A celebration of English poems

Read by Richard Mitchley, Ghizela Rowe, Gideon Wagner (Unabridged: 4hrs 3mins)

Featuring poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Matthew Arnold, John Donne, Gerard Manley Hopkin & 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 - Oxford University - An Introduction

2 - Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

3 - Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley

4 - The Witch of Atlas by Percy Bysshe Shelley

5 - Go And Catch A Falling Star by John Donne

6 - Death Be Not Proud by John Donne

7 - Witchcraft By a Picture by John Donne

8 - Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold

9 - The Buried Life by Matthew Arnold

10 - Longing by Matthew Arnold

11 - Epithalamion by Gerard Manley Hopkins

12 - I Wake and Feel the Fell of Dark Not Day by Gerard Manley Hopkins

13 - May Magnificat by Gerard Manley Hopkins

14 - The Laws of God, The Laws of Man by A E Houseman

15 - Hell's Gate by A E Houseman

16 - A Shropshire Lad XIX - To An Athlete Dying Young by A E Houseman

17 - Inchcape Rock by Robert Southey

18 - Poems on the Slave Trade - Sonnet I by Robert Southey

19 - Sonnet I - Go Valentine and Tell That Lovely Maid by Robert Southey

20 - Leave Me O Love by Sir Philip Sidney

21 - Sonnet I from Astrophil and Stella by Sir Philip Sidney

22 - The Smokes of Melancholy by Sir Philip Sidney

23 - Loves Lies Bleeding by Algernon Charles Swinburne

24 - A Ballad of Death by Algernon Charles Swinburne

25 - Love and Sleep by Algernon Charles Swinburne

26 - For Beauty Being the Best of All We Know by Robert Seymour Bridges

27 - My Delight and Your Delight by Robert Seymour Bridges

28 - North Wind in October by Robert Seymour Bridges

29 - The Ballad of Agincourt by Michael Drayton

30 - Idea's Mirror Sonnet XXXVII. Dear Why Should You Command Me To My Rest by Michael Drayton

31 - Love's Farewell by Michael Drayton

32 - Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

33 - A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky (Life Is But a Dream) by Lewis Carroll

34 - The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll

35 - Love is Enough by William Morris

36 - Summer Dawn by William Morris

37 - The Message of the March Wind by William Morris

38 - Adlestrop by Edward Thomas

39 - No One So Much As You by Edward Thomas

40 - A Private by Edward Thomas

41 - England's Poet by Laurence Binyon

42 - For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon

43 - Ypres by Laurence Binyon

44 - In Making Bodies Love Could Not Express by Thomas Traherne

45 - Shadows in the Water by Thomas Traherne

46 - The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes

47 - Sunlight and the Sea by Alfred Noyes

48 - Love Conquer'd by Richard Lovelace

49 - Strive Not Vain Lover by Richard Lovelace

50 - The Second Rapture by Thomas Carew

51 - Lips and Eyes by Thomas Carew

52 - To My Sister by Ewart Alan Mackintosh

53 - In Memoriam by Ewart Alan Mackintosh (Killed in Action 21st November 1917, Aged 24)

54 - Above the Battle by Katherine Lee Bates

55 - America the Beautiful by Katharine Lee Bates

56 - In a London Square by Arthur Hugh Clough

57 - Le Diner by Arthur Hugh Clough

58 - The Spacious Firmament by Joseph Addison

59 - Hope by Joseph Addison

60 - Farewell To The Court by Sir Walter Raleigh

61 - My Last Will by Sir Walter Raleigh

62 - Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regrno Cynarae by Ernest Christopher Dowson

63 - If We Must Part by Ernest Christopher Dowson

64 - A Lover Out of Fashion by Sir John Davies

65 - Man by Sir John Davies

66 - A Song of a Young Lady to Her Ancient Lover by John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

67 - Absent of Thee I Languish Still by Lord John Wilmot

68 - My Darling Dear, My Daisy Flower by John Skelton

69 - A Prayer to the Father of Heaven by John Skelton

70 - Shakespeare and Milton by Walter Savage Landor

71 - My Serious Son by W S Landor

72 - Hot Sun Cool Fire by George Peele

73 - The Sad Shepherd's Passion of Love by George Peele

74 - Sun-dial in the Churchyard of Bremhill by William Lisle Bowles

75 - Sonnet at Ostend July 22nd 1787 by William Lisle Bowles

76 - Fair is My Love and Cruel As She's Fair by Samuel Daniel

77 - Beauty, Time and Love by Samuel Daniel

78 - To Shakespeare by Lord Alfred Douglas

79 - Impression de Nuit (London) by Lord Alfred Douglas

80 - Cease Warring Thoughts by James Shirley

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

82 - To One Asleep by Victor Plarr

83 - The Haunting Dream by Victor Plarr

84 - Ode To Sleep by Thomas Warton

85 - Solitude At An Inn by Thomas Warton

86 - If Thou Wilt Ease Thine Heart by Thomas Lovell Beddoes

87 - Dream Pediary by Thomas Lovell Beddoes

88 - Night by John Ruskin

89 - Trust Thou Thy Love by John Ruskin

90 - The Relapse by Thomas Stanley

91 - Celia, Sleeping or Singing by Thomas Stanley

92 - Shall We Go Kiss Kiss by Nicholas Breton

93 - Pretty Twinkling Starry Eyes by Nicholas Breton

94 - Morning by John Keble

95 - November by John Keble

96 - Oh Could I Flow by John Denham

97 - An Occasional Imitation of a Modern Author Upon the Game of Chess by John Denham

98 - Of Tears by John Beaumont

99 - Of His Dear Son Gervase by Sir John Beaumont

100 - Falsehood by William Cartwright

101 - No Platonic Love by William Cartwright

102 - Railway Times by Martin Faraquar Tupper

103 - A Dozen Ballads About White Slavery.  II - The Factory Slave by Martin Farquhar Tupper

104 - God How I Hate You by Arthur Graeme West

105 - The Night Patrol by Arthur Graeme West

106 - I Tracked a Dead Man Down a Trench by Walter S. S. Lyon

107 - Easter at Ypres 1915 by Walter S S Lyon

108 - War and Peace by Edgell Rickword

109 - Trench Poets by Edgell Rickword

110 - Into Battle by Julian Grenfell

111 - To a Black Greyhound by Julian Grenfell

112 - Before Action by Lieutenant William Noel Hodgson MC

113 - Back To Rest by Lieutenant William Noel Hodgson MC

114 - A Football Player by E C Lefroy

115 - A Cricket Bowler by EC Lefroy

116 - The Snowdrop by Henry James Pye

117 - Song. The Flowers of the Spring That Enamel the Vale by Henry James Pye

118 - An Appeal to Cats in the Business of Love by Thomas Flatman

119 - The Sad Day by Thomas Flatman

120 - When A Man Is Fatigu'd with the Toils of the Day by James Bland Burgess

121 - Love Like An April Day Beguiles by James Bland Burgess

122 - Sonnet of Black Beauty by Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury

123 - Tears Flow No More by Lord Edward Herbert of Cherbury

124 - A Quiet Soul by John Oldham

125 - Renunciation by Henry King

126 - How Near I Am to Happiness by Thomas Middleton

127 - Going Down Hill on a Bicycle, a Boy's Song by Henry Charles Beeching

128 - The Great Panjandrum by Samuel Foote

129 - A Bow Meeting Song by R Heiber

130 - Ballade of Cricket by Andrew Lang

131 - Arma Virumque by Alfred Cochrane

132 - The Church Cricketent by Norman Gale

133 - The Slavery of Greece by George Canning

134 - Hades by Robert C O Benjamon

135 - On Reading Mr Clarkson's History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade by John Wilson

136 - The Earth, Late Chok'd with Showers by Thomas Lodge

137 - The Fairies Farewell by Richard Corbet

138 - The Wind's Lament by John Morris-Jones

139 - Picnic July 1917 by Rose Macaulay

140 - April, 1918 by Henry Christopher Bradby

141 - A Cross in Flanders by G Rostrevor Hamilton

142 - Home Service by Geoffrey Faber

143 - To Our Fallen by Robert Ernest Vernede

144 - All is Well by Henry Scott Holland