Colin Morgan Reads Autumn Journal

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Colin Morgan reads Louis MacNeice's poetic testament of life in 1938, written against the turbulent backdrop of the Munich Agreement, the fall of Barcelona and Britain's preparations for an inevitable war. Introduced by poet Colette Bryce and interwoven with archive news reports from the era. Produced by Emma Harding Drama on 3: Autumn Journal BBC Radio 3 Duration: 2 hours, 7 minutes First broadcast: Sun 4th Dec 2016, 21:00 on BBC Radio 3 Part of Radio 3's 70th season, marking the anniversary of the creation of the Third Programme, Radio 3's predecessor in 1946, where MacNeice worked as a producer and writer. Autumn Journal is an autobiographical long poem in twenty-four sections by Louis MacNeice. It was written between August and December 1938, and published as a single volume by Faber and Faber in May 1939. Written in a discursive form, it sets out to record the author's state of mind as the approaching World War II seems more and more inevitable Autumn Journal September has come and I wake And I think with joy how whatever, now or in future, the system Nothing whatever can take The people away, there will always be people For friends or for lovers though perhaps The conditions of love will be changed and its vices diminished And affection not lapse To narrow possessiveness, jealousy founded on vanity. September has come, it is hers Whose vitality leaps in the autumn, Whose nature prefers Trees without leaves and a fire in the fire-place; So I give her this month and the next Though the whole of my year should be hers who has rendered already So many of its days intolerable or perplexed But so many more so happy; Who has left a scent on my life and left my walls Dancing over and over with her shadow, Whose hair is twined in all my waterfalls And all of London littered with remembered kisses. So I am glad That life contains her with her moods and moments More shifting and more transient than I had Yet thought of as being integral to beauty; Whose mind is like the wind on a sea of wheat, Whose eyes are candour, And assurance in her feet Like a homing pigeon never by doubt diverted. To whom I send my thanks That the air has become shot silk, the streets are music, And that the ranks Of men are ranks of men, no more of cyphers. So that if now alone I must pursue this life, it will not be only A drag from numbered stone to numbered stone But a ladder of angels, river turning tidal. Off-hand, at times hysterical, abrupt, You are one I shall always remember, Whom cant can never corrupt Nor argument disinherit. Frivolous, always in a hurry, forgetting the address, Frowning too often, taking enormous notice Of hats and backchat – how could I assess The thing that makes you different? You whom I remember glad or tired, Smiling in drink or scintillating anger, Inoppurtunely desired On boats, on trains, on roads when walking. Sometimes untidy, often elegant, So easily hurt, so readily responsive, To whom a trifle could be an irritant Or could be balm and manna. Whose words would tumble over each other and pelt From pure excitement, Whose fingers curl and melt When you were friendly. I shall remember you in bed with bright Eyes or in a cafe stirring coffee Abstractedly and on your plate the white Smoking stub your lips had touched with crimson. And I shall remember how your words could hurt Because they were so honest And even your lies were able to assert Integrity of purpose. And it is on the strength of knowing you I reckon generous feeling more important Than the mere deliberating what to do When neither the pros nor cons affect the pulses. And though I have suffered from your special strength Who never flatter for points not fake responses, I should be proud if I could evolve at length An equal thrust and pattern.

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.