Love By Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Fowles in the Frith by Anonymous.
Read by Mme Arkadina inspired by Interesting Literature's blog post "A History of English Poetry in 8 Short Poems".

Anonymous: ‘Fowls in the Frith’.

Foulës in the frith,
The fishës in the flod,
And I mon waxë wod;
Much sorwe I walkë with
For beste of bon and blod.

Fowles in the Frith

My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth.
Read by Mme Arkadina inspired by Interesting Literature's blog post "A History of English Poetry in 8 Short Poems".


William Wordsworth: ‘My Heart Leaps Up’.

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

My Heart Leaps Up by William Wordsworth

SONNET 30
William Shakespeare

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past, 
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow, 
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe, 
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight: 
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, 
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, 
Which I new pay as if not paid before. 
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

Sonnet 30 (When to the sessions of sweet silent thought)

Recorded to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 2016. 


TO GERMANY
Charles Hamilton Sorley


You are blind like us. Your hurt no man designed,
And no man claimed the conquest of your land.
But gropers both through fields of thought confined
We stumble and we do not understand.
You only saw your future bigly planned,
And we, the tapering paths of our own mind,
And in each other's dearest ways we stand,
And hiss and hate. And the blind fight the blind.

When it is peace, then we may view again
With new-won eyes each other's truer form
And wonder. Grown more loving-kind and warm
We'll grasp firm hands and laugh at the old pain,
When it is peace. But until peace, the storm,
The darkness and the thunder and the rain.

"You Are Blind" by Sorley

Recorded to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 2016.


WHEN YOU SEE MILLIONS OF THE MOUTHLESS DEAD
Charles Hamilton Sorley


When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, “They are dead.” Then add thereto,
“Yet many a better one has died before.”
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.

When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead by Sorley

A little Easter Poetry reading, especially for Oliver Tearle :)

Easter Wings by George Herbert.

A Declaration to Become Bulletproof

Time Does Not Bring Relief by Edna St Vincent Millay

Trainee actor & playwright. Loves reading out loud. Follow me on Periscope @arkadina

If there's any poetry you'd like to hear, let me know with a comment or send me tweet via the link below. I'd love to hear from you :D 

Here you will find my poetry readings as well as a selection of my sight reading practice recordings. I'm hoping a pattern of improvement will emerge *fingers crossed*


Arkadina

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