The Well Read Poem

Welcome to Season 2 of The Well Read Poem podcast. During this season, our host, classicist and poet Thomas Banks will be reading and interpreting six poems of history. This week's poem is “To Toussaint L’Ouverture” by William Wordsworth. Poem begins at timestamp 7:30.

To Toussaint L’Ouverture

by William Wordsworth

Toussaint, the most unhappy Man of Men!

Whether the whistling Rustic tend his plough

Within thy hearing, or thy head be now

Pillowed in some deep dungeon's earless den; -

O miserable Chieftain! where and when

Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do thou

Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow:

Though fallen Thyself, never to rise again,

Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behind

Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies;

There's not a breathing of the common wind

That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;

Thy friends are exultations, agonies,

And love, and Man's unconquerable mind.

Welcome to Season 2 of The Well Read Poem podcast. During this season, our host, classicist and poet Thomas Banks will be reading and interpreting six poems of history. This week's poem is "Harp Song of the Dane Women" by Rudyard Kipling. Poem begins at timestamp 5:34.

Harp Song of the Dane Women By Rudyard Kipling   What is a woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, To go with the old grey Widow-maker?   She has no house to lay a guest in— But one chill bed for all to rest in, That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.   She has no strong white arms to fold you, But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you— Out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.   Yet, when the signs of summer thicken, And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken, Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken—   Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters. You steal away to the lapping waters, And look at your ship in her winter-quarters.   You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables, The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables— To pitch her sides and go over her cables.   Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow, And the sound of your oar-blades, falling hollow, Is all we have left through the months to follow.   Ah, what is Woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, To go with the old grey Widow-maker ?

Welcome to Season 2 of The Well Read Poem podcast. During this season, our host, classicist and poet Thomas Banks will be reading and interpreting six poems of history. This week's poem is "The Wife of Flanders" by G. K. Chesterton. Poem begins at timestamp 3:58.

The Wife of Flanders

by G. K. Chesterton

Low and brown barns, thatched and repatched and tattered, Where I had seven sons until to-day, A little hill of hay your spur has scattered. . . . This is not Paris. You have lost your way.

You, staring at your sword to find it brittle, Surprised at the surprise that was your plan, Who, shaking and breaking barriers not a little, Find never more the death-door of Sedan —

Must I for more than carnage call you claimant, Paying you a penny for each son you slay? Man, the whole globe in gold were no repayment For what you have lost. And how shall I repay?

What is the price of that red spark that caught me From a kind farm that never had a name? What is the price of that dead man they brought me? For other dead men do not look the same.

How should I pay for one poor graven steeple Whereon you shattered what you shall not know? How should I pay you, miserable people? How should I pay you everything you owe?

Unhappy, can I give you back your honour? Though I forgave, would any man forget? While all the great green land has trampled on her The treason and terror of the night we met.

Not any more in vengeance or in pardon An old wife bargains for a bean that’s hers. You have no word to break: no heart to harden. Ride on and prosper. You have lost your spurs.

Welcome to Season 2 of The Well Read Poem podcast. During this season, our host, classicist and poet Thomas Banks will be reading and interpreting six poems of history. This week's poem is "Constantinople" by J. C. Squire. Poem begins at timestamp 4:29.

Constantinople by Sir John Collings Squire JUSTINIAN. Does the church stand I raised Against the unchristened East? Still do my ancient altars bear The sacrificial feast? My jewels are they bright, My marbles and my paint, Wherewith I glorified the Lord And many a martyred Saint? And does my dome still float Above the Golden Horn? And do my priests on Christmas Day Still sing that Christ was born? EUROPE. Though dust your house, Justinian, Still stands your lordliest shrine, But the dark men who walk therein, Know not of bread nor wine. They fell long since upon your stones, And made your colours dim, Their priests who pray on Christmas Day They sing no Christmas hymn. But a voice at evening goes From every climbing tower, Crying a word you never heard, A name of desert power. CONSTANTINE PALAEOLOGUS. For seven hundred years We gripped a weakening blade, Keeping the gateway of the West With none to give us aid. Till at the last they broke What Constantine had built, And by the shattered wall the blood Of Constantine was spilt. Do men remember still The manner of my death, How after all those failing years I at the last kept faith? They know it for a bygone thing True but indifferent, For many a fight has come to pass Since to the wall you went. Westward and northward, Emperor, Poured on that bloody brood, Till those must turn to save themselves Who had known not gratitude. One fought them on the Middle Sea, One at Vienna's gate, And then the kings of Christendom Watched the red tide abate. Till in the end Byzantium Heard a returning war; But still a Mehmet holds your tomb ... Keep silence ... ask no more.

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.

The World is Too Much with Us

by William Wordsworth

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

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 3:26.

Kubla Khan

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure-dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man    Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round; And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree; And here were forests ancient as the hills, Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.   But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced: Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail: And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, Then reached the caverns measureless to man, And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean; And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far Ancestral voices prophesying war!    The shadow of the dome of pleasure    Floated midway on the waves;    Where was heard the mingled measure    From the fountain and the caves. It was a miracle of rare device, A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!      A damsel with a dulcimer    In a vision once I saw:    It was an Abyssinian maid    And on her dulcimer she played,    Singing of Mount Abora.    Could I revive within me    Her symphony and song,    To such a deep delight ’twould win me, That with music loud and long, I would build that dome in air, That sunny dome! those caves of ice! And all who heard should see them there, And all should cry, Beware! Beware! His flashing eyes, his floating hair! Weave a circle round him thrice, And close your eyes with holy dread For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.

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 4:07.

Babylon 

by Robert Graves

The child alone a poet is: Spring and Fairyland are his. Truth and Reason show but dim, And all’s poetry with him.   Rhyme and music flow in plenty For the lad of one-and-twenty,   But Spring for him is no more now   Than daisies to a munching cow;   Just a cheery pleasant season,   Daisy buds to live at ease on. He’s forgotten how he smiled   And shrieked at snowdrops when a child, Or wept one evening secretly   For April’s glorious misery.   Wisdom made him old and wary Banishing the Lords of Faery.   Wisdom made a breach and battered   Babylon to bits: she scattered   To the hedges and ditches   All our nursery gnomes and witches. Lob and Puck, poor frantic elves,   Drag their treasures from the shelves.   Jack the Giant-killer’s gone,   Mother Goose and Oberon,   Bluebeard and King Solomon. Robin, and Red Riding Hood   Take together to the wood,   And Sir Galahad lies hid   In a cave with Captain Kidd.   None of all the magic hosts, None remain but a few ghosts   Of timorous heart, to linger on   Weeping for lost Babylon.

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 2:46.

If We Shadows Have Offended by William Shakespeare   If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.

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.

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.

The Listeners by Walter de la Mare

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller, Knocking on the moonlit door; And his horse in the silence champ’d the grasses     Of the forest’s ferny floor: And a bird flew up out of the turret,     Above the Traveller’s head: And he smote upon the door again a second time;     ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said. But no one descended to the Traveller;     No head from the leaf-fringed sill Lean’d over and look’d into his grey eyes,     Where he stood perplex’d and still. But only a host of phantom listeners     That dwelt in the lone house then Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight     To that voice from the world of men: Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,     That goes down to the empty hall, Hearkening in an air stirr’d and shaken     By the lonely Traveller’s call. And he felt in his heart their strangeness,     Their stillness answering his cry, While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,     ’Neath the starr’d and leafy sky; For he suddenly smote on the door, even     Louder, and lifted his head:— ’Tell them I came, and no one answer’d,     ’That I kept my word,’ he said. Never the least stir made the listeners,     Though every word he spake Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house     From the one man left awake: Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,     And the sound of iron on stone, And how the silence surged softly backward,     When the plunging hoofs were gone.