Time gone by

Following Dargan’s lead, today we’d like to challenge you to write a poem that incorporates at least one of the following: (1) the villanelle form, (2) lines taken from an outside text, and/or (3) phrases that oppose each other in some way. If you can use two elements, great – and if you can do all three, wow!

Time gone by

Old memories come flooding by

Of golden sands and crystal brooks

And it seems as if the end is nigh.

The iris wavers as the fox trots by,

morning in paradise, or what pretends

old memories come flooding by.

There will the river whispering run

Warm’d by the eyes more than the sun

And it seems as if the end is nigh.

The water touched the image of the beast;

old factories of iron muted the plain

Old memories come flooding by.

When thou wilt swim in that live bath,

each fish that every channel hath,

And it seems that the end is nigh.

We had heard of passion, we knew ourselves

that first morning when we woke, and died

Old memories come flooding by

And it seems as if the end is nigh.

My first attempt at writing a villanelle. I have incorporated lines from The Bait by John Donne and Summer in the ordinary by William Logan. I have taken my cue from Dargan’s poem and so haven’t followed the rhyme scheme.