My Poetry Reading of "Merry Autumn" by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Merry Autumn by Paul Laurence Dunbar, Read for LibriVox by Sajad Rahmani

For the audio file check the YouTube link below or here:
http://www.archive.org/download/short_poetry_112_1210_librivox/spc112_merryautumn_dunbar_sr_64kb.mp3

My reading of the poem on YouTube and Librivox

Merry Autumn


IT'S all a farce,--these tales they tell
About the breezes sighing,
And moans astir o'er field and dell,
Because the year is dying.

Such principles are most absurd,--
I care not who first taught 'em;
There's nothing known to beast or bird
To make a solemn autumn.

In solemn times, when grief holds sway
With countenance distressing,
You'll note the more of black and gray
Will then be used in dressing.

Now purple tints are all around;
The sky is blue and mellow;
And e'en the grasses turn the ground
From modest green to yellow.

The seed burrs all with laughter crack
On featherweed and jimson;
And leaves that should be dressed in black
Are all decked out in crimson.

A butterfly goes winging by;
A singing bird comes after;
And Nature, all from earth to sky,
Is bubbling o'er with laughter.

The ripples wimple on the rills,
Like sparkling little lasses;
The sunlight runs along the hills,
And laughs among the grasses.

The earth is just so full of fun
It really can't contain it;
And streams of mirth so freely run
The heavens seem to rain it.

Don't talk to me of solemn days
In autumn's time of splendor,
Because the sun shows fewer rays,
And these grow slant and slender.

Why, it's the climax of the year,--
The highest time of living!--
Till naturally its bursting cheer
Just melts into Thanksgiving.

My Poetry Reading of "Autumn: a Dirge" by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Autumn: a Dirge by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Read for LibriVox by Sajad Rahmani

For the audio file check the YouTube link below or here:
http://www.archive.org/download/short_poetry_112_1210_librivox/spc112_autumnadirge_shelley_sr_64kb.mp3 

My reading of the poem on YouTube and Librivox

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Vx2GE_dsY

I.

The warm sun is failing, the bleak wind is wailing,
The bare boughs are sighing, the pale flowers are dying,
And the Year
On the earth her death-bed, in a shroud of leaves dead,
Is lying.
Come, Months, come away,
From November to May,
In your saddest array;
Follow the bier
Of the dead cold Year,
And like dim shadows watch by her sepulchre.

II.

The chill rain is falling, the nipped worm is crawling,
The rivers are swelling, the thunder is knelling
For the Year;
The blithe swallows are flown, and the lizards each gone
To his dwelling;
Come, Months, come away;
Put on white, black, and gray;
Let your light sisters play --
Ye, follow the bier
Of the dead cold Year,
And make her grave green with tear on tear.

Published 1824.