Swan Song Comments

a very sad story David, enjoyed reading your epic poem Alan

Thank you for sharing, it's a wonderful ballad!

Compelling! Creative! Captivating! Well done!

No one can't say BEAUTIFUL

Oh, what a woman! With eyes like moonstones, and a mouth like the Holy Grail. A nice piece of work, David, thanks for sharing!

Your poetry could be listed among The Complete List of Top 500 Poems and settle in nicely between Shelley and Wordsworth and Keats. You are a master storyteller and your verse flows so smoothly and clear, I'd come to your fire anytime to listen to a tale of yours.

David is rightly known and well liked...

Phenomenal story, I was swept in the rhythm of this desperate tale of love and loss, you wax amazing lyrical words. This was truly a wonderful story. Concise and alive, its sad where you got the inspiration from but at least in some way that innocent women lives on in this work

A sensitive, beautiful ballad, that held my attention from the first word to the last. I read all the comments, including your response about its origin. It is so sad that so much manmade misery grips the world in such a stranglehold, not just in China, but also in so many other corners of the globe too, in some form or other, whether in macrocosm or microcosm...

Excellent poem, David. I very much enjoyed the read.

I should have read it before! So nice!

A beautiful narrative poem, that moves the reader.

Boom. I like that twist at the end

I just read this poem for the first and only time. It is impressive and as I read it, I found the cadence to be similar to two different ballads that I learned in my youth. One was the Ballad of East and West by Rudyard Kipling and the other was The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert Service (?) . [I haven't reviewed either of them for many years, but I think Robert Service was the author.] I liked the story, except for the description of the subject's daughter in the final stanza, which is overly reminiscent of the visage accorded to the childhood sweetheart who ended up as a working girl. I guess my parental sensitivity kicked in! I'd still give it a 10.

Thank you everyone for your kind comments. The idea came to me from an article I read in the China Daily, during a year teaching there, about a young married couple who'd borrowed 30,000 yuan to get married, then had difficulty paying it back. The groom went to Beijing to earn more money while the bride, unknown to him, worked as a prostitute, But she kept a diary, and in it constantly wrote how much she loved her husband. Then she was murdered by a customer, and the groom came back, heartbroken to bury her. He found the diary. I changed the story somewhat to underline how difficult it is for Chinese girls to marry the man of their choice. David Lewis Paget

Loved it.. Fabulous!

Beautiful catastrophe has been put with this writing. Love returns again......It's the reality of life. Never lost any true passion. Simply it changes its time, shape and shadows. Nice writing.

Wonderful poem telling an enthralling tale of love and loss - a great write, very much enjoyed the read.

Fabulous write of love, won and lost, by the world of status and social dysfunction.

David, thank you for inviting me to see you poem.I like narrative poem, your poem is telling the real story, , .how did you get the idea? chinese children were bound to obey their parents in the past time.actually the same thing still exists, especially in village, and many girls have 'father problem' they dont have the love from their father which they deserve.they are insecurity, naive, dreamy in man.SO many chinese girls are immature, or some of them think money will make up with the sense of love.