All audio files can be found on our catalog page: https://librivox.org/a-pleasant-grove-by-william-browne/
Each fortnight a poem is chosen to be recorded by as many LibriVox volunteers as possible!William Browne was an English pastoral poet, born at Tavistock, Devon, and educated at Exeter College, Oxford. His chief works were the long poem Britannia's Pastorals (1613), and a contribution to The Shepheard's Pipe (1614).
(Summary by Wikipedia)
This fortnight's poem can be found here.
Project Code: OS7i8N26
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LibriVox recording settings: mono (1 channel), 44100 Hz sample rate, 128 kbps constant bit rate MP3. See the Tech Specs
Begin your reading with the abbreviated LibriVox disclaimer:
Leave ½ to 1 second of silence at the beginning.
Then read the poem:A Pleasant Grove by William Browne, read for librivox.org by [your name].
[Add, if you wish, date, and/or your location.]
At the end of your reading, leave a space and then say:Unto a pleasant grove or such like place,
Where here the curious cutting of a hedge:
There, by a pond, the trimming of the sedge:
Here the fine setting of well-shading trees:
The walks there mounting up by small degrees,
The gravel and the green so equal lie,
It, with the rest, draws on your ling'ring eye:
Here the sweet smells that do perfume the air,
Arising from the infinite repair
Of odoriferous buds and herbs of price,
(As if it were another Paradise)
So please the smelling sense, that you are fain
Where last you walk'd to turn and walk again.
There the small birds with their harmonious notes
Sing to a spring that smileth as she floats:
For in her face a many dimples show,
And often skips as it did dancing go:
Here further down an over-arched alley,
That from a hill goes winding in a valley,
You spy at end thereof a standing lake,
Where some ingenious artist strives to make
The water (brought in turning pipes of lead
Through birds of earth most lively fashioned)
To counterfeit and mock the sylvans all,
In singing well their own set madrigal.
This with no small delight retains your ear,
And makes you think none blest but who live there.
Then in another place the fruits that be
In gallant clusters decking each good tree,
Invite your hand to crop some from the stem,
And liking one, taste every sort of them:
Then to the arbours walk, then to the bowers,
Thence to the walks again, thence to the flowers,
Then to birds, and to the clear spring thence,
Now pleasing one, and then another sense.
Here one walks oft, and yet anew begin'th,
As if it were some hidden labyrinth;
So loath to part and so content to stay,
That when the gard'ner knocks for you away,
It grieves you so to leave the pleasures in it,
That you could wish that you had never seen it.
From Britannia's Pastorals.
Leave 5 seconds of silence at the end.End of poem. This recording is in the public domain.
Filename: pleasantgrove_browne_your initials in lowercase_128kb.mp3 (e.g. pleasantgrove_browne_klh_128kb.mp3)
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MC to select: aradlaw
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