Can you tell me what your opinion is on this poem and if it reminds you of any s

Question:

Can you tell me what your opinion is on this poem and if it reminds you of any specific poet?

In a land across the sea,
lived the one who was dear to me,
we sang, we danced, we laughed, we cried,
until, one day, she died.

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

It has a ring to it.

Unfortunately, I got tripped up by a couple of things in lines 2 and 3, so line 4 did not have the impact I think you intended.

The rhythm in line 2 seemed a bit rough; maybe "lived one so dear to me" might be better. and more succinct, too--always a virtue in a poem that rings as this one does.

But then in line 3, my mind refused to go on before it asked, "But how did they dance and sing when she was across the sea, or was he across the sea too, but then would it be called 'across the sea'?" I tried not to get so tangled up, but my mind, led on by you words, would not obey me. My mind is not leashed trained very well. Sorry.

Yes, your verse does sound a little bit like "Annabelle Lee," but I think an even better analog of this kind of poem is by Wordsworth (I'm quoting from memory so I may not have this exactly right; it's been a long, long time):

She dwelt among th' untrodden ways,
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone,
Half hidden from the eye;
Fair as the star when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be,
But she is in her grave and, oh,
The difference to me!

I love this poem, and the series of five Lucy poems of which it is a part. But, you know, even Wordsworth trips my mind every now and then it won't obey my command, "Down boy, down boy!"

"Ceased to be" seems a wordy, pedantic euphemism for "died," put in only to preserve meter and rhyme. And "the diff-er-ence to me" seems a flimsy trimeter to conclude with. But, you see, by the time I get to those lines I'm so enamored of Lucy (and so in tune with her eulogist) that I'm willing to forgive those lines that start my mind jumping around and barking. "A violet by a mossy stone," "a star when only one / Is shining in the sky."

No, Lucy did not "cease to be." In lines like this, she will live forever--yes, in these "eternal lines" of Wordsorth. As Shakespeare said,

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

When you can write poetry with a ring to it, it's worth working and working on draft after draft until the ring is clear and crystalline.

Go to it!