[New-Poetry] For the WEPD experiment: Houseman's Poem

[TheOldMole]

Bob -- I think we should get together and have a beer over this, because 
malt does more than Housman can, to justify Nature's ways to man,

Bob Grumman wrote:
> John Jeffrey wrote:
>> Right: he has little time to look at things in bloom; therefore he 
>> must go out even when they're not in bloom and see the beauty of them 
>> when they are hung with snow.  Just the way I've read it for my two 
>> score years and ten.
>>
>> JohnJ
>>
> Sorry, John, but you seem to me to be arguing that Housman is saying:
>
>     And since to look at things in bloom
>     Fifty springs are little room,
>     About the woodlands I will go
>
>     To do something other than look at cherry trees in bloom.
>
> If he'd been talking about the beauty of cherry trees, that would make 
> more sense, but he hasn't been: he's been talking about the beauty of 
> cherry trees/ in bloom/ (and, implicitly, about the beauty of spring).
>
> Do you not agree that my reading is at least as reasonable as yours?  
> I've seen it that way for probably close to 50 years, but that's 
> irrelevant; I have definitely been mistaken about some poems for 
> longer than that.
>
> Note to Judy: The Mole is on my side, and he's worth twenty Johns and 
> 19.5 Michaels, so phooey on you.  I would add that if you only can't 
> appreciate a poem whose most overt message is "boring," you won't be 
> able to appreciate many of the best poems in the language.  It's not a 
> poem's message that counts, but how the poem expresses it.
>
> --Hohenprofessor Bob
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-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

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