Now, I'm forced by my hostess to go back and live
my childhood again.
And she asked me to read to you one of the first poems I ever
wrote.
And I would be happy to do this, because in a sense, especially
for young writers in this room, it will give you
the key to my life and my work.
Let me see.
Where is it?
Oh, that's going to be something.
I had it marked down.
Oh, here it is.
[INAUDIBLE] this up.
I believe that this is the second poem I ever wrote.
And I was at that time a freshman,
I believe, at Indiana University,
where Stith Thompson was a professor of the Old English
ballad.
I was too young to study with him,
but I dreamed then that I would become
an authority on the ballad--
that I would go by muleback through the Ozarks
or through the Kentucky and Tennessee mountains,
collecting variants of "Barbara Allen" and so forth.
And this is my second poem, I believe, that I ever wrote.
And I will read it to you, because it shows you
at least how I have lived, if not how I have written.
Do you all hear me all right?
Good.
It's called "Ballad-Loving," and I was about 17 when I wrote it.
"She was a ballad-loving woman, who lived until she died.
With a hey-lillelu and a how-lo-lan,
her sorry tears were dried.
She watched the East.
She watched the West.
She watched the changing weather.
With a hey-lillelu and a how-lo-lan,
she kept her heart together."
"She knew that day will follow night,
that flowers bloom after snow.
With a hey-lillelu and a how-lo-lan,
she knew what she could know.
With a hey-lillelu and a how-lo-lan,
and a link-a-down-and-a-day, with singing words from long
ago, she knew that life will stay.
She was a ballad-loving woman, who lived until she died.
With a hey-lillelu and a how-lo-lan,
her sorry tears were dried."