I realized that I have not analyzed a sonnet that I had real issues with in a while. So it is time to do so! It's always more interesting, as a matter of craft, I think, when I can take one apart.
I wondered if I wandered by a star
Or built my house upon a fire-mount
The light was growing, greater now by far
'Til it had passed capacity to count
Or measure. All the senses were aglow
As if the eyes had vanquished all the rest
And, as the victors in the senses' row
Had all the other put under arrest,
That all of them did see the growing light.
So far surpassed this sweet event my eye
That I, bebaffled, did renounce my sight
Believing it must sure have told a lie
But true it was, now poor I must admit
For dark is here now you my vision quit.
What Went Wrong:
The horrible, horrible pseudoarchaism. "Fire-mount"? "'Til it had passed capacity to count" (a verb that would make no sense in that context anyway)? "That all of them did see"? "So far surpassed this sweet event my eye"? "true it was"? "poor I must admit"? "now you my vision quit"? And for the love of God, fun as it is to say, "bebaffled"?
Let this serve as an object lesson: if it sounds wrong, don't write it. Just because you, or in this case obviously, I, have some absurd idea about what might have sounded right several centuries ago, that doesn't mean you should inflict that vision on a poor defenseless sonnet. There are better ways to say it. Yes, in some slight pathetic measure of defense it might be said that all those terribly twisted inversions of syntactic order allow the important words to hit the stressed syllables, but that's hardly an excuse. It's best to look at a line with meter, rhythm (of the sentence as distinct from meter), and syntax in mind, and, if you decide there is no good way to say what you want to say and rhyme without violating at least one of the three, pick the way that violates the fewest (preferably none or one). In this case, I clearly chose to violate both rhythm of the line and syntax to preserve meter, which is a poor choice. The saddest part is that the answer to "where did you do that?" isn't a single line; it is, in a sense, the whole poem.
Besides that, of course, the archaism also shows up in the diction, with invented words. Bebaffled is at least fun to say, if a little pointless given that it clearly simply tacked on a syllable to baffled. Fire-mount is silly, and not in a good way. It sounds tacky, archaic, and yet unlikely to have actually been archaically attested. In short, it has everything negative about archaism and none of the positive.
Besides all of that, if this were a better poem I would comment on issues like the confusion that the syntactical mish-mosh introduces at the end of the poem. I would also note that "row" is a false rhyme, since that use of the word should really be "rauw" rather than "roe," but has to be "roe" to rhyme with "aglow." But there's just so much more to comment on...
Not Too Shabby:
So is there anything that can be salvaged? I like "I wondered if I wandered" for the use of those two echoing words together. If it were not surrounded by all the other archaisms and silliness, "bebaffled" would actually be a fun coinage. And for some reason "all the senses were aglow" appeals to me as an image, especially the implication that other senses than sight were involved. It should be "all my senses," but it still sounds good. Sadly, that's about all that wasn't too shabby for words.
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