Showing results by author "William Blake" in All Categories

In this volume we listen to the world through the eyes and words of the English Romantics. This very special poetical period is filled with the loving and tender verse of poets who still beguile us all with their beauty.

With a dynamic spirit, these great English poets made a conscious return to nostalgia and spiritual depth. Each chose a different path, but they are united in a love of moods, impressions, scenes, stories, sights and sounds. In this collection of more than forty poems are some of the finest and most memorable works in the English language.

William Collins Books and Decca Records are proud to present ARGO Classics, a historic catalogue of classic fiction read by some of the world’s most renowned voices. Originally released as vinyl records, these expertly abridged and remastered stories are now available to download for the first...

An anthology of over 60 classic love poems, read by some of our finest actors. Love has always been the supreme inspiration for poets, whether romantic or platonic, reciprocated or unrequited. This collection contains a range of the very best love poems, including Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress", Keats' "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" and Byron's "So We'll Go No More A-Roving" - as well as several sonnets from the master himself, William Shakespeare.

The "Songs of Innocence" were published in 1789 and republished in 1794 together with the "Songs of Experience". They represent Blake's two perspectives on the world, that of the child (innocence) and that of the adult (experience). Blake's poetical works were largely neglected in their own time but are today considered some of the most brilliant of English verse. The "songs" are presented here together with "Auguries of Innocence".

Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Blake, Coleridge, and Byron. The poets of the Romantic Period celebrated with readings by Sir Ralph Richardson, Christopher Hassall, Margaretta Scott, and Tyrone Power.

Angels are undeniably associated with religion and more usually Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Often they are seen as supernatural beings, benevolent celestial intermediaries interposed between God, Heaven and humanity. Obviously there are complications, a fact that our classic poets through the centuries, including Alexander Pope, Edmund Spenser, Radclyffe Hall and Hafiz, use as they write verse to explain, to reveal and to help us understand exactly why Angels are so prevalent amongst our thoughts.

William Blake’s volume of poetry entitled Songs of Innocence and Experience is the embodiment of his belief that innocence and experience were “the two contrary states of the human soul,” and that true innocence was impossible without experience. Songs of Innocence contains poems either written from the perspective of children or written about them. Many of the poems appearing in Songs of Innocence have a counterpart in Songs of Experience, with quite a different perspective of the world.The disastrous end of the French Revolution caused Blake to lose faith in the goodness of mankind, ...

Songs of Innocence and of Experience pairs luminous, childlike wonder with sharp, unsettling truth. In the first half, innocence speaks through images of lambs, children, and quiet faith in a world that feels gentle and protected. In the second, that vision cracks open—revealing a darker reality shaped by poverty, authority, and human suffering. Through deceptively simple poems and unforgettable images, the collection explores how joy and cruelty, hope and corruption, innocence and knowledge all exist side by side.

The epic poem Jerusalem was in Blake's own opinion his masterpiece. It is the last of the great prophetic books. Originally produced as an engraved book of 100 pages (only one copy of which was every fully finished in the colouring), the poem develops and unifies many of the themes Blake had been exploring in earlier works. It is a complex and powerful work, full of dramatic imagery and sublime poetry. You might think of it like a poetic version of a Wagner opera. The edition read here is the first printed version of the poem - which was impossibly hard to read in the original. This then was ...

The language of Poetry is an art that most of us attempt at some point in our lives. Although its commonplace exposure has been somewhat marginalised in today’s often fast-paced lives we all recognise good verse that can empathise with our thoughts or open us up to experience new things in new ways, to better understand and to enjoy the many strands of our lives.

A Four Quartets for the End of Time, these works stretch from the death and rebirth of a living land, England/Albion, to the death of the world as we know it in the Book of Revelations, going by way of a journey of the soul through death into salvation in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, thence into Dante's journey into Hell, Purgatory and final union with his beloved Beatrice and his God. Herein you will find four ways to save your soul and live through death, regenerate a wasted land and, in doing so, enter the New Jerusalem. - Summary by Tony Addison

At the end of his life, William Blake (1757-1827) gave up hope of being widely understood, but the twentieth century brought to his work a new and intense interest and acclaim.

A collection of the greatest poetry from the Romantic period, read by some of the 20th century’s most renowned actors. Love, romance and portrayals of nature are played out in these timeless readings of poetry written during the Romantic period. Performed by Richard Burton, Peter Orr, William Squire, Richard Marquand, Peggy Ashcroft, Margaretta Scott, Tony Church, Derek Godfrey, Patrick Garland, Gary Watson and Janette Richer. This collection includes poems from: William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Blake, Lord Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Keats.

Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul are two books of poetry by the English poet and painter, William Blake. Although Songs of Innocence was first published by itself in 1789, it is believed that Songs of Experience has always been published in conjunction with Innocence since its completion in 1794.Songs of Innocence mainly consists of poems describing the innocence and joy of the natural world, advocating free love and a closer relationship with God, and most famously including Blake's poem The Lamb. Its poems have a generally light, upbeat ...

"The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom."The Marriage of Heaven & Hell is William Blake’s masterpiece – a piously blasphemous reimagining of the duality of good and evil as an eternal dance of equally essential polarities.Good, in Blake’s complex cosmology, is defined by a blind deference to the external, rational order embodied by the tyrant and the priest. Evil is the chaotic and revolutionary impulse that defies all reason and authority.While Blake’s sympathies are clearly with the Romantic revolutionary, he argues for the necessity of both sides, which create balance ...

Classic Poems for Boys comprises a delightfully varied set of over 20 poems for 5- to 10-year olds. From rousing favorites like Felicia Dorothea Hemans’ "Casabianca" and John Keats’ "A Song About Myself", to dreamy, thoughtful poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Rudyard Kipling, this is a collection to be treasured.

The short, simple lines of these delicate poems resemble song lyrics, emphasizing the concrete but hinting at transcendent realities, although a few deal with abstractions directly. Many voices are heard: of children (once possibly a fetus), animals, parents, and narrators. The two companion volumes deal with the inevitable passage from the child’s wonder and delight in the creation to the adult’s understanding of it. This transition is fraught with dangers and can result in unhealthy attitudes. Blake has little good to say about human institutions dedicated to education, but sometimes ...

LibriVox volunteers bring you 21 recordings of The Sky Is An Immortal Tent Built By The Sons Of Los by William Blake. This was the Weekly Poetry project for August 25, 2024. ------ William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake has become a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. he produced a diverse and symbolically rich collection of works, which embraced the imagination as "the body of God", or "human existence itself". - Summary by Wikipedia

Dance with a lobster, telephone an elephant or knock on a moonlit door - this collection includes magical, macabre, dramatic, funny, bizarre, absurd, delightful, moving and charming poems by Lewis Carroll, A.A. Milne, Edward Lear, Hilaire Belloc, Kenneth Grahame and many others. Readers such as Anton Lesser, Simon Russell-Beale and Timothy West bring the lines beautifully to life and make this an ideal introduction to some of the best-loved children's poetry.