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Poetical Works of John Dryden, Volume 1

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Chapter: 22 | Listen:

The first of two volumes of collected poetry by this revered and highly influential English restoration poet and playwright. The poems, many quite long and elaborate, reflect the poet’s role in contemporary society, as political and religious commentator (religion, politics and royalty being closely associated at the period). The works include panegyrics to prominent and regal personages, extended allegories (as in “The Hind and the Panther”), and a few biting satires including a lampooning of a fellow playwright in “Mac Flecknoe”. “Annus Mirabilis” is a sort of historical roundup. ( Peter Tucker) [chương_files]

Chinese Nightingale and Other Poems

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Chapter: 30 | Listen:

This is a collection of poems on various topics by Vachel Lindsay. Please note that the Booker T. Washington trilogy had to be omitted from this collection. – Summary by Carolin [chương_files]

Undying One and Other Poems

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Chapter: 43 | Listen:

“The Byron of our modern poetesses,” was the verdict of Henry Nelson Coleridge, the eldest son of the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, writing in an 1840 issue of The Quarterly Review about the poet Caroline Norton. Born Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Sheridan in 1808, she was the granddaughter of the famous Irish playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. On their introduction to London Society, Caroline and her two sisters were dubbed The Three Graces for their beauty and accomplishments. Her disastrous marriage to George Norton in 1827 ultimately led to her campaigning successfully to change those Laws of England relating to Divorce, child custody and women’s property rights. Caroline and her tragic experiences and life were the inspiration for many works by Victorian writers including Alfred Tennyson, William Makepeace Thackeray, Benjamin Disraeli, Charles Dickens and George Meredith. She died in 1877. “The Undying One and Other Poems” published in 1830 was her second book. The title poem is an epic based on the legend of the Wandering Jew, the sinner who is doomed to roam the earth until Judgment Day. (Summary by Noel Badrian) [chương_files]

Psalms of David

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Chapter: 140 | Listen: 1

Isaac Watts was a poet, hymn-writer and musician. He wrote many of what we regard as “classical hymns” such as “Joy to the World” and “When I survey the wondrous cross”. His translations of the Psalms are therefore poetical and musical, as they were designed to be sung. He captures in elegant English the feel of the original Psalms as they would have been heard by the Israelites thousands of years ago. – Summary by Beth Thomas [chương_files]

Poems of Jonathan Swift, Volume One

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Chapter: 121 | Listen: 1

Sit back and listen to these light-hearted witty rhymes and see the world Jonathan Swift saw — and maybe recognize your own. Think there is such a thing as corrupt rich guys who pretend they’re God’s gift to the world? So did Swift. Think some of these types strut around as if calls of nature don’t apply to them? So did Swift. In one hilarious poem, he even describes gold diggers fighting over the loaded gentleman’s gaseous offerings! His poem On Poetry, A Rhapsody, censored for treasonous mocking of the royal family, is in its rare uncensored form here. As free as he himself is with his sharp tongue against the blackened rich and corrupt , he knows others might have to kiss up to eat. So he includes many verses of advice on how to go about lying for a living, for example, “Your interest lies to learn the knack Of whitening what before was black.” Despite the decay and hypocrisy he sees all around him he stays upbeat throughout — even making fun out of his own tragic onset of deafness. You already know this giant of English literature for the great feast of prose he left us. Think of these delicious poems here as your sinful dessert. – Summary by Arthur Krolman [chương_files]

Burning Wheel

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Chapter: 31 | Listen:

Though Aldous Huxley is best known for his later novels and essays, he started his writing career as a poet. The Burning Wheel is his first work, a collection of thirty poems that pay homage in style to poets who wrote in the Romantic or the French symbolist styles. Many of the poems deal with themes of light, darkness, sight, music, art, war, and idealism vs. realism. Though the optimism in his early works waned as he became older, his characteristically optimistic and determined point of view shines through. – Summary by Mary Kay The last poem was read collaboratively by ezwa, AlgyPug and Larry Wilson. [chương_files]

War Poems of Siegfried Sassoon

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Chapter: 64 | Listen: 1

Siegfried Sassoon was one of the first to write poetry about the brutal reality of war, based on his real-life experiences in the trenches. He served in World War I on the Western Front and was awarded the Military Cross for bravery under fire. However, he later became a convicted pacifist, threw his Military Cross into the Mersey river, and continued to write and publish poems and political statements against the war. His poems capture the despair he felt towards the war overall, and he paints vivid word pictures that make the reader “pray you’ll never know, the hell where youth and laughter go”. (Summary by Elizabby) Note: This work is in the public domain in the USA and Canada. If you are not in the USA, please verify the copyright status of these works in your own country before downloading, otherwise you may be violating copyright laws. [chương_files]

Jonah

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Chapter: 12 | Listen:

Though Aldous Huxley gained popularity from his novels and essays, he started his writing career as a poet. Jonah, his second compilation of poetry, is a collection of twelve poems (four of which are written in French). He published it, at the age of 23, for Christmas in 1917. He stated his intention to stop writing poetry at the end of the volume, but actually went on to publish numerous compilations after Jonah. (Mary Kay) [chương_files]

Cottage Poems

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Chapter: 12 | Listen: 2

Patrick Brontë (father of the famous Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anna) is mainly remembered as a father, reverend and teacher, but he also was a poet and a novelist. Cottage Poems, his first published work, he gives gentle spiritual advice and guidance to the community, colleagues and members of his congregation in the form of lyrical letters. Even if one is simply interested in his daughters’ works, it is still interesting to see where the sisters’ inspiration to write may have come from. (Summary by Mary Kay) [chương_files]

Lancashire Dialogues

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Chapter: 3 | Listen: 1

A scion of the Byroms of Byrom Hall in Lowton, Lancashire, John Byrom was born and lived in Manchester and Salford for much of his life. Educated at Cambridge, Byrom become a member of the Royal Society and a leading poet of his day. In addition to his poetical works, he invented a system of shorthand, composed the Christmas carol “Christians awake! Salute the happy morn”, and coined the phrase “Tweedledum and Tweedledee”. Byrom’s work included three early poems in the Lancashire dialect, for which he was well remembered by the Lancashire dialect writers of the 19th century, in the form of satirical dialogues on topics of current political interest. – Summary by Phil Benson [chương_files]