for May 8, 2011. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. was an American physician, professor, lecturer, and author. Regarded by his peers as one of the best writers of the 19th century, he is considered a member of the Fireside Poets. His most famous prose works are the Breakfast-Table series, which began with The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858). He is recognized as an important medical reformer. 1830 proved to be an important year for Holmes as a poet; while disappointed by his law studies, he began writing poetry for his own amusement.[22] Before the end of the year, he had produced over fifty poems, contributing twenty-five of them (all unsigned) to The Collegian, a short-lived publication started by friends from Harvard. Four of these poems would ultimately become among his best-known: The Dorchester Giant, Reflections of a Proud Pedestrian, Evening / By a Tailor and The Height of the Ridiculous. Nine more of his poems were published anonymously in the 1830 pamphlet Illustrations of the Athenaeum Gallery of Paintings. (su...

Instruction, Nature, Philosophy, Poetry

volunteers bring you 16 recordings of Old Man Travelling; Animal Tranquillity and Decay, a Sketch by William Wordsworth. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for October 2, 2011. In 1842 the government awarded Wordsworth a civil list pension amounting to £300 a year. With the death in 1843 of Robert Southey, Wordsworth became the Poet Laureate. He initially refused the honour, saying he was too old, but accepted when Prime Minister Robert Peel assured him you shall have nothing required of you (he became the only laureate to write no official poetry). When his daughter, Dora, died in 1847, his production of poetry came to a standstill. (Summary from Wikipedia)...

Animals, Instruction, Nature, Philosophy, Poetry

volunteers bring you 13 recordings of The Poet's Forge by Helen Hunt Jackson. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for November 20, 2011. Helen Maria Hunt Jackson, born Helen Fiske was a United States writer who became an activist on behalf of improved treatment of Native Americans by the U.S. government. She detailed the adverse effects of government actions in her history A Century of Dishonor (1881). Her novel Ramona dramatized the federal government's mistreatment of Native Americans in Southern California and attracted considerable attention to her cause. Fiske attended Ipswich Female Seminary and the Abbott Institute, a boarding school run by Reverend J.S.C. Abbott in New York City. She was a classmate of the poet Emily Dickinson, also from Amherst. The two corresponded for the rest of their lives, but few of their letters have survived. ( Summary by Wikipedia )...

Fantasy, Humor, Instruction, Nature, Poetry

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) is widely considered to be the best poet of the Augustan age, and perhaps English verse’s best satirist ever. Pope was mostly self-taught having been denied a formal protestant education because of his family’s Roman Catholic beliefs; he also suffered from the effects of Pott’s disease his entire life, which left him deformed and of small stature never growing past the height of four feet six inches. Despite these challenges, Pope flourished in English society and was likely its first professional literary writer having garnered significant income from the sales of books to the public as opposed to traditional patronages, capitalizing mostly on his excellent translations of Homer and an edited edition of Shakespeare. A close friend of Jonathan Swift in their famous Scriblerus Club, he was quite famous in his time, and while his reputation declined in the 19th century, he is now considered the most canonical poet of his era and the true master of the heroic couplet (followed closely by his predecessor, John Dryden) and English poetic satire. This edition of his poems collects all of his major work, and most...

from "Essay on Criticism" “Tis hard to say if greater want of skill Appear in writing or in judging ill; But of the two less dangerous is th’ offence To tire our patience than mislead our sense: Some few in that, but numbers err in this; Ten censure wrong for one who writes amiss; A fool might once himself alone expose; Now one in verse makes many more in prose.     ’Tis with our judgments as our watches, none Go just alike, yet each believes his own. In Poets as true Genius is but rare, True Taste as seldom is the Critic’s share; Both must alike from Heav’n derive their light, These born to judge, as well as those to write. Let such teach others who themselves excel, And censure freely who have written well; Authors are partial to their wit, ’tis true, But are not Critics to their judgment too? “    Yet if we look more closely, we shall find Most have the seeds of judgment in their mind: Nature affords at least a glimm’ring light; The lines, tho’ touch’d but faintly, are drawn right: But as the slightest sketch, if justly traced, Is by ill col’ring but the more disgraced, So by false learning is good sens...

Introduction Ode on Solitude A Paraphrase (On Thomas à Kempis) To the Author of a Poem Entitled Successio The First Book of Statius’s Thebais Imitation of Chaucer Imitation of Spenser: The Alley Imitation of Waller: On a Lady Singing to Her Lute Imitation of Waller: On a Fan of the Author’s Design Imitation of Abraham Cowley: The Garden Imitation of Abraham Cowley: Weeping Imitation of Earl of Rochester: On Silence Imitation of Earl of Dorset: Artemisia Imitation of Earl of Dorset: Phryne Imitation of Dr. Swift: The Happy Life of a Country Parson Pastorals I. Spring; or, Damon II. Summer; or, Alexis III. Autumn; or, Hylas and Ægon IV. Winter; or, Daphne Windsor Forest Paraphrases from Chaucer January and May; or, The Merchant’s Tale The Wife of Bath The Temple of Fame Translations from Ovid Sappho to Phaon The Fable of Dryope Vertumnus and Pomona An Essay on Criticism Part I Part II Part III Ode for Music on St. Cecilia’s Day Argus The Balance of Europe The Translator On Mrs. Tofts, a Famous Opera-Singer Epistle to Mrs. Blount, with the Works of Voiture Adriani Morientis Ad Animam Epistle to M...

volunteers bring you 13 recordings of Longings for Home by Walt Whitman. This was the Weekly Poetry project for August 26, 2012. Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and – in addition to publishing his poetry – was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle. ( Summary from Wikipedia )...

Adventure, History, Memoirs, Nature, Poetry