My poem inspired by The Lord of the Rings

Sorry, you kind of have to know The Lord of the Rings a little bit to understand some of the names in this poem. Hopefully you can get something out of it even if you don't. Here it is:

Flashed on a dark horizon,
Thunder rolls; it shakes the ground.
The sky drips blood upon the doomed;
A Nazghul cries it's piercing sound.

A fell voice upon the air
Causing all their bones to tremble.
A quivering hand on a rusted spear,
Now evil masses do assemble.

The world falls under a mighty hand.
Who now can resist the eye?
Proud kingdoms crashing down,
Mighty warriors quail and fly.

Raindrops fall upon a sea of
Bloody Corpses on the ground.
Failing eyes look upward now,
A far-off battle horn does sound.

Hark! Now from the west there comes
A warm and glorious light to shine,
Giving hope to hearts of men
And to the good a victory sign.

Light now floods the evil masses;
Angry clouds are rolled away.
Wicked eyes are filled with terror.
Mithrindir will win this day!

Hi there! Welcome to YWS!

First off, I want to compliment you on your rhyming. You're one of the few poets I've met on here (no offense anyone) who can carry it off without sounding forced in every other line. So kudos! There are a couple of places where it does seem a bit awkward though, so I'll point those out as we go along and you can maybe work on the fiddly bits, OK? (And yes, I know I sound like a demented tour guide, but I'm tired and it's late, so :p to you LOL).

I'm not much of a 'Rings fan but I think anyone who has seen the movies could get the gist fairly well, so no worries there. Treating it as a poem in its own right (rather than as a restatement of the LOTR plot) it doesnt seem to have much weight, though, so you might want to think about branching out into your own ideas a bit? I mean, no offense but really it isnt much more than a poetic LOTR remix, which is fine to warm up on but - well, a poem should stand on its own as well, you know?

Flashed on a dark horizon,
Thunder rolls; it shakes the ground.
The sky drips blood upon the doomed;
A Nazghul cries it's piercing sound.

First of all, I question whether "flashed" is a good word here. While it does serve as quite an effective "hook" for your reader, it is in fact a verb and the way it is placed makes it sound like the thunder has "flashed" on a dark horizon -- which basically is a confusing image, since as we all know, it's lightning which flashes. So you might want to think about your word choice there. Second of all, I like your use of dripping blood-- I'm assuming that's instead of rain? Anyway, nice picture. But the last line is a problem. For one thing, it's awkward. I know you're setting the scene, but it's like - all of a sudden the Nazgul is crying and the reader is kind of -- where did HE come from? LOL. Also, I think "sound" is the wrong word. I can see that you want it to rhyme, but ... well, we dont generally tend to think of things as having "sounds" if you get my drift. I dont say, she cried a mewling sound, or whatever. I mean, I might put it a bit differently, but --- ANYWAY. My point is, "sound" sounds, well, awkward. It makes your rhyme seem forced, and the Nazghul seem out of place. So...if I were you, I'd change it.

A fell voice upon the air
Causing all their bones to tremble.
A quivering hand on a rusted spear,
Now evil masses do assemble.

LMAO - I just accidentally deleted part of that and it said "asses do assemble"...The perils of late-night computing! Anyway, first three lines = Good. Last line = bad. Once again, you're pressing the point. Or rather, you're making your rhyme seem obvious. The trick with rhyming poetry is to kind of sneak it up on the reader, so that they almost dont notice the rhyme, or so that the rhyme ADDS to the poem, rather than detracts from it. Kind of like, you want rhyme to be something FROM which a poem is built, rather than something ON which a poem is built. It's difficult to explain, but basically the rhyming must form some part of the poem's meaning, otherwise there's no use in rhyming, is there? ANYWAY...I do ramble on. Basically, by changing the order of the words in that last sentence (how many people do you know who would say "Now the students do assemble in the quad" or whatever? Yeah. Not many.) you're doing two things. One - you're drawing attention to that line. Why is it different? And two - you're drawing attention to the RHYME. And unless this is significant in your poem I would say that's a bad idea. If you want to make your poem sound archaic and "doomful" (i.e. Tolkein-esque) then I would suggest you use a more archaic vocabulary and work on your rhyme scheme (and perhaps brush up on some ancient celtic poetry and such). Otherwise, I'd try to stick with normal English like the rest of the poem

The world falls under a mighty hand.
Who now can resist the eye?
Proud kingdoms crashing down,
Mighty warriors quail and fly.

Proud kingdoms ARE crashing down. Otherwise, I quite like this verse.

Raindrops fall upon a sea of
Bloody Corpses on the ground.
Failing eyes look upward now,
A far-off battle horn does sound.

Your archaic syntax is showing! Not sure about the line break in the first and second lines, reads a bit awkwardly. Dont try too hard to stay in rhythm, it only makes the rhythm clunky.

Hark! Now from the west there comes
A warm and glorious light to shine,
Giving hope to hearts of men
And to the good a victory sign.

Mm, OK. You keep reusing this archaic sentence structure, and words like "Hark" which obviously are not modern. Since I'm guessing you do want to give a medieval-type touch to the poem, I would advise you to bring it in a little more subtly, right throughout the poem. There's something about your word choices w hich ring hollow to me. Or perhaps it's the structure -- it's such a conventional rhyme scheme it doesnt seem to fit Ye Olde Worlde effects, LOL. You might want to check out the rhythm of Beowulf and the like and see if that kind of style wouldnt suit better.

Light now floods the evil masses;
Angry clouds are rolled away.
Wicked eyes are filled with terror.
Mithrindir will win this day!

How could we doubt it? LOL.

Anyway, nice ending. I think this poem -- for what it is -- is very good, but I would enjoy some more of your own original work better, I think. Because the subject is not your own, there is no depth to it - no real emotion and no sense of ... of...well, of a reality being conveyed. I know it's fantasy, and it reads like it, you know? Still, you carried it off quite well. I'm sorry if I rambled a bit in my crit LOL. I shall have to keep an eye out for you on the site in future

Cheers,
~bubbles

PS: If you ever want a crit or need a hand with something, just PM me

Thanks, I appreciate your critique. The first line was actually a typo. It was supposed to be "Flashes on a dark horizon." I don't know if that makes the content of the line any better, but I think it improves the grammar a little. I think I was writing as archaically as my limited vocabulary would allow. I agree with you that I should stick to writing in proper English until I've done a bit more research in ancient poetry. I actually don't write poetry like this very much. You will find most of my work in the lyrical poetry section in the future. Thanks once again.

Peace,
El Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha

Welcome to the YWS!

Now, before I begin, let me just say, I am trying really hard to not be too critical/mean, but I do not sugar coat my ciritiques, and I have been known to hurt people by them (not purposely, or course)

Now, onto the critique. I found this utterly boring and forgettable. Its like those cookie cutter online poem things when you just put random words in random places and see what happens. I found it boring, unimaginative, unoriginal and painfully cliche.

That being said, I think the idea to write a poem based on the Lord of the Rings Trilogy was a really unique/cool/original idea, but you just REALLY have to rework it more. Do that and I'll be more than happy to read it again. However, as it stands now, Tolkein is rolling in his grave. Sorry.

Fix it, and I'll be more than happy to give another critique. PM me if you need any clarification.

Kepp writing,
Dan

The thing that has put me commenting on this until now is one fact.

You've used lines from the movies, or at least very very similar to them.

"A fell voice upon the air"
"Who now can resist the eye?"

It's also distinctly unoriginal: if you are attempting to write about Lord of The Rings, well, Tolkien has already managed to do that himself. I think you need to focus down on something more specific -- at the moment it's too wide and encompassing far too much to be of any use poetically at the moment.

Write only your own lines and don't borrow them. Try and write with a meaning in mind -- this just seems like a rehash of a Lord of the Rings scene, and there's not much I can take from it right now.

Ahey! Welcome to YWS. I'm really glad someone else has done a LotR-inspired poem! What I would have said has been said, so no need to re-iterrate. I shall only say: continue! To place Tolkien's work in one's own literary context is perhaps no easy feat, but this is what he wanted! He only planted the seed, so to speak, and we, the readers and admirers, now must water and feed it!

And one thing I noticed: it's Mithrandir

Yay for LOTR! You're good at rhyming, and did a pretty nice job with the rhythm too.

But like others have said, this isn't a lot more than a summary of events, in the form of a poem. Maybe you could take us inside a single character's mind a little more, or just focus on a smaller aspect of the scene, rather than a sweeping view of the entire thing?

A Nazghul cries it's piercing sound.

I think you want to use "its", not "it's", and I'm pretty sure the spelling is Nazgul (no h).