A Message from our Sponsor

[Hawkman]

Hades Lament

I am Hades, the underworld my realm,
My bride, Persephone, Demeter’s girl,
With me resides in hell until the spring,
When once again, in sunshine may she walk,
The land her bounteous tread to bless withal,
The sleeping earth from winter’s cold embrace,
To free, heralding the dawn of summer.
But I am Hades, the dead, my subjects,
And mortal men all owe this debt to me,
To know that here I rule, I’m not the place,
For ‘twas that ingrate Homer forged the lie,
When he said the underworld was Hades.
I made him pay, with Sisyphus he toils
And so will you, if you don’t get it right.


Hades’ Lament (revised)

I am Hades, the underworld my realm,
My bride, Persephone, Demeter’s girl,
With me resides in hell until the spring,
When once again, in sunshine may she walk,
The land her bounteous tread to bless withal,
To free the earth from winter’s cold embrace,
And so announce the latent summer’s dawn.
But I am Hades, the dead, my subjects,
And mortal men all owe this debt to me,
To know that here I rule, I’m not the place,
For ‘twas that ingrate Homer forged the lie,
That I and my dread kingdom are as one.
I made him pay, with Sisyphus he toils
As you will too, if you can’t get it right.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Ouch, Herr or Señor Hades, in future I'll be careful to get it right. There's a compelling flow throughout this.

[Hawkman]

Methinks 'tis best
not to give
a grumpy God offence.

H

[PrinceMyshkin]

Methinks 'tis best
not to give
a grumpy God offence.

H

Or, as I scrawled in an abandoned poem in work:


Give to God
the things that are God's
and to Caesar
give the finger!

[blank|verse]

Yeah, an enjoyable unrhymed sonnet, which is nicely crafted.

Personally I'm not a fan of the archaic style and diction, but it's fitting for the subject and I know you will find fans on the forum who will appreciate it more than me!

I think the light humour, sustained throughout the poem, coupled with a strong knowledge of the subject, works well and is successfully achieved. I'm not sure why it is a 'Message from our Sponsor' though. Are you saying all poets are automatically 'of the devil's party without knowing it' (as Blake said famously of Milton)?

There are a couple of flat bits in the poem. The first line of the quote (below) I feel works really well, but the second not so well, created by the slightly clumsy 'To free,' opening, the run of unstressed syllables ('HER-al-ding the') and the weak-stressed ending.

The sleeping earth from winter’s cold embrace,
To free, heralding the dawn of summer.
Also, this line is a bit prosey in context and the lack of strong stresses means it runs a bit too quickly:

When he said the underworld was Hades.

But overall, it's well achieved. Now, of course the next thing is to write something like that and make it fit a rhyme scheme, while retaining the flow of the poem. Good luck!

[Hawkman]

Hi BV, and thanks for droppin in.

I don't think I can claim to burn as bright as a tiger and I can't find my copy of Paradise Lost which is, doubtless, lurking in one of those boxes I told you about. The message from our sponsor thing just made me laugh but I don't associate the Lord of the Underworld with Devil in this context. As far as I can make out all of the classical Gods were equally capable of good as evil. In fact Hades, as Pluto, was seen as the source of bounty from the earth, like metal.

Your asessment of the poem is spot on. I did consider;

'to free the earth from winter's cold embrace
heralding the latant dawn of summer'

and I agree that 'when he said the underworld was Hades' may not be as neat as it could be.

Generally I find that archaicisms help to fit the thought to the metre, but mixing them with contemporary vernacular is a bit mischievous...

Live and be well,

H