Student: (There’s) another conception of death here, too. (comparable to “A Sick Rose“)
AG: Can you hold that?
– “Little Fly/Thy summers play,/My thoughtless hand/Has brush’d away. Am not I/A fly like thee?/Or art not thou/A man like me?/ For I dance/And drink & sing;/Till some blind hand/Shall brush my wing./ If thought is life/And strength & breath;/And the want/Of thought is death;/ Then am I/A happy fly,/If I live,/Or if I die.”
AG: Want to do that again? See, you’ve got to figure it out as pizzicato thing of – “Little Fly..” – bom-bom.
Peter Orlovsky: Is that iambic? “Little Fly”.
Student: Bouncing ball.
AG: Bom bom bom. Yeah, like a bouncing ball. “Little fly/Thy summers….” dah-duh-dah-duh-dah-duh-dah. Trochaic. “Tyger Tyger, burning bright.,” No, those lines.
“Little Fly/Thy summers play,/My thoughtless hand/Has brush’d away./Am not I/A fly like thee?/Or art not thou/A man like me?/ For I dance/And drink & sing;/Till some blind hand/Shall brush my wing./ If thought is life/And strength & breath;/And the want/Of thought is death;/ Then am I/A happy fly,/If I live,/Or if I die.”
Well, the philosophy of that is interesting. It’s very Buddhist. Saying, if thought is life and strength and breath – thought is breath – if thought is breath – and the want of breath is death, or the want of thought is death, then I’m a happy fly if I’m alive or if I’m dead. I won’t know it. Well, it’s the fact that if some blind hand brushes his wing, and strength and breath disappear and the fly is dead, then it’s lacking in thought, and without thought there’s nothing to worry about, no sorrow about it, so it’s just blanking out. Like slap – that’s the end of it. And the rhythm does give you some of that because you… – “Then am I/A happy fly,/If I live,/Or if I die”– “If I live,/Or if I die.” – There’s a little fly-rhythm, that (those) little thin lines.
“Little Fly/Thy summers play,/My thoughtless hand/Has brush’d away./Am not I..” – So, (three syllables) – “Little Fly” – “Thy summers play” – (four syllables) – “My thoughtless hand/ Has brush’d away” – (four syllables) – “Am not I” (three syllables) – “.A fly like thee?/Or art not thou/A man like me?/ For I dance..” – ( So each stanza begins with a three-syllable (line), except that last one:
“If thought is life/And strength & breath;/And the want/Of thought is death;
It’s funny: It’s three and four syllables, all the way through, to give that little bouncy fly jump rhythm.