Of Tygers and Swings, and Manly Men

A class was in the libery today, composing poems. TWO of the kidlets turned in poems that started, "Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright"!!

Even I recognized THAT! I commented, "Hey, you misspelled 'tiger'"

Alfred Bester wrote "The Stars, My Destination", one of my favorite SF stories. It was originally, so I've heard, titled "Tiger Tiger", for reasons obvious when you see the book cover illustration linked to.

I've read somewhere it might be made into a movie. That would be way cool!

Back in the day (3rd or 4th grade), I tried to pass off Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Swing' as an original poem. Silly me! That was the LAST time I plagiarized anything. At least, before the internet came along!

The Swing
by Robert Louis Stevenson
from A Child's Garden of Verses

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do!

Up in the air and over the wall,
Till I can see so wide,
Rivers and trees and cattle and all
Over the countryside--

Till I look down on the garden green,
Down on the roof so brown--
Up in the air I go flying again,
Up in the air and down!

It is available at Project Gutenberg

THE TYGER

By William Blake
from Poems of William Blake

Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

Also available at Project Gutenberg!

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On the radio this morning they wuz replaying a bit wherein guys call in and share the most "guy" thing they have ever done. One guy had ridden his motorcycle at high speed down Cajon Pass with a buddy, another had taken a bullet south of the border.

I can't think of anything.