This Poem was Submitted By: Gene Dixon On Date: 2005-03-15 12:04:47 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!To Listen to Music While Reading this Poem, just Click Here!
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Yearning Sad Night, comes now the time for your to leave.
No vapid glance can alter what appoints.
Fair Dawn stands nigh with sunlight on her sleeve
To grace with gold whatever she anoints.
We bear the weight of night for just so long.
The blinded eye will seek the saving light.
The shadowed ear will yearn for morning's song.
No one concedes an everlasting plight.
Within the span of life should be a goal
And satisfaction sought for aching thirst.
Yet pause - each bridge you cross will have a toll.
In God's great eye, the last is often first.
While contemplating slaking your desire,
It's best to stand a distance from the fire. |
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Copyright © March 2005 Gene Dixon
This Poem was Critiqued By: Melanie Sue Worley On Date: 2006-02-21 12:38:32
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 1.00000
The lonely expression in this poem is so beautiful it brings a tear to my eye. However, the second to last line, "While contemplating slaking your desire", might work better as "While contemplation slakens your desire."
This Poem was Critiqued By: Nancy Ann Hemsworth On Date: 2005-04-02 09:01:15
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.52778
Your words make such a beautiful song...lovely to read, so classical in feel..and the images are gorgeous..
you first line, I think I have found a typo.."Sad Night, comes now the time for "your" (you) to leave. You have probably already been made aware of this, but I thought I had better mention it as well, just in case.
you poem has a lovely feminine feel.so light and lovely "Fair Dawn stands nigh with sunlight on her sleeve
To grace with gold whatever she anoints." and probably this is one of the reasons why from this line..what a great image here...your poem appeals to more that one of the senses "The blinded eye will seek the saving light.
The shadowed ear will yearn for morning's song." I can imagine the songbirds chirping..and the sun rising over the hill..this is so lovely..and then like any good written sonnet.you shift atmosphere and bring this around to a profound conclusion within these lines "Within the span of life should be a goal
And satisfaction sought for aching thirst.
Yet pause - each bridge you cross will have a toll.
In God's great eye, the last is often first.
While contemplating slaking your desire,
It's best to stand a distance from the fire." I just loved this, such a joy it was when I open it this morning..thanks!
This Poem was Critiqued By: Claire H. Currier On Date: 2005-03-26 08:32:19
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.29730
Yearning.......and the read that follows brings forth many emotions........questions poet should the word your in the first line be you......there is a sadness felt yet hope remains at the same time......it reminds me of a vigil when my aunt was so sick and dying......we prayed for each morning light knowing she was one day stronger to leaving ICU......and after two weeks she did.....and after two weeks in the regular part of the hospital she left for rehab.........and God has once more provided a miracle for us.......Good structure, word flow, and images.......thank you for posting and sharing with us......be safe, enjoy the holiday, God Bless, Claire
This Poem was Critiqued By: Joanne Duval Morgan On Date: 2005-03-22 13:15:08
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.80000
Hi Gene, I like this sonnet very much, I did stumble with your first line and wondered if you wanted to use
your or it was a type when you would continue the cadence, all the other nuances you contain in the poem are very well taken, and move with fluency. Other then the first line stumble the remaining lines flow flow wonderfully well. A very well written sonnet.
Hope you are doing well after surgery, pulling for you, and sending prayers your well, Leader of we trolls.
Always best wishesw....Jo Mo (ye ole Troll Du Jour)
This Poem was Critiqued By: Mell W. Morris On Date: 2005-03-15 21:37:44
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Gene:
First of all, and I must crit one of Mark's, thank you for posting on TPL. I am so
heartened by the sight of your name and Mark's name for you two are all we have right
now, doing their best work.
(Brenda and JoUp are busy with a TPL poject).
This sonnet (I recall your sonnet lesson to me) is non pareil. It plays with words
but, tweaks us with the formal, antiquated language, gives aphorisms, two great morales,
and an epiphany for your end couplet.
One could call it an aubade, for you express sorrow that the night is passing..."Sad
Night". I've never heard the wondrous phrase:
"We bear the weight of night for just so long."
You tell us eyes will seek light, ear will yearn for morning's song, no one will live
an unending plight:
"Within the span of life should be a goal."
And two more freebies you work in beautifully: every bridge will have a toll and in
God's opinion, the last is often first.
And your insight and epiphany as your ending:
"While contemplating slaking your desire,
It's best to stand a distance from the fire."
First I wonder how many people put "Troll" in lieu of toll? Second, what did I learn
from your sonnet? Most things I have heard or read or been instructed. At my waning years,
I'd be sad indeed if I'd learned nothing.
I don't have a great deal of time left (I'm three hours past due for bedrest) and I would like
to have the beauty of your words, the beauty of other poems such as our Mark's "Quo Vadis"
and piles of Heaney's books, etc.
The beauty here breaks my heart.
Mello
This Poem was Critiqued By: Rachel F. Spinoza On Date: 2005-03-15 15:55:38
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 9.50000
What an incredible sonnet - it is a gift to be able to do this so very comfortably that the meter is not loudly evidence and the rhymes flow i sooths nsead of slows us. What a master you are Troll.
Night [-]comes now [,] the time for your to leave.
No vapid glance can alter what appoints.
love the assonance of that vapid glance!
Fair Dawn stands nigh with sunlight on her sleeve
neat personification
To grace with gold whatever she anoints.
ironic as dawn gracs/anoints everyone and everything
We bear the weight of night for just so long.
ah, yes - one wearies of despair
The blinded eye will seek the saving light.
a delicious oxymoron
The shadowed ear will yearn for morning's song.
o one concedes an everlasting plight.
made lighter by such gifts a this
Within the span of life should be a goal
not sure of the object here - what should be a goal?
And satisfaction sought for aching thirst.
Yet pause - each bridge you cross will have a toll.
with this sweet troll to show thw way - how can any beiever get lost
In God's great eye, the last is often first.
While contemplating slaking your desire,
It's best to stand a distance from the fire.
Indeed - wonderful poem Gene
This Poem was Critiqued By: Joanne M Uppendahl On Date: 2005-03-15 15:41:38
Critiquer Rating During Critique: 10.00000
Hi Gene!
How fortunate I am, as I think I'm the first to comment. Your sonnets
always leave me wishing (yearning, quite frankly) for more, and truly,
that in some heavenly realm I'll be writing as you have here. I know
that you must have seen the minor typo by this time. It doesn't detract
for me, but if you want to repost I won't mind the loss of credit. I'll
just copy these comments when I've finished and paste them into the
critique box once more. A thought, only.
Sad Night, comes now the time for (you) to leave.
No vapid glance can alter what appoints.
Cannot help but place a 'k' before the "Night" and think of a Knight who lost
his honor or somehow forgot his quest. In this poem I feel the sense that the
current battles on earth are but a prelude to the coming "Fair Dawn" as surely
day follows night. The spiritually-minded will see the metaphor. I'm reminded
of a phrase from the Book of Ecclesiastes, “To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under heaven”—that is, there is a right moment for
all actions.
Fair Dawn stands nigh with sunlight on her sleeve --exquisite
To grace with gold whatever she anoints.
We bear the weight of night for just so long.
Above is the 'turning point' which makes this poem such a classic English sonnet.
The poem offers great pleasure to me as a reader, and draws me in from the very
beginning, but especially below:
The blinded eye will seek the saving light.
The shadowed ear will yearn for morning's song.
There is hope, unshrouded. In keeping with this Easter season. That in us which
seeks transformation and redemption:
No one concedes an everlasting plight.
Within the span of life should be a goal
And satisfaction sought for aching thirst. --sibilance combined with soft 'f/gh'--sublime!
Yet pause - each bridge you cross will have a toll.
In God's great eye, the last is often first.
(Forgive the punster in me who can't resist: "Every bridge you cross will have a troll.")
While contemplating slaking your desire,
It's best to stand a distance from the fire.
Ah, would that it were so. Many messages embedded there, in the closing couplet.
Let each take from it what they need. I cannot help but think of the temptations
of clergy who have the complete trust of congregants, especially the young ones.
I don't know if this is your intent, or simply to show that though we all have
yearnings, many of them could lead to our destruction, at worst, or scarring,
at best.
Thank you for this, Gene. I have enjoyed it enormously and also hear its profound
warning.
Bravo!
Peace,
Joanne
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