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. Poem begins at 3:28.

To the Old Gods

by Edwin Muir

Old gods and goddesses who have lived so long

Through time and never found eternity,

Fettered by wasting wood and hollowing hill,

You should have fled our ever-dying song,

The mound, the well, and the green trysting tree.

They have forgotten, yet you linger still,

Goddess of caverned breast and channeled brow,

And cheeks slow hollowed by millennial tears,

Forests of autumns fading in your eyes,

Eternity marvels at your counted years

And kingdoms lost in time, and wonders how

There could be thoughts so bountiful and wise

As yours beneath the ever-breaking bough,

And vast compassion curving like the skies.