St. Deseret Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKJ LMNOPQRSTU VWXVVJVYZ VA2B2 C2D2CE2YVF2G2VVVH2V ZCVI2J2VH2K2L2M2ZZJF YN2VVFVP O2N2N2VVSP2VVQ2 VZR2Q2VN2VS2T2D2U2V V2VW2X2VT2N2VVN2JD2Y 2W2 VVVZ2PN2Q2A3N2V2Q2SB 3VVC3N2VZ H2N2VD3D2 VVN2S2Q2D2A3VN2N2VVV VN2 VVSP2E3P2VF3V N2PLG3VVVVN2 VLN2A3Y N2VVA3VQ2FVCVVV

You wonder at my bright round eyes my lipsA
Pressed tightly like a venomous rosetteB
Thus do me honor by so much fond wretchC
And praise my Persian beauty dulcet voiceD
But oh you know me read me passion blindsE
Your vision not at all and you have passionF
For me and what I am How can you be soG
Hold me so bear like take my lips with yoursH
Bury your face in these my russet tressesI
And yet not lose your vision So I love youJ
And fear you too How idle to deny itK
To you who know I fear youJ
-
Here am IL
Who answer you what e'er you choose to askM
You stride about my rooms and open booksN
And say when did he give you this You pickO
His photograph from mantels dressers drawlP
Out of ironic strength and smile the whileQ
You did not love this man You probe my soulR
About his courtship how I ran awayS
How he pursued with gifts from city to cityT
Threw bouquets to me from the pit or stoodU
-
Like Cleopatra's Giant negro guardV
Watchful and waiting at the green room doorW
So devil that you are with needle pricksX
One little question at a time you've inkedV
The story in my flesh And now at lastV
You smile and say I killed him Well it's trueJ
But what a death he had Envy him thatV
Your frigid soul can never win the deathY
I gave himZ
-
Listen since you know alreadyV
All but the subtlest matters How you laughA2
You know these too Well only I can tell themB2
-
First 'twas a piteous thing to see a manC2
So love a woman see a living thingD2
So love another Why he could not touchC
My hand but that his heart went up ten beatsE2
His eyes would grow as bright as flames his breathY
Come short when speaking When he felt my breastV
Crush soft around him he would reel and walkF2
Away from me while I stood like a snakeG2
Poised for the strike as quiet and possessedV
As a dead breeze And you can have me whollyV
And pet and pat me like a favored childV
And let me go my way while you turn backH2
To what you left for meV
-
Not so with himZ
I was all through his blood had made his fleshC
My flesh his nerves brain soul all mine at lastV
Dreams thoughts emotions hungers all my ownI2
So that he lived two lives his own and mineJ2
With one poor body which he gave to meV
Save that he could not give what I pushed backH2
Into his hands to use for me and liveK2
My pities hatreds loves and passions withL2
I loved all this and thrived upon it stillM2
I did not love him Then why marry himZ
Why don't you see It meant so much to himZ
And 'twas a little thing for me to doJ
His loneliness his hunger his great passionF
That showed in his poor eyes his broken breathY
His chivalry his gifts his poignant lettersN2
His failing health why even woman's crueltyV
Cannot deny such passion Woman's crueltyV
Takes other means for finding its expressionF
And mine found its expression you have guessedV
And so I tell you allP
-
We were married thenO2
He made a sacrament of our nuptialsN2
Knelt with closed eyes beside the bed my lipsN2
Pressed to his brow and throat Unveiled my breastV
And looked then closed his eyes He did not take meV
As man takes his possession nature's wayS
In triumph of life in lightning no he cameP2
A suppliant a worshipper and whisperedV
What angel child may lie upon the breastV
Of this it's angel motherQ2
-
Well you seeV
The tears came in my eyes for pity of himZ
Who made so much of what I had to giveR2
And could give easily whether 'twas my raptureQ2
To give or to withhold And in that momentV
Contempt of which I had been scarcely consciousN2
Lying diffused like dew around my heartV
Drained down itself into my heart's dark cupS2
To one bright drop of vital power whereT2
He could not see it scarcely knew that somethingD2
Gradually drugged the potion that he drankU2
In life with meV
-
So we were wed a yearV2
And he was with me hourly till at lastV
I could not breathe for him while he could breatheW2
No where but where I was Then the bazaarX2
Was coming on where I was to dance and heV
Had long postponed a trip to England whereT2
Great interests waited for him and with kissesN2
I pushed him to his duty and he wentV
Shame stricken for a duty long postponedV
Unable to retort against my wordsN2
When I said You must go for well he knewJ
He should have gone before And as for goingD2
I pleaded the bazaar and hate of travelY2
And got him off and freed myself to breatheW2
-
His life had been too fast his years too manyV
To stand the strain that came There was the worryV
About the business and the labor over itV
There was the war and all the fear and turmoilZ2
In London for the war But most of allP
There was the separation And his lettersN2
You've read them wretch Such letters never wereQ2
Of aching loneliness and pining loveA3
And hope that lives across three thousand milesN2
And waits the day to travel them and fearV2
Of something which may bar the way foreverQ2
A storm a wreck a submarine and no dayS
Without a letter or a cablegramB3
And look at the endearments oh you fiendV
To pick their words to pieces like a botanistV
Who cuts a flower up for his microscopeC3
And oh myself who let you see these lettersN2
Why did I do it Rather why is itV
You master me even as I mastered himZ
-
At last he finished got his passage backH2
He had been gone three months And all these lettersN2
Showed how he starved for me and scarce could waitV
To take me in his arms again would chokeD3
With fast and heavy feedingD2
-
Well you seeV
The contempt I spoke of which lay long diffusedV
Like dew around my heart and which at onceN2
Drained down itself into my heart's dark cupS2
Grew brighter bitterer for this obvious hungerQ2
This thirst which could not wait the piteous tremblingD2
And all the while it seemed he thought his loveA3
Grew sacreder as it grew uncontrolledV
And marked by trembling choking tears and sighsN2
This is not love which should be has no useN2
In this or any world And as for meV
I could not stand it longer And I thoughtV
Of what was best to do if 'twas not bestV
To kill him as the queen bee kills the mateV
In rapture's own excessN2
-
Then he arrivedV
I went to meet him in the car pretendedV
The feed pipe broke while I was on the wayS
I was not at the station when he cameP2
I got back to the house and found him goneE3
He had run through the rooms calling my nameP2
So Mary told me Then he went aroundV
From place to place wherever in the villageF3
He thought to find meV
-
Soon I heard his stepsN2
The key in the door his winded breath his callP
His running stumbling up the stairs while IL
Stood silent as a shadow in our roomG3
My round bright eyes grown brighter for the lightV
His life was feeding them And then he stoodV
Breathless and trembling in the door way stoodV
Transfixed with ecstacy then rushed and caught meV
And broke into loud tearsN2
-
It had to endV
One or the other of us had to dieL
I could not die but by a violenceN2
And he could die by love alone and loveA3
I gave him to his deathY
-
Why tell you detailsN2
And ways with which I maddened him and whippedV
The energies of love You have extractedV
The secret in the main that 'twas from loveA3
He came to death His life had been too fastV
His years too many for the daily raptureQ2
I gave him after three months' separationF
And so he died one morning made me freeV
Of nothing but his presence in the fleshC
His love is on me yet and its effectV
And now you're here to slave me differentlyV
No soul is ever freeV

Edgar Lee Masters



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