The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is attributed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon (smṛti). The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India, the other being Mahabharata. It is the story of Rama, who emabrks on an epic journey followed by the fight with Ravana, the demon king who abducted Rama's wife, Sita. The epic depicts the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characters like the ideal servant, the ideal brother, the ideal wife and the ideal king. (Introduction by Om123)

The Wild Swans at Coole is a collection of poems by William Butler Yeats, first published in 1917. It is also the name of a poem in that collection. The Wild Swans at Coole is in the "middle stage" of Yeats' writing and is concerned with, amongst other themes, Irish nationalism and the creation of an Irish aesthetic.

The Mahabharata is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India. Traditionally, the authorship of the Mahabharata is attributed to Vyasa. With more than 74,000 verses, Mahabharata is said to be the longest poem. Mahabharata tells the story of the epic Kurukshetra War and the fates of the cousin brothers Kauravas and the Pandavas. But more than that the Mahabharata contains much philosophical and devotional material, such as a discussion of the four "goals of life" or 'purusharthas'. The latter are enumerated as dharma (right action), artha (purpose), kama (pleasure), and moksha (liberation). (Introduction by om123)

This is a small collection of whimsical poems by the American physician and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. "The Deacon's Masterpiece" describes the "logical" outcome of building an object (in this case, a two-wheeled carriage called a shay) that has no weak points. The economic term "one hoss shay," referring to a certain model of depreciation, derives its name from this poem. "How the Old Horse Won the Bet" is a lighthearted look at a horse race. Finally, "The Broomstick Train" is a wonderfully Halloween-y explanation of how an electric tram really works.

“Hymns to the Night” is the last published work of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (1772-1801), the German philosopher and early Romantic poet whose pen name was simply “Novalis”. The work alternates poetry and prose, exploring a personal mythology of darkness and light, but it is also a free-associative chronicle of a young man rationalizing the untimely death of his fiancé. This version (1897) was translated by influential fantasy author and novelist George MacDonald, who cited it as a great – and early – inspiration.

Written in the 14th century by the Gawain poet, 'Pearl' is an elegiac poem reflecting on the death of a young daughter, pictured as a pearl lost in a garden. It is considered a masterpiece of Middle English verse, incorporating both the older tradition of alliterative poetry as well as rhyme, centered around the development of an intricately structured image. Sophie Jewett's translation from the Northern dialect of the original renders much of the poem's liveliness and beauty accessible to modern readers, whilst encouraging them to pursue their reading further, to read the original itself.This recording is dedicated to the memory of Pearl Jean Shearman, 1914-2012.

A charming 'coming of age' story about a young girl, Mary Marie, whose young life is thrown into turmoil as her parents divorce. As she leads two lives, she comes to realize that her parents still love one another, and engineers a reunion. In the end, we discover the long-lasting effect of this turmoil on the adult Mary Marie, and her own marriage."

Dora Maria Sigerson Shorter was an Irish poet and sculptor, who after her marriage in 1895 wrote under the name Dora Sigerson Shorter. She was born in Dublin, Ireland, the daughter of George Sigerson, a surgeon and writer, and Hester (née Varian), also a writer. She was a major figure of the Irish Literary Revival, publishing many collections of poetry from 1893. Her friends included Katharine Tynan, Rose Kavanagh and Alice Furlong, writers and poets.

Idylls of the King, published between 1856 and 1885, is a cycle of twelve narrative poems by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson which retells the legend of King Arthur, his knights, his love for Guinevere and her tragic betrayal of him, and the rise and fall of Arthur's kingdom. The whole work recounts Arthur's attempt and failure to lift up mankind and create a perfect kingdom, from his coming to power to his death at the hands of the traitor Mordred. Individual poems detail the deeds of various knights, including Lancelot, Geraint, Galahad, and Balin and Balan, and also Merlin and the Lady of the Lake.

The Princess is a serio-comic blank verse narrative poem, written by Alfred Tennyson, published in 1847. The poem tells the story of an heroic princess who forswears the world of men and founds a women's university where men are forbidden to enter. The prince to whom she was betrothed in infancy enters the university with two friends, disguised as women students. They are discovered and flee, but eventually they fight a battle for the princess's hand.

Archibald Lampman was a Canadian poet. "He has been described as 'the Canadian Keats;' and he is perhaps the most outstanding exponent of the Canadian school of nature poets." The Canadian Encyclopedia says that he is "generally considered the finest of Canada's late 19th-century poets in English." Lampman is classed as one of Canada's Confederation Poets, a group which also includes Charles G.D. Roberts, Bliss Carman, and Duncan Campbell Scott.

The Kitten's Garden of Verses is a book of short poetry, modeled after Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses. Of course, the poems in this book are intended for kittens rather than children!

A collection of Tennyson's poetry : 1 The Brook - 00:16 2 Song from "Maud" - 1:20 3 A Farewell - 2:34 4 Song from “Maud” - 3:26 5 Break, Break, Break - 4:53 6 From “Locksley Hall”- 5:43 7 Song from “Maud” - 6:43 8 Song from “The Princess” - 7:43 9 Lillian - 8:37 10 Ring out, Wild Bells - 9:52 11 From “The Princess” - 11:27 12 Song From “The Princess” - 12:43 13 From “Enoch Arden” - 13:58 14 From “Enoch Arden” - 15:36 15 The Charge of the Light Brigade- 16:56 16 From “The May Queen” - 18:51 17 Song from “The Princess” - 19:36 18 From “Harold” - 20:14 19 From “The Revenge” - 21:28 (From Sam Stinsson)

The poet Katherine Philips was called “The Matchless Orinda” in her day and was well known for her works, both personal and political. She was a staunch Royalist (a supporter of Charles I and his son during the English Civil Wars) and wrote poetic defenses of the monarchy. She was also part of a literary coterie, in which she and her friends had “code names.” Philips herself was “Orinda,” her husband “Antenor,” and her friend Anne Owen “Lucasia.” She is perhaps best known today for her passionate poems celebrating female friendship.

Nathaniel Parker Willis is also known as N. P. Willis. He was an American author, poet and editor who worked with several notable American writers including Edgar Allan Poe and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. He became the highest-paid magazine writer of his day.

The pieces gathered into this volume were, with two exceptions, written for the entertainment of a private circle, without any view to publication. The editor would express her thanks to the writers, who, at her solicitation, have allowed them to be printed. They are published with the hope of aiding a work of charity,—the establishment of an Agency for the benefit of the poor in Cambridge,—to which the proceeds of the sale will be devoted.

The Kalevala is a 19th-century work of epic poetry compiled by Elias Lönnrot from Karelian and Finnish oral folklore and mythology. It is regarded as the national epic of Karelia and Finland and is one of the most significant works of Finnish literature. The Kalevala played an instrumental role in the development of the Finnish national identity, the intensification of Finland's language strife and the growing sense of nationality that ultimately led to Finland's independence from Russia in 1917...

James Thomas Fields was an American publisher, editor, and poet. At the age of 14, Fields took a job at the Old Corner Bookstore in Boston. His first published poetry was included in the Portsmouth Journal in 1837 but he drew more attention when, on September 13, 1838, he delivered his “Anniversary Poem” to the Boston Mercantile Library Association.

Reputedly the best-selling poetry collection of the 20th century, 'Songs of a Sourdough' is best known for Robert W. Service's classic Yukon ballads, 'The Shooting of Dan McGrew' and 'The Cremation of Sam McGhee'. Service was born in Preston, Lancashire, and grew up in Scotland. In his twenties, he made his way to Canada and settled in the Yukon where he worked as a bank clerk but evidently dreamed of more adventurous pursuits. Service's readings of his poems show that he could adopt either a Scottish or North American accent. Here they are read in an accent that is not too far removed from the place of his birth.

This 1924 poem/recipe book, designed as promotional material for the Royal Baking Powder Company, is set in the Oz community of Bunbury. Little Billy, who won’t eat, is taken to the delicious kingdom Bunbury by King Hun Bun to help whet his appetite. Meanwhile, the King leaves the boy’s mother with a recipe book for treats, made easy by the use of Price’s Baking Powder. Written by Ruth Plumly Thompson, though neither her name, nor the illustrator’s (Gertrude Kay) appears on the book.

The Farmer's Bride is a collection of 28 poems by British modernist writer Charlotte Mew. The original edition was published in 1916; this edition, published in 1921, contains 11 more poems. Mew's poetry is varied in style and content and manifests a strong interest in love, longing, death, and nature. Mew's life was marked by loneliness and depression, and she eventually committed suicide. Her work earned her the admiration of her peers, including Virginia Woolf, who characterized her as "very good and quite unlike anyone else."

Henry Archibald Hertzberg Lawson was an Australian writer and poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period and is often called Australia's "greatest short story writer".

Liber Amoris is unlike anything Hazlitt wrote and probably like nothing you've come across before. On the face of it it tells the story of Hazlitt's infatuation with his landlords daughter. Hazlitt was middle aged and she young and pretty, a bit of a coquette from the sound of it. It turned out badly for Hazlitt and the book tells the story of this doomed love. Critics have always been divided about the merit of the piece. Even those who see its merit often feel more comfortable with his polished literary works, and perhaps rightly so...

W. H. Davies was a Welsh poet and writer. Davies spent a significant part of his life in the United Kingdom and United States, becoming one of the most popular poets of his time. Davies is usually considered one of the Georgian poets, although much of his work is atypical of the style and themes adopted by others of the genre.

Works and Days provides advice on agrarian matters and personal conduct. The Theogony explains the ancestry of the gods. The Shield of Heracles is the adventure of Heracles accepting an enemy's challenge to fight.

When the princess Devanaguy falls into a deep trance-like sleep, she is visited by the god Vishnu: who causes her to fall pregnant with his holy child, Christna.Devanaguy’s sleep is prolonged supernaturally by Vishnu: allowing the god to relate to her his divine secrets through a series of ecstatic visions. Among the mysteries revealed to Devanaguy, she is shown how the gods will shortly powerfully intervene directly in human affairs. When the princess finally re-awakens: she is awestruck by her experiences, and bursts into a spontaneous rhapsody of praise...

This poem tells a story that begins in 1823 - just after the Leavenworth campaign against the Arikara Indians - and follows an expedition of Major Andrew Henry during a series of arduous journeys over the Trans-Missouri region.The poem focuses upon the relationship between two trappers - Hugh Glass and Jamie - who, after fighting and hunting together, consequently develop a close friendship. The poem revolves around the betrayal of Hugh by Jamie: who leaves Hugh alone "as good as dead" to die by the Missouri...

The House of Dust is a poem written in the four-movement format of a classical symphony. Hauntingly beautiful despite its bleak post-World War I depictions of human mortality and loss, the poem develops its movements around central images such as Japanese ukiyo-e ("floating world") woodblock prints, touching the reader's senses with endlessly evocative allusions to wind, sea, and weather. In this underlying Japanese sensibility and dependence on central perceptual images, Aiken's poem is similar to poetry of Imagists of the time such as Amy Lowell. Also deeply influenced by the concepts of modern psychology, Aiken delved deeply into individual human identity and emotion.

These are the last four Cantos of his mock epic that Byron completed in the year before his death at the age of 36 in Messolonghi, Greece, where he had gone to fight for the nationalists against the Ottoman Empire. Juan, now in England, is invited to spend the autumn with a hunting party at the ancient country seat of Lord Henry and Lady Adeline Amundeville. There, he meets the most intriguing of the Byronic heroines, Aurora Raby, and is visited by a ghost with ample breasts (!). That is the narrative outline but hardly the focus of the last Cantos...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 12 recordings of Long Ago by Christina G. Rossetti. This was the Weekly Poetry project for December 9, 2012.Christina Georgina Rossetti (5 December 1830 – 29 December 1894) was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems. She is perhaps best known for her long poem Goblin Market, her love poem Remember, and for the words of the Christmas carol In the Bleak Midwinter.

LibriVox volunteers bring you 14 recordings of The Journey of Life by William Cullen Bryant. This was the Weekly Poetry project for December 23, 2012.William Cullen Bryant was an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. His poetry has been described as being "of a thoughtful, meditative character, and makes but slight appeal to the mass of readers." (

LibriVox volunteers bring you 14 recordings of Midsummer by William Cullen Bryant. This was the Weekly Poetry project for June 23, 2013.This poem taken from the Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant, Household Edition.

Aemilia Lanyer's 1611 poem is far more than a retelling of The Passion. It comprises a spirited defense of Eve (and, by extension, all women), elegant praises for her female patrons, a catalogue of virtuous women of the ancient world, and closes with the first "country house" poem written by a woman in English.

A collection of poems about life. Written in an easy and interesting style this book includes poems about many parts of family life, motherhood, babies, dads, and youth. None of them long, they focus the listener on the blessings of life.

Friedrich de la Motte Fouque, also the author of Undine, was a German Romantic writer whose stories were filled with knights, damsels in distress, evil enchantments, and the struggle of good against overpowering evil. 'My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure.' Fouque blends the Romantic love for nature and ancient chivalry while telling a powerful story about a young man who yearns for that which he can never attain.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West, The Hon Lady Nicolson, best known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and poet. Her long narrative poem, The Land, won the Hawthornden Prize in 1927. She won it again, becoming the only writer to do so, in 1933 with her Collected Poems. She helped create her own gardens in Sissinghurst, Kent, which provide the backdrop to Sissinghurst Castle. She was famous for her exuberant aristocratic life, her strong marriage, and her passionate affair with novelist Virginia Woolf. Poems of West and East is a short collection of her early work, which was published in 1917. (Summary by Wikipedia and Elizabeth Klett)

The story of how Jason and a group of famous heroes of Greece took to sea in the Argos has been told many times, before and after Apollonius of Rhodes, wrote his Argonautica, in the 3rd century b.C.. It is not only the oldest full version of the tale to arrive to our days, but also the only extant example of Hellenistic epic. This was already a popular myth by the times of Apollonius, who makes the story of how Jason and the Argonauts sail to Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece, and have to go through a lot of adventures to fulfill their task, a mix of simple narrative and scholarly catalog. The Argonautica had a deep impact on European literature as a whole.

This is a collection of poems by Marietta Holley, better known as Josiah Allen's Wife.

Book of 31 short poems dedicated to Soldierboys.

Introduction - This is a collection of ten comic pieces from the 16th century and earlier, as compiled and edited by Frederick Furnivall for private circulation in 1871. Only the first is by Copland. (Introduction by Grant Hurlock)

Alice Christiana Gertrude Meynell was an English writer, editor, critic, and suffragist, now remembered mainly as a poet. At the end of the 19th century, in conjunction with uprisings against the British (among them the Indians', the Zulus', the Boxer Rebellion, and the Muslim revolt led by Muhammad Ahmed in the Sudan), many European scholars, writers, and artists, began to question Europe's colonial imperialism. This led the Meynells and others in their circle to speak out for the oppressed. Alice Meynell was a vice-president of the Women Writers' Suffrage League, founded by Cicely Hamilton and active 1908–19.

Maria W. Stewart was America's first black woman political writer. Between 1831 and 1833, she gave four speeches on the topics of slavery and women's rights. Meditations From The Pen of Mrs. Maria W. Stewart—published in 1879 shortly before her death—is a collection of those speeches as well as her memoir, some meditations and prayers. They are political, poetical and sermon all at the same time; but in the mileu in which she lectured, they were a critically important part of the abolitionist movement years before the contributions of others such as Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth...

Palgrave's principal contribution to the development of literary taste was contained in his Golden Treasury of English Songs and Lyrics (1861), an anthology of the best poetry in the language constructed upon a plan sound and spacious, and followed out with a delicacy of feeling which could scarcely be surpassed. This book is a delightful one to listen to with family or friends. You're sure to find something to relate to in these wonderful poems.

This is a volume of poems by Giacomo Leopardi.

Librivox volunteers bring you ten readings of September by Madison Cawein. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of September 21st, 2014.

Madison Julius Cawein was born in Louisville, Kentucky. After graduating from high school, Cawein worked in a pool hall in Louisville as a cashier in Waddill's New-market, which also served as a gambling house. He worked there for six years, saving his pay so he could return home to write. His output was thirty-six books and 1,500 poems. His writing presented Kentucky scenes in a language echoing Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats. He soon earned the nickname the "Keats of Kentucky". Note: In Greek mythology, Hippocrene was the name of a spring on Mt...

Madison Cawein was a poet from Louisville, Kentucky. His output was thirty-six books and 1,500 poems. His writing earned the nickname the "Keats of Kentucky". This Weekly poem was published in his book "Shapes and Shadows". (1898)

LibriVox volunteers bring you 16 recordings of the haunting Ballad of Another Ophelia by D. H. Lawrence. This was the Fortnightly Poetry project for March 24, 2013.

Subtitled "Songs of Scotland of the Past Half-Century, with Memoirs of the Poets, and Sketches and Specimens in English Verse of the Most Celebrated Modern Gaelic Bards."

Josephine Preston Peabody was an American poet and dramatist. She was born in New York and educated at the Girls’ Latin School, Boston, and at Radcliffe College.

The First Crusade provides the backdrop for a rich tapestry of political machinations, military conflicts, martial rivalries, and love stories, some of which are complicated by differences in religion. The supernatural plays a major role in the action. Partly on this account, and partly because of the multilayered, intertwined plots, the poem met with considerable contemporary criticism, so Tasso revised it radically and published the revision under a new name, La Gerusalemme Conquistata, or "Jerusalem Conquered," which has remained virtually unread, a warning to authors who pay attention to the critics...

Toru Dutt was an Indian poet, writing in English. Born in 1856, she travelled to England and France, and being a polyglot became fluent in French and English, later in Sanskrit as well. Her works gained popularity and success posthumously. This collection of her poems, Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan, was published by her father after her death in 1877. This collection is divided into 2 parts: the 1st part contains long poems about the ancient legends of her native land of India, which had been passed on to her orally in Sanskrit and which held much fascination for her, and also implied her desire to return to India...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 9 recordings of "In Time Of The Breaking Of Nations" by Thomas Hardy. This was the Weekly Poetry project for June 30, 2013.Written during the First World War, this is a poem about love, war and their timelessness by one of the best Victorian novelists.

Henry Austin Dobson, commonly Austin Dobson, was an English poet and essayist. His official career was uneventful, but as a poet and biographer he was distinguished. Those who study his work are struck by its maturity.It was about 1864 that he turned his attention to writing original prose and verse, and some of his earliest work was his best. It was not until 1868 that the appearance of St Paul’s, a magazine edited by Anthony Trollope, gave Harry Dobson an opportunity and an audience; and during the next six years he contributed some of his favourite poems, including “Tu Quoque,” “A Gentleman of the Old School,” “A Dialogue from Plato,” and “Une Marquise...

Elizabeth Drew Stoddard, née Barstow was a United States poet and novelist. She is most widely known today as the author of The Morgesons (1862), her first of three novels. Her other two novels are Two Men (1865) and Temple House (1867). Stoddard was also a prolific writer of short stories, children's tales, poems, essays, travel writing, and journalism pieces.

"I think that I shall never see, a poem as lovely as a tree; A tree whose hungry mouth is presd against the sweet earth's flowing breast ...". Almost all of us, including myself of course, have heard and enjoyed those famous words which begin Kilmer's poem, Trees. There is even a National Forest in the United States named in honor of this poem. Here is a recording of the entire book of poems in which it was first published in 1914. Joyce Kilmer was an American writer and poet mainly remembered for...

This is a book of poems by Joyce Kilmer. It includes several of his religious poems and poems about World War I, in which the author himself lost his life in 1918.

William Allingham was an Irish poet, diarist and editor, who wrote several volumes of lyric verse.

This is a subset of the first twelve poems from the second collection of Gilbert’s “Bab Ballads” – light verses poking fun at the life and people of his time in Gilbert’s unique “topsy-turvey” style. The epitaph on his memorial on the Victoria Embankment in London is “HIS FOE WAS FOLLY AND HIS WEAPON WIT”, an epitaph amply exemplified in these verses.

LibriVox readers bring you 13 versions of The Poet Who Sleeps by Walter Savage Landor. This was the weekly poetry project for December 1, 2013.