The Well Read Poem

Because reading is interpretation, The Well Read Poem aims to teach you how to read with understanding! Hosted by poet Thomas Banks of The House of Humane Letters, these short episodes will introduce you to both well-known and obscure poets and will focus on daily recitation, historical and intellectual background, elements of poetry, light explication, and more! Play this podcast daily and practice reciting! The next week, get a new poem. Grow in your understanding and love of poetry by learning how to read well! Brought to you by The Literary Life Podcast.

en89 Episodes

Episodes (89)

S12E3: Sonnet 106, “When in the chronicle of wasted time” by William Shakespeare

For the twelfth season of the Well-Read Poem, we are reading four poems by William Shakespeare, whose genius as a lyric poet is best appreciated in his collection of 154 sonnets. Shakespeare is of course the supreme dramatic poet of the English language; yet if only his sonnets and shorter poems had survived out of his great body of work, it is not too much to say that he may still have enjoyed a certain literary immortality, albeit of a different sort. In addition to four sonnets by Shakespeare, we will be taking a look at two sonnets by fellow Elizabethan poets, to give a sense of the popularity of this verse form in Shakespeare's day.

Today's poem is Sonnet 106, "When in the chronicle of wasted time" by William Shakespeare. Poem begins at timestamp 4:48.

Sonnet 106

by William Shakespeare

When in the chronicle of wasted time

I see descriptions of the fairest wights,

And beauty making beautiful old rhyme

In praise of ladies dead and lovely knights,

Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,

Of hand, of foot, of lip, of eye, of brow,

I see their antique pen would have express'd

Even such a beauty as you master now.

So all their praises are but prophecies

Of this our time, all you prefiguring;

And, for they look'd but with divining eyes,

They had not skill enough your worth to sing:

For we, which now behold these present days,

Have eyes to wonder, but lack tongues to praise.

enApril 24, 2023

S12E2: Sonnet 18, "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?" by William Shakespeare

For the twelfth season of the Well-Read Poem, we will be reading four poems by William Shakespeare, whose genius as a lyric poet is best appreciated in his collection of 154 sonnets. Shakespeare is of course the supreme dramatic poet of the English language; yet if only his sonnets and shorter poems had survived out of his great body of work, it is not too much to say that he may still have enjoyed a certain literary immortality, albeit of a different sort. In addition to four sonnets by Shakespeare, we will be taking a look at two sonnets by fellow Elizabethan poets, to give a sense of the popularity of this poet form in Shakespeare's day.

To get access to the replays of the Literary Life Online Conference on Shakespeare, visit houseofhumaneletters.com.

Today's poem is Sonnet 18, "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?" Poem begins at timestamp 8:20.

Sonnet XVIII

by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

enApril 17, 2023

S12E1: Sonnet 1, "From fairest creatures we desire increase" by William Shakespeare

For more information and to register for the Literary Life Online Conference, visit houseofhumaneletters.com.

Today's poem is Sonnet 1, "From fairest creatures we desire increase." Poem begins at timestamp 9:35.

Sonnet I

by William Shakespeare

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty’s rose might never die,
But, as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory.
But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed’st thy light’s flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.
Thou that art now the world’s fresh ornament
And only herald to the gaudy spring
Within thine own bud buriest thy content
And, tender churl, mak’st waste in niggarding.
Pity the world, or else this glutton be—
To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.

enApril 10, 2023

S11E6: "On Shakespeare" by John Milton

Welcome back to our final poem in this eleventh season of the Well-Read Poem! In this series we have been reading poems about writers, by writers, some of them well-known, some of them not as well known. Our aim in this season is to give listeners some insight into the lives, minds, and imaginations of authors long deceased, and some understanding of what they have meant to their fellow scribes.

Today's poem is “On Shakespeare, 1630” by John Milton. Poem begins at timestamp 5:17.

On Shakespeare, 1630

by John Milton

What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,

The labor of an age in pilèd stones,

Or that his hallowed relics should be hid

Under a star-ypointing pyramid?

Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame,

What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?

Thou in our wonder and astonishment

Hast built thyself a live-long monument.

For whilst to th’ shame of slow-endeavouring art,

Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart

Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book

Those Delphic lines with deep impression took,

Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,

Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;

And so sepúlchred in such pomp dost lie,

That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.

enFebruary 27, 2023

S11E5: “Edward Lear” by W.H. Auden

Welcome back to another season of the Well-Read Poem! In this series we will be reading six poems about writers, some of them well-known, some of them not as well known. Our aim in this season is to give listeners some insight into the lives, minds, and imaginations of authors long deceased, and some understanding of what they have meant to their fellow scribes.

Today's poem is “Edward Lear” by W. H. Auden. Lear was more than just a well-known nonsense poet, but was a talented painter and musician in his own right. Poem begins at timestamp 10:05.

Edward Lear

by W. H. Auden

Left by his friend to breakfast alone on the white
Italian shore, his Terrible Demon arose
Over his shoulder; he wept to himself in the night,
A dirty landscape-painter who hated his nose.

The legions of cruel inquisitive They
Were so many and big like dogs: he was upset
By Germans and boats; affection was miles away:
But guided by tears he successfully reached his Regret.

How prodigiuous the welcome was. Flowers took his hat
And bore him off to introduce him to the tongs;
The demon's false nose made the table laugh; a cat
Soon had him waltzing madly, let him squeeze her hand;
Words pushed him to the piano to sing comic songs;

And children swarmed to him like settlers. He became a land.

enFebruary 20, 2023

S11E4: “To Walter de la Mare” by T. S. Elliot

Today's poem is “To Walter de la Mare” by T. S. Elliot. Poem begins at timestamp 3:52.

To Walter de la Mare

by T. S. Eliot

The children who explored the brook and found
A desert island with a sandy cove
(A hiding place, but very dangerous ground,

For here the water buffalo may rove,
The kinkajou, the mungabey, abound
In the dark jungle of a mango grove,

And shadowy lemurs glide from tree to tree -
The guardians of some long-lost treasure-trove)
Recount their exploits at the nursery tea

And when the lamps are lit and curtains drawn
Demand some poetry, please. Whose shall it be,
At not quite time for bed?…

Or when the lawn
Is pressed by unseen feet, and ghosts return
Gently at twilight, gently go at dawn,
The sad intangible who grieve and yearn;

When the familiar is suddenly strange
Or the well known is what we yet have to learn,
And two worlds meet, and intersect, and change;

When cats are maddened in the moonlight dance,
Dogs cower, flitter bats, and owls range
At witches' sabbath of the maiden aunts;

When the nocturnal traveller can arouse
No sleeper by his call; or when by chance
An empty face peers from an empty house;

By whom, and by what means, was this designed?
The whispered incantation which allows
Free passage to the phantoms of the mind?

By you; by those deceptive cadences
Wherewith the common measure is refined;
By conscious art practised with natural ease;

By the delicate, invisible web you wove -
The inexplicable mystery of sound.

enFebruary 13, 2023

S11E3: “The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel” by John Betjeman

Today's poem is “The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel” by John Betjeman. Poem begins at timestamp 3:54.

The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel

by John Betjeman

He sipped at a weak hock and seltzer
As he gazed at the London skies
Through the Nottingham lace of the curtains
Or was it his bees-winged eyes?

To the right and before him Pont Street
Did tower in her new built red,
As hard as the morning gaslight
That shone on his unmade bed,

“I want some more hock in my seltzer,
And Robbie, please give me your hand —
Is this the end or beginning?
How can I understand?

“So you’ve brought me the latest Yellow Book:
And Buchan has got in it now:
Approval of what is approved of
Is as false as a well-kept vow.

“More hock, Robbie — where is the seltzer?
Dear boy, pull again at the bell!
They are all little better than cretins,
Though this is the Cadogan Hotel.

“One astrakhan coat is at Willis’s —
Another one’s at the Savoy:
Do fetch my morocco portmanteau,
And bring them on later, dear boy.”

A thump, and a murmur of voices —
(”Oh why must they make such a din?”)
As the door of the bedroom swung open
And TWO PLAIN CLOTHES POLICEMEN came in:

“Mr. Woilde, we ‘ave come for tew take yew
Where felons and criminals dwell:
We must ask yew tew leave with us quoietly
For this is the Cadogan Hotel.”

He rose, and he put down The Yellow Book.
He staggered — and, terrible-eyed,
He brushed past the plants on the staircase
And was helped to a hansom outside.

enFebruary 06, 2023

S11E2: “On First Looking into Chapman's Homer” by John Keats

Today's poem is “On First Looking into Chapman's Homer” by John Keats, written as an hommage to the great epics of Homer as translated by George Chapman. Poem begins at timestamp 5:44.

On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

by John Keats

Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,

And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;

Round many western islands have I been

Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.

Oft of one wide expanse had I been told

That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;

Yet did I never breathe its pure serene

Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies

When a new planet swims into his ken;

Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes

He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men

Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—

Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

enJanuary 30, 2023

S11E1: “The Lost Leader” by Robert Browning

Today's poem is “The Lost Leader” by Robert Browning, written as a criticism of William Wordsworth. Poem begins at timestamp 6:16.

The Lost Leader

by Robert Browning

Just for a handful of silver he left us,

Just for a riband to stick in his coat—

Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,

Lost all the others she lets us devote;

They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,

So much was theirs who so little allowed:

How all our copper had gone for his service!

Rags—were they purple, his heart had been proud!

We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,

Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,

Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,

Made him our pattern to live and to die!

Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,

Burns, Shelley, were with us,—they watch from their graves!

He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,

—He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!

We shall march prospering,—not thro' his presence;

Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre;

Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence,

Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:

Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,

One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,

One more devils'-triumph and sorrow for angels,

One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!

Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!

There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,

Forced praise on our part—the glimmer of twilight,

Never glad confident morning again!

Best fight on well, for we taught him—strike gallantly,

Menace our heart ere we master his own;

Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,

Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!

enJanuary 23, 2023

S10E6: "The British Journalist" by Humbert Wolfe

In this tenth season of The Well Read Poem podcast, we are reading six poems about the blessings and curses of labor. Work is a thing we both enjoy and dislike, and some professions are easier for poets to draw inspiration from than others. These poems come from different ages of literary history, and hopefully will leave the reader with a sense of what work has meant to different minds over the course of the centuries. Today's selection is "The British Journalist" by Humbert Wolfe; poem begins at timestamp 2:50.

The British Journalist

by Humbert Wolfe

You cannot hope

to bribe or twist
(thank God!)

the British journalist.

But, seeing what

the man will do
unbribed, there’s

no occasion to.

enDecember 26, 2022

S10E5: "The Chimney Sweeper" by William Blake

In this tenth season of The Well Read Poem podcast, we are reading six poems about the blessings and curses of labor. Work is a thing we both enjoy and dislike, and some professions are easier for poets to draw inspiration from than others. These poems come from different ages of literary history, and hopefully will leave the reader with a sense of what work has meant to different minds over the course of the centuries. Today's selection is "The Chimney Sweeper" by William Blake; poem begins at timestamp 5:53.

The Chimney Sweeper: A Little Black Thing Among the Snow

by William Blake

A little black thing among the snow,

Crying "weep! 'weep!" in notes of woe!

"Where are thy father and mother? say?"

"They are both gone up to the church to pray.

Because I was happy upon the heath,

And smil'd among the winter's snow,

They clothed me in the clothes of death,

And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

And because I am happy and dance and sing,

They think they have done me no injury,

And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,

Who make up a heaven of our misery."

enDecember 19, 2022

S10E4: "Surgeons must be very careful" by Emily Dickinson

In this tenth season of The Well Read Poem podcast, we are reading six poems about the blessings and curses of labor. Work is a thing we both enjoy and dislike, and some professions are easier for poets to draw inspiration from than others. These poems come from different ages of literary history, and hopefully will leave the reader with a sense of what work has meant to different minds over the course of the centuries. Today's selection is "Surgeons must be very careful" by Emily Dickinson; poem begins at timestamp 6:28.

Surgeons must be very careful

by Emily Dickinson

Surgeons must be very careful

When they take the knife!

Underneath their fine incisions

Stirs the Culprit - Life!

enDecember 12, 2022

S10E3: "The Song of the Shirt" by Thomas Hood

In this tenth season of The Well Read Poem podcast, we are reading six poems about the blessings and curses of labor. Work is a thing we both enjoy and dislike, and some professions are easier for poets to draw inspiration from than others. These poems come from different ages of literary history, and hopefully will leave the reader with a sense of what work has meant to different minds over the course of the centuries. Today's selection is "The Song of the Shirt" by Thomas Hood; poem begins at timestamp 4:25.

The Song of the Shirt

by Thomas Hood

With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A Woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread—
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with the voice of dolorous pitch
She sang the "Song of the Shirt!"

"Work! Work! Work!
While the cock is crowing aloof!
And work—work—work,
Till the stars shine through the roof!
It's O! to be a slave
Along with the barbarous Turk,
Where woman has never a soul to save
If this is Christian work!

"Work—work—work
Till the brain begins to swim,
Work—work—work
Till the eyes are heavy and dim!
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Till over the buttons I fall asleep,
And sew them on in a dream!

"O, Men with Sisters dear!
O, Men! with Mothers and Wives!
It is not linen you're wearing out,
But human creatures' lives!
Stitch—stitch—stitch,
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
Sewing at once, with a double thread,
A Shroud as well as a Shirt.

"But why do I talk of Death!
That Phantom of grisly bone,
I hardly fear his terrible shape,
It seems so like my own—
It seems so like my own,
Because of the fasts I keep;
O God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap!

"Work—work—work!
My labour never flags;
And what are its wages? A bed of straw,
A crust of bread—and rags.
That shatter'd roof,—and this naked floor—
A table—a broken chair—
And a wall so blank, my shadow I thank
For sometimes falling there!

"Work—work—work!
From weary chime to chime,
Work—work—work—
As prisoners work for crime!
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Seam, and gusset, and band,
Till the heart is sick, and the brain benumb'd,
As well as the weary hand.

"Work—work—work,
In the dull December light,
And work—work—work,
When the weather is warm and bright—
While underneath the eaves
The brooding swallows cling,
As if to show me their sunny backs
And twit me with the spring.

"O, but to breathe the breath
Of the cowslip and primrose sweet!—
With the sky above my head,
And the grass beneath my feet;
For only one short hour
To feel as I used to feel,
Before I knew the woes of want
And the walk that costs a meal!

"O, but for one short hour!
A respite however brief!
No blessed leisure for Love or Hope,
But only time for Grief!
A little weeping would ease my heart,
But in their briny bed
My tears must stop, for every drop
Hinders needle and thread!

"Seam, and gusset, and band,
Band, and gusset, and seam,
Work, work, work,
Like the Engine that works by Steam!
A mere machine of iron and wood
That toils for Mammon's sake—
Without a brain to ponder and craze
Or a heart to feel—and break!"

—With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A Woman sat, in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread—
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,—
Would that its tone could reach the Rich!—
She sang this "Song of the Shirt!"

enDecember 05, 2022

S10E2: "Men Who March Away" by Thomas Hardy

In this tenth season of The Well Read Poem podcast, we are going to read six poems about the blessings and curses of labor. Work is a thing we both enjoy and dislike, and some professions are easier for poets to draw inspiration from than others. These poems come from different ages of literary history, and hopefully will leave the reader with a sense of what work has meant to different minds over the course of the centuries. Today's selection is "Men Who March Away" by Thomas Hardy; poem begins at timestamp 3:07.

Men Who March Away

by Thomas Hardy

What of the faith and fire within us

Men who march away

Ere the barn-cocks say

Night is growing gray,

Leaving all that here can win us;

What of the faith and fire within us

Men who march away?

Is it a purblind prank, O think you,

Friend with the musing eye,

Who watch us stepping by

With doubt and dolorous sigh?

Can much pondering so hoodwink you!

Is it a purblind prank, O think you,

Friend with the musing eye?

Nay. We well see what we are doing,

Though some may not see—

Dalliers as they be—

England's need are we;

Her distress would leave us rueing:

Nay. We well see what we are doing,

Though some may not see!

In our heart of hearts believing

Victory crowns the just,

And that braggarts must

Surely bite the dust,

Press we to the field ungrieving,

In our heart of hearts believing

Victory crowns the just.

Hence the faith and fire within us

Men who march away

Ere the barn-cocks say

Night is growing gray,

Leaving all that here can win us;

Hence the faith and fire within us

Men who march away.

enNovember 28, 2022

S10E1: "Fanfare for the Makers" by Louis MacNeice

In this tenth season of The Well Read Poem podcast, we are going to read six poems about the blessings and curses of labor. Work is a thing we both enjoy and dislike, and some professions are easier for poets to draw inspiration from than others. These poems come from different ages of literary history, and hopefully will leave the reader with a sense of what work has meant to different minds over the course of the centuries. Today's selection is "Fanfare for the Makers" by Louis MacNeice; poem begins at timestamp 5:02.

Fanfare for the Makers

by Louis MacNeice

A cloud of witnesses. To whom? To what?
To the small fire that never leaves the sky.
To the great fire that boils the daily pot.

To all the things we are not remembered by,
Which we remember and bless. To all the things
That will not notice when we die,

Yet lend the passing moment words and wings.

So fanfare for the Makers: who compose
A book of words or deeds who runs may write
As many who do run, as a family grows

At times like sunflowers turning towards the light.
As sometimes in the blackout and the raids
One joke composed an island in the night.

As sometimes one man’s kindness pervades
A room or house or village, as sometimes
Merely to tighten screws or sharpen blades

Can catch a meaning, as to hear the chimes
At midnight means to share them, as one man
In old age plants an avenue of limes

And before they bloom can smell them, before they span
The road can walk beneath the perfected arch,
The merest green print when the lives began

Of those who walk there with him, as in default
Of coffee men grind acorns, as in despite
Of all assaults conscripts counter assault,

As mothers sit up late night after night
Moulding a life, as miners day by day
Descend blind shafts, as a boy may flaunt his kite

In an empty nonchalant sky, as anglers play
Their fish, as workers work and can take pride
In spending sweat before they draw their pay.

As horsemen fashion horses while they ride,
As climbers climb a peak because it is there,
As life can be confirmed even in suicide:

To make is such. Let us make. And set the weather fair.

enNovember 21, 2022

S9E6: "Loveliest of Trees" by A. E. Houseman

In this ninth season, we are reading six poems about the four seasons of the year. English verse especially is abundant in celebrations, odes, and meditative poems about the divisions of the year and the visible changes in nature that attend them. Over the next several weeks, we will take a look at some fine examples of seasonal poetry. Today's selection is "Loveliest of Trees" by A. E. Houseman; poem begins at timestamp 6:10.

Loveliest of Trees

by A. E. Houseman

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

enOctober 03, 2022

S9E5: "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost

In this ninth season, we are reading six poems about the four seasons of the year. English verse especially is abundant in celebrations, odes, and meditative poems about the divisions of the year and the visible changes in nature that attend them. Over the next several weeks, we will take a look at some fine examples of seasonal poetry. Today's selection is "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost; poem begins at timestamp 7:34.

Nothing Gold Can Stay

by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

enSeptember 26, 2022

S9E4: "To Autumn" by John Keats

In this ninth season, we are reading six poems about the four seasons of the year. English verse especially is abundant in celebrations, odes, and meditative poems about the divisions of the year and the visible changes in nature that attend them. Over the next several weeks, we will take a look at some fine examples of seasonal poetry. Today's selection is "To Autumn" by John Keats; poem begins at timestamp 2:34.

To Autumn

by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

enSeptember 19, 2022

S9E3: "Bed in Summer" by Robert Louis Stevenson

In this ninth season, we are reading six poems about the four seasons of the year. English verse especially is abundant in celebrations, odes, and meditative poems about the divisions of the year and the visible changes in nature that attend them. Over the next several weeks, we will take a look at some fine examples of seasonal poetry. Today's selection is Robert Louis Stevenson's "Bed in Summer"; poem begins at timestamp 5:55.

Bed in Summer

by Robert Louis Stevenson

In winter I get up at night

And dress by yellow candle-light.

In summer, quite the other way,

I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see

The birds still hopping on the tree,

Or hear the grown-up people's feet

Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,

When all the sky is clear and blue,

And I should like so much to play,

To have to go to bed by day?

enSeptember 12, 2022

S9E2: "Sumer is I-cumin In" by Anonymous

In this ninth season, we are reading six poems about the four seasons of the year. English verse especially is abundant in celebrations, odes, and meditative poems about the divisions of the year and the visible changes in nature that attend them. Over the next several weeks, we will take a look at some fine examples of seasonal poetry. Today's selection is "Sumer is i-cumin in" by an anonymous Englishman of the Middle Ages; poem begins at timestamp 1:34.

Sumer is i-cumin in

by Anonymous

Sumer is i-cumin in—

Lhude sing, cuccu!

Groweth sed and bloweth med

And springth the wude nu.

Sing, cuccu!

Awe bleteth after lomb,

Lhouth after calve cu,

Bulluc sterteth, bucke verteth—

Murie sing, cuccu!

Cuccu, cuccu,

Wel singes thu, cuccu.

Ne swik thu naver nu!

Sing, cuccu, nu. Sing, cuccu.

Sing, cuccu. Sing, cuccu, nu.

enSeptember 05, 2022

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Episodes (89)

S12E3: Sonnet 106, “When in the chronicle of wasted time” by William Shakespeare

S12E2: Sonnet 18, "Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?" by William Shakespeare

S12E1: Sonnet 1, "From fairest creatures we desire increase" by William Shakespeare

S11E6: "On Shakespeare" by John Milton

S11E5: “Edward Lear” by W.H. Auden

S11E4: “To Walter de la Mare” by T. S. Elliot

S11E3: “The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel” by John Betjeman

S11E2: “On First Looking into Chapman's Homer” by John Keats

S11E1: “The Lost Leader” by Robert Browning

S10E6: "The British Journalist" by Humbert Wolfe

S10E5: "The Chimney Sweeper" by William Blake

S10E4: "Surgeons must be very careful" by Emily Dickinson

S10E3: "The Song of the Shirt" by Thomas Hood

S10E2: "Men Who March Away" by Thomas Hardy

S10E1: "Fanfare for the Makers" by Louis MacNeice

S9E6: "Loveliest of Trees" by A. E. Houseman

S9E5: "Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost

S9E4: "To Autumn" by John Keats

S9E3: "Bed in Summer" by Robert Louis Stevenson

S9E2: "Sumer is I-cumin In" by Anonymous