Full Moon Fever

By on December 29, 2012 in

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Sure hope you all have been able to enjoy some quiet NH moments over the past few days. 2012 is rapidly coming to a close and 2013 is just around the corner.

What are you looking forward to in the New Year?

About Mike Hoefer

Mike has been an active member of Blue Hampshire from the early days, and currently serves as the managing editor.
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  • Dean Barker

    (If in fact he wrote Twas Night Before Christmas – it’s disputed.)

    Moore was a Classicist by training. Classical verse is dependent on meter and rhythm, not rhyme. You can hear the influence of that in this Christmas poem; the placement of the words in the rhythm is outstanding, and reflective of someone trained in reading verse that way. I believe it is the excellence of the way it reads aloud that has given this poem the lasting power it has had.

    Also, this part reads like a typical simile one finds in Latin and Greek verse:

    As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
    When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky.
    So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
    With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

    • xteeth

      Why not think of some other name for perhaps interesting verbiage that depends upon something else than rhyme for its interest and save the name poetry for its in fact classical meaning? Blank verse, free verse, may be nice but without the rhyme it seems to me that the author didn’t try as hard as he/she might have done.

      • Dean Barker

        Ancient Greek and Latin verse does not rhyme (except on rare occasions). It is defined by its meter (or rhythm).

    • Mike Hoefer

      This Christmas eve had some extra meaning.  

  • Mike Hoefer

    Also heard from a reader via email who spent  his/her life thinking it was

    creast of the new fallen snow

    and now has realized

    Oh, dear, my whole childhood was a lie!