February Lost Poem

The Day that Fair Love Died

A mythical cross between human and faerie - known as a moor child - reveals her insight into mans' seemingly inescapable situation. They are doomed to search for a tomorrow that will never come, because they do not know how to properly look, and, in doing so, create the tomorrow they seek. She then goes on to explain that Love had recently passed away as she could not survive in the harsh reality that mankind had created and adapted to over the years. The narrator reflects upon Love's funeral and the unravelling state of the World. Finally, she reveals a message left behind by Love and the tragic secret of her cause of death.

This poem is an elegy written for Love. The entire poem is both an extended metaphor and personification. The poem's thematic meaning in a comment on modern day society and the changes we must make if we do not want to destroy everything good left in the World. It is to be used for the February "lost" poem because it not only explores losing a friend, but how easily lost things such as love and peace are and how strongly we must respect and hold on to them. It has a rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF and so on until the end of the poem. 

Added to the overall personification and metaphor of the poem, many literary devices are used, such as allusion, alliteration, metaphor, hyperbole, and assonance.

An impatient breed, the poor mortals are

As this weary world they tread.

A searing curiosity,

Like cold Black Death doth spread

Leaving each being waiting,

As dumb as they can be.

For, ask each man for what he waits,

And await no honesty.

I swear to thee not a man alive

Doth the true answer know,

Which leaves this moor child, Cassandra’s like,

An observer of utter woe.

I know for what each man doth wait

As it leaves me of all bereft,

For I waited a while for that thing called “tomorrow”

When today first had nothing left.

But unlike my haphazard, human kin,

It quickly came to my mind

“Tomorrow” was Atlantis

Lost in the seas for none to find.

And we are stuck in this curse called “today”,

For each evening, ere “’morrow” dawns,

The pitiful world starts to realise

That, as "yesterday" is gone,

Another “today” must take its place,

Not a “tomorrow” as was thought.

And those impatient men keep searching on

While forgetting what they sought.

You may see my words as bitter and blunt,

A calloused tongue have I,

Yet I am but one step ahead

Of the ‘blivious passers-by.

They dwell and stew in “yesterdays”

Yet wait for tomorrow to rise,

Ignoring the chance to live in “today”

With heads of naught but lies.

But ‘til the day they come around,

I watch “todays” arrive.

And I am left alone to pass the days

By counting their babies' cries.

Each day there seems to be more wails

And howls that split the sky,

Building since that fateful day,

That day when fair Love died.

Scoff if thou wilt, but I give my word
Nothing I say is a lie.

I know she is gone, I haven’t a doubt,

I was there to see her die.

She could not thrive in the poisonous air,

Nor in their sceptical hearts.

Thus I witnessed the torture, as she began

To be wrenched and torn apart.

“'Todays' have changed!” came her mournful moan

Through her brackish tears.

But so parched was she from our toxic fumes

That none but I could hear.

We stood serenely by her tomb

Passion, Peace, and I.

We all knew it was but a matter of time

Before, beside her, they’d lie.

Their salvation lies in human kind,

And therefore, is already lost.

Our apathy and the games we play

Come with a heavy cost.

We will never find "tomorrow"

For we don't know how to search.

Think of ruin thou hast caused

By the way thou hath walked the earth.

By the things thou hath done,

And the things thou hath seen

In days that were once “tomorrows”,

And "todays" that they have been.

Which in turn, turned to “yesterdays”

And so made up the past.

Think of the lifetime thou hath lost

On things that could not last

I do not wish sweet Love had remained

In this wretched, sordid place,

Haunted by clung-to “yesterdays”

That came and went in haste.

She knows the truth of “tomorrow”

And this has set her free.

I know she left with no regrets,

For this she left with me:

“They search for what they'll never grasp,
I've naught but this to say:

They'd find the truth of tomorrow

If they'd open their eyes to today.”

I pray this message will be heard

Amid the babies' cries:

We drove her to her tragic end;

Love committed suicide.

                           - Rachel Harrison