S5E1: "All That's Past" by Walter de la Mare

Aug 30, 2021

Welcome to Season 5 of The Well Read Poem with poet and classicist Thomas Banks. Throughout this season, we will be exploring the poetry of Walter de la Mare. De la Mare was a poet's poet and wrote across a variety of genres but is not as well known today as he deserves to be. Poem begins at timestamp 5:57. Check out our sister podcast, The Literary Life Podcast, for more great discussions of literature!

All That's Past

By Walter de la Mare

VERY old are the woods;
And the buds that break
Out of the briar's boughs,
When March winds wake,
So old with their beauty are--
Oh, no man knows
Through what wild centuries
Roves back the rose.


Very old are the brooks;
And the rills that rise
Where snow sleeps cold beneath
The azure skies
Sing such a history
Of come and gone,
Their every drop is as wise
As Solomon.


Very old are we men;
Our dreams are tales
Told in dim Eden
By Eve's nightingales;
We wake and whisper awhile,
But, the day gone by,
Silence and sleep like fields
Of amaranth lie.