The Woman At The Cross-roads Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCDEFGDGBGGHHBGGIG JIJKLMNLM G OCOPGGQQRRSSTTUVUV D GSGSDGDGWXXYYWBTBTPC PCP| Her lover speaks | A |
| - | |
| AN equal love between a man and woman | B |
| This is the only charm to set us free | C |
| And this the only omen | B |
| Of immortality | C |
| Only for us the long long war is over | D |
| Between our aspiring spirits | E |
| And all the flesh inherits | F |
| Because dear saint your soul no less | G |
| Has got a lover | D |
| Than has your body's long slim loveliness | G |
| Ah my beloved think not renunciation | B |
| Of such a love as ours | G |
| Will bring you any strengthening of your powers | G |
| Or calm or dignity or peace of mind | H |
| To be compared with that which you will find | H |
| In love's full consummation | B |
| Talk not to me of other older ties | G |
| Of duty and of narrower destinies | G |
| Nor bid me see that we have met too late | I |
| While we have lips and eyes | G |
| To kiss and call | J |
| But rather thank our fate | I |
| For this mad gift that we have met at all | J |
| Come to me then Ah must I bid you come | K |
| Your heart is mine Is then your will so loath | L |
| Leave him from whom your spirit long since fled | M |
| Whose house is not your home your only home | N |
| Although the same roof never cover both | L |
| Is where I am until we both are dead | M |
| - | |
| Her child speaks | G |
| - | |
| Why do you look at me with such a shade | O |
| Upon your eyes so still and steadily | C |
| I am not naughty but I am afraid | O |
| I know not why | P |
| The world is huge and puzzling and perverse | G |
| Even my nurse | G |
| When most my heart is stirred | Q |
| Will put me by with some complacent word | Q |
| Or if she listens in a little while | R |
| Babbles my deepest secret with a smile | R |
| My mother oh my mother only you | S |
| Are kind and just and honorable and true | S |
| Others are fond others will play and sing | T |
| Will kiss me or will let me kiss and cling | T |
| But only you my mother comprehend | U |
| How little children feel and love the truth | V |
| Only you cherish like an equal friend | U |
| The shy and tragic dignity of youth | V |
| - | |
| the woman answers her lover | D |
| - | |
| All my life long I think I dreamed of this | G |
| Even as a girl my visions were of you | S |
| Alas I grew incredulous of bliss | G |
| And now too late too late the dream comes true | S |
| Sweet are the charms you offer me my lover | D |
| To read the riddle of the universe | G |
| And in your arms I should not soon discover | D |
| Our old old mortal curse | G |
| And yet I put them by because I trust | W |
| In other magic far beyond the ken | X |
| Even of you the tenderest of men | X |
| In spells more permanent than any sorrow | Y |
| Which bind me to the past and make to morrow | Y |
| My own although I sleep it through in dust | W |
| The revelation which to every woman | B |
| Her children bring | T |
| Making her one not only with things human | B |
| With every living thing | T |
| For only mothers raise no passionate cry | P |
| Against mortality | C |
| For only they have learned the reason why | P |
| It is worth while to live and presently | C |
| Seeing nature's meaning are content to die | P |
Alice Duer Miller
(1)
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