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eaglesweb.com poetry for the ear in the tradition of blind Homer 

POEMA AD LIBITUM, Fortnight II (June 25 - July 8, 2004)
chosen at the discretion of your reader, with his notes where appropriate.

William Drummond of Hawthornden [1585-1649] [One of the English metaphysical poets represented on Eaglesweb.com]
Three Sonnets:
For the Baptist [0:59]
Fair is my yoke, though grievous be my pains. . . [0:57]
What doth it serve to see sun's burning face? [0:53]

Lewis Carroll [1832-1898][British]
Jabberwocky (from Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872) [1:18]
You Are Old, Father William [1:39]

Elizabethan Dramatist Thomas Dekker [1570?-1632]: another exact contemporary of Webster and Fletcher; see below.
Golden Slumbers Kiss Your Eyes [recorded by the Beatles]
The Merry Month of May [1:00]

W. H. Auden [1907-1973]British, then American]:
As I Walked Out One Evening [2:05]
Elegy as featured in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral  [dedication of reading] [0:59]
In Memory of W. B. Yeats [3:23] [See also the Yeats page.]
Musee des Beaux Arts [1:15] [See also "Icarus" page.]

James Stephens [1881-1950][Irish]:
In Waste Places [1:07]
Hate [0:44]
Coming soon: In the Cool of the Evening;   I Heard a Bird at Dawn;   In the Poppy Field.

John Webster [1578-1632][ English] An exact contemporary of John Fletcher, below, and like him, a dramatist.
A Land Dirge ("Call for the robin red-breast and the wren" [0:31]
All the Flowers of the Spring [0:43]
Hark, Now Everything Is Still from The Duchess of Malfi [1:01]

[no picture]

John Fletcher [1579-1625] [British] A younger contemporary of Shakespeare and, like him, a dramatist.  Terse, colorful and bittersweet.
Melancholy [0:52]
Care-Charming Sleep [0:42]
Do Not Fear to Put Thy Feet [0:25]
Lay a Garland on My Hearse [0:25] The "tragic sense of life" (Miguel de Unamuno) as it was known especially to the Elizabethans.
See the Day Begins to Break [0:29]

Robert Herrick [1591-1674][English]:
One of the English metaphysical poets represented on Eaglesweb.com
Eternitie [0:27]
The Poetry of Dress [1:25]
To Blossoms [0:39]
To Dianeme [0:32]

Ralph Waldo Emerson [1803-1882][American]:
Brahma [0:50]
Merlin [2:43]
Concord Hymn [0:53]
"Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose original profession and calling was as a Unitarian minister, left the ministry to pursue a career in writing and public speaking. Emerson became one of America's best known and best loved 19th century figures." -- Transcendentalists.com.   I would call him Poet, Philosopher and Essayist in that order.  - W.R .E.

Adelaide Crapsey [1878-1914] [American]  Eight cinquains (five-line formal successor to the four-line quatrain), derived in literary form from the five-line Japanese waka, the parent of the three-line haiku form (for which latter, see my own example, below.)  To understand this kind of poetry better, read a few haiku by each of the three classical poets: Basho, Buson and Sesshu.  A web search will lead you to them.
Part One (Triad, Dirge & Lonely Death) [1:22][Triad is her most famous cinquain]
Part Two (November Night, Moon Shadows & The Guarded Wound) [0:50]
Part Three (Amaze, The Warning [1:00] & an example from Percy Bysshe Shelley, embedded in his To a Skylark) [3:44]

Hear Carl Sandburg [1878-1967]: Adelaide Crapsey from Cornhuskers, 1918 [0:54] [note]: The great North American Poet was responsible for making certain the beautiful young schoolteacher-poet (who died of complications of tuberculosis at age thirty seven) took her place in the pantheon of our best English language poets. - W.R.E.

Posted June 30, 2004 0100 GMT:  Origami executed in Adobe Photoshop 7.0 on June 30, 2004.  Haiku executed 1956.  Click HERE for audio version recorded June 30, 2004 0202 GMT  Walter Rufus Eagles [1934- ]

Erasmus Darwin [1731-1802][English Poet, Scientist & Educator]:
Visit of Hope to Sydney Cove, near Botany Bay [1:47]
The poet was grandfather of Charles Darwin.  He was a rare polymath whose mind traveled over many areas of learning with permanent effect on each.   Click HERE to read an example of his thinking concerning evolution two generations before Charles Darwin. - W.R.E.

Sassoon, Siegfried [1886-1967][British]:
A Whispered Tale [1918][0:55]; Repression of War Experience [1918][2:11];
The Poet as Hero [1918][0:52] and Counter-Attack [1918][2:25]
Listen to Wilfrid Owen's Wild with All Regrets dedicated to Siegfried Sassoon [2:21].  Like Robert Graves, Sassoon survived the war and went on to develop his poetic talent.  More's the pity that these did not: Wilfrid Owen, Rupert Brooke, Joyce Kilmer, Alan Seeger, John McCrae, W. N. Hodgson, Isaac Rosenberg and Edward Thomas.  Visit the memorial for these War Dead Poets and also British, American and Canadian War Poets. - W.R.E.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge [1772-1834] [British]:
Kubla Khan [2:31]
Coleridge, like Keats, suffered great pain during his life and became addicted to opium, one of the early painkillers.  He claimed that this poem was written "under the influence."  Let it be noted that in his time, the circumstances of his life and his addiction were not unusual.  - W.R.E.

T. S. Eliot [1888-1965][American, then British]: The more serious side of Eliot:  - W.R.E.
The Death of St. Narcissus [2:06]
Journey of the Magi [2:17]
La Figlia Che Piange (The Weeping Girl) [1:13]
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock [6:41]
Morning at the Window [0:32]

T. S. Eliot [1888-1965]:Three Poems from The Old Possum+'s Book of Practical Cats
The Naming of Cats [1:47]
The Old Gumbie Cat [2:16]
Old Deuteronomy [2:16]
+ A pseudonym employed by Eliot based on a nickname ('The Old Possum') given to him by his friend Ezra Pound.  Tomorrow, the more serious side of Eliot.  - W.R.E.