Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
of earthquakes aborning in landslips beneath us,
and (greatest of mercies) our fellow-men’s souls.
From fear of ugliness He made provision
by blinding our eyes to virus and blights;
earth-bounded horizons He chose to bequeath us,
that doom might surprise us like bulldozered moles.
Most of all, we must applaud His decision
to hide our red rage at meaningless slights,
men's envy, those hellish depressions that wreath us
as darkly we sulk after missing our goals.
Praise our Creator, though we can’t envision
His reason to block His creatures' insights:
He sees our bad hearts through the falsehoods that sheath us
and spares us His pain as we fail in our roles.
edit2;
Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
of earthquakes aborning in landslips beneath us,
and (greatest of mercies) our fellow-men’s souls.
From fear of ugliness He made provision
by blinding our eyes to virus and blights;
eyes bounded by solids He chose to bequeath us,
that doom might surprise us like bulldozered moles.
Most of all, we must applaud His decision
to hide our red rage at meaningless slights,
men's envy, those hellish depressions that wreath us
as darkly we sulk after missing our goals.
Praise our Creator, though we can’t envision
His reason to block His creatures' insights:
He sees our bad hearts through the falsehoods that sheath us
and spares us His pain as we fail in our roles.
edit1;
Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
of earthquakes aborning in landslips beneath us,
and (greatest of mercies) our fellow-men’s souls.
From fear of ugliness He made provision by blinding our eyes to virus and blights; sight stoppered by stone, too, He chose to bequeath us, that doom might surprise us like bulldozered moles.
Most of all, we must applaud His decision to hide our red rage at meaningless slights, men's envy, those hellish depressions that wreath us at holidays, funerals, when the bell tolls.
Praise our Creator, for we can envision His reason to block His creatures' insights: He sees our bad hearts through the falsehoods that sheath us and spares us His pain as we fail in our roles.
original version;
Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
fell earthquakes aborning in strata beneath us
and, greatest of mercies, our fellow-men’s souls.
In the nature of a toast. Posted here rather than short form or for-fun to see how our fine crop of critics can improve it.
i really like it as a toast, i'd really love it if you could extend it by three or more stanza. i get the fell earthquakes line it just reads a little awkward for me. a [that] would be the only suggestion i can give. other than that it read well for me oops, i'm crap at punctuation but i think an odd comma after [and] could be used better after [us] but what do i know
(11-01-2018, 09:54 AM)dukealien Wrote: To the Limits of Vision
Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
fell earthquakes aborning in strata beneath us
and, greatest of mercies, our fellow-men’s souls.
In the nature of a toast. Posted here rather than short form or for-fun to see how our fine crop of critics can improve it.
Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
of earthquakes aborning in landslips beneath us,
and (greatest of mercies) our fellow-men’s souls.
From fear of ugliness He made provision by blinding our eyes to virus and blights; sight stoppered by stone, too, He chose to bequeath us, that doom might surprise us like bulldozered moles.
Most of all, we must applaud His decision to hide our red rage at meaningless slights, men's envy, those hellish depressions that wreath us at holidays, funerals, when the bell tolls.
Praise our Creator, for we can envision His reason to block His creatures' insights: He sees our bad hearts through the falsehoods that sheath us and spares us His pain as we fail in our roles.
OK, @billy, let's try that... Apologies for lateness of edit, I'm off the reservation at the moment. First stanza could still work as a toast, the whole as a hymn of praise in some rather cynical denomination .
what an edit. going from 1 stanza to 4 to four verse. good meter [if i read funerals as fun er als.] and the continuation of thought through each verse works really well. apart from the rhyme scheme it could be a collection of quatrains. the rhme scheme is still okay though.
(11-01-2018, 09:54 AM)dukealien Wrote: To the Limits of Vision
Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
of earthquakes aborning in landslips beneath us,
and (greatest of mercies) our fellow-men’s souls.
From fear of ugliness He made provision by blinding our eyes to virus and blights; sight stoppered by stone, too, He chose to bequeath us, the too feels awkward [as though to make the meter fit] that doom might surprise us like bulldozered moles.
Most of all, we must applaud His decision to hide our red rage at meaningless slights, men's envy, those hellish depressions that wreath us at holidays, funerals, when the bell tolls.tolls seems to be a slant but it works well enough to keep.
Praise our Creator, for we can envision His reason to block His creatures' insights: He sees our bad hearts through the falsehoods that sheath us and spares us His pain as we fail in our roles.
Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
fell earthquakes aborning in strata beneath us
and, greatest of mercies, our fellow-men’s souls.
In the nature of a toast. Posted here rather than short form or for-fun to see how our fine crop of critics can improve it.
(11-01-2018, 09:54 AM)dukealien Wrote: To the Limits of Vision I know it's basic, but I think you could move it to intensive and come out with a solid deal here, good work
Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
of earthquakes aborning in landslips beneath us, aborning is a weird word I had to look it up but it makes sense
and (greatest of mercies) our fellow-men’s souls.
From fear of ugliness He made provision by blinding our eyes to virus and blights; some people are highly sensitive to ugliness, obsessions with superficial changes. Virus aren't necessarily ugly to me. sight stoppered by stone, too, He chose to bequeath us, sight stoppered by stone? that doom might surprise us like bulldozered moles. Yes the moles would be surprised by bulldozers, but the structure of the sentence makes the moles either like the doom or the surprised Most of all, we must applaud His decision to hide our red rage at meaningless slights, who's blinded in this section? And why are we thankful? men's envy, those hellish depressions that wreath us at holidays, funerals, when the bell tolls. I really love the rhyme scheme and this third section sounds good, I'm just not immediately connecting it to the Grand theme, which is probably my own fault
Praise our Creator, for we can envision His reason to block His creatures' insights: He sees our bad hearts through the falsehoods that sheath us and spares us His pain as we fail in our roles. If we can envision his reason to block it, we can see what he's blocking? Asking thanks for the ability to be ignorant of our own faults we see in others?
Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
fell earthquakes aborning in strata beneath us
and, greatest of mercies, our fellow-men’s souls.
In the nature of a toast. Posted here rather than short form or for-fun to see how our fine crop of critics can improve it.
Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
of earthquakes aborning in landslips beneath us,
and (greatest of mercies) our fellow-men’s souls.
From fear of ugliness He made provision
by blinding our eyes to virus and blights;
eyes bounded by solids He chose to bequeath us,
that doom might surprise us like bulldozered moles.
Most of all, we must applaud His decision
to hide our red rage at meaningless slights,
men's envy, those hellish depressions that wreath us
as darkly we sulk after missing our goals.
Praise our Creator, though we can’t envision
His reason to block His creatures' insights:
He sees our bad hearts through the falsehoods that sheath us
and spares us His pain as we fail in our roles.
Thanks to both critics, particularly @CRNDLSM for pointing out that the first line of S4 needed to have its sense reversed to make sense.
As to the moles, not needing to be shriven or anything, suddenness and surprise might indeed be their preference if they had one. (Though, given the choice, they'd surely prefer to have the rhyme fall on some other species.)
glad to see bells toll changed out, on the whole a better piece though i think you could do one final really small edit to sort out the 3rd line 2nd verse.
(11-01-2018, 09:54 AM)dukealien Wrote: To the Limits of Vision
Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
of earthquakes aborning in landslips beneath us,
and (greatest of mercies) our fellow-men’s souls.
From fear of ugliness He made provision
by blinding our eyes to virus and blights;
eyes bounded by solids He chose to bequeath us, solids? could it be a definitive word? and 'eyes' twice in two lines
that doom might surprise us like bulldozered moles.
Most of all, we must applaud His decision
to hide our red rage at meaningless slights,
men's envy, those hellish depressions that wreath us
as darkly we sulk after missing our goals.
Praise our Creator, though we can’t envision
His reason to block His creatures' insights:
He sees our bad hearts through the falsehoods that sheath us
and spares us His pain as we fail in our roles.
edit1;
Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
of earthquakes aborning in landslips beneath us,
and (greatest of mercies) our fellow-men’s souls.
From fear of ugliness He made provision by blinding our eyes to virus and blights; sight stoppered by stone, too, He chose to bequeath us, that doom might surprise us like bulldozered moles.
Most of all, we must applaud His decision to hide our red rage at meaningless slights, men's envy, those hellish depressions that wreath us at holidays, funerals, when the bell tolls.
Praise our Creator, for we can envision His reason to block His creatures' insights: He sees our bad hearts through the falsehoods that sheath us and spares us His pain as we fail in our roles.
original version;
Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
fell earthquakes aborning in strata beneath us
and, greatest of mercies, our fellow-men’s souls.
In the nature of a toast. Posted here rather than short form or for-fun to see how our fine crop of critics can improve it.
Here's to the God-granted limits of vision
that spare us all sight of hairy dust mites,
of earthquakes aborning in landslips beneath us,
and (greatest of mercies) our fellow-men’s souls.
From fear of ugliness He made provision
by blinding our eyes to virus and blights;
earth-bounded horizons He chose to bequeath us,
that doom might surprise us like bulldozered moles.
Most of all, we must applaud His decision
to hide our red rage at meaningless slights,
men's envy, those hellish depressions that wreath us
as darkly we sulk after missing our goals.
Praise our Creator, though we can’t envision
His reason to block His creatures' insights:
He sees our bad hearts through the falsehoods that sheath us
and spares us His pain as we fail in our roles.
Thanks to @billy for pointing out the rather awful L7. Surprisingly hard to mend, hope this (stepping back a pace) does the job.
Non-practicing atheist
