Did you know President Lincoln wrote poetry? Support the show by buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/scottscharl. --- "My Childhood's Home I See Again" by Abraham Lincoln My childhood's home I see again,    And sadden with the view; And still, as memory crowds my brain,    There's pleasure in it too. O Memory! thou midway world    'Twixt earth and paradise, Where things decayed and loved ones lost    In dreamy shadows rise, And, freed from all that's earthly vile,    Seem hallowed, pure, and bright, Like scenes in some enchanted isle    All bathed in liquid light. As dusky mountains please the eye    When twilight chases day; As bugle-notes that, passing by,    In distance die away; As leaving some grand waterfall,    We, lingering, list its roar— So memory will hallow all    We've known, but know no more. Near twenty years have passed away    Since here I bid farewell To woods and fields, and scenes of play,    And playmates loved so well. Where many were, but few remain    Of old familiar things; But seeing them, to mind again    The lost and absent brings. The friends I left that parting day,    How changed, as time has sped! Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray,    And half of all are dead. I hear the loved survivors tell    How nought from death could save, Till every sound appears a knell,    And every spot a grave. I range the fields with pensive tread,    And pace the hollow rooms, And feel (companion of the dead)    I'm living in the tombs.

Scott Reads Poetry

"My Childhood's Home I See Again" by Abraham Lincoln

Text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56824/tell-all-the-truth-but-tell-it-slant-1263 If you’re enjoying my readings, buy me a coffee! Thanks for listening.

"Tell all the truth but tell it slant" by Emily Dickinson

Text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44395/gods-grandeur

"God's Grandeur" by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43827/the-destruction-of-sennacherib

"The Destruction of Sennacherib" by Lord Byron

Full Text: https://englishverse.com/poems/leisure Thanks to Parker Fox for this recommendation! If you have a poem (in the public domain) that you'd like to hear, reach out to @scott_scharl or hello@scottscharl.com.

"Leisure" by William Henry Davies

Editor William Harmon calls this the best villanelle of the twentieth century, and among the best poems of any type for that time. https://poets.org/poem/do-not-go-gentle-good-night

"Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas

Yeats  was inspired to write this poem about living a simple life on a lake near a place where he spent summers as a child in County Sligo, Ireland. He was influenced by Henry David Thoreau's Walden. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43281/the-lake-isle-of-innisfree

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by William Butler Yeats

A short poem about hate and indifference. Which is worse? https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44263/fire-and-ice

"Fire and Ice" by Robert Frost

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45234/the-emperor-of-ice-cream

"The Emperor of Ice-Cream" by Wallace Stevens

A humorous poem about poetry and drinking. Housman is a master of the couplet, and the meter really makes this poem a rewarding read. https://www.bartleby.com/123/62.html

"Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff" by A. E. Housman

This poem is also a riddle! See if you can figure out what is being described... --- A narrow Fellow in the Grass Occasionally rides - You may have met him? Did you not His notice instant is - The Grass divides as with a Comb, A spotted Shaft is seen, And then it closes at your Feet And opens further on - He likes a Boggy Acre - A Floor too cool for Corn - But when a Boy and Barefoot I more than once at Noon Have passed I thought a Whip Lash Unbraiding in the Sun When stooping to secure it It wrinkled And was gone - Several of Nature’s People I know, and they know me I feel for them a transport Of Cordiality But never met this Fellow Attended or alone Without a tighter Breathing And Zero at the Bone.

"A narrow Fellow in the Grass" by Emily Dickinson

The poet laments the futility and emptiness of life. The World Is Too Much With Us by William Wordsworth The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. n/a

"The World Is Too Much With Us" by William Wordsworth

This poem is one of my favorites. The Greek hero of the Iliad and the Odyssey gives an account of his life and purpose before he sets sail on his final journey. The final section ofthe poem is actually quoted by Judy Dench's character "M" in the Bond film Skyfall. She, of course does a better reading than I. Enjoy!

"Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

My reading of this humorous poem about a husband who is forced to choose between his wife and his tobacco. 

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Scott Reads Poetry

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