From: LouisFors <LouisFors@aol.com>
Message-Id: <861ec8b8.351704c4@aol.com>
Date: Mon, 23 Mar 1998 19:56:34 EST
To: emweb@fmgmt.mgmt.utoronto.ca
Mime-Version: 1.0
Subject: Re: # 650 and "begun"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Sender: owner-emweb@fmgmt.mgmt.utoronto.ca
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: emweb@fmgmt.mgmt.utoronto.ca
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

The question was why, in the third line of the first stanza in # 650, the word
used is "begun," not "began." Thanks for responses, Margaret and Synthesis (I
like it).  So we still aren't sure why ED chose "begun."  I had a wild notion
after sending my query, a notion having no historical basis, that "begun"
would be a good choice because pain, the subject, is treated as a kind of dumb
brute ("It cannot recollect /When it begun--or if there were/A time when it
was not--") who/which might speak a non-standard brand of American English,
where "begun" would be perfect.  That's me speaking, of course, without
historical context.  And if Synthesis don't know, who do?  

Louis Forsdale

>   Pain-has an Element of Blank-
>  >  It cannot recollect
>  >  When it begun-or if there were
>  >  A time when it was not-
>  >  
>  >  It has no Future-but itself-
>  >  Its Infinite contain
>  >  
>  >  Its Past-enlightened to perceive
>  >  New Periods-of Pain.
>  >  
>