Category Archives: Sound Recording

“Renunciant’s Song” by Su Shi [w/ Audio]

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The night is clear, even pristine --
   A nightscape in silver moonlight.
 "Yes, please! Pour me a bowl of wine.
   Don't skimp! take it up to the brim."
 And why should I chase wealth and fame
   When it is sure to end in vain?
 Events pass like a horse's sigh,
   A spark on stone, or dream travel.
 I can put out my ideas,
   But who'll accept them as the truth?
 Why shouldn't I just live happily 
   And innocently, like a child?
 I could go back to carefree days
   When life's trifles weren't torturesome.
 Just me, my lute, a pot of wine,
   And the stories drawn by the clouds.

NOTES: Song Dynasty Poet, Su Shi, was also known as Su Dongpo. The translated title of this poem also varies. In Deep, Deep the Courtyard, translated by Xu Yuanchong, it is entitled, “Song of Pilgrimage.”

“Mowing” by Robert Frost [w/ Audio]

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There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
 And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
 What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
 Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
 Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound --
 And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
 It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
 Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf: 
 Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
 To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
 Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
 (Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
 The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows.
 My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

“Natural” [Poetry Style #10] by Sikong Tu [w/ Audio]

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Stoop anywhere and pluck it up,
 But if you look 'round - it's not there.
 Any path may lead you to it.
A stroke of the brush becomes Spring,
 And the flowers are in full bloom. --
 It's like seeing a new year dawn:
 Snatch at it and you won't have it.
 Seize it by force and you'll be poorer.
Be like the old mountain hermit --
 Like duckweed gathered by stream flow.
Find calm amidst storms of feeling
 By knowing Heaven's harmonies.

NOTE: The late Tang Dynasty poet, Sikong Tu (a.k.a. Ssŭ-k‘ung T‘u,) wrote an ars poetica entitled Twenty-Four Styles of Poetry. It presents twenty-four poems that are each in a different tone, reflecting varied concepts from Taoist philosophy and aesthetics. Above is a translation of the tenth of the twenty-four poems.

“Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owen [w/ Audio]

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Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
 Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
 Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
 And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
 But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
 Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
 Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling
 Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
 But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
 And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. --
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
 As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
 He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace 
 Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
 And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
 His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
 If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
 Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
 Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
 Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
 My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
 To children ardent for some desperate glory,
 The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est 
   Pro patria mori.

NOTE: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori is a line written by Horace in Latin that translates to: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”

“To One in Paradise” by Edgar Allan Poe [w/ Audio]

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Thou wast that all to me, love,
   For which my soul did pine --
  A green isle in the sea, love,
   A fountain and a shrine,
 All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
   And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream to bright to last!
   Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
  But to be overcast!
   A voice from the Future cries,
  "On! on!" -- but o'er the Past
 (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
   Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me
   The light of Life is o'er!
  No more -- no more -- no more --
   (Such language holds the solemn sea
  To the sands upon the shore)
 Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
   Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,
   And all my nightly dreams
  Are where thy grey eye glances,
   And where thy footstep gleams --
 In what ethereal dances,
   By what eternal streams.

“Good Things” by Qin Guan [w/ Audio]

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Spring rains spur roadside flower growth,
   and wildflowers creep to the mountain's base.
 Hiking deep up the valley along the stream,
   I see and hear hundreds of orioles.
Looking skyward, a cloud becomes a dragon or snake,
   But then breaks up, giving way to blue sky.
 Lying in the forest under hanging vines,
    I can't tell north from south.

“Requiem” by Robert Louis Stevenson [w/ Audio]

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Under the wide and starry sky,
   Dig the grave and let me lie.
 Glad did I live and gladly die,
   And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
   Here he lies where he longed to be;
 Home is the sailor, home from sea,
   And the hunter home from the hill.

“I heard a Fly buzz – when I died” (591) by Emily Dickinson [w/ Audio]

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I heard a Fly buzz - when I died -
   The Stillness in the Room
 Was like the Stillness in the Air -
   Between the Heaves of Storm -

The Eyes around - had wrung them dry -
   And Breaths were gathering firm
 For that last Onset - when the King
   Be witnessed - in the Room -

I willed my Keepsakes - Signed away
   What portion of me be 
 Assignable - and then it was 
   There interposed a Fly -

With Blue - uncertain - stumbling Buzz -
   Between the light - and me -
 And then the Windows failed - and then
   I could not see to see -

“Strong” [Poetry Style #8] by Sikong Tu [w/ Audio]

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Walk with a mind that's clear and unburdened, 
   With life force that flares -n- flows like rainbows,
 Traversing the witch's gorge through the mountains --
   Among the floating clouds and blowing winds. 
 Drink up the spiritual; dine on the real;
   Let them ever build up in your body.
 Emulate the health and might of the gods,
   Preserve your energy through harmony.
 Be one with Heaven, be one with the Earth.
   See in yourself divine transformations.
 Know all this to the utmost -- be all this,
 And hold on to it 'til the bitter end.

NOTE: The late Tang Dynasty poet, Sikong Tu (a.k.a. Ssŭ-k‘ung T‘u,) wrote an ars poetica entitled Twenty-Four Styles of Poetry. It presents twenty-four poems that are each in a different tone, reflecting varied concepts from Taoist philosophy and aesthetics. Above is a translation of the eighth of the twenty-four poems.

“The Hayloft” by Robert Louis Stevenson [w/ Audio]

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Through all the pleasant meadow-side
   The grass grew shoulder-high,
 Till the shining scythes went far and wide
   And cut it down to dry.

These green and sweetly smelling crops
   They led in wagons home;
 And they piled them here in mountain tops
   For mountaineers to roam.

Here is Mount Clear, Mount Rusty-Nail,
   Mount Eagle and Mount High --
 The mice that in these mountains dwell,
   No happier are than I!

O what a joy to clamber there,
   O what a place for play,
 With the sweet, the dim, the dusty air,
   The happy hills of hay!