{"id":76,"date":"2015-07-21T16:54:57","date_gmt":"2015-07-21T23:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freemanng.net\/blog\/?p=76"},"modified":"2023-10-03T00:17:49","modified_gmt":"2023-10-03T00:17:49","slug":"reading-aloud-because-i-could-not-stop-for-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/reading-aloud-because-i-could-not-stop-for-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading aloud: Because I could not stop for Death"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You probably know about how Emily Dickinson&#8217;s poetry can be sung to the tune of &#8220;The Yellow Rose of Texas.&#8221; <!--more-->You might not know, however, that this is not all that amazing a coincidence. Dickinson wrote most of her poetry in regular metrical stanzas in which the four lines have four, three, four, and then three iambic beats each, and this happens to be a very popular structure for songs, especially ballads and hymns. So you could sing Dickinson to many other songs, such as &#8220;Amazing Grace&#8221; or the &#8220;Gilligan&#8217;s Island&#8221; theme song, or apply the tune of any of these songs to many other poems, such as Coleridge&#8217;s &#8220;The Rime of the Ancient Mariner&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Still, there&#8217;s a very nice fit between this particular poem of Dickinson&#8217;s and that particular tune, and so I decided to go ahead and pair them in this reading.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<table class=\"mytable\" width=\"100%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"0\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td class=\"mytd\" valign=\"top\" width=\"50%\"><strong>Because I could not stop for Death<\/strong><\/td>\n<td class=\"mytd\" align=\"right\" width=\"50%\"><div class=\"sc_fancy_player_container\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-76-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/fngcdn.appspot.com\/audio\/death.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/fngcdn.appspot.com\/audio\/death.mp3\">http:\/\/fngcdn.appspot.com\/audio\/death.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Because I could not stop for Death \u2013<br \/>\nHe kindly stopped for me \u2013<br \/>\nThe Carriage held but just Ourselves \u2013<br \/>\nAnd Immortality.<\/p>\n<p>We slowly drove \u2013 He knew no haste<br \/>\nAnd I had put away<br \/>\nMy labor and my leisure too,<br \/>\nFor His Civility \u2013<\/p>\n<p>We passed the School, where Children strove<br \/>\nAt Recess \u2013 in the Ring \u2013<br \/>\nWe passed the Fields of Gazing Grain \u2013<br \/>\nWe passed the Setting Sun \u2013<\/p>\n<p>Or rather \u2013 He passed us \u2013<br \/>\nThe Dews drew quivering and chill \u2013<br \/>\nFor only Gossamer, my Gown \u2013<br \/>\nMy Tippet \u2013 only Tulle \u2013<\/p>\n<p>We paused before a House that seemed<br \/>\nA Swelling of the Ground \u2013<br \/>\nThe Roof was scarcely visible \u2013<br \/>\nThe Cornice \u2013 in the Ground \u2013<\/p>\n<p>Since then \u2013 \u2018tis Centuries \u2013 and yet<br \/>\nFeels shorter than the Day<br \/>\nI first surmised the Horses\u2019 Heads<br \/>\nWere toward Eternity \u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You probably know about how Emily Dickinson&#8217;s poetry can be sung to the tune of &#8220;The Yellow Rose of Texas.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reading-aloud"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1549,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76\/revisions\/1549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.authorfreeman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}