[Yves S L]

Hello N. Matheson,

I don't see what poetic benefits you are getting out the archaic language. If 17th century (hearsay states that this is the era being imitated) English is an instrument, then you are not making it sing. This effort is making me want to go see how many poems from the 17th century I actually like. Which poets would I spend my time reading? Who speaks to me across the centuries?

Rhetorically, there is a lot of redundancies as N states and restates the same riff of "being born in the wrong time", but instead of the repetitions developing interest, it gives me the feeling of filling out quatrains and tercets by spinning out content.

To be more specific, I don't think "youthful bliss concedes to withered ire" is making some argument of modern English being particular angry, but it is merely a variation of the "happy youth to sad old age" motif that is part of the poetic bag of tropes. The purpose is emotional colouring displaying the N particular subjectivity of a negative attitude to Modern English vis-a-vis poetry. The poem has its own problems without making up straw men.

Yeah!