‘As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame’ Gerard Manley Hopkins

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Richard Burton reads Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem 'The Leaden Echo & The Golden Echo'.

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Dante: Inferno “Behold the beast”

Canto I


Canto II

Lewis Carroll ‘Jabberwocky’

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Percy Bysshe Shelley - ‘Love's Philosophy'

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John Milton - ‘On His Blindness' -- "They also serve who only stand and wait."

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Coleridge -- ‘Kubla Khan’

read by David Olney

William Shakespeare -- Sonnet 1

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Shakespeare's Sonnet 43

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SONNET 43
When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And darkly bright are bright in dark directed.
Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright,
How would thy shadow's form form happy show
To the clear day with thy much clearer light,
When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so!
How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made
By looking on thee in the living day,
When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade
Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay!
All days are nights to see till I see thee,
And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

Shakespeare -SONNET 116 ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.’

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John Barrymore as Richard III and Hamlet

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Shakespeare "King Lear"- Laurence Olivier: Act 2, scene 2

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A Study of the Declaration of Independence

In language that rivals Shakespeare in beauty and power the first American congress declared itself a free and independent nation. The English language has seldom attained such efficiency, economy and potency while maintaining so much charm and grace. There are no extra words. And all of these words convey some of the most basic concepts regarding man and God and law. The universe of reason is boldly and plainly sketched in a few hundred words.