What Hath Night To Do With Sleep?

[Ilex]

What Hath Night To Do With Sleep?

My Lincolnshire is wet grass, cool air, darkness and quiet
Your hazel eyes labour under London's dim lit skies
Here there is nothing between the moon and I
But for air and clouds and damp sky
Blanketed and barefoot standing under the night
I seek you my areolite
Silence enhancing cold wind
my thoughts are quickly hindered
Hearing you I swell inward
What curious days now you find
Fragments of Holly have prickled your mind
How strange for me to think of seeing you soon,
Underneath this white marble moon.
Hey ho from Holly R nearer than you to the Northern Star.

[MikeSamford]

Ilex, I fear this one is suffering from a bit of forced rhyme and inconstant end rhyme. An example would be “areolite” much a stretch to fit with night seeing how it turns my spell checker red.
I would also loose the rolling caps, better to keep the sentences together than cut them up by using caps in their middle.
You broke this one out in rhyme in L3 and 4, not having end rhyme at the start and I thought this made it a poor start, and while we are on the subject of starts I don’t get the “Hath” in the title. Nothing the matter with “has” no one has used hath since Milton.

That was the structure now about the feel. The tone in this love poem does address the subject. You get points on that and it does leave me with a feeling of a love poem, more points.

You lose points on syntax as you have some awkward wording to catch a rhyme such as “What curious days now you find” this can be read as poetic but not very well in today’s market.

I did enjoy the read, but I do enjoy rhyme and many do not so I would give more thought at to the audience you are trying for with a piece such as this, just a few thoughts.

[Ilex]

Thanks for the comments, Areolite was a typo, it should read 'Aerolite' which is a stone, or metallic mass, which has fallen to the earth from distant space.

Thanks for your comments, you've given me lots to think about.

Ilex.

[arunansu]

Dear Ilex,

I was roaming through your poem and wandering over the nice images, but I'm afraid the forced rhymes are hindering my progress. My take on this would be :


My Lincolnshire is wet grass, cool air, darkness and quiet
Your hazel eyes labour under London's dim lit skies
Here there is nothing between the moon and I
but for air and clouds and damp sky,
I seek you Arthur

silence enhancing cold wind
my thoughts are quickly hindered,
what curious days now you find
fragments of Holly have prickled your mind.

How strange for me to think of seeing you soon,
underneath this marble moon.


Hope this helps.

[David]

Welcome back, Ilex. Some lovely images, but the rhyming is less successful. Some of the lines work well, but some are a bit laboured and, at times - e.g. "How strange for me to think of seeing you soon" - a bit prosy and awkward.

As for "hath", I agree. No one hath used it for ages, but I immediately recognised the title as a direct quote from something (probably Shakey, I thought), but I had to google it to check what it was. It's from Comus, and it's spoken by Comus, who's a bit of a devil (literally, Milton might think) and a mischief-maker, so it's a very interesting and thought-provoking choice.

I like what you're saying, and I would have another go at this. I wouldn't abandon the rhyming, but try not to make some of the lines clearly just a long run up to the next (breathe) possible rhyme.

Cheers

David

[Ilex]

SECOND DRAFT.

What hath night to do with sleep?

Lincolnshire is wet grass, cool air, darkness and quiet
Your hazel eyes labour under London's dim lit skies.

Here nothing is between the moon and I
but for air and clouds and damp sky

Blanketed barefoot standing under the night
I seek you arthur my aerolite

What curious days now you find
Fragments of Holly have prickled your mind

How strange to think of seeing you soon
Underneath this white marble moon.


I've chopped this about a bit but if 'aerolite' still doesn't work i'm going to take it out. Thanks for all the advice I agree that the rhyme sounds a bit laboured, it doesn't flow quite right. I'm going to keep messing about with it. I'm thinking of keeping the title the same as it is a direct quote, so it might be a bit odd in this instance to change 'hath' to 'has' I take the point though, it does sound very outdated.

Many thanks for the comments.

[Richard WH]

I think there's improvement there, but I really liked the "nearer to you than the northern star" that you took out.
Liked less the Hey Ho from Holly R that preceded it.

[TDF]

Hi Ilex,

I have to say I really like the opener, I think the second line rolls the alliteration really quite nicely.
I won't repeat what has been said, most suggestions I agree with. In truth, I'm not sure which version I like more, as the second really brings focus to the rhyme, which I'm not sure works as well. I like your looser rhymes more: quiet/skies wind/hindered etc.
The title too I do like, especailly after David's googley business.

small thing, but should "moon and I", not be "moon and me", technically? I only noticed because it forces the rhyme in the following line...

enjoyed this read, keep it up.
Tom

[wabbit]

I really like this and with some fine tuning I think you'll have a good one.

Personally I like the "aerolite" line ... and my apologies Ive taken the liberty of adding my edit below although I find its never the same when someone suggests lines.

My Lincolnshire is wet grass, cool air, darkness and quiet
Hazel eyes labour under London's dim lit skies
Here there is nothing between the moon and I
But for air, clouds and damp sky
Blanketed and barefoot under the night
I seek for you Arthur my aerolite

Silence enhancing cold wind
my thoughts are quickly hindered
What curious days now you find
Fragments of Holly have prickled your mind
Strange to think of seeing you soon,
Underneath this white marble moon.


Silence enhancing cold wind
my thoughts are quickly hindered

I think if you could fine tune this that it would flow better. Im not sure if "Silence" is a shout i.e. "Silence!"

Anyway what do I know ..

[ray miller]

Hello, like TDF I believe the opening two lines are impressive. Don't think you should drop "My" as the opening word as it sits in perfect opposition to "your" of second line. If you're going to have rhymes I feel you should have them all the way, hindered and inward are excellent rhymes, I'd keep them, in fact I'll probably steal them. Fragments of Holly also good but I think last three lines rather let the whole thing down.
Best wishes, Ray