After his career in the Navy, Ron went back to college and got a Masters degree. (So, Robin, I’ll trump your Masters with Ron’s. Back then when Ron got his, they were harder to get.) Then he taught at the college level. He recently sent me this email about updating a Keats’ poem.
Back in the days when a decent college education included at least a passing nod at classical poetry, students studied such masters as Byron, Shelley, Pope, Milton, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, and others. Of course today all those old dead Englishmen have been tossed on the rubbish heap in favor of more “hip” poetry by such modern geniuses as Ginsberg, Eminem, Snoop Dog, Aquah LaLuah, and Sistah Souljah.
One poem I made sure my students were introduced to was “Ode On A Grecian Urn,” By Keats. Many of you will remember those last two lines from this final stanza:
Ode on a Grecian Urn
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
Well, since people don’t like that sorta stuff any more, I kinda brought it up to date:
Merde, Or A Clinton Turd
O dumpy shape! Harsh attitude! With cries
From dying men and power thou hast sought,
With petro dollars and “Foundation” lies;
Thou, cackling witch, art whole and fully bought
Through tricks political: Cold She-Devil!
When debts due this sacred nation waste,
Shalt thou be damned, to share Obama woe
For self, a friend to none, to whom Fate say’st,
“Evil is she, she evil,” – that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.