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A candle-lit window alcove in the Academy library with an open book of verse on an oak lectern
Hall · Poet’s Corner

Poet’s Corner

One poem. One flight. Music underneath. Every piece here is short enough to hear in a single sitting — a famous poem, an old blessing, or a saying worth keeping — read aloud over film shot from the air, with the words printed beneath so you can read along.

Now showing

A still from the aerial film for An Irish Blessing
Blessing1 min

An Irish Blessing

Traditional

A minute over the west of Ireland — hills in the morning mist, a river opening into a lake, a wet village under a rainbow, a round tower in a green field, a road climbing to the sea, and the cliffs at last light.

Begin the reading →
A still from the aerial film for The Swing
Poem1 min

The Swing

Robert Louis Stevenson

A minute of going up — a rope swing hanging in an old walled garden, then up over the wall to rivers and trees and cattle and all, down onto the brown roof, and up into the blue again.

Begin the reading →
A still from the aerial film for Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
Poem2 min

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Robert Frost

Two minutes of winter dusk — a snowbound farm lane, woods filling up with snow, a lit farmhouse across a frozen lake, a horse and sleigh on the road, and the deep dark woods at the end.

Begin the reading →
A still from the aerial film for The Road Not Taken
Poem2 min

The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood — filmed from above, where you can finally see both of them at once. Two minutes over autumn hardwood, grassy tracks and old stone walls.

Begin the reading →
A still from the aerial film for If—
Poem3 min

If—

Rudyard Kipling

Thirty-two lines of quiet advice from a father to a son, read over a three-minute flight across hills, gorges, moors, storms, mountains and out to open sea at sunrise.

Begin the reading →
A still from the aerial film for The Tyger
Poem2 min

The Tyger

William Blake

Two minutes in the forests of the night — firefly embers between the trunks, a tiger moving through moonlit grass, a furnace burning in the dark rock, meteors falling across the sky, and the great cat walking away into the black.

Begin the reading →
A still from the aerial film for Three Irish Sayings
Saying1 min

Three Irish Sayings

Traditional

Three old sayings — one about friends, one about long life, one for the road — read by an old Irish voice over a minute's flight along the west coast at golden hour.

Begin the reading →

In the cutting room

Filmed next, in this order. Each one is a real poem in the public domain, matched to a real landscape.

  • The Lake Isle of Innisfree

    W. B. Yeats2 min

    Nine bean rows and a hive for the honey bee. Low over reed beds and a small wooded island at first light, with linnet wings on the wind.

    Flight: Lough Gill and the wooded islands of County Sligo, dawn

  • Hope is the thing with feathers

    Emily Dickinson1 min

    One small bird, one enormous storm. A minute of gulls holding position over a grey and heaving sea.

    Flight: A winter coast in high wind, seabirds working the gale

  • Sea Fever

    John Masefield1 min

    I must go down to the seas again. Long low passes over open ocean and a tall ship running before the wind.

    Flight: Open Atlantic at midday, following a square-rigger under full sail

  • I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

    William Wordsworth2 min

    Ten thousand daffodils, tossing their heads in sprightly dance — from the one place you can actually count them.

    Flight: An English lake shore in April, low over a mile of wild daffodils

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