John Green Reads Poetry

J I just learned that Merle Haggard died Hank. As we are recording this I just found out on Twitter about the death of the great country music legend Merle Haggard. Merle Haggard who performed one of my all time favorite country songs, Mama Tried. Whether you know it or not Hank, you’ve heard that song. Do you know when?

H: Uh yeah, it was at your wedding.

J: It was at my wedding, it was my first dance with my mother after my wedding was Mama Tried. In fact Hank if you don’t mind, if I could just jump right into the poem for today. It’s just the chorus of Mama Tried which is a 2 minute long song and this is its brilliant chorus:

(Quotes chorus)

J: Mama Tried, the great Merle Haggard song, just a beautiful, beautiful song, and a wonderful song to dance with your mother to at your wedding.

H: That’s wonderful John, did you have another poem scheduled that you had to bump?

J: I did, I did, I had a nice Emily Dickinson poem but you know what? There’s world enough and time to quote a different poet.

H: It’s true, it’s true we’re going to keep making these. …

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires and more slow;

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

       But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust;

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

       Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Through the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.