Over the meadow bounds the skittish colt, And dashes in swift course the bord ring wave, Or scours the hollow of the lofty mount, And plashes through the stony stream unshod. Fierce shines his comely front, his waving mane Wantons in wind, his ears prick quavering up. From his round jetty head his ample eye Out standeth full; from his wide nostril darts The breath as if on flame; his curving neck Stands lofty up, such as full forward bears The bird, whose voice bids lions stand in awe, Whose watchful note calls up the loit'ring morn. Round-circling plump does swell his breast abroad, With courage fraught undaunted; high arise His even shoulders, ridging slender up. And now his back the saddle well becomes. Along his loins does double run the chine; Thick flanks truss up his belly tight and smooth; His buttocks in good liking spread themselves; He cocks his tail rough-frisling full of hair; The copious locks o’erflow his lusty neck, Down his right shoulder floating to and fro. Bold does he turn his nimble shank around Tied firm within a knee shaped round and long. Fierce he bears forward with his look aloft, And prances stately neighing all the way. His deep horn hollow hoof treads thund'ring down; Resembling so the stamping dance and noise Of brazen cymbals loud, wherewith her priests Did celebrate the rites of Cybele. George Farewell (fl. 1733) - "The Country Man" 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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