Prosodia

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by William Butler Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate

Somewhere among the clouds above;

Those that I fight I do not hate

Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,

My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,

No likely end could bring them loss

Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,

Nor public man, nor cheering crowds,

A lonely impulse of delight

Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,

The years to come seemed waste of breath,

A waste of breath the years behind

In balance with this life, this death.

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Prosodia is a daily podcast dedicated to historical notes and poems, hosted by Karim El Azhari. Welcome!

All show notes are heavily recycled from old The Writer’s Almanac archives. May that podcast rest in peace (it was Karim’s favorite).

All poems are public domain or submitted by the author for use on the show.

Intro and outro music by Chillhop Records. They are amazing!

And remember, tell beauty you think so.

Submarine Mountains by Cale Young Rice

Under the sea, which is their sky, they rise

To watery altitudes as vast as those

Of far Himalayan peaks impent in snows

And veils of cloud and sacred deep repose.

Under the sea, their flowing firmament,

More dark than any ray of sun can pierce,

The earthquake thrust them up with mighty tierce

And left them to be seen but by the eyes

Of awed imagination inward bent.

Their vegetation is the viscid ooze,

Whose mysteries are past belief or thought.

Creation seems around them devil-wrought,

Or by some cosmic urgence gone distraught.

Adown their precipices chill and dense

With the dank midnight creep or crawl or climb

Such tentacled and eyeless things of slime,

Such monster shapes as tempt us to accuse

Life of a miscreative impotence.

About their peaks the shark, their eagle, floats,

In the thick azure far beneath the air,

Or downward sweeps upon what prey may dare

Set forth from any silent weedy lair.

But one desire on all their slopes is found,

Desire of food, the awful hunger strife,

Yet here, it may be, was begun our life,

Here all the dreams on which our vision dotes

In unevolved obscurity were bound.

Too strange it is, too terrible! And yet

It matters not how we were wrought or whence

Life came to us with all its throb intense,

If in it is a Godly Immanence.

It matters not,—if haply we are more

Than creatures half-conceived by a blind force

That sweeps the universe in a chance course:

For only in Unmeaning Might is met

The intolerable thought none can ignore.

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Prosodia is a daily podcast dedicated to historical notes and poems, hosted by Karim El Azhari. Welcome!

All show notes are heavily recycled from old The Writer’s Almanac archives. May that podcast rest in peace (it was Karim’s favorite).

All poems are public domain or submitted by the author for use on the show.

Intro and outro music by Chillhop Records. They are amazing!

And remember, tell beauty you think so.

Passers-By by Carl Sandburg

Passers-by,

Out of your many faces

Flash memories to me

Now at the day end

Away from the sidewalks

Where your shoe soles traveled

And your voices rose and blent

To form the city’s afternoon roar

Hindering an old silence.

Passers-by,

I remember lean ones among you,

Throats in the clutch of a hope,

Lips written over with strivings,

Mouths that kiss only for love,

Records of great wishes slept with,

Held long

And prayed and toiled for:

Yes,

Written on

Your mouths

And your throats

I read them

When you passed by.

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Prosodia is a daily podcast dedicated to historical notes and poems, hosted by Karim El Azhari. Welcome!

All show notes are heavily recycled from old The Writer’s Almanac archives. May that podcast rest in peace (it was Karim’s favorite).

All poems are public domain or submitted by the author for use on the show.

Intro and outro music by Chillhop Records. They are amazing!

And remember, tell beauty you think so.

Serenity by Edward Rowland Sill

Brook,

Be still,—be still!

Midnight’s arch is broken

In thy ceaseless ripples.

Dark and cold below them

Runs the troubled water,—

Only on its bosom,

Shimmering and trembling,

Doth the glinted star-shine

Sparkle and cease.

Life,

Be still,—be still!

Boundless truth is shattered

On thy hurrying current.

Rest, with face uplifted,

Calm, serenely quiet;

Drink the deathless beauty—

Thrills of love and wonder

Sinking, shining, star-like;

Till the mirrored heaven

Hollow down within thee

Holy deeps unfathomed,

Where far thoughts go floating,

And low voices wander

Whispering peace.

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Prosodia is a daily podcast dedicated to historical notes and poems, hosted by Karim El Azhari. Welcome!

All show notes are heavily recycled from old The Writer’s Almanac archives. May that podcast rest in peace (it was Karim’s favorite).

All poems are public domain or submitted by the author for use on the show.

Intro and outro music by Chillhop Records. They are amazing!

And remember, tell beauty you think so.

The Wild Common by D.H. Lawrence

The quick sparks on the gorse bushes are leaping,

Little jets of sunlight-texture imitating flame;

Above them, exultant, the pee-wits are sweeping:

They are lords of the desolate wastes of sadness their screamings proclaim.

Rabbits, handfuls of brown earth, lie

Low-rounded on the mournful grass they have bitten down to the quick.

Are they asleep?—Are they alive?—Now see, when I

Move my arms the hill bursts and heaves under their spurting kick.

The common flaunts bravely: but below, from the rushes

Crowds of glittering king-cups surge to challenge the blossoming bushes;

There the lazy streamlet pushes

Its curious course mildly; here it wakes again, leaps, laughs, and gushes.

Into a deep pond, an old sheep-dip,

Dark, overgrown with willows, cool, with the brook ebbing through so slow,

Naked on the steep, soft lip

Of the bank I stand watching my own white shadow quivering to and fro.

What if the gorse flowers shriveled and kissing were lost?

Without the pulsing waters, where were the marigolds and the songs of the brook?

If my veins and my breasts with love embossed

Withered, my insolent soul would be gone like flowers that the hot wind took.

So my soul like a passionate woman turns,

Filled with remorseful terror to the man she scorned, and her love

For myself in my own eyes’ laughter burns,

Runs ecstatic over the pliant folds rippling down to my belly from the breast-lights above.

Over my sunlit skin the warm, clinging air,

Rich with the songs of seven larks singing at once, goes kissing me glad.

And the soul of the wind and my blood compare

Their wandering happiness, and the wind, wasted in liberty, drifts on and is sad.

Oh but the water loves me and folds me,

Plays with me, sways me, lifts me and sinks me as though it were living blood,

Blood of a heaving woman who holds me,

Owning my supple body a rare glad thing, supremely good.

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Prosodia is a daily podcast dedicated to historical notes and poems, hosted by Karim El Azhari. Welcome!

All show notes are heavily recycled from old The Writer’s Almanac archives. May that podcast rest in peace (it was Karim’s favorite).

All poems are public domain or submitted by the author for use on the show.

Intro and outro music by Chillhop Records. They are amazing!

And remember, tell beauty you think so.

The Grass Beneath My Head by FS Flint

The grass is beneath my head;

and I gaze

at the thronging stars

in the night.

They fall… they fall…

I am overwhelmed,

and afraid.

Each leaf of the aspen

is caressed by the wind,

and each is crying.

And the perfume

of invisible roses

deepens the anguish.

Let a strong mesh of roots

feed the crimson of roses

upon my heart;

and then fold over the hollow

where all the pain was.

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Prosodia is a daily podcast dedicated to historical notes and poems, hosted by Karim El Azhari. Welcome!

All show notes are heavily recycled from old The Writer’s Almanac archives. May that podcast rest in peace (it was Karim’s favorite).

All poems are public domain or submitted by the author for use on the show.

Intro and outro music by Chillhop Records. They are amazing!

And remember, tell beauty you think so.

Be Still, My Soul by A.E. Housman

Be still, my soul, be still; the arms you bear are brittle,

Earth and high heaven are fixt of old and founded strong.

Think rather,—call to thought, if now you grieve a little,

The days when we had rest, O soul, for they were long.

Men loved unkindness then, but lightless in the quarry

I slept and saw not; tears fell down, I did not mourn;

Sweat ran and blood sprang out and I was never sorry:

Then it was well with me, in days ere I was born.

Now, and I muse for why and never find the reason,

I pace the earth, and drink the air, and feel the sun.

Be still, be still, my soul; it is but for a season:

Let us endure an hour and see injustice done.

Ay, look: high heaven and earth ail from the prime foundation;

All thoughts to rive the heart are here, and all are vain:

Horror and scorn and hate and fear and indignation—

Oh why did I awake? when shall I sleep again?

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Prosodia is a daily podcast dedicated to historical notes and poems, hosted by Karim El Azhari. Welcome!

All show notes are heavily recycled from old The Writer’s Almanac archives. May that podcast rest in peace (it was Karim’s favorite).

All poems are public domain or submitted by the author for use on the show.

Intro and outro music by Chillhop Records. They are amazing!

And remember, tell beauty you think so.

As You Like It, Act II - Scene VII by William Shakespeare

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

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Prosodia is a daily podcast dedicated to historical notes and poems, hosted by Karim El Azhari. Welcome!

All show notes are heavily recycled from old The Writer’s Almanac archives. May that podcast rest in peace (it was Karim’s favorite).

All poems are public domain or submitted by the author for use on the show.

Intro and outro music by Chillhop Records. They are amazing!

And remember, tell beauty you think so.

Such an Arduosly Long Joyous Occasion by Amira Ram Graffar

“Ha-nifrah beek” is an Arabic phrase meaning, loosely,

“To rejoice for you.” Muttered most often by aunties
And uncles presiding over your cousins’ weddings.

Though, it often tends to mean much more as, teary-eyed,
The line is directed at the yet to graduate,
The unmarried, and the consummately childless.
It really means “Hurry up, already! We are all

Waiting to disapprove and cast new judgments.”
So, you smile, weakly, give a big hug, and sputter,
With a broken accent, “God-willing—Inshallah.”
All kind of charming, until about the thirty-fourth time.

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Prosodia is a daily podcast dedicated to historical notes and poems, hosted by Karim El Azhari. Welcome!

All show notes are heavily recycled from old The Writer’s Almanac archives. May that podcast rest in peace (it was Karim’s favorite).

All poems are public domain or submitted by the author for use on the show.

Intro and outro music by Chillhop Records. They are amazing!

And remember, tell beauty you think so.

Wonder and Joy by Robinson Jeffers

The things that one grows tired of—O, be sure

They are only foolish artificial things!

Can a bird ever tire of having wings?

And I, so long as life and sense endure,

(Or brief be they!) shall nevermore inure

My heart to the recurrence of the springs,

Of gray dawns, the gracious evenings,

The infinite wheeling stars. A wonder pure

Must ever well within me to behold

Venus decline; or great Orion, whose belt

Is studded with three nails of burning gold,

Ascend the winter heaven. Who never felt

This wondering joy may yet be good or great:

But envy him not: he is not fortunate.

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Prosodia is a daily podcast dedicated to historical notes and poems, hosted by Karim El Azhari. Welcome!

All show notes are heavily recycled from old The Writer’s Almanac archives. May that podcast rest in peace (it was Karim’s favorite).

All poems are public domain or submitted by the author for use on the show.

Intro and outro music by Chillhop Records. They are amazing!

And remember, tell beauty you think so.