Prosodia

Deep in the Quiet Wood by James Weldon Johnson

Are you bowed down in heart?

Do you but hear the clashing discords and the din of life?

Then come away, come to the peaceful wood,

Here bathe your soul in silence. Listen! Now,

From out the palpitating solitude

Do you not catch, yet faint, elusive strains?

They are above, around, within you, everywhere.

Silently listen! Clear, and still more clear, they come.

They bubble up in rippling notes, and swell in singing tones.

Now let your soul run the whole gamut of the wondrous scale

Until, responsive to the tonic chord,

It touches the diapason of God’s grand cathedral organ,

Filling earth for you with heavenly peace

And holy harmonies.

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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.

If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

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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!

Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat by Thomas Gray

Twas on a lofty vase’s side,

Where China’s gayest art had dyed

The azure flowers that blow;

Demurest of the tabby kind,

The pensive Selima, reclined,

Gazed on the lake below.

Her conscious tail her joy declared;

The fair round face, the snowy beard,

The velvet of her paws,

Her coat, that with the tortoise vies,

Her ears of jet, and emerald eyes,

She saw; and purred applause.

Still had she gazed; but ‘midst the tide

Two angel forms were seen to glide,

The genii of the stream:

Their scaly armor’s Tyrian hue

Through richest purple to the view

Betrayed a golden gleam.

The hapless nymph with wonder saw:

A whisker first and then a claw,

With many an ardent wish,

She stretched in vain to reach the prize.

What female heart can gold despise?

What cat’s averse to fish?

Presumptuous maid! with looks intent

Again she stretched, again she bent,

Nor knew the gulf between.

(Malignant Fate sat by and smiled)

The slippery verge her feet beguiled,

She tumbled headlong in.

Eight times emerging from the flood

She mewed to every watery god,

Some speedy aid to send.

No dolphin came, no Nereid stirred;

Nor cruel Tom, nor Susan heard;

A favorite has no friend!

From hence, ye beauties, undeceived,

Know, one false step is ne’er retrieved,

And be with caution bold.

Not all that tempts your wandering eyes

And heedless hearts, is lawful prize;

Nor all that glisters, gold.

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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!

The Soul Selects Her Own Society by Emily Dickinson

The Soul selects her own Society —

Then — shuts the Door —

To her divine Majority —

Present no more —

Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —

At her low Gate —

Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling

Upon her Mat —

I’ve known her — from an ample nation —

Choose One —

Then — close the Valves of her attention —

Like Stone —

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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!

Old Houses by Lizette Woodworth Reese

Old loveliness, set in the country wind,

Or down some vain town road the careless tread,

Like hush of candles lighted for the dead,

That look of yours, half seeing and half blind.

Still do you strain at door, but we come not,

The little maids, the lads, bone of your bone;

In some sad wise, you keep the dusk alone,

Old loveliness, a many a day forgot.

But no; behind each weather do you pass,

The garnered poignancies of all the springs:

At some girl’s belt in Lent the jonquils start;—

But, oh, their like in your old windy grass!

Then are we quick with tears, rememberings;

Once more, once more, are gathered to your heart!

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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!

Where They Lived by Thomas Hardy

Dishevelled leaves creep down

Upon that bank to-day,

Some green, some yellow, and some pale brown;

The wet bents bob and sway;

The once warm slippery turf is sodden

Where we laughingly sat or lay.

The summerhouse is gone,

Leaving a weedy space;

The bushes that veiled it once have grown

Gaunt trees that interlace,

Through whose lank limbs I see too clearly

The nakedness of the place.

And where were hills of blue,

Blind drifts of vapour blow,

And the names of former dwellers few,

If any, people know,

And instead of a voice that called, “Come in, Dears,”

Time calls, “Pass below!”

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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!

Paris by Willa Cather

Behind the arch of glory sets the day;

The river lies in curves of silver light,

The Fields Elysian glitter in a spray

Of golden dust; the gilded dome is bright,

The towers of Notre Dame cut clean and gray

The evening sky, and pale from left to right

A hundred bridges leap from either quay.

Pillared with pride, the city of delight

Sits like an empress by her silver Seine,

Heavy with jewels, all her splendid dower

Flashing upon her, won from shore and main

By shock of combat, sacked from town and tower.

Wherever men have builded hall or fane

Red war hath gleaned for her and men have slain

To deck her loveliness. I feel again

That joy which brings her art to faultless flower,

That passion of her kings, who, reign on reign,

Arrayed her star by star with pride and power.

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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!

Swallows by Leonora Speyer

They dip their wings in the sunset,

They dash against the air

As if to break themselves upon its stillness:

In every movement, too swift to count,

Is a revelry of indecision,

A furtive delight in trees they do not desire

And in grasses that shall not know their weight.

They hover and lean toward the meadow

With little edged cries;

And then,

As if frightened at the earth’s nearness,

They seek the high austerity of evening sky

And swirl into its depth.

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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!

Reflections Irregular by John Rollin Ridge

I cast a backward look—how changed

The scenes of other days!

I walk, a wearied man, estranged

From youth’s delightful ways.

There in the distance rolleth yet

That stream whose waves my

Boyish bosom oft has met,

When pleasure lit mine eye.

It rolleth yet, as clear, as bold,

As pure as it did then;

But I have grown in youth-time old,

And, mixing now with men,

My sobered eye must not attend

To that sweet stream, my early friend!

The music of its waters clear

Must now but seldom reach my ear,

But murmur still now carelessly

To every heedless passer-by.

How often o’er its rugged cliffs I’ve strayed,

And gaily listened, as its billows played

Such deep, low music at their base—

And then such brightening thoughts would trace

Upon the tablet of my mind!

Alas, those days have run their race,

Their joys I nowhere now can find.

I have no time to think

Of climbing Glory’s sunny mount

I have no time to drink

At Learning’s bubbling fount!

Now corn and potatoes call me

From scenes were wont to enthrall me—

A weary wight,

Both day and night

My brain is full of business matters,

Reality has snatched the light,

From fancy’s head, that shone so bright,

And tore the dreams she wove, to tatters!

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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!

Evening by Hilda Dolittle

The light passes

from ridge to ridge,

from flower to flower—

the hepaticas, wide-spread

under the light

grow faint—

the petals reach inward,

the blue tips bend

toward the bluer heart

and the flowers are lost.

The cornel-buds are still white,

but shadows dart

from the cornel-roots—

black creeps from root to root,

each leaf

cuts another leaf on the grass,

shadow seeks shadow,

then both leaf

and leaf-shadow are lost.

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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!