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Hamlet's Soliloquy
William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright
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Going to see the Rabbit
A poem by Alan Brownjohn, a distant cousin by marriage between my uncle Jack Ball and his first wife, Peggy Brownjohn, dearly loved. We are Going to see the Rabbit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Brownjohn
http://learnenglishonline.yuku.com/topic/11111/To-See-the-Rabbit-by-Alan-Brownjohn#.T6c2qFo2ze7
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I Am John Clare poem read by oDDBall
John Clare (13 July 1793 -- 20 May 1864) was an English poet, born the son of a farm labourer who came to be known for his celebratory representations of the English countryside and his lamentation of its disruption. His poetry underwent a major re-evaluation in the late 20th century and he is often now considered to be among the most important 19th-century poets . His biographer Jonathan Bate states that Clare was "the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self"
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Finis poem by oDDBall
Walter Savage Landor (30 January 1775 -- 17 September 1864) was an English writer and poet. His best known works were the prose Imaginary Conversations, and the poem Rose Aylmer, but the critical acclaim he received from contemporary poets and reviewers was not matched by public popularity. As remarkable as his work was, it was equaled by his rumbustious character and lively temperament.
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Fear No More the Heat o the Sun
William Shakespeare (baptised 26 April 1564; died 23 April 1616) was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His surviving works, including some collaborations, consist of 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
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Essay on Criticism
Alexander Pope (21 May 1688 -- 30 May 1744) was an eighteenth-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson. Pope is famous for his use of the heroic couplet.
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Epitaph on an army of mercenaries
Alfred Edward Housman (pronounced /ˈhaʊsmən/; 26 March 1859 -- 30 April 1936), usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet, best known for his cycle of poems A Shropshire Lad. Lyrical and almost epigrammatic in form, the poems were mostly written before 1900. Their wistful evocation of doomed youth in the English countryside, in spare language and distinctive imagery, appealed strongly to late Victorian and Edwardian taste, and to many early twentieth century English composers (beginning with Arthur Somervell) both before and after the First World War. Through its song-setting the poetry became closely associated with that era, and with Shropshire itself.
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Envoy by oDDBall
Francis Thompson (16 December 1859 -- 13 November 1907) was an English poet and ascetic. After attending college, he moved to London to become a writer, but in menial work, became addicted to opium, and was a street vagrant for years. A married couple read his poetry and rescued him, publishing his first book, Poems in 1893. Francis Thompson lived as an unbalanced invalid in Wales and at Storrington, but wrote three books of poetry, with other works and essays, before dying of tuberculosis in 1907.
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For the Fallen (old)
Robert Laurence Binyon (10 August 1869 at Lancaster -- 10 March 1943 at Reading, Berkshire) was an English poet, dramatist, and art scholar. His most famous work, For the Fallen, is well known for being used in Remembrance Sunday services.
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I was raised as an Atheist. I learned, after reading the Bible, that God loves me, and you. This is his song for you too. He loves you, and wants to be with you.
All the elements are me and mine. ARIA ISRC number AUAWN1007112
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A Small Dragon
Brian Patten (born 7 February 1946, Liverpool, Lancashire, England) is an English poet. Born near Liverpool's docks, he attended Sefton Park School in the Smithdown Road area of Liverpool, where he was noted for his essays and greatly encouraged in his work by Harry Sutcliffe his form teacher. He left school at fifteen and began work for The Bootle Times writing a column on popular music. One of his first articles was on Roger McGough and Adrian Henri, two pop-oriented Liverpool Poets who later joined Patten in a best-selling poetry anthology called The Mersey Sound, drawing popular attention to his own contemporary collections Little Johnny's Confession (1967) and Notes to the Hurrying Man (1969). Patten received early encouragement from Philip Larkin.
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A Good Poem
Roger Joseph McGough CBE (born 9 November 1937) is a well-known English performance poet. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please and records voice-overs for commercials, as well as performing his own poetry regularly. He is a Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University and is a Vice President of the Poetry Society
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Anthem for Doomed Youth
"Anthem for Doomed Youth" is a well-known popular poem written by Wilfred Owen which incorporates the themes of the horror of war. It employs the traditional form of a petrarchan sonnet, but it uses the rhyme scheme of an English sonnet. Much of the second half of the poem is dedicated to funeral rituals suffered by those families deeply affected by World War One. The poem does this by following the sorrow of common soldiers in one of the bloodiest battles of the 20th Century. Written between September and October of 1917, when Owen was a patient at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh recovering from shell shock, the poem is a lament for young soldiers whose lives were unnecessarily lost in the First World War. While at hospital, Owen met and became close friends with another poet, Siegfried Sassoon. Owen asked for his assistance in refining his poems rough drafts. It was Sassoon who named the start of the poem "anthem", and who also substituted "dead" for "doomed"; the famous epithet of "patient minds" is also a correction of his. The amended manuscript copy, in both men's handwriting, still exists and may be found at the Wilfred Owen Manuscript Archive on the world wide web. The poem has been widely publicised and can be found on the "First World War Poetry Digital Archive " which is hosted on the internet.
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And death shall have no dominion
And death shall have no dominion is a poem written by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (1914-1953).
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Afterwards read by oDDBall
Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 -- 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet of the naturalist movement, although in several poems he displays elements of the previous romantic and enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.
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Acquainted with the Night
Acquainted with the Night is a poem by Robert Frost. It first appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review and was published in 1928 in his collection West-Running Brook.
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Charge of the Light Brigade
"The Charge of the Light Brigade" is an 1854 narrative poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson about the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava during the Crimean War. He was the poet laureate of the United Kingdom at the time of the writing of the poem and the work reflects his compromised ability to express anti-war, populist sentiments while still reflecting his patriotism and remaining in the Crown's favour.
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Call O Stoush
"Ginger Mick was a likeable rogue who, before he answered the call to arms to defend democracy, sold fresh rabbits in the streets of Melbourne. This book by CJ Dennis tells of his tender love for Rose and his experiences at war in North Africa. The verse is full of humour and pathos and truly captures the spirit of the era.
Contents:
INTRODUCTION
I. DUCK AN' FOWL
II. WAR
III. THE CALL OF STOUSH
IV. THE PUSH
V. SARI BAIR
VI. GINGER'S COBBER
VII. THE SINGING SOLDIERS
VIII. IN SPADGER'S LANE
IX. THE STRAIGHT GRIFFIN
X. A LETTER TO THE FRONT
XI. RABBITS
XII. TO THE BOYS WHO TOOK THE COUNT
XIII. THE GAME
XIV. "A GALLANT GENTLEMAN"
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Base Details
Siegfried Loraine Sassoon, CBE, MC (8 September 1886 -- 1 September 1967) was an English poet and author. He became known as a writer of satirical anti-war verse during World War I. He later won acclaim for his prose work, notably his three-volume fictionalised autobiography, collectively known as the "Sherston Trilogy".
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Dusk read by oDDBall
The Sentimental Bloke (1919) is an Australian silent film based on the 1915 Australian poem The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke by C.J. Dennis.
This is Dennis' last poem. Not written in the vernacular.
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Emily Dickinson
Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 -- May 15, 1886) was an American poet. Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a successful family with strong community ties, she lived a mostly introverted and reclusive life. After she studied at the Amherst Academy for seven years in her youth, she spent a short time at Mount Holyoke Female Seminary before returning to her family's house in Amherst. Thought of as an eccentric by the locals, she became known for her penchant for white clothing and her reluctance to greet guests or, later in life, even leave her room. Most of her friendships were therefore carried out by correspondence.
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Dulce et Decorum Est
Dulce et Decorum Est is a poem written by poet Wilfred Owen in 1917, during the First World War, and published posthumously in 1920. Owen's poem is known for its horrific imagery and condemnation of war. It was drafted at Craiglockhart in the first half of October 1917 and later revised, probably at Scarborough but possibly Ripon, between January and March 1918. The earliest surviving manuscript is dated 8 October 1917 and addressed to his mother, Susan Owen, with the message "Here is a gas poem done yesterday, (which is not private, but not final)".
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Codicil Emerald Diana Gaylord Sutton
Codicil was written by Delderfield as the finish to his romantic novel Diana.
I cannot read the book and not be moved .. often to tears.
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I have recently been challenged to give up my love. I would never give up a friend, but the other matter is different. I look to the unjust skies, and I ask why. It hardly seems fair.
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Ronald Frederick Delderfield (February 12, 1912 June 24, 1972) was a popular English novelist and dramatist, many of whose works have been adapted for television and are still widely read.
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Doreen part 4 Sentimental Bloke
THE SENTIMENTAL BLOKE by C.J. Dennis
IV. DOREEN
This poem was originally published in The Bulletin, 30 September 1909, p13, and subsequently in Backblock Ballads and Other Verses. The Bulletin version of this poem contains some minor spelling and punctuation differences from the version here, but they are very minor.
cf http://www.icompositions.com/music/song.php?sid=26203
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English, it is hard
Poem and anecdote illustrating the difficulties of English
cf http://www.icompositions.com/music/song.php?sid=39402
Reasons why the English language is so hard to learn:
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail
18) After a number of injections my jaw got number.
19) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.
20) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
21) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce
and hammers don't ham.
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese; so one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? One mouse, 2 mice, one louse, 2 lice; so one house, 2 hice?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend. If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
PS. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"
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Cosmic Evolution
Read badly by DD Ball
Found on Space.com
By Dr Laurance Doyle
(with apologies to Langdon Smith's Evolution Poem)
audio available at
http://www.icompositions.com/music/song.php?sid=78334
When the Earth was young, and the Moon nearby, in a cometary sea, prokaryotic thoughts arose, what fun it is to be!
"Lets rust the world!" we all agreed, "until the iron's done. We'll use the oxygen we make! Come on, it will be fun!"
As huge salt mountains melted down to spice the saltless seas, the dosado tectonic dance of plate activities,
Trilobites now filled the sea, and oxygen the air, "What say we all crawl up on land? And have a picnic there!"
"We'll bring amphibians and trees, and Oh, it will be fun! And bring some extra ozone to protect us from the Sun."
So off we went, and partied on, from cynodont to 'saur. Time flies when one is having fun. Then from a distant shore,
We saw a comet hit the ground, the best I've ever seen. It turned the Moon a pretty blue, the Sun a shade of green.
"Now that's a party!" we all sang, and went to mammals be. The 'saurs became a little flock of ornithology.
The trees were great, but it was late, so onto two we strode. And chipped some stone and built some fires to warm the cave abode.
"Already the Holocene? My how the time does fly! Seems like t'was but yesterday, when the Moon was nearby."
Now here we are, upon the Moon. Next—to another sun! A galaxy to party in. I said it would be fun!
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