LONGFELLOW AT HIS SHORTEST (PROMPT)
Another Longfellow distortion of facts. Our prompt was to take a poem and write the opposite. I chose “The Arrow and the Song”, which, out of respect for Longfellow because I’m about to ruin his name, I will put first.
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?
Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.
My version “The Song and The Arrow”:
I shot my arrow to the ground,
I knew right then where it was bound;
So slowly did it move away,
I could see precisely where it lay.
I belted out a song to earth,
The arrow entered to its girth;
Anyone with ears could hear,
My song, and run in fear!
Soon, quite soon, stuck in the clay
The arrow, broken, where it lay;
Parts of my song that I had sung,
Stolen by enemies one by one.
NaPoWriMo 2013 