O Hollow! Hollow! Hollow! by W.S. Gilbert, from the opera Patience

LibriVox volunteers bring you 17 recordings of O Hollow Hollow Hollow by W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911). This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 8th to January 15th, 2012.

Here is a poem by the “fleshly” poet, Bunthorne, from the opera Patience, by Gilbert and Sullivan. Who better to introduce it than the poet himself:

BUNTHORNE. It is a wild, weird, fleshy thing; yet very tender, very yearning, very precious. It is called, “Oh, Hollow! Hollow! Hollow!”
PATIENCE Is it a hunting song?
BUNTHORNE. A hunting song? No, it is not a hunting song. It is the wail of the poet’s heart on discovering that everything is commonplace. To understand it, cling passionately to one another and think of faint lilies.

Bunthorne was considered to have been modelled on Oscar Wilde, but more recent reseach has suggested that this claim is not correct. ( Summary by Algy Pug )

 

Running time=1m 23s (mp3@64kb)

Download locations: mp3 128kb : mp3 64kb : ogg vorbis.
Catalogue pages: LibriVox, Internet Archive.
Zip of the entire book (10.8MB@64kb), featuring all 17 readers of this poem. (Total running time: 0:22:28)

In addition to the readers, this audio book was produced by:
Book Coordinator: Algy Pug
Meta-Coordinator/Cataloging: David Lawrence

O Hollow! Hollow! Hollow!
What time the poet hath hymned
The writhing maid, lithe-limbed,
Quivering on amaranthine asphodel,
How can he paint her woes,
Knowing, as well he knows,
That all can be set right with calomel?

When from the poet’s plinth
The amorous colocynth
Yearns for the aloe, faint with rapturous thrills,
How can he hymn their throes
Knowing, as well he knows,
That they are only uncompounded pills?

Is it, and can it be,
Nature hath this decree,
Nothing poetic in the world shall dwell?
Or that in all her works
Something poetic lurks,
Even in colocynth and calomel?
I cannot tell.

This week’s poem can be found here.

Advertisement