Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Dickinson and Denver

In honor of the recently deceased Bob Denver and the great poet, Emily Dickinson, I post the following, with a nod to BQuinnan of Catholic Answers Forum.

Did you know that the tune to Gilligan's Island can be used to sing almost any Emily Dickinson poem? Try it!

"Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility."


I know, I know! A great way to ruin a perfectly good poem! I couldn't resist, though! Here's another:

I died for beauty but was scarce
adjusted in the tomb,
when one who died for truth was lain
in an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed.
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth. Themselves are one.
We brethren are," he said.

And so as kinsman met a night
and talked between the rooms,
until the moss had reached our lips
and covered up our names.


Now that I've forever ruined Emily Dickinson for you, I suggest TRYING to read her poetry without the Gilliganian accompaniment--her stuff is really cool!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

And how do you suppose I do that? (Read her poems without the Gilligan's Theme Song going through my head.) Unfortunately (or perhaps funtunately) that will now happen with any poem I read. Perhaps I would have understood Shakespeare better if I could have sung it?????

Darrell said...

This is actually new to me. I've been reading her poems to the tune of "Yellow Rose Of Texas" for years now!

Anonymous said...

Geeze Darrell,

Now you got me trying that too!

Staying in Balance said...

Darrell,
I did read that you can sing "Yellow Rose of Texas" to the Gilligan's Island song too. Makes sense, doesn't it!?

Staying in Balance said...

Lifeisgreat: Tonight I went to my last back to school night and the History teacher said the kids still use School House Rock to memorize the Preamble to the Constitution, so, yeah, maybe singing Shakespeare would have helped!

Dymphna's favorite quotes


"Slavery ended in medieval Europe only because the church extended its sacraments to all slaves and then managed to impose a ban on the enslavement of Christians (and of Jews). Within the context of medieval Europe, that prohibition was effectively a rule of universal abolition. "— Rodney Stark

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