If? Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABA BCB CDC DED EFE FGH GAG AIJ IKI KLK LML MNM NAN ACA CJC AOJ OJO| If I should die this night as well might be | A |
| So pain has on my weakness worked its will | B |
| And they should come at morn and look on me | A |
| - | |
| Lying more white than I am wont and still | B |
| In the strong silence of unchanging sleep | C |
| And feel upon my brow the deepening chill | B |
| - | |
| And know me gathered to His time long keep | C |
| The quiet watcher over all men's rest | D |
| And weep as those around a death bed weep | C |
| - | |
| There would no anguish throb my vacant breast | D |
| No tear drop trickle down my stony cheek | E |
| No smile of long farewell say Calm is best | D |
| - | |
| I should not answer aught that they should speak | E |
| Nor look my meaning out of earnest eyes | F |
| Nor press the reverent hands that mine should seek | E |
| - | |
| But lying there in such an awful guise | F |
| Like some strange presence from a world unknown | G |
| Unmoved by any human sympathies | H |
| - | |
| Seem strange to them and dreadfully alone | G |
| Vacant to love of theirs or agony | A |
| Having no pulse in union with their own | G |
| - | |
| Gazing henceforth upon infinity | A |
| With a calm consciousness devoid of change | I |
| Watching the current of the years pass by | J |
| - | |
| And watching the long cycles onward range | I |
| With stronger vision of their perfect whole | K |
| As one whom time and space from them estrange | I |
| - | |
| And they might mourn and say The parted soul | K |
| Is gone out of our love we spend in vain | L |
| A tenderness that cannot reach its goal | K |
| - | |
| Yet I might still perchance with them remain | L |
| In spirit being free from laws of mould | M |
| Still comprehending human joy and pain | L |
| - | |
| Ah me but if I knew them as of old | M |
| Clasping them in vain arms they unaware | N |
| And mourned to find my kisses leave them cold | M |
| - | |
| And sought still some part of their life to share | N |
| Still standing by them hoping they might see | A |
| And seemed to them but as the viewless air | N |
| - | |
| For so once came it in a dream to me | A |
| And in my heart it seemed a pang too deep | C |
| A shadow having human life to be | A |
| - | |
| For it at least would be long perfect sleep | C |
| Unknowing Being and all Past to lie | J |
| Void of the growing Future in God's keep | C |
| - | |
| But such a knowledge would be misery | A |
| Too great to be believed Yet if the dead | O |
| In a diviner mood might still be nigh | J |
| - | |
| Their former life unto their death so wed | O |
| That they could watch their loved with heavenly eye | J |
| That were a thing to joy in not to dread | O |
Augusta Davies Webster
(1)
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