Help!

[karmadog]

I know many of you poet types have vast knowledge of poetry, so I thought I would come to you for help.

Here's what I'm looking for:

A poem in the public domain that is written from the point of view of a jilted lover. An angry, jilted lover. Ideally, it should be metered. Iambic pentameter would be nice, but it isn't necessary.

I thought that Othello had a long monologue on the faithlessness of Desdemona that would be appropriate, but it seems I was wrong.

Please help!

 

[karmadog]

Oh. By the way, it's not for me, it's for a character in a story I'm writing. I haven't been jilted in a while.

 

[Suzi]

I know many of you poet types have vast knowledge of poetry, so I thought I would come to you for help.

Here's what I'm looking for:

A poem in the public domain that is written from the point of view of a jilted lover. An angry, jilted lover. Ideally, it should be metered. Iambic pentameter would be nice, but it isn't necessary.

I thought that Othello had a long monologue on the faithlessness of Desdemona that would be appropriate, but it seems I was wrong.

Please help!

Do you want us to compose one ourselves or do you want us to find one that already exists?

 

[karmadog]

I need one that's old. Old enough to be public domain so I can use it in a story. So that would be what? The author dead for 70 or 75 years.

It can be somewhat obscure, because the character is a heavy reader, but it can't seem as though he wrote it, because he is not creative.

 

[Never]

O tiger’s heart wrapped in a woman’s hide!
How couldst thou drain the lifeblood of the child,
To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,
And yet be seen to bear a woman’s face?
Women are soft, mild, pitiful, and flexible;
Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.
~King Henry VI, Pt. III (I, iv).


How about this?

 

[Angeline]

Well Shakespeare is the Bard...

and I love Shakespeare and spent most of my sophmore year of college--and junior come to think of it--joined to the hip of his poetry (and plays schmays--it's all poetrywith him).

Can't go wrong with Will.

A few other choices.

I like this poem by Sylvia Plath--it's so bitter. (Maybe "like" is the wrong word, but you know what I mean.)

Jilted by Sylvia Plath

My thoughts are crabbed and sallow,
My tears like vinegar,
Or the bitter blinking yellow
Of an acetic star.

Tonight the caustic wind, love,
Gossips late and soon,
And I wear the wry-faced pucker of
The sour lemon moon.

While like an early summer plum,
Puny, green, and tart,
Droops upon its wizened stem
My lean, unripened heart.


Ok and then there's Dorothy Parker. And she is just always bitter about everything. lol.

The Trifler by Dorothy Parker

Death's the lover that I'd be taking;
Wild and fickle and fierce is he.
Small's his care if my heart be breaking-
Gay young Death would have none of me.

Hear them clack of my haste to greet him!
No one other my mouth had kissed.
I had dressed me in silk to meet him-
False young Death would not hold the tryst.

Slow's the blood that was quick and stormy,
Smooth and cold is the bridal bed;
I must wait till he whistles for me-
Proud young Death would not turn his head.

I must wait till my breast is wilted.
I must wait till my back is bowed,
I must rock in the corner, jilted-
Death went galloping down the road.

Gone's my heart with a trifling rover.
Fine he was in the game he played-
Kissed, and promised, and threw me over,
And rode away with a prettier maid.


If you want a poem by a man, "The Apparition" is a classic "jilted lover" poem about revenge but gently ironic--almost hyperbole, but self-aware.

The Apparition by John Donne

When by thy scorne, O murdresse, I am dead,
And that thou thinkst thee free
From all solicitation from mee,
Then shall my ghost come to thy bed,
And thee, fain'd vestall, in worse armes shall see;
Then thy sicke taper will begin to winke,
And he,whose thou art then, being tyr'd before,
Will, if thou stirre, or pinch to wake him, thinke
Thou call'st for more,
And in false sleepe will from thee shrinke,
And then poore Aspen wretch, neglected thou
Bath'd in a cold quicksilver swear wilt lye
A veryer ghost than I;
What I will say, I will not tell thee now,
Lest that preserve thee; and since my love is spent,
I'had rather thou shouldst painfully repent,
Than by my threatenings rest still innocent.

Last one (I wanted to give you a choice), also by a man, Pablo Neruda. This one is just really beautiful and sad.

Leaning into the Afternoons by Pablo Neruda

Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets
towards your oceanic eyes.

There in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames,
its arms turning like a drowning man's.

I send out red signals across your absent eyes
that move like the sea near a lighthouse.

You keep only darkness, my distant female,
from your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.

Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets
to that sea that beats on your marine eyes.

The birds of night peck at the first stars
that flash like my soul when I love you.

The night gallops on its shadowy mare
shedding blue tassels over the land.



There are a few others, but they're longer. I assume you've heard enough.

I need a drink. lol.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Edward Thomas - Like the Touch of Rain

Like the touch of rain she was
On a man's flesh and hair and eyes
When the joy of walking thus
Has taken him by surprise:

With the love of the storm he burns,
He sings, he laughs, well I know how,
But foretgs when he returns
As I shall not forget her 'Go now'.

Those two words shut a door
Between me and the blessed rain
That was never shut before
And will not open again.

Sir Philip Sidney - Untitled

With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! may it be that even in heavenly place
that busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
To me, that feel they like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemd there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they love to be loved, and yet
   Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
   Do they call 'virtue' there -- ungratefulness?

John Dryden -- Untitled

Farewell ungrateful traitor,
   Farewell my perjured swain,
Let never injurted creature
   Believe a man again.
The pleasure of posessing
Surpasses all expressing,
But 'tis too short a blessing
   And love to long a pain.

'Tis easy to deceive us
   In pity of your pain,
But when we love you leave us
   To rail at you in vain.
Before we have descried it,
There is not bliss beside it,
But she that one has tried it
   Will never love again.

The passion you pretended
   Was only to obtain,
But when the charm is ended
   The charmer you disdain.
Your love by ours we measure
Till we have lost our treasure,
But dying is a pleasure,
   When living is a pain.

W.B. Yeats -- Never give all the heart

NEVER give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy. Kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.


Sir Walter Ralegh -- Farewell to false love

Farewell false love, the oracle of lies,
A mortal foe and enemy to rest:
An envious boy, from whom all cares arise,
A bastard vile, a beast with rage possessed:
A way of error, a temple full of treason,
In all effects, contrary unto reason.
A poisoned serpent covered all with flowers,
Mother of sighs, and murdered of repose,
A sea of sorrows from whence are drawn such showers
As moisture lend to every grief that grows,
A school of guile, a net of deep deceit,
A gilded hook, that holds a poisoned bait.
A fortress foiled, which reason did defend,
A Siren song, a fever of the mind,
A maze wherein affection finds no end,
A ranging cloud that runs before the wind,
A substance like the shadow of the sun,
A goal of grief for which the wisest run.
A quenchless fire, a nurse of trembling fear,
A path that leads to peril and mishap,
A true retreat of sorrow and despair,
An idle boy that sleeps in pleasure's lap,
A deep mistrust of that which certain seems,
A hope of that which reason doubtful deems.

 

[KillerMuffin]

Are Plath or Parker public domain yet?

 

[karmadog]

I knew I came to the right place. With the exception of the Parker poem, I have never read any of these before. Some of them would have been good advice for my character (particularly the Yeats), and most are a little too sad. The Dryden is, I think the closest to what I'm looking for, but I'll have to change the gender's in the poem.

Thank you all so very much.

PS I have to be very, very careful that the poem I use is in the public domain. The use to which the character puts the poem would not be looked upon favorably by the writer's estate.

 

[KillerMuffin]

I'd skip on Parker or Plath, they're twentieth century.

Dryden lived 1631-1700