Wednesday, November 7, 2007

greetings everyone,
i figured i would post the burns poem and my response to get some feedback since time ran out during class. so here they are...

A Red, Red Rose
by Robert Burns

My luve is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
My luve is like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun!
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare-thee-weel, my only luve,
And fare-thee-weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten-thousand mile.


Ten Thousand Miles
by me

Behind me lies that winding road,
Which I have known too well.
My feet remember every step,
And snare by which I fell.
Ten thousand miles, I marked the length,
But still I stand, alone.
The Winter chill surrounds me now,
That hopeful Spring has flown.
And so the petals, faded, fall
From this, our wilted love.
You said "a while" but this is not
What I was thinking of.

3 comments:

The VGDJs said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
The VGDJs said...

I love this poem, hehehe. You might want to revisit some of the punctuation, however. I'm pretty sure there shouldn't be a comma in:

"Behind me lies that winding road,
Which I have known too well," because it's a winding road that which lies behind you, not a separate clause.

"My feet remember every step,
And snare by which I fell," since 'snare' is used as a noun in this case.

And with "The Winter chill surrounds me now, That hopeful Spring has flown," shouldn't the comma be a period or semicolon?

You're just comma happy! :D

Dr. Robbins said...

Dan -- excellent poem! I have no particular comments except to say that your work is a perfect example of why I endorse ignoring biography in thinking about poetry. We don't care if Burns really loved somebody once; reading your poem we don't care if you loved somebody once. We don't care if you ever were in a large battle on another planet. The "truth" of words speak for themselves.
The danger of biographical criticism is that it does a grave injustice to those who work primarily from their imaginations. Looking for meaning in biography is reductive, dismissive of the creative process, and often dangerous. We must give an author the freedom to MAKE STUFF UP, or writers may edit themselves. That said, the stuff that is made up must also have a truth of its own that readers recognize.
-- Dr. Robbins