Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios. I'm Sean Johnson, and today is Friday, May 30th, 2025.

If you have been listening for a while, you know that Fridays tend to be lighter here on the daily poem.

The fact I am in no way ashamed of, as British poet Peter

Porter once wrote in defense of light verse, all good poetry has something light about it. Often,

the most breathtaking, serious, deep, ponderous poems are also the ones that seem the most effortless. And that effortlessness,

that practiced skill, the witty and leisure to man and turn of a phrase are all on display

in the best light verse. So without further to do, today's poem is from Hilaire Belloc, and it is the epitome of

a light verse. It is compact. It is sharp. And it's also apt and truth-telling. It's called

Lord Finchley. Lord Finchley tried to mend the electric light himself.

It struck him dead and serve him right.

It is the business of the wealthy man to give employment to the artisan.

As I said, short, a butt punchy.

There's a social comment here that does have some purchase

in a culture where you have a landed aristocracy, or even in a society where you have

at least a parallel to it. There is a certain noblesse oblige to whom much is given,

much will be required that is trespassed upon when the wealthy aristocrat is trying

to clench his fist around a few extra dollars, economize, and do his own home repair. And it lands

a little differently today in an intriguing way because all of us are aspiring, do-it-yourselfers.

Everybody is watching YouTube and learning how to make some significant repair to their home

or a vehicle or what have you.

And I have a feeling that Belloc would be extremely pleased that his poem can now raise questions

about the obligations that a democratized society has to the skilled laborer and the artisan.

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