Observing Words (Step 2) | Close Reading Poetry for Beginners

well welcome everyone to the second lecture on close reading observing words and in this lecture I want to start by looking at George Herbert's poem The Elixir right here we're just going to be looking at the first stanza right here we've got on the left hand a draft an early draft of the poem which would become the Elixir you see right here here's the first version and then we have the final version called The Elixir we're going to see what changes here now George Herbert was a poet of Simplicity he often seems off the cuff spontaneous he makes poetry look easy his poetry his book of poems the temple is like a garden and the trick about gardening is to make a garden look wild and effortlessly overgrown you know you want the Roses overflowing onto the path just a little bit to give that semblance of wilderness yet that that that's very difficult to achieve in a garden it actually requires careful pruning and planting and care and just like an English garden George Herbert's book of poems the temple looks overgrown natural wild and yet they're carefully crafted poems and so this is a great example of this and let's observe some words so the first version that he wrote reads Lord teach me to refer all things I do to thee that I not only may not air but also pleasing me you'll notice these are not spelling mistakes by the way these are just spelling was not standardized at at this time so this is this is the first version okay at the heart here is Paul's injunction that whatever you do do it heartily is unto the Lord not unto man this is the idea that Herbert wants to sing in his poem and that comes from Paul's letter to the Colossians here he says it here now in this new version we have in the elixir teach me my God and King in all things thee to see and what I do in anything to do it as for thee now what makes this stanza better than the draft what makes this final stanza better well notice what it's doing to the ear for one this one sounds much more musical we have interconnecting these four lines the long e sound and King and C thee and things anything ...