The poems I've selected here are two famous pieces of poetry; Ithaca read by Sean Connery with background music by Vangelis and The Lady of Shalott performed by Loreena McKennitt .

This page includes links to paintings of the Lady of Shalott that are in The Tate and Leeds galleries in England.

Here are the two videos of the poetic words that will take you on a journey to a different time and place. I hope you enjoy listening to them.

Ithaca by C.P. Cavafy read by Sean Connery with background music by Vangelis.

Not much explanation required for why I find this version of ‘Ithaca’ so pleasant it combines the poem with the ‘dark chocolate’ voice of Sean Connery and a background of music by Vangelis.

Why I like the poem Ithaca is not so easy to explain but I will try. I love the Greek islands and on a visit to one of them we managed to also visit the island of Ithaca for a couple of hours.

Ithaca.What was it like? I recall walking around a delightful little harbour, a village with small side streets, a very cold drink served in an iced glass and looking at the sun sparkling on the water of the harbour, with its colourful fishing boats and heaped of fishing nets.

Our guide told us that some people believe that the island of Ithaca is the place in The Odyssey but that others dispute this and say it is another place and not the island of Ithaca. I like to think Ithaca that I visited is the Ithaca in this poem.

There are other versions of this; with different videos but I like this one as the images do not dominate the words or background music.

The reasons for my choice.

The ‘Lady of Shalott’ caused me much anguish in my school days. It was one of the poems we had to learn sections of by heart and recite in front of other pupils and teachers. I recall having sleepless nights leading up to the days when I had to stand alone on the stage and recite the selected verses to my not very receptive audience. However although the fear of standing in front of a gathering of people and reading or speaking to them remains something I dread; ‘The Lady of Shalott’ is not a poem that I dislike, because it does not brings back the bad memories. Even as I recited it with my hands were trembling with fear and as I stumbled my way through its verses I was aware that there was something awesome about the descriptiveness of it.

I had picked it from a selection of poems on a list that included ‘The Highwayman’, ‘Meg the Gypsy’ – who lived on the moor, and the most popular choice the poem about the railway cat. Which I learned parts of from listening to many other pupils recite it “he has gone to hunt the thimble, we must find him or the train can’t start” did they find him in the end I can’t remember? Maybe they did.

For me if I had to learn a poem I suppose the Lady of Shallot held more fascination than the others because it offered a glimpse of a romantic world. I had to construct the images in my imagination to fit with the words as I had never seen any of the famous paintings of the said Lady. I am not even sure that I had heard of Camelot at that age; so I wove my images from the fairytales I had read and the words I recognised like weave and tower and I knew from fairy stories what knights and ladies looked like.

I suppose I also liked the idea of little other care has she, but the whisper about the curse did not sound so good.

Or did I? Maybe I just imagine I thought those things then but they have been constructed since. The pain of having to stand on that stage so tense that my legs went numb is true. Whatever, I know now that I picked it because it was the most romantic of the selection and at that age it had more charisma for me than the poems. If you look at the lenghty poem that it is for me the parts one and two that I learned are more 'magic' in the descriptive sense.

When you read the whole poem I can not help but feel it vey sad that appears that she dies just because she is tempted to glimpse at a handsome knight on his way to Camelot. Maybe there is more to it than that. Sir Lancelot to me appears almost callous in the final verse, but then he is limited in what he can say because it is a poem and the need to rhyme limits what he can say. I do not think anyone gave us any background information to this poem when we were learning it. I find it delightful that the version I have here is so moving with the background music. Maybe the fact that Loreena McKennitt performs it so well makes up for my humble stumbling efforts years ago.

I am pleased I grew to enjoy listening to it and occasionally reading parts of it. I know that such a world never really existed but I find that listening to someone so talented as this perform it is delightful and pure escapism. It is a beautiful combination of poetic words and music.

Please take the time to find the version of it you prefer here is one of them;

If you wish to view the paintings of John William Waterhouse the more often seen one of her in the boat is at the Tate site. The one of her looking out of the window is at the Leeds site which also has some details of the history of the artist, and a brief outline of the story of The Lady of Shalott.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this.