When You Are Not Surprised Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCCDAEFGHIJKLMLMCCA NNOPPCQRR ANSTQCCCUVAWXYXQQZA2 B2C2YD2When you are not surprised not surprised | A |
nor leap in imagination from sunlight into shadow | B |
or from shadow into sunlight | C |
suiting the color of fright or delight | C |
to the bewildering circumstance | D |
when you are no longer surprised | A |
by the quiet or fury of daybreak | E |
the stormy uprush of the sun s rage | F |
over the edges of torn trees | G |
torrents of living and dying flung | H |
upward and outward inward and downward to space | I |
or else | J |
peace peace peace peace | K |
the wood thrush speaking his holy holy | L |
far hidden in the forest of the mind | M |
while slowly | L |
the limbs of light unwind | M |
and the world s surface dreams again of night | C |
as the center dreams of light | C |
when you are not surprised | A |
by breath and breath and breath | N |
the first unconscious morning breath | N |
the tap of the bird s beak on the pane | O |
and do not cry out come again | P |
blest blest that you are come again | P |
o light o sound o voice of bird o light | C |
and memory too o memory blest | Q |
and curst with the debts of yesterday | R |
that would not stay or stay | R |
- | |
- | |
when you are not surprised | A |
by death and death and death | N |
death of the bee in the daffodil | S |
death of color in the child s cheek | T |
on the young mother s breast | Q |
death of sense of touch of sight | C |
death of delight | C |
and the inward death the inward turning night | C |
when the heart hardens itself with hate and indifference | U |
for hated self and beloved not self | V |
when you are not surprised | A |
by wheel s turn or turn of season | W |
the winged and orbed chariot tilt of time | X |
the halcyon pause the blue caesura of spring | Y |
and solar rhyme | X |
woven into the divinely remembered nest | Q |
by the dark eyed love in the oriole s breast | Q |
and the tides of space that ring the heart | Z |
while still while still the wave of the invisible world | A2 |
breaks into consciousness in the mind of god | B2 |
then welcome death and be by death benignly welcomed | C2 |
and join again in the ceaseless know nothing | Y |
from which you awoke to the first surprise | D2 |
Conrad Potter Aiken
(1)
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