Titular poems.

[pauraque_bk]

I know Post A Poem Day was yesterday, but then atrata posted a poem from which she got the title of a fic, and well... self-indulgence is a nice thing.

O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear! your true love's coming,
  That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
  Every wise man's son doth know.

What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
  What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet-and-twenty!
  Youth's a stuff will not endure.

-William Shakespeare

I wanted a punning title for Sweet and Twenty, which was for a candy-themed challenge, and I guess I was going for an ironic suggestion of Remus's bitterly remembered youth.

XIII-

If there is a witness to my little life,
To my tiny throes and struggles,
He sees a fool;
And it is not fine for gods to menace fools.

-Stephen Crane

I had to rush to finish For gods to menace fools (NC-17) in time for switchknife's birthday, and at the last minute had a minor panic realizing that I'd forgotten to think up a title! The first thing I thought of was Stephen Crane, whose poetry I like very much. The long poem Black Riders had the right kind of desolate ache that I hoped would come across in the fic, but Crane uses such deceptively bare language that it was hard to find a good phrase to steal.

Actually, the verse I thought fit the story best was this one:

XX-

A learned man came to me once.
He said, "I know the way, -- come."
And I was overjoyed at this.
Together we hastened.
Soon, too soon, were we
Where my eyes were useless,
And I knew not the ways of my feet.
I clung to the hand of my friend;
But at last he cried, "I am lost."

The relevance of which I hope is apparent if you've read the fic. It just didn't suggest a good title.

Comments

[alibi-factory.livejournal.com]

Shakespeare! I love 'sweeting' as term of endearment. Also, have you heard John Harle's setting of that? Sung originally by Elvis Costello, and I think there's a few covers lying about. Very, very pretty.

[pauraque]

When I hear "sweeting" I always think of Othello, even though I know it's elsewhere too. Shakespeare!