Exile Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCCBCC DEDEEFEF EEDG A HCIHC JKKJK ELLE| I | A |
| - | |
| At dead of night about the dying fire | B |
| They told a story how the dead appear | C |
| And men grown still with fear | C |
| Forgot their old desire | B |
| For those who once were dear | C |
| And shook and trembled lest their dead be near | C |
| - | |
| Alas poor dead who were so sweet and human | D |
| How are you grown a menace and a blight | E |
| A thing to shun a thing of evil omen | D |
| Stealing unwelcome through the halls of night | E |
| Who knows perhaps yourselves are much affrighted | E |
| And struggle back remote and bodiless | F |
| Fearful of sounds unheard visions unsighted | E |
| Black echoes and the bitter loneliness | F |
| - | |
| But for me in my heart is no dread | E |
| Of the coming again of the dead | E |
| But a terror of life without one | D |
| Who made life to be life and is gone | G |
| - | |
| II | A |
| - | |
| Yes at these tales of how the dead return | H |
| Hope stirs within my spirit more than fear | C |
| So strange so strange it seems you are not here | I |
| And so unnatural to me 'tis to learn | H |
| The trick of life without you year by year | C |
| - | |
| That not so strange could any specter be | J |
| Or fall of footsteps on the empty stair | K |
| Or shapes discerned upon the shadowy air | K |
| As is this haunting sense of vacancy | J |
| And your persisting absence everywhere | K |
| - | |
| Ah could I see as in the tranquil past | E |
| The form I long for always and in vain | L |
| Should I not cry like one released from pain | L |
| 'Dear and long absent you return at last | E |
| And life its natural aspect wears again ' | - |
Alice Duer Miller
(1)
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