Poems on the Underground Recordings Love Poems

Love Poems On the Underground

Love Poems on the Underground to listen to. Recordings from a selection of 72 Poems on the Underground originally recorded on tape and published as a Cassell Audiobook in 1994 presented here alongside the poems in their poster form, as displayed on the tube.

Love Poems on the Underground

Her Anxiety , W.B. Yeats 'Earth in beauty dressed Awaits returning spring. All true love must die, Alter at the best Into some lesser thing. Prove that I lie. Such body lovers have, Such exacting breath, That they touch or sigh. Every touch they give, Love is nearer death. Prove that I lie.'

Her Anxiety by W.B. Yeats read by Cicely Herbert

Sonnet 29, William Shakespeare 'When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings, That then I scorn to change my state with kings.'

Sonnet 29 by William Shakespeare read by James Berry

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, Edna St Vincent Millay ' What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why, I have forgotten, and what arms have lain. Under my head till morning; but the rain. Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh.Upon the glass and listen for reply, And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain For unremembered lads that not again Will turn to me at midnight with a cry. Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before: I cannot say what loves have come and gone, I only know that summer sang in me A little while, that in me sings no more.'

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed by Edna St Vincent Millay read by Fleur Adcock

William Blake, The Sick Rose 'Oh Rose thou art sick. The invisible worm That flies in the night In the howling storm , Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy.'

The Sick Rose by William Blake read by Adrian Mitchell

Western Wind, Anon, before 1500 ' Western wind when wilt thou blow the small rain down can rain Christ If my love were in my arms and I in my bed again'

Western wind when wilt thou blow, Anon read by Gerard Benson

from The Song of Solomon, The King James Bible (1611) ' My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my Love, my fair one, and come away. For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over, and gone. The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. '

from The Song of Solomon The King James Bible read by Valerie Bloom

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W. B. Yeats (1865 - 1939) Poems on the Underground 1993 'Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.'

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by W.B. Yeats read by Cicely Herbert

SINCE there's no help, come let us kiss and part by Michael Drayton (1563-1631) 'Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part Nay, I have done: you get no more of me, And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart, That thus so cleanly I myself can free, Shake hands forever, cancel all our vows, And when we meet at any time again, Be it not seen in either of our brows That we one jot of former love retain. Now at the last gasp of love's latest breath, When his pulse failing, passion speechless lies, When faith is kneeling by his bed of death, And innocence is closing up his eyes, Now if thou wouldst, when all have given him over, From death to life thou mightst him yet recover. '

Since there’s no help, come let us kiss and part by Michael Drayton read by Adrian Mitchell

So We'll Go No More A-Roving by Lord Byron Poems on the Underground 1996 'So, we'll go no more a-roving So late into the night, Though the heart be still as loving, And the moon be still as bright. For the sword outwears its sheath, And the soul wears out the breast, And the heart must pause to breathe, And Love itself have rest. Though the night was made for loving, And the day returns too soon, Yet we'll go no more a-roving By the light of the moon.'

So We’ll Go No More A-Roving by Lord Byron read by Gavin Ewart

The Flaw in Paganism by Dorothy Parker ( 1893-1967) ' Drink and dance and laugh and lie, Love, the reeling midnight through, For tomorrow we shall die! (But, alas, we never do.)'

The Flaw in Paganism by Dorothy Parker read by Cicely Herbert

Come. and be my baby ,Maya Angelou 'The highway is full of big cars going nowhere fast And folks is smoking anything that'll burn Some people wrap their lives around a cocktail glass And you sit wondering where you're going to turn. I got it. Come. And be my baby. Some prophets say the world is gonna end tomorrow But others say we've got a week or two The paper is full of every kind of blooming horror And you sit wondering what you're gonna do. I got it. Come. And be my baby.'

Come. And be my baby by Maya Angelou read by Valerie Bloom