Blameless Girl

Inspired by Tess of the d'Urbervilles

How cruelly does the hand of Fate

Take hold the hand of Choice to dance

While eager souls who leap at chance

Know not what sufferings await.

 

Amidst this wicked, wayward world,

Upon our lost and blighted star,

A spirit’s purity is marred

And sparks the fall of blameless girl.

 

No healer on this Earth can mend

The wounds inflicted by desire,

For, immolated in its fire,

The innocent have been condemned.

 

The tears of bitter love now trace

The pattern coarse has etched on fair.

The tainted one her Sorrow bears

With sinner’s grief and mother’s grace.

 

A lover’s touch relieves the pain;

A light dispels the darkened past.

Yet harmony can never last

Through agony of guilt’s refrain.

 

Confession in the dark of night,

The shadows deep, the fire low,

The room suffused with lurid glow,

The jewels agleam with hellish light.

 

Within the tears of silence cried

Are heard the wails of breaking hearts

While kindred souls are torn apart,

Their imperfections magnified.

 

Like ships on tempest-ravaged sea

Are wayward spirits set adrift,

The bleeding edges of a rift

Dividing love that cannot be.

 

The lips once steeped in sin now speak

Devotion to the saving grace,

Yet passion long in slumber wakes,

Conviction newly-found made weak.

 

The spirits cruel and spirits kind

Do battle for each human soul.

In knowing not which has control

Does anguish come to mortal minds.

The shroud of feigned divinity,

Of devil’s sin or angel’s grace,

We pull away to see the face

Of broken, flawed humanity.

 

The pure and stainless we exalt

While evil calls each one by name.

Yet none can either mantle claim,

For all are marked by faith and fault.

 

So villain is by virtue damned,

The righteous by unhallowed choice.

The angel laughs with hellish voice;

The devil bleeds like Paschal lamb.

 

Yet tears that fall from sorrowed eyes

To mingle with the dust of earth

Are tears of broken, mortal birth,

Not denizen of Hell or skies.

 

Since dawning of our blighted world,

The pure have been the sacrifice.

So shadow black with Sun shall rise

To mark the death of blameless girl.

Author's Note

We just finished reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles (a novel by Thomas Hardy) in my English class last week. As books we read in school go, this one was very... complicated. Lots of my classmates complained about the "boring" descriptions that Hardy periodically uses throughout the book, but while I'll admit that they are indeed long and at times tedious, I found them incredibly beautiful in their uniqueness, complexity, and ability to so vividly portray every intricate detail of the setting. Maybe it's just me and my tendency to draw out the details in a long-winded manner as well. :) The story was highly emotional - I think this is the most worked up I've ever gotten about a book I read in school. The characters were very well developed in that I often wanted to strangle them, or hug them, or cry for them, or do all three simultaneously. The themes of the book were also profoundly thought-provoking. So, naturally, being the total nerd that I am, the logical response to such an experience is... to write a poem about it. As if the in-class essay I have to write tomorrow wasn't enough. :)

Reviews

[Shabeeh Haider]

I'm glad I read this poem. Tess of the D'Urbervilles is incidentally my favourite novel. I read it in high school and have never read such an amazing book ever.
Now coming to your poem.
You have chosen a very difficult rhyming scheme (a,b,b,a) You have done justice to the rhyme except in the second and the last stanza.( world does not rhyme with girl).
If in the last line of the sixth stanza you change "jewels agleam" to "jewels gleam" then the syllable count will become eight. That's how it is almost throughout.
A very fine poem. I enjoyed it immensely.

[AliciaB]

Thank you! I'm glad you appreciated it. This was my first time experimenting with this rhyme scheme. I know that "girl" doesn't rhyme with "world" - I got it as close as I could. :) And about the "jewels"... in the U.S., we often pronounce it as one syllable (like "jools") because we can't say anything right. :) That's what I was going for on that part. Thank you for the tips, and thanks again for reading!