'Twas in the dark of the morning
that the Old Queen had breathed her last.
'Twas in the dark of the morning
that a sorrowful shadow cast
o'er Allegoria, Kingdom fair
to the North, o'er the Sea.
'Twas in the dark of the morning
that the Queen, at last, met me.
.
She'd lived a long life, this I knew,
from cent'ry to cent'ry as few folk now do.
Ismelda was aged cent'ry and a half,
and the woman leaned upon her staff.
.
"Born was I, o'er the Sea,
Beneath the waves,“ said she,
“I kept them alive the Light of the world,
I gave birth to the Darkness, the Evil in the world,
and you know how my story's unfurled."
.
I looked to the Queen and replied with a sigh,
"Why is that you, dear woman, must die?
You were great in life, and are stronger in Death,
but now you join the Devil's Folk beneath the cliffs."
.
"I mothered the evil," she reminded me,
"I mothered the darkness, Jaques vra Jeanardé.
Alas that my son turned from his mother's ways
and killed the Fair Folk that lived o'er the waves."
.
I nodded, sighed again, and looked to the sky,
and questioning God, I once more asked "Why?
Why should these great people, these saints, and apostles,
join me here, from Michael the First to old Aristotle?"
.
The Lord in His kindness did not reply,
but nevertheless, I looked to the sky.
I took the Queen's hand and led her to the regions below,
and young she was again, her eyes aglow.
.
Ismelda the Sixth from Allegoria fair,
bright were her eyes, long was her hair.
Ancient damnation, holy was she,
Ismelda the Sixth from over the Sea!
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125,021 Literary Works • 672,740 Reviews
You've got a great sense of rhyme and rhythm Vil! This poem is quite good!
I think you've done a nice job in a few areas I want to highlight, and then just a couple miscellaneous suggestions.
1) Your rhyming is very natural and the word choice is nice adding a nice old-timey flair without making it hard to read or absolutely archaic.
2) I like the way you're mixing these different factors of religion and celestial and relationships all together and it really intrigues me about whatever story this poem is being informed by.
3) I think this is also edited well! It's hard to make a poem sound and look natural with dialogue asides, but it flows well throughout, and I didn't see anything I'd change for spelling / punctuation etc (except maybe the capitalization of "First" and "Old")?
A few suggestions:
In stanza 3 your rhyme "world" with "world" (hard word to rhyme!) and I would try to switch one of those out, since using the same words for end-rhyme normally seems a little repetitive if it's not done for a purpose.
The other rhyme word that I'd maybe swap out is "Aristotle" I couldn't figure out if you meant a character Aristotle or the philosopher, and I think if you meant the philosopher, that's kind of a loaded concept to put into this poem unless there's a lot of philsophic background I'm missing in the narrative. It's a bit like mentioning Barack Obama or Hidden Valley Ranch in the middle of a poem about modern love - it's strangely specific, in midst of describing something else entirely.
For the most part I felt like I could follow the dialogue, with a couple exceptions. I think "ancient damnation" is a bit of an odd descriptor word. What makes the damnation "ancient".
And then earlier, I like the turn of phrase "I mothered the evil / darkness" but I'm not quite sure what is meant by it? She gave fruition to it? That might be something to explore a bit more.
The poem is mostly description of the people and a little dialogue, so it feels a bit heavy on the description rather than action side of the scales, so that might also be something you consider balancing out a bit.
But overall, this is a really good poem, and one that is very entertaining to read aloud as well!
Keep up the poetry ! ~
~alliyah
ps this is part of your checklist challenge prizes, congrats again, sorry for the eternal delay!
(The delay is alright, although Libby gave me two reviews today, so I think I'm good XD)
Yes, world is a hard word to rhyme with ;-;
My world has its own Aristotle-- a Seer and librarian rather than some great philosopher, though
Ismelda is in these bizarre circumstances extremely old, as magical creatures died out centuries ago. The fact that she reached 153 years (let alone 100) when the average lifespan is roughly 85 in this world is meant to prove how old she really is at this point in time.
Ismelda was the metaphorical mother of evil as her son became a genocidal maniac that reduced the global populations from more than 10 billion to less than 800 million in roughly 10 years.
Thanks for the review!!
Momo's here!
I liked it! It's a great revision of the original. There were two things I wanted to point out, though.
A period after waves.
This line is weird. Damnation, and then speaking of how she's holy? Also, the Devil should take people to hell, right? Why wouldn't Ismelda go to heaven if she was such a good person?
That's it! Thanks for tagging me, it compelled me to write a review. Keep writing!
Momo
I actually meant to put a comma after waves and it slipped my mind
The "ancient damnation" bit is a juxtaposition because this poem emphasizes how morality is subject to one's own beliefs.
Thanks for the review!
Ok, thanks! No problem!
Wow, this is an awesome poem, you have some talent Vil! The rhyming was absolutely perfect, and there was a nice beat in the whole poem, the story it told was also really wonderful, and it’s one of my favourite now! I didn’t understand much of the third stanza. But this was a nice piece of work. I love fantasy poems, and this one was one of the best I have read till now!
I really look forward to more of these types of poems from you! Keep writing!
Thanks, rida!
Yeah, the third stanza is just some ways to describe Ismelda and what she's done with her life.
I will get to this within a week-- please don't let me forget XDD
@Stringbean @Stringbean @Stringbean @Stringbean @Stringbean @Stringbean @Stringbean @Stringbean @Stringbean @Stringbean Don't forget XD
...Thank you XDD
@Stringbean
Thanks XD
I'll try to do this tonight
@Stringbean
Sorry, thank you :\
@Stringbean
AHHHHH
I'm so bad at keeping up with this stuff, I'm sorry, Vil! ToT