<p>Earlier this year I wrote an epic poem that got published on the last page of my school's literary magazine, and I'm considering working into my essay for a few of the colleges I'm applying to. I realize that it is somewhat common for students to include narratives and excerpts from various English essay in their application essays, but this poem, I feel, would give my essay an even more original quality than these students' fictions. The poem--written in the epic, old-fashioned poetry style (what a shame that modern poetry has completely eclipsed it!), lyrical and ambitious yet mysterious and highly original--represents me as well as anything I've ever written (and strange thing that it should come in the form of poetry--something I've only tried twice). </p>
<p>Anyway, my question is this: Would making this poem the theme of my college essay be a good idea? Or is it too nebulous? </p>
<p>Thanks, any advice is greatly appreciated! </p>
<p>Franconia Notch </p>
<p>The woes of the night I should have heeded;<br>
Their portents of the morrow were all that was needed.
Yet careless I lay, and sleepless did stray,
To mysterious fears which no thought could allay. </p>
<p>As I whittled the night in those hours so late,
Like a fool unsuspecting in the hands of his fate,
The shadows did dance and the ravens did pray;
There was something amiss in that absence of day. </p>
<p>In the morning I rose with a new kind of taste--
A thirst, a desire, to be quenched with great haste.
I assembled the tools, and neglected the rules,
Which to me seemed mere guidelines for fools! </p>
<p>I must have been driven, looking back on that week.
But what--what end to a means did I seek?
Both wonders and evils did that night so entail,
And I caution
but never mind! and on with the tale! </p>
<p>I was many times lost, and more often confounded,
But such was my passion that I always rebounded.
Yet such was my glee, it came with a fee,
And ambition did all but desert me. </p>
<p>Like many a project abandoned in plight,
Or endeavor turned sour in the span of one night,
As did mine in the even'ing gloom,
Consign me in deed to inglorious doom. </p>
<p>I saw what I'd done; I saw my creation.<br>
'Twas a frightening thing that erased all elation:
The longer it seethed, the more steam it breathed,
With all the more fire was its armor enwreathed! </p>
<p>'Twas then I perceived what a fool I had been,<br>
As I found myself standing at the mouth of the den.
Within lay the beast, in the fury and flame,
Whom I'd nurtured and fed, and regarded so tame! </p>
<p>Should you ever conspire to plot your demise,
I trust that your fate won't be a surprise,
As was mine on that most twisted of nights,
When I fought off a doom I'd conceived in delight. </p>
<p>Now here let me say, and say to you briefly,
What I did just then, and caution you chiefly,
Of the haunt of a ghost who keeps nightly his watch--
The loser of the battle of Franconia Notch. </p>
<p>I steeled my nerves; I prepared the attack;
I bent my knees; I drew my hand back.
"Fiery demon, your undoing's a'comin!"
And I removed the muffins from the oven.</p>