Word & Song by Anthony Esolen
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"Green Grow the Rashes"
To read this poem right, you have to enter its merry spirit. The poem isn’t meant to be a sermon; it’s meant to remind us not to look down on the sweet…
Apr 17
•
Anthony Esolen
4:50
27
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6
"Easter"
Do you know what day it is? Listen or read to find out how the poet George Herbert (born on April 3, 1593) would answer that question!
Apr 3
•
Anthony Esolen
4:50
32
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"Easter"
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18
March 2024
"The Donkey"
Why is it that the donkey, not the thoroughbred, that had the great honor of bringing the Savior, the King of glory, into into Jerusalem?
Mar 27
•
Anthony Esolen
4:39
38
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"The Donkey"
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10
"Mending Wall"
Chesterton famously said that you should never take down a fence if you don’t know why it’s there. Frost adopted that wisdom when it came to poetry.
Mar 20
•
Anthony Esolen
7:26
41
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"Mending Wall"
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13
"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet..."
In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Theseus expresses in a wonderful way the power of the imagination -- in thought -- to summon up another world.
Mar 13
•
Anthony Esolen
5:42
12
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"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet..."
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2
Holy Baptism
George Herbert has Jesus’ words in mind in his poem: “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and hinder them not, for of such is the kingdom of…
Mar 6
•
Anthony Esolen
4:52
40
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Holy Baptism
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12
February 2024
"Fear no more the heat o' th' sun"
What was it like to be a pagan Briton when Christ was born in a small village far away? Shakespeare had this in the back of his mind when he wrote…
Feb 28
•
Anthony Esolen
6:07
39
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"Fear no more the heat o' th' sun"
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7
A selection from the Divine Comedy
Dante is on the top of the mountain of Purgatory, and he longs to see the face of his beloved Beatrice. Faith, Hope, and Charity call upon her to turn…
Feb 21
•
Anthony Esolen
5:01
34
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A selection from the Divine Comedy
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4
"A Winter Eden"
An odd winter cheer comes through for us in our Poem of the Week, Robert Frost’s “A Winter Eden.” The title is something of a jest, right off.
Feb 14
•
Anthony Esolen
5:25
35
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"A Winter Eden"
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4
Two short passages from Paradise Lost
Suppose you are a boy in a British boarding school, whose front promenade is lined with beautiful old pear trees. There’s a rule against picking them…
Feb 7
•
Anthony Esolen
6:08
34
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Two short passages from Paradise Lost
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4
January 2024
Sir Scudamour wins the hand of Amoret
Spenser was like most medieval and Renaissance poets, always in one way or another writing about love, in this case the winning of a virtuous woman.
Jan 31
•
Anthony Esolen
8:47
25
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Sir Scudamour wins the hand of Amoret
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2
The Wood-Pile
Frost often writes about work. Yet he knows that work is not the prime end of man. So what can be said of interest about an abandoned cord of wood? Find…
Jan 24
•
Anthony Esolen
6:35
30
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The Wood-Pile
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22
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