The first verse of Blake’s poem:
How did “eye” rhyme with “symmetry”?
Were either of them pronounced differently back then, or is this just an “eh, close enough, it’s poetry” thing?
I seem to remember reading somewhere that Blake, in particular, did the “eh, close enough” thing fairly often.
It’s poetic. But say “Sym-et-try” . Close enuf.
“Very nice, Mr. Ears.”
Come live with me and be my love
And I’ll buy you a baseball glove.
Or this, whose euphony is unsurpassed:
Recite it in a really thick Celtic brogue. That gives you a pretext for mangling both “eye” and “symmetry” until they sorta kinda rhyme.
It helps if you’re a pirate. I happen to be one.
I believe that method is called, “Poetic license”.
The guy saw angels in trees that others thought were turkeys, and wrote the poem Jerusalem.
I thought it was “Tyger, Tyger”?
The long "y’ in Tyger is actually significant, I thynk, because it helps set up the suspension of disbelief as to the pronunciation of “symmetry.”
Still better rhyming than any Train song.
Poems have to rhyme? Someone tell modern “poets”.
To my ears, the near rhyme sounds better than the perfect rhyme, so that’s how I pronounce it. As to how it was pronounced by Blake, I don’t know.
Q: do you need it to rhyme?
sharpens butcher knife
TIGER, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
Black is Grey and Yellow White
But we decide which is right
(Or become dinner fusion…)
You compare the Moody Blues to William Blake?
Come, Sir, as Chaucer is, shall Dryden be.
:dubious:
No, but pomes do, which are written by rhymers.
Blake was very, very good. His poem Jerusalem is a Church of England Hymn.
^ Oh, dear, now I have to get into the fish tank and sing!
I fail to understand why you should sing in an aquarium. ^:dubious:^
Never trust a Rhymer.