The 99 Poem Challenge (Fox-Trot-9) ✓

94. Romantic Stanza -- A Moment Out of Time

The 99 Poem Challenge
Fox-Trot-9

94. Romantic Stanza — A Moment Out of Time

Silence can bring in a moment of thinking
   Life into words of supernal endowment,
Raising the consciousness from its own sinking.
   Silence can bring in a moment

Words that recall in a rush full of pleasure,
   Living and breathing the breath of a wishful
Dream that a poet of feeling will treasure!
   Words that recall in a rush full

Of sweet impressions, my childhood can muster
   Out of the poison that churns through these manhood
Years of regret, which now tarnish the luster
   Of sweet impressions. My childhood

Leaves at the threshold of danger uncertain,
   Hungry for thrills and for future adventure,
As I now pass through the beckoning curtain.
   Leaves at the threshold of danger

Whirl on the winds of my journey's commencement,
   Marking the footfalls of spirited gallantries.
Now I must walk by these chains of estrangement,
   Whirl on the winds of my journey's

Stumble through memories that I've collected,
   Memories that I still cherish and re-vive,
Penning the words that I once had rejected.
   Stumble through memories that I've

Taken for granted through living the action:
   That will be everything that I believe in
When all my strength for these treks have been taken—
   Taken for granted through living.

Now that I've spent all my daring in this life,
   All I can do is to keep on declaring
Through my words and my rhymes and throughout this strife
   Now that I've spent all my daring.

When the full portrait of living is painted
   On this wide canvass, contented, forgiving,
Then will I know that the portrait is tainted
   When the full portrait of living

Cannot be captured in verses that cover
   All of my monuments to youthful faces,
Cannot be eulogized when youth is over,
   Cannot be captured in verses!

So must I let go this moment I strove for
   At the conclusion of this sweet denouement,
Knowing that I must now end what I rove for—
   So must I let go this moment.

(To be continued...)

A/N: The Romantic Stanza, named for the poem "Venus the Star" by Belarusian poet Maksim Bahdanovic, is distinguished by the use of a rentrament, the first phrase of Line 1 repeated as a refrain in Line 4 similar to the French Rondeau. The difference is that each quatrain has its own rentrament. Number of quatrains is at the poet's discretion.

Meter: Dactylic tetrameter
      (Dactyl / dactyl / dactyl / trochee)
      (Dumdada-Dumdada-Dumdada-Dumdada)
Meter: Dactylic trimeter or dactylic dimeter
      (Dactyl / dactyl / trochee) or (Dactyl / trochee)
      (Dumdada-Dumdada-Dumdada) or (Dumdada-Dumdada)
Rhyme:

Line 1: Ba
Line 2: b
Line 3: a
Line 4: B

Line 1: Dc
Line 2: d
Line 3: c
Line 4: D...