Hello! First off, I liked your title, it called me in.
what strange wailing comes
from a contented heart ---I liked these first two lines, felt like a strong start to the poem
crying profusely in lighted dark ---Seemed like some irony here, the heart is not really happy, the world around it still seems to be 'dark' but the heart believes itself to be content based on all ideas of what it means to be content. Or else that the light in the darkness brings contentment through processing of emotion? Also I like the near rhyme here!
happy as a lark- ---- agree that this seems clichéd and a bit forced
upon hearing great joy
making a woeful noise
with graceful poise- ----this rhyme seemed somewhat forced, but I think it is also because I lost sense of where you were going with the end of the first stanza
a life lived well
every day a living hell -rhyme maybe a bit forced again
good news to tell-
declaring lies to be true
most becoming of you -The rhyme here works and seems less forced, but maybe because the meaning here seems less straightforward to me and I am confused about the character of the 'you.' Here is what I am personally left with:
The poem leaves me thinking that the first interpretation of the two I had in the first stanza may be correct - that the person is doing a performance of a life lived well and contentedly, and is pulling it off, but is unhappy underneath. They are very consequentially unhappy but are praised for outward appearances of how they are managing their life. And the last line seems that they are actually inflicting harm on others in a way that is socially acceptable, but I am not sure if I saw that elsewhere in the poem.
Overall I found the title compelling and the first stanza was in my opinion the strongest.
Thank you for the read, I am curious to see where you take this
