O Hollow Hollow Hollow - W. S. Gilbert

LibriVox volunteers bring you 17 recordings of O Hollow Hollow Hollow by W.S. Gilbert. This was the Weekly Poetry project for January 8, 2012.

Here is a poem by the "fleshly" poet, Bunthorne, from the opera Patience, by Gilbert and Sullivan. Who better to introduce it than the poet himself:

BUNTHORNE. It is a wild, weird, fleshy thing; yet very tender, veryyearning, very precious. It is called, "Oh, Hollow! Hollow! Hollow!"
PATIENCE Is it a hunting song?
BUNTHORNE. A hunting song? No, it is not a hunting song. It is thewail of the poet's heart on discovering that everything iscommonplace. To understand it, cling passionately to one anotherand think of faint lilies.

Bunthorne was considered to have been modelled on Oscar Wilde, but more recent reseach has suggested that this claim is not correct. ( Summary by Algy Pug )