This is

This is KZSU, Stanford.

I'm Robert Harrison, alongside Vittoria Moldo,

coming to you from the underworld of KZSU.

It's that time of year which Dante called the shortened day and the great circle of shade,

namely the day when the sun travels the shortest path through the sky.

In some, we're coming to you as our North Pole reaches its maximum tilt away from the sun,

the day with the least daylight and the longest night, otherwise known as the Winter Solstice.

The Winter Solstice lasts only an instant, yet its most precarious, volatile moment in the revolution of our Earth around its star.

In the depths of this longest night of the year, our tilted planet comes to a momentary standstill before taking a turn, a discreet yet decisive turn toward the light.

Maybe that's why the winter solstice is associated with St. Lucy, whose name evokes light,

lucency from the Latin Luke's.

Lucy heralds the light hiding in the ultimacy of darkness.

She is the saint of the planet's turn

from its maximum tilt away from the sun toward the sun.

That's why, at this volatile turning point in the great circle of shade,

we thought to share with you a few poems about hibernal darkness.

The three poems I've chosen to recite reach us from the somber depths of the human psyche.

Yet I would ask you as you listen to keep in mind that at the far edge of darkness, a turning toward the light can and does take place.

It's the earth itself that assures us of this.

I'll begin with John Duns, a nocturnal upon St. Lucie's Day. This is one of the great depressive poems of the Western canon.

It begins with the speaker stating that it's the winter solstice and that the external world is all but dead, but not nearly as dead as he is in his soul.

...