Well Versed: Learn English Through Poetry Daniel Ranson

Hello and welcome to Well Versed: Learn English through Poetry.
For a full transcription, go to wellversedpoetrypod.wordpress.com
Our poem today is by Emily Dickinson, "I started Early - Took my Dog"

I started Early – Took my Dog –
And visited the Sea –
The Mermaids in the Basement
Came out to look at me –

And Frigates – in the Upper Floor
Extended Hempen Hands –
Presuming Me to be a Mouse –
Aground – opon the Sands –

But no Man moved Me – till the Tide
Went past my simple Shoe –
And past my Apron – and my Belt
And past my Boddice – too –

And made as He would eat me up –
As wholly as a Dew
Opon a Dandelion's Sleeve –
And then – I started – too –

And He – He followed – close behind –
I felt His Silver Heel
Opon my Ancle – Then My Shoes
Would overflow with Pearl –

Until We met the Solid Town –
No One He seemed to know –
And bowing – with a Mighty look –
At me – The Sea withdrew –

Welcome to Well Versed! Learn English in company with its greatest writers. Full transcription available for free at wellversedpoetrypod.wordpress.com.

Today's poem is "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven" by W.B. Yeats.

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Welcome back to Well Versed! Full transcription available at wellversedpoetrypod.wordpress.com 
Our poem this time is 'I So Liked Spring' by Charlotte Mew.

I so liked Spring last year
Because you were here; –
The thrushes too –
Because it was these you so liked to hear –
I so liked you.

This year’s a different thing, –
I’ll not think of you.
But I’ll like the Spring because it is simply Spring
As the thrushes do.

Welcome to Well Versed: learn English through poetry. A full transcription of this episode can be found at wellversedpoetrypod.wordpress.com.
This month, our poem is "I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud" by William Wordsworth.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Welcome to Well Versed: learn English through poetry.
For a full transcription of this episode please visit https://wellversedpoetrypod.wordpress.com/
This episode, our poem is Fire and Ice by Robert Frost.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.