by Thomas Banks
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.
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February 10, 2025
<p>Welcome back to Season 18 of the Well Read Poem. During this season, we are offering our listeners six poems about family life. The poems selected for this season are quite various in style and manner, and have been chosen for the light they shed on relationships between parents and children, between husbands and wives, brothers and sisters. We hope that these readings will, in their small way, add a measure of comfort and happiness to the lives of our audience during these winter months.</p> <p>Today's poem is "A Prayer for My Daughter" by William Butler Yeats. Poem reading begins at timestamp 5:25. To learn more about this podcast and host Thomas Banks, visit <a href= "https://www.theliterary.life/the-well-read-poem/">https://www.theliterary.life/the-well-read-poem/</a>.</p> <p><strong>A Prayer for My Daughter</strong></p> <p>by William Butler Yeats</p> <div> <div class="poem"> <div>Once more the storm is howling, and half hid </div> <div>Under this cradle-hood and coverlid </div> <div>My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle </div> <div>But Gregory's Wood and one bare hill </div> <div>Whereby the haystack and roof-levelling wind, </div> <div>Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; </div> <div>And for an hour I have walked and prayed </div> <div>Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.</div> <div> </div> <div>I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour,</div> <div>And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,</div> <div>And under the arches of the bridge, and scream</div> <div>In the elms above the flooded stream;</div> <div>Imagining in excited reverie</div> <div>That the future years had come </div> <div>Dancing to a frenzied drum </div> <div>Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.</div> <div> </div> <div>May she be granted beauty, and yet not </div> <div>Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught, </div> <div>Or hers before a looking-glass; for such, </div> <div>Being made beautiful overmuch, </div> <div>Consider beauty a sufficient end, </div> <div>Lose natural kindness, and maybe </div> <div>The heart-revealing intimacy </div> <div>That chooses right, and never find a friend.</div> <div> </div> <div>Helen, being chosen, found life flat and dull, </div> <div>And later had much trouble from a fool; </div> <div>While that great Queen that rose out of the spray, </div> <div>Being fatherless, could have her way, </div> <div>Yet chose a bandy-leggèd smith for man. </div> <div>It's certain that fine women eat </div> <div>A crazy salad with their meat </div> <div>Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone.</div> <div> </div> <div>In courtesy I'd have her chiefly learned; </div> <div>Hearts are not had as a gift, but hearts are earned </div> <div>By those that are not entirely beautiful. </div> <div>Yet many, that have played the fool</div> <div>For beauty's very self, has charm made wise; </div> <div>And many a poor man that has roved, </div> <div>Loved and thought himself beloved, </div> <div>From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes.</div> <div> </div> <div>May she become a flourishing hidden tree, </div> <div>That all her thoughts may like the linnet be, </div> <div>And have no business but dispensing round </div> <div>Their magnanimities of sound; </div> <div>Nor but in merriment begin a chase, </div> <div>Nor but in merriment a quarrel. </div> <div>Oh, may she live like some green laurel </div> <div>Rooted in one dear perpetual place.</div> <div> </div> <div>My mind, because the minds that I have loved, </div> <div>The sort of beauty that I have approved, </div> <div>Prosper but little, has dried up of late, </div> <div>Yet knows that to be choked with hate </div> <div>May well be of all evil chances chief. </div> <div>If there's no hatred in a mind </div> <div>Assault and battery of the wind </div> <div>Can never tear the linnet from the leaf.</div> <div> </div> <div>An intellectual hatred is the worst, </div> <div>So let her think opinions are accursed. </div> <div>Have I not seen the loveliest woman born</div> <div>Out of the mouth of Plenty's horn, </div> <div>Because of her opinionated mind </div> <div>Barter that horn and every good </div> <div>By quiet natures understood </div> <div>For an old bellows full of angry wind?</div> <div> </div> <div>Considering that, all hatred driven hence, </div> <div>The soul recovers radical innocence </div> <div>And learns at last that it is self-delighting,</div> <div>Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, </div> <div>And that its own sweet will is heaven's will, </div> <div>She can, though every face should scowl </div> <div>And every windy quarter howl </div> <div>Or every bellows burst, be happy still.</div> <div> </div> <div>And may her bridegroom bring her to a house </div> <div>Where all's accustomed, ceremonious; </div> <div>For arrogance and hatred are the wares </div> <div>Peddled in the thoroughfares. </div> <div>How but in custom and in ceremony </div> <div>Are innocence and beauty born? </div> <div>Ceremony's a name for the rich horn, </div> <div>And custom for the spreading laurel tree.</div> </div> </div>
February 3, 2025
<p>Welcome back to Season 18 of the Well Read Poem. During this season, we are offering our listeners six poems about family life. The poems selected for this season are quite various in style and manner, and have been chosen for the light they shed on relationships between parents and children, between husbands and wives, brothers and sisters. We hope that these readings will, in their small way, add a measure of comfort and happiness to the lives of our audience during these winter months.</p> <p>Today's poem is "To My Brothers" by John Keats. Poem reading begins at timestamp 7:36.</p> <p><strong>To My Brothers</strong></p> <p>by John Keats</p> <div> <div class="poem"> <p>Small, busy flames play through the fresh laid coals,<br /> And their faint cracklings o'er our silence creep<br /> Like whispers of the household gods that keep<br /> A gentle empire o'er fraternal souls.<br /> And while, for rhymes, I search around the poles,<br /> Your eyes are fix d, as in poetic sleep,<br /> Upon the lore so voluble and deep,<br /> That aye at fall of night our care condoles.<br /> This is your birth-day Tom, and I rejoice<br /> That thus it passes smoothly, quietly.<br /> Many such eves of gently whisp'ring noise<br /> May we together pass, and calmly try<br /> What are this world s true joys, ere the great voice,<br /> From its fair face, shall bid our spirits fly.</p> </div> </div>
January 27, 2025
<p>Welcome back to Season 18 of the Well Read Poem. During this season, we are offering our listeners six poems about family life. The poems selected for this season are quite various in style and manner, and have been chosen for the light they shed on relationships between parents and children, between husbands and wives, brothers and sisters. We hope that these readings will, in their small way, add a measure of comfort and happiness to the lives of our audience during these winter months.</p> <p>Today's poem is "Satire 6, Book 1" by Horace translated by John Conington. Poem reading begins at timestamp 5:13.</p> <p><strong>Satire 6, from Book 1 </strong></p> <p>Non quia, Mæcenas.</p> <p>by Horace, trans. John Conington</p> <div> <div class="poem"> <p>THAT if, Mæcenas, none, though ne'er so blue<br /> His Tusco-Lydian blood, surpasses you?<br /> What if your grandfathers, on either hand,<br /> Father's and mother's, were in high command?<br /> Not therefore do you curl the lip of scorn<br /> At nobodies, like me, of freedman born:<br /> Far other rule is yours, of rank or birth<br /> To raise no question, so there be but worth,<br /> Convinced, and truly too, that wights unknown,<br /> Ere Servius' rise set freedmen on the throne,<br /> Despite their ancestors, not seldom came<br /> To high employment, honours, and fair fame,<br /> While great Lævinus, scion of the race<br /> That pulled down Tarquin from his pride of place,<br /> Has ne'er been valued at a poor half-crown<br /> E'en in the eyes of that wise judge, the town,<br /> That muddy source of dignity, which sees<br /> No virtue but in busts and lineal trees.<br /> <span class="mw-poem-indented">Well, but for us; what thoughts should ours be, say,</span><br /> Removed from vulgar judgments miles away?<br /> Grant that Lævinus yet would be preferred<br /> To low-born Decius by the common herd,</p> </div> <span id="27" class="pagenum ws-pagenum" title= "Page:Satires,_Epistles,_Art_of_Poetry_of_Horace_-_Coningsby_(1874).djvu/57" data-page-number="27" data-page-name= "Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/57" data-page-index="57" data-page-quality="3"><span id="pageindex_57" class="pagenum-inner ws-noexport"></span></span> <div class="poem"> <p>That censor Appius, just because I came<br /> From freedman's loins, would obelize my name—<br /> And serve me right; for 'twas my restless pride<br /> Kept me from sleeping in my own poor hide.<br /> But Glory, like a conqueror, drags behind<br /> Her glittering car the souls of all mankind;<br /> Nor less the lowly than the noble feels<br /> The onward roll of those victorious wheels.<br /> Come, tell me, Tillius, have you cause to thank<br /> The stars that gave you power, restored you rank?<br /> Ill-will, scarce audible in low estate,<br /> Gives tongue, and opens loudly, now you're great.<br /> Poor fools! they take the stripe, draw on the shoe,<br /> And hear folks asking, "Who's that fellow? who?"<br /> Just as a man with Barrus's disease,<br /> His one sole care a lady's eye to please,<br /> Whene'er he walks abroad, sets on the fair<br /> To con him over, leg, face, teeth, and hair;<br /> So he that undertakes to hold in charge<br /> Town, country, temples, all the realm at large,<br /> Gives all the world a title to enquire<br /> The antecedents of his dam or sire.<br /> "What? you to twist men's necks or scourge them, you,<br /> The son of Syrus, Dama, none knows who?"<br /> "Aye, but I sit before my colleague; he<br /> Ranks with my worthy father, not with me."<br /> And think you, on the strength of this, to rise<br /> A Paullus or Messala in our eyes?</p> </div> <span id="28" class="pagenum ws-pagenum" title= "Page:Satires,_Epistles,_Art_of_Poetry_of_Horace_-_Coningsby_(1874).djvu/58" data-page-number="28" data-page-name= "Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/58" data-page-index="58" data-page-quality="3"><span id="pageindex_58" class="pagenum-inner ws-noexport"></span></span> <div class="poem"> <p>Talk of your colleague! he's a man of parts:<br /> Suppose three funerals jostle with ten carts<br /> All in the forum, still you'll hear his voice<br /> Through horn and clarion: that commends our choice.<br /> Now on myself, the freedman's son, I touch,<br /> The freedman's son, by all contemned as such,<br /> Once, when a legion followed my command,<br /> Now, when Maecenas takes me by the hand.<br /> But this and that are different: some stern judge<br /> My military rank with cause might grudge,<br /> But not your friendship, studious as you've been<br /> To choose good men, not pushing, base, or mean.<br /> In truth, to luck I care not to pretend,<br /> For 'twas not luck that mark'd me for your friend:<br /> Virgil at first, that faithful heart and true,<br /> And Varius after, named my name to you.<br /> Brought to your presence, stammeringly I told<br /> (For modesty forbade me to be bold)<br /> No vaunting tale of ancestry of pride,<br /> Of good broad acres and sleek nags to ride,<br /> But simple truth: a few brief words you say,<br /> As is your wont, and wish me a good day.<br /> Then, nine months after, graciously you send,<br /> Desire my company, and hail me friend.<br /> O, 'tis no common fortune, when one earns<br /> A friend's regard, who man from man discerns,<br /> Not by mere accident of lofty birth<br /> But by unsullied life, and inborn worth!</p> </div> <span id="29" class="pagenum ws-pagenum" title= "Page:Satires,_Epistles,_Art_of_Poetry_of_Horace_-_Coningsby_(1874).djvu/59" data-page-number="29" data-page-name= "Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/59" data-page-index="59" data-page-quality="3"><span id="pageindex_59" class="pagenum-inner ws-noexport"></span></span> <div class="poem"> <p><span class="mw-poem-indented">Yet, if my nature, otherwise correct,</span><br /> But with some few and trifling faults is flecked,<br /> Just as a spot or mole might be to blame<br /> Upon some body else of comely frame,<br /> If none can call me miserly and mean<br /> Or tax my life with practices unclean,<br /> If I have lived unstained and unreproved<br /> (Forgive self-praise), if loving and beloved,<br /> I owe it to my father, who, though poor,<br /> Passed by the village school at his own door,<br /> The school where great tall urchins in a row,<br /> Sons of great tall centurions, used to go,<br /> With slate and satchel on their backs, to pay<br /> Their monthly quota punctual to the day,<br /> And took his boy to Rome, to learn the arts<br /> Which knight or senator to HIS imparts.<br /> Whoe'er had seen me, neat and more than neat,<br /> With slaves behind me, in the crowded street,<br /> Had surely thought a fortune fair and large,<br /> Two generations old, sustained the charge.<br /> Himself the true tried guardian of his son,<br /> Whene'er I went to class, he still made one.<br /> Why lengthen out the tale? he kept me chaste,<br /> Which is the crown of virtue, undisgraced<br /> In deed and name: he feared not lest one day<br /> The world should talk of money thrown away,<br /> If after all I plied some trade for hire,<br /> Like him, a tax-collector, or a crier:<br /> Nor had I murmured: as it is, the score<br /> Of gratitude and praise is all the more.</p> </div> <span id="30" class="pagenum ws-pagenum" title= "Page:Satires,_Epistles,_Art_of_Poetry_of_Horace_-_Coningsby_(1874).djvu/60" data-page-number="30" data-page-name= "Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/60" data-page-index="60" data-page-quality="3"><span id="pageindex_60" class="pagenum-inner ws-noexport"></span></span> <div class="poem"> <p>No: while my head's unturned, I ne'er shall need<br /> To blush for that dear father, or to plead<br /> As men oft plead, 'tis Nature's fault, not mine,<br /> I came not of a better, worthier line.<br /> Not thus I speak, not thus I feel: the plea<br /> Might serve another, but 'twere base in me.<br /> Should Fate this moment bid me to go back<br /> O'er all my length of years, my life retrack<br /> To its first hour, and pick out such descent<br /> As man might wish for e'en to pride's content,<br /> I should rest satisfied with mine, nor choose<br /> New parents, decked with senatorial shoes,<br /> Mad, most would think me, sane, as you'll allow,<br /> To waive a load ne'er thrust on me till now.<br /> More gear 'twould make me get without delay,<br /> More bows there'd be to make, more calls to pay,<br /> A friend or two must still be at my side,<br /> That all alone I might not drive or ride,<br /> More nags would want their corn, more grooms their meat,<br /> And waggons must be bought, to save their feet.<br /> Now on my bobtailed mule I jog at ease,<br /> As far as e'en Tarentum, if I please,<br /> A wallet for my things behind me tied,<br /> Which galls his crupper, as I gall his side,<br /> And no one rates my meanness, as they rate<br /> Yours, noble Tillius, when you ride in state<br /> On the Tiburtine road, five slaves en suite,<br /> Wineholder and et-ceteras all complete.<br /> <span class="mw-poem-indented">'Tis thus my life is happier, man of pride,</span></p> </div> <span id="31" class="pagenum ws-pagenum" title= "Page:Satires,_Epistles,_Art_of_Poetry_of_Horace_-_Coningsby_(1874).djvu/61" data-page-number="31" data-page-name= "Page:Satires, Epistles, Art of Poetry of Horace - Coningsby (1874).djvu/61" data-page-index="61" data-page-quality="3"><span id="pageindex_61" class="pagenum-inner ws-noexport"></span></span> <div class="poem"> <p>Than yours and that of half the world beside.<br /> When the whim leads, I saunter forth alone,<br /> Ask how are herbs, and what is flour a stone,<br /> Lounge through the Circus with its crowd of liars,<br /> Or in the Forum, when the sun retires,<br /> Talk to a soothsayer, then go home to seek<br /> My frugal meal of fritter, vetch, and leek:<br /> Three youngsters serve the food: a slab of white<br /> Contains two cups, one ladle, clean and bright:<br /> Next, a cheap basin ranges on the shelf,<br /> With jug and saucer of Campanian delf:<br /> Then off to bed, where I can close my eyes<br /> Not thinking how with morning I must rise<br /> And face grim Marsyas, who is known to swear<br /> Young Novius' looks are what he cannot bear.<br /> I lie a-bed till ten: then stroll a bit,<br /> Or read or write, if in a silent fit,<br /> And rub myself with oil, not taken whence<br /> Natta takes his, at some poor lamp's expense.<br /> So to the field and ball; but when the sun<br /> Bids me go bathe, the field and ball I shun:<br /> Then eat a temperate luncheon, just to stay<br /> A sinking stomach till the close of day,<br /> Kill time in-doors, and so forth. Here you see<br /> A careless life, from stir and striving free,<br /> Happier (O be that flattering unction mine!)<br /> Than if three quæstors figured in my line.</p> </div> </div>
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