What do you think this sonnet I wrote last night?

Question

When you see a light fall upon a stone,

do not question the moon that rolled the tide,

Nor ask how pure the vestal virgins throne,

Rather let mark and angle be thy guide.

For in thy woman's breast there doth lie

A compass on which her ship sets sail

And the stars by which Eve took to her eye

Have chartered the course under reason's veil.

But reason ne'er test a ship to be sound

And hope never made a bosom to fall

For love can't take but what's there to be found

under a star I wait at horizon's wall.

I hold my candle, its light she might see

Slowly drifting into eternity

Answer 1

This is a sweet and sophisticated sonnet, apparently about reason.  It is a little bit confused in its subject-verb pairings, which makes what should be an eminently logical poem somewhat obscure.  For example:

-Line 5 begins `thy' but line 6 shifts to `her' for all women.  This is understandable, but a distraction.

-Q1 is an injuction to use reason: `rather let mark and angle be thy guide;' but Q2 refers to `reason's veil,' presumably as something which obscures the stars, and seems to prefer the universal `compass' in the heart.'  What exactly is the speaker's attitude to reason?  If it is meant to shift through the poem, this is not well attested.

-`Love can't take but what's there to be found' (I think you mean `can take;' because of `but,' you otherwise have a subtle double negative) apparently reduces love to empiricism and reason; but this quatrain, as Q2, rejects reason as incomplete: `reason ne'er test a ship to be sound' (I think you mean `tested').

-`hope never made a bosom to fall' looks forward to the somewhat sad hope of the couplet, but reading forward, because the speaker is not well attested, his `hope' does not yet make sense in this line, making it read like an unartistic digression.

-`Drifting' in the couplet is a wonderful tie back to the naval ideas from the rest of the poem, and the candle is a beautiful stand-in for a star.  But it is not a complete image, because you were very unclear about how she navigates, how you want her to navigate, or if she is, say, metaphorically actually aboard some kind of ship already.  

Overall, I like the first two lines, most of the imagery, the star/moon/ship/compass conceit, and the ending very much.

  

Technically, although eleven of the fourteen lines have ten syllables, you probably know that only two of these (lines 3 and 13) are iambic pentameter. In traditional sonnets, deviations from this pattern are considerably less common than here; I will include my scansion at the end, if it will be helpful.

The transition from, presumably, moonlight in the first line to the tides is spectacular, and also points beautifully to reason in line four; but I neither particularly associate thrones with Vestals, nor do I see much connexion between Vestals and reason, unless you are working in an explicitly Roman tradition, such as following Lucretius (De Rerum Natura, a poem about the natural order and what we would now call determinism.)  If you are, I sort of wonder if the ship conceit was intended as the obscene pun it was in Latin, favoured by Augustus Caesar's daughter Julia.  I am also slightly unsure about the phrase `mark and angle' in what is apparently a discussion of polar coordinates.

Quatrain 2, I think, unravels a bit, but broadly makes sense.  The transition from `thy' (line 5) to all women (`her,' line 6) is not accurately modulated in the grammar.  Likewise, a ship does not really set sail `on' a compass; I feel this is not a smooth figurative coinage.  The next two lines are interesting: `the stars... have chartered the course' perhaps was meant to be `...charted...,' but since Lucifer was called by the brightest star in heaven (since Lucifer, the morning star, or light-bringer, is another name for the planet Venus), this is possibly an interesting adumbration to the fall.  But `reason's veil' is an unclear use of figurative language to me.  The contrast between internal (compass) and external (stars) here is sophisticated, but also not clearly contrasted.  I should mention any mention of stars being used for navigation brings to mind Shakespeare's `star to every wandering bark' in sonnet 116.

I am sorry this note is disconnected, but I think I actually commented on Q3 mostly in my bullet points above.  I think the problem continues to be the speaker's unclearness about his attitude to reason, what he thinks the other option is exactly, what he thinks her stand on reason is, and how love fits in to this.  The symbols work harmoniously into the couplet (though the couplet would have more to respond to if the quatrains' ideas were more sharply delineated), but their literal referents are not there.

I hope this helps.  I am sorry my note is so long, but yours is actually one of the few sonnets I have seen here more influenced by the pre English Romanticism models, than by more recent attempts.

My scansion:

Q1: --`-``-`-`/ --`--`-`-`/ -`-`-`-`-`/ `--`-`-`-`

Q2: -`-`-``-`/ -`--`-`-`/ --`--`-`-`/ -`--``-`-`

Q3: -`-``-`--`/ -``-`-`--`/ -`-`-``--`/ `--`-`--`-`

C: -`-`-`-`-`/ `-`-`--`-`

Answer 2

Just a quick edit, hope you don't mind:

When you see a light fall upon a stone,

do not question the moon that rolled the tide,

Nor ask how pure the vestal virgins throne,

Rather let mark and angle be thy guide.

For in thy womanly breast, there doth lie

A compass upon which her ship sets sail

And the stars by which Eve took to her eye

Have chartered the course under reason's veil.

No ships, tested by reason to be sound

And hope, a bosom never made to fall

For love can't take but what's there to be found

under a star I wait, horizon's wall.

I hold my candle, its light she might see

Slowly drifting into eternity

Answer 3

I LOVE IT!!!! Never see that kind of poem before though! Thank you for showing that, becasue everyone love your poem! Keep on writting such beautiful poems like this!

Answer 4

My compliments overall.  Just some internal meter issues but great images and lines.

Answer 5

"Hi!"

Great 1st sonnet, a lot better than my attempt.

L5,L6 has 9 syllables, L9,L12 has 11 syllables.

all should have 10 syllables.

WELL DONE!   : )

Answer 6

I think it pleases me well.

Good imagery. I like your reintroduction of light in the thirteenth line. The theme of ships and sailing and the contrast at the end of the second quatrain about "reason" make it quite a good poem.Congratulations!

Answer 7

It flows nicely and is very visual.  Divide the sonnet into stanzas.

Answer 8

I really liked it. It's good to see some more traditional writing. The only problem I had [other than the meter issues they've already pointed out] was with the last line. "Slowly drifting into eternity" just struck me as slightly cliche. But other than that, good job.

Answer 9

You have the count bang-on. The iambs are loose. It is a strong poem.