A maiden's woe

Come hither,oh ye prince charming
where art thou lost?
thy maiden fair awaits thy coming
for thee,she misses most

thy sweet face she longs to see
in her hands a welcoming wreath
she hath vowed to wait for thee
till she draws her last breath

she counteth hour upon hour
she sees each day go by
sitting in her garden bower
she heaves a longing sigh

but no sure sign of thee
does the coming road show
"has my prince forgotten me?"
was the maidens woe

Reminds me of these really old fairy tales I'm reading. They're the Grimm's versions of them, which makes them as close to the original as you're apt to get. Both the style and the topic match the Grimm's pretty well. If you're in to that type of thing, it might be something to check out. You'd probably get some ideas from them.

I'll admit that it was a bit tricky to read in a couple parts due to the middle English (I had to read the first stanza three times to switch modes from SG-1 or romeo and juliet) but once I got into the flow of it, it went pretty easy. I caught one possible typo, and if it's not a typo, it's one very confusing sentence. It's the "where art though lost?" one. You meant 'thou', right? As in, "Thee, thy, thou, and thine,"?

Curious about the story behind this maiden and prince. Did you base it off a fairy tale, or is this all your own? Either way, it'd be very interesting to hear about how you came up with this. The ending is particularly interesting. Have you ever heard of "Fables: Legend in Exile"? It's a comic book series in which all the old fairy tale figures are living in New York because they were banished from their world. Among them is the famous Prince Charming, who's an interesting character himself who has gone on a few adventures in the past and who had gone through the routine described in your poem here more than a few times before. Again, something to check out if you're in to old, old fairy tales. Potentially pretty neat stuff.

Thanx for the review dreamer.yes,it was supposed to be thou.I just brought wordsworth's poems from the library and I thought what if these disney princesses were in wordsworth's
time.Then these lines popped in my head"Come hither,oh ye prince charming thy maiden fair awaits thy coming"the rest was just based upon this.The woe part was just to add a twist in it.This is the first time i had written a poem in old english.I guess it was because of reading 20 or 30 poems written by wordworth.

Hi Ruby! I have to say I agree with Dreamer some of it was a little hard to read. But I think that's just because I'm not used to it. As I read through it I could feel myself sort of being pulled into it. The only thing I really have to say about it is the punctuation I found it odd to have the question marks then no other end marks. I know they are questions and you have to point that out but maybe putting periods also would make it easier to read. I have a tendency to stop at the ends of a line like it's the end of a sentence so adding those will tell people like me when to pause.

Good job

~peanut~

This rocked!!! I really loved it and enjoyed reading it (as did my friend who is screaming at me to say how great it is)! This strongly reminded me of a fairytale. I liked the use of Old English here. I think it worked excellently. In addition, I don't think the poem would have worked as well as it did had you used contemporary English. My friend loved it immensely, as did I. Yay gold stars!

~Becki (and Lenore!)

I like the imagery in this! And the old english talk. I also like the fact that you have given depth to her love for her prince charming.

This reminds me of old English fairy tales, (with pretty old houses, and knights in shining armour).

Good job! Thanks for posting, and keep writing!

~Mo.

Lovely imagery, well done.

Right, then, it takes more time to pick out the bad points than to say what worked well, so I'm sorry about the emphasis on nitpicks, but here we go.

Grammar. You can still use capital letters and commas, although for this it would be better to avoid semi-colons and full stops, as that would break it up too much. But you can present this a lot better and people will be much more likely to read it.

Your language is nice. I like the old English style, it really suits the story, but the rhyming isn't necessary. Usually you'll have more freedom if you lose the rhyme, and I think this is one of those times.

There's something else, but I can't quite put my finger on it. It would be something to do with the rhythm, so try reading it aloud and see if anything stands out to you.

Overall, though, I'm loving this. With a little work it will be excellent, and I'd love to see it when it's done.

Hope I helped
~Grin

Hey there!

I enjoyed the language you used. I find the language of that era really cool, so well done for that! One thing is that sometimes the language feels slightly forced. I'm not sure with this, as I'm not master of Ye Olde English, but it might be better if you got yourself really, really to grips with the language. It's great, but you want to be able to write fluently in the style without it feeling stilted.

Also, it might be really nice if you explained and expanded a little bit about the princess and the prince? Some background story would be really cool.

But, apart from that, nice job!

~Amy

july4ruby wrote:Come hither,oh ye prince charming
where art thou lost?
thy maiden fair awaits thy coming
for thee,she misses most

thy sweet face she longs to see
in her hands a welcoming wreath
she hath vowed to wait for thee
till she draws her last breath

she counteth hour upon hour
she says each day go bye
sitting in her garden bower
she heaves a longing sigh

but no sure sign of thee
does the coming road show
"has my prince forgotten me?"
was the maidens woe

Very , very well done. Sweet and sad Not much to critique though.. I have no complaints or suggestions for once! Write more like this and send me the links! I loved it. I loved the style and the sad story

"she says each day go bye"
I think you meant by!
I loved this.
End of story.
9/10

Greetings again!

I decided to check out some of your other work and found this. I have to say I really like it; I'm a sucker for the medieval, damsel-in-distress thing...

You did well. You used the language without overdoing it. You portrayed someone pining for a lover without it being to whiny.

I think the lack of capitalization did well, because it, strangely enough, made the poem seem lighter.

For this type of poem, I can't really say I'd change much.

"She says each day go bye" Shouldn't "says" be "sees?" And "bye" "by?" Maybe? That's all I can find, really.

I do like your simplistic style and hope to see more of you!

Hi grin!
Thanx for the review .

Big_Cheesy_Grin wrote:Your language is nice. I like the old English style, it really suits the story, but the rhyming isn't necessary. Usually you'll have more freedom if you lose the rhyme, and I think this is one of those times.
~Grin

I have been told that it isn't really important to rhyme.I just don't have the satisfaction of a poem when I don't rhyme.I really think that since it is in old english so it should have a good rhyming scheme,but everyone is entitled to their own view.
Thanx again

...july...

Aha! This is the poem you referred to!

I must say, this is beautiful. Wonderful use of old English, excellent rhyme, adequately placed, too, as standard rhyme was more customary than it is today. Two thumbs up!

At the third stanza, you stagger and fall into the flip-flop rhyme with the bower part. It feels like it was thrown in for rhyme, dearie, and you want to avoid making your poems sound like you did this because you needed to rhyme. I'd reword that and refill it with something less preachy -- for lack of a better word, and you should be good.

I really like this one, though! Keep it up!

June