This old house
\nby cricketjeff on January 12, 2010.\u00a0 \u00a9 Jeff Green, All rights reserved
\n[Posts%20by%20cricketjeff%202_files\/f33c97e839c10a3d859791ac85c78a24.txt]<\/p>\n
The merest hint of what was there before
\nAn echo of the laughter in the hall
\nAs everyone makes ready for the ball
\nThe ghosts of Lords and Ladies at the door
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The eldest daughter waits to take the floor
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Tonight’s the night\u00a0 that proves she has arrived
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 A hint of her first triumph has survived
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The ghosts of Lords and Ladies at the door
\nThe dancers did not know what was in store
\nThe date is August Nineteen Thirty Nine
\nA final chance for innocence to shine
\nThe ghosts of Lords and Ladies at the door
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The merest hint of what was there before
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The ghosts of Lords and Ladies at the door<\/p>\n
It’s silent now the house is cold and bare
\nShe leaves without a single backward glance
\nHer mind recalls a night of love and dance
\nAnd no-one else remembers who was there
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 No long debates about which dress to wear
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 No-one was going to see her anyway
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 She doesn’t want to mark her saddest day
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 And no-one else remembers who was there
\nThe ghosts of all their friends hang in the air
\nHer husband left before they built a life
\nShe’s only been a widow not a wife
\nAnd no-one else remembers who was there
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 It’s silent now the house is cold and bare
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 And no-one else remembers who was there<\/p>\n
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0
\n Author notes
\nA pair of “echo sonnets”
\nAn echo sonnet is a development on the Kyrielle sonnet. It is a poem with
\nfourteen ten syllable lines (preferably as here in iambic pentameter) with a
\nrhyming pattern of A1bbA2 accA2 addA2 A1A2. That is the first and fourth lines
\nof the first three stanzas rhyme as do the second and third lines. The first
\nline of the poem is repeated as the first line of the closing couplet and the
\nfinal line of each stanza is the same. If you like you can vary the repeated
\nlines slightly, develop them to fit the flow of the poem but the rhyming word
\nand the “feel” of the line must remain the same.<\/p>\n
The picture, the prompt for this poem is “Fade_to_Grey” by Sarachmet on
\nDeviantArt.com http:\/\/sarachmet.deviantart.com\/art\/Fade-To-Grey-147371106<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This old house by cricketjeff on January 12, 2010.\u00a0 \u00a9 Jeff Green, All rights reserved [Posts%20by%20cricketjeff%202_files\/f33c97e839c10a3d859791ac85c78a24.txt] The merest hint of what was there before An echo of the laughter in the hall As everyone makes ready for the ball The ghosts of Lords and Ladies at the door \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 The eldest daughter waits […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":9748,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4368","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7140,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4368\/revisions\/7140"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nicewaistcoat.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}