The Listening Post

The Listening Post

"Building English Skills Through Newspaper + Radio"

Produced by American Language Center in cooperation with The
Jakarta Post and Radio Sonora FM 100.9 Mhz.

* English poetry over the Internet: a happy occurrence indeed.
If your computer is armed with RealPlayer, you can also hear it
read out loud.

This is what I did, recording Easter 1916, the poem featured
on tonight's Listening Post broadcast (Radio Sonora 100.9FM at
8:15, rebroadcast next Tuesday at 9:15am). It comes from the
website of The Atlantic Monthly, featuring - in the current issue
- poems read by my old colleague Phil Levine, renowned poet and
literary personage, with whom I shared a little anti-
establishment fervor during the 1960s in Fresno.

Ah, Phil, for those days of talk, smoke, and antiwar
confrontation, right in the agribusiness heart of California.
He'll be surprised when I send him this column, but will he
remember: "Byron Black? Who the hell is Byron Black? The Zimbabwe
tennis player knows me?"

Here below is the poem which Phil, and two of his fellow
poets, read out loud.

* Easter 1916: I. I have met them at close of day / Coming
with vivid faces / From counter or desk among gray / Eighteenth-
century houses. / I have passed with a nod of the head / Or
polite meaningless words, / Or have lingered awhile and said /
Polite meaningless words, / And thought before I had done / Of a
mocking tale or a gibe / To please a companion / Around the fire
at the club, / Being certain that they and I / But lived where
motley is worn: / All changed, changed utterly: / A terrible
beauty is born.

II. That woman's days were spent / In ignorant good will, /
Her nights in argument / Until her voice grew shrill. / What
voice more sweet than hers / When young and beautiful, / She rode
to harriers? / This man had kept a school / And rode our winged
horse. / This other his helper and friend / Was coming into his
force; / He might have won fame in the end, / So sensitive his
nature seemed, / So daring and sweet his thought. / This other
man I had dreamed / A drunken, vain-glorious lout. / He had done
most bitter wrong / To some who are near my heart, / Yet I number
him in the song; / He, too, has resigned his part / In the casual
comedy; / He, too, has been changed in his turn, / Transformed
utterly: / A terrible beauty is born.

III. Hearts with one purpose alone / Through summer and
winter, seem / Enchanted to a stone / To trouble the living
stream. / The horse that comes from the road, / The rider, the
birds that range / From cloud to tumbling cloud, / Minute by
minute change. / A shadow of cloud on the stream / Changes minute
by minute; / A horse-hoof slides on the brim; / And a horse
plashes within it / Where long-legged moor-hens dive / And hens
to moor-cocks call. / Minute by minute they live: / The stone's
in the midst of all.

IV. Too long a sacrifice / Can make a stone of the heart. / O
when may it suffice? / That is heaven's part, our part / To
murmur name upon name, / As a mother names her child / When sleep
at last has come / On limbs that had run wild. / What is it but
nightfall? / No, no, not night but death. / Was it needless death
after all? / For England may keep faith / For all that is done
and said. / We know their dream; enough / To know they dreamed
and are dead. / And what if excess of love / Bewildered them till
they died? / I write it out in a verse - / MacDonagh and MacBride
/ And Connolly and Pearse / Now and in time to be, / Wherever
green is worn, / Are changed, changed utterly: / A terrible
beauty is born.

* Peter Davison and Richard Wilbur, two other distinguished
American poets, will also read this poem, to allow you to
appreciate slightly different styles and interpretations. We will
discuss the fine points of the poem on the show, so don't lose
heart if this poem looks too difficult to follow. If you want to
check out the literary offerings on Atlantic Soundings for
yourself, tune in to: http://www.theatlantic.com/atlantic/index-
js.htm.

-- Byron Black