Hearts Homesick for the Emerald Isle, villanelle ~ REVISED Options

[Guest_Toumai_*]

Moderator Choice Award

*Graphic provided by
Celtic Castle Designs

Hearts Homesick for the Emerald Isle

Revised: thanks Alan, Daniel


Hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle
write sonnets to that land so green,
weave Irish legends to beguile.

Leprechauns' gleeful evil guile
saps love of life from those who've seen
hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle.

Bards, too, who hope to make a pile -
sage sagas on a silver screen -
weave Irish legends to beguile.

Much distant scholarship worthwhile -
yet more time studying will mean
hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle.

Compelling tales I may compile
with blessings from a faery queen;
weave Irish legends to beguile.

So kiss the Blarney Stone with style:
your verbals virtuously preen;
hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle
weave Irish legends to beguile.


original

Hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle
write sonnets to that land so green,
weave Irish legends to beguile.

Leprechauns' gleeful evil guile
saps love of life from those who've seen
hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle.

And bards who hope to make a pile
with sage sagas shown upon the screen
weave Irish legends to beguile.

Or distant scholarship worthwhile -
yet more time studying will mean
hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle.

Compelling tales I may compile
with blessings from a faery queen;
weave Irish legends to beguile.

So kiss the Blarney Stone with style:
verbal virtuosity preen;
hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle
weave Irish legends to beguile.

© Toumai, 2005

This was written for the 2nd February 2005 Pandora's Challenge.
Words used:
baptizing, Blarney Stone, blessing, cabbage, corned beef, Dublin, Emerald Isle, gold, green, Irish, jig, kiss, legends, leprechaun, little folk, luck, March, parade, patron saint, rainbow, Saint Patrick, seventeenth, shamrock

[Guest_Jox_*]

Hearts Homesick for the Emerald Isle

(Excellent title)

"Hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle"

(Suggest italics for Emerald isle - optional, though)

"with sage sagas shown upon the screen"

(“sage sagas” - excellent alliteration, green reference, well-worn, wise - brill)

"weave Irish legends to beguile."

(I love the word “beguile” - reminds me of an Irish weather forecaster on Sky News tv)

"with blessings from a faery queen;"

(Is “faery an Irish spelling as well as Middle English?? Why not “fairy? Still, Chaucer would be delighted!)

"So kiss the Blarney Stone with style:
verbal virtuosity preen;
hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle
weave Irish legends to beguile."

(Is this last verse saying that the grass is always greener...?)

Hi Fran,

I won't even consider the form - I'm bound to make errors. However, apropos the poem per se, I loved this. I could hear it in an Irish voice - and see Sky's weather forecaster too. Your language flows beautifully like rivulets through the Kerry hills. And, just as those meadows nourish cows to make wonderful cream, you have buttered-up an Irish image with a very impish touch. I wonder if the leprechauns will spot the intruder? ("She's not a leprechaun - the green is a disguise - it's Lincoln Green of the Lincoln Imp!).

OK, my friends in the white coats say it's time for my medicine so I'm off.

Thanks for this - love it.

James.

[Guest_Toumai_*]

Lincoln Imp indeed!  

No, I know butter wouldn't melt in your mouth really. Thanks for reading and appreciating this, James, form though it (may) be.

Fran  :yoda:

[Guest_Jox_*]

Fran, Thanks...

But I'm not letting you escape so easily... what about my questions?

I knew I had the right critter! He suggests impishly!

James.

[Guest_Toumai_*]

Sorry, James

I'm back and paying attention, now.

>>Excellent title
>>Suggest italics for Emerald isle - optional, though

Thank you. I think I'll leave it 'straight'

"with sage sagas shown upon the screen"
>>“sage sagas” - excellent alliteration, green reference, well-worn, wise - brill

Thanks. I was pleased with that line.

"weave Irish legends to beguile."
>>I love the word “beguile” - reminds me of an Irish weather forecaster on Sky News tv

LOL

"with blessings from a faery queen;"
>>Is “faery an Irish spelling as well as Middle English?? Why not “fairy? Still, Chaucer would be delighted!

I have no idea, to be sure honest.

"So kiss the Blarney Stone with style:
verbal virtuosity preen;
hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle
weave Irish legends to beguile."

>>Is this last verse saying that the grass is always greener...?

I have noticed that anywhere in the world, even Birmingham, there will always be an Irish Bar ...

>>I won't even consider the form - I'm bound to make errors. However, apropos the poem per se, I loved this. I could hear it in an Irish voice - and see Sky's weather forecaster too. Your language flows beautifully like rivulets through the Kerry hills. And, just as those meadows nourish cows to make wonderful cream, you have buttered-up an Irish image with a very impish touch. I wonder if the leprechauns will spot the intruder? ("She's not a leprechaun - the green is a disguise - it's Lincoln Green of the Lincoln Imp! ).

Erm ... never been to Lincoln. :yoda:

OK, my friends in the white coats say it's time for my medicine so I'm off.

I dare not comment

Thanks for this - love it.

James, I'm glad that you liked this despite the lurking pressence of form. I think the ideas fitted in quite well without being 'forced' too much by the structure.

Best wishes,

Fran

[Guest_Cathy_*]

I've always had a problem with this form.  I really didn't care
for it but yours sounds so natural.  Just like it was meant to
be.  

Leprechauns' gleeful evil guile
saps love of life from those who've seen
hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle.

And bards who hope to make a pile
with sage sagas shown upon the screen
weave Irish legends to beguile.

Compelling tales I may compile
with blessings from a faery queen;
weave Irish legends to beguile.

So kiss the Blarney Stone with style:
verbal virtuosity preen;
hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle
weave Irish legends to beguile.

I love the word choices and the pictures you paint.  Where's the
mischievous imp!  I applaud your ability to write the Villanelle
successfully!    

Cathy

[Guest_Nina_*]

Hi Fran

I find this quite hard to crit because of the form.  Like James I love the word beguile.  I must get my hubby to say the word in an Irish accent (he does a good imitation of a Dubliner).

So kiss the Blarney Stone with style:
verbal virtuosity preen;
these two lines have to be my favourite in the poem.  I can just imagine an Irish guy, sitting in Filthy McNasty's (a well know Irish pub in Clerkenwell, Islington that I've been to a few times), telling tall tales from back home in Ireland.

Nina

[Guest_Toumai_*]

Hi Cathy,

Thank you for your comments  

I'm glad it sounds 'natural'. I wanted the form to be as much in the background as possible, but I hoped to get a bit of a lilt from the rhythm.

I followed Alan's suggestions in the villanelle thread in Karnak, picked the most likely words from the Pandora list and a couple more besides and then pulled out all possible (likely) rhymes.

Once I'd got the first and last line of S1 decided (that are also the couplet to close the poem) I then had to fix as many possible rhyming lines as I could to get the remaining verses.

Not so much poetic as doing a jigsaw, in fact: a hour of sitting at the kitchen table with a pile of scap paper and a great deal of crossing out and muttering lines aloud.

Fran

[Guest_Jox_*]

Hi Fran,

>>a hour of sitting at the kitchen table with a pile of scap paper and a great deal of crossing out and muttering lines aloud.

I'm sure that's how Wagger-Dagger composed "Macbeth"...


And
Bubble                             trouble

                Cauldron
Newt
                  Toil


Ah! I see!

Bubble trouble,
Cauldron toil, etc...

Nah! You both used your poetic skills, seems to me.

James.

[Guest_Toumai_*]

Hi Nina,

Apparently I have some Irish blood, and I have an entirely Irish step-mother, so I am hoping I can get away with this. Certainly my step-mum loves going back to Ireland and has been trying to persuade us over for years.

I find this quite hard to crit because of the form.  

No worries; I'm sure some of the experts will drop by and explain it all.

Like James I love the word beguile.

I love that word - and it has an Irish accent already in imagination. As I got that line down I began to think I might get a poem out of the challenge (started off thinking - Eyore style - 'well, I should show willing, have a go, join the frolics, dally the ba-DUMs...'  and ended up enthralled, with a sea of scrap paper around me).

So kiss the Blarney Stone with style:
verbal virtuosity preen;

these two lines have to be my favourite in the poem.  I can just imagine an Irish guy, sitting in Filthy McNasty's (a well know Irish pub in Clerkenwell, Islington that I've been to a few times), telling tall tales from back home in Ireland.

What a wonderful name for a pub. The Irish bars in California always had very predictable names. We met a few Americans who were third or forth generation but would wax lyrical about Ireland at the drop of a hat - or certainly after a couple of beers.

Fran

[Guest_Toumai_*]

Hi again, James

Hi Fran,

>>a hour of sitting at the kitchen table with a pile of scap paper and a great deal of crossing out and muttering lines aloud.

I'm sure that's how Wagger-Dagger composed "Macbeth"...


And
Bubble                             trouble

               Cauldron
Newt
                 Toil


Ah! I see!

Bubble trouble,
Cauldron toil, etc...

Nah! You both used your poetic skills, seems to me.

Okay, have it your way.    
I will admit to being slightly more than a monkey with a typewriter.

Thanks for all the encouragement - means a lot.  :cloud9:

Fran

[Guest__*]

Dear Fran,

TWO monkeys ?

Love
Alan

[Guest__*]

Dear Fran,

Havng entered my joxose comment, I went to read the poem, and am amazed I missed it way back when.

Very good tilt (lilt ? ) at a vill !


Hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle
write sonnets to that land so green,
weave Irish legends to beguile.

Leprechauns' gleeful evil guile
saps love of life from those who've seen
hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle.

And bards who hope to make a pile -- Bards, too, who ... ?
with sage sagas shown upon the screen -- sage sagas on a silver screen ?
weave Irish legends to beguile.

Or distant scholarship worthwhile - -- slightly awkward - Much distant ?
yet more time studying will mean
hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle.

Compelling tales I may compile
with blessings from a faery queen;
weave Irish legends to beguile.

So kiss the Blarney Stone with style:
verbal virtuosity preen; -- virtuosity verbal preen ? better badums ?
hearts homesick for the Emerald Isle
weave Irish legends to beguile.

Fran, I suspect this is too late as a crit, but no one else offered you the technical side, so here it is - very minor alterations, read it aloud both ways, pref in a bogus irish accent, and see which trips off the tongue, and which the tongue trips off !

Love
Alan

[Guest_Toumai_*]

Hellooo, Alan  :wave:

You DID comment on this, I think - but in Pandora's: no crit. So many thanks for the technical suggestions now - very much appreciated. Particularly like the silver screen suggestion, ta. Verbal virtuosity is quite a tongue twister - not to be attempted after a pint of Guiness! I'm not quite sure that your inversion reads that mush easier, but will think on't.

Off to make a revision now.  :pharoah2

Love,

Fran

[JustDaniel]

Nicely done, Fran... and following Alan's suggestions makes it better.

The only metrical gaffs are in S2L1 and S6L2, methinks.  The emPHASis isn't on the right sylLABle in both places.

At the cost of the nice word-play with evil and gleeful, perhaps:

Those Leprechauns' ill gleeful guile

and with perhaps less verbal virtuosity:

their verbals virtuously preen;

Whatcha think?

Lightly, Daniel

[Cleo_Serapis]

Congrats Fran on your Mod Choice award winning tile!

Well done!

~Cleo :)

[Guest_Nina_*]

Hi Fran

Congratulations on winning the moderator award for this poem, it is well deserved.

Nina

[Cybele]

Good morning Fran,

I' m sorry to have missed this. I was away when you posted it and somehow it slipped through when I was playing catch-up.

Nevertheless, many congrats on you award for this. A fine example of "verbal virtuosity" rewarded.

[Guest_Toumai_*]

Hi Lori, Nina, Grace

Thanks for your good wishes.  :sun:

Fran

[Guest_Jox_*]

Hi Fran,

I shall simply quote my original (edited) comments

I loved this. I could hear it in an Irish voice. Your language flows beautifully like rivulets through the Kerry hills. And, just as those meadows nourish cows to make wonderful cream, you have buttered-up an Irish image with a very impish touch. I wonder if the leprechauns will spot the intruder?

And you did it so beautifully - this sounds so lyrical and so... Irish.

Well done, Fran. Many congratulations.

J.