Other books that might interest you

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  Song (Coleridge version)

  Hartley Coleridge

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  LibriVox volunteers bring you 10 recordings of Song by Hartley Coleridge. This was the weekly poetry project for the week of November 16th, 2008.

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  A Grain of Mustard Seed - Poems

  May Sarton

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  May Sarton presents a collection of socially charged yet universal poems One of the many gems of this volume is “The Invocation to Kali,” which explores a dark and destructive femininity. Sarton writes of “Crude power that forges a balance / Between hate and love,” finding an amalgam of dark and light within a single act. This graceful and nuanced work forges powerful connections between timeless ideas and specific moments in history. 

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  The Divine Comedy - Inferno...

  Dante Alighieri

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  The medieval classic that takes readers on a guided tour of the afterlife and on a spiritual journey toward God. Written in the fourteenth century, this epic poem continues to entrance readers as it explores the nine circles of hell, the mountain of purgatory, and the spheres of heaven, detailing those who inhabit each and the sins and virtues that led them there. This masterpiece is a work of literature, history, psychology, and philosophy—and a deeply insightful exploration of Christian theology that, in painting a picture of the afterlife, allows us to reflect on earthly life as well.

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  The Poetry of Robert Herrick

  Robert Herrick

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  The Clergyman and poet, Robert Herrick was born in Cheapside, in London in 1591. An exact date is not known though he was baptized on August 24th, the seventh child of Nicholas Herrick, a wealthy goldsmith.  
  Some controversy surrounds several chapters in his early years.  The first are allusions that his father, in November 1592, two days after making a will, killed himself by jumping from the fourth-floor window of his house. However, the Queen's Almoner did not confiscate the Herrick estate for the crown as was the usual procedure with suicides, so an alternate narrative emerged that he fell accidentally which seems to have more credence. 
  There is no record of Herrick attending school. Some claim a poem alludes to Westminster School, others merely that he meant Westminster, the area. Another school of thought claims he was educated at Merchant Taylor’s School.  What is known is that in 1607 he was apprenticed to his uncle Sir William Herrick as a goldsmith.   
  Herrick certainly seems to have been a keen and avid poet. The earliest work known to be written by him dates from 1610; 'A Country Life', and deals with the move from London to farm life in Leicestershire.  
  After six years as an apprentice, when Herrick was 22 he matriculated at St John’s College, Cambridge before moving to Trinity College and graduating with his Bachelor of Arts in 1617, Master of Arts in 1620, and in 1623 he was ordained priest.  
  By 1625 he was well known as a poet, mixing in literary circles in London such as that around Ben Jonson. An avowed admirer of Jonson he was also one of a group whom became known as ‘The Sons of Ben’ writing both in his style and about him. 
  In 1629 he was presented by Charles I to the parishioners of Dean Prior, a remote parish of Devonshire. The best of his work was written in the peace and seclusion of country life; 'To Blossoms' and 'To Daffodils' are classical depictions of a devoted appreciation of nature.  
  However, after he refused to subscribe to The Solemn League and Covenant, he was ejected from Devonshire in 1647 and moved to London where he published his religious poems Noble Numbers (1647), and Hesperides (1648). 
  Herrick was distinguished as a lyric poet, and some of his love songs, for example, 'To Anthea' and 'Gather Ye Rose-buds' are considered exceptional.  
  By 1660 he was reinstated at Dean Prior where he lived for the remainder of his life. He wrote no more poems after 1648 but over his life it is thought he wrote in the region of 2,500 poems in total, only a small portion of which were ever published. 
  He died in October 1674, at the age of 83 in circumstances unknown.  He was buried on October 15th, 1674 in an unmarked grave in the churchyard at Dean Prior. 
   This volume comes to you from Portable Poetry, a specialized imprint from Deadtree Publishing.  Our range is large and growing and covers single poets, themes, and many compilations.

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  The Blockade Runners

  Jerry Robbins

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  From Jules Verne comes this radio production about an English Blockade Runner in the American Civil War and its attempt to free a prisoner held by the Confederates. A full music score, thousands of sound effects and the award winning Colonial Radio Theatre on the Air bring this classic adventure to life before your very ears.

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  Shakespeare - Troilus and Cressida

  William Shakespeare

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  Play description  
  ACT I  
  Scene 1. Seven years have passed since the princes of Greece first began their siege of Troy, to avenge  
  the abduction of Menelaus’ wife Helen by Paris, son of Priam, King of Troy. Troilus, another Trojan  
  prince, has no appetite for war, being in love with Cressida, whose father Calchas has defected to the  
  Greeks. Her uncle Pandarus is acting as the lovers’ go-between.  
  Scene 2. As Cressida watches the Trojan warriors returning from the battlefield Pandarus sings  
  Troilus’s praises. Cressida pretends lighthearted indifference but once she is alone she reveals her love  
  for him.  
  Scene 3. Agamemnon, commander of the Greeks, is dissatisfied with the slow progress of the war.  
  Ulysses believes that “Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.” He places the blame with  
  Achilles, who, inflated with his own heroic reputation, lounges in his tent with the scurrilous  
  Thersites, ridiculing his fellow Greeks. Aeneas, a Trojan warrior, brings a challenge from Hector, son  
  of Priam, to any Greek “that holds his honor higher than his ease.” Ulysses understands that the  
  challenge is meant for Achilles, but suggests to Nestor that they deflate the insolent warrior’s pride by  
  sending the “blockish Ajax” instead. 

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