In this bonus "earpetizer" of The Good Words Podcast, host Lynn Hickernell features an excerpt from Dickens's A Christmas Carol, the poem "The Bells of Shandon" by Francis Sylvester Mahony, and a special listener-submitted edition of, "GET IT?!?!?"
SHOW NOTES:
Passage from A Christmas Carol:
"They were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count; and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly."
Dramatic reading of A Christmas Carol on Librivox (featuring narration by Elizabeth Klett)
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (full text on Gutenberg.org)
Background music for bonus "GET IT?!?!?": "Happy Whistling Ukulele" by Rafael Krux
"The Bells of Shandon" by Francis Mahony
With deep affection and recollection
I often think of those Shandon bells,
Whose sounds so wild would, in the days of childhood,
Fling round my cradle their magic spells.
On this I ponder where'er I wander,
And thus grow fonder, sweet Cork, of thee;
With thy bells of Shandon that sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.
I've heard bells chiming full many a clime in,
Tolling sublime in cathedral shrine;
While at a glib rate brass tongues would vibrate;--
But all their music spoke naught like thine.
For memory dwelling on each proud swelling
Of thy belfry knelling its bold notes free,
Made the bells of Shandon sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.
I've heard bells tolling old Adrian's Mole in,
Their thunder rolling from the Vatican;
And cymbals glorious swinging uproarious
In the gorgeous turrets of Notre Dam.
But thy sounds were sweeter than the dome of Peter
Flings o'er the Tiber, pealing solemnly;
O, the bells of Shandon sound far more grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.
There's a bell in Moscow; while on tower and kiosk O!
In Saint Sophia the Turkman gets,
And loud in air calls men to prayer
From the tapering summits of tall minarets.
Such empty phantom I freely grant them;
But there's an anthem more dear to me;
'Tis the bells of Shandon that sound so grand on
The pleasant waters of the River Lee.