It is ceaselessly dark and somber
in this cold, lonely Christmas night
I can see nothing but creeping shadow
and feel nothing but the moment’s respite
Not a single carol; no falling snow,
no blithesome music nor high-note singing,
only the dread of my friend, loneliness
and the haunt of seven bells ringing
Not even banter nor a fool's smile,
only vile rancor, virulence, spite
and guilt of human sin
are with me this very night
For all the world hath forgotten the reason:
the coming forth of the Holy Lamb
and only few hath lit their Way with lanterns
leaving many utter damned
Thus shrouding the entire world
with crow remains and foolish rheum
from the many gaudy ‘lights’
which bring nothing but wretched gloom
And yet, in this obscure cloak,
I never get lost, afraid or forlorn
for in my heart, and all else's too,there is light
from the stable-seated King who was born
He lights my darkened way;
a Candle as bright as sun, He seems,
given birth by a blessed Virgin;
His own Son as gift for the world, God deems
When I close my ash-ridden eyes,
away from all the world’s looming drear,
I see all things surreally bright, ever beautiful
and every darling thing that is simply dear
I am never alone,
for there is but one shining light
that kept my cold, lonely,
Christmas nights ceaselessly bright.
***********************************************************
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
141,293 Literary Works • 674,334 Reviews
I tried to stay away from those spoilers, I really did. But gah! I was so curious, I just had to.
This makes me think of Satan slowly spreading his 'shadow' over the world (okay, maybe I'm letting your hints affect me a little) because if the meaning of Christmas is changing, it means we are slowly moving away from the 'Christ' in 'Christmas' and anything away from Christ (from a Christian view atleast, not wanting to offend anybody) is making its way towards the Devil.Well, I read the poem once, then clicked on the spoilers and read it a second time with the explainations you gave. As a Christian, I felt so disappointed with myself for not seeing those hidden meanings earlier. :/
That's the beauty behind poetry, I think: let the reader figure out any hidden meanings or metaphors or messages for themselves, even if they get a different view, it just shows you that the devices you use can create whole new images in your reader's mind. But I understand that you wanted to bring a certain message across, so in this case I'll say it's fine. Also, I totally agree with your view on how modern day society portrays Christmas -- it has become a material thing. Companies use it as a commercialisation tool, grabbing customers here and there and we're slowly forgetting the TRUE meaning of "Christmas".
Now to the poem. It was beautifully written and it definately got your message across. I like your ABCB rhyme scheme, and the rhythmn is smooth and regular. Nice job on the mechanism (is that the right word?)!
Without letting the hints you gave in the spoilers affect my primary view on the message you tried to get across, I'll go through what I thought of this.
Like I said, I was disappointed with myself for not seeing the angels in this. I saw, instead, the modern view of Christmas - how we expect it to be the whole 'carol singing' and the 'white Christmas' thing.
If I had known it had been a religious poem earlier, I would have guessed it was the seven deadly sins being hinted here. I must say, I spent some time wondering why you used seven. I was like "Seven? Why seven?" But then I read on, trying to see if there would be something that would help me understand. It was clever.
The third stanza clearly shows your anger towards today's transformation of the 'holidays' and your choice of words is lovely.
Yes. Atleast I understood this.
I saw this stanza as you standing in Heaven, like you said. And though it was not said in many words, the desciption of man standing in Heaven is splendid.
That capitalisation is just a suggestion, but I thought you were referring that light as God, thus it was a metaphor.
To conclude, this was a very deep and touching poem. You managed to get your point across beautifully and at the same time, letting your reader think. The prayer following was by you? I know I'm not really supposed to review a prayer but I'll do it (not really review, just touch up on capitalisation):
Thank you for sharing such a beautiful piece, and for the prayer. If the clubs were still available to us I would have linked this to Christian Writers, but...
Great job! Keep writing!
Mikko.