Pain_Khalil Gibran
Read by Shane Morris
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A powerful poem on pain and grief from the great Khalil Gibran
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Lose Yourself_Rumi
Jalāl ad-Dīn Mohammad Rūmī was an ancient Persian scholar and Sufi mystic. Today he is considered one of the greatest poets who ever lived.
We hope you enjoy our rendition of this soul permeating poem.
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We worked with the following artists to produce this reading:
Voice-over by Shane Morris
Score by Dexter Britain
Written by Rumi (1207 - 1273), translated into English from the Masnavi
2
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The Seven Ages of Man
Read by James Smillie
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The Seven Ages of Man by William Shakespeare
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms;
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well sav’d, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion;
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
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So Live Your Life_Chief Tecumseh
Read by Shane Morris.
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Chief Tecumseh was a great Native American warrior chief who was leader of a large tribal confederacy which opposed the United States during Tecumseh's War.
Although his efforts to unite Native Americans ended with his death in the War of 1812, he became an iconic folk hero in American, Indigenous, and Canadian history.
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Kahlil Gibran_Defeat
Kahlil Gibran was the key figure in a Romantic movement that transformed Arabic literature in the first half of the twentieth century.
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Full Poem:
Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness;
You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs,
And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory.
Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance,
Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot
And not to be trapped by withering laurels.
And in you I have found aloneness
And the joy of being shunned and scorned.
Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield,
In your eyes I have read
That to be enthroned is to be enslaved,
And to be understood is to be leveled down,
And to be grasped is but to reach one’s fullness
And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed.
Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion,
You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences,
And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings,
And urging of seas,
And of mountains that burn in the night,
And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul.
Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage,
You and I shall laugh together with the storm,
And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us,
And we shall stand in the sun with a will,
And we shall be dangerous.
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When I Die_Rumi
Read by Shane Morris
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Jalaluddin Rumi was an ancient Persian scholar and Sufi master. Today he is recognised as one of the greatest poets who ever lived, due in part to how his words seem to speak to the divine.
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True Manliness
On Oct. 5 1878, an American preacher and social reformer named James F. Clarke delivered a timeless speech on manliness to a ministry of young men in Boston, Massachusetts.
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Teddy Roosevelt
On April 23, 1910, a year after leaving his presidential office, Theodore Roosevelt gave what would become one of his greatest rhetorical triumphs. The most famous section of his speech still resonates and inspires, even today.
It is not the critic who counts.
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Greatest Speech in American History
On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address on the site of one of the bloodiest and most decisive battles of the Civil War.
Lincoln’s brief address would be remembered as one of the most important speeches in American history.
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