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LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
Audio versions of poems, short stories, novels, and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder’s Mile – an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Episodes
Monday Aug 19, 2013
Monday Aug 19, 2013
The Listeners
by Walter de la Mare
"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grass
Of the forest's ferny floor;
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
"Is there anybody there?" he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
"Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word," he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder's Mile -- an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Monday Aug 12, 2013
Monday Aug 12, 2013
Composed Upon Westminster Bridge
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did the sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! The very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder's Mile -- an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Sunday Aug 04, 2013
Sunday Aug 04, 2013
THE JABBERWOCKY
by Lewis Carroll
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder's Mile -- an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Sunday Jul 28, 2013
Sunday Jul 28, 2013
Acceptance
by Robert Frost
When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future.
Let what will be, be.'
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder's Mile -- an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Monday Jul 15, 2013
Monday Jul 15, 2013
If You Forget Me
by Pablo Neruda
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder's Mile -- an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Sunday Jul 07, 2013
Sunday Jul 07, 2013
For Whom The Bell Tolls
by John Donne
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder's Mile -- an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Monday Jul 01, 2013
Monday Jul 01, 2013
She Walks In Beauty by George Gordon -- Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent!
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder's Mile -- an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Sunday Jun 23, 2013
Sunday Jun 23, 2013
Patience Taught By Nature
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
'O DREARY life,' we cry, 'O dreary life!'
And still the generations of the birds
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds
Serenely live while we are keeping strife
With Heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife
Against which we may struggle! Ocean girds
Unslackened the dry land, savannah-swards
Unweary sweep, hills watch unworn, and rife
Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees
To show, above, the unwasted stars that pass
In their old glory: O thou God of old,
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these!--
But so much patience as a blade of grass
Grows by, contented through the heat and cold.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder's Mile -- an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Thursday Jun 13, 2013
Thursday Jun 13, 2013
The Bait
by John Donne
Come live with me and be my love
And we will some new pleasures prove
Of golden sands and crystal brooks,
With silken lines and silver hooks.
There will the river -- whispering run
Warmed by thy eyes more than the sun
And there th' enamoured fish will stay,
Begging themselves they may betray.
When thou wilt swim in that live bath,
Each fish, which every channel hath,
Will amorously to thee swim,
Gladder to catch thee, than thou him.
If thou, to be so seen, be'st loth,
By sun or moon, thou darken'st both
And if myself have leave to see,
I need not their light, having thee.
Let others freeze with angling reeds,
And cut their legs with shells and weeds
Or treacherously poor fish beset,
With strangling snare or windowy net.
Let coarse bold hands from slimy nest
The bedded fish in banks out-wrest;
Or curious traitors, sleave-silk flies,
Bewitch poor fishes' wand'ring eyes.
For thee, thou need'st no such deceit,
For thou thyself art thine own bait:
That fish, that is not catch'd thereby,
Alas, is wiser far than I.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder's Mile -- an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes
Thursday Jun 13, 2013
Thursday Jun 13, 2013
LITERATURE OUT LOUD
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High Flight
by John Gillespie McGee
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
LITERATURE OUT LOUD -- see and hear great literature
800+ audio versions of poems, short stories, novels
and all of Shakespeare's Sonnets -- over 30,000 downloads
Plodder's Mile -- an action ebook by Dane Allred
Quick Quotations by Dane Allred
a public speaking handbook with more than 2000 quotes