Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War [by Herman Melville]

Published in 1866, Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War is a collection of poems about the Civil War by Herman Melville. Many of the poems are inspired by second- and third-hand accounts from print news sources (especially the Rebellion Record) and from family and friends. A handful of trips Melville took before, during, and after the war provide additional angles of vision into the battles, the personalities, and the moods of war. In an opening note, Melville describes his project not so much as a systematic chronicle (though many of the individual poems refer to specific events) but as a kind of memory piece of national experience. The “aspects” to which he refers in the title are as diverse as “the moods of involuntary meditation—moods variable, and at times widely at variance.” Much of the verse is stylistically conventional (more so than modern readers perhaps expect from the author of Moby-Dick), but the shifting subjectivities and unresolved traumas that unfold in the collection merit repeated contemplation. Melville’s Battle-Pieces do not offer a neatly versified narrative of the Civil War but rather kaleidescopic glimpses of shifting emotions and ambivalent reflections of post-war America.

Read in English by Clark University.

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Battle Pieces and Aspects of the War [by Herman Melville]

Spirits in Bondage: a cycle of lyrics [by C.S. Lewis]

Spirits in Bondage is C.S. Lewis's first book and the first of his works to be available in the public domain. It was released in 1919 under the pseudonym of Clive Hamilton and was written in a period of darker thought for C.S. Lewis than was later evidenced in his Christian apologist writings.

The darkness of the verse is most evident in Part One (The Prison House), begins to change in the short transitional Part Two (Hesitation) and attains a more hopeful tone in the final Part Three (Escape). Yet a dreamy effect, influenced by Celtic and Druid mythology, persists throughout.

Spirits in Bondage consists of forty poems that provide an intriguing insight into the youthful heart of C.S. Lewis and occasionally provides interesting lyrical foreshadowing of some of the landscapes portrayed in his famous Chronicles of Narnia series.

Read by Robert Garrison

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Spirits in Bondage: a cycle of lyrics [by C.S. Lewis]

Twenty One Poems [by Katharine Tynan] [1907]

Katharine Tynan first met W. B. Yeats  in 1885 and formed a lifelong friendship,and Yeats himself selected the poems for this particular anthology. Tynan besides poetry also wrote more than 100 novels, 12 collections of short stories, 3 plays, and anthologies, as well as innumerable articles on social questions such as poor children and women’s working conditions.

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Twenty One Poems [by Katharine Tynan] [1907]

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The four winds of Eirinn [by Ethna Carbery] (1902)

Ethna Carbery (born Anna Johnston) was an Irish journalist, writer and poet. She is best known for the ballad Roddy McCorley.  In 1901 she married poet and folklorist Séamus MacManus and moved with him to Revlin House in County Donegal. It was then that she began writing under the pen name of Ethna Carbery because once she took the last name of MacManus she didn't want to be confused with her husband (also a writer). She died in Revlin House of gastritis the following year, aged 35. Her husband, who was three years her junior, outlived her by 58 years Although MacManus and Johnston were only married for one year her impact on his life ran deep. Her poetry was published by her husband after her death in the The Four Winds of Erin, which was phenomenally successful over the next few years.

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The four winds of Eirinn [by Ethna Carbery] (1902)

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Poems from the Divan of Hafiz [by Hafiz] (Translated by Gertrude Bell)

Hafiz was a Persian poet. His collected works (Divan) are regarded as a pinnacle of Persian literature. While influenced by Islam, his mystical works are highly regarded by Hindus, Christians and others, and his influence extends to several well-known writers such as Thoreau, Goethe, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. This modest collection of 43 poems is translated by Gertrude Bell.


Read by Kevin W. Davidson

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Poems from the Divan of Hafiz [by Hafiz] (Translated by Gertrude Bell)

Christ's company and other poems [Richard Watson Dixon] (1861)

Richard Watson Dixons first published volume of poems, was called ‘Christ's Company,’. These early poems of Dixon were distinguished by not a little of the colour and imagination, and also by something of the eccentricity, that marked the early efforts of the Pre-Raphaelite school. The poems of the first volume, though largely upon religious subjects, are not strictly religious poetry; they are works of picturesque imagination rather than of devotional feeling.

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Christ's company and other poems [Richard Watson Dixon] (1861)

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The Poems of R.H. Stoddard [by Richard Henry Stoddard] (1880)

Richard Henry Stoddards 1857 poem "Roses and Thorns", in a Russian translation by Aleksey Pleshcheyev, was set for voice and piano by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as "Legend", No. 5 from "Sixteen Songs for Children", Op. 54. The song, in turn, was the basis of Anton Arensky's Variations on a Theme by Tchaikovsky, Op. 35a, for string orchestra. Roses and Thorns and all of Stoddards best work are contained in this volume.

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The poems of R.H. Stoddard [by Richard Henry Stoddard] (1880)

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Poems of Passion [by Ella Wheeler Wilcox]

Poems of Passion, by Ella Wheeler Wilcox.  A collection of love poems. 

Read by Joy Chan.

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Poems of Passion [by Ella Wheeler Wilcox]

A story of Carn Brea, essays, and poems [by John Harris] (1863)

John Harris at age twelve, was sent to work at Dolcoath mine where he combined a life of painful labour with the production of poetry celebrating his native landscape around Carn Brea and the scenic splendours of Land's End and the Lizard. He could not afford pen and paper, so he improvised and used blackberry juice for ink and grocery bags for paper. During this period he produced his most important work, the loco-descriptive poem A Story of Carn Brea (1863).

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A story of Carn Brea, essays, and poems [by John Harris] (1863)

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Kensington rhymes [by Compton Mackenzie] (1912)

Compton Mackenzie was a prolific writer of fiction, biography, histories and memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur and lifelong Scottish nationalist. He was one of the co-founders in 1928 of the Scottish National Party along with Hugh MacDiarmid, RB Cunninghame Graham and John MacCormick. He only produced one book of poetry, which was aimed at children and was delightfully illustrated by J.R Monsell.

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Kensington rhymes [by Compton Mackenzie] (1912)

Eidola [by Frederic Manning] [1917]

Frederic Manning (1882-1935), novelist and poet, was born on 22 July 1882 in Sydney Australia. After the onset of WWI Manning enlisted as a private in the King's Shropshire Light Infantry in 1915 and served in France on the Somme. On 30 May 1917 he was commissioned second lieutenant in the Royal Irish Regiment of Foot, but ill health prevented further active service. That year he published his third volume of poetry, Eidola, which includes several war poems.

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Eidola [by Frederic Manning] [1917]

Songs of two peoples [by James Riley] (1898)

Irish American poet James Riley devotes his collection Songs of two peoples (1898) to the peoples and places of both New England and Ireland with a third section titled miscellaneous..

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Songs of two peoples [by James Riley] (1898)

Songs of the Rockies [by Charles Edwin Hewes] (1922)

Charles Edwin Hewes (1870-1947), who is remembered not only for his poetry but as the builder/operator of the historic Hewes-Kirkwood Inn, site of today's Rocky Ridge Music Center. When not managing the Inn, Hewes devoted his time to writing novels and poetry, including "The America," a 690-page epic poem that he worked on for 17 years. While his poetry revered the lands that would become Rocky Mountain National Park, he in fact opposed the Park's creation, fearing it would lead to excessive commercial development.

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Songs of the Rockies [by Charles Edwin Hewes] (1922)

Barrack-room ballads & other poems [by Rudyard Kipling] (1963)

The Barrack-Room Ballads is the collective name given to a series of songs and poems by Rudyard Kipling, dealing with the late-Victorian British Army and mostly written in a vernacular dialect. The series contains some of Kipling's most well-known work, including the poems "Gunga Din", "Tommy" and "Danny Deever", and helped consolidate his early fame as a poet.

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Barrack-room ballads & other poems [by Rudyard Kipling] (1963)

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Chamber Music [by James Joyce]

Chamber Music is a collection of poems by James Joyce, first published in May of 1907. The collection originally comprised thirty-four love poems, but two further poems were added before publication ("All day I hear the noise of waters" and "I hear an army charging upon the land").

Although the poems did not sell well, they received some critical acclaim. Ezra Pound admired the "delicate temperament" of these early poems, while Yeats described "I hear an army charging upon the land" as "a technical and emotional masterpiece". In 1909, Joyce wrote to his wife, "When I wrote [Chamber Music], I was a lonely boy, walking about by myself at night and thinking that one day a girl would love me."

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Chamber Music [by James Joyce]

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Chamber Music [by James Joyce] [1907]

Poems [by G. K. Chesterton]

Originally published in 1916, this book of poetry by G.K. Chesterton includes 59 poems on a variety of subjects. Included in this are war poems, love poems, religious poems, ballads and more.

Read by volunteer readers.

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Poems [by G. K. Chesterton]

The children of the night, a book of poems [by Edwin Arlington Robinson] [1897]

Edwin Arlington Robinson is considered unique among American poets of his time for his devotion to his art; he published virtually nothing during his long career except poetry. Robinson’s single-mindedness eventually won for him both fortune and fame, as well as a firm position in literary history as America’s first important poet of the twentieth century. Here is a very fine volume of this prolific poets work.

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The children of the night, a book of poems [by Edwin Arlington Robinson] [1897]

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Poems [by Isaac Rosenberg] [1922]

Isaac Rosenberg [25 November 1890 – 1 April 1918] was an English poet of the First World War. In June 1916, he was sent with his Battalion to serve on the Western Front in France. He continued to write poetry while serving in the trenches, including Break of Day in the Trenches, Returning we Hear the Larks, and Dead Man's Dump. His Poems from the Trenches are recognised as some of the most outstanding written during the First World War. Having just finished night patrol, he was killed at dawn on 1 April 1918









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Poems [by Isaac Rosenberg] [1922]

Songs Of A Sourdough [by Robert W. Service] [1907]

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

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Songs Of A Sourdough [by Robert W. Service] [1907]

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Songs of a Sourdough [by Robert W. Service] [Audiobook]

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.

Read in by Phil Benson

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Songs of a Sourdough [by Robert W. Service]

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The Cornflower And Other Poems [by Jean Blewett] [1906]

This very nice 1906 edition of  The Cornflower And Other Poems by Jean Blewett is separated into two parts; narrative poems and miscellaneous poems. One of her poems in this volume, 'Spring' captured the prize of six hundred dollars, offered for the best poem by the Chicago Times-Herald. That may i say was no small amount in those days.

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The Cornflower And Other Poems [by Jean Blewett] [1906]

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Racing Rhymes A Other Verses [by Adam Lindsay Gordon] [1901]

A beautiful and beautifully illustrated 1901 edition of Australian poet and jockey Adam Lindsay Gordon. The subjects for the poems is as you may have guessed are horses .










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Racing Rhymes A Other Verses [by Adam Lindsay Gordon] [1901]

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Verses [by Robert Loveman] [1920]

Robert Loveman's poem, "the Rain Song" [also known as "April Rain"], became very well known and was anthologized in many books of verse. It later inspired the Al Jolson song "April Showers."  Rain Song is uncluded in this fine book of Loveman's verse and is reproduced below.

It isn’t raining rain to me,

It’s raining daffodils;

In every dimpled drop I see

Wild flowers on the hill.

The clouds of grey engulf the day

And overwhelm the town;

It isn’t raining rain to me,

It’s raining roses down.

It isn’t raining rain to me,

But fields of clover bloom,

Where any a buccaneering bee

May find a bed and room.

A health unto the happy

A fig for him who frets.

It isn’t raining rain to me,

It’s raining violets.

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Verses [by Robert Loveman] [1920]


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Poems [by Henry Reed Conant]

Henry Reed Conant was born in Janesville, Wisconsin in 1872. His first publislied poem appeared in a little story paper in February 1890. Nearly all of Conant's poems were written in Wisconsin, his native state. The trend of his thoughts and genius is toward the more solemn and religious aspects of nature, and of human experience.














Poems [by Henry Reed Conant] [1893]

 









Spray From Helicon [by Henry Reed Conant] [1902]