Titling “Midwinter” with John Donne

As you probably know, the Death’s Lady books all have titles pulled from a couple of John Donne’s poems. I do want to do the same for “Midwinter,” so what should I use?

I had all but forgotten that, back in 2022, I had the same conundrum — picking a title for Shines Now. At the time, I said that this list of titles in this order could work to, in a way, echo the overall arc of the series. All these are titles from Donne’s poetry:

• The Year’s Midnight
• Of Absence, Darkness
• As Shadow, A Light
• Shines Now, and Heretofore
• This Hour My Vigil
• ‘Tis Late to Ask
• My Sun Renew

And I still think these lines work as titles and the order of these lines also works. Though “Midwinter” is extra, so who knows, I might need an additional title if and when I finally get around to writing another set of major books in this series. Or maybe not, who knows, obviously I should just stop trying to predict how many books might appear in a series.

Regardless, “This Hour My Vigil” is not the exact line from the poem. The exact line is “This hour HER vigil,” which is not one hundred percent wrong for “Midwinter,” but not ideal either. But with another pronoun modification, it could be. This time, I’m thinkin of

This Hour Our Vigil

But I’m aware that “hour” and “our” are very similar-sounding words, so what do you think about that? I’m an auditory reader, so it’s impossible for me not to be aware of the similar sounds. On the other hand, I’m so strongly an auditory reader that the words don’t sound THAT similar to my ear, and besides that, visually, they aren’t overly similar because the H and the O are such different letters.

On the book cover, it could be This Hour / Our / Vigil, which would help break the two similar-sounding words away from each other visually. Is that enough to make this work? What do you think?

Meanwhile, other possible lines.

Elaine T drew another Donne poem, Love’s Growth, to my attention as thematically appropriate, which it is. Here are some lines that might work:

• By the Spring is Grown
• Though Each Spring
• Winter Shall Abate

Here are a few more from Love’s Alchemy

• That Hidden Mystery
• A Rich and Long Delight
• A Winter-Seeming Summer’s Night

***

I don’t think that last set works as well, but “winter-seeming summer’s night” is striking. Meanwhile, although I really do intend to use phrases from Donne’s poetry to title all the books in this series, but from an earlier post about poetry and book titles, I just want to point to the following potential book titles for unrelated novels:

From “The Vanity of Human Wishes” by Samuel Johnson

1. Time Hovers O’er
2. Such Age There Is
3. As the Day Returns

From “The Eternal Gates” by William Blake

1. The Eternal Gates
2. A Land of Sorrows
3. Thro’ Valleys Dark

From “The Seasons” by Swinburne

1. For Winter’s Rains
2. The Light that Loses
3. And Time Remembered

I’ve always liked Swinburne, I must say.

I swear, I should write a totally different contemporary-ish fantasy trilogy just so I can use those phrases from “The Seasons” as their titles. Poetry makes such great titles for the right kinds of books. Midnight Never Come might be my favorite-ever poetry book title, though in fact the novel didn’t quite work for me and I wound up giving it away (I don’t remember why) (except Fairie is a bit of a hard sell for me in general.)