My Dear, Fear, Disappear

[Jesterhead]

Unthrifty loveliness,
Thou spend thy beauty's legacy
Face both sunshine nor shadow
To prine into thy hour of secrecy.
Be silent in that solitude
Which is not loneliness,
For holded with thy self
Thy sweet self dost deceive.

Now are thoughts thou shall not banish,
For that wound that make my heart groan,
As thou beshrew for that cruel eye hath taken,
Then this garden of ebony, shall recieve,
Eternity's mistress, which would cling to thee forever.
The hunted slave which wounded bosom fits,
The breath of god, in death around thee,
Desolate yet all undaunted, as thou to keep.

Dead to true sorrow as lovely as thee,
When in the chroncircle of wasted time
I see descriptions of the fairest weights,
Then love for as come a lullaby of roses thorn.
Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best,
I see thy antique heart sold as blood for wine,
They had not skill enough for thee as worth to sing
Had eyes to wonder, a mystery of mysteries.

Were my worth creater, that let my heart
Be still blest forever more, within thy spirit,
Which it hath not seen, nor thou then given,
As I then let them pass me by with a dreaming eye.
Which then shall appear a dreadfully green leaf,
Of secret, as to me as dead as thy, to see me lie,
Above thy shallowest soul, as is too dead to appear,
Alive as I cast it away, I see, my love was my decay

[Jesterhead]

I guess I could try and bump this.

[MorpheusSandman]

In general I like the descriptive sensuousness of the language and your rhythmic use of caesuras which lends a balance to the lines. However, I think there's a profuse overuse of archaisms: thees, thous, etc. These can be effective when used sparingly to provide a sense of remoteness, but here I think they just get in the way. I think if you try reading it to yourself both how it's written and then with it modernized you'll find the latter mode better. It would certainly lend the piece some much needed clarity. I also think some of the lines are a bit too twisted like "Then love for as come a lullaby of roses thorn.".

[Jesterhead]

thanks Morpheus, yea this would definatly be more clear in modernized english, and probably would make it better and more understandable. I just love the archaisms, it brings something to the poem. I just like the 16-17th century style of poetry, the poems written in that era are the most beautiful i think, and I enjoy writing in ancient english.

[MorpheusSandman]

I can understand your feelings, Jester. I, myself and MUCH more inspired by poets like Milton, Shakespeare, Donne, Blake, Chaucer, etc. than I am by modern poetry. And while I definitely seek to work in classic forms and take from the strengths of those poets I've also come to realize that archaisms for the sake of archaisms really doesn't work. In moderation they can be effective. What they do is, like I said, lend a feeling of remoteness. But they don't really make a work automatically more poetic and beautiful. It's the same for using archaic diction which I learned the hard way is NOT to be used when the piece is already dense in language, metaphor, etc. Piling it on just compounds the problem for the reader and it's hard to write something good enough to justify the amount of effort a reader would have to exert.

By all means, don't excise archaisms from your poetic repertoire, but merely become more aware of when and when not to use them and don't do them just out of a desire to sound more poetic or to superficially imitate the poets/poetry you like. To borrow a great quote and aphorism from our own Prince, a map will only get you to where others have been. I'd add to it by saying that a map is map is handy to determine where you are and where others have been, but you do have to look up from the map to determine who you are and what it means to be there.

[tailor STATELY]

I don't know how I missed this gem.

One suggestion:

"Then, in the blazon of sweet beauty's best," - I might substitute the word 'breast' for 'best' which would, to my mind, stay more to the archaic character of the poem and set up the next line "I see thy antique heart sold as blood for wine," a turn of phrase I found delightful, most suitably.

Well done !

[Jesterhead]

yea I can see the archaisms will get in the way if used too rapidly, and should be used in moderation. But I still think this poem sounds best this way, but that is just my personal opinion.

Tailor, the reason why I write 'Sweet beauty's best' is because the third verse is about the love of 'roses thorn' from the line before, where the love was at its highest between the speaker and the woman the poem is about. I see her 'antique heart sold as blood for wine' she was one of a kind, and her emotional ways let her back in the solitude descibed in verse one. It amazed me it was a 'mysery of myseries'. So changing best to breast would altar the meaning too much i think.