(no subject)
Feb. 7th, 2009 09:21 pmSome folk, I know, have skills that I do not;
As, how to speak in Russian, or in Greek,
To coax melodious music from a flute
Or wake the echoes with the sounding trump,
Or duel with the rapier or the lance
Or else with every arrow strike the bull;
Some have the skill of architecture: some
Can balance out a year's worth of accounts
And never an ought misplaced. All this I know.
And likewise the reverse: that I have skills
That others do not have. And yet I find
The notion sets me ever in amaze
That this small trick, this trivial mastery
Of stress and accent and a metred line
Seems just as rare as those more useful skills,
And I its master. Surely 't is not so.
That men should baulk at such an easy thing!
That Shakespeare's line should be so hard to catch
And echo back in reams of flowing verse!
And yet it seems 't is true. Would that there were
Some lordly and eccentric millionaire
Who might be swayed to pay a living wage
For grinding out pentameters all day!
Now that's a job that I could well essay.
As, how to speak in Russian, or in Greek,
To coax melodious music from a flute
Or wake the echoes with the sounding trump,
Or duel with the rapier or the lance
Or else with every arrow strike the bull;
Some have the skill of architecture: some
Can balance out a year's worth of accounts
And never an ought misplaced. All this I know.
And likewise the reverse: that I have skills
That others do not have. And yet I find
The notion sets me ever in amaze
That this small trick, this trivial mastery
Of stress and accent and a metred line
Seems just as rare as those more useful skills,
And I its master. Surely 't is not so.
That men should baulk at such an easy thing!
That Shakespeare's line should be so hard to catch
And echo back in reams of flowing verse!
And yet it seems 't is true. Would that there were
Some lordly and eccentric millionaire
Who might be swayed to pay a living wage
For grinding out pentameters all day!
Now that's a job that I could well essay.