Excellent A sonnet Natural Light : Charleston by estory

I don't know what I am trying to find As I look through these museum houses; Portraits of the privileged come to mind, Ordering about their quiet servants While they count their profits in fields of rice Tilled by the backbreaking labor of slaves Working outside in the dark, moonless nights And denied all the ease and elegance. A city of grace, haunted by the pain Undermining the trappings of culture, Beautiful to see, but hard to explain in terms of the cost to human nature. As the carriages of tourists drive by, I watch the last camellia blossoms die. Author Notes This is a pretty classic, English Italianate sonnet, done with a traditional abab cdcd efef rhyme scheme with a closing couplet. It is more in Yeats' style of Upon a House Shaken by the Land Agitation, or The Fascination of What's Difficult, or No Second Troy. I like conversational language in this form, with more contemporary images, on contemporary subjects. Charleston is a beautiful but complicated place, one which roils up all sorts of emotions when walking around there, watched by the ghosts of confederates and slaves. estory

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