Experimental Writing class #2

Three Poem Mash-up

Lines from three famous poems are scrambled together and divided into three new poems. Can you tell the original sources?

(P.S. okay this blog format is a bit annoying because the width cannot contain the length of some of my verses, they get divided into two lines...)

#1

We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow because I could not stop for Death.
And you, my father, there on the sad height, rage –
rage against the dying of the light.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
and the dark street winds and bends
feels shorter than the day.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

We passed the setting sun
the dews grew quivering and chill
and there the moon-bird rests from his flight.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight the place where the sidewalk ends;
Since then ‘tis centuries, and yet each rage –
rage against the dying of the light.

#2

He kindly stopped for me,
my tippet only tulle,
for only gossamer my gown.

At recess, in the ring,
I first surmised the horses’ heads were toward eternity.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black,
the roof was scarcely visible,
and watch where the chalk-white arrows go.

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow,
and there the grass grows soft and white.

We paused before a house that seemed a swelling of the ground,
the cornice but a mound.

For the children, they mark, and children, they know and learn,
too late, they grieved it on its way.
Old age should burn and rave at close of day.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight –
and there the sun burns crimson bright –
do not go gentle into that good night.

#3

For his civility we slowly drove,
he knew no haste,
and before the street begins,
we passed the school where children strove
we passed the fields of gazing grain.

The carriage held but just ourselves,
and we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go;
and I had put away to cool in the peppermint wind, my labor, and my leisure too.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Or rather, he passed us to the place where the sidewalk ends.
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying How Bright!
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay.
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay.
Because their words had forked no lightning, they and Immortality do not go gentle into that good night.
Do not go gentle into that good night.

<3

Where the Sidewalk Ends – Shel Silverstein
Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night - Dylan Thomas
Because I could not stop for Death – Emily Dickinson