"The Second Coming" by W B Yeats (poetry reading)

I did this one when I first joined YouTube from an old mp3 file. It sounds terrible now so I hope this version is better.

Yeats' portrait is by Augustus John. That prompts me to tell you a story about Augustus John - provided for amusement only - you must decide for yourself whether you think it's true. I has a third-share of a flat in Brighton, the other shares belonging to an Ethiopian Prince and Jack who had a National Diploma in painting. One evening we went to a party in the Old Steine and I got talking to an gentleman in a striped shirt. Jack wandered off for half an hour of so and when he came back I asked him whether he met anybody interesting. He said. "I was talking to some old buffer about painting. He seems to know a thing or two" The man in the striped shirt said "He ought to - he's Augustus John". This makes a better story if I don't give the punch-line away before telling it.

The falcon comes from here
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flying_falcon.jpg

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Second
• Coming
• Yeats
• rough
• beast

[sirussm]

I'm curious as to what the narrators face looks like.

[SpokenVerse]

@sirussm My face is on my channel page.

In beauty I'm surely no star

Others are prettier by far

But my face I don't mind it

Because I'm behind it

It's them in front gets the jar.

[drueksen]

I'm mixing a techno track based on the poem, and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind me sampling the audio from this chilling reading of yours here. Thanks.

[arasley]

Spoke, I love the way your voice deepens with the dread of it near the end!

[grobbledonk]

You're quite right. Forgive me, it was rude of me. It certainly is a unique delivery, and, of course, an excellent poem

[SpokenVerse]

@grobbledonk There is something that seems not to have occurred to you. I, too, have known the poem by heart for - well, decades - and I can only attempt to read it the way that it sounds in my mind's ear. I have no choice. If I read it again it would only have somewhat different faults. The remedy is to read it yourself. You can link your reading to mine if you wish.

[sirussm]

@SpokenVerse I like that, is it you?

Do you write poetry your self?

It's nice to put a face to a voice. I've been

listening to you recite poems for a while now and

the way my brain works is, that sort of thing drives

me crazy, wondering what someone would look like.

Keep the reciting of poems coming.

[Erin38732]

@SpokenVerse: here here!

[EyeLean5280]

Beautiful! (and once again, your instinct for illustrations is spot-on!)

[Idlinfarm]

superb reading