Remembrance of Things Past

[Am I A Poet?]

Edit #1

It's bliss to kiss her lips like this;
to kiss these lips is bliss.
The dangerous hint
of her scarlet tint,
in vernal days, I miss.

With her winks and her smiles
she enthrals and beguiles;
she ensnares with those winks and those smiles.
On the days when I dream,
by a turbulent stream,
I pretend she'll be mine 'til I die.

But she dances and flirts;
with her lies she hurts:
she hurts with her dances and flirts.
Her devil-red tint left so many hints
that our kiss would never return.


I miss the bliss of that distant kiss;
to kiss those lips was bliss.
But why would you choose to love and to lose
when to lose is as sore as this?


Original

It's bliss to kiss her lips like this;
to kiss these lips is bliss.
The dangerous hint of her scarlet tint,
in these vernal days, I miss.

With her winks and her smiles she enthrals and beguiles;
she ensnares with those winks and those smiles.
In the days when I dream, by a turbulent stream,
I pretend she'll be mine 'til I die.

But she dances and flirts; with her lies she hurts:
she hurts with her dances and flirts.
Her devil-red tint left so many hints
that our kiss would never return.


I miss the bliss of that distant kiss;
to kiss those lips was bliss.
But why would you chose to love and to lose
when the loss is so sore as this?

[Mopkins]

It's bliss to kiss her lips like this;
to kiss these lips is bliss.
The dangerous hint of her scarlet tint,(dangerous hint doesn’t make sense to me)
in these vernal days, I miss.(you’ve gone from present tense kissing, to referring to it as past , you now miss it– bit confusing , the first two lines should also be past tense to go with the rest – maybe something like ‘’twas bliss to kiss her lips like this,/to kiss those lips was bliss’))

With her winks and her smiles she enthrals and beguiles;
she ensnares with those winks and those smiles.
In the days when I dream, by a turbulent stream,(‘by a turbulent stream ‘seems odd – like it’s just thrown in for the rhyme)
I pretend she'll be mine 'til I die.

But she dances and flirts; with her lies she hurts:
she hurts with her dances and flirts.
Her devil-red tint left so many hints
that our kiss would never return. ( this doesn’t make sense to me, maybe something like ‘that my love she’d never return’ )


I miss the bliss of that distant kiss;
to kiss those lips was bliss.
But why would you( choose) to love and to lose
when the loss is so sore as this? (so seems wrong, I’d use ‘as’)

I liked the internal rhyming, the poem galloped along quite nicely. Apart from the tense problem in the first stanza, and the other things I pointed out, I can’t see much wrong with it. I liked “with her winks and her smiles she enthrals and beguiles’ – for me that was the best line.

Thanks for the read, Marianne

[Erthona]

Poems of unrequited love go back at lest to middle English, such as Bonny Barbara Allen However the difference here is your lines are uneven and there is little in the way of rhythm. You start off with a nice sort of pattern

"It's bliss to kiss her lips like this;
to kiss these lips is bliss."

If lined out the rest is almost salvageable:

It's bliss to kiss her lips like this;
to kiss these lips is bliss.
The dangerous hint
of her scarlet tint,
these vernal days, I miss.

Of course lines 3 & 4 are total non sequiturs, but at least it follows decent pattern, but after that you begin with a line twice as long with a completely different rhythm:

With her winks and her smiles she enthrals (sp) and beguiles;

I think almost anyone can see there is a natural line break here

With her winks and her smiles
she enthrals and beguiles

Still rhythmically it is at odd with the first stanza.
____________________________________________________________
The premiss seems built around the idea of "The dangerous hint
of her scarlet tint," which is a bit nonsensical, and though trite, something along the lines of her "beguiling red lips" would not be out of line as the poem itself is basically a cliche. Regardless, I would recommend you do some work/study of metered line length so you don't find yourself wandering all over the place.

Best,


Dale

[SilverMire]

It's bliss to kiss her lips like this;
to kiss these lips is bliss.
The dangerous hint of her scarlet tint,
in these vernal days, I miss. I'd say to try and avoid using rarely-seen words such as vernal if it's a one-off thing, just seems really out of place

With her winks and her smiles she enthrals and beguiles;
she ensnares with those winks and those smiles.
In the days when I dream, by a turbulent stream, "On the days..."? Turbulent stream also feels really forced, for the sole purpose of rhyming.
I pretend she'll be mine 'til I die.

But she dances and flirts; with her lies she hurts: Intentional docked anapaest here?
she hurts with her dances and flirts.
Her devil-red tint left so many hints
that our kiss would never return.


I miss the bliss of that distant kiss;
to kiss those lips was bliss.
But why would you chose to love and to lose "Choose"?
when the loss is so sore as this?

To be honest, I don't how you repeat the first line of each line, although one might say that that's this poem's defining feature. Try to stick a bit more strictly to the metre if you're trying to set one up also. Hope this helps in some little way

[Am I A Poet?]

Hi all, thanks for the read your feedback. I've made an edit according to the parts I found useful and could change (I find all of it useful).

Mopkins

The end of my first stanza is supposed to still be in the present tense, because the "miss" is referring in the present (although with narrative omniscience which makes it detached/proleptic) to how I fail to notice the hint of danger. Confusing double-meaning though, thanks for pointing it out. I've made a fair few of your corrections in my edit.

Erthona

The line-breaks seem so obvious to me in the re-write, I was just too keen for internal rhymes to realise they didn't work in the longer lines, thanks.

Silver

I agree with you on principle about "vernal", but I was trying to create both the idea of the beginning of a relationship, and allude lyrically to the idea of "infernal" which helps set up my poem. Good spot on "choose", it's been corrected.