Do Not Hate the Raven

[RiverNotch]

Here's a metrical read. Bolds=Stresses.


The little children fear the Death Eater I have read some sonnets with a lot of feminine (unstressed) endings, but usually the unstressed syllable is an addition. 
Known as raven, for one purpose bred. I don't think this is good form in any sonnet, missing the first unstressed syllable at the beginning. If done, it's usually trochee then the rest. Better: "Known as the raven, for one purpose bred" -- but then see next comment.
Fated to scour the fields of Demeter, A la this, but usually such a technique happens at the beginning of the stanza, as a punchy beginning. 
He cleanses the Earth; rids it of the dead. And this is just weird. The caesura (stop) at the middle sounds unnatural.

General comment: Fair enough, just wonky meter. Although both "Death Eater" and "fields of Demeter" sound pretty forced attempts at being poetic.

The raven is naught but nature’s blessing.
Superstition sullies his good intent; Weird line there. The rush at the middle feels unnatural.
He becomes symbolic and depressing Really weird line. I don't think anyone does a pyrrhus (two unstressed syllables) as a beginning, for a sonnet -- that would mean three syllables rushed up, hushed up.
Because we dislike his genetic bent. Weird, as in the fourth line. It's like this starts with ballad meter (is that what it's called?), then stops, then remembers what it should be.

Would be more beautiful if these four lines were more, well, concrete.

The raven did not choose his vocation, Actually, "did not choose his" is ambiguous to me -- that could either be filled with stresses, or with unstresses. Really, really weird.
Yet we see his labor as a foul sin. That beginning and ending is just awful in terms of sound.
Black wings above create trepidation; Although some poems do sort of alter the sound of their end words to fit (I remember reading one of those with Shakespeare's), but that would only really work if everything else was metrically consistent. 
Black birds remind us of death’s ghastly grin. Although "of death's ghastly" could also easily be read with the "death" unstressed, so this could work.

I think I sort of already saw the turn by line five. That last line would be better placed earlier, since it sort of muddies the whole stanza's thought -- it basically builds on how we're afraid of the bird, but that's already been said. I hope you got that.


Maybe try and unify the thoughts more? I sort of see making a sonnet as an artful exercise in lyrical argumentation, a tedious balance between formal logic and art -- on the one hand, you've got to be beautiful and sort of indirect with what you're saying, but on the other hand, you've got to present your arguments all nice and perfectly in blocks. Like, sort of plan what you want to say exactly with each stanza (the couplet, I suppose, is your thesis), then work out a more proper order for the whole thing.

Though he is no evil apparition,
The raven is cursed by our tradition 

I agree: this couplet is sort of the best part. It's clear, clean, and kinda novel. I would sustain this thought, but with this instead, for the sake of meter:
"Though HE is NOT an Evil AppaRItion,
the RAven IS acCURSED by OUR traDItion"