A fun villanelle, Ed! I love “plain/plane/explain.” It calls to mind a D&A competition a few years ago, which was to write a bouts-rimés on Keats’ “After dark vapors have oppress’d our plains.”
After dark vapors have oppress’d our plains
***For a long dreary season, comes a day
***Born of the gentle South, and clears away
From the sick heavens all unseemly stains.
The anxious month, relieved of its pains,
***Takes as a long-lost right the feel of May;
***The eyelids with the passing coolness play
Like rose leaves with the drip of Summer rains.
The calmest thoughts came round us; as of leaves
***Budding—fruit ripening in stillness—Autumn suns
Smiling at eve upon the quiet sheaves—
Sweet Sappho’s cheek—a smiling infant’s breath—
***The gradual sand that through an hour-glass runs—
A woodland rivulet—a Poet’s death.
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