Ashmolean Museum

Oh, what is worth the strangest state of flesh I strangely took?

in the soft soil the garden breezes shook from the wall chink but now there's measure of earth to match my body's dust when its rebirth to sod restores old functions i forsook vicissitude strange that a sod for just a thrill or two should ever be seduced into the round of change wherein its present state is found in this my form forsake its quiet true and fruitfullest retirement to go through the heat the strain the languor and the wound forget soft rain to hear the stormier sound exchange for burning tears its peaceful dew old song and a river it was the lip of murmuring thames along when new lights sought the woods all strangely fair such quiet lights as saints transfigured wear in minster windows crept the woods among and far as from some hazy hill yet strong methought an upland shepherd piped it there rousing a silvern echo in her lair sweet thames run softly till i end my song my spenser lay the dewy grass upon his pages shone before me as i read like the gold daisies gleaming round his bed his lantern verses upward to me shone end never yet his song's rich note hath known sweet thames ran softly by his burthen sped and shall while hymns are sung and prayers are said lo chanting his glad st paul's one time from that gray close i did emerge wherethrough i had been toiling and to me like some benignant rock above the sea st paul's great brow above the mist and surge loomed kindly and methought did kindly urge all men up to it till there came to be a hush on hearts a deep tranquillity of healing virtue round the minster's verge Roman glassware preserved in the Ashmolean.

fair crystal cups are dug from earth's old crust shattered but lovely for at price of all their shameful exile from the banquet-hall they have been bargaining beauties from the dust so dig my life but deep enough you must find broken friendships round its inner wall which once my careless hand let slip and fall brave with faint memories rich in rainbow rust life's usurpation tell them sweet evening breeze poised here no less i love their memory whom thou goest to greet out there at heaven's gate but that i meet less oft the idle thoughts of old distress tell them the thought of them still lives to bless but since i learned how much despite defeat my life demands that i shall make complete i must yield up my cherished loneliness traces something of sorrow am i not denied share of the earth's old universal pain i own though but as hillsides own the rain or solid sands the long waves stroking side still though no rains upon the steep may bide and harmlessly the sea-floods rise and wane the downward torrent traces do remain and sands bear record of the sedulous tide he is no lover of the sea who loses sound of her voices inland wandering still should her old melodious mystery spring around him wend he wheresoe'er he chooses and so within me rhythmic life refuses by any other pulse than yours to swing far from your friendship's ocean though i sing where the hills tire and the rough pathway bruises minstrels in bloomsbury to covent garden people stream to drink the music there upon the curb we stay to dream with melody more rare sing on enchanted minstrel girl thou artless young and fair the buses in southampton row the jingling hansoms hear bear london heedless to and fro in search of evening cheer for us thou art enough dear voice forgetful sweet and clear our day-long toil but goes to win another toilsome day play on oblivious violin soft harp beseech thee play and thou pale girl with eyes aflame sing on for us who stay Thought of Stevenson by Arthur Upson Read for LibriVox.org high and alone i stood on calton hill above the scene that was so dear to him whose exile dreams of it made exile dim october wooed the folded valleys till in mist they blurred even as our eyes upfill under a too sweet memory spires did swim and gables rust red on the gray sea's brim but on these heights the air was soft and still yet not all still an alien breeze will turn here as from bourns in aromatic seas as round old shrines a new-freed soul might yearn with incense of rich earthly reveries vanish the isles mist exile searching pain but the brave soul is free is home again off piccadilly with its pavement cries its maddening monotone of wheel and hoof in the green park primeval summer lies how near how yearning yet how far aloof o city symbol of a world that still heedless of beauty under heaven rolls and thou blithe meadow all with larks a-thrill like poetry that pasture of great souls ye twain so sundered shall forever dwell a tumult and a blessing side by side here as to toil-worn argo once befell a singing island on a thundering tide where men might stretch them out in glad release we too much wondering hail this hour of peace end of poem this recording is in the public domain on the lower rhine by arthur upson duiseldorf heine's birthplace by dusseldorf the singing rhine stream bends age wanted from his earlier lyric tone a master singer somewhat pensive grown in more of epic stateliness he wends where youth in memory only still attends with foregone passions raptures long since flown so sweeps he down from minster crowned cologne and to the silent level sea descends not such o heine thy mad stream of song though now beyond our fitful oceans the eternal tide of beauty harbor thee thou fleddest the broken crags of life along beating white flowers of foam out over them and passionately soughtest thy mother sea.

November gray city by the silver mews i fling one precious day to thee of my brief days take it and give remembrance mellow praise of chimes across a moonlit evening rain of light echoes the full wavy swing of burdened barges down thy waterways noise nearest music the blue holy haze and perfume of old altars wing on wing of iridescent doves descending soft within a gothic gate where one strews bread for alms to the air's beggars beyond her arcades recessive pinnacles aloft november's vista deepening to one blur of blue and gray behind her upturned head End of poem.

And to me, like some benignant rock above the sea, St. Paul's great brow above the mist and surge loomed kindly, and methought did kindly urge all men up to it, till there came to be a hush on hearts, a deep tranquility of healing virtue round the minster's verge.

Roman glassware preserved in the Ashmolean.

Fair crystal cups are dug from earth's old crust, shattered but lovely; for at price of all their shameful exile from the banquet-hall they have been bargaining beauties from the dust.

So dig my life but deep enough, you must find broken friendships round its inner wall which once my careless hand let slip and fall, brave with faint memories, rich in rainbow rust.

Hello and welcome to the Fun Kids Activity Quest podcast, the podcast that's packed with stuff to do.

In this week's episode, Adam goes to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

My name's Bex, and every week we go up and down the country on the quest for something epic.

This week, Adam's off to the Ashmolean Museum.

My name is Vicky Jenner, and I'm a digital content and interpretation producer here at the Ashmolean.

And the Ashmolean is very special because it is the UK's oldest public museum, or the first public museum in the UK.

The Hope Collection at Oxford contains a completely different portrait in a print, which gives no authority.

I have ventured to use as a frontispiece a reproduction from a plaster cast in the Ashmolean Museum, taken from an ivory diptych preserved in the Bibliotheca Quiriniana at Brescia, which represents Nereus Manlius Boethius, the father of the Philosopher.

Portraiture of this period is so rare that it seemed that, failing a likeness of the author himself, this authentic representation of his father might have interest, as giving the consular dress and insignia of the time, and also as illustrating the decadence of contemporary art.

The consul wears a richly embroidered cloak.

His right hand holds a staff surmounted by the Roman eagle, his left the mapa circensis, or napkin used for starting the races in the circus.

At his feet are palms and bags of money, prizes for the victors in the games.

For permission to use this cast, my thanks are due to the authorities of the Ashmolean Museum, as also to Mr. T. W. Jackson, curator of the Hope Collection, who first called my attention to its existence.

I have to thank my brother, Mr. L. James, of Radley College, for much valuable help, and for correcting the proof-sheets of the translation.

Oh, what is worth the strangest state of flesh I strangely took.

in the soft soil the garden breezes shook from the wall chink but now there's measure of earth to match my body's dust when its rebirth to sod restores old functions i forsook vicissitude strange that a sod for just a thrill or two should ever be seduced into the round of change wherein its present state is found in this my form forsake its quiet true and fruitfullest retirement to go through the heat the strain the languor and the wound forget soft rain to hear the stormier sound exchange for burning tears its peaceful dew old song and a river it was the lip of murmuring thames along when new lights sought the woods all strangely fair such quiet lights as saints transfigured were in minster windows crept the woods among and far as from some hazy hill yet strong methought an upland shepherd piped it there rousing a silvern echo in her lair sweet thames run softly till i end my song my spenser lay the dewy grass upon his pages shone before me as i read like the gold daisies gleaming round his bed his lantern verses upward to me shone end never yet his song's rich note hath known sweet thames ran softly by his burthen sped and shall while hymns are sung and prayers are said lo chanting his glad st paul's one time from that gray close i did emerge wherethrough i had been toiling and to me like some benignant rock above the sea st paul's great brow above the mist and surge loomed kindly and methought did kindly urge all men up to it till there came to be a hush on hearts a deep tranquillity of healing virtue round the minster's verge Roman glassware preserved in the Ashmolean.

fair crystal cups are dug from earth's old crust shattered but lovely for at price of all their shameful exile from the banquet-hall they have been bargaining beauties from the dust so dig my life but deep enough you must find broken friendships round its inner wall which once my careless hand let slip and fall brave with faint memories rich in rainbow rust life's usurpation tell them sweet evening breeze poised here no less i love their memory whom thou goest to greet out there at heaven's gate but that i meet less oft the idle thoughts of old distress tell them the thought of them still lives to bless but since i learned how much despite defeat my life demands that i shall make complete i must yield up my cherished loneliness traces something of sorrow am i not denied share of the earth's old universal pain i own though but as hillsides own the rain or solid sands the long waves stroking side still though no rains upon the steep may bide and harmlessly the sea-floods rise and wane the downward torrent traces do remain and sands bear record of the sedulous tide he is no lover of the sea who loses sound of her voices inland wandering still should her old melodious mystery spring around him wend he wheresoe'er he chooses and so within me rhythmic life refuses by any other pulse than yours to swing far from your friendship's ocean though i sing where the hills tire and the rough pathway bruises minstrels in bloomsbury to covent garden people stream to drink the music there upon the curb we stay to dream with melody more rare sing on enchanted minstrel girl thou artless young and fair the buses in southampton row the jingling hansoms hear bear london heedless to and fro in search of evening cheer for us thou art enough dear voice forgetful sweet and clear our day-long toil but goes to win another toilsome day play on oblivious violin soft harp beseech thee play and thou pale girl with eyes aflame sing on for us who stay Thought of Stevenson by Arthur Upson.

Read for LibriVox.org. high and alone i stood on calton hill above the scene that was so dear to him whose exile dreams of it made exile dim october wooed the folded valleys till in mist they blurred even as our eyes upfill under a too sweet memory spires did swim and gables rust red on the gray sea's brim but on these heights the air was soft and still yet not all still an alien breeze will turn here as from bourns in aromatic seas as round old shrines a new-freed soul might yearn with incense of rich earthly reveries vanish the isles mist exile searching pain but the brave soul is free is home again off piccadilly with its pavement cries its maddening monotone of wheel and hoof in the green park primeval summer lies how near how yearning yet how far aloof o city symbol of a world that still heedless of beauty under heaven rolls and thou blithe meadow all with larks a-thrill like poetry that pasture of great souls ye twain so sundered shall forever dwell a tumult and a blessing side by side here as to toil-worn argo once befell a singing island on a thundering tide where men might stretch them out in glad release we two much wondering hail this hour of peace end of poem this recording is in the public domain on the lower rhine by arthur upson duiseldorf heine's birthplace by dusseldorf the singing rhine stream bends age wanted from his earlier lyric tone a master singer somewhat pensive grown in more of epic stateliness he wends where youth in memory only still attends with foregone passions raptures long since flown so sweeps he down from minster crowned cologne and to the silent level sea descends not such o heine thy mad stream of song though now beyond our fitful ocean's the eternal tide of beauty harbor thee thou fleddest the broken crags of life along beating white flowers of foam out over them and passionately soughtest thy mother's sea.