{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4486",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 4486,
    "subject": "meter of emily",
    "messages": 2,
    "voices": 2,
    "first": "2005-08-09T10:25:33+00:00",
    "last": "2005-08-13T15:20:53+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<20050809172527.UDSO550.fed1rmmtao12.cox.net@smtp.west.cox.net>",
      "from": {
        "name": "aramini1 at cox.net",
        "address": "aramini1 at cox.net"
      },
      "date": "2005-08-09T10:25:33+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) meter of emily",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The interesting thing about a lot of these Dickinson poems to me is that they always seem to have that old hymn rhythm:\n\na thousand ages in thy sight\nare like an evening gone \nshort as the watch that ends the night\nbefore the rising sun\n\nNow pick an Emily Dickinson poem at random and scan around it - at least half of her poems fit that syllable scheme\n\n\nPerhaps the music of the church had a larger influence on her than we can say."
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "message_id": "<1f761737050813152060854c4d@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes",
        "address": "danldo at gmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2005-08-13T15:20:53+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) meter of emily",
      "in_reply_to": "<20050809172527.UDSO550.fed1rmmtao12.cox.net@smtp.west.cox.net>",
      "reply_link": "header",
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Sorry if this has already been said, but I'm catching up on \na week-and-a-half worth of email (just back from Alaska).\n\nEmily Dickinson's poems are generally written in the same\nmeter as a lot of old hymns, because both use what's known\nas \"ballad meter.\" Ballad is either ABCB or ABAB, with an\noptional internal rhyme in the third line; odd-numbered \nlines are four and three beats -- not quite iambic, as\nunstressed syllables can be added or dropped as \nneeded without violating the ballad scheme.\n\nThis leads to the famous (but  not quite true) claim that\n\"every poem Emily Dickinson wrote can be sung to the\ntune of 'The Yellow Rose of Texas,'\" as revealed to Mr.\nGaribaldi by a ghost in Neil Gaiman's episode of the\ntelevision program BABYLON 5. Other good examples\nof ballad meter are \"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner\"\n(which varies the meter significantly) and many hymns\nand TV theme songs. \n\nTry singing \"Amazing Grace\" to the tune of the Gilligan's\nIsland theme ... it's scary. Also, singing the chorale from\nBeethoven's Ninth to Clementine -- and vice versa (the\nreversal doesn't work so well with AG/GI).\n\n--Dan'l"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "On 8/9/05, aramini1 at cox.net <aramini1 at cox.net> wrote:\nThe interesting thing about a lot of these Dickinson poems to me is that they always seem to have that old hymn rhythm:\n\na thousand ages in thy sight\nare like an evening gone\nshort as the watch that ends the night\nbefore the rising sun\n\nNow pick an Emily Dickinson poem at random and scan around it - at least half of her poems fit that syllable scheme\n\n\nPerhaps the music of the church had a larger influence on her than we can say.\n\n_______________________________________________"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}