Reading Daniel today in the anthology reminded me how much trouble I've had with him. He's a quite well-renowned author, particularly in his time, but his sonnets back away from their own emotional impact.

In one of the poems in /Delia/, he compares himself to Actaeon, stumbling upon his love, whose disregard for him causes his thoughts to set on him:

Whilst youth and error led my wand'ring mind
And set my thoughts in heedless ways to range,
All unawares a goddes chaste I find,
Diana-like, to work my sudden change.
For her no sooner had my view bewray'd,
But with disdain to see me in that place;
With fairest hand, the sweet unkindest maid
Casts water-cold disdain upon my face.
Which turn'd my sport into a hart's despair,
Which still is chas'd, whilst I have any breath,
By mine own thoughts; set on me by my fair,
My thoughts like hounds, pursue me to my death.
Those that I foster'd of mine own accord,
Are made by her to murder thus their lord.


How haunting is 12th line--"My thoughts like hounds, pursue me to my death"! But he moves away from that weird (and true) moment in the closing couplet. He restates his metaphor and reasserts a distance from the impact of that terrifying line. He seems to be purposefully writing elegant poems rather than powerful poems.

I'm reading the rest of /Delia/ now--maybe he's just warming up?