AG: [continuing with the poems of Sir Walter Raleigh] - Then, there's some pretty snow, snow stuff - snow and milk - page 137. A couple of… that one stanza there, one or two stanzas ,that are on .. well some of the same theme [suffering and death]. The first line of "Nature, That Washed Her Hands In Milk" - that's a real cute.. "Nature that washed her hands in milk", that's a real weird, sweet notion ((Jack) Kerouac wrote a lot of poems aboutman is existing in milk and living in lilies (sic). He has a poem that begins, "Man is existing in milk and living in lilies'. [Editorial note - from Mexico City Blues - 228th Chorus - "Praised be man, he is existing in milk/and living in lilies -/And his violin music takes place in milk/And creamy emptiness"] So, "Nature that washed her hands in milk" (it's just funny to write about milk, you know, pretty poems about milk and snow and fleece andquiet lambs, a sort of poetic prettiness, sort of.. So, toward the end, or mid.. - let's see, one, two, three, fourth stanza:
"But time (which nature doth despise,/And rudely gives her love the lie,/Makes hope a fool and sorrow wise)/His hands do neither wash nor dry;/But being made of steel and rust/Turns snow and silk and milk to dust."
That's really pretty - "turn snow and silk and milk to dust - good sound - just simple words "snow" and "silk" - "snow and silk and milk to dust" - "snow and silk and milk" - it's good, just a good.. good piece of phrasing there - "The light, the belly, lips, and breath" - that's a nice "belly" too, for, you know, one of those little enumerations - "The light, the belly, lips, and breath,/He dims, discolors, and destroys"…"Yea, time doth dull each lively wit/And dries all wantoness with it." - funny speed-up there - "And dries all wantoness with it."
Okay, I just wanted to get that little piece rolling in.
[Audio of the above can be heard here, beginning at approximatelythirty-one-and-a-quarter minutes in, and concluding at approximately thirty-three-and-a-quarter minutes in]
