Not Marble Nor The Gilded Monuments Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDEDEFGHIJKJLJMNF OMPDPDQRQDQDQ| THE praisers of women in their proud and beautiful poems | A |
| Naming the grave mouth and the hair and the eyes | B |
| Boasted those they loved should be forever remembered | C |
| These were lies | B |
| The words sound but the face in the Istrian sun is forgotten | D |
| The poet speaks but to her dead ears no more | E |
| The sleek throat is gone and the breast that was troubled to listen | D |
| Shadow from door | E |
| Therefore I will not praise your knees nor your fine walking | F |
| Telling you men shall remember your name as long | G |
| As lips move or breath is spent or the iron of English | H |
| Rings from a tongue | I |
| I shall say you were young and your arms straight and you | J |
| mouth scarlet | K |
| I shall say you will die and none will remember you | J |
| Your arms change and none remember the swish of your garments | L |
| Nor the click of your shoe | J |
| Not with my hand's strength not with difficult labor | M |
| Springing the obstinate words to the bones of your breast | N |
| And the stubborn line to your young stride and the breath to your breathing | F |
| And the beat to your haste | O |
| Shall I prevail on the hearts of unborn men to remember | M |
| What is a dead girl but a shadowy ghost | P |
| Or a dead man's voice but a distant and vain affirmation | D |
| Like dream words most | P |
| Therefore I will not speak of the undying glory of women | D |
| I will say you were young and straight and your skin fair | Q |
| And you stood in the door and the sun was a shadow of leaves on your shoulders | R |
| And a leaf on your hair | Q |
| I will not speak of the famous beauty of dead women | D |
| I will say the shape of a leaf lay once on your hair | Q |
| Till the world ends and the eyes are out and the mouths broken | D |
| Look It is there | Q |
Archibald Macleish
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Not Marble Nor The Gilded Monuments poem by Archibald Macleish
Best Poems of Archibald Macleish