Welcom to Season 16 of The Well Read Poem podcast! Since summer is upon us, we thought it right to present six poems written on one subject or another in some way inspired by the present season. These works are of a diversity of hands, times, and moods, and we hope that they will add something pleasant to your reading life as the days and nights grow warmer.

Today's poem is "Summer Sun" by Robert Louis Stevenson. Poem readings begin at timestamp 4:03 and 6:17.

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Summer Sun

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven without repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad,
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles,
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.

For this fifteenth season of the Well Read Poem, we are reading six poems in translation, written by a variety of ancient and modern poets. We hope that our discussion of these poems will be both interesting and instructive to anyone with an interest in literary translation as an art, and that it will serve to introduce you to a few poets whose acquaintance you have yet to make.

Today's poem is “Happy the Man, Who Like Ulysses” by Joachim du Bellay translated by Richard Wilbur. Poem begins at timestamps 6:11 (in French) and 7:19 (in English).

Heureux qui, comme Ulysse, a fait un beau voyage,
Ou comme cestuy-là qui conquit la toison,
Et puis est retourné, plein d’usage et raison,
Vivre entre ses parents le reste de son âge !

Quand reverrai-je, hélas, de mon petit village
Fumer la cheminée, et en quelle saison
Reverrai-je le clos de ma pauvre maison,
Qui m’est une province, et beaucoup davantage ?

Plus me plaît le séjour qu’ont bâti mes aïeux,
Que des palais Romains le front audacieux,
Plus que le marbre dur me plaît l’ardoise fine :

Plus mon Loir gaulois, que le Tibre latin,
Plus mon petit Liré, que le mont Palatin,
Et plus que l’air marin la doulceur angevine.

Happy the Man, Who, Like Ulysses

trans. Richard Wilbur

For this fifteenth season of the Well Read Poem, we are reading six poems in translation, written by a variety of ancient and modern poets. We hope that our discussion of these poems will be both interesting and instructive to anyone with an interest in literary translation as an art, and that it will serve to introduce you to a few poets whose acquaintance you have yet to make.

Today's poem is “Ask Not (Odes I.11)” by Horace, translated by John Conington. Poem begins at timestamps 8:40 (in Latin) and 9:28 (in English).

Odes I.11

by Horace, trans. by John Conington

Tu ne quaesieris (scire nefas) quem mihi, quem tibi
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios
temptaris numeros. Ut melius quicquid erit pati!
Seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare
Tyrrhenum, sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi
spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida
aetas: carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.

Ask Not

Ask not (’tis forbidden knowledge), what our destined term of years,
Mine and yours; nor scan the tables of your Babylonish seers.
Better far to bear the future; my Leuconoe, like the past,
Whether, Jove has many winters yet to give, or this our last;
This, that makes the Tyrrhene billows spend their strength against the shore.
Strain your wine and prove your wisdom; life is short; should hope be more?
In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb’d away.
Seize the present; trust to-morrow e’en as little as you may.