The Mortal Lease Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCCBBCCB DEDEDD A FGGFHGGF GIGIIG A GGGGGGGG GIGIGI JIIJJIIJ G GG G G G GG G KGKGGK LGGLMGGM NONONO PQQPPQQP RGRGRG GGGGGGGG STSUSU| I | A |
| - | |
| Because the currents of our love are poured | B |
| Through the slow welter of the primal flood | C |
| From some blind source of monster haunted mud | C |
| And flung together by random forces stored | B |
| Ere the vast void with rushing worlds was scored | B |
| Because we know ourselves but the dim scud | C |
| Tossed from their heedless keels the sea blown bud | C |
| That wastes and scatters ere the wave has roared | B |
| - | |
| Because we have this knowledge in our veins | D |
| Shall we deny the journey's gathered lore | E |
| The great refusals and the long disdains | D |
| The stubborn questing for a phantom shore | E |
| The sleepless hopes and memorable pains | D |
| And all mortality's immortal gains | D |
| - | |
| II | A |
| - | |
| Because our kiss is as the moon to draw | F |
| The mounting waters of that red lit sea | G |
| That circles brain with sense and bids us be | G |
| The playthings of an elemental law | F |
| Shall we forego the deeper touch of awe | H |
| On love's extremest pinnacle where we | G |
| Winging the vistas of infinity | G |
| Gigantic on the mist our shadows saw | F |
| - | |
| Shall kinship with the dim first moving clod | G |
| Not draw the folded pinion from the soul | I |
| And shall we not by spirals vision trod | G |
| Reach upward to some still retreating goal | I |
| As earth escaping from the night's control | I |
| Drinks at the founts of morning like a god | G |
| - | |
| III | A |
| - | |
| All all is sweet in that commingled draught | G |
| Mysterious that life pours for lovers' thirst | G |
| And I would meet your passion as the first | G |
| Wild woodland woman met her captor's craft | G |
| Or as the Greek whose fearless beauty laughed | G |
| And doffed her raiment by the Attic flood | G |
| But in the streams of my belated blood | G |
| Flow all the warring potions love has quaffed | G |
| - | |
| How can I be to you the nymph who danced | G |
| Smooth by Ilissus as the plane tree's bole | I |
| Or how the Nereid whose drenched lashes glanced | G |
| Like sea flowers through the summer sea's long roll | I |
| I that have also been the nun entranced | G |
| Who night long held her Bridegroom in her soul | I |
| - | |
| IV | - |
| - | |
| Sad Immortality is dead you say | J |
| And all her grey brood banished from the soul | I |
| Life like the earth is now a rounded whole | I |
| The orb of man's dominion Live to day | J |
| And every sense in me leapt to obey | J |
| Seeing the routed phantoms backward roll | I |
| But from their waning throng a whisper stole | I |
| And touched the morning splendour with decay | J |
| - | |
| Sad Immortality is dead and we | G |
| The funeral train that bear her to her grave | - |
| Yet hath she left a two faced progeny | G |
| In hearts of men and some will always see | G |
| The skull beneath the wreath yet always crave | - |
| In every kiss the folded kiss to be | G |
| - | |
| V | G |
| - | |
| Yet for one rounded moment I will be | G |
| No more to you than what my lips may give | - |
| And in the circle of your kisses live | - |
| As in some island of a storm blown sea | G |
| Where the cold surges of infinity | G |
| Upon the outward reefs unheeded grieve | - |
| And the loud murmur of our blood shall weave | - |
| Primeval silences round you and me | G |
| - | |
| If in that moment we are all we are | K |
| We live enough Let this for all requite | G |
| Do I not know some winged things from far | K |
| Are borne along illimitable night | G |
| To dance their lives out in a single flight | G |
| Between the moonrise and the setting star | K |
| - | |
| VI | - |
| - | |
| The Moment came with sacramental cup | L |
| Lifted and all the vault of life grew bright | G |
| With tides of incommensurable light | G |
| But tremblingly I turned and covered up | L |
| My face before the wonder Down the slope | M |
| I heard her feet in irretrievable flight | G |
| And when I looked again my stricken sight | G |
| Saw night and rain in a dead world agrope | M |
| - | |
| Now walks her ghost beside me whispering | N |
| With lips derisive Thou that wouldst forego | O |
| What god assured thee that the cup I bring | N |
| Globes not in every drop the cosmic show | O |
| All that the insatiate heart of man can wring | N |
| From life's long vintage Now thou shalt not know | O |
| - | |
| VII | - |
| - | |
| Shall I not know I that could always catch | P |
| The sunrise in one beam along the wall | Q |
| The nests of June in April's mating call | Q |
| And ruinous autumn in the wind's first snatch | P |
| At summer's green impenetrable thatch | P |
| That always knew far off the secret fall | Q |
| Of a god's feet across the city's brawl | Q |
| The touch of silent fingers on my latch | P |
| - | |
| Not thou vain Moment Something more than thou | R |
| Shall write the score of what mine eyes have wept | G |
| The touch of kisses that have missed my brow | R |
| The murmur of wings that brushed me while I slept | G |
| And some mute angel in the breast even now | R |
| Measures my loss by all that I have kept | G |
| - | |
| VIII | - |
| - | |
| Strive we no more Some hearts are like the bright | G |
| Tree chequered spaces flecked with sun and shade | G |
| Where gathered in old days the youth and maid | G |
| To woo and weave their dances with the night | G |
| They cease their flutings and the next day's light | G |
| Finds the smooth green unconscious of their tread | G |
| And ready its velvet pliancies to spread | G |
| Under fresh feet till these in turn take flight | G |
| - | |
| But other hearts a long long road doth span | S |
| From some far region of old works and wars | T |
| And the weary armies of the thoughts of man | S |
| Have trampled it and furrowed it with scars | U |
| And sometimes husht a sacred caravan | S |
| Moves over it alone beneath the stars | U |
Edith Wharton
(1)
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About The Mortal Lease
The Mortal Lease is a poem by Edith Wharton. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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