Song of the Week

It's only Tuesday, and there are already about seven songs of the week I've considered, along with trying to write my own, but it's a bit difficult to work with dactyl hexameter and pentameter. The eulogy was considerably easier, and had the benefit of its translation (Gk, EU, good, LOGOS, word), or at least hope. The elegy, however, has proven considerably more difficult.

I believe I've more or less finalized the initial couplet, though it really doesn't conform to Elegiac verse:

Elegy for the blind hope laid aside, interred
   as I close the book
in which my spirit was oft given to wander
   and my heart to look

The rhyme feels a bit contrived, and I have thought about purposefully removing it, both for effect and easier word selection. Meter pushes me to rhyme, and undercutting the expectation fits the melancholic theme nicely and may lend it something I cannot embue very easily.

The use of "for" is somewhat bothersome as well, since it resists punctuation (which I use to confound the meter) and has multiple meanings.

The metaphor has been difficult also to develop. While there is an actual book—a very long letter, more precisely—to which I refer, the symbolism is defeated in some measure by poor wordsmithing.

The second couplet is somewhat better, I think:

Where less often, yet with greater zeal,
   my penned fingers were wont to walk
and spoke of memories future and past, of hopes and dreams
   of which we talked.

Here I take some advantage of "penned" as a contextually unusual word and have been able to add some personification that is less typical than the more sappy lines of spirit and heart. The alliteration in "were wont to walk" pleases me also. The first thing to go will probably be "and spoke of," as this foot is parallel with "were wont" and not "to walk," which is really what I would rather emphasize.

The end is also not good, as it contains an extra syllable, so the language will need to change some in order to bring it into proper cadence; and it is not very good wording anyway.


As defense mechanisms go, wrestling with meter is not recommended. It's been a rough week; this ranks up there as one of the worst. Those of the praying kind, I'd appreciate it.

I was reminded last night that "it is good for a man to bear the yoke in his youth."