Eighteenth-Century Audio

Source: Librivox.org. Text.
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Source: Librivox.org Text.
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Source: Classic Poetry Aloud. Text. Download Title

Source: Classic Poetry Aloud. Text. Download Title

Source: Classic Poetry Aloud. (Note: poor sound quality in introductory phrase improves for poem.) Download Title

Can life be a blessing,
Or worth the possessing,
Can life be a blessing if love were away?
Ah no! though our love all night keep us waking,
And though he torment us with cares all the day,
Yet he sweetens, he sweetens our pains in the taking,
There’s an hour at the last, there’s an hour to repay.

In ev’ry possessing,
The ravishing blessing,
In ev’ry possessing the fruit of our pain,
Poor lovers forget long ages of anguish,
Whate’er they have suffer’d and done to obtain;
‘Tis a pleasure, a pleasure to sigh and to languish,
When we hope, when we hope to be happy again.

John Henry Dryden

Source: Classic Poetry Aloud. Download Title

Source: Classic Poetry Aloud. Includes short introduction. Download Title

Source: Classic Poetry Aloud. Includes short introduction. Download Title

Includes “A Rhodomontade on his Cruel Mistress” and “To My More Than Meritorious Wife.”

Source: Classic Poetry Aloud. Includes short introduction. Download Title

Source: Classic Poetry Aloud. Includes introduction.  Download Title