Thursday, October 21, 2004

Tyger Number Thirty Nine

From Poetry Gameshow Host Douglas Rothschild. He exchanged words between Blake and Keats mad-lib style to create this hybrid tyger:

Begin with Fire
by William Blake

Shoulder of night and immortal frame,
Deadly brain-fire of the burning stars:
Clasping in thee what to make and dare
With fire the wings of what dread-eyes seize;
To beat with anvil the night chain-twists,
And fire the forests with symmetry to the brain;
To throw the hammer, and make the hearts sinews
With the immortal night; to see burning down,
And throwing down, dread furnace of the brain,
When he threw bright deeps could deadly clasp,
Of stars were in-chained their distant grasp.

Who could see thee down in his smile?
when he who smiles down could frame
Thee seeing deadly on the furnace frame,
his hand burnt-night in the winging work;
Or on the dread-shouldered fire distant art,
Chained with the fires of heaven, when his hand
Siezed the bright symmetry and its dread fears:
Or when with the grasper he did make
Deadly thy fearful heart in the brain;
Or with the chain-sinews, with dread smile,
He works the distant hammering hand in heart.

What are the skies of Tygers? And, what is he?
Aspire to thee, he was thy night when, --
down beaten dread dares the distant-burning deep,
And twists the star-spears with fearful hand;
What of immortal art the burnt heart made
In the night’s symmetry beaten down
Or smiling in the bright work smiles or dares;
And distant-immortal lambs could aspire in bright brain;
heart-chains sieze; or when with terror dread
The bright-art watered in the hammer-clasp;
And burning Tygers twisting in the sky.

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