WEBVTT

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A second one that came out
of a preoccupation with meter

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is a series called
The Evergreen.

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This is a little
series of little poems

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for a child who died.

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And thinking of
this and wondering

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what would be an
appropriate rhythm,

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I thought of the
Greek elegiac couplet

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which is the rhythm of
the Greek anthology.

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And the rhythm of many
poems on Greek tombstones

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are supposed to be on
Greek or Latin tombstones.

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You know what it is.

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It's a hexometer
followed by a hexometer

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in which the third
and sixth foot have

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only the first syllable.

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Like this is the forest
primeval, the murmuring pines

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in the hemlocks.

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This is the forest primeve,
the murmuring pines in the hem.

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It cuts off third and
sixth syllable in this way.

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Well, I took one of the
earliest Greek lyrics

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says, "What life,
what pleasant thing

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is there without
golden Aphrodite.

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Love may I rot in Earth when I
don't care about this anymore."

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And the sound is a--

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τίς δὲ βίος, τί δὲ τερπνὸν ἄτερ


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χρυσέης Ἀφροδίτης; τεθναίην,

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ὅτε μοι μηκέτι ταῦτα μέλοι

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This is the rhythm of this.

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Well, I took this as a basis,
divided the lines in half,

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and connected them
by a kind of rhythm,

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and had speakers the
way many of the poems

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in the Greek anthology have.

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Someone passing a grave will
say, "Who lies here below?"

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And the corpse speaks up and
says, "I am so and so from--"

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Well, this convention is used.

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Some of the-- it's
easier to look

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at than to hear because some
lines are italicized so you

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know where speeches change.

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"Under this stone what lies a
little boy's thistle down body.

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How and so light a child
gravel hefted and hurled light.

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As a flower entwined
in our shining arms,

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heavy laid in the scale.

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It set wailing the
chains of the world."

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Or B, what did you say?

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We said, "Bedtime dear forever.

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Time to put out the light.

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Time for the eyes to close."

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What did he do?

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He lay in a crazy
quilt of fever.

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His hands were
already like grasses.

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His cheek already arose.

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How was that year?

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Hears a voice, "Over sun
on the rug slow turning,

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hung like a sea bird lost
the lawn and bottomless cry

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haunting the house.

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And then I remember
then one morning silence

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like knives in the ear,
a bird gone over the sea.

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Little head, little
head, frail in the air.

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Gold Esther.

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Why did the great King stoop
and smooth those ringlets down?

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For a tensile party hit, it
was Christmas then, remember?

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I remember grown men wept and
couldn't lift that crown."

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