The Concise Verse

Recent Episodes

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Oct. 11, 2026

"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!
54
Oct. 4, 2026

"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.
53
Sept. 27, 2026

"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.
52
Sept. 20, 2026

"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.
51
Sept. 13, 2026

"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!
50
Sept. 6, 2026

"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!

Recent Blog Posts

Oct. 11, 2026

Joyful Resonance: Emily Dickinson's "How Still the Bells in Steeples Stand"

First published posthumously in 1890 in her groundbreaking debut volume Poems, "How Still the Bells in Steeples Stand" is a striking four-line study in latent energy and sudden, explosive joy by Emily Dickinson (1830–1886). Dickinson spent most of h…
Oct. 4, 2026

Elemental Power: H.D.'s "Oread"

First published in 1914 in the avant-garde journal The Egoist, "Oread" is widely considered the quintessential masterpiece of the Imagist movement by H.D. (Hilda Doolittle, 1886–1961). Born in Pennsylvania, H.D. moved to London in 1911, where Ezra P…
Sept. 27, 2026

Autumn Melancholy: Amy Levy's "In September"

Published in 1889 in her acclaimed final collection A London Plane Tree and Other Verse, "In September" is a brief, poignant four-line meditation on memory and loss by Amy Levy (1861–1889). Levy was a trailblazing Victorian figure—she was the first …