The lyrics of the following song are an excerpt from 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' by Oscar Wilde:
KODAGAIN-Each man kills the thing he loves by kodagain
There's also a video, here.
One thing that strikes me about the poem is that it was written in an age when people knew the grammatical difference between 'each' and 'every'. I have to admit, I don't. I must look it up.
Another thing that strikes me is the line, "The kindest use a knife, because/The dead so soon grow cold." For a long time, I thought this a very strange line. Does it mean, I wondered, that a knife will somehow keep the dead warm? I couldn't work it out at all. And then it dawned on me how I was missing the obvious. The knife simply signifies a quick dispatch. Get it over with. The dead will grow cold and the terrible suffering and passion will be over. Don't think it's kind to drag things out. I understand now.
