Richard Dawkins Recites AE Houseman

Tell me not here, it needs not saying,
     What tune the enchantress plays
In aftermaths of soft September
     Or under blanching mays,
For she and I were long acquainted
     And I knew all her ways.

On russet floors, by waters idle,
     The pine lets fall its cone;
The cuckoo shouts all day at nothing
     In leafy dells alone;
And traveler's joy beguiles in autumn
     Hearts that have lost their own.

On acres of the seeded grasses
     The changing burnish heaves;
Or marshalled under moons of harvest
     Stand still all night the sheaves;
Or beeches strip in storms for winter
     And stain the wind with leaves.

Possess, as I possessed a season,
     The countries I resign,
Where over elmy plains the highway
     Would mount the hills and shine,
And full of shade the pillared forest
     Would murmur and be mine. 

For nature, heartless, witless nature,
      Will neither care nor know
What stranger's feet may find the meadow
      And trespass there and go,
Nor ask amid the dews of morning
      If they are mine or no.

Last Poems: XL., by AE Houseman

There is quite a bit that's melancholy about this poem. Nature is abidingly beautiful, but at the same time almost cruel, because it simply doesn't care a bit about the stranger or his lost love.  So in the midst of such beauty, he feels even more alone.  A fine poem indeed, and a fine reading by Richard Dawkins.