Pride

[Leanne]

PRIDE

From memory's dawn I have known
Feelings to be ploys; I was shone
The guile of joy; but I could not quell
These passions far too strong to tell. -- this stanza is a perfect example of forcing rhyme and mangling the language because of it. The way you intend this to read, I presume, is that the passions are too strong to talk about (or tell of). As it actually reads, it sounds as though the passions are keeping a stoic demeanour and not giving anything away.

In childhood I endured alone;
My counsel came from my own throne;
While others danced, I watched and sighed;
And all I loved I loved inside. -- inside what? Inside self, or inside the house? This is unclear, but what is obvious is that the word choice is driven purely by rhyme. If a rhyme doesn't work perfectly, without sacrificing sense and meaning, find another rhyme.

When veterans returned with pride
I marked with shame how I denied
The wars I fought, the scars I hide--
For all I fought I fought inside. -- for a refrain to work, it really needs to be repeated in a regular manner. If you want to use this, that's fine, but it should appear at the end of every stanza or in some other discernible pattern

This poem would really benefit from regular meter and some greater thought into the rhymes. When rhyme is the most obvious thing about a poem, it's not working properly.