Life Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB CDBEFGHIH JKLMNOPQRSTUVW XYDZA2ABB2C2D2E2F2G2 BH2I2J2K2L2A2 RMM2N2D CBDO2DR JDP2Q2R2DS2T2U2JBN V2S2P CRW2X2Y2 BZ2AA3B3 C3D3 BVBM DE3V2F3G3 DCH3BI3DJ3L2DK3L3M3N 2H MN3SO3BN3L3AN3BN3K2P 3B3Q3BEFL3R3 BN3N3BN3N3S3ST3N3U3A BNay lift me to thy lips Life and once more | A |
Pour the wild music through me | B |
- | |
I quivered in the reed bed with my kind | C |
Rooted in Lethe bank when at the dawn | D |
There came a groping shape of mystery | B |
Moving among us that with random stroke | E |
Severed and rapt me from my silent tribe | F |
Pierced fashioned lipped me sounding for a voice | G |
Laughing on Lethe bank and in my throat | H |
I felt the wing beat of the fledgeling notes | I |
The bubble of godlike laughter in my throat | H |
- | |
Such little songs she sang | J |
Pursing her lips to fit the tiny pipe | K |
They trickled from me like a slender spring | L |
That strings frail wood growths on its crystal thread | M |
Nor dreams of glassing cities bearing ships | N |
She sang and bore me through the April world | O |
Matching the birds doubling the insect hum | P |
In the meadows under the low moving airs | Q |
And breathings of the scarce articulate air | R |
When it makes mouths of grasses but when the sky | S |
Burst into storm and took great trees for pipes | T |
She thrust me in her breast and warm beneath | U |
Her cloudy vesture on her terrible heart | V |
I shook and heard the battle | W |
- | |
But more oft | X |
Those early days we moved in charmed woods | Y |
Where once at dusk she piped against a faun | D |
And one warm dawn a tree became a nymph | Z |
Listening and trembled and Life laughed and passed | A2 |
And once we came to a great stream that bore | A |
The stars upon its bosom like a sea | B |
And ships like stars so to the sea we came | B2 |
And there she raised me to her lips and sent | C2 |
One swift pang through me then refrained her hand | D2 |
And whispered Hear and into my frail flanks | E2 |
Into my bursting veins the whole sea poured | F2 |
Its spaces and its thunder and I feared | G2 |
- | |
We came to cities and Life piped on me | B |
Low calls to dreaming girls | H2 |
In counting house windows through the chink of gold | I2 |
Flung cries that fired the captive brain of youth | J2 |
And made the heavy merchant at his desk | K2 |
Curse us for a cracked hurdy gurdy Life | L2 |
Mimicked the hurdy gurdy and we passed | A2 |
- | |
We climbed the slopes of solitude and there | R |
Life met a god who challenged her and said | M |
Thy pipe against my lyre But Wait she laughed | M2 |
And in my live flank dug a finger hole | N2 |
And wrung new music from it Ah the pain | D |
- | |
We climbed and climbed and left the god behind | C |
We saw the earth spread vaster than the sea | B |
With infinite surge of mountains surfed with snow | D |
And a silence that was louder than the deep | O2 |
But on the utmost pinnacle Life again | D |
Hid me and I heard the terror in her hair | R |
- | |
Safe in new vales I ached for the old pang | J |
And clamoured Play me against a god again | D |
Poor Marsyas mortal he shall bleed thee yet | P2 |
She breathed and kissed me stilling the dim need | Q2 |
But evermore it woke and stabbed my flank | R2 |
With yearnings for new music and new pain | D |
Another note against another god | S2 |
I clamoured and she answered Bide my time | T2 |
Of every heart wound I will make a stop | U2 |
And drink thy life in music pang by pang | J |
But first thou must yield the notes I stored in thee | B |
At dawn beside the river Take my lips | N |
- | |
She kissed me like a lover but I wept | V2 |
Remembering that high song against the god | S2 |
And the old songs slept in me and I was dumb | P |
- | |
We came to cavernous foul places blind | C |
With harpy wings and sulphurous with the glare | R |
Of sinful furnaces where hunger toiled | W2 |
And pleasure gathered in a starveling prey | X2 |
And death fed delicately on young bones | Y2 |
- | |
Now sing cried Life and set her lips to me | B |
Here are gods also Wilt thou pipe for Dis | Z2 |
My cry was drowned beneath the furnace roar | A |
Choked by the sulphur fumes and beast lipped gods | A3 |
Laughed down on me and mouthed the flutes of hell | B3 |
- | |
Now sing said Life reissuing to the stars | C3 |
And wrung a new note from my wounded side | D3 |
- | |
So came we to clear spaces and the sea | B |
And now I felt its volume in my heart | V |
And my heart waxed with it and Life played on me | B |
The song of the Infinite Now the stars she said | M |
- | |
Then from the utmost pinnacle again | D |
She poured me on the wild sidereal stream | E3 |
And I grew with her great breathings till we swept | V2 |
The interstellar spaces like new worlds | F3 |
Loosed from the fiery ruin of a star | G3 |
- | |
Cold cold we rested on black peaks again | D |
Under black skies under a groping wind | C |
And Life grown old hugged me to a numb breast | H3 |
Pressing numb lips against me Suddenly | B |
A blade of silver severed the black peaks | I3 |
From the black sky and earth was born again | D |
Breathing and various under a god's feet | J3 |
A god A god I felt the heart of Life | L2 |
Leap under me and my cold flanks shook again | D |
He bore no lyre he rang no challenge out | K3 |
But Life warmed to him warming me with her | L3 |
And as he neared I felt beneath her hands | M3 |
The stab of a new wound that sucked my soul | N2 |
Forth in a new song from my throbbing throat | H |
- | |
His name his name I whispered but she shed | M |
The music faster and I grew with it | N3 |
Became a part of it while Life and I | S |
Clung lip to lip and I from her wrung song | O3 |
As she from me one song one ecstasy | B |
In indistinguishable union blent | N3 |
Till she became the flute and I the player | L3 |
And lo the song I played on her was more | A |
Than any she had drawn from me it held | N3 |
The stars the peaks the cities and the sea | B |
The faun's catch the nymph's tremor and the heart | N3 |
Of dreaming girls of toilers at the desk | K2 |
Apollo's challenge on the sunrise slope | P3 |
And the hiss of the night gods mouthing flutes of hell | B3 |
All to the dawn wind's whisper in the reeds | Q3 |
When Life first came a shape of mystery | B |
Moving among us and with random stroke | E |
Severed and rapt me from my silent tribe | F |
All this I wrung from her in that deep hour | L3 |
While Love stood murmuring Play the god poor grass | R3 |
- | |
Now by that hour I am a mate to thee | B |
Forever Life however spent and clogged | N3 |
And tossed back useless to my native mud | N3 |
Yea groping for new reeds to fashion thee | B |
New instruments of anguish and delight | N3 |
Thy hand shall leap to me thy broken reed | N3 |
Thine ear remember me thy bosom thrill | S3 |
With the old subjection then when Love and I | S |
Held thee and fashioned thee and made thee dance | T3 |
Like a slave girl to her pipers yea thou yet | N3 |
Shalt hear my call and dropping all thy toys | U3 |
Thou'lt lift me to thy lips Life and once more | A |
Pour the wild music through me | B |
Edith Wharton
(1)
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