Program #1 Introduction

A nest of singing there. Three centuries of English verse with a doctorate from Jos.

It is occurred to me that you may be wondering why I decided to call this series of

programs a nest of singing birds. Here's my reason.

I'm plagiarizing a worthy Elizabethan writer who congratulates himself on the

glorious development of the art of poetry in 16th century England.

He said that there was so many poets in the island at that time that it might well be likened

to a nest of singing birds. I decided to go further than this Elizabeth can

and say there was so much good in melodious verse written in England between about fifteen hundred and

about eighteen hundred that we have every reason to say that for the whole of that

period the country was still a nest of singing birds.

What songs did they sing. We shan't be able to hear more than a very small percentage

of that total output. But I'm really in a very good position. I can hardly

go wrong if I have any difficulty it's not what to put in but what to leave out.

So I've decided to enjoy myself and listen to a verse which I want to hear

first which I love and admire. So I should be talking about what I enjoy.

Who's my favorite of these poets among the non-dramatic writers. Who could

it be but Milton hears his courageous sensitive

moving beginning to book 9 of Paradise Lost if

answerable styli can obtain of my celestial patroness.

Who during her nightly visitation and implored him dictates to me slumbering

for inspirers easy my unpremeditated verse

we shall return to that in one of the three programmes on Milton. He was old he was

blind. He should have been broken by misfortune and defeat by the

collapse of so many hopes. But with the humble faith of a

religious man and the humble confidence of a true artist he sat

himself down and wrote one of the great poems of the language.

I obviously mustn't spend all the time on my favorite. What other principles could guide me.

Well I like this one because I like it.

Say that I should say I love you.

Would you say it is butter saying that much by Elizabeth and

Nicholas Breton. A very delicate piece of work very skilled and intricate

in what the Elizabethans called figures of words that is patterns of

sound made by repeating the same vowels or consonants as well as actual

words. A well-known figure of words is of course rhyme. In

this case we have four stanzas each of four lines rhyming A B A

B for instance the first stanza goes. Say that I should

say I love thee. Would you say tis but a saying.

But if love in prayers move you will you not be moved with praying.

In each stanza we have some comparatively obvious repetition. Say that

I should say would you say I think I think

where you think right that I do right. Will

you write. And the main words or parts of them are repeated.

But as saying but thinking but writing in other words

something you say think write but don't do

the first stanza starts with these ideas all pulled together. No I say and

think and write it in the line will you lose your eyes with

winking winking means closing. Will you make yourself blind by

closing your eyes.

Say that I should say I love you. Would you say it is but a

saying. But if love in prayers move you.

Will you not be moved with praying. Think eyes

think that love should know you. Will you think it is better thinking.

I do love the thought DO show you where you lose your eyes

with a winking right that I do write you bless it.

Will you write tis but a writing. But if truth

and love confess it will you doubt the true indicting.

No I say and think and write it right

and think and say your pleasure. Love and Truth

and I indicted you our blessid out of measure

the rhythms of this poem developed so pleasantly only when we speak the meaning of the words.

Then an intricacy of verbal patterning becomes a delicate expression of what

is to me at least a delightful sentiment.

While we are on the theme of love What about this well-known one.

Come live with me and be my love and we will all the pleasures

prove that heroes and valleys Dales and fields and

all the Crag a mountain sea. There we will sit upon

the rocks and see the shepherds feed their flocks by shallow rivers to

whose falls melodious birds sing madrigals. And I

will make the beds of roses with a thousand fragrant

posies a cap of flowers and a kirtle embroidered

all with leaves of myrtle a gown made of the finest wool

which from our pretty lambs we call their line and slippers for the

cold with buckles of the purest gold. A belt of

straw and ivory backed with coral clasped an amber studs.

And if these pleasures made the move COME LIVE WITH ME AND BE MY LOVE.

This happened and seeing what I don't like each

May morning.

If there is the light may move and live with me

and be mine if only the world and love were

young and true in every Shepherdstown

these pretty pleasures might mean to live with thee and be thy

love. Time drives the flocks from field to food.

When Rivers range and rocks grow cold and M.L.

become a dung the rest complains of cares to come.

The flowers do fade and wanton fields to where world

winter reckoning a honey tongue a heart of

gold is fancy spring but sorrows

fall guy down shoes dyed

beds of roses that I kept by her to a land that I posses

so break soon wither soon forgotten in

folly right in reason rotten thy

belt of straw and Ivy buds clasps and Amber

studs is in me no means can move to

come to thee and be love.

You asked and labs still had joys no

date no age no need then these delights my mind might

have to live with and be the first of

those two of course was the passionate shepherd to his love by Christopher Marlowe.

The lady's Pokemon imps reply which was written by the world to rally the man who took

potatoes and tobacco back to England with him from the Americas. One of our later programs will let us hear

these again with another variation written by John Donne and perhaps I shall dare to include a

better version written by C. Day-Lewis in 1935 during the Depression in

England. There's an old chestnut to the effect that like the

Bible Shakespeare is too full of quotations. Another English poet who is found to be

full of quotations is Alexander Pope. Hope springs

eternal in the human breast and that of course comes from his Essay on

Man. Here is the entire passage.

Heaven from all creatures hides the Book of Fate all but

the page prescribed their present state from brutes what

men from men what spirits know or who could

suffer. Being here below. The Lamb via

riot dooms to bleed today had he lived I reasoned would he

skip and play. Pleased to the last he crops the

flowery food and licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.

Oh blindness to the future. Kindly given that

each may fill the circle marked by heaven. Who sees with

equal eye. I was God of all I hear a parish or a

sparrow fall atoms or systems into ruin heard

and now a bubble burst and now a word

hope humbly then with trembling pinions or

wait the great teacher. Death and God adore.

What future bliss he gives not the to know but gives

that hope to be thy blessing now.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast. Man

never is but always to be blessed.

The soul uneasy and confined at home rests and

expatiate in a life to come.

Some three quarters of a century earlier Abraham Cowley a contemporary of

Milton's had a different view of hope hope whose week

being ruined is alike if it succeeds and the fitness

guru good or ill does equally confound and both the horns of the AIDS dilemma

will they shadow which doesn't vanish quite both at full

noon and perfect night.

The stars have not a possibility of blessing the if thens them from the

end we happy cause it is how is the most hopeless thing of all.

Carly was a friend an admirer of William Harvey who discovered the circulation of the blood.

Here's a part of his poem on the death of Mr. William Harvey

large was his as largest so was submitted to

inform a body here. How is the place. Why shortly in

heaven to have. But lo and humble as his grave.

So how that all the virtues there did come as to their chiefest seat

conspicuous and great so low that for me

to need a room some of that poem anticipates in

tone and in vocabulary. One of the last stanzas of Gray's Elegy

large was his as largest so was submitted to

inform a body here. How is the place.

Why shortly in heaven to have large was found

and this is where the recompense was

largely set.

We should treat the energy fully later. Here are the first three stanzas.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day

the lowing herd winds slowly over the leaves. The

ploughman homeward plod and his weary way and leaves the

world to darkness and to me

now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight and all the

solemn stillness save where the beetle wheels his

droning flight and drowsy tingling love the

distant phone. Save that

from yonder Ivy mantled tower. The moping Now those to the moon

complain of such as wondering near her secret Bower

molest ancient solitary reign.

Now let's leave grey out there with the dead in the darkness into the churchyard

and turn to another eighteenth century poet who was in this case very much concerned with the living.

Edward Young isn't often known to be the author of a quotation which has become a household word.

Procrastination is the thief of time.

Here's the passage in which that line appears.

We wise today. Tis madness to defer next

today the fatal precedent will plea by song till

wisdom is pushed out of life. Procrastination is the thief of

time. Year after year it steals till all our flag and to the

mercies of a moment leave the vast concerns of an eternal seeing

if not so frequent Would not this be strange but

frequent stranger still of man's

miraculous mistakes this is the part that all men

are about to live for ever on the brink of being born.

All pay themselves the complement to think they one day shall not

drivel and their pride on this reversion takes up ready praise.

At least their own their future selves applauds

how excellent that life they now will leave time

largely in their own hands these follies veils that lodged in fates

to wisdom they can sign the thing they can't but purpose.

They postpone Tis not in folly not to scorn of food and

scarce in human wisdom to do more. The promise is

poor dilatory him out and that through every stage

when young indeed in full content we sometimes know rest

and anxious for ourselves and only wish as duty as sons our

fathers were more wise that a man suspects him self of

now is it at forty and reforms his plan at fifty

chides his infamous delay proces his prudent purpose to

resolve in all the magnanimity of thought resolves

and re resolves.

Then dies the Young wrote the famous night thoughts

which are often referred to as showing qualities which were to be typical of English romantic poetry. Although

he lived in what we call the August age as a satirist However

Young was a typical August listen to these three characters of women.

The Languid lady next appears in state who was not born to carry her own

weight. She loves real staggers till some

foreign aid to her own stature lifts the feeble maid. Then if a

danger so severe she by just stage journeys round the room.

But knowing her own weakness she despairs to scale the Alps that is

ascend the stairs.

My family let others say who laugh at toil fans who would love

scotch is hella comic style and that is spoke with such a dying

fall that Betty rather sees them hears the call. The motion of her lips

and meaning eye piece out the idea of faint words deny.

O listen with attention most profound Her voice is but the

shadow of a sound.

And help or help her spirits are so dead one hand scarce lifts the other to

her head. If they're a stubborn pin a triumph. She plans.

She sinks away and there's no more. Let the robust and the gigantic

car life is not worth so much. She'd rather starve.

But she must herself cruel fate that

Rosalind can't by proxy eat in the

eighteenth century heat was pronounced eight.

This last couplet had a perfect rhyme but

too she must herself cruel fate that

Rosalind can't by proxy. Eight.

That was the language lady. Next comes the manly

lady.

The less stress triumphs in a manly mean loud in her accent and her

phrase obscene in fair and open dealing Where's the shame. What nature

dares to give a name. This honest fellow is sincere and

plain and justly gives the jealous husband pain. Vain is the task the

petticoats assigned of wanton language shows a naked mind. A

man then to grace her eloquence supplies the Vacances of sense.

Och the shrill notes Franz pierce the Ealing air and teach the neighboring

echoes how to swear by Jove is faint and for the simple swaying she on

the Christian system is professing but there are the valley rattles in your ear

believe her dress she's not a granite ear if Gunders awful how

much more dread when drove a lady and a

lady. Pardon my mistake I'm pen a shameless woman is the worst

of men. Now the mountain made a

few too good breeding make a just pretense good breeding is the blossom

of good sense. The last result of accomplished mind

without would grace the body's virtue joined a

violated decency in our aims and nymphs for failings

take peculiar pains with Indian painters modern toasts agree

the point then that is deformity. They throw their persons with a hoyden

air across the room and toss into the chair. So far their calmness with

mankind is gone they for our manners have exchanged their own. The

modest look the castigated grace the gentle movement and

slow measured pace for which lovers died.

Her parents paid indecorum CSE with the modern made

stiff forms are bad but let not worse intrude nor conquer

art and nature to be rude.

After that how can I resist asking you to listen to something from Raipur belong

in this parody of a Homeric struggle. Pope didn't mock home but members of

18th century society who made as much fuss about a lock of hair as if it had been

Troy. Here is a proponent of good sense who tells Belinda The

lady who has lost the lock to the Baron not to lose her sense of proportion.

So why are beauties praised and honored most the wise man's

passion and the vain man's toast. Why object with all that land and

sea afford private angels called an angel like

adored while round our coaches crowd the white blood those

are vows the side box from its inmost rows how

vain are all these glories all our pains unless good sense

preserve what beauty gaze that men may say when we the front

box grace the home of the first in virtue as in

face. Oh if the dance all night and

dress all day charm the small parks or chased our old age away who

would not scorn what Housewives cares produce or who would learn one earthly

thing of use to passion a ogle might become a Saint.

Not sure be such a saint to paint but sense

alas frail beauty must decay uncurled since

locks will turn to grey since painted or not painted all

and she who scolds a man must die a maid.

What then remains but well our power to use and keep good humor still.

What ever we lose.

And trust me dear good humor can prevail.

When the flights and screams and scolding fail

beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll charms strikes the

sight but merit wins the soul.

And as human beings are acutely aware of their mortality and of the shortness of life

it is not surprising that the poets Express for us what we feel on these matters.

One of Shakespeare's most famous sonnets treats the fact that a man is renewed in

his child when forty winters show besieged a brothel and

dig deep trenches in night beauties field by youths proud

livery so gazed on now will be a tattered we have small worth

then being asked where all by beauty lies where all the

treasure of the last eight days to search within Dian own deep

sunken eyes where and in eating shame and thriftless

praise how much more our praise deserved that I will be able to

use it if the hour could star in this fair child of

mine shall some my count and make my old excuse.

Proving his beauty by a succession of dying.

This road to a green room made when our art

and see blood war went out of the state

code.

You know just because I like them. Here are three sonnets in the sequence Delia by

Samuel Daniel writer of plays and poems as well as of much verse of the time of

Shakespeare. I should content myself with saying nothing about them except

notice how the last line of one sonnet becomes the first line of the next.

But love wiles to be loved again.

Now whilst I may have filled my lap with flowers now

whilst I beauty bears without a stain now use the summer

smiles or winter flowers and whiles those spreads

down to the rising sun the fairest flower that ever saw the light. Now

joys I had time before was I sweet to be done. And

Delia think my morning must have night

and that my brightness sets at length to west window will close up

that which now Dow shows and think the same becomes that I fading

best which is then shall most innovative and Shadow most

men do not waver stalk for that it was when once they find

her flower her glory pass.

When men shall find I flower thy glory pass and thou

with careful brow sitting alone receive it has this message from bi

glass that tells the truth and says that all is gone.

Fresh shalt thou see in me the wounds of our midst

those spent by flame in me the heat remaining

I that have loved with us before thou fades my face shall

waxe when thou art in thy waning the world

shall find this miracle in me that fire can burn. When all

the maters spent then what my faith has been

by self shall see that I was done kind.

Now may strip and now may just repent that thou hast

scorned my tears. When winter snows upon by

sable hair. When winter

snows upon by sable hairs and frost of age has nipped my beauties

near when dark shall seem like a day that never clears

and all lies with that was held so dear.

Then take this picture which I here present the

limbed with a pencil. Not all unworthy

here see the gifts that God and nature lent to the

hearer read by self.

And what I suffered for the verse may remain the

lasting monument which happily posterity may cherish these

colors with fading are not spent.

These may remain when the hour and I shall perish

if they remain. Then thou shalt live there by

very will remain. And so canst not

die.

You have been listening to an introduction the first talk in a series of

26 programs on English verse from fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred.

The verse was spoken by Barry Bowie's printing in the wind. The

new discourse Elizabeth Shepherd

the Lesters triumphs in a man loud in her accent and

phrase obscene Jonathan Farr will say that I should say I

love you.

Would you say it is but I say Charlotte do it in

my mind to live with B and B.

Alan Scott and I will make three paintings of roses

with a thousand fragrant posies.

Duncan Ross blood war

fever state code. And welcome.

If they then found that we happy to help is the most hopeless

thing of all this is Bertram Joseph inviting you to be with

us again next week.

This programme was produced by Radio Broadcast Services of the University of Washington under a

grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

This is the national educational radio network.