ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Hi Maureen
You are making the homework harder and harder but I do love On Flanders Fields. I always read homework topics and sometimes try but rarely send anything in but this week I was determined to do something! Part of this came to me while walking our new walkway here on beautiful Magnetic Island where in winter the sea just glistens and it is easy to believe in a higher power when standing or walking the beach. Not sure if it is correct or even if it makes sense but who cares.....

Greet the Early Morn

Have you stopped to greet the early morn?
Stood by the sea at the break of dawn
Felt the breeze blow gentle on your face?
Felt the touch of nature’s subtle pace
in this place where souls are thus reborn.

Then put an end to all worldly strife
with air of brine, sweet nectar of life.
Bringing back the substance of your soul
to greet the early morn.

With cares unchained, free from earthly woes
where spirits come from where who knows!
Walk paths far from worry and from pain
to live life anew with joy again -
like He who many years ago arose
to greet the early morn


Cheers
Dot

Good on you Dot for giving it a go and I like what you have done. Old Maggie should be full of inspiration. I recall many a weekend spent there and always the view back across to the mainland and little private bays with those fabulouse rocky headlands and huge boulders were a delight.

You have got the right idea with the rhyming scheme almost - to be technically correct and to comply with the rhyming scheme of aabba/ aabr/ aabbar - your last words would need to be rhyming with morn and face throughout the poem.

Have you stopped to greet the early morn?
Stood by the sea at the break of dawn
Felt the breeze blow gentle on your face?
Felt the touch of nature’s subtle pace
in this place where souls are thus reborn.

following on with the 2nd stanza along lines perhaps like this -

The world alas with strife is sadly torn
the sweet nectar of life is fragile, worn
away. We need some inner peace and grace
to greet the early morn.

etc etc

It's worth having a fiddle with it to get it technically right as a Rondeau but as a poem I think it has a great gentle and inspirational feel to it

Cheers

Maureen

Second try!

Greet the Early Morn

Have you stopped to greet the early morn?
Stood by the sea at the break of dawn
felt the breeze blow gentle on your face?
Watch nature as she adorns this place
by the sea where souls are thus reborn.

Such endless strife, world all forlorn
to think of those who suffer scorn
while we, nectar of brine embrace
to greet the early morn.

With cares unchained, yet free we mourn
those fleeting souls who rise again to warn
of different paths far from this place
to live anew their eternal grace
from angels treading gently the dawn
to greet the early morn.

Dot

Good on you Dot - well done

The first version has a better message.

Thanks Maureen

Yeah Neville I think so too but I wanted to get it right - so now maybe it is wrong. Strange Eh! But thanks as long as it makes people think it'll be okay!

Dot