Because most philosophies that frown on reproduction don't survive.

Friday, August 03, 2007

Friday poetry (or not)

Eat your heart out, Shakespeare -- PoetBot can say it in four words.

I've been reading John Donne lately, and here's what's been rattling around in my head:

Goe, and catche a falling starre,
  Get with child a mandrake roote,
Tell me, where all past yeares are,
  Or who cleft the Divels foot,
Teach me to heare Mermaides singing,
  Or to keep off envies stinging,
       And find
       What winde
Serves to advance an honest minde.

If thou beest borne to strange sights,
  Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand daies and nights,
  Till age snow white haires on thee,
Thou, when thou retorn'st, wilt tell me
  All strange wonders that befell thee,
      And sweare
      No where
Loves a woman true, and faire.

If thou findst one, let mee know,
  Such a Pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet doe not, I would not goe,
  Though at next doore wee might meet,
Though shee were true, when you met her,
  And last, till you write your letter,
      Yet shee
      Will bee
False, ere I come, to two, or three.

5 comments:

Fred said...

wouldn't that make a good science fiction story?

mrsdarwin said...

Actually, John Donne's Song played a major part in Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones.

Or did you mean the PoetBot?

Fred said...

Ha! I didn't know that... never read Howl's Moving Castle.

as for the poetBot, Dahl had a story, "The Great Automatic Grammatizer."

Anonymous said...

Ode on a Grecian Urn summarized
Skirrow, Desmond (1924-1976)


Gods chase
Round vase.
What say?
What play?
Don't know.
Nice, though.


LogEyed Roman (System won't log me in here.)

CMinor said...

So have we tried running that through PoetBot yet? I'm guessing the result would be something along the lines of:
Female fidelity=null set(sorry, not sure how to make the symbol.)

In fairness to our sex, we'd have to counter with some Aemelia Lanyer, or Lady Mary Wortley Montague. Suitably PoetBotted, of course.