Readings from the Pavilion End

Galle Test Cricket 2025 - Day 1 (An old-fashioned day)

Bill reports live from the Galle Test in Sri Lanka.

S4 Ep 7: Byzantium by W.B. Yeats

We complete the final half of the Byzantium poems which was published a few years after Sailing to Byzantium (which can be found in Season 4 Episode 6). If in Sailing, Yeats aspires to become immortalised into a golden bird, a work of art, the spell seems to break in Byzantium as night falls agonisingly. The speaker is surrounded by eerie, nightmarish images of death-in-life and life-in-death. It is a dense and complex poem, somewhat puzzling poem that reflects Yeats' position as a romantic-modernist poet. 
Today's episode also features a preview of an upcoming cricket series where Bill reports on the 2025 test matches in Galle, Sri Lanka. 

S4 Ep 6: Sailing to Byzantium by W.B. Yeats

Today we have the first of two canonical poems by W.B. Yeats that form the 'Byzantium poems'. Sailing to Byzantium, dated 1927, was written in the later years of his life and crystallises the poet's 'persistent longing for spiritual redemption through the timelessness of art' (David A. Ross, Critical Companion to William Butler Yeats: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work). 
The poem is sensuous, describing the natural world in its fullness that quickly descends also into decay. It recalls Keats' 'Ode to a Nightingale', but where Keats' nightingale pulls the young man towards an afterlife (Away! away! for I will fly to thee), Yeats' golden bird (Of hammered gold and gold enamelling) is set on a bough to sing 'Of what is past, or passing, or to come'.
Byzantium, an Ancient Greek city, later Constantinople and known today as Istanbul, holds an idealised place in Yeats' imagination. In a radio talk in 1921, Yeats described trying to "write about the state of my soul, for it is right for an old man to make his soul" his subject.
Listeners may also find this quote interesting: 
“I think if I could be given a month of Antiquity and leave to spend it where I chose, I would spend it in Byzantium a little before Justinian opened St Sophia [ad 537] and closed the Academy of Plato [ad 529]. I think I could find in some little wine shop some philosophical worker in mosaic who could answer all my questions, the supernatural descending nearer to him than to Plotinus even, for the pride of his delicate skill would make what was an instrument of power to Princes and Clerics and a murderous madness in the mob, show us a lovely flexible presence like that of a perfect human body. I think that in early Byzantium, and maybe never before or since in recorded his tory, religious, aesthetic and practical life were one, and that architect and artificers - though not, it may be, poets, for language had been the instrument of contro versy and must have grown abstract - spoke to the multitude and the few alike.”
(Source: https://sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/notes-on-sailing-to-byzantium/)

S4 Ep 5: For the 60th death anniversary of Winston Churchill

24 January was the 60th anniversary of the death of Winston Churchill. Today, Bill reads from Bernard Levin's "The Pendulum Years: Britain in the Sixties". Extracts describing the impact of Churchill's decline and his grand state funeral in 1965 gives us a glimpse of a passing era. 
For a visual accompaniment, take a look at this article: Winston Churchill's funeral - in pictures
 

S4 Ep 4: A brief Review of Mens' Test Cricket 2024

In this episode, Bill reflects on Men's Test Cricket in 2024, reflecting on what made 2024 such a special year for the sport. 
For more essays and commentaries, visit https://billpavilionend.com/

S4 Ep 3: The Walrus and the Carpenter by Lewis Carroll

Today's poem is a humerous, nonsensical narrative poem from chapter four of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass (1871). The poem is recited to Alice by Tweedledum and Tweedledee who ignores her request for help to get out of the woods. The poem tells the story of a walrus and a carpenter who were walking along the beach. They encounter a group of oysters and lure them into joining them for a walk, only to be eaten by the end of the poem. 
The poems' meaning and characters have been interpreted many ways in literary and popular culture, most famously perhaps in The Beatles' "I Am the Walrus" which was based on a (misreading) of the poem. 
Read the chapter here. 

S4 Ep 2: Say not the Struggle nought Availeth by Arthur Hugh Clough

The first poem reading for 2025 comes from a Victorian poet, Arthur High Clough. He was relatively unknown save for this one poem which then Prime Minister Winston Churchill quoted in a speech in February 1941, and was part of the literary exchange between Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. 
The poem speaks of the universal struggle against light and darkness, progress and retreat and urges the audience to persevere. It is an important reminder for us as we begin the new year, to hold on to hope. Find the poem here. 

S4 Ep 1: The Border-Gavaskar Trophy: The Real World Test Championship

We're starting a new season and a new year with an op ed on The Border-Gavaskar Trophy: The Real World Test Championship. 
In this piece, Bill explains the history and fierce competition between Australia and India, two of the most celebrated teams in Test cricket. From Australia's early dominance since the 19th century to India's transformative victories in the 1970s and beyond, recounting pivotal moments, legendary players, and unforgettable matches. 
As the Border-Gavaskar Trophy hangs in the balance next week, the stage is set for another enthralling chapter. 

Advent Calendar: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

It is Christmas Day today and the final edition of this year's literary Advent calendar.
A Christmas Carol is a familiar Victorian classic by Charles Dickens following the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, an elderly miser who receives a visit from the ghost of his former business partner and three Spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet to Come. Bill received a lovely illustrated version of this for Christmas decades ago and it remains a cherished tale of kindness and transformation. 
Merry Christmas all and stay tuned for more episodes in the new year!

Advent Calendar: Journey of the Magi by T.S Eliot

Today's poem was first published as a pamphlet in 1927 as a commission by Faber & Gwyer, the first of T.S. Eliot's contributions to a series entitled 'The Aerial Poems'. The series paired an unpublished poem by a leading writer with new artwork from an eminent artist. Thomas Hardy, Siegfried Sassoon, Barnett Freedman and John Nash were among the contributors to the first set, which broadly carried a Christmas theme and which sold for one shilling. The publisher's hope was that the pamphlets might double-up as greeting cards, and Eliot himself sent them as festive gifts to the writers on Faber's poetry list. This poem was paired with a drawing by Edward McKnight Kauffer. 
Eliot takes on the familiar biblical story of the Magi, but suggests that for all their wisdom and intuition, the magi could not have known that this mysterious birth would unsettle them henceforth. Find the poem and an analysis here.