A.E. Housman's "Smooth Between Sea and Land"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Arts, Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 12 April 2021

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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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. - bio via Wikipedia.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the Daily Poem. I'm Heidi White, and today is Monday, April 12th. I want to begin by
0:09.0	apologizing. Typically, my audio quality, I think is a little better than it is on today's recording.
0:14.5	I am recording on my iPhone from a hotel room. I'm in California at Half Moon Bay at a beautiful property. I'm here with my
0:24.2	husband for a corporate executive retreat for his company. And I have this hotel room that's
0:29.1	overlooking the sea. So I'm sitting here recording the daily poem as this gray, wild sea in the early
0:35.5	morning is crashing against the cliffs and the rocks and foaming with
0:39.8	this white kind of wild foam. It's really beautiful. I wish you could see it. And so of course I'm
0:45.1	going to read you a poem about the sea. And so today's poem is by A.E. Hausman. His full name is Alfred Edward Hausman. He always published under his initials A.E.
1:00.5	A houseman lived from 1859 to 1936. He was an English classical scholar, a poet, and a critic.
1:09.0	He's best known for his cycle of poems, a Shropshire lad. But today I'm going to read for you a poem from a collection that was published posthumously. And this poem is called smooth between sea and land. And this is how it goes. Smooth between sea and land is laid the yellow sand.
1:31.0	And here through summer days, the seed of Adam plays.
1:36.4	Here the child comes to found his unremaining mound and the grown lad to score two names upon the shore.
1:45.0	Here on the level sand between the sea and land,
1:50.0	what shall I build or write against the fall of night?
1:55.0	Tell me of ruins to grave that hold the bursting wave
2:00.0	or bastions to design for longer date than mine.
2:05.0	Shall it be Troy or Rome I fence against the foam or my own name to stay when I depart for I.
2:15.0	Nothing too near at hand, planing the figure sand, effacing clean and fast, cities not built to last, and charms devised in vain, pours the confounding main. I really like this poem.
2:36.5	I chose it.
2:38.3	I was reading several poems about the ocean this morning,
2:41.0	trying to pick one to read for the daily poem.
2:42.7	And I chose this one because I'm watching the sea here,
	...

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