Humanities greatest pleasure described by humanities greatest writers

Read by Robert Maskell, Ghizela Rowe, David Shaw-Parker(Unabridged: 03:19mins)

Featuring stories by Walt Whitman, Robert Browning, Aleister Crowley, Emily Dickinson , John Donne, Charles Baudelaire & many more

Sex. It’s a difficult subject. Full of taboos and embarrassment, subject to boundaries and yet hidden from view in our homes. Well, mostly.

This very intimate act in modern times has taken on a transparency as it is widely discussed at dinner tables and public forums, and information on every kink and foible is easily obtainable and exchangeable in the 24/7 online universe.

But in more classic times writing verse on Sex was both easier and yet more difficult. Easier as the literary world was often thought of as debauched and amoral with scandalous verses passed in manuscript form from person to person, group to group.

An example of this would be the profanity of John Wilmot but most others had more delicious ways of expressing the same. Further back and the Greeks, Romans and other empires spoke with desire, frankness and often boastfulness on carnal desires.

And yet it was also more difficult as outside of a small circle of those in the know how could you possibly avail yourself of these poems, from tender to salacious, to ribald and loving and all manner of others.

We can’t answer for them but, within this volume, this compendium will speak for itself in many ways from the tender to the earthy and profane.

1 - The Poetry of Sex - An Introduction

2 - The Pleasures of Sex by Walt Whitman

3 - Now by Robert Browning

4 - All Night by Aleister Crowley

5 - Wild Nights Wild Nights by Emily Dickinson

6 - To His Mistress Going to Bed by John Donne

7 - The Jewels by Charles Baudelaire

8 - In the Safety of Your Mouth by Daniel Sheehan

9 - Anticipation by Amy Lowell

10 - Ode 44  by Hafiz

11 - On Fruition by Sir Charles Sedley

12 - A Woman Waits for Me by Walt Whitman

13 - That Kiss by Daniel Sheehan

14 - Cruelty and Love by D H Lawrence

15 - Voyages by Hart Crane

16 - Rondels by Aleister Crowley

17 - Her Breast is Fit For Pearls by Emily Dickinson

18 - Aubade by Amy Lowell

19 - In the Bath House by Abu Nuwas

20 - Sonnet 20 - A Woman's Face with Nature's Own Hand Painted by William Shakespeare

21 - Half an Hour by C P Cavafy

22 - Sonnet of the Asshole by Paul Verlaine & Aruthur Rimbaud

23 - Poem 16 by Catallus

24 - Because I Liked You  by A. E. Housman

25 - In Despair by C J Cavafy

26 - Girlfriend by Marina Ivanovna Tsvetaeva

27 - Ode to Sappho by Radclyffe Hall

28 - Hymen - An Extract by Hilda Doolittle

29 - The Cretan Dance by Sappho

30 - Lifting Belly - An Extract by Gertrude Stein

31 - Epigram 90 by Martial

32 - Naughty Nan by Angelina Weld Grimke

33 - To My Young Lover by Jane Barker

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

35 - The Second Rapture by Thomas Carew

36 - Peter Quince at the Clavier by Wallace Stevens

37 - Song For a Girl from Love Triumphant by John Dryden

38 - Romance by George Orwell

39 - Harlem Shadows by Claude McKay

40 - The Imperfect Enjoyment by John Wilmot - Earl of Rochester

41 - The Disappointment by Aphra Behn

42 - Signior Dildo by Lord John Wilmot - Earl of Rochester

43 - Amores - Book I Elegy V - Corinna in an Afternoon by Ovid

44 - Ode Book 1 . 23 by Horace

45 - To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvell

46 - To His Coy Love by Michael Drayton

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

48 - Oh Blush Not So by John Keats

49 - How Shall I Woo Thee by Paul Laurence Dunbar

50 - Come My Beloved by Muhammad Din Tilai

51 - The Flea by John Donne

52 - Sonnet 153 - Cupid Laid By His Brand and Fell Asleep by William Shakespeare

53 - The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe

54 - The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd by John Bodenham

55 - The Way That Lovers Use by Rupert Brooke

56 - No Platonic Love by William Cartwright

57 - Strange Fits of Passion Have I Known by William Wordsworth

58 - A Devout Lover by Thomas Randolph 

59 - Did Not by Thomas Moore

60 - When My Love Did What I Would Not by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge 

61 - Sonnet 18 - I, Being Born a Woman by Edna St Vincent Millay

62 - Importune Me No More (When I Was Fair and Young) by Queen Elizabeth I

63 - The Willing Mistress by Aphra Behn

64 - I Too Beneath Your Moon by Edna St Vincent Millay

65 - Doing a Filthy Pleasure by Gaius Petronius

66 - Love and Sleep by Algernon Charles Swinburne

67 - Nupital Sleep by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

68 - Necrophilia by Aleister Crowley

69 - The Rapture Poem by Arthur Symons

70 - She Lay All Naked in Her Bed - Anonymous

71 - Assurance by Emma Lazarus

72 - The Vine by Robert Herrick

73 - The Balcony by Charles Baudelaire

74 - Terminus by Edith Wharton

75 - The Married Lover by Coventry Patmore

76 - Since We Your Husband Daily See by Matthew Prior

77 - The Fired Pot by Anna Wickham

78 - The Reeve's Tale - An Extract by Geoffrey Chaucer

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

80 - Song of Solomon 7 from the Bible – King David’s Version

81 - Maud by Alfred Lord Tennyson

82 - Sea Poppies by Hilda  Doolittle

83 - Come Slowly - Eden! by Emily Dickinson

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

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

86 - One Girl by Sappho

87 - Figs by D H Lawrence

88 - Cherry-Ripe by Thomas Campion

89 - Goblin Market by Christina Georgina Rossetti