PODCAST · arts
The Concise Verse
by Poetry Podcast
Where brevity meets beauty - a new poem every week.
Episodes
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"How Still the Bells in Steeples Stand" by Emily Dickinson
HOW still the bells in steeples stand, Till, swollen with the sky, They leap upon their silver feet In frantic melody!
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"Oread" by H.D.
Whirl up, sea— whirl your pointed pines, splash your great pines on our rocks, hurl your green over us, cover us with your pools of fir.
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"In September" by Amy Levy
The sky is silver-grey; the long Slow waves caress the shore.— On such a day as this I have been glad, Who shall be glad no more.
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"Thought" by Alice Dunbar-Nelson
A swift, successive chain of things, That flash, kaleidoscope-like, now in, now out, Now straight, now eddying in wild rings, No order, neither law, compels their moves, But endless, constant, always swiftly roves.
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"To My Sister" by Henry Reed Conant
May still thy deeds of innocence, Like stars of heaven, shine; And thou retain thy purity, Till Heaven itself is thine!
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"Dunbar" by Anne Spencer
Ah, how poets sing and die! Make one song and Heaven takes it; Have one heart and Beauty breaks it; Chatterton, Shelley, Keats and I— Ah, how poets sing and die!
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"Chapter Heading" by Ernest Hemingway
For we have thought the longer thoughts And gone the shorter way. And we have danced to devils' tunes, Shivering home to pray; To serve one master in the night, Another in the day.
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"Taking Leave of a Friend" by Ezra Pound
Blue mountains to the north of the walls, White river winding about them; Here we must make separation And go out through a thousand miles of dead grass. Mind like a floating wide cloud, Sunset like the parting of old acquaintances Who bow over their clasped hands at a distance. Our horses neigh…
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"El Hombre" by William Carlos Williams
It's a strange courage you give me ancient star: Shine alone in the sunrise toward which you lend no part!
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"Epitaph for a Romantic Woman" by Louise Bogan
She has attained the permanence She dreamed of, where old stones lie sunning. Untended stalks blow over her Even and swift, like young men running. Always in the heart she loved Others had lived,—she heard their laughter. She lies where none has lain before, Where certainly none will follow after.
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"Prime" by Amy Lowell
YOUR voice is like bells over roofs at dawn When a bird flies And the sky changes to a fresher color. Speak, speak, Beloved. Say little things For my ears to catch And run with them to my heart.
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"Theology" by Paul Laurence Dunbar
There is a heaven, for ever, day by day, The upward longing of my soul doth tell me so. There is a hell, I'm quite as sure; for pray If there were not, where would my neighbours go?
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"The Deep-Sea Pearl" by Edith M. Thomas
The love of my life came not As love unto others is cast; For mine was a secret wound— But the wound grew a pearl, at last. The divers may come and go, The tides, they arise and fall; The pearl in its shell lies sealed, And the Deep Sea covers all.
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"Dooryard Roses" by Sara Teasdale
I HAVE come the selfsame path To the selfsame door, Years have left the roses there Burning as before. While I watch them in the wind Quick the hot tears start— Strange so frail a flame outlasts Fire in the heart.
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"Moon-Shadows" by Adelaide Crapsey
Still as On windless nights The moon-cast shadows are, So still will be my heart when I Am dead.
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"Suicide's Note" by Langston Hughes
The calm, Cool face of the river Asked me for a kiss.
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"A Jelly-Fish" by Marianne Moore
Visible, invisible, A fluctuating charm, An amber-colored amethyst Inhabits it; your arm Approaches, and It opens and It closes; You have meant To catch it, And it shrivels; You abandon Your intent— It opens, and it Closes and you Reach for it— The blue Surrounding it Grows cloudy, and It floats...
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"The Net of Law" by James Jeffrey Roche
The net of law is spread so wide, No sinner from its sweep may hide. Its meshes are so fine and strong, They take in every child of wrong. O wondrous web of mystery! Big fish alone escape from thee!
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"Nothing Gold Can Stay" by Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
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"Nocturne II" by Skipwith Cannéll
Thy feet are white Upon the foam of the sea; Hold me fast, thou bright Swan, Lest I stumble, And into deep waters.
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"Nocturne I" by Skipwith Cannéll
Thy feet, That are like little, silver birds, Thou hast set upon pleasant ways; Therefore I will follow thee, Thou Dove of the Golden Eyes, Upon any path will I follow thee, For the light of thy beauty Shines before me like a torch.
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"The Dying Need But Little, Dear,—" by Emily Dickinson
THE dying need but little, dear,— A glass of water's all, A flower's unobtrusive face To punctuate the wall, A fan, perhaps, a friend's regret, And certainly that one No color in the rainbow Perceives when you are gone.
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"Streets" by Lewis Alexander
Avenues of dreams Boulevards of pain Moving black streams Shimmering like rain.
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"To Night" (Excerpt) by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Swiftly walk o'er the western wave, Spirit of Night! Out of the misty eastern cave, Where, all the long and lone daylight, Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear, Which make thee terrible and dear,— Swift be thy flight!
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"For My Grandmother" by Countee Cullen
This lovely flower fell to seed; Work gently, sun and rain; She held it as her dying creed That she would grow again.
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"A Dream Within a Dream" (Excerpt) by Edgar Allan Poe
I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand — How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep — while I weep! O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is…
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"Above the Dock" by T.E. Hulme
Above the quiet dock in mid night, Tangled in the tall mast's corded height, Hangs the moon. What seemed so far away Is but a child's balloon, forgotten after play.
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"Red" (Excerpt) by Eugene Field
ANY color, so long as it's red, Is the color that suits me best, Though I will allow there is much to be said For yellow and green and the rest; But the feeble tints which some affect In the things they make or buy Have never—I say it with all respect— Appealed to my critical eye.
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"When You Are Old" by William Butler Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep; How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the...
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"Love" Quatrain by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Love on his errand bound to go Can swim the flood and wade through snow, Where way is none, 't will creep and wind And eat through Alps its home to find.
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"The Scorpion" by Hilaire Belloc
The Scorpion is as black as soot, He dearly loves to bite; He is a most unpleasant brute To find in bed, at night.
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"The World" (Excerpt) by George Herbert
Love built a stately house, where Fortune came, And spinning fancies, she was heard to say That her fine cobwebs did support the frame, Whereas they were supported by the same; But Wisdom quickly swept them all away.
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"The Half-Moon Westers Low, My Love" by A. E. Housman
The half-moon westers low, my love, And the wind brings up the rain; And wide apart lie we, my love, And seas between the twain. I know not if it rains, my love, In the land where you do lie; And oh, so sound you sleep, my love, You know no more than I.
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"The Violet" by Jane Taylor
Down in a green and shady bed, A modest violet grew, Its stalk was bent, it hung its head, As if to hide from view. And yet it was a lovely flower, Its colours bright and fair; It might have graced a rosy bower, Instead of hiding there, Yet there it was content to bloom, In modest tints arrayed;...
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"Green" by D. H. Lawrence
The dawn was apple-green, The sky was green wine held up in the sun, The moon was a golden petal between. She opened her eyes, and green They shone, clear like flowers undone, For the first time, now for the first time seen.
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"Dusk" by Angelina Weld Grimké
Twin stars through my purpling pane, The shriveling husk Of a yellowing moon on the wane - And the dusk.
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"A Poison Tree" by William Blake
I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow. And I watered it in fears, Night and morning with my tears; And I sunned it with smiles, And with soft deceitful wiles. And it grew both day and night, Till it bore an apple...
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"At Midnight" by Frank Dempster Sherman
See, yonder, the belfry tower That gleams in the moon's pale light; Or is it a ghostly flower That dreams in the silent night? I listen and hear the chime Go quavering o'er the town, And out of this flower of Time Twelve petals are wafted down.
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"A Cowboy's Prayer" (Excerpt) by Badger Clark
Oh Lord, I've never lived where churches grow. I love creation better as it stood That day You finished it so long ago And looked upon Your work and called it good. I know that others find You in the light That's sifted down through tinted window panes, And yet I seem to feel You near tonight In...
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"Quatrain" by Gwendolyn Bennett
How strange that grass should sing— Grass is so still a thing . . . And strange the swift surprise of snow So soft it falls and slow.
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"All the World's a Stage" (Excerpt) by William Shakespeare
All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts...
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"Song" (Excerpt) by Christina Rossetti
When I am dead, my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me; Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree: Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet; And if thou wilt, remember, And if thou wilt, forget.
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"The Ship Starting" by Walt Whitman
Lo, the unbounded sea, On its breast a ship starting, spreading all sails, carrying even her moonsails. The pennant is flying aloft as she speeds she speeds so stately- below emulous waves press forward, They surround the ship with shining curving motions and foam.
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"The Eagle" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.
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"Night" by Sara Teasdale
Stars over snow, And in the west a planet Swinging below a star— Look for a lovely thing and you will find it, It is not far— It will never be far.
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"The Secret" by Emily Dickinson
Some things that fly there be, — Birds, hours, the bumble-bee: Of these no elegy. Some things that stay there be, — Grief, hills, eternity: Nor this behooveth me. There are, that resting, rise. Can I expound the skies? How still the riddle lies!
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"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes
I've known rivers: I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the...
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"Nancibel" by Bliss Carmen
The ghost of a wind came over the hill, While day for a moment forgot to die, And stirred the sheaves Of the millet leaves, As Nancibel went by. Out of the lands of Long Ago, Into the land of By and By, Faded the gleam Of a journeying dream, As Nancibel went by.
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"In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound
The apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough.
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"Unfortunate Coincidence" by Dorothy Parker
By the time you swear you're his, Shivering and sighing, And he vows his passion is Infinite, undying— Lady, make a note of this: One of you is lying.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does The Concise Verse have?
The Concise Verse currently has 55 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is The Concise Verse about?
Where brevity meets beauty - a new poem every week.
How often does The Concise Verse release new episodes?
The Concise Verse has 55 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to The Concise Verse?
You can listen to The Concise Verse on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts The Concise Verse?
The Concise Verse is created and hosted by Poetry Podcast.
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