Ho! Why dost thou shiver and shake, Gaffer Gray? And why doth thy nose look so blue? “’Tis the weather that’s cold; ’Tis I’m grown very old, And my doublet is not very new, Well-a-day!' Then line thy worn doublet with ale, Gaffer Gray; And warm thy old heart with a glass. “Nay but credit I’ve none; And my money’s all gone; Then say how may that come to pass? Well-a-day!” Hie away to the house on the brow, Gaffer Gray; And knock at the jolly priest’s door. “The priest often preaches Against worldly riches; But ne’er gives a mite to the poor, Well-a-day!” The lawyer lives under the hill, Gaffer Gray: Warmly fenced both in back and in front. “He will fasten his locks, And will threaten the stocks, Should he ever more find me in want, Well-a-day!” The squire has fat beeves and brown ale, Gaffer Gray; And the season will welcome you there. “His fat beeves and his beer, And his merry new year, Are all for the flush and the fair, Well-a-day!” My keg is but low I confess, Gaffer Gray; What then? While it lasts, man, we’ll live. The poor man alone, When he hears the poor moan, Of his morsel a morsel will give, Well-a-day! Thomas Holcroft (1745-1809) - "Gaffer Gray" from The New Oxford Book of Eighteenth-Century Verse
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#222: Seamus Heaney – 10 Essential Poems – Human Voices Wake Us
An episode from 8/25/23: Tonight, I read ten essential poems from one of the great and most public poets of the last seventy years, Seamus Heaney (1939-2013). It isn’t hard to come by details of Heaney’s life, but Stepping Stones (where Heaney is interviewed at length in what amounts to an autobiography), is a good place to start. His poems are collected in 100 Poems, and in the individual collections.There are many ways to look at Heaney’s work, and the ten poems I choose only present one picture: a poet as at home on the farm as he was at Harvard; as interested in literary history as in archaeology and the deep interior of the Irish imagination; as concerned with childhood, memory, and family as with the darkest aspects of human life. In introducing these poems, I reflect on Heaney’s importance in my own life, and the huge impact his death had on me, ten years ago this month.The poems I read are: Personal Helicon (Death of a Naturalist, 1966)The Forge and Bogland (Door into the Dark, 1969)The Tollund Man (Wintering Out, 1972)The Strand at Lough Beg (Field Work, 1979)Squarings #2, #8, #40 (Seeing Things, 1991)from his translations of Beowulf (1999)Uncoupled (Human Chain, 2010) The episode ends with Heaney's reading of "The Tollund Man."The best way to support the podcast is by leaving a review on Apple or Spotify, sharing it with others, or sending me a note on what you think. You can also order any of my books: Time and the River: From Columbine to the Invention of Fire, Notes from the Grid, To the House of the Sun, The Lonely Young & the Lonely Old, and Bone Antler Stone. I've also edited a handful of books in the S4N Pocket Poems series. I also have a YouTube channel where I share poems and excerpts from these books, mostly as YouTube shorts. Email me at humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com.
- #222: Seamus Heaney – 10 Essential Poems
- #221: Volcanoes, Plagues & the Childhood of a Kabbalist
- #220: The working poor and a so-so murder show
- #219: When a paragraph changes your life
- #218: Poetry to Live By
- #217: Voices from 1900-1914
- #216: Poets, Prophets, Seeresses & Goddesses from Time & the River
- #215: 8 Favorite Poems from "Time and the River"
- #214: Two of the Best Poems You've Never Heard of (by William Cullen Bryant)
- #213: Van Gogh's Early Years
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