Charles Handy is learning verse

Plato was right about many things and wrong in some ways. But he was very right in what he said in AD 307, that he was worried that the invention of writing would stop people using their memories.

When I was a small boy in Ireland, my primary school wanted me to learn a new poem every week. I always chose short ones but they are some of the best. My favourite poet is another Irishman, W.B. Yeats. I swear that I will learn all his poems before I pass away, starting with The Lake Isle of Innisfree:

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I find it very calming, and in fact one Professor Butler of Bristol University has shown that reading – or better still, learning – a poem a day is as good as pills in warding off depression. So try it.

But if you listen carefully, as they lower me into my grave, you might hear me saying:

…I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

If that’s heaven, I am happy.

So I recommend, just for fun, a book called Poem for the Day edited by Nicholas Albery with a forward by Wendy Cope, no mean poet herself. It features a poem for every day of the year by a whole range of poets, from Shakespeare to Kipling, Maya Angelou to Carol Ann Duffy. If you can’t quite manage to learn one daily, then at least read one to yourself, slowly, out loud, and ponder. It gets you into “the deep heart’s core” and gives me great contentment. Drives depression out of the door.

So dear Idler friends, take some time in your idling, read a few verses of your favourite poem – it will comfort you for the rest of your life, I assure you.

I wish you a good weekend of poetry and reflection.

And think of me, resting in peace on the Lake Isle of Innisfree – in my mind.

Charles Handy’s books on management have sold over a million copies and have changed the way we view business and society. His latest book, 21 Letters, is now available in paperback and on audiobook. Read more here. Charles suffered a stroke in 2019 following the death of his wife in a car crash in 2018. This piece was dictated to his carer.