Rudyard Kipling was a prolific poet, novelist and journalist and one of the most well-known Victorian writers of his time in 1907 Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for his great body of work which included 'The Jungle Book' and his enduring poetic masterpiece 'If'.
Read by Shane Morris written by Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959) was a British-born American poet, known for his sentimental and inspirational verse. This particular poem encourages readers not to give up when they are faced with challenges. Even when things are not going well, keep pushing on. You never know how close you are to success and making it to the other side.
Read by Shane Morris Written by Edgar Albert Guest
Think happy thoughts! This is true happiness! That life is sad that feeds on its distress; That mind is gloomy that subsists on gloom, And is as dismal as a curtained room, Where daily comes the sunshine, but to find It cannot enter through the close-drawn blind. Fling up the curtains of your mind today And let the morning sunshine in to play; Dwell on the joys and not the sorrows here, Master your thoughts and you have mastered fear. Think happy thoughts.
This poem is a sober call to arms at the outset of WW1 (1914-18). Kipling had been warning for a decade of the need to prepare, to resist the growing menace of Germany, and he was in no doubt that this would be a life and death struggle for England. The Indian Ministry of Defense quoted the words "What stands if Freedom fall? Who dies if England live?" in a 2022 tweet in honor of the Indian army.
Walt Whitman is America’s world poet - a successor to Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Shakespeare. O Captain! My Captain! is an elegy or mourning poem with the theme that every victory comes with a price. Whitman wrote this poem to honor Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States of America. Lincoln successfully led his nation through the turmoil of the civil war and brought an end to slavery in America. The speaker states that though the ship (United States) has braved the tough storm of civil war, it has lost its Captain (Abraham Lincoln). The speaker is torn between relief and despair.
George Gordon Byron
In secret we met—
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?—
With silence and tears.
Believers hear me say that clarity is better than your faithful course
You live a life
You accuse and slander
Believers in this world you have no humanity no remorse.
We have been slaves for so long you cannot even think yet
I have been a boy
I have been a man
I only left you behind because of what you didn't seem to get.
I have to go now; you couldn't understand I never wanted you to change
Your mind is set
Your life is abandonment
I am sorry I was unable to help you I just wanted you to rearrange.
thoughts about life and who we are where we can be
They lied to you
You are a believer
This is the point this is the key; this is not clarity. Can you still not, see?
If you cannot change soon this planet will die.
Goodbye -from me- Goodbye
Do not stand at my grave and cry I am not there I did not die.
Read by James Smillie. William Morris was a revolutionary artist whose work as a poet, writer, designer, craftsman, and activist dramatically changed the ideologies of Victorian Britain.
Robin Williams "The Fraggle Life" 1951 - 2014
I know this is kind of odd this being here. I love Robin Williams and felt from an early time he was on an inward journey. His life was so messed up he fell mentally and spiritually so many times. He got up to go again to do more. It is sad to see someone in pain. It is for me as I seem to feel this when others do not. I have felt alone and sick and overwhelmed by this world. I wish Robin and I could have spoken for 20min. That is all I would need to tell him about what he had forgotten. "The Divine." Robin is here because his films to me were poetry. He will be someone who is never forgotten.
John Keats
Edger Allan Poe, read by Tom o' Bedlam
Khalil Gibran (Powerful Life Poetry)