You've achieved a real Keatsian luxuriance here; I can understand why some people feel the poem is beautiful moment by moment, but as a totality insubstantial. That seems basically true: but that's not a criticism; I think it's really just a result of how sensually-attentative the poem is to each moment: in each phrase. The end result, then, is like going through a progression, or being immersed in an atmosphere, instead of being met by a central thesis, or having the thud of a shattering conclusion overheard.
The opening grammar of the first line at first caught me off guard by ambiguity: at first I read since "you the light". I'm not sure "Since you," would dispel to the detriment of the poem that problem, since I don't think that's a "constructive" grammatical ambiguity to have. But you might think otherwise.
I'm conflicted on "evermore". As a trope of desire: does it have a big precedent in "love poetry"? I think the Poe-application has been so loud it is hard to reconfigure the word to a different tone: it's been typecast. But it is such a wonderfully-long vowel sound: so dreamily mimetic. I'm torn.
I think the second lands is too much for my provocially-metaphoric mind because it casts up too much of a surrealistic implication of the lover actually landing in full body, where I think the poem really refers to a hand. I guess it might be the sensuality of the thought of the lover themselves landing: but that seems like a leap into cognitive sensuousness that hasn't been foregrounded in any previous phrase.
Is it my own association, but line 8 echoes strongly "Ripeness is all" from King Lear?
The "yes" alternative is good craftsmanship; but in its subtle yet accelerating shift of mood into tenseness I think the "no" version of the final line works within itself, and exemplifies the handbrake turn that the "Shakespearean sonnet" sometimes perfected.
Anyway: I thought I'd say I liked it. Writing this takes me back to when I was a tender 16-year-old.
|