deepundergroundpoetry.com
After Thomas Wyatt
And wilt thou hold my heart
within thy hands so callously
as if a thing despised?
Say nay, say nay to this cruel enterprise
to save thee from disgrace
when thou art famed,
because of thy poor use of me,
for obloquy. Say nay.
And wilt thou hold my heart
less dear than I, with bright esteem,
hold yours? Less dear than
all the breath that gives thee life,
the breath that I would give to thee
should nature 'spire to leave
thee gasping, breath deprived?
Say nay. Say nay.
And wilt thou hold my heart
as I would have it held by thee,
a treasure to keep safe
throughout the starry night,
throughout the sun-warmed day,
throughout the turning seasons
and their churning ways?
Say yea. Say yea.
within thy hands so callously
as if a thing despised?
Say nay, say nay to this cruel enterprise
to save thee from disgrace
when thou art famed,
because of thy poor use of me,
for obloquy. Say nay.
And wilt thou hold my heart
less dear than I, with bright esteem,
hold yours? Less dear than
all the breath that gives thee life,
the breath that I would give to thee
should nature 'spire to leave
thee gasping, breath deprived?
Say nay. Say nay.
And wilt thou hold my heart
as I would have it held by thee,
a treasure to keep safe
throughout the starry night,
throughout the sun-warmed day,
throughout the turning seasons
and their churning ways?
Say yea. Say yea.
Published 12th Feb 2023
Author's Note
This is a response to a challenge to write something that imitated the substance and style of a piece written by the Renaissance poet Thomas Wyatt, specifically his "And wilt thou leave me thus?" (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45594/and-wilt-thou-leave-me-thus)-- a challenge that I issued to, but has never been met by, J-Z largely because he is incapable of doing so despite his claims that poets such as Wyatt are his poetic guides.
All writing remains the property of the author. Don't use it for any purpose without their permission.
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12th Feb 2023 2:00pm
Poets like Wyatt are well worth emulating, if only for the vocabulary. But it's a mistake to think that they are the end all be all of all things poetic.
There's a certain type of person that forever yokes early modern English with higher quality but I agree that
that is an erroneous conjecture in the extreme.
I've seen bad emulations of that style and good ones, such as yours, and the difference is mostly due to practice making perfect, which is the same thing to expect in the rest of the poetic universe. Poets of all stripes become more entertaining as they master the language, no matter what era or style they are smitten with.
It's the love for the craft that makes it better, and not just because it came from the Renaissance.
There's a certain type of person that forever yokes early modern English with higher quality but I agree that
that is an erroneous conjecture in the extreme.
I've seen bad emulations of that style and good ones, such as yours, and the difference is mostly due to practice making perfect, which is the same thing to expect in the rest of the poetic universe. Poets of all stripes become more entertaining as they master the language, no matter what era or style they are smitten with.
It's the love for the craft that makes it better, and not just because it came from the Renaissance.
Thanks for these well-observed remarks.
But in case you did not know it, J-Z claims that his notable and galling use of awkward inversions to get rhymes and solecisms to maintain meter are justified because he is simply doing what the poets he admires do when they set out their verse.
However, when he is asked to provide examples from the writings of these poets in which they write the way he says they write all we get is crickets.
And when he is asked to pen something that is an actual and evocative emulation of the poems of "Wordwrth and his friend Coleridge" and those he has "read to" i.e, Keats and Shelley, as well as Tennyson and Sheskespear (see https://allpoetry.com/Youssefzenieh), he does not do so. One wonders why this is the case.
But in case you did not know it, J-Z claims that his notable and galling use of awkward inversions to get rhymes and solecisms to maintain meter are justified because he is simply doing what the poets he admires do when they set out their verse.
However, when he is asked to provide examples from the writings of these poets in which they write the way he says they write all we get is crickets.
And when he is asked to pen something that is an actual and evocative emulation of the poems of "Wordwrth and his friend Coleridge" and those he has "read to" i.e, Keats and Shelley, as well as Tennyson and Sheskespear (see https://allpoetry.com/Youssefzenieh), he does not do so. One wonders why this is the case.
12th Feb 2023 2:29pm
Yeah, sounds like a typical Internet crank. Complaining for no good reason is habit forming... tragically.
