What May Shimmer

This day is gilt in silver, where once the light was gold,
And all around me minute droplets hang upon the cold.
Its shimmering astounds me, and makes my footsteps bold,
As if visage of winter to the summer has been sold.

From out the night's encompass, from out the dawn's decree,
I come a willing walker to this inland, airborne sea.
The darkness fails to frighten, I've no impulse to flee,
Yet still I move towards daybreak with a quiet reverie.

As I move through the glimmer, the wind breathes out a sigh,
And billowing away from me the tides of warmth descry.
Upon these thermal updrafts, I find the urge to fly,
Yet I look more love to vapor than a bird does to the sky.

Wings may grant us freedom, may cleave us from our woes,
But mist grants truer solace when enclosed within its throes.
I shut my eyes to looking, and let my vision doze,
And feel upon me kisses sweeter than a keening rose.

And here I extend spirit, to meet with hosts so fair,
And look to them for guidance laden in the shining air.
Here I am so lonely, yet here I don't despair,
For here my mind its place may find and to the world declare!

I enjoyed that a great deal.

TJEvans wrote:This day is gilt in silver, where once the light was gold,
And all around me minute droplets hang upon the cold.
Its shimmering astounds me, and makes my footsteps bold,
As if visage of winter to the summer has been sold.

This stanza is just lovely. I barely noticed the inversion in the last line, that's how well it flowed.

The darkness fails to frighten, I've no impulse to flee,

The meter here was a little dubious; because most of this follows such a perfect rhythm, it bothered me more than it would have otherwise. I'd rather a simpler, less ambiguously pronounced phrase like 'does not' than 'fails to'. Might just be my accent, though.

Yet still I move towards daybreak with a quiet revery.

You want 'reverie', I think. That said: <3 this.

As I move through the glimmer, the wind breathes out a sigh,
And billowing away from me the tides of warmth descry.

They descry... what? They just generally descry? This is one of the few places where your meaning falters a little, I think.

Yet I look more love to vapor than a bird does to the sky.

One: unambiguously too many syllables, although that would be more acceptable if the line made more sense. You mean "I look with more love to vapor..."? I guess it might be looking love at something, like you would throw a ball, but that's so unconventional a usage it's bound to pull the reader out of the pleasure of reading this. (And pleasure it is. *happy sigh -* Ahem.)

Wings may grant us freedom, may cleave us from our woes,

Here one too few syllables. Perhaps replace the comma with an and.

But mist grants truer solace when enclosed within its throes.

Hmmmm. "Enclosed within its throes --" mist doesn't tend to be associated with spasms. Minor complaint, though, considering I didn't notice till I'd reread twice that it seemed a little off.

And here I extend spirit, to meet with hosts so fair,
And look to them for guidance laden in the shining air.
Here I am so lonely, yet here I don't despair,
For here my mind may find its place and to the world declare!

This last stanza makes me gleeful, but that last line dangles. If you like, you could switch 'its place' and 'may find' - so, "For here my mind its place may find and to the world declare!" which, meaning-wise, is clearer and more logical a syntax. Otherwise, we are left waiting to know what is being declared - which is a neat trick, but an unkind one.

All in all, that was excellent and I am absurdly glad I read it.

Ah, yes. I'm quite thankful for the extensive review. Before I posted it up here, nearly every response to it was one of exclamation with no criticism.

I think part of the ambiguous feel to it is that I -am- a bit off in how I phrase things, sometimes. I do so adore Shakespeare, given than he is a tad off-kilter in that sense, and I think in this case some will find it easier to get into the rhythm of pulling out the meaning in that sense than others. I'll look it over, though. That switching of the last line may just work, because I've been dissatisfied with it. Syntax-ing it up would help to make me more content.

Thanks tons.

Si vales, bene est; valeo!
Tanner John Evans

Mine is more or less slightly disguised exclamation. I did sense shades of Shakespearean ordering, etc., and it's probably worth noting that I think the last line was the only one that really did (if minorly) bother me from a non-technical standpoint. Cheers!

Mm, yes, I find I do finally lose all discontent with this poem after switching it. The internal rhyme makes it just as memorable line as any other, which is what I was looking for, rather than the falling-off of interest at the last.

I thank you quite a bit for that.

Hey, Tanner.

I. Little Things

As if visage of winter to the summer has been sold.

I think that if you wanted to keep with loading this line with syllables to make the rhythm easy to follow, you should stick a 'the' in front of 'winter'. Doing that would also help keep the parallel structure between 'winter' and 'summer'.

The darkness fails to frighten, I've no impulse to flee,

I think a colon would serve better than a comma here. Colons can be used when the second part is explaining the first part, which is what I feel is going on in this line.

And billowing away from me the tides of warmth descry.

Upon these thermal updrafts, I find the urge to fly,

Yet I look more love to vapor than a bird does to the sky.

I don't think that you can use the word 'descry' as an intransitive verb. If you wanted to, however, you could link that action to the next set of lines in the stanza, as if the tides of warmth descry YOU with the urge to fly.

The second problem I have with this grouping of lines is the mention at all of your 'urge to fly'. It seems as if it's completely banished from the poem with the use of the word 'yet' and the elaboration of this concept in the next stanza. Why even mention an urge to fly? Perhaps you might make it clear that it is something trivial and passing by making the line something like 'Upon these thermal updrafts -- a passing urge to fly' or something like that. ^_^

Wings may grant us freedom, may cleave us from our woes,

But mist grants truer solace when enclosed within its throes.

I shut my eyes to looking, and let my vision doze,

And feel upon me kisses sweeter than a keening rose.

This is my least favorite stanza, for many reasons. Firstly, a lot of the rhymes here seem to be a bit forced. Most especially, the word 'throes' seems completely out of place here. You speak of solace, and being separated from woes, but throes seems to be just that -- spasms, sharp attacks of emotion. It doesn't fit. Secondly, and this is probably just a matter of personal taste, but I dislike the use of the word 'doze'. It's too obvious, and the 'z' breaks up the softer letters with its modernity. I don't know if that makes any sense, but the obviousness of saying the word 'doze' is surely a valid claim.

Everything in this poem, until that point, or perhaps until this stanza, was free-flowing and vague, just as a mist should be, but doze is such a solid word compared to everything else. 'Shut my eyes to looking' can be taken literally or figuratively, because it is phrased so loosely, but 'doze' breaks that up for me.

Also, how might a rose that is 'wailing with lamentation for the dead' be sweet? I don't understand your use of 'keening', I suppose. Also, the 'than a' kind of throws off the rhythm because they're both unstressed -- it doesn't have that same, solid iambic rhythm you've managed to keep until this point.

And here I extend spirit, to meet with hosts so fair,

And look to them for guidance laden in the shining air.

Here I am so lonely, yet here I don't despair,

For here my mind its place may find and to the world declare!

I think the reason I liked the beginning so much and wanted it to end sooner is because these last two stanzas seem like attempts at over-exposition to me. Not only that, but the meaning gets tangled up in forced rhymes, empty words, and awkward phrasing.

'Extend spirit' is one such example of awkward phrasing. 'My mind its place may find' is another example. I actually am not a fan of the switch. For me, it makes it more awkward. I like the internal rhyme, to be sure, but it just adds to the growing sense of all these words being stuffed together in hopes that they fit in the form.

Continuing on that, you use a lot of empty words in this stanza, at least at the beginning. The 'and's to me, seem like cop-outs, but the 'so' in 'so fair' is much more obvious. You are given a certain amount of syllables per line -- why waste any on vague, ineffective adverbs?

I also don't really like the 'declare' at the end. What is the mind declaring? I suppose it's just my mood at the time, but I don't like the solidity of it. It seems like there should be something to declare. It's okay to end the poem in vagueness, as the whole poem has that air about it, but 'declare' begs a declaration.

II. Overall

As I've said, I like the beginning of this poem entirely too much. You use the rhythm well there and the imagery is beautiful, but the last two stanzas, especially, seem like over-exposition and they also lose the tight, beautiful structure you had when you began.

Let me know if you have questions.

-Hannah-