Author: William Spear

By
William E. Spear

Volume 1, Issue 26

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Full Transcript –

A FORCE OF POETS, PODCAST EPISODE FOUR – Phillis Wheatley

ORIGINAL DATE: 27 June 2023

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The next poet offers praise to start and end the day and an ode for a safe crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.

Hear those and more on . . . The 3:57 by William E. Spear.

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Hello my name is William Spear and this is our series titled A FORCE OF POETS.

Our fourth poet is Phillis Wheatley.

She was born in Gambia, Africa in 1753 and captured by slave traders in 1761. Her first name was changed to that of the ship that brought her to America where she was sold to the Wheatley family of Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1784, she died of complications from childbirth.

But during her life she became the first African American and second woman after Anne Bradstreet to publish a book of poems.

Wheatley’s book, POEMS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL, published in 1773, included the following:
– A FUNERAL POEM ON THE DEATH OF C. E. AN INFANT OF TWELVE MONTHS
– TO HIS HONOUR THE LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR, ON THE DEATH OF HIS LADY. MARCH 24, 1773
– TO S. M. A YOUNG AFRICAN PAINTER, ON SEEING HIS WORKS

This episode focuses on AN HYMN TO THE MORNING, AN HYMN TO THE EVENING, and ODE TO NEPTUNE.

From A FORCE OF POETS . . . this is PHILLIS WHEATLEY.

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An Hymn to the Morning
Attend my lays, ye ever honour’d nine,
Assist my labours, and my strains refine;
In smoothest numbers pour the notes along,
For bright Aurora now demands my song.

Aurora hail, and all the thousand dies,
Which deck thy progress through the vaulted skies:
The morn awakes, and wide extends her rays,
On ev’ry leaf the gentle zephyr plays;

Harmonious lays the feather’d race resume,
Dart the bright eye, and shake the painted plume.
Ye shady groves, your verdant gloom display
To shield your poet from the burning day:

Calliope awake the sacred lyre,
While thy fair sisters fan the pleasing fire:
The bow’rs, the gales, the variegated skies
In all their pleasures in my bosom rise.

See in the east th’ illustrious king of day!
His rising radiance drives the shades away—
But Oh! I feel his fervid beams too strong,
And scarce begun, concludes th’ abortive song.

Wheatley’s next is . . .

An Hymn to the Evening
Soon as the sun forsook the eastern main
The pealing thunder shook the heav’nly plain;
Majestic grandeur! From the zephyr’s wing,
Exhales the incense of the blooming spring.

Soft purl the streams, the birds renew their notes,
And through the air their mingled music floats.
Through all the heav’ns what beauteous dies are spread!
But the west glories in the deepest red:

So may our breasts with ev’ry virtue glow,
The living temples of our God below!
Fill’d with the praise of him who gives the light,
And draws the sable curtains of the night,

Let placid slumbers sooth each weary mind,
At morn to wake more heav’nly, more refin’d;
So shall the labours of the day begin
More pure, more guarded from the snares of sin.

Night’s leaden sceptre seals my drowsy eyes,
Then cease, my song, till fair Aurora rise.

The third and final offering from Wheatley is . . .

Ode To Neptune
On Mrs. W———‘s Voyage to England.

I.
WHILE raging tempests shake the shore,
While AElus’ thunders round us roar,
And sweep impetuous o’er the plain
Be still, O tyrant of the main;
Nor let thy brow contracted frowns betray,
While my Susanna skims the wat’ry way.

II.
The Pow’r propitious hears the lay,
The blue-ey’d daughters of the sea
With sweeter cadence glide along,
And Thames responsive joins the song.
Pleas’d with their notes Sol sheds benign his ray,
And double radiance decks the face of day.

III.
To court thee to Britannia’s arms
Serene the climes and mild the sky,
Her region boasts unnumber’d charms,
Thy welcome smiles in ev’ry eye.
Thy promise, Neptune keep, record my pray’r,
Not give my wishes to the empty air.

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You’ve just listened to Phillis Wheatley the Fourth and Final Poet of A FORCE OF POETS.

Theme music is through the courtesy of QubeSounds at PixaBay.

The Three Fifty-seven is written and produced by William Spear.

Thank you for listening.

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By
William E. Spear

Volume 1, Issue 25

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Full Transcript –

A FORCE OF POETS, PODCAST EPISODE THREE – Christina G. Rossetti

ORIGINAL DATE: 20 June 2023

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The next poet wonders WHAT’S IN A NAME? and hints at telling her secret.

Hear both stories on The 3:57 by William E. Spear.

(Theme for A Force of Poets comes up)

Hello my name is William Spear and this is our series titled A FORCE OF POETS.

Our third poet is Christina G. Rossetti.

She was born in December of 1830 in London and died in 1894. Her writing includes the following:
– GOBLIN MARKET about hideous creatures selling fruits such as “grapes fresh from the vine, and pomegranates full and fine.”
– IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER which is her telling of the nativity story.
– And, REMEMBER when she tells her lover to “Remember me when I am gone away // Gone far away into the silent land // When you can no more hold me by the hand.”

This episode focuses on two other poems: WHAT’S IN A NAME? and WINTER: MY SECRET.

From A FORCE OF POETS . . . this is Christina G. Rossetti.

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What’s In A Name?

Why has Spring one syllable less
Than any its fellow season?
There may be some other reason,
And I’m merely making a guess;
But surely it hoards such wealth
Of happiness, hope and health,
Sunshine and musical sound,
It may spare a foot from its name
Yet all the same
Superabound.

Soft-named Summer,
Most welcome comer,
Brings almost everything
Over which we dream or sing
Or sigh;
But then Summer wends its way,
To-morrow,–to-day,–
Good-bye!
Autumn,–the slow name lingers,
While we likewise flag;
It silences many singers;
Its slow days drag,
Yet hasten at speed
To leave us in chilly need
For Winter to strip indeed.

In all-lack Winter,
Dull of sense and of sound,
We huddle and shiver
Beside our splinter
Of crackling pine,
Snow in sky and snow on ground.
Winter and cold
Can’t last for ever!
To-day, to-morrow, the sun will shine;
When we are old,
But some still are young,
Singing the song
Which others have sung,
Ringing the bells
Which others have rung,–
Even so!
We ourselves, who else?
We ourselves long
Long ago.

Rossetti’s next is . . .

Winter: My Secret

I tell my secret? No indeed, not I:
Perhaps some day, who knows?
But not to-day; it froze, and blows, and snows,
And you’re too curious: fie!
You want to hear it? well:
Only, my secret’s mine, and I won’t tell.

Or, after all, perhaps there’s none:
Suppose there is no secret after all,
But only just my fun.

To-day’s a nipping day, a biting day;

In which one wants a shawl,
A veil, a cloak, and other wraps:
I cannot ope to every one who taps,
And let the draughts come whistling through my hall;
Come bounding and surrounding me,
Come buffeting, astounding me,
Nipping and clipping through my wraps and all.

I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows
His nose to Russian snows
To be pecked at by every wind that blows?
You would not peck? I thank you for good-will,
Believe, but leave that truth untested still.

Spring’s an expansive time: yet I don’t trust
March with its peck of dust,
Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers,
Nor even May, whose flowers
One frost may wither through the sunless hours.

Perhaps some languid summer day,
When drowsy birds sing less and less,
And golden fruit is ripening to excess,
If there’s not too much sun nor too much cloud,
And the warm wind is neither still nor loud,
Perhaps my secret I may say,
Or you may guess.

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You’ve just listened to Christina G. Rossetti the Third Poet of A FORCE OF POETS.

Theme music is through the courtesy of QubeSounds at PixaBay.

The Three Fifty-seven is written and produced by William Spear.

Thank you for listening.

(Theme for A Force of Poets fades out)

By
William E. Spear

Volume 1, Issue 24

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Full Transcript –

A FORCE OF POETS, PODCAST EPISODE TWO – Emily Dickinson

ORIGINAL DATE: 13 June 2023

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The next poet wrote about the bigness of the brain, the mystery of dawn, and the power of a smile.

Find out who and the lines . . .

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. . . here on The 3:57 by William E. Spear.

Hello my name is William Spear and this is our series titled A FORCE OF POETS.

Our second poet is Emily Dickinson.

She was born in December of 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts U.S.A. and died in 1886. Her work was first published in 1890 and readers have experienced a collection of writing which includes lines such as the following:
– “The brain is wider than the sky.”
– Or, “Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.”
– And, “They might not need me; but they might. // I’ll let my head be just in sight; // a smile as small as mine might be // precisely their necessity.”

This episode focuses on two poems: SUMMER’S ARMIES and THE PURPLE CLOVER.

From A FORCE OF POETS . . . this is Emily Dickinson.

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Summer’s Armies

Some rainbow coming from the fair!
Some vision of the world Cashmere
I confidently see!
Or else a peacock’s purple train,
Feather by feather, on the plain
Fritters itself away!

The dreamy butterflies bestir,
Lethargic pools resume the whir
Of last year’s sundered tune.
From some old fortress on the sun
Baronial bees march, one by one,
In murmuring platoon!

The robins stand as thick to-day
As flakes of snow stood yesterday,
On fence and roof and twig.

The orchis binds her feather on
For her old lover, Don the Sun,
Revisiting the bog!

Without commander, countless, still,
The regiment of wood and hill
In bright detachment stand.
Behold! Whose multitudes are these?
The children of whose turbaned seas,
Or what Circassian land?

Dickinson’s next is . . .

The Purple Clover

There is a flower that bees prefer,
And butterflies desire;
To gain the purple democrat
The humming-birds aspire.

And whatsoever insect pass,
A honey bears away
Proportioned to his several dearth
And her capacity.

Her face is rounder than the moon,
And ruddier than the gown
Of orchis in the pasture,
Or rhododendron worn.

She doth not wait for June;
Before the world is green
Her sturdy little countenance
Against the wind is seen,

Contending with the grass,
Near kinsman to herself,
For privilege of sod and sun,
Sweet litigants for life.

And when the hills are full,
And newer fashions blow,
Doth not retract a single spice
For pang of jealousy.

Her public is the noon,
Her providence the sun,
Her progress by the bee proclaimed
In sovereign, swerveless tune.

The bravest of the host,
Surrendering the last,
Nor even of defeat aware
When cancelled by the frost.

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You’ve just listened to Emily Dickinson the Second Poet of A FORCE OF POETS.

Theme music is through the courtesy of QubeSounds at PixaBay.

The Three Fifty-seven is written and produced by William Spear.

Thank you for listening.

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A new series debuted this week on The 3:57 by William E. Spear – A FORCE OF POETS.

Episode 01 – Helen Hunt Jackson was released. In less than five minutes, the poems MAY, JUNE, and MORN were presented.

Episode 02 – Emily Dickinson is scheduled for Tuesday 13 June. The episode will include the poems SUMMER’S ARMIES and THE PURPLE CLOVER.

Enjoy all episodes right here on home of The 3:57 by William E. Spear.