[Matt Q]

Hi N

For me, one problem this sonnet has is that it lacks development. The sestet doesn't add much to the octet, but more seems to reiterate it, spell it out. In particular S3 seems to merely expand on the metaphor in S1 in predictable ways -- spelling out things already implied. S4 says, basically, "ah, the old ways have gone", which was already made clear in the octet.

To make the poem more interesting, your might think about how it could turn. How, having taken us one way, take it in another. Maybe the N tells us that despite it being gone, he will still inhabit it, for example.

Were but I born to years before mine own,
Been nursed on accents ere this vulgar plea,

Grammatically, the opening seems off. "Were but I ... been nursed". "been" seems superfluous, "nursed" on its own does it, I think.

And antique stars, their fledgling lustre shone

So, back then the stars were relics of antiquity, but their light was new. I'm not sure how that works. Old stars with new light?


Upon the mewling tongues of th’ English voice

This is the English language the N pines for, yet its described as mewling? Imitative of a cat or a child. A crying sound? The N isn't making it sound attractive here.

I’d count myself amongst my kith and kin;

"kith and kin" is something of cliché -- at the very least a stock phrase. Maybe just keep "kin"?

And destiny denies me ev’ry choice.

What choices is the N denied? I don't get a sense of this from the poem. He wishes he were born 400 odd years ago. But he hasn't been. So now he has some choices? It sounds like there are at least several, but I'm not really clear what they could be. And destiny denies these choices. Is "choice" the right word here? Are you being pushed into it by the rhyme?

Those selfsame stars, once bright with lusty beams,
Hath waned and welked till faint with feeble fire
As th’ embers of those raptured lights did fade.

This seem to reiterate the above. We know the stars once shone with new light on the English language, and the N wishes he'd been around for that. From this it's already very clear that the N thinks they no longer shine with new light, that the light is less bright or less energetic in the present day. So these lines don't really do much to develop anything, and that's a sizeable chunk of your poem for nothing much new to happening. I'd say you need to rethink this section.

Now infant wailings turn to bygone screams,

Why "bygone" screams? Wouldn't that put them in the past and contradict "Now"?

And youthful bliss concedes to withered ire

I'm not sure how language today is intrinsically any more angry or ire-filled than it was back then. I'm wondering if this word-choice was rhyme-driven?

Where all these transient things are dust and shade.

Where is this? I'm not convinced that "where" makes sense in the context of what precedes.


Personally, I think you should consider posting some poems in modern English, as you speak it. Currently, I think, all the Olde Worlde stuff is obscuring your writing. The reader is distracted by your archaisms, has to work harder to get at the sense. As a result, you're not getting that much useful critique.

If you write in modern English and post it here, you will learn more about how to improve your poetry, and will improve much more quickly. Any weaknesses will be harder to hide, will be much more out of the open, absent the camouflage of archaic grammar and word choices.

And everything you learn about structure, metaphor, word choice, rhyme, metre, pacing etc in the process will be just as applicable to your poems in archaic language.

Anyway up to you. But I can see myself very quickly getting tired of trudging though all these archaisms.


Best,

Matt