Experience Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCCBBCCB DEDEDF A GHIGGHIGJKJKJ K| I | A |
| - | |
| Like Crusoe with the bootless gold we stand | B |
| Upon the desert verge of death and say | C |
| What shall avail the woes of yesterday | C |
| To buy to morrow's wisdom in the land | B |
| Whose currency is strange unto our hand | B |
| In life's small market they had served to pay | C |
| Some late found rapture could we but delay | C |
| Till Time hath matched our means to our demand | B |
| - | |
| But otherwise Fate wills it for behold | D |
| Our gathered strength of individual pain | E |
| When Time's long alchemy hath made it gold | D |
| Dies with us hoarded all these years in vain | E |
| Since those that might be heir to it the mould | D |
| Renew and coin themselves new griefs again | F |
| - | |
| II | A |
| - | |
| O Death we come full handed to thy gate | G |
| Rich with strange burden of the mingled years | H |
| Gains and renunciations mirth and tears | I |
| And love's oblivion and remembering hate | G |
| Nor know we what compulsion laid such freight | G |
| Upon our souls and shall our hopes and fears | H |
| Buy nothing of thee Death Behold our wares | I |
| And sell us the one joy for which we wait | G |
| Had we lived longer life had such for sale | J |
| With the last coin of sorrow purchased cheap | K |
| But now we stand before thy shadowy pale | J |
| And all our longings lie within thy keep | K |
| Death can it be the years shall naught avail | J |
| - | |
| Not so Death answered they shall purchase sleep | K |
Edith Wharton
(1)
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