Bert Leston Taylor's "Canopus"

The Daily Poem

Goldberry Studios

Education For Kids, Arts, Kids & Family

4.6 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2025

⏱️ 3 minutes

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Summary

A little light verse for anyone who wants to rise (far) above the noise for a moment. Happy reading.

Bert Leston Taylor (November 13, 1866 – March 19, 1921) was an American columnist, humorist, poet, and author.

Bert Leston Taylor became a journalist at seventeen, a librettist at twenty-one, and a successfully published author at thirty-five. At the height of his literary career, he was a central literary figure of the early 20th century Chicago renaissance as well as one of the most celebrated columnists in the United States.

-bio via Wikipedia

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to The Daily Poem, podcast from Goldberry Studios.
0:08.4	I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Friday, June 6th, 2025.
0:14.0	Today's poem is by B.L. Taylor, Bert Lestin Taylor, who was at one time a nationally renowned humorist and a Chicago columnist,
0:26.6	though since his death in 1921, his star has come down considerably.
0:32.7	Today's poem, however, is about a star that is still very, very, very high up in the sky. It's called
0:40.0	Canopus, and I think it's describing the Victorian equivalent of locking one's
0:46.4	smartphone in a drawer. Here is Canopus. When quacks with pills political would dope us,
0:57.5	When politics absorbs the live-long day,
1:00.8	I like to think about the star, Canopus, so far, so far away.
1:08.4	Greatest of visioned sons, they say, who list them, to weigh its science always must
1:14.4	despair. Its shell would hold our whole dinged solar system, nor ever know t'was there.
1:24.1	When temporary chairman utter speeches and frenzied henchmen howl their battle hymns,
1:30.5	my thoughts float out across the cosmic reaches to where canopus swims.
1:37.1	When men are calling names and making faces and all the worlds a jangle and ajar,
1:43.5	I meditate on interstellar spaces, and smoke a mild cigar.
1:50.4	For after one has had about a week of the arguments of friends as well as foes,
1:57.2	a star that has no parallax to speak of conduces to repose.
2:05.2	This has been the Daily Poem.
2:07.5	Thanks so much for listening.
2:08.9	We'll be back next week with more poems for you.
2:11.7	Until then, you can find all of our past episodes at dailypoompod.
2:16.0	com, where you can subscribe and support the show, if you
	...

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