WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Poetry Fix: Mortality, Part Two

Episode Date: April 25, 2026

Join Erika Kyba to conclude reading William Knox's "Mortality." Today, Erika discusses the difficulty of preserving the memory of the dead.

Welcome to the Poetry Fix on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time. Today we're continuing our journey through William Knox's mortality. In today's excerpt, we pick up with one of the themes that Knox is most preoccupied with in this work, memory. At this point, he has set up various and vivid scenes of life, only to conclude that these scenes and their actors will be erased from the mind of the living. Now he grieves that our ancestors loved, but their story we cannot unfold. This isn't to say that we stop telling stories about our ancestors, but as generations go on,

we encounter more difficulty in passing on the stories. It becomes more difficult to unfold the course of events, as Knox puts it. Think about the tragic truth that's in that statement. I'm sure you could tell me the story of how your parents and grandparents met, and maybe even some of your great-grandparents, but maybe even some of your great-grandparents, But beyond that, how much of our own family history do we have access to? We certainly can't recreate the little details of how our ancestors fell in love, let alone access their inner lives. There's an added level of anxiety for Knox in the contrast between the vibrancy of life and the coldness of death.

As he describes his forefathers, he begins by casting them in the active voice, but then switches to the passive to describe their death. For example, he writes that they scorned, but then immediately switches to the heart of the heart of the haughty is cold. The scorn of the haughty man is a choice. The coldness of a dead man's heart is not. Finally, there is the silence of the grave. Knox writes that though the dead once grieved, no wail from their slumbers may come, and though they once rejoiced, the voice of their gladness is now silent. When we experience grief and joy, there is an impulse to share it. Whaling in particular reads as a cry for help from others, but joy also demands a voice because rejoicing is something to be done in community. Only the dead don't have that community. They are removed from us. Maybe that inspires you

to seize the day while you still have the chance, or to tell the stories of your ancestors while you still remember them. But Knox is going for a different message, ending the poem with the same line he started with. Why should the spirit of mortal be proud? We have a tendency to get too big for our boots, he seems to think, and to treat our transient victories and failures as if the whole universe centers on them. And that's not to say that we shouldn't strive for those victories. Remember, Lincoln adored this poem, and he accomplished some of the greatest things in American history. But it does put our lives in the context of eternity, calling us to humility and not nihilism when we realize how small we truly are.

With all that said, let's dive in. Mortality by William Knox. They loved, but their story we cannot unfold. They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold. They grieved, but no wail from their slumbers may come. They joyed, but the voice of their gladness is dumb. They died. Aye, they died.

And we, things that are now, who walk on the turf that lies over their brow, who make in their dwellings a transient abode, meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road. Yea, hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain, are mingled together like sunshine and rain, and the smile and the tear and the song and the dirge still follow each other like surge upon surge. Tis the twink of an eye, tis the draught of a breath,

from the blossom of health to the paleness of death, from the gilded saloon to the beer and the shroud. Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? You've been listening to The Poetry Fix with Erica Kaiba. If you enjoyed this episode, consider following the Poetry Fix on Spotify, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts, If you have any poems you want to see in a future episode, email your suggestions to the poetry fix at gmail.com. Join me next week and we'll be reading an excerpt from Milton's Comus.