Where's the "like" thingy?

Good one!

Mark and William, thank you for contributing your archaisms to the stock.

Mark, you should send that poem out to a light verse venue.

William, I am impressed with the way you characterize the two speakers. They come off as distinct caricatures.

Each age can mock its predecessors and there is no more straw-like a target than a previous era's diction. How smug is it to mock what is no longer around to speak for itself?
Language is a deep, rich resource, and 'literary/poetic' language especially so - and it is possible to see all of its layers and practices as a well on which to draw - selectively, imaginatively and without constriction by a priori dogma. That may be done clumsily or with flair but what seems, to me, most suspect of all is to take any one criterion - be it age, its novel opposite, location or currently dominant construction and usage - as a simplistic benchmark for mockery. It may, of course, so be - "but it ain't necessarily so." Thus my rather awkward response to this thread might run as follows....


In Dylan Thomas’ drunken days,
Neologisms ardent
Revealed the poet’s inmost ways -
Such coinage no harm meant.

Now words, unless they’re done to death
Or dulled by daily arg’ment,
Are thought by poets not worth breath,
So sense is banned enlargement.

And if their use is arse about,
Inverted in their placement,
Most critics will affrighted shout
Their logic shorn amazement.

Then if elision sidle in
To claim a deft emplacement,
The scribbling tribe with sneering grin
Will mock such strange displacement.

And as for verse with end line rhymes,
With clear conclusions lambent,
The hooting throng will claim, that times
Like these, require enjambment.

Yet should an ancient clamber free
From tomes of past encasement,
The day’s conventions soon will see
It thrust back in the basement.

So cast away archaic airs
From downloads play not parchment.
Let this time’s poets swear to heirs
That they in turn no harm meant!

Thank you, Nigel, that poem certainly is at home on this thread. I don't think I understand what you feel you are protesting. The purpose of this thread, as I see it, is to have fun with archaisms.

My personal policy in my real poetry is to use them very, very rarely and only for a specific purpose.

Aaron, methinks this is much fun, tho’ ’tis not easy to be done.
To my bed chamber I must go; the midnight oil is burnt, and Lo!
I need to slumber for a while, but I will try to make thee smile
betwixt the present time, and when, I next employ my quill again! ;)

Jayne

Ah, "Lo"--I love it.

Here's an archaic lullaby for you:

1 FAIRY.—You spotted snakes, with double tongue,
Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen;
Newts and blind-worms, do no wrong:
Come not near our fairy queen.

CHORUS. Philomel, with melody,
Sing in our sweet lullaby;
Lulla, lulla, lullaby; lulla, lulla, lullaby:
Never harm,
Nor spell nor charm,
Come our lovely lady nigh;
So, good-night, with lullaby.

2 FAIRY.—Weaving spiders, come not here,
Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence!
Beetles black, approach not near;
Worm, nor snail, do no offence.

CHORUS. Philomel, with melody, etc.

1 FAIRY.—Hence away; now all is well:
One, aloof, stand sentinel.

Of serpent vouring serpent, dragon comes—
So Nature prospers through unthrifty sums.

vouring! Sweet.

Use me, okay. But don’t abuse me with “You’re mine”
Excuse me, that’s like a poem with "thee" and "thine."

O thou who scornest what has gone before
By making sport of speech from days of yore,
Whence comes to thee, thou knave, thy right to write
During this little dawn twixt night and night?
What words of thine, then, think'st thou, will outstay
Thine own short tenure on this ball of clay?