Oh, I'm going to be. Welcome to Snuscast, the podcast designed to help you fall asleep.

On Snuscast, we read excerpts from Public Domain Works and occasionally original stories.

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Tonight we'll be reading the opening to Lord Tennyson's 1847, the Princess.

Tennyson was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1850 to 1892 and remains one of the most popular English poets.

The poem tells the story of a heroic princess who

forswears the world of men and founds a woman's university where men are forbidden to enter.

The prince to whom she was patrothed in infancy enters the university with two friends disguised as women students.

Let's get cozy. Close your eyes. Relax your body. Relax your body into the softness of your bed.

Now take a few deep breaths.

A prince I was, blue-eyed and fair and face, of temper amorous as the first of May, with lengths of

yellow ringlet like a girl,

for on my cradle shown the Northern Star.

There lived an ancient legend in our house, some sorcerer whom a far-off grand sire burnt.

Because he cast no shadow had foretold, dying, that none of all our blood should know.

The shadow from the substance and that one should come to fight with shadows and to fall.

For so my mother said, the story ran, and truly waking dreams were, more or less, an old and strange affection of the house, myself too had weird seizures. Heaven knows

...