The Bread Of Angels Poem Rhyme Scheme

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AT that lost hour disowned of day and night	A
The after birth of midnight when life's face	B
Turns to the wall and the last lamp goes out	C
Before the incipient irony of dawn	D
In that obliterate interval of time	E
Between the oil's last flicker and the first	F
Reluctant shudder of averted day	G
Threading the city's streets like mine own ghost	H
Wakening the echoes of dispeopled dreams	I
I smiled to see how the last light that fought	J
Extinction was the old familiar glare	K
Of supper tables under gas lit ceilings	L
The same old stale monotonous carouse	M
Of greed and surfeit nodding face to face	B
O'er the picked bones of pleasure	N
So that the city seemed at that waste hour	N
Like some expiring planet from whose face	B
All nobler life had perished love and hate	O
And labor and the ecstasy of thought	J
Leaving the eyeless creatures of the ooze	P
Dull offspring of its first inchoate birth	Q
The last to cling to its exhausted breast	R
	-
And threading thus the aimless streets that strayed	S
Conjectural through a labyrinth of death	T
Strangely I came upon two hooded nuns	U
Hands in their sleeves heads bent as if beneath	V
Some weight of benediction gliding by	W
Punctual as shadows that perform their round	X
Upon the inveterate bidding of the sun	Y
Again and yet again their ordered course	Z
At the same hour crossed mine obedient shades	A2
Cast by some high orbed pity on the waste	B2
Of midnight evil and my wondering thoughts	C2
Tracked them from the hushed convent where there kin	D2
Lay hived in sweetness of their prayer built cells	E2
What wind of fate had loosed them from the lee	F2
Of that dear anchorage where their sisters slept	G2
On what emprise of heavenly piracy	F2
Did such frail craft put forth upon this world	H2
In what incalculable currents caught	I2
	-
And swept beyond the signal lights of home	J2
Did their white coifs set sail against the night	A
	-
At last upon my wonder drawn I followed	K2
The secret wanderers till I saw them pause	L2
Before the dying glare of those tall panes	M2
Where greed and surfeit nodded face to face	B
O'er the picked bones of pleasure	N
And the door opened and the nuns went in	D2
	-
Again I met them followed them again	N2
Straight as a thought of mercy to its goal	O2
To the same door they sped I stood alone	P2
And suddenly the silent city shook	Q2
With inarticulate clamor of gagged lips	R2
As in Jerusalem when the veil was rent	S2
And the dead drove the living from the streets	T2
And all about me stalked the shrouded dead	U2
Dead hopes dead efforts loves and sorrows dead	U2
With empty orbits groping for their dead	U2
In that blind mustering of murdered faiths	V2
And the door opened and the nuns came out	C
	-
I turned and followed Once again we came	W2
To such a threshold such a door received them	X2
They vanished and I waited The grim round	X
Ceased only when the festal panes grew dark	Y2
And the last door had shot its tardy bolt	Z2
'Too late ' I heard one murmur and 'Too late '	-
The other in unholy antiphon	A3
And with dejected steps they turned away	G
	-
They turned and still I tracked them till they bent	S2
Under the lee of a calm convent wall	B3
Bounding a quiet street I knew the street	C3
One of those village byways strangely trapped	D3
In the city's meshes where at loudest noon	E3
The silence spreads like moss beneath the foot	F3
And all the tumult of the town becomes	G3
Idle as Ocean's fury in a shell	H3
	-
Silent at noon but now at this void hour	N
When the blank sky hung over the blank streets	T2
Clear as a mirror held above dead lips	R2
Came footfalls and a thronging of dim shapes	I3
About the convent door a suppliant line	J3
Of pallid figures ghosts of happier folk	K3
Moving in some gray underworld of want	L3
On which the sun of plenty never dawns	M3
	-
And as the nuns approached I saw the throng	N3
Pale emanation of that outcast hour	N
Divide like vapor when the sun breaks through	O3
And take the glory on its tattered edge	P3
For so a brightness ran from face to face	B
Faint as a diver's light beneath the sea	F2
And as a wave draws up the beach the crowd	Q3
Drew to the nuns	U
I waited Then those two	O3
Strange pilgrims of the sanctuaries of sin	D2
Brought from beneath their large conniving cloaks	U
Two hidden baskets brimming with rich store	R3
Of broken viands pasties jellies meats	U
Crumbs of Belshazzar's table evil waste	B2
Of that interminable nightly feast	S3
Of greed and surfeit nodding face to face	U
O'er the picked bones of pleasure	N
And piteous hands were stretched to take the bread	U2
Of this strange sacrament this manna brought	J
Out of the antique wilderness of sin	D2
	-
Each seized a portion turning comforted	T3
From this new breaking of the elements	U
And while I watched the mystery of renewal	U3
Whereby the dead bones of old sins become	V3
The living body of the love of God	W3
It seemed to me that a like change transformed	X3
The city's self a little wandering air	K
Ruffled the ivy on the convent wall	B3
A bird piped doubtfully the dawn replied	Y3
And in that ancient gray necropolis	U
Somewhere a child awoke and took the breast	R

Edith Wharton

The Bread Of Angels Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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