> Hello Colin,
              Many thanks for your feedback on this one. The phrase you mentioned - `without happiness....´- is actually taken from Claire´s diary. That in itself is not an absolute reason for keeping it, of course, but it does lend authenticity, perhaps. I really chose to use because it encapsulates something of the contradictory nature of feelings and our responses to experience. But you´re right that it does rather hit the reader between the eyes. Thanks for your other comments, too. I´ll give them some careful thought.


Best wishes,   Mike



> Lähettäjä: Colin dewar <[log in to unmask]>
> Päiväys: 2004/02/05 to AM 12:06:43 GMT+02:00
> Vastaanottaja: [log in to unmask]
> Aihe: Re: new sub: Claire Clairmont
> 
> Mike,
> 
> I like the sound of this poem with it's long sonorous lines, even if i'm not
> always happy with the individual words. Interesting use of sound too,
> ensuring that the last word of each stanza does not find a rhyme with what
> goes before, and yes that can sound good to hear the stanzas brought to a
> close so decisively. As for the individual words..........."without
> happiness she could still be happy".......this is too conspicuously
> challenging IMO. Suggest sth. more modest that wouldn't detract from the
> flow of the poem. Note triple use of "though" in S1, S3 and S4.. DK if this
> is intentional. Of course repetition can be good but I don't know if
> "though" is plangent enough to be used this way. Suggest removal of
> "numbered" L4/S2. The whole sentence is almost unsayably long. Last line of
> the poem could be said more elegantly. I don't know, something like, "she
> never thought that loss had spoiled her life."
> 
> BW
> 
> Colin
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Mike Horwood" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Monday, February 02, 2004 9:54 AM
> Subject: new sub: Claire Clairmont
> 
> 
> 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
>