Hey Everybody,
I was thinking about one of my favorite poems the other day and I realized that the question that has been bugging me for years can be asked on the dope! (Sometimes you forget these things, you know?) The poem in question is “Fare Thee Well” by Lord Byron. Every time I read it I choke on a particular spot that has a strange rhyme and I do not have enough education to conclude what the intended pronunciation is.
The particular part is:
Now, the poem is ABAB, and that’s how it flows throughout very nicely. Except you have to say “To inflict a cureless WAUND”. Checking a few dictionaries I did see mention of the fact that wound (n) used to be pronounced like that but is now considered archaic. None of my dictionaries are cool enough to provide dates, however. The rational part of me believes that either Byron used the pronunciation that was in general use when he was writing this (~ 200 years ago, right?) or that it was already obsolete by then and he took a bit of a poetic license and borrowed an already-then-archaic pronunciation.
Yet, I’ve choked on this bit so many times that now “To inflict a cureless woond” has made a comfortable home in my brain and has inverted the entire poem around itself. The poem works for me with a single ABAC stanza in the middle, and I am very comfortable with that. The little child in me wants to believe that this could have been an intentional, but, well could it? Was the woond pronunciation established by then? Could it be? Am I just too silly to be touching things?
- Groman
P.S. Bonus question, along the same lines. From William Blake’s “The Tiger”
Now is it just AABC AABB AABB AABB, or is there a different pronunciation of “eye” or “symmetry” in play?