Sonnet X: Fell

Posted by David Emeron on

Fell to Love, fell to beauty, fell to lore,
Fell to dance, fell to music; fell to whose
Enthral, embrace, encapsulating muse
Who gave, who held, who sheltered me, who swore
This oath to any failing excuse.

And fast was sealed, unbreakable before
A moment passed, this oath to me adore–
Adore, allow, and compromise refuse
To grant, to sanction; not in war, nor peace,
Nor gravity, nor passion, nor caprice;

In every moment, promised to hold true;
In every second, took me deep into
A distant land where none could me pursue–
So taken by a grasp that cannot cease.

This sonnet is part of a short sequence; click here to read it all:

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14 responses to “Sonnet X: Fell”

  1. Beautiful – I am thankful that Diana from “talk to Diana” featured your page this week. I have only recently started to appreciate poetry so I am looking forward to reading more of yours the words flow like magic. God bless!

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  2. I’m intrigued by your decisions about form. The sonnet will always endure I believe – it has so many assets. In the sonnet above you have placed your break point after line eight; in many of the preceding poems you’ve adopted the closing couplet form. Both are traditional of course, and have their respective merits – so it is interesting to see you varying your decisions within the sequence. More interesting still is the introduction you have given to each sonnet: brief, unrhymed, free verse with a contrasting ‘feel’. A very satisfying sequence.

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    • Thank you for your insightful comments. While it is true that I do not usually hold myself to one particular form within a given sequence, such is especially true of this sequence.

      (An exception to this might be this one, all written in an ABCD ABCD… type form, and I have been wanting to write a string of “Canopian” sonnets. Also my project involving all of Shakespeare’s sonnets, called “Notes to Myself as the Bard, are–and will be–written in “Reverse Spenserian” form–if I live long enough to complete it. I would provide links to all three but I am afraid that if I do so Spammy will greedily take this comment for his own.)

      The focus of this sequence is sound and balance, form and rhythm. Content and message are secondary, hence the name “Etudes,” meaning “Studies” which one would find more commonly used in musical studies, i.e. Chopin’s Etudes for the piano.

      These are written in pairs. My process, in general for this is as follows: The form is chosen (or devised) first; then a reverse of the form is devised or synthesized. Next I choose the rhyming words–and here there is doubtless an opportunity for a story to begin to emerge, as humans cannot, I think, help but find, identify, and devise patterns. Then I devise a reverse order for these words, in as much as they may be reversed due to the constraints of the chosen form. Finally, I write the first sonnet and then the second–which is the easiest part, once all the other work is done.

      Somewhere between the time when I have chosen the rhyming words and the general form–although this may vary greatly–I choose the nature of the rhythm or balance elements I would like to explore–wrapped lines, flipped rhythms, internal rhymes, &c.

      I keep mostly to “King James, era”–in as much as my non humanities-steeped brain may–English in this sequence; this is not as much for consistency as for the simple reason that Dear Mrs. Emeron loves the sound of it, having been weaned on literature to a similar degree as I have been weaned upon Maths and Sciences. There is not a concious attempt to tell a story or a story arc.

      However one cannot help telling a story. I believe this is due to our human nature. That we are–all of us–storytellers. Therefore you will see a story told here in each sonnet; and over the whole sequence there is an arc. I have not thought much about it but it has sprung forth in spite of this lack of consideration.

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    • As far as goes tradition, sonnets are generally meant to be presented without any breaks or verses showing or emphasised visually. I have begun doing this–as, I think, have many others, in order to shed light upon the various forms and their inherent structure–and for ease of reading. My Dear Humanities-Steeped Sweetheart does not object, and says she enjoys such presentation.

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    • Regarding the introductions: I generally do not spend much time with them–although there are some notable exceptions. And naturally, some–whether long pondered or not–seem to resonate with people, generating many comments, while others, similarly pondered, do not : )

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    • Thank you. I am often (too) generous in my explanations. But in any case I would rather answer questions over than simply direct someone to a place wherein I have already answered a given question. Re-exploring a subject via such repetition causes me to rethink and synthesise more aspects of my projects and gives me ideas I wish to pursue.

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