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While Reading Burns’ ‘Stanzas:
On the Same Occasion’
“Fain would I say” Burns wrote, has me inspired.
Perhaps this inspiration’s meant to be
a call to listen to a hope desired
from Jesus. Those once blind who see
shall sing His way. This soul inside of me
will listen, keeping ever perfect time.
For there’s great joy that drums in my esprit
to know Him and to realize how I’m
a joy filled poet, finding blessed and hallowed rhyme.
.
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Lucia Haase has several books of poetry published and was recently included in a poetry anthology titled Symphonies of the Wild Hearted available on Amazon.com. She also recently had poetry accepted by several publications including Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, The Long Islander, Nostalgia Press, The Raven’s Perch, and POEM publication. She lives in Spring Valley, Illinois.
It’s interesting to read your poem in contrast to Burns’s original. The narrator in Burns’s poem is full of fear and trembling; yours, with joy. You’re missing a foot in the fourth line to make it metrically consistent with Burns.
Thank you Geoffrey for your take on the poem.
Much appreciated.
Lucia
I think Lucia has probably counted out the rhythm, as line 6 seems to claim that the poem is “keeping ever perfect time.” That would mean she does not want to imitate Burns exactly. In her poem of one stanza, she seems to be adding up the perfectly iambic feet so that the total is 9 times 5 or 45, in contrast to Burns, who gives the stanza a dismally dragging final line (judged by the content), where the total is 46. Lucia acknowledges Burns by keeping the final line long, but cuts line 4 to give the proper total. And the cut comes just at the point when the speaker sees something. The line suggests an ineffable vision of something that causes the speaker to see and sing. It is whatever evokes joy beyond the fear of Burns’s speaker. This to me is a creative use of the Spenserian stanza–but no one would recognize Lucia’s poem as a variant single Spenserian stanza if the last line were not hexameter.
Thank you so much Margaret for your critique!
Much appreciated.
Lucia