Asphalt Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCB DDED FGHG FIJK LMFM| Light your cigarette then in this shadow | A |
| And talk to her your arm engaged with hers | B |
| Heavily over your heads the eaten maple | C |
| In the dead air of August strains and stirs | B |
| - | |
| Her stone white face in the lamp light turns toward you | D |
| Darkly with time dark eyes she questions you | D |
| Whether this universe is what she thinks it | E |
| Simple and passionate and profound and true | D |
| - | |
| Or whether as with a sound of dim disaster | F |
| A plaintive music brought to a huddled fall | G |
| Some ancient treachery slides through the heart of things | H |
| The last star falling seen from the utmost wall | G |
| - | |
| And you what sinister far reserves of laughter | F |
| What understandings remote perplexed remain | I |
| Unguessed forever by her who is your victim | J |
| Victim of whom you too are victim again | K |
| - | |
| Come let us dance once more on the ancient asphalt | L |
| Seeing beneath its strange and recent shape | M |
| The eternal horror of rock from which for ever | F |
| We toss our tortured hands to no escape | M |
Conrad Aiken
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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