A celebration of English poems

Read by Richard Mitchley, Sean Barrett, Ghizela Rowe (Unabridged: 3hrs 17mins)

Featuring poems by Christopher Marlowe, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Milton, John Dryden, Alfred Lord Tennyson & many more.

Poetry. A form of words that seems so elegantly simple in one verse and so cleverly complex in another.  Each poet has a particular style, an individual and unique way with words and yet each of us seems to recognise the path and destination of where the verses lead, even if sometimes the full comprehension may be a little beyond us.

Through the centuries every culture has produced verse to symbolize and to describe everything from everyday life, natural wonders, the human condition and even in its more hubristic moments, the crushing triumph of an enemy.

In the volumes of this series, we take a look at poetry through the prism of individual regions of England, or sometimes more quaintly known as ‘Albion’, or ‘Blighty’, through the centuries of its gloried history.

England, despite its perception of reserve and under-statement has, in reality, strode the global stage at various time in many things, both good and bad, from Empire to long distance running. Here our focus in on its literature.  Famed for its fiction and dramas, it is equally admired for its plethora of gifted poets and the dazzling verse which has added so much to its artistic legacy.  These classic poets are wonders of their age and of their art.  Genius is written in their names.

In this volume we have collected verse from poets born in the East of England.  These flat lowlands face out towards Europe yet within their counties are centuries of poetical history that indelibly mark out their talents as among our very best.

 

In this compilation - 

1 - Born in England - Exploring English Poetry - Cambridge University - An Introduction

2 - The Longest Day by William Wordsworth

3 - Ode to Duty by William Wordsworth

4 - Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth

5 - London After The Great Fire 1666 by John Dryden

6 - Happy the Man by John Dryden

7 - Farewell Ungrateful Traitor by John Dryden

8 - Amoretti XXXVI - Tell Me, When Shall These Wearie Woes Have End by Edmund Spenser

9 - My Love is Like to Ice by Edmund Spenser

10 - The Shepheardes Calendar IV - April by Edmund Spenser

11 - Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson

12 - All Things Will Die by Alfred Lord Tennyson

13 - Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal from The Princess by Alfred Lord Tennyson

14 - Remember Thee! Remember Thee! by Lord Byron

15 - Lines Written Beneath An Elm in the Churchyard of Harrow On The Hill Sept 2nd 1807 by George Gordon Byron

16 - When We Two Parted by Lord Byron

17 - Sweetest Love I Do Not Go by John Donne

18 - For Whom the Bell Tolls by John Donne

19 - The Storm by John Donne

20 - Sonnet VII - How Soon Hath Time the Subtle Thief of Youth by John Milton

21 - On His Deceased Wife by John Milton

22 - Lycidas by John Milton

23 - Fancy in Nubibus or The Poet in the Clouds  by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

24 - The Water Ballad by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

25 - To a Primrose by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

26 - Lament for Zenocrate by Christopher Marlowe

27 - Our Conquering Swords by Christopher Marlowe

28 - Accurs'd Be He That First Invented War by Christopher Marlowe

29 - To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell

30 - A Dialogue Between The Soul and Body by Andrew Marvell

31 - The Definition of Love by Andrew Marvell

32 - To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time by Robert Herrick

33 - Upon the Nipples of Julia's Breast by Robert Herrick

34 - His Meditation Upon Death by Robert Herrick

35 - The Poet As Hero by Siegfried Sassoon

36 - Glory of Women by Siegfried Sassoon

37 - Desertion by Rupert Brooke

38 - Pine-Trees and the Sky by Rupert Brooke

39 - Written January 1st, 1832 by Henry Alford

40 - Sonnet LVI Written at York on the Day of the Coronation of Queen Victoria June 28th, 1838 by Henry Alford

41 - Elergy Written in a Country Churchyard by Thomas Gray

42 - Ode on the Spring by Thomas Gray

43 - The World's Age by Charles Kingsley

44 - 21st September, 1870 by Charles Kingsley

45 - Virtue by George Herbert

46 - Church Monuments by George Herbert

47 - At a Dinner Party by Amy Levy

48 - London Poets by Amy Levy

49 - Of English Verse by Edmund Waller

50 - Go Lovely Rose by Edmund Waller

51 - The Forsaken Lover Consoleth Himself With Rememberance of Past Happiness by Sir Thomas Wyatt

52 - Farewell Love and All Thy Laws Forever by Sir Thomas Wyatt

53 - My Last Will by Sir Walter Raleigh

54 - Life by Sir Walter Raleigh

55 - Unbosoming by Michael Field aka Katherine Bradley & Edith Cooper

56 - My Darling by Michael Field aka Katherine Bradley & Edith Cooper

57 - A Litany in Time of Plague by Thomas Nashe

58 - Fair Summer Droops From Summer's Last Will And Testament by Thomas Nashe

59 - Sing a New Song by Sir Francis Bacon

60 - The Life of Man by Sir Francis Bacon

61 - Genius by Henry Kirk White

62 - Sonnet To April by Henry Kirk White

63 - The Embankment by T E Hulme

64 - Conversion by T E Hulme

65 - Solitude by Harold Munro

66 - Midnight Lamentation by Harold Munro

67 - The Given Heart by Abraham Cowley

68 - A Supplication by Abraham Cowley

69 - A Song - If Wine and Music Hath the Power by Matthew Prior

70 - Song XIX. Since We Your Husband Daily See by Matthew Prior

71 - Julbilate Agno by Christopher Smart

72 - The Nativity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Christopher Smart

73 - My Life's Delight by Thomas Campion

74 - Follow Thy Fair Sun by Thomas Campion

75 - Upon Christ His Birth by Sir John Suckling

76 - I Prithee Send Me Back My Heart by Sir John Suckling

77 - The World That All Contains by Fulke Greville

78 - Mustapha by Fulke Greville

79 - A Devout Lover by Thomas Randolph

80 - Upon His Picture by Thomas Randolph

81 - Nymphs And Shepherds by Thomas Shadwell

82 - Prepare Prepare by Thomas Shadwell

83 - The Je Ne Sais Quoi by William Whitehead

84 - The Youth and the Philsopher by William Whitehead

85 - Cease Warring Thoughts by James Shirley

86 - The Glories of Our Blood and State by James Shirley

87 - A Poem Inscribed to the Queen by Laurence Eusden

88 - The Origin of the Knights of the Bath (Extract) by Laurence Eusden

89 - Ingratitude by Sir John Harrington

90 - Beauty by Sir John Harrington

91 - Of Beauty by Sir Richard Fanshawe

92 - A Rose by Sir Richard Fanshawe

93 - The Mirror For Magistrates - The Induction by Thomas Sackville

94 - A True Account of the Birth and Conception of a Late Famous Poem by Charles Sackville, Earl Of Dorset

95 - The Relapse by Thomas Stanley

96 - Celia, Sleeping or Singing by Thomas Stanley

97 - 4th July 1882, Malines, Midnight by James Kenneth Stephen

98 - Any Father To Any Son by F B Money-Coutts

99 - Shall We Not Love Thee Mother Dear by Henry Williams Baker

100 - And If I Did What Then by George Gascoigne

101 - Courage by Arthur Christopher Benson

102 - Optimism by A Victor Ratcliffe

103 - Severn, Friend of Keats by Roden Berkeley Wriothesley Noel

104 - The Flaming Heart by Richard Crashaw

105 - On the Death of Princess Borghese, At Rome, November 1840 by Richard Monckton Milnes Houghton

106 - Elegy - Supposed To Be Written in Barnet Churchyard by George Townsend

107 - Land of Hope and Glory (1902 version) by Arthur Christopher Benson