Ha, Jon, I definitely agree about the Keats, which made them all the
more fun to read to undergrad classes...
Doug
On 11-Feb-07, at 9:19 AM, Jon Corelis wrote:
> Try reading the following lines of Keats aloud and notice what happens
> to
> your lips and especially tongue:
>
> The same that oft-times hath
> Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
> Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn ...
>
> You can't speak those lines without singing them, and "forlorn" with
> effortless brilliance ushers in tolling bell of the next stanza.
>
> or:
>
> And still she slept an azure-lidded sleep,
> In blanched linen, smooth, and lavender’d,
> While he from forth the closet brought a heap
> Of candied apple, quince, and plum, and gourd;
> With jellies soother than the creamy curd,
> And lucent syrops, tinct with cinnamon;
> Manna and dates, in argosy transferr’d
> From Fez; and spiced dainties, every one,
> From silken Samarcand to cedar’d Lebanon.
>
> You can hear the sighing breath of the sleeping girl in "azure lidded
> sleep," hear and feel the stiff rustle of fresh cloth in "blanched
> linen,
> smooth and lavender'd," taste the unctious sweetmeats with the
> motions your
> lips and tongue makes to recount them, hear the call of the muezzin in
> "silken Samarkand" and the scented puff of the Levantine breeze in
> "cedar'd
> Lebanon" ...
>
Douglas Barbour
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Latest book: Continuations (with Sheila E Murphy)
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The stars wheel over
The Cross drops its image
Into the watertank.
David Campbell
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