Poems: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

Poems, credited to Elizabeth Stoddard, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of Poems by Elizabeth Stoddard. Read in English by Bruce Kachuk These outstanding poems by the renowned author Elizabeth Stoddard speak of the poet's hunger for the freedom of an idyllic future - a hunger enhanced by a contagious idealism characteristic of Stoddard's exceptional poetic dexterity. These are poems that elevate the listener to levels only dreamed of by the poet herself - to visions of freedom based on the essential and universal craving of a soul burdened, indeed caught within a mundane world of the commonplace. Abundant in these works is the poet's empathy with the plight of mankind whom she envisions as trapped on a treadmill, vainly attempting to escape the traditional but remaining caught and destined - albeit while on the very threshold of an existence shaped by the reality of the struggle - to re-emerge into a world which is in a profusion of anguishing ways dishearteningly similar to that of before. Elizabeth Stoddard's relentless pursuit in verse of the happiness that accompanies an idealized life free from social restraints and limitations has produced this collection of some of the finest poetical works of the late nineteenth century. - Summary by Bruce Kachuk

Recording facts

• Recording title: Poems
• Author credits: Elizabeth Stoddard
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 65
• Listed recording duration: 2:26:01

Catalogue topics

• poetry
• youth
• Independence
• self-sufficiency
• idealism
• spiritual freedom
• originality
• social restraints

Opening tracks: first 24 of 65

1. 01 - The Poet's Secret — 1:33
2. 02 - November — 1:21
3. 03 - Music in a Crowd — 1:56
4. 04 - "I Live Within the Stranger's Gate" — 2:01
5. 05 - The House of Youth — 3:43
6. 06 - The House by the Sea — 2:53
7. 07 - Christmas Comes Again — 3:19
8. 08 - March — 1:13
9. 09 - The Spring Afar — 1:35
10. 10 - Why? — 1:24
11. 11 - August — 1:18
12. 12 - October — 1:12
13. 13 - "The Willow Boughs are Yellow Now" — 1:23
14. 14 - "In the Still, Star-Lit Night" — 1:38
15. 15 - Autumn — 1:20
16. 16 - The Autumn Sheaf — 1:45
17. 17 - In the City — 1:49
18. 18 - "I Love You, but a Sense of Pain" — 1:50
19. 19 - Nameless Pain — 1:23
20. 20 - A Baby Song — 1:26
21. 21 - The Wife Speaks — 2:07
22. 22 - The Husband Speaks — 1:55
23. 23 - "One Morn I Left Him in His Bed" — 2:05
24. 24 - Before the Mirror — 2:15

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.