Poem Critique Thread

[Anonymous No.14338169]

Hi

[Anonymous No.14338208]

Our embryonic ping of self-lucidity has waned,
it is obstructed by the ivory hills & gilded apple leaves.
But the heart requires just an evening chime,
a family’s wistful cantor, a beetle’s muttering, to howl beauty.
So we trudge spellbindingly in music, sightless & consonant
with eglantine moons.
Our souls are the predella to a somber trompe l’œil,
the body’s only memory is pigment. Do we transcend the mirror,
or contemplate its noise?

[Anonymous No.14338240]

>>14338169

Your writing feels honest and I like that. Unfortunately, the anachronistic language prevents it from being truly effective. I like the music and all, but the imagery feels a bit cliche, so maybe reaching for a more unique use of the language may help you. Overall I think you just need to be more self-conscious about your writing, not in a demeaning way, but just aware.

[Anonymous No.14338245]

>>14338169
I like the first and last triplet. The middle one seems a little...contrived. I feel like you chose fields specifically to rhyme with concealed. It hurts the poem because when I hit the word fields, it’s such a specific type of imagery that my minds eye was immediately teleported to a field, it was a bit jarring.
4chan standards: 6/10, global standards (all poems I’ve ever read): 4/10, fix the line about the fields and it’d be 7/10 and 5/10 respectively. Not bad. Here’s mine, I posted it awhile ago and adjusted it due to criticism:

Pour out the whiskey!
Pour out the wine!
How much do you wager,
I’ll be just fine?

Cast off the lines,
And lower the sails!
We’re out of port,
And the seas full of gales!

To travel these waters,
These wild azure planes,
I need just a drop,
To soften my pains.

[Anonymous No.14339050]

This is the first half of something I started writing a few days ago. I plan on a third stanza about an older soul, and a final one where the narrator discusses his hope to get some rest himself after the Day of Judgement.
>>14338245
Simple, but solidly made. It sounds more like a song than anything, was that what you were going for?
>>14338208
Beautiful imagery, complex but not in a way that veers away from the subject too far. I like this a lot. The final image of a mirror and noise is a bit murkier than the rest, something just doesn't sit right.

[Anonymous No.14339161]

>>14339050

I appreciate the use of meter but this lacks in engaging diction and imagery. I shouldn’t feel familiar with your writing but surprised, you have to strive for more unexpected language. Also, the overall style is archaic and needs to be updated.

[Anonymous No.14339523]

571

crackled cold
Cracked a cold
At nine o’clock
Tossed my cap
On the couch
Crunching chimney
Catacombs
Feast of bones.

[Anonymous No.14339702]

>>14339523

I feel like this didn't really go anywhere, I'd like to see it expanded. I liked how it started

[Anonymous No.14340466]

>>14339702
I like this, makes me want to homestead, but I feel you could get more across with some punctuation.
I'm one to talk, I know
4th time's the charm with this damn thing. Pls r8

Out there, In there (wip):
A pretty woman purred at me today.
Simple and sweet;
Like honey
Like Hollywood. Into the Sun

That white
That low, slow,
Beautiful
But I'd never been
(Until now)

I know the sun isn't red or gold
I know honey comes from bees
I know flies are next in pollen distribution
So I've heard
The fruit of patience is sweetest
When I alone mold that seed
By the same hands that had turned lands over:
Horizons where before I had seen laugh lines
Or known it to be a vault
Cradling a firmament.
I'm still en route.

[Anonymous No.14341432]

>>14338169
There’s a lot of problems with this. The end lines on the first two verses in particular don’t flow well. “Is justified this reaching art?” sounds like Yoda.

[Anonymous No.14341449]

unadulterated mire of blood and filth
miasma of sulfur
hell underneath hell underneath hell
a soft veil thinly flutters
these are nothings and remain
frothing soot, silt, ash
marrs a blank page
a tumultuous wound;
there is a black with no air
no hole and trapping these beautiful
things extinguishes with overeager talons
there is lust in exile
plague

[Anonymous No.14342464]

>>14339050
pretty decent, though the metre to me is a bit too strict, some substitution would make it seem less contrived. caesuras in the third line second stanza are nice, would have liked to see some more. i think the diction is fine, also really liked the use of assonation throughout.

good job fren

[Anonymous No.14342719]

>>14339161
>>14338240

I really hope that these comments about "using archaic language" and "needing to update it" are not made in earnest. You are not only falsely depreciating these poems but actually giving their authors bad advice. There is hardly a single great poet who ever wrote that didn't make use of so-called "archaic" language: and what you mean to say, at any rate, is literary; since neither of these poems use words like "wot" or "eftsoons." An obsession with modernity in writing, by which is generally meant a vulgar and naked style, although sadly common enough among the intelligentsia of today, is simply tasteless and childish, the mark of a mind which is unable or afraid to venture above the lowest level. Does the word fit the thought, and express sense or beauty, that is all that matters.

[Anonymous No.14342808]

>>14339050

This is very good. It has an even Grecian quality to it. Tell me if I understand correctly: the narrator who speaks in the first person is the keeper of a massive sepulchre; he describes its magnificent size and qualities. In the second stanza, one of the dead, at the ringing of the church bells at sunset, comes back to life and asks, lamentingly, why he was taken away from his young lover; the narrator fans a breeze to lull him to sleep, and covers the wound that killed him with ivy.

Lines 3 and 4 do not make grammatical sense. Resolving this into an analytical order makes this clear. First of all, it is impossible to tell what the adverbial phrase "a thousand thousand" goes with, either "buried" or "delves." i. e.:

"Our dwelling, buried deep, delves a thousand thousand through cold black earth."

Or:

"Our dwelling, buried deep a thousand thousand, delves through cold black earth."

If it is the first of the two, which I _think_ is what you intended, then you need to remove the comma after "thousand," and simply have:

"A thousand thousand buried deep,
Through cold black earth our dwelling delves."

The second question which we ask is, "A thousand thousand" (presumably one million) what? Corpses? Or do you mean some unit of measurement? If the latter, you need to specify it. The line, for example, would read better like this:

"A thousand fathoms buried deep,
Through cold black earth our dwelling delves."

I think the last four lines of the first stanza would read better if you sacrificed your epithet "huddled" and began them with an "although," which would set up the contrast which you intend to make more clearly between the dead inhabitants of the tomb not feeling the rays of daylight, and their being awoken by the church-bells at sunset, i. e.:

Although my patrons cannot feel
The warm embrace of daylight's rays,
The sunset's muffled church-bell peal
Can wake them to their late malaise.

Otherwise, we have to strain to perceive the connection between the two thoughts. Your adversative "but" does the job to some extent, but the ideas are so unusual that they need something more to help us along; our minds need to be expecting the contrast from the beginning of the sentence.

I might also replace "cannot" with "do not," to avoid repeating the auxiliary twice, i. e.:

Although my patrons do not feel
The warm embrace of daylight's rays,
The sunset's muffled church-bell peal
Can wake them to their late malaise.

A very minor point is that "rest," in line 14, requires a comma.

One last thought. I can only make sense of the first line, "I consecrate my halls to sleep," if "sleep" is intended to be an abstract noun; in which case, it would read more clearly with a capital letter, i. e.:

I consecrate my halls to Sleep.

Otherwise I can find no fault with the poem, either in the metre, the language or the thoughts, and think it excellent.

[Anonymous No.14342837]

>>14339050

This is very good. It has an even Grecian quality to it. Tell me if I understand correctly: the narrator who speaks in the first person is the keeper of a massive sepulchre; he describes its magnificent size and qualities. In the second stanza, one of the dead, at the ringing of the church bells at sunset, comes back to life and asks, lamentingly, why he was taken away from his young lover; the narrator fans a breeze to lull him to sleep, and covers the wound that killed him with ivy.

Lines 3 and 4 do not make grammatical sense. Resolving them into an analytical order makes this clear. First of all, it is impossible to tell what the adverbial phrase "a thousand thousand" goes with, either "buried" or "delves." i. e.:

"Our dwelling, buried deep, delves a thousand thousand through cold black earth."

Or:

"Our dwelling, buried deep a thousand thousand, delves through cold black earth."

If it is the first of the two, which I _think_ is what you intended, then you need to remove the comma after "thousand," and simply have:

"A thousand thousand buried deep,
Through cold black earth our dwelling delves."

The second question which we ask is, "A thousand thousand" (presumably one million) what? Corpses? Or do you mean some unit of measurement? If the latter, you need to specify it. The line, for example, would read better like this:

"A thousand fathoms buried deep,
Through cold black earth our dwelling delves."

I think the last four lines of the first stanza would read better if you sacrificed your epithet "huddled" and began them with an "although," which would set up the contrast which you intend to make more clearly between the dead inhabitants of the tomb not feeling the rays of daylight, and their being awoken by the church-bells at sunset, i. e.:

Although my patrons cannot feel
The warm embrace of daylight's rays,
The sunset's muffled church-bell peal
Can wake them to their late malaise.

Otherwise, we have to strain to perceive the connection between the two thoughts. Your adversative "but" does the job to some extent, but the ideas are so unusual that they need something more to help us along; our minds need to be expecting the contrast from the beginning of the sentence.

I might also replace "cannot" with "do not," to avoid repeating the auxiliary twice, i. e.:

Although my patrons do not feel
The warm embrace of daylight's rays,
The sunset's muffled church-bell peal
Can wake them to their late malaise.

A very minor point is that "rest," in line 14, requires a comma.

One last thought. I can only make sense of the first line, "I consecrate my halls to sleep," if "sleep" is intended to be an abstract noun; in which case, it would read more clearly with a capital letter, i. e.:

I consecrate my halls to Sleep.

Otherwise I can find no fault with the poem, either in the metre, the language or the thoughts, and think it excellent.

[Anonymous No.14342838]

>>14341432

It's more correct to say Yoda sounds like a poet because poets have been transposing ordinary English syntax for hundreds of years to fit rhyme schemes and meter.

Look up anastrophe and anidiplosis.

[Anonymous No.14342885]

>>14339050

This is very good. It has an even Grecian quality to it. Tell me if I understand correctly: the narrator who speaks in the first person is the keeper of a massive sepulchre; he describes its magnificent size and qualities. In the second stanza, one of the dead, at the ringing of the church bells at sunset, comes back to life and asks, lamentingly, why he was taken away from his young lover; the narrator fans a breeze to lull him to sleep, and covers the wound that killed him with ivy.

Lines 3 and 4 do not make grammatical sense. Resolving them into an analytical order makes this clear. First of all, it is impossible to tell what the adverbial phrase "a thousand thousand" goes with, either "buried" or "delves." i. e.:

"Our dwelling, buried deep a thousand thousand, delves through cold black earth."

Or:

"Our dwelling, buried deep, delves a thousand thousand through cold black earth."

If it is the first of the two, which I _think_ is what you intended, then you need to remove the comma after "thousand," and simply have:

"A thousand thousand buried deep,
Through cold black earth our dwelling delves."

The second question which we ask is, "A thousand thousand" (presumably one million) what? Corpses? Or do you mean some unit of measurement? If the latter, you need to specify it. The line, for example, would read better like this:

"A thousand fathoms buried deep,
Through cold black earth our dwelling delves."

I think the last four lines of the first stanza would read better if you sacrificed your epithet "huddled" and began them with an "although," which would set up the contrast which you intend to make more clearly between the dead inhabitants of the tomb not feeling the rays of daylight, and their being awoken by the church-bells at sunset, i. e.:

Although my patrons cannot feel
The warm embrace of daylight's rays,
The sunset's muffled church-bell peal
Can wake them to their late malaise.

Otherwise, we have to strain to perceive the connection between the two thoughts. Your adversative "but" does the job to some extent, but the ideas are so unusual that they need something more to help us along; our minds need to be expecting the contrast from the beginning of the sentence.

I might also replace "cannot" with "do not," to avoid repeating the auxiliary twice, i. e.:

Although my patrons do not feel
The warm embrace of daylight's rays,
The sunset's muffled church-bell peal
Can wake them to their late malaise.

A very minor point is that "rest," in line 14, requires a comma.

One last thought. I can only make sense of the first line, "I consecrate my halls to sleep," if "sleep" is intended to be an abstract noun; in which case, it would read more clearly with a capital letter, i. e.:

I consecrate my halls to Sleep.

Otherwise I can find no fault with the poem, either in the metre, the language or the thoughts, and think it excellent.

[Anonymous No.14342920]

>>14342837
>>14342885
This is great feedback, thank you so much.
That is what I was going for, but less in terms of a literal caretaker and more in the sense of some kind of watchful spirit - he's not fanning the breeze and placing the ivy, he IS the breeze and the ivy. The later stanzas will make this more clear, that he's abstract and something not human. I just finished Pedro Páramo and Rulfo's approach to the dead moved me a lot, so I wanted to try something like that. The young corpse needs the spirit to gently remind him that he has died. The older corpse in the next unfinished stanza, in contrast, forgets he was ever alive, and the spirit shows him a burning votive candle left by a relative and the inscription on his vault.
I'm trying to fix the "thousand thousand" line because you're right, it's very unclear. I intended it to mean a million corpses being held in the tomb, but I'm reworking it with the phrase "untold thousands" (which might come off more appropriately anyway - even he's lost count) and trying to make it more clear. Same for the end of that stanza.
I should have thought of capitalizing Sleep as an abstract noun, that seems like a much better first line. Thank you for taking that much time to write a serious response, anon, it means a lot to me.

[Anonymous No.14342983]

In the bath
tub. plup
I did a poo.

hwhoops
phoney porcelain
you have fooled me again.

[Anonymous No.14343038]

>>14339523
sounds like a gentleman detective's dialogue as his mind unravels falls apart in real time. although it could certainly flow better to get a stronger sense of acceleration or intensity.

[Anonymous No.14343071]

>>14342920

>That is what I was going for, but less in terms of a literal caretaker and more in the sense of some kind of watchful spirit - he's not fanning the breeze and placing the ivy, he IS the breeze and the ivy.

In order to make the subject of the poem immediately apparent--that it is, as you say, a watchful spirit--you might simply think of an appropriate title. For example, (and I know this is not good, nor does it connote a spiritual being, but I only use it for illustration,) if the poem were called "The Keeper of the Sepulchre," then the reader would immediately know what the office of the first-person speaker is. When I first began to read it myself I wrongly thought the tomb was speaking about itself, and I had to get the sense of the whole poem before I could conjecture rightly. But then, on the other hand, if, as you say, you are going to expand the scope of the poem, perhaps this would be unnecessary.

>he's not fanning the breeze and placing the ivy, he IS the breeze and the ivy. The later stanzas will make this more clear, that he's abstract and something not human. I just finished Pedro Páramo and Rulfo's approach to the dead moved me a lot, so I wanted to try something like that. The young corpse needs the spirit to gently remind him that he has died. The older corpse in the next unfinished stanza, in contrast, forgets he was ever alive, and the spirit shows him a burning votive candle left by a relative and the inscription on his vault.

All I can say is, this is all very beautiful, and excellently conceived.

>I'm trying to fix the "thousand thousand" line because you're right, it's very unclear. I intended it to mean a million corpses being held in the tomb

I think, then, you intend line 3 as a nominative absolute clause, which means that my parsing "a thousand thousand" as adverbial is wrong in either case. It is actually the subject of of the verb "buried." Analytically:

"A thousand thousand [corpses] [being] buried deep, our dwelling delves through [the] cold black earth."

The comma would still need to be removed after the word "thousand." But even so, unfortunately, the lines remain grammatically perplexed. Even if we supply a noun like "corpses":

A thousand corpses buried deep,
Through cold black earth our dwelling delves.

Our mind starts to think in strange ways, and is absurdly inclined to take "a thousand corpses" as the object of "delves," as if the cold black earth were digging at the corpses.

The only way I can grammatically solve the problem myself is to re-write the lines like this, although I admit that they are comparatively weak:

Ten thousand men are buried deep;
Through cold black earth, our dwelling delves.

It is also a shame that "delves" (because of the rhyme) can't instead be a word like "holds," because that would solve the problem while keeping your original number, i. e.:

"A thousand thousand buried deep
In cold black earth our dwelling holds."

[Anonymous No.14343192]

>>14339523
nice

[Anonymous No.14343219]

My days are numbered
and I am too restless
for words;
The sun shines brightly
and all I want is
to be heard.

[Anonymous No.14343408]

>>14341449

You're trying way too hard here Milton. Its good that you try to use intriguing diction and an immersive atmosphere but its way too affected to be taken seriously. Learn to write less bardically and you will improve. Try to have some self-awareness of your writng.

[Anonymous No.14343428]

>>14342719
nobody likes your poem bro

[Anonymous No.14343437]

>>14343428

Unsurprising. I haven't posted one.

[Anonymous No.14343469]

>>14342719

Lol read Samuel Johnson if you really thick archaic language is appropriate in poetry. Even Eliot said that the poet's gowl is to progress poetry through use of canonical knowledge and precise innovation. It was never meant to be stagnant unevolving language, and the literary aesthetic is constantly in motion, so it doesn't need to be tied to anachronisms. Just say you don't understand contemporary poetry and move on.

[Anonymous No.14343492]

>>14343469

First, you misread what I wrote, since I said that the poems in question didn't even use "archaic" but literary language. Secondly, I invite you to show me a single great English poet before the death of Tennyson who didn't use archaic language. That includes even Wordsworth.

[Anonymous No.14343514]

>>14343469

As you quoted Samuel Johnson to support your point, I will take his Vanity of Human Wishes as an example. It is not five seconds before I find the ancient second-person inflection, which was all but disregarded in the standard speech of his day:

"How wouldst thou shake at Britain's modish Tribe,
Dart the quick Taunt, and edge the piercing Gibe?"

It would not surprise me if there was not a single instance of the word "Thou" to be found in the conversations in the Life of Johnson.

[Anonymous No.14343596]

i released feces down the chimney

i grunted as they went down, me

their home reeked of burning feces

on placid suburbia, a thesis

stuck in the chimney, still, pieces

vile leakage until it dries

vile smell that wets their eyes

spurting diarrhea under the door

spewing, fetid, their demise

[Anonymous No.14343602]

Defiance
Life was too great a gift for man to bear
So you gave me this body, molded from clay,
And even though I tend to it every day,
You cleverly invented time to ensnare
My soul with miseries of mortal affair.
You rigged this game in which I'm forced to play,
Condemned by fate to witness flesh decay,
Cursed by night to surrender to your care.

Life is a blessing never had before,
Lived in a vessel made from Earth's own breast,
Born to a lineage of Light Amore.
The time will come to lay this body to rest,
But you, not I, shall dread that day O Death
For I will fight for each and every breath
…and steal one more.

[Anonymous No.14343618]

>>14340466
Y'all I have posted this 4 (four) times
Please

[Anonymous No.14343940]

>>14340466
>Simple and sweet; like honey like hollywood
>Beautiful but I'd never been
Your use of punctuation is not very good. It seems as if I'm supposed to pause at lines with no punctuation and not pause at lines with punctuation. Consider reading the poem aloud without lines, and then decide where to put punctuation and line breaks.
>into the sun
>I know the sun isn't red or gold
Did she purr into the sun? What? It's cool to try and connect stuff from the beginning of the poem, but if you want to do that, more emphasis should be put on that in the beginning, as opposed to a 3 word fragment that doesn't even have its own line
>Horizons where before I'd seen laugh lines
Did she become the sun? Cool, but you never said that she was smiling. I want more description of this purring woman.

The last stanza should be two stanzas, imo. Also, I don't really feel a connection between the stanzas. I feel like I read 3 separate poems. I would suggest developing the character of the woman more, and then detailing slowly her transition into the sun. Hope this helps.

[Anonymous No.14343943]

>>14340466
Good vocab...
I’ll start with what doesn’t work for me:
Unless you are going for a semi surreal and confusing poem (intend to confuse the reader) as a whole it does not work.
—you jump around without grounding us more.
Why use purred? Then say simple and sweet
—I hear purred more of a sensual thing- not sweet.

From “the white” to “until now)” does not add to the poem
Also from “By the same hands” to “firmament”


This is how I would rewrite part of it
“Like honey, into the sun, like Hollywood,
I’m still en route” those were my favorite lines.
Along with the “I know” lines there is a flow that begins to ground us.

The best lines of the poem are
“The fruit...”(this line sounds like a quote from Marcus Aurelius still a good line)

but “When I alone mold that seed” it’s a badass line, echoes actual poetry. This is what poems are made of. If I were you I would delete it because it’s too good, rewrite the poem and then add it.

What poets and books do you read?

[Anonymous No.14344117]

Firstly, thank you both.
>>14343940
I am a very difficult person
The lines are more important to me than the punctuation. I arrange my poetry very physically while using punctuation as varying degrees of separation among concepts in the flow of the message

>into the sun
This is a reference to Hollywood. Like the hero rides off into the sunset; a simple, sweet classic.

The pretty woman actually has little to do with the poem herself, it is the fact of her caliber and the effect her attraction to me has on who I am as a person. I'll make it a focus to clear this up in the poem.

>>14343943
You're right with the use of purred.
I also agree on what the middle stanza adds to the poem. I've been fighting for it but I'll probably just cut it out.
The last stanza was where I found what I wanted with the poem, and I'm still struggling to blend the start.

The main problem with this poem is that I was entertaining so many memories at the time. This poem stood as a sort of "Here I am" run. I couldn't tell you who I was read up on when I wrote this besides a massive influence from Hegel and the entirety of the Philosophize This podcast.

[Anonymous No.14344208]

>>14343219
If your days are numbered why do you want to be heard— explain what you got to offer within the poem.

[Anonymous No.14344263]

[Anonymous No.14344310]

>>14343469
>Eliot said that the poet's gowl <sic> is to progress poetry through use of canonical knowledge and precise innovation

Just sounds like Eliot rationalizing his own turgid and bathetic poetry, which is all his remarks ever aim to do half the time.

>>14338169
Reads nice, but the Christian part is boring.

[Anonymous No.14344399]

>>14338240
The language isn't archaic but a mishmash of technical jargon from several (quite distinct) areas of knowledge. Your point stands, though: they completely derail the poem, and several of them are used nonsensically.

[Anonymous No.14344715]

On the Grasshopper and Cricket (an update)

>"The Poetry of earth is never dead" ~ Keats

They are no more, although their numbers linger
For years longer, a genocide befalls them still;
Though where they chirp men cast a finger,
They sing as refugees by foreign walls.
Our walls, our bubblings of suburban sprawls
And rouge Round-Ups run off our lawns and grass,
Each claims their kin, scatters their kind, and mauls
Survivors whom upon our lawns trespass.

Both creatures we held fondly too, a class
of creature songs and fables celebrate!
We've one song left to sing, one moral left to pass:
A threnody, a reprimand too late.
Their silence sounds the rapture while we stand and wait
Upon the consequences of their no small fate.

[Anonymous No.14344887]

>>14344715
This is a great poem, the flow, enjambment and internal rhymes are well done.
There are two lines that threw me off tho
“Both creatures we held fondly too, a class”
And
“We’ve one song left to sing”
Maybe
One last song to sing

[Anonymous No.14344896]

>>14344887
Thanks!

[Anonymous No.14344899]

I wrote Butterfly a poem but she never responded to it. :(

Blue lake underneath cotted cloud
Is where I wish to be with you
Butterfly.
Touching your soft pale skin, as the once blue sky grows dim,
Is where I am at peace.
The brown barked tree, where I will build us shelter, where we will be
Forever.

4 clovers,
I wish I could break this
Electric screen
Butterfly, wounded wing
I wish nothing was digital
So I could be with you eternal
Awake nocturnal,
Scrolling through your posts
A host, a ghost, I need you the most
Because I love you
The plane of what is and what is not to be,
Is where my thoughts of you are found.
Butterfly, you are the imaginary.
I desire nothing more than to pull you from this ethereal existence
and place you right beside me.
On the ground, where you, delicate, will be found.

Where are you? And where are you not?
These feelings are what I have fought
Since I first fell for you and your posts
I need you here and now.

My image of you is of a lotus flower,
as you grow louder and louder
The more you fade into my mind grows by the hour.
My delicate lotus
Will you please notice
My love for you?

[Anonymous No.14344907]

>>14344263
That's nice, anon, but I can't fathom why you center-judged it. Makes it so much harder to read and it looks pretentious, like you're passing it off as an inscription on a monument or something.

[Anonymous No.14344920]

>>14343602
1) Write something in meter, as you clearly have little sense of rhythm atm
2) Though I sympathize with the sentiment, it is painfully clichė
3) Don't say "O Death," please, I'm begging you

[Anonymous No.14344940]

>>14344263
Nice
Though “pass me by nonetheless..”
Seems cliche

[Anonymous No.14344948]

>>14344887

>“Both creatures we held fondly too, a class”
I'll try "Eons they lived by us"...

>One last song to sing

I like that much better.

I'll keep playing around with phrases.

Once again, thank you!

[Anonymous No.14345029]

>>14344948
Sounds good, trying diff phrases to you get the best one.
Thanks for sharing your work.

[Anonymous No.14345039]

I had come down stairs
on my way to work
you called to ask when I’ll be home
there was something odd but didn’t want to say

I got to work I don’t know how,
And someone asked “is something wrong?”
I told them I needed to go out
And my heart raced on my way home

I remember well the crisp autumn air
And as I got near I felt a fault
My stomach shrank as I pulled my hair
As I walked in, I heard the howl

God shall judge the action made
Though I hope you end in hell.

[Anonymous No.14345057]

>>14344920
...is it not in meter?

[Anonymous No.14345067]

>>14344920
Oh death, oh death
Come take away
My prude, prude wife
So I can get another one

Oh death, oh death
At least come
show up at the door

Oh death oh death
Give her a fright
That she might
Come and hold me tight

Oh death oh death
Now if you stay
We can always start
A bacchanal

[Anonymous No.14345674]

>>14343602
>>14344920
>>14345057
Listen to the difference
“ Life was too great”

“Life is too great”

Like anon said the meter is off.

[Anonymous No.14345694]

>>14345067
That's "Oh Death," which is immeasurably different from "O Death." Also it is still not good: a decent, misogynistic folktune does not end with the words "A bacchanal"!

[Anonymous No.14345713]

>>14345694
Also I should add that "O Death," like any other basic linguistic texture, can potentially be a great thing in a poem: just not totally in earnest, and not in a kind-of sonnet that is kind-of in a Miltonically elided pentameter but not really.

[Anonymous No.14345905]

What turned me homosexual


O creator of heaven earth and days,
What turns a man gay?
I often wondered,
before that unfortunate day

It was a budding day,
I left home straight,
To earn my pay,
Proceeded to hear, a shrill prate


I glanced at the source,
A lady with guile,
Her smile,
Hit me straight with an unstoppable force


Look at her tits,
Was the last sane thought
But , I lost
I gave up the other cheek,
As the priest taught


I don't want to swing this way
Don't condone, don't wish to sway,
A woman turned me gay,
Hope heavens won't turn me away

[Anonymous No.14345948]

>>14338169
I place my heart in the vaults of sandcastles
The tide comes in and my dreams are trampled
Across the sea I look and long
But see nothing in the great beyond

[Anonymous No.14346925]

>>14342920
>>14343071

I later realized that there are many ways in which your phrase "untold thousands," which I mistakenly overlooked, would work, e. g.:

"For untold thousands here are buried deep;
Through cold black earth our dwelling delves."

So long as the nominative absolute construction turns into one with a main verb, the unclarity is removed; that's the essential point which I was trying to make.

Please ignore entirely the awful placeholder suggestion about "ten thousand men" (which I don't doubt you would have at any rate), it spoils the effect you intended about the spirit losing count of things. Do not want to have influencing a beautiful poem for the worse on my conscience.

[Anonymous No.14347028]

>>14342920
>>14343071

I later realized that there are any number of ways in which your phrase "untold thousands," which I mistakenly overlooked, could make perfect sense, e. g.:

"For untold thousands here lie deep;
Through cold black earth our dwelling delves."

So long as the nominative absolute construction turns into one with a main verb, the unclarity is removed; that's the essential point which I was trying to make.

Please ignore entirely the awful placeholder suggestion about "ten thousand men" (which I don't doubt you would have at any rate), it spoils the effect you intended about the spirit losing count of things. Do not want to have influencing a beautiful poem for the worse on my conscience.

[Anonymous No.14347837]

>>14344920
I have only been writing poetry for about year and more as a hobby than anything else. Criticism 2 and 3 are things that will eventually mature. The poem not being metered or in rhythm really bugs me because I thought it was. Can you explain?

[Anonymous No.14347847]

>>14345674
>>14345694
>>14345713
Please explain how I fucked the meter. I am still new at this and I want to make sure I'm solid with meter.

[Anonymous No.14347931]

My cold and my heart
With bones hurt
Short days
Mind stays
Where do I start

[Anonymous No.14347938]

>>14347837 >>14343602

I'm not the person who was replying to you (his second and third comments are nasty and insipid), but I can explain why your poem is not metrical.

So far as I can conjecture, what you wanted to write is iambic pentametre. Your first line is correct:

Life was too great a gift for man to bear.

Beginning with a trochee, as is common in the metre, and all the other feet being iambs.

LIFE was / too GREAT / a GIFT / for MAN / to BEAR.

But already by the second line:

So you gave me this body, molded from clay,

You have only four stresses, and begin with an anapest ("so you gave")--this is outside the realm of an acceptable variation in this metre. In fact, the whole metre devolves into an anapestic rhythm:

So you GAVE / me this BO / dy, MOULded / from CLAY.

As you can see, when we analyze it or read it out loud, only the last foot comes out as iambic. This is how we might rewrite the line to be metrical:

You gave to me this body, made from clay.

And so this is how it reads now:

You GAVE / to ME / this BO / dy, MADE / from CLAY.

The third line,

And even though I tend to it every day,

is more easily repaired. It is correct until we get to the word "every," which throws in a cretic foot at random--which, again, is unacceptable in this metre:

And EV/en THOUGH / I TEND / to IT / EVery DAY, /

It is easy to fix; all we need to do is change the word "every" to "each":

And even though I tend to it each day.

And so:

And EV/en THOUGH/ I TEND/ to IT/ each DAY.

Line four,

You cleverly invented time to ensnare

is metrical, because we can assume the words "to" and "ensnare" to join by the figure of synalepha:

You CLE/verLY/ inVEN/ted TIME/to' enSNARE.

As a matter of fact, in the manner of some editions of our classic poets, this would be written:

You cleverly invented time t' ensnare.

But this is optional, and, personally, I don't see the necessity for it.

Line five is broken by the word "affair," which needs to be monosyllabic.

Lines six and seven are perfect.

Line eight is fundamentally broken, because you not only begin it with a cretic:

"CURSED by NIGHT."

But also follow it with an anapest:

"to surrREN"

We might re-write the line like this:

And cursed by night to yield me to your care.

Lines 9, 10, and 11 are perfect.

"Body," in line 12, must be monosyllabic to make the line work. Hence we might re-write:

The time will come to lay this flesh to rest.

Lines 13 and 14 are also perfect.

Pray do keep writing and trying to improve; you have potential, are on your way to understanding metre, and have some very good lines, especially:

Life was too great a gift for man to bear.

Life is a blessing never had before,
Lived in a vessel made from Earth's own breast.

But you, not I, shall dread that day, O Death.

[Anonymous No.14347965]

>>14347938

To summarize, this is how the poem might be re-written to become metrical:

Life was too great a gift for man to bear,
So you gave to me this body, made from clay;
And, even though I tend to it each day,
You cleverly invented time to ensnare
My soul with miseries of mortal fare.
You rigged this game in which I'm forced to play:
Condemned by fate to witness flesh decay;
And cursed by night to yield me to your care.

Life is a blessing never had before,
Lived in a vessel made from Earth's own breast,
Born to a lineage of Light Amore.
The time will come to lay this flesh to rest;
But you, not I, shall dread that day, O Death!
For I will fight for each and every breath
…and steal one more.

[Anonymous No.14347971]

>>14347938
Thank you very much for taking the time to write this out and provide solid criticism and support. Do you know any good books that can help with meter? I have read The Ode Less Traveled, should I just re read the chapter on meter?

[Anonymous No.14347994]

>>14347847

The people carping at you have shown by their comments that they don't even understand metre; don't worry about them. This one for example >>14345674 seems to think that "Life is too great" is not metrical, or that there is somehow a metrical difference between "Life IS too great" and "Life WAS too great." I have explained everything here >>14347938 >>14347965. Ignore the nastiness about "O, death" and that sort of thing as well; it is insipid meaningless criticism.

[Anonymous No.14348015]

>>14347971

Unfortunately I don't. I actually don't know any modern poets who are capable of writing in competent metre either; that's one reason why this poem >>14339050 stood out to me immediately, because it really is written in accurate octosyllabics. The only way, so far as I know, to write good metre is simply to study the classic poets again and again, see exactly how they form the rhythm of their lines, where they allow the exceptions and variations to be, and so emulate their music.

[Anonymous No.14348032]

>>14338169
>would good I yield?
fix this

[Anonymous No.14348090]

>>14347965

Just realized that line 2 is still broken. Replace:

So you gave to me this body, made from clay;

With:

And so you gave this body, made from clay.

When I re-write it in >>14347938 as

"You gave to me this body, made from clay"

it is also unacceptable, because I removed the "so" and therefore made nonsense of the sense.

[Anonymous No.14348104]

>>14347965

Just realized that line 2 is still broken (begins with an anapaest, "/ so you GAVE/ "). Replace:

So you gave to me this body, made from clay;

With:

And so you gave this body, made from clay;

When I re-write it in >>14347938 as

"You gave to me this body, made from clay"

it is also unacceptable, because I removed the "so" and therefore made nonsense of the sense.

[Anonymous No.14348221]

My first poem. Thoughts?

A forename afore this day
Was to my eyes a flitting shadow’s sway.
My ears were shut—I heard no sound,
All feeling was in water drowned.

Now my senses alive and burning keen
Renders forth a mighty queen
That ever clearer, always higher,
Ignites a pale and twisted fire.

A thousand guises endow the wearer
But one only is to me the fairer:
The nine aright, all parts aligned,
Is that to which my soul is signed.

To many you are light and life
But the darkness in you wields a knife.
Contempt and envy in every breath
For everyone until your death.

You are real and yet unreal
Again, I rise and fall again to kneel
Before your sadness, sorrow, shade
In a starlit, scarlet forest glade.

This phantom love shall be my doom
Yet I pray that you will come and soon
Show me now what lies within
My dark and dearest Catharine.

[Anonymous No.14348257]

Roses are red,
violets are blue,
Jeffery Epstein
did not kill himself.

[Anonymous No.14348350]

>>14338169
A horse lies alone

It is in nature's court

this stable, religion's manger.

though unborn this soul of a horse -

self-sapping now its strength through sleep -

rejoins the Wild Hunt, in its imagined dreaming

[Anonymous No.14348378]

Wrote this on the toilet.

[Anonymous No.14348536]

>>14348378
Another man's departed bride on your bedside table is a lamp, carrying foward the dead / electric filament image, but might also suggest a book, which fits the poem's theme of literature as something that can be actively connected to. The poem seems to be about the way poetry can affect the world, "lightening" it. The "maybe", "who knows" questioning tone suggests a striving towards personal connection with the long-departed 'greats' - we can connect to writers through their work, and in this way they become "old friends of mine". Letting poetry into life changes the world - so lightning becomes charged with the meaning of Tamerlane and moths bear witness to the soul of Shelley. The impersonal repetitive sprawl of modernity (streetlamp #999) contrasts with the living power that brings the world alive through art and imagination.

Repetition of "So" in stanza 3 doesn't work (imo), and the word "therein" isn't the best.

[Anonymous No.14348585]

>>14348536
Also, just scanned it - stanza 3 has some metrical issues. "Streetlaps are numbered, and maybe" - the trochee works at the start but the stresses fall in the wrong places in "and maybe". Also "So green? is an old friend of mine" - my reading gives "old" too much of a stress for it to be passed over as part of a pyrrhic substitution.

[Anonymous No.14348667]

>>14348378
This is very pretty anon. Stanza 3 has, as the other anon said, some jarring metrical issues that take me out of it. I like the idea of it but the rhythm is thrown off completely and the parentheses might be a bad idea.
"Town with innumerable lights" has a less dramatic but still noticeable metrical issue at the first syllable.
Overall I really like this.

[Anonymous No.14348721]

>>14348536

I'm not sure that I see in this poem exactly what you do. To me it appears to be a mere fanciful and whimsical jeu d'esprit; the writer is simply imagining other worlds existing everywhere within different sources of light. If literature affects anything, it is his own fevered imagination, not the world at large. The climax comes with cleverly likening the lightning in the sky to Marlowe's Tamberlaine.

>>14348585
>>14348667

If you read "may be" as two words, and take it as a subjunctive mood rather than the adverb synonymous with "perhaps," the first line of the third stanza does scan. In other words "It may be that street-lamps are numbered," etc.

It is correct to say, however, that the metre is broken in two places. Line five separates an adjective from its noun in line six, which is very feeble and improper, and line twelve puts the emphasis on a weak word like "an."

The grammar of the first stanza is also corrupt. It is intended to posit a question ("Do the dead reside in tungsten filaments? Who knows?") but what we actually have when we resolve it is:

The dead, the gentle dead, abide in tungsten filaments. Who knows?

In other words, a simple statement with a pointless "who knows" tacked on. But we can fix this by rewriting the first line:

Perhaps the gentle dead -- who knows? --
In tungsten filaments abide.

This, then, is how I would amend the whole thing:

Perhaps the gentle dead -- who knows? --
In tungsten filaments abide,
And on my bedside table glows
Another man's departed bride.

And maybe Shakespeare floods a town
With bright innumerable lights,
And Shelley's incandescent soul
Lures the pale moths of starless nights.

Street-lamps are numbered; and may be
Number nine-hundred-ninety-nine
(So brightly beaming through a tree
So green) is some old friend of mine.

And when above the livid plain
Forked lightning plays, therein may dwell
The torments of a Tamerlane,
The roar of tyrants torn in hell.

[Anonymous No.14348740]

>>14348536

I'm not sure that I see in this poem exactly what you do. To me it appears to be a mere fanciful and whimsical jeu d'esprit; the writer is simply imagining other worlds existing everywhere within different sources of light. If literature affects anything, it is his own fevered imagination, not the world at large. The climax comes with cleverly likening the lightning in the sky to Marlowe's Tamberlaine.

>>14348585
>>14348667

If you read "may be" as two words, and take it as a subjunctive mood rather than the adverb synonymous with "perhaps," the first line of the third stanza does scan. In other words "It may be that street-lamp number nine-hundred and ninety-nine is some old friend of mine."

It is correct to say, however, that the metre is broken in two places. Line five separates an adjective from its noun in line six, which is very feeble and improper, and line twelve puts the emphasis on a weak word like "an."

The grammar of the first stanza is also corrupt. It is intended to posit a question ("Do the dead reside in tungsten filaments? Who knows?") but what we actually have when we resolve it is:

The dead, the gentle dead, abide in tungsten filaments. Who knows?

In other words, a simple statement with a pointless "who knows" tacked on. But we can fix this by rewriting the first line:

Perhaps the gentle dead -- who knows? --
In tungsten filaments abide.

This, then, is how I would amend the whole thing: >>14348378

Perhaps the gentle dead -- who knows? --
In tungsten filaments abide,
And on my bedside table glows
Another man's departed bride.

And maybe Shakespeare floods a town
With bright innumerable lights,
And Shelley's incandescent soul
Lures the pale moths of starless nights.

Street-lamps are numbered; and may be
Number nine-hundred-ninety-nine
(So brightly beaming through a tree
So green) is some old friend of mine.

And when above the livid plain
Forked lightning plays, therein may dwell
The torments of a Tamerlane,
The roar of tyrants torn in hell.

[Anonymous No.14348844]

>>14347938
For some reason I thought you could put an anapest at the end of an iambic line. Is this not the case?

[Anonymous No.14348892]

>>14338169
Need criticism on this one:

"A night vision"
I took myself a walk one night,
The air was cold and raw,
And as I strolled along that road
A view of old I saw:

The footprints almost faded
The great men, all were dead.
And by my legs I felt me see
A corpse without a head.

Those cannons they were silent
The battlefield was still
Yet I saw the Gen'ral standing
There upon the hill.

And next I saw his progeny;
Criminals, and whores
They ran around in tattered clothes,
Chasing closing doors.

[Anonymous No.14348916]

>>14348740
I think you've corrupted the sense of the street lamp part with this 'may be' change.

[Anonymous No.14348968]

>>14348916

There is no practical difference between "Maybe this is the case" and "It may be that this is the case"; they simply have slightly different connotations. Changing "maybe" to "may be" easily fixes the metre while losing nothing essential.

[Anonymous No.14348989]

>>14348968
They aren't different but they have different connotations? What? The change to 'may be, completely muddles the meaning of that sentence, making a grammatical article out of what has before a simple speculative word. Also I don't think the change to "Perhaps" at the start of the poem is an improvement at all, the deletion of "gentle dead" clearly changes what the poet is saying

[Anonymous No.14349034]

>>14343408
who's milton

[Anonymous No.14349045]

>>14348844

So far as I am aware, it is permissible only in the context of a trochee combined with an iamb, as for example in this line from Shakespeare:

My honour’s at the stake, which to defeat, ...

You could view "to defeat" as an anapest, but then another way of looking at is that "which to defeat" is a trochee plus an iamb. I don't think you would find an anapest in such a position under any other circumstances in standard poetry. Dramatic blank verse is an exception, because you can add an extra syllable after a long pause at the middle of the line, as in this one:

"Like Caesar's sis[ter. The wife] of Antony."

In the line in question, at any rate, you have a cretic combined with an anapest, so that the metre is completely lost all but the last two feet.

[Anonymous No.14349052]

>>14348844

So far as I am aware, it is permissible only in the context of a trochee combined with an iamb, as for example in this line from Shakespeare:

"My honour’s at the stake, which [to defeat,] ..."

You could view "to defeat" as an anapest, but then another way of looking at is that "which to defeat" is a trochee plus an iamb. I don't think you would find an anapest in such a position under any other circumstances in standard poetry. Dramatic blank verse is an exception, because you can add an extra syllable after a long pause at the middle of the line, as in this one:

"Like Caesar's sis[ter. The wife] of Antony..."

In the line in question, at any rate, you have a cretic combined with an anapest, so that the metre is completely lost in all but the last two feet.

[Anonymous No.14349062]

>>14348892
anyone have feedback? what should I do better?

[Anonymous No.14349073]

>>14348989

1) In the same way as the words "Maybe" and "Perhaps" mean the same thing, but impart different feelings. There is no such thing as an exact synonym.

2) What do you mean by the phrase "making a grammatical article?"

3) The words "gentle dead" are still there.

[Anonymous No.14349093]

>>14349052
What about
>Fame, Wisdom, Love, and Power were mine,
From Lord Byron

[Anonymous No.14349131]

>>14349093

This is from an octosyllabic line, not an iambic pentametre one. However, "Power" should be read as one syllable, "pow'r." The line is completely regular.

Fame, WI/sdom, LOVE,/ and POWR/were MINE.

[The god of isometries No.14349148]

[Anonymous No.14350374]

>>14349148
It is hard to read. There are confusing rectangles.

[Anonymous No.14350451]

>>14349131
Octosyllabic is an ugly word. Why not say iambic tetrameter?

[Anonymous No.14350584]

>>14350451

"Octosyllabic" is the term used by Thomas Gray. I think he can be taken as a safe judge of what is beautiful or not.

[Anonymous No.14350589]

>>14350451
Nigga tetrameter is far uglier than octosyllabic

[Anonymous No.14350611]

>>14350584
Ok doc ock

[Anonymous No.14350634]

>>14350589
In English we write accentual-syllabic verse. So "iambic" (accentual) "tetrameter" (syllabic). Saying "octosyllabic" gives the impression of just a syllable-based system (like haiku). This is a poor term that does not reflect the complexity of the poetry it attempts to describe. You can do better than this.

[Anonymous No.14350651]

>>14350634
You've just moved from criteria of sonic pleasure to criteria of scientific validity. Fly away, troll.

[Anonymous No.14350664]

>>14350651
Doctor octopus please. Don't come after me with your limited vocabulary but many arms

[Anonymous No.14350731]

>>14350634

When I said that a great poet like Gray used the term, that really ought to have been good enough for you. But if you want me to expand even further, saying "iambic tetrametre" is what would be misleading, because octosyllabic verse often includes great variety; you can have from seven to nine syllables in the line, and sometimes not merely one but two trochees. For example, in Scott's "The Lay of the Last Minstrel" we have this kind of variation:

"Had dared to cross the threshold stone." (Regular iambic tetrameter.)

"Nine-and-twenty knights of fame." (Two trochees.)

"Deadly to hear, and deadly to tell." (Two trochees, with a redundant syllable.)

But as you are such a great scholar as to patronize us with the Wikipedia knowledge that English verse is accentual, I'm sure that you already knew all this, so perhaps my stating is unnecessary.

[Anonymous No.14350786]

>>14350731

Got the descriptions mixed up here, because I was originally looking at some other things before I put the examples in.

"Nine-and-twenty knights of fame" is four trochees with a catalectic ending, and

"Deadly to hear, and deadly to tell" is trochee-iamb, trochee-iamb with a redundant syllable.

[Anonymous No.14350797]

>>14350786

(and I also meant to write: "and sometimes not merely one or two but four trochees")

[Anonymous No.14350799]

>>14338169
is there a bigger nigger in the universe than the Sun?

>always has to be the center of attention
>always trying to get up in everyone's business
>tries to burn everyones skin and make them minorities
>has spots and shoots out radiation for attention
>thinks its special but there are literally billions of them in the universe
>gets cucked by clouds like a fag
>tries to melt things
>worshiped by ancient mexicans and indians in blood sacrifices i guess
>gets S.A.D. in the winter time (like a huge pussy)
>tries to give white people (((melanoma)))
>thinks the world revolves around it
>an intricate part of (((photosynthesis))) Gay!
>doesn't control the tides or make werewolves like the based Moon

seriously the Sun is the biggest nigger kike in the world.

[Anonymous No.14350814]

>>14350731
Ah yes i forgot that "octo" in latin means roughly in the range of seven to nine. You cretin, your entire example only makes sense accentually. - "Nine and twenty knights of fame" is a variation on tetrameter that coheres because it has 4 stressed syllabes (tetra). Also "deadly to hear and deadly to tell" - another miraculous interpretation of "octosyllable" as 9? Or is this four stressed syllables again (tetrameter) and therefore a permitted variation of iambic tetrameter? The very fact that you are talking about trochees shows that the pure syllabic you are trying to make a claim for is clearly insufficient. You absolute muppet.

[Anonymous No.14350903]

>>14347847
>Oh death, oh death
>At least come
>show up at the door

This line is how you fucked up the meter. It's already loose as is, but with this line we loose whatever melody you personally set the words to. Odd meters are the calling card of a song, and if we can't here the music behind their choice then the lyrics fails by itself.

[Anonymous No.14350943]

>>14350814

The reason why poets use the term "octosyllabic" is because having eight syllables is a prominent feature of the verse; it is merely a useful metonymy. The octosyllabic poem is a whole genre with its own traditional rules and variations. It is not actually wrong to call its measure iambic tetrametre, and I sometimes do so myself; but then that is not what we are arguing about, but instead you are actually depreciating my own term by comparison with your own. The point I am implicitly making to you is that it makes the language a little clearer to reserve the term "iambic tetrametre" for cases where that measure is either more pure, or used in the context of other metres. For example, with respect to the traditional ballad measure, where you have alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter:

And though he promise to his loss,
He makes his promise good.

Where the kind of variations which you see in the octosyllabic measure are not anywhere near as common.

Thank you kindly for giving us more schoolboy knowledge about the meanings of "octo" and "tetra" in Latin and Greek, by the way.

[Anonymous No.14350970]

>>14350943

Incidentally, the irony of my saying this is that the line from Byron _is_, it turns out, from a poem written in the ballad-measure, so that I might even have preferred to call it iambic tetrametre. But you, at any rate, appear to have been ignorant of that as well, nor is that the point at issue here.

[Anonymous No.14350999]

>>14350943
Literally nobody uses the term "octosyllabic", it makes no sense in a system of verse in which syllabic is only half of the equation. It would be like trying to describe a cube with only two fucking dimensions. I don't know which two-bit english teacher gave you this term but he needs to be put up against a wall and shot and you need to start using proper literary vocabulary. Just some friendly advice.

[Anonymous No.14351034]

>>14350999

Anybody with a good knowledge of our classic literature would be familiar with the term.

I don't know what else to say to you except to repeat myself. "Octosyllabic" is not only a traditional word in itself, but a useful one to encompass a particular poetical tradition.

[Anonymous No.14351043]

>>14348221
Too vague and idiomatic. What's worse is the ending because the dragging of the average English middle-class surname into serious verse is at all times fatal.

[Anonymous No.14351072]

>>14351034
Well, I've tried. Good luck with that Doc Ock.

[Anonymous No.14351075]

>>14348892
>>14349062

The whole thing's a stuffed owl. It's either mediocre comedy or so serious that it's just silly. You might benefit from an outline along the lines of "here's what I'd like to say" and "here are points A & B which lead to C". In short, burn it and try again.

[Anonymous No.14351096]

>>14351072

I will leave you with a letter by Elizabeth Barrett Browning on the subject. I hope that, some day, you will expand your taste for English criticism outside of Wikipedia and scraps of Greek and Latin etymology. If you come to treat people with a little kindness and respect, you may even learn something one day. Farewell.

*

"My very dear Friend,--I hear with wonder from Arabel of your repudiation of my word 'octosyllabic' for the two lines in your controversial poem. Certainly, if you count the syllables on your fingers, there are ten syllables in each line: of _that_ I am perfectly aware; but the lines are none the less belonging to the species of versification called octosyllabic. Do you not observe, my dearest Mr. Boyd, that the final accent and rhyme fall on the eighth syllable instead of the tenth, and that _that_ single circumstance determines the class of verse--that they are in fact octosyllabic verses with triple rhymes?

Hatching succession apostolical,
With other falsehoods diabolical.

Pope has double rhymes in his heroic verses, but how does he manage them? Why, he admits eleven syllables, throwing the final accent and rhyme on the tenth, thus:

Worth makes the man, and want of it the f_e_llow,
The rest is nought but leather and prun_e_lla.

Again, if there is a double rhyme to an octosyllabic verse, there are always _nine_ syllables in that verse, the final accent and rhyme falling on the eighth syllable, thus:

Compound for sins that we're incl_i_ned to,
By damning those we have no m_i_nd to.

('Hudibras.')

Again, if there is a triple rhyme to an octosyllabic verse (precisely the present case) there must always be ten syllables in that verse, the final accent and rhyme falling on the eighth syllable; thus from 'Hudibras' again:

Then in their robes the penit_e_ntials
Are straight presented with cred_e_ntials.
Remember how in arms and p_o_litics,
We still have worsted all your h_o_ly tricks.

You will admit that these last couplets are precisely of the same structure as yours, and certainly they are octosyllabics, and made use of by Butler in an octosyllabic poem, whereas yours, to be rendered of the heroic structure, should run thus:

Hatching at ease succession apostolical,
With many other falsehoods diabolical."

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