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Spondees and dactyls and distichs–Oh my!

It seems sometimes I must choose: do I sleep, or do I stay up and write? I’ve found that I do some of my best writing late, when the house is quiet and the interruptions are few. Last night, though I could have gone to bed early, I instead stayed up and worked on a poem that’s been stewing in my head for a few days now.

After three hours, all I had were 16 lines or 8 couplets to show for my effort, but I was working in a rather demanding form–classical elegiac, which, if you’re curious, is a distich form with the first line in “dactylic hexameter”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dactylic_hexameter (four feet either “dactyl”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dactyl_%28poetry%29 or “spondee”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spondee, fifth a dactyl, sixth a spondee) and the second line in classical pentameter (two dactyls, a spondee, and two “anapest”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anapest). Sounds like a fun way to spend an evening, doesn’t it?

Anyway, now that I’ve gone and mentioned it, here’s a preview. Note that the viewpoint character is the same Adam as of “The Last Wanderer“:http://subverbia.eykd.net/archives/2002/05/71/the-last-wanderer/, and the occasion is a vision that he has just before “Eve is pushed”:http://subverbia.eykd.net/archives/2003/06/93/eve-falling/ over the edge of “the waterfall”:http://subverbia.eykd.net/archives/2002/12/78/eve-above-the-hidden-waterfall-at-the-source-of-the-longest-river/:

p(line). There on a plain, darkling, the forces of God, all confused, clashed, p(line). Glorious their causes. For great Heaven they laid down their lives; p(line). Angels, undying, immortal, they laughed without fear for the end sum, p(line). Plunging through ranks of their friends, brothers. They slaughtered until p(line). No-one was left, and the bent broken wings lay in heaps stacked up chest-high. p(line). Foul was the wind which then blew, humid, across those fell fields. p(line). Foul were the thoughts which then flew; rank, fevered, dark fellows of my mind: p(line). Someone had blundered. Mistakes happen, and theirs not to wonder, p(line). Why? Must the sons of light die, all their beauty meet suff’ring and hope fail? p(line). Hate here is born this day; foul hate for the madness of God.

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