How Is It That I Am Now So Softly Awakened Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRLR CRSTUQVPWQMXXYZA2B2F C2D2RLRE2MF2D2CC2G2M LE2H2I2| How is it that I am now so softly awakened | A |
| My leaves shaken down with music | B |
| Darling I love you | C |
| It is not your mouth for I have known mouths before | D |
| Though your mouth is more alive than roses | E |
| Roses singing softly | F |
| To green leaves after rain | G |
| It is not your eyes for I have dived often in eyes | H |
| Though your eyes even in the yellow glare of footlights | I |
| Are windows into eternal dusk | J |
| Nor is it the live white flashing of your feet | K |
| Nor your gay hands catching at motes in the spotlight | L |
| Nor the abrupt thick music of your laughter | M |
| When against the hideous backdrop | N |
| With all its crudities brilliantly lighted | O |
| Suddenly you catch sight of your alarming shadow | P |
| Whirling and contracting | Q |
| How is it then that I am so keenly aware | R |
| So sensitive to the surges of the wind or the light | L |
| Heaving silently under blue seas of air | R |
| Darling I love you I am immersed in you | C |
| It is not the unraveled night time of your hair | R |
| Though I grow drunk when you press it upon my face | S |
| And though when you gloss its length with a golden brush | T |
| I am strings that tremble under a bow | U |
| It was that night I saw you dancing | Q |
| The whirl and impalpable float of your garment | V |
| Your throat lifted your face aglow | P |
| Like waterlilies in moonlight were your knees | W |
| It was that night I heard you singing | Q |
| In the green room after your dance was over | M |
| Faint and uneven through the thickness of walls | X |
| How shall I come to you through the dullness of walls | X |
| Thrusting aside the hands of bitter opinion | Y |
| It was that afternoon early in June | Z |
| When tired with a sleepless night and my act performed | A2 |
| Feeling as stale as streets | B2 |
| We met under dropping boughs and you smiled to me | F |
| And we sat by a watery surface of clouds and sky | C2 |
| I hear only the susurration of intimate leaves | D2 |
| The stealthy gliding of branches upon slow air | R |
| I see only the point of your chin in sunlight | L |
| And the sinister blue of sunlight on your hair | R |
| The sunlight settles downward upon us in silence | E2 |
| Now we thrust up through grass blades and encounter | M |
| Pushing white hands amid the green | F2 |
| Your face flowers whitely among cold leaves | D2 |
| Soil clings to you bark falls from you | C |
| You rouse and stretch upward exhaling earth inhaling sky | C2 |
| I touch you and we drift off together like moons | G2 |
| Earth dips from under | M |
| We are alone in an immensity of sunlight | L |
| Specks in an infinite golden radiance | E2 |
| Whirled and tossed upon silent cataracts and torrents | H2 |
| Give me your hand darling We float downward | I2 |
Conrad Aiken
(1)
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About How Is It That I Am Now So Softly Awakened
How Is It That I Am Now So Softly Awakened is a poem by Conrad Aiken. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.