It has a nice rugged and slightly shadowed feel to it. Good rhyme scheme too ^^

as promised. i loved it Six, keep up the great work and post more! :D

(NB. This critique was requested to be left as a comment; I would normally send such concerns in private)

"Autumn wind whispers across their broken spirits
Darkness surrounds their fading figures
Far from salvation, close to damnation
They ensconce alone, a dreary, lonely vision"

If I may, I enjoyed the flow of this until I hit the comma after 'alone'.

"They ensconce alone," breaks the rhythm and creates "a dreary, lonely vision" as a set-off point. It might be demarcated with an em-dash, so well is it separated.
"They ensconce alone--a dreary, lonely vision."

Except if that's the meaning, then what are they ensconcing? Wind, perhaps? Except that's a lead-in. Darkness? Another lead-in. Themselves? That only 'sorta' works. Grammatically, I assume "they ensconce" the "dreary, lonely vision" ... except it doesn't read that way. If you want to connect 'ensconce' with 'vision', you need to remove the comma after 'alone'... if that makes sense?


"Behind them appears an astonishing sight
An outline of glory in the silent night
Shining with luster, a majestic white
Plagued with burden, their inherent plight"

"sight night white plight" ... "box rox socks fox" ... nursery-rhyme words reduce the depth of this stanza significantly.

If I'm going to dig deeper:

"Behind them appears an astonishing sight"

A "sight" shouldn't, generally, ever "appear"... if you think about it. A sight is something that exists from the perspective of a seer. It's a subtle point, but it draws power out of the line. If "appears" is the action, in the sense that "suddenly, a sight"... then it's even worse, in some ways.

"An outline of glory in the silent night"

'in' is weak. Silent is weak. Consider an action verb followed by a more colorful word... It's like a fill in a drum machine, but poetry demands syncopation and texture and nuance.

"Shining with luster" -- Luster is itself a facet of "shiny", so this has a bit of redundancy to it... which is fine, but it's very ... impotent. "Lustrous it, majestic and white"

I won't go over the rest of it, except to say that the same issues prevail, overall. Mostly it's an issue of rhythm and texture. You can rhyme however you like, of course, and you can use whatever words you choose. If it is as you wish it to be, then I cannot fault it. If, however, you aren't certain ... it might not hurt to revisit the overall flow of the text. Be brave.. use big words -- Just be sure to use them correctly, and in the proper context. Sometimes a symmetrical rhyming scheme is less important than a bit of assonance and alliteration, along with clever consonance. Rhythm, not rhyme, is my recommendation.

All that aside, I thought it painted an interesting picture, and I look forward to reading more of your work.

~Foxy