In The Cage Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDDC EFFEGHIGHJKKLM INNOPOPQQQR RSSRTTUUVUVWWXYYX ZWWZA2A2B2C2B2RRD2QQ D2C2ZZC2E2C2F2 KKE2G2H2I2G2I2J2J2QC 2QK2L2L2H2E2GGQE2QQQ M2M2N2N2The sounds of mid night trickle into the roar | A |
Of morning over the water growing blue | B |
At ten o'clock the August sunbeams pour | A |
A blinding flood on Michigan Avenue | B |
- | |
But yet the half drawn shades of bottle green | C |
Leave the recesses of the room | D |
With misty auras drawn around their gloom | D |
Where things lie undistinguished scarcely seen | C |
- | |
You standing between the window and the bed | E |
Are edged with rainbow colors And I lie | F |
Drowsy with quizzical half open eye | F |
Musing upon the contour of your head | E |
Watching you comb your hair | G |
Clothed in a corset waist and skirt of silk | H |
Tied with white braid above your slender hips | I |
Which reaches to your knees and makes your bare | G |
And delicate legs by contrast white as milk | H |
And as you toss your head to comb its tresses | J |
They flash upon me like long strips of sand | K |
Between a moonlit sea pale as your hand | K |
And a red sun that on a high dune stresses | L |
Its sanguine heat | M |
- | |
And then at times your lips | I |
Protruding half unconscious half in scorn | N |
Engage my eyes while looking through the morn | N |
At the clear oval of your brow brought full | O |
Over the sovereign largeness of your eyes | P |
Or at your breasts that shake not as you pull | O |
The comb through stubborn tangles only rise | P |
Scarcely perceptible with breath or signs | Q |
Firm unmaternal like a young Bacchante's | Q |
Or at your nose profoundly dipped like Dante's | Q |
Over your chin that softly melts away | R |
- | |
Now you seem fully under my heart's sway | R |
I have slipped through the magic of your mesh | S |
Freed once again and strengthened by your flesh | S |
You seem a weak thing for a strong man's play | R |
Yet I know now that we shall scarce have parted | T |
When I shall think of you half heavy hearted | T |
I know our partings You will faintly smile | U |
And look at me with eyes that have no guile | U |
Or have too much and pass into the sphere | V |
Where you keep independent life meanwhile | U |
How do you live without me is the fear | V |
You do not lean upon me ask my love or wonder | W |
Of other loves I may have hidden under | W |
These casual renewals of our love | X |
And if I loved you I should lie in flame | Y |
Ari go about re murmuring your name | Y |
And these are things a man should be above | X |
- | |
And as I lie here on the imminent brink | Z |
Of soul's surrender into your soul's power | W |
And in the white light of the morning hour | W |
I see what life would be if we should link | Z |
Our lives together in a marriage pact | A2 |
For we would walk along a boundless tract | A2 |
Of perfect hell but your disloyalty | B2 |
Would be of spirit for I have not won | C2 |
Mastered and bound your spirit unto me | B2 |
And if you had a lover in the way | R |
I have you it would not by half betray | R |
My love as does your vague and chainless thought | D2 |
Which wanders soars or vanishes returns | Q |
Changes astonishes or chills or burns | Q |
Is unresisting plastic freely wrought | D2 |
Under my hands yet to no unison | C2 |
Of my life and of yours Upon this brink | Z |
I watch you now and think | Z |
Of all that has been preached or sung or spoken | C2 |
Of woman's tragedy in woman's fall | E2 |
And all the pictures of a woman broken | C2 |
By man's superior strength | F2 |
- | |
And there you stand | K |
Your heart and life as firmly in command | K |
Of your resolve as mine is knowing all | E2 |
Of man the master and his power to harm | G2 |
His rulership of spheres material | H2 |
Bread customs rules of fair repute | I2 |
What are they all against your slender arm | G2 |
Which long since plucked the fruit | I2 |
Of good and evil and of life at last | J2 |
And now of Life For dancing you have cast | J2 |
Veil after veil of ideals or pretense | Q |
With which men clothe the being feminine | C2 |
To satisfy their lordship or their sense | Q |
Of ownership and hide the things of sin | K2 |
You have thrown them aside veil after veil | L2 |
And there you stand unarmored weirdly frail | L2 |
Yet strong as nature making comical | H2 |
The poems and the tales of woman's fall | E2 |
You nod your head you smile I feel the air | G |
Made by the closing door I lie and stare | G |
At the closed door One two your tuft d steps | Q |
Die on the velvet of the outer hall | E2 |
You have escaped And I would not pursue | Q |
Though we are but caged creatures I and you | Q |
A male and female tiger in a zoo | Q |
For I shall wait you Life himself will track | M2 |
Your wanderings and bring you back | M2 |
And shut you up again with me and cage | N2 |
Our love and hatred and our silent rage | N2 |
Edgar Lee Masters
(2)
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