The Pilgrim's Prayer

Bonus points for whoever names what literary allusion appears in this piece!

The Pilgrim's Prayer

If his speech had a name,
It would be Soothing.
Even though I need no healing
His voice wraps me in a surreal embrace,
Though he has never held me so close to his handsome face.

Let me find description for his words:
His diction should be called Moderate
For it does not babble like a giddy stream,
Or roar like a river, or lay like a prosaic pond,
Yet his well of language never runs dry.

I have the task to name his purpose
For capturing me with every sound that leaves his lips;
O, how I long to pray a righteous kiss,
But I must not, for his words are Misleading,
And I must hold firm to my standards.

But soft, he speaks again,
“Oh then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.”
And so I, his saint, forgot all else
As palm to palm was not holy enough a kiss,
So this pilgrim taught me to properly pray.

The "Pilgrim's Prayer" is very mysterious especially with the overall format. I could not fully understand it the first read but being poetry it was quite intriguing throughout.

“Oh then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;

That sounded very familiar to Shakespeare.

As for the literary allusion I may be wrong with this guess but is it imagery?

For it does not babble like a giddy stream,
Or roar like a river, or lay like a prosaic pond,

Giddy streams and roaring rivers are really dynamic and bring images of change and a fast pace to this poem.

Overall it needed some clarification, although prayers in general are filled with mystery, but good work.

Sincerely,
-Elitehusky

A genuinely beautiful poem. You certainly have a way with words. I must second that which the post above mentioned.
However - the end is practically taken from Romeo & Juliet, is this an intentional link? if so - very clever. if not -naughty naughty hehehehe

Kudos though, i enjoyed it

I liked your poem, though I couldn't quite understand what it was saying at the beginning. It kind of sounds like William Shakespeare at the end. I really liked it! I also have some suggestions:

If his speech had a name,
It would be Soothing.

Let me find description for his words:
His diction should be called Moderate

Maybe you could put quotes (not the double, the single, like this: 'a') around soothing and moderate. And I'm not sure what the last sentence means.

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Thanks for the critiques, guys! As for the bonus points, kris was correct with the "Romeo and Juliet" allusion. The two lines,
“Oh then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray, grant thou, lest faith turn to despair,"
are actually Romeo's lines right before he kisses Juliet for the first time. The prayer and pilgrim images are taken from that scene, as well (Act 1, Scene 5 to be exact ). The prayer symbolises kissing (hand to hand = lips to lips), and the pilgrim is Romeo (a wandering man coming across a pure "saint," who is Juliet). The other three stanzas don't contain many promininant allusions, though; the exception is in the third stanza, when the speaker mentions longing to "pray a righteous kiss."

My original vision of this poem was for it to be a description of what was going through Juliet's mind right before Romeo kissed her. So, if one isn't familiar with Shakespeare, it's hard to understand the allusions I put in. But, with that in mind, does the poem make more sense?

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Don't worry about it! Pilgrim's Progress was a good guess.

I just use a lot of Shakespeare allusions in my work because all of my English teachers love him. My entire class read Romeo and Juliet last year, so we all are familiar with the lines. I'm working through the rest of his plays now.

Thanks for reading my poem!

I knew it was an extract from R&J...Oh yeah! I'm that good.

Lovles