Hi Mike,
I'm really troubled by the first stanza...
The rest of the poem seems to work with the passion of the person (but
stanza 2's ever so polite and the poetry of the poem seems to kick in after
that!).
The rhyme scheme's - sort of half-a-Tennysonian - working well (good scheme
for the subject matter!).
Could the first stanza be slotted in elsewhere? Or dropped altogether? Or
re-written (try reordering lines/try adding images/try missing out lines and
thinking of something else) and then slotted in elsewhere?
Bob
Who doesn't mind not knowing who she was! Who needs just another nudge from
inside the poem to go scurrying off to find out...
and who thinks the word "wane" will only work if the person lived and died
when "wane" was a word people used! (I think what's spelt "wain"'s now only
a Scots word for a bairn!).
>From: Mike Horwood <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: new sub: Claire Clairmont
>Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 11:54:46 +0200
>
>Claire Clairmont And Allegra
>
>It is not true to say that her soul was withered
>within her by the death of her five-year-old child,
>though she said herself she had never again smiled
>absolutely; without happiness she could still be happy.
>
>Far from familiar scenes she stepped on strange stairs
>to her room´s cold and lonely austerity.
>But she often remarked, those whom posterity
>had honoured with greatness were numbered among her friends,
>
>though her passage through life had been solitary.
>And when she died, in a country remote from her
>daughter´s grave, the shawl, her lover´s last gift to her
>sixty years earlier, was laid in the coffin.
>
>When violet evening clouds were edged with orange,
>reflected in still water, she watched the day´s slow wane.
>And though this scene could not remove her pain,
>she never tried to believe that her loss negated its beauty.
>
>
>
>
>Mike
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