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Edward Lear’s “How Pleasant To Know...” · The Daily Poem

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  [music]
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  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to The Daily Poem, a podcast from Goldberry Studios.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm Sean Johnson and today is Friday, September 25th, 2026.
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  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is by Edward Lear.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is a kind of poetic self-portrait.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the realm of painting, there are some truly great self-portraits out there.
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  SPEAKER_00: One of my very favorite is not an entirely serious one.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's Norman Rockwell's self-portrait,
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  SPEAKER_00: or rather his triple self-portrait,
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  SPEAKER_00: where he renders himself in three different styles, each one a little more
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  SPEAKER_00: And I think that Rockwell and Lear have some commonalities.
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  SPEAKER_00: Rockwell is sometimes thought of as a sentimentalist painter,
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  SPEAKER_00: but I think if you take a broad survey of his work,
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  SPEAKER_00: especially a lot of the work he did for the Saturday Evening Post,
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  SPEAKER_00: the argument could be made that he's a humorist painter.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when humorists turn their focus upon themselves,
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  SPEAKER_00: it can be really Entertaining,
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  SPEAKER_00: but also really satisfying because they know how to laugh at themselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: So today from Lear, the humorist poet, we get a lighthearted self-portrait in verse.
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  SPEAKER_00: Here's the poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: How Pleasant to Know.
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  SPEAKER_00: How pleasant to know, Mr. Lear, who has written such volumes of stuff.
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  SPEAKER_00: Some think him ill-tempered and queer, but a few think him pleasant enough.
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  SPEAKER_00: His mind is concrete and fastidious,
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  SPEAKER_00: his nose is remarkably big,
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  SPEAKER_00: his visage is more or less hideous, his beard resembles a wig.
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  SPEAKER_00: He has ears, and two eyes, and ten fingers, least ways if you reckon two thumbs.
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  SPEAKER_00: Long ago he was one of the singers, but now he is one of the dumbs.
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  SPEAKER_00: He sits in a beautiful parlor,
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  SPEAKER_00: with hundreds of books on the wall,
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  SPEAKER_00: he drinks a great deal of Marsaller, but never gets tipsy at all.
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  SPEAKER_00: He has many friends, laymen and clerical.
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  SPEAKER_00: Old Foss is the name of his cat.
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  SPEAKER_00: His body is perfectly spherical.
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  SPEAKER_00: He weareth a runcible hat.
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  SPEAKER_00: When he walks in a waterproof white,
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  SPEAKER_00: the children run after him so,
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  SPEAKER_00: calling out, he's come out in his nightgown, that crazy old Englishman.
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  SPEAKER_00: Oh!
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  SPEAKER_00: He weeps by the side of the ocean.
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  SPEAKER_00: He weeps on the top of the hill.
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  SPEAKER_00: He purchases pancakes and lotion and chocolate shrimps from the mill.
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  SPEAKER_00: He reads, but he cannot speak Spanish.
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  SPEAKER_00: He cannot buy ginger beer.
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  SPEAKER_00: Ere the days of his pilgrimage vanish.
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  SPEAKER_00: How pleasant to know Mr. Lear.
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  SPEAKER_00: This has been The Daily Poem.
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  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
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  SPEAKER_00: We'll be back next week with more poetry for you.
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  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime,
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  SPEAKER_00: find us at dailypoempod.substack.com to listen to past episodes of The Daily Poem,
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  SPEAKER_00: including some Edward Lear poetry.
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  SPEAKER_00: While you're there,
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  SPEAKER_00: you can share your impressions of particular poems,
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  SPEAKER_00: and you can even subscribe and become a supporter of the show.
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  SPEAKER_00: For all of us at Goldberry Studios, I'm Sean Johnson wishing you happy reading.