Audiobook · read by volunteers
À Match
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)
Read by Ada Kerman, Ancilla, Claire Goget, Caitlin Hier, Beth Peat, Giles Baker, Kristin Hughes (1974-2021), Lucy Burgoyne (1950-2014), Sean McKinley · 9 chapters · 19 min
About the book
A Match is a short and lyrical poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne, a poet famous for his musical, flowing verse. In it, the speaker imagines love and lovers in terms of the natural world, setting one wish against another in a lightly turning pattern. The poem plays with images of seasons, flowers and the passing of time, and its rhythms rock like a song. This recording collects nine different readings by LibriVox volunteers, each bringing its own tone. At less than twenty minutes in all, it is a brief and sweet listen, and a good way to hear how sound and sense can work together in Victorian poetry. Anyone who enjoys verse that dances along on its own rhythm will find much to like in these short, bright recordings.
Introduction
Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) was an English poet and critic who became one of the most daring and most admired voices of the late Victorian period. His first major book, Poems and Ballads of 1866, caused a scandal with its frank treatment of love and desire, but it also made his name. He was known for his command of metre and for the almost hypnotic musicality of his lines.
A Match is a shorter poem that belongs to the collection Poems and Ballads. Like much of Swinburne's work, it depends on the rush of rhythm, on repeated phrases and on rich sound patterns, and on the way these create a mood before the meaning has fully settled. Its refrains and balanced pairs of wishes are easy to follow by ear. It is a poem to be heard rather than analysed.
This is a multi-version recording, a format that LibriVox uses for short poems. Nine volunteers each recorded the poem, and the results are collected here one after another. It was the weekly poetry project for the week of the eleventh of February, 2007. Hearing it nine times is a pleasant experiment: the words do not change, but each voice finds a different music in them. The collection is short and will make a graceful addition to any playlist of English verse. Fans of Victorian poetry, and listeners who like to compare readers, will find it a pleasant addition to the series of weekly poems.
Public domain
Algernon Charles Swinburne died in 1909: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text