The City in the Sea


Edgar Allan Poe - 1831
    The famous short poem The City in the Sea by Edgar Allan Poe.

The World Is Too Much with Us


William Wordsworth - 2012
    Enjoy!

To Autumn


John Keats - 1820
    The work was composed on 19 September 1819 and published in 1820 in a volume of Keats's poetry that included Lamia and The Eve of St. Agnes. "To Autumn" is the final work in a group of poems known as Keats's "1819 odes". Although personal problems left him little time to devote to poetry in 1819, he composed "To Autumn" after a walk near Winchester one autumnal evening. The work marks the end of his poetic career, as he needed to earn money and could no longer devote himself to the lifestyle of a poet. A little over a year following the publication of "To Autumn", Keats died in Rome.The poem has three eleven-line stanzas which describe a progression through the season, from the late maturation of the crops to the harvest and to the last days of autumn when winter is nearing. The imagery is richly achieved through the personification of Autumn, and the description of its bounty, its sights and sounds. It has parallels in the work of English landscape artists, with Keats himself describing the fields of stubble that he saw on his walk as being like that in a painting.

Irish Fairy and Folk Tales


Various - 2014
    These are stories that passed down through the ages virtually unaltered in their telling. To those who told and listened to them, they expressed something fundamental about Irish culture and the Irish way of life. The stories in this volume feature a wide variety of fantastic beings, including ghosts, witches, fairies, and changelings, but several feature creatures that are virtually exclusive to Ireland: the banshee, the merrow, the pooka, and the leprechaun. Read these tales of frightening supernatural horrors, brave folk heroes, and everyday people clever enough to outwith the devil, and you'll agree that they could only take place on Irish soil.

Tales of a Wayside Inn


Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - 1863
    Longfellow's Wayside Inn in Sudbury, Massachusetts, originally known as Howe's Tavern, was the inspiration for Longfellow's widely read book of poems, Tales of a Wayside Inn. He based his works on a group of fictitious characters that regularly gathered at the old Sudbury tavern. Lyman Howe was the character featured in "The Landlord's Tale," and where Longfellow penned the immortal phrase, "Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere."

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer


Walt Whitman - 1865
     Walt Whitman's "When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer" is an enduring celebration of the imagination. Here, Whitman's wise words are beautifully recast by New York Times #1 best-selling illustrator Loren Long to tell the story of a boy's fascination with the heavens. Toy rocket in hand, the boy finds himself in a crowded, stuffy lecture hall. At first he is amazed by the charts and the figures. But when he finds himself overwhelmed by the pontifications of an academic, he retreats to the great outdoors and does something as universal as the stars themselves... he dreams.

The Lady's Dressing Room


Jonathan Swift - 2009
    Note: The University of Adelaide Library eBooks @ Adelaide.

The Lamb


William Blake - 1989
    The thought-provoking text inspires one to see the love of Gods Lamb for His children who are subsequently His little lambs. Lovely melodic lines and counter-melodies add to the intrigue and charm of this choral setting.

She Walks in Beauty


Lord Byron - 1814
    On 11 June 1814, Byron attended a party in London. Among the guests was Mrs. Anne Beatrix Wilmot, wife of Byron's first cousin, Sir Robert Wilmot. He was struck by her unusual beauty, and the next morning the poem was written.

Unready to Wear (The Galaxy Project)


Kurt Vonnegut Jr. - 1953
    Vonnegut’s absolute familiarity with science fiction tropes and his mocking contempt for them are well displayed in a story which shifts between tragic cartoon and straightforward projection. His highly evolved humans in an indeterminate future have become body-transcending spirits and Vonnegut handles this vaporous situation with deadpan comedy suspended over unspeakable loss, a characteristic technique. In its fluidity--the story is parody masked as extrapolation; no, it is a horror story in the form of a parody. This kind of cross-category narrative attack was often used by Vonnegut and makes him difficult to label; he is too serious to be funny, too absurd (as in jailbreak or as in the concept of Billy Pilgrim’s alien Tralmalfadorians) to be taken as realism. Vonnegut when he wrote this story at 30 was still trying to find his voice, identify his material; as a laboratory of his enveloping subject matter and technique UNREADY TO WEAR is particularly interesting and disturbing, demonstrating that Vonnegut could have gone in any number of directions and perhaps by deliberately failing to make a decision, found his voice through indeterminacy. It is as a poet of indeterminacy then that Vonnegut went on to write his most famous novel, SLAUGHTERHOUSE-FIVE.ABOUT THE AUTHORKurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) is one of the most beloved American writers of the twentieth century. Vonnegut's audience increased steadily since his first five pieces in the 1950s and grew from there. His 1968 novel Slaughterhouse-Five has become a canonic war novel with Joseph Heller's Catch-22 to form the truest and darkest of what came from World War II.Vonnegut began his career as a science fiction writer, and his early novels--Player Piano and The Sirens of Titan--were categorized as such even as they appealed to an audience far beyond the reach of the category. In the 1960s, Vonnegut became closely associated with the Baby Boomer generation, a writer on that side, so to speak.Now that Vonnegut's work has been studied as a large body of work, it has been more deeply understood and unified. There is a consistency to his satirical insight, humor and anger which makes his work so synergistic. It seems clear that the more of Vonnegut's work you read, the more it resonates and the more you wish to read. Scholars believe that Vonnegut's reputation (like Mark Twain's) will grow steadily through the decades as his work continues to increase in relevance and new connections are formed, new insights made.ABOUT THE SERIESHorace Gold led GALAXY magazine from its first issue dated October 1950 to science fiction’s most admired, widely circulated and influential magazine throughout its initial decade. Its legendary importance came from publication of full length novels, novellas and novelettes. GALAXY published nearly every giant in the science fiction field.The Galaxy Project is a selection of the best of GALAXY with new forewords by some of today’s best science fiction writers. The initial selections in alphabetical order include work by Ray Bradbury, Frederic Brown, Lester del Rey, Robert A. Heinlein, Damon Knight, C. M. Kornbluth, Walter M. Miller, Jr., Frederik Pohl, Robert Scheckley, Robert Silverberg, William Tenn (Phillip Klass) and Kurt Vonnegut with new Forewords by Paul di Filippo, David Drake, John Lutz, Barry Malzberg and Robert Silverberg. The Galaxy Project is committed to publishing new work in the spirit GALAXY magazine and its founding editor Horace Gold.

Godfather Death


Jacob Grimm
    

Goblin Market


Christina Rossetti - 1862
    Published in 1862, this phantasmagoric tale of two maidens seduced by lewd goblin men provides a startling glimpse into the depths of the Victorian psyche. Full color throughout .

"Hope" is the thing with feathers


Emily Dickinson - 2012
    “Hope” is the thing with feathers -That perches in the soul -And sings the tune without the words -And never stops - at all -And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -And sore must be the storm -That could abash the little BirdThat kept so many warm -I’ve heard it in the chillest land -And on the strangest Sea -Yet - never - in Extremity,It asked a crumb - of me

The Princess


Alfred Tennyson - 1847
    The poem tells the story of an heroic princess who forswears the world of men and founds a women's university where men are forbidden to enter. The prince to whom she was betrothed in infancy enters the university with two friends, disguised as women students. They are discovered and flee, but eventually they fight a battle for the princess's hand. They lose and are wounded, but the women nurse the men back to health. Eventually the princess returns the prince's love.Excerpt from The Princess Sir Walter Vivian all a summer's dayGave his broad lawns until the set of sunUp to the people; thither flock'd at noonHis tenants, wife and child, and thither halfThe neighboring borough with their Institute, Of which he was the patron. I was thereFrom college, visiting the son, -the sonA Walter too, -with others of our set, Five others: we were seven at Vivian-place. And me that morning Walter show'd the house, Greek, set with busts. From vases in the hallFlowers of all heavens, and lovelier than their names, Grew side by side; and on the pavement layCarved stones of the Abbey-ruin in the park, Huge Ammonites, and the first bones of Time: And on the tables every clime and ageJumbled together; celts and calumets, Claymore and snow-shoe, toys in lava, fansOf sandal, amber, ancient rosaries, Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere, The cursed Malayan crease, and battle-clubsFrom the isles of palm; and higher on the walls, Betwixt the monstrous horns of elk and deer, His own forefathers' arms and armor hung. And 'this, ' he said, 'was Hugh's at Agin-court;And that was old Sir Ralph's at Ascalon.A good knight he! we keep a chronicleWith all about him, '-which he brought, and IDived in a hoard of tales that dealt with knightsHalf-legend, half-historic, counts and kingsWho laid about them at their wills and died;And mixt with these a lady, one that arm'dHer own fair head, and sallying thro' the gate, Had beat her foes with slaughter from her walls.

Death Be Not Proud


John Donne - 2011
    The classic poem Death be Not Proud by John Donne