A Tapestry

Hello. On behalf of I will be suggesting improvements and constructive criticism for your work.

First Impressions

"Thy Hector, wrapt in everlasting sleep,
Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep."
-Pope

(It's nice that you included a quote from the piece that you are writing from. A lot of the times most people would not know Classical or Greek allusions when they see one.)

The thread was pale as new-hewn beech
She grasped it; held it close
And let it rest upon her cheek
For she loved it the most.

(This conveys a lot of the sadness that accompanies loss and the pattern of grief in which one equates an object or a physical thing as linked to the person lost. The meter break in line two is helpful in getting that across, in my opinion.)

She could not find the other shades
That matched his eyes or hair
Though she had searched so many years
And stripped whole gardens bare.

(She got thread from gardens? This took a while for me to understand. I think it's just because I haven't read much poetry like this before. Ending this stanza with "And stripped whole gardens bare" is very effective though. You seem to have a penchant for choosing which line ending each stanza will best convey and extend effects. All I can tell is that it is extremely effective in most of your work seeing as it is composed mainly of traditional fixed forms, metered and rhyming patterns, and of a Romanticist/Neoclassicist style.)

His skin was all she could distill
From tender buds, half-grown,
And as she watched his cheek grown round
She wove, and grieved, alone.

(Who's she grieving? Hector or her son? And is that his cheek in the tapestry or in real life? This stanza raises a couple of questions, but leaving them unanswered like this would probably be more effective.)

She pulled the shuttle through the warp
To form the woolen weft
And wished that he had never gone
And left her so bereft;

(Okay, very understandable and clear. But "left bereft" is a little sing-songy when you have already such a fixed mature rhyme scheme. The internal rhyme sounds almost unintentional at this point. Not very effective. I think it doesn't really match the rest of the piece.)

Not just of him, but of her life--
Her child, cast away
Over the broken battlements.
If only he had stayed!

(Who the hell throws their kid off a battlement wall? Did he go to war? I don't understand. Might need clarification at this point.)

But as she wound the thread around
And beat the fibers close
She knew that he had never loved
Her or their son the most.

(So who the hell did he love? This conclusion leaves a lot of unanswered questions that are much different from the third. It doesn't feel like you've really summed up anything. Just presented a problem for which there is no solution. It ends up with this open-ended feeling that a lot of poems have. But here it may leave the reader feeling unsatisfied. Is there a second part? Are you planning on elaborating any further? It ends up being like one of those pieces that could have a really great ending, but ends too quickly.)

Final Impressions
I think this was written very well. The care you put in each line and stanza show and it's very much a mark of a mature and skillful lyricist/lyric poet. I enjoyed it to a certain extent. Thought the content might benefit from some shifting around or clarifying, but the rhyme and meter itself are pretty impeccable. So, while I myself am not very qualified to critique rhyming or metered poetry, I'd give this a high score on those two aspects. Thought the meter break was very effective. Didn't like the word "wantonly" in the fifth stanza, recommend you keep it as it is. A little too cut off on the conclusion. Left with a feeling of pity and morose sympathy for the mother/wife of Hector at the end. The speaker itself felt neutral and merely an extension of the wife/mother's heart. Hope this helps.