Poetry Read Aloud for Calm/Sleep/Anxiety - The Cold Earth Swept Below - by Percy Shelley
Channel: Twin Fawn Audio
Date: 2021-12-12

Join me as I read aloud "The Cold Earth Swept Below" by 19th century poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. It was first published in 1823. Depicts a woman who has surrendered to the inexplicable forces of nature and given herself to the earth.

Recorded and produced by voiceover artist Becky Chase.

Check out her services, demos, and work:
www.beckychasevo.com
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Transcript: 
"The cold earth slept below;
         Above the cold sky shone;
                And all around,
                With a chilling sound,
From caves of ice and fields of snow
The breath of night like death did flow
                Beneath the sinking moon.

The wintry hedge was black;
         The green grass was not seen;
                The birds did rest
                On the bare thorn’s breast,
Whose roots, beside the pathway track,
Had bound their folds o’er many a crack
                Which the frost had made between.

Thine eyes glow’d in the glare
         Of the moon’s dying light;
                As a fen-fire’s beam
                On a sluggish stream
Gleams dimly—so the moon shone there,
And it yellow’d the strings of thy tangled hair,
                That shook in the wind of night.

The moon made thy lips pale, beloved;
         The wind made thy bosom chill;
                The night did shed
                On thy dear head
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky
                Might visit thee at will."