My jab at poetry

The Goddess

Deep in the forest of the Evergreen Trees;
Far, far away in the unseen distance
Her ageless, unceasing, lonesome vigil
The lady keepeth: fairest moonbeams dance
About her shadowy skirts: above her swell
sentinels of ancient oak and elm;
From many a dolorous frog and sleepy cricket
a ceaseless chatter, in vain,
struggles to awaken the slumbering green.
There she hath stood for ages, and will wait
weeping, perhaps for glory days long past,
until time takes pity and wears her down
when by no living soul to be seen
with a small sigh shall she crumble to dust



Okay, first of all I know nothing about poetry. I have no clue about meter or rhyme. Rhythm and splitting verses in to syllables only gives me a headache. So, I had a brainwave. Why not use an existing poem as a template and kinda replace the words and bring in a certain mood. So, I pulled up the smallest poem I could remember and tried it. The result of the barefaced plagarism was the stanza above. It was fabulous how it all came together in my mind in the last two verses. It's not a bad effort. But, somehow, unsatisfying. Anyway, here is the original. It's called the Kraken by Lord Tennyson


The Kraken

Below the thunders of the upper deep;
Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There hath he lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die