Allen Ginsberg on William Blake’s Songs of Innocence continues
AG: Meanwhile, “The Laughing Song” – (to Peter Orlovsky) Do you have a text?
“When the green words laugh, with the voice of joy/And the dimpling stream runs laughing by,/When the air does laugh with our merry wit,And the green hill laughs with the noise of it./ When the meadows laugh with lively green/And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene,/When Mary and Susan and Emily,/With their sweet round mouths sing Ha, Ha, He./ When the painted birds laugh in the shade/ Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread/Come live & be merry and join with me,/To sing the sweet chorus of Ha, Ha, He.” [Allen & Peter continue the refrain, at length – “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha/Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha He” – and he (Allen) explains his purpose for doing so ] – The purpose of the laughing chorus is just to emphasis the variation in syllable and accent. That’s what I did with the laughing part at the end. I followed exactly, rhythmically, the words as they’d be pronounced. And there’s quite a bit of variation in there. It’s pretty.
For more on Allen and the Laughing Song – see our May 2013 posting – here
