The Bread Of Angels Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMBNNBOJP QR STUVWXYZA2B2C2D2E2F2 G2F2H2I2 J2A K2L2M2BND2 N2O2P2Q2R2S2T2U2U2U2 V2C W2X2XY2Z2 A3G S2B3C3D3E3F3G3H3 NT2R2I3J3K3L3M3 N3NO3P3BF2Q3UO3D2UR3 UB2S3UNU2JD2 T3UU3V3W3X3KB3Y3URAT 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
(1)
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