Thanks, I’ll update the pronouns to 21st century usage. (Unless upgrading pronouns makes me woke?????????)
Also, Lynn, what would you recommend changing “severe mercy” to? I posted this poem on a small writer’s group I’m on and those two words caused discussion on there as well.???? I ended up keeping the term because I think it sounds cool and the jarring out-of-meterness fits the subject in my opinion, which was actually why I inserted it in the first place. ????
I may as well confess my ignorance immediately. What exactly do you mean by more traditional harmonic progression for measure 9?????