How do you pronounce the word 'symmetry' in this poem?

"symmetry" does rhyme with tree, but word pronunciations change over the years. It could also just be a half rhyme.

>>9732041
say whatever you fucking want, spineless fat idiot

>>9732050
im not fat dont say things like that about me please

tree

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfect_and_imperfect_rhymes

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Obligatory.

>>9732086
You are mom is imperfect. It's clearly meant to be read like try in this instance.

>>9732099
It's up to the reader of the poem. It suggests 'try' but 'tree' is fine too.

correct way to make it rhyme is actually by pronouncing eye as "ah-YEE"

>>9732137
>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9imRk3N2kS4

Just how /lit/ was McClane???

>>9732041
Simmetry and Eye do rhyme.

Blake, as Milton and Shakespeare did, spoke words ending in "-y" not with a /i/ (a shorter "i" of words as "leave"), but with /əJ/, a higher version of the /eJ/ diphthong (a weirder version of the diphthong of the word "stake").
We have the same issue today (but not in Shakespeare's time) in A Midsummer Night's Dream, for example, where almost all the verses rhyme. Oberon, in act 3 scene 2 says:

Flower of this purple dye,
Hit with Cupid's archery,
Sink in apple of his eye.
When his love he doth espy,
Let her shine as gloriously
As the Venus of the sky.
When thou wakest, if she be by,
Beg of her for remedy.

Or in sonnet 1:

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory.

All the words rhyme there because all of them end in /əJ/. With time each would diverge into /i/ ("archery") or /aJ/ ("by").
By the way, the words "bright" and "night" are also pronounced with the /əJ/ diphthong. During Shakespeare, Milton and Blake's time they were undergoing the Great Vowel Shift, which made many rhymes lost for us today. If you want more info, read David Crystal's "The Oxford Dictionary of Shakesperean pronunciation", and watch these videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeW1eV7Oc5A
https://youtu.be/9FF5K8VlcRI
www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyc3q9vwhfQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lOFAzt8fMg

THUS, whenever you hear that Shakespeare spoke General American, they're wrong, since Early Modern English pronunciation was like both and neither. (Though EME was rhotic (they pronounced the "r" when written.))

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>>9732232

>>9732041
Protip: older English works sometimes (but not always) pronounced the ending "y" as "eye".

So it's "sim-eh-try", the last syllable pronounced like the verb "try", and not the modern/American "sim-uh-tree".

a cartoonish brummie accent might get it to rhyme

>>9732232
That's actually quite fascinating. Thanks for the links anon

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>>9732041 >>9732232 >>9732330

I tried my best to transcribe and read the first stanza. Here you go.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1LhmEVyocR5

>>9732041
It's like rhyming comb with tomb. It's called an 'eye rhyme'.

>>9732374

No, m8. Read this: >>9732232

>>9732383
Yeah, I should've read the thread before posting.

>>9732232
>great vowel shift
>late 18th century
>blake spoke like shakespeare

>>9732508
I'm not actually implying that. I'm saying that the "-y" thing works for The Tyger. We have to bear in mind that the Great Vowel Shift happened throughout a long period of time (between the 12th and the 18th century) Thus, by the time The Tyger was written, the "-y" diphthongized was still a feature of English. [spoler] and I'm doing the kind of guesswork that lead linguists to infer all this [/spoiler]

>>9732232
>>9732357
Holy guacamole, thanks anon. That's really interesting

>>9732094
Unironically a good short poem.

>>9732232
Good post

It rhymes with "tree", you're not saying it wrong it's just that english poetry sucks for the most part.

>>9732094
this kid is going places.

>>9732094
Is this Rupi Kaur?