A.E. Housman's "A Lent Lilly"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 31 March 2021

⏱️ 6 minutes

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Summary

Alfred Edward Housman (/ˈhaʊsmən/; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936), usually known as A. E. Housman, was an English classical scholar and poet. His cycle of poems, A Shropshire Lad wistfully evoke the dooms and disappointments of youth in the English countryside.[1] Their simplicity and distinctive imagery appealed strongly to Edwardian taste, and to many early 20th-century English composers both before and after the First World War. Through their song-settings, the poems became closely associated with that era, and with Shropshire itself.

Housman was one of the foremost classicists of his age and has been ranked as one of the greatest scholars who ever lived.[2][3] He established his reputation publishing as a private scholar and, on the strength and quality of his work, was appointed Professor of Latin at University College London and then at the University of Cambridge. His editions of Juvenal, Manilius and Lucan are still considered authoritative. - Bio via Wikipedia

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to the Daily Poem. I'm David Kern, and today is Wednesday, March 31st, 2021.
0:07.2	Today's poem is by Alfred Edward Hausman, also known as A.E. Hausman, who lived from March 26, 1859, until April 30th of 1936.
0:19.9	You've heard from him a couple times here on the podcast.
0:22.7	His cycle of poems called A Shropshire Lad, which is what he is most known for, but he was also a scholar of the classics.
0:30.3	And he taught at University College in London and then also at Cambridge.
0:33.8	So he knew his stuff, shall we say.
0:37.1	And the poem that I'm going to read today is called A Lent Lily.
0:42.9	It goes like this.
0:47.9	To spring come out to ramble the hill he breaks around.
0:52.2	For underthorn and bramble about the hollow ground, the primroses are found.
0:58.4	And there's the windflower chilly, with all the winds at play.
1:02.6	And there is the lent and lily that has not long to stay and dies on Easter Day.
1:09.2	And since till girls go maying, you find the primrose still, and find the windflower
1:14.5	playing with every wind at will.
1:17.2	But not the daffodil.
1:19.3	Bring baskets now, and sally upon the springs array, and bear from hill and valley the daffodilla way that dies on Easter Day.
1:34.6	So as Hausman says here in this poem,
1:38.6	the daffodil is another name for the lent lily.
1:41.3	The lentin lily is what the daffodil is.
1:44.8	And if you're, you know, you might be living in a place where there's not still snow on the ground.
1:49.3	And so these daffodils are blooming right now.
1:53.2	Hopefully you have some around.
	...

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