/lit/ - Literature

Found this unfinished poem I wrote when I was younger on an old hard drive. Tell me what you think. (1/2)

Canto I
I
Ah! — how the country vistas please the eye
Of him who hath been Ares’ acolyte!
To trade the sight of death for lakes and rills,
The clank of iron for the silent still.
To tread no more the mossy wood and wide
And wonder whether there are foes on every side.
And — Oh, the worst! — the stench of rotting friends;
Give me instead the lemony lindens.
It is a mighty respite yet unmatched
And proof of this one general maxim:
Deprived wretches Nature clearest see
For surfeiture of Beauty turns it dim.
But, Muse! Why dost thou steer me from my track?
Let’s, if thou wilt, fair maid, our tale begin.

II
‘Twas sunrise and the redbreast bravely sang
And lilies white fair danced the charming tune.
Along the rocky winding road they ran
And hailed the knight who from the wars had come.
He seemed, by stature and his noble eye,
A highborn man but yet he had no jade,
And all his sackloth rags did seem amiss,
Comporting little with his noble frame,
Nor with the sword that in his sheath he wore
Whose tasselled hilt and gem-embellished blade
Did seem too princely for a man so poor,
And so it was that strangers thought him strange.
He walked with tired step, amazed eye,
Observing all the lilies wearily.

III
At last he reached his spot, the country inn,
And heaved his careworn trunk upon the door.
‘O, host!’ he cried aloud, ‘pray let me in;
‘I am a Knight who cometh from the war.
‘If thou hast meal or sack, that well would do,
‘Yet ‘bove all else I want a bed and whore!’
For this last wish the Knight would dearly pay;
Forsooth — as often in these tales of woe —
‘Twas her, that harlot fair, who caused his fall
And left his corpse in that disgraced hole.
And now alone in her perfumed boudoir
She lays and hums an am’rous, dainty tune;
Which to the man unwise and cavalier
Seems not — though surely is — a song of doom.

IV
From youth she was a rover of men’s hearts —
Knew their workings, knew their inner parts.
But with them she never was much impressed
And said that chivalry was shallowness.
Men’s pretences she could with ease espy
And baring them — her mode of coquetry.
So it would be that all her clientele
That came a-boasting, left with breasts a-swell
With shame-fused dread that they had been exposed
And were not men. But still they came in droves.
Like curs that lick their callous mistress’ hands
Which fain would wring their ears, they came with gifts
And bids of marriage but not one would stand:
Cold Woman’s breast mayst warm only with brands.

Found this unfinished poem I wrote when I was younger. What do you think? (1/2)

I
Ah! — how the country vistas please the eye
Of him who hath been Ares’ acolyte!
To trade the sight of death for lakes and rills,
The clank of iron for the silent still.
To tread no more the mossy wood and wide
And wonder whether there are foes on every side.
And — Oh, the worst! — the stench of rotting friends;
Give me instead the lemony lindens.
It is a mighty respite yet unmatched
And proof of this one general maxim:
Deprived wretches Nature clearest see
For surfeiture of Beauty turns it dim.
But, Muse! Why dost thou steer me from my track?
Let’s, if thou wilt, fair maid, our tale begin.

II
‘Twas sunrise and the redbreast bravely sang
And lilies white fair danced the charming tune.
Along the rocky winding road they ran
And hailed the knight who from the wars had come.
He seemed, by stature and his noble eye,
A highborn man but yet he had no jade,
And all his sackloth rags did seem amiss,
Comporting little with his noble frame,
Nor with the sword that in his sheath he wore
Whose tasselled hilt and gem-embellished blade
Did seem too princely for a man so poor,
And so it was that strangers thought him strange.
He walked with tired step, amazed eye,
Observing all the lilies wearily.

III
At last he reached his spot, the country inn,
And heaved his careworn trunk upon the door.
‘O, host!’ he cried aloud, ‘pray let me in;
‘I am a Knight who cometh from the war.
‘If thou hast meal or sack, that well would do,
‘Yet ‘bove all else I want a bed and whore!’
For this last wish the Knight would dearly pay;
Forsooth — as often in these tales of woe —
‘Twas her, that harlot fair, who caused his fall
And left his corpse in that disgraced hole.
And now alone in her perfumed boudoir
She lays and hums an am’rous, dainty tune;
Which to the man unwise and cavalier
Seems not — though surely is — a song of doom.

IV
From youth she was a rover of men’s hearts —
Knew their workings, knew their inner parts.
But with them she never was much impressed
And said that chivalry was shallowness.
Men’s pretences she could with ease espy
And baring them — her mode of coquetry.
So it would be that all her clientele
That came a-boasting, left with breasts a-swell
With shame-fused dread that they had been exposed
And were not men. But still they came in droves.
Like curs that lick their callous mistress’ hands
Which fain would wring their ears, they came with gifts
And bids of marriage but not one would stand:
Cold Woman’s breast mayst warm only with brands.