Interim Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCD EFGHIJKLMKNO PQRSTUVFWXYZA2 B2C2FD2AE2B2F2G2H2 I2J2PK2J2N L2M2N2B2FO2SN2P2Q2NR 2S2UFT2U2V2L2FW2X2Y2 Z2A3B3FSV2VFC3D3E3F3 G3H3YK2I3E2J3K3L3W2M 3A2N3K2O3QFNR2VP3Q3R 3S3OT3U3V3FC3 O LK2W3G3AL3JX3Z2J2Z2V C3Y3VQ V3V3E2Z3A4B4C4W2D4H3 Y3E4FF4B4R3G4K2H4 OSC3A2B3FGI4C3J4K4L4 M4W2N4T3RO4N C3P4W2VNW2QQ4Q4W2K2Q 4Z3 Q4W2FW2WN4W2R4Q4Q4Q4 S4R2Q4T4Q4W2K3 U4FW2W2PV4W2W2W4W2W2 W2W2QR4The room is full of you As I came in | A |
And closed the door behind me all at once | B |
A something in the air intangible | C |
Yet stiff with meaning struck my senses sick | D |
- | |
Sharp unfamiliar odors have destroyed | E |
Each other room's dear personality | F |
The heavy scent of damp funereal flowers | G |
The very essence hush distilled of Death | H |
Has strangled that habitual breath of home | I |
Whose expiration leaves all houses dead | J |
And wheresoe'er I look is hideous change | K |
Save here Here 'twas as if a weed choked gate | L |
Had opened at my touch and I had stepped | M |
Into some long forgot enchanted strange | K |
Sweet garden of a thousand years ago | N |
And suddenly thought I have been here before | O |
- | |
You are not here I know that you are gone | P |
And will not ever enter here again | Q |
And yet it seems to me if I should speak | R |
Your silent step must wake across the hall | S |
If I should turn my head that your sweet eyes | T |
Would kiss me from the door So short a time | U |
To teach my life its transposition to | V |
This difficult and unaccustomed key | F |
The room is as you left it your last touch | W |
A thoughtless pressure knowing not itself | X |
As saintly hallows now each simple thing | Y |
Hallows and glorifies and glows between | Z |
The dust's grey fingers like a shielded light | A2 |
- | |
There is your book just as you laid it down | B2 |
Face to the table I cannot believe | C2 |
That you are gone Just then it seemed to me | F |
You must be here I almost laughed to think | D2 |
How like reality the dream had been | A |
Yet knew before I laughed and so was still | E2 |
That book outspread just as you laid it down | B2 |
Perhaps you thought I wonder what comes next | F2 |
And whether this or this will be the end | G2 |
So rose and left it thinking to return | H2 |
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Perhaps that chair when you arose and passed | I2 |
Out of the room rocked silently a while | J2 |
Ere it again was still When you were gone | P |
Forever from the room perhaps that chair | K2 |
Stirred by your movement rocked a little while | J2 |
Silently to and fro | N |
- | |
And here are the last words your fingers wrote | L2 |
Scrawled in broad characters across a page | M2 |
In this brown book I gave you Here your hand | N2 |
Guiding your rapid pen moved up and down | B2 |
Here with a looping knot you crossed a t | F |
And here another like it just beyond | O2 |
These two eccentric e's You were so small | S |
And wrote so brave a hand | N2 |
How strange it seems | P2 |
That of all words these are the words you chose | Q2 |
And yet a simple choice you did not know | N |
You would not write again If you had known | R2 |
But then it does not matter and indeed | S2 |
If you had known there was so little time | U |
You would have dropped your pen and come to me | F |
And this page would be empty and some phrase | T2 |
Other than this would hold my wonder now | U2 |
Yet since you could not know and it befell | V2 |
That these are the last words your fingers wrote | L2 |
There is a dignity some might not see | F |
In this I picked the first sweet pea to day | W2 |
To day Was there an opening bud beside it | X2 |
You left until to morrow O my love | Y2 |
The things that withered and you came not back | Z2 |
That day you filled this circle of my arms | A3 |
That now is empty O my empty life | B3 |
That day that day you picked the first sweet pea | F |
And brought it in to show me I recall | S |
With terrible distinctness how the smell | V2 |
Of your cool gardens drifted in with you | V |
I know you held it up for me to see | F |
And flushed because I looked not at the flower | C3 |
But at your face and when behind my look | D3 |
You saw such unmistakable intent | E3 |
You laughed and brushed your flower against my lips | F3 |
You were the fairest thing God ever made | G3 |
I think And then your hands above my heart | H3 |
Drew down its stem into a fastening | Y |
And while your head was bent I kissed your hair | K2 |
I wonder if you knew Beloved hands | I3 |
Somehow I cannot seem to see them still | E2 |
Somehow I cannot seem to see the dust | J3 |
In your bright hair What is the need of Heaven | K3 |
When earth can be so sweet If only God | L3 |
Had let us love and show the world the way | W2 |
Strange cancellings must ink th' eternal books | M3 |
When love crossed out will bring the answer right | A2 |
That first sweet pea I wonder where it is | N3 |
It seems to me I laid it down somewhere | K2 |
And yet I am not sure I am not sure | O3 |
Even if it was white or pink for then | Q |
'Twas much like any other flower to me | F |
Save that it was the first I did not know | N |
Then that it was the last If I had known | R2 |
But then it does not matter Strange how few | V |
After all's said and done the things that are | P3 |
Of moment | Q3 |
Few indeed When I can make | R3 |
Of ten small words a rope to hang the world | S3 |
I had you and I have you now no more | O |
There there it dangles where's the little truth | T3 |
That can for long keep footing under that | U3 |
When its slack syllables tighten to a thought | V3 |
Here let me write it down I wish to see | F |
Just how a thing like that will look on paper | C3 |
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I had you and I have you now no more | O |
- | |
O little words how can you run so straight | L |
Across the page beneath the weight you bear | K2 |
How can you fall apart whom such a theme | W3 |
Has bound together and hereafter aid | G3 |
In trivial expression that have been | A |
So hideously dignified Would God | L3 |
That tearing you apart would tear the thread | J |
I strung you on Would God O God my mind | X3 |
Stretches asunder on this merciless rack | Z2 |
Of imagery O let me sleep a while | J2 |
Would I could sleep and wake to find me back | Z2 |
In that sweet summer afternoon with you | V |
Summer 'Tis summer still by the calendar | C3 |
How easily could God if He so willed | Y3 |
Set back the world a little turn or two | V |
Correct its griefs and bring its joys again | Q |
- | |
We were so wholly one I had not thought | V3 |
That we could die apart I had not thought | V3 |
That I could move and you be stiff and still | E2 |
That I could speak and you perforce be dumb | Z3 |
I think our heart strings were like warp and woof | A4 |
In some firm fabric woven in and out | B4 |
Your golden filaments in fair design | C4 |
Across my duller fibre And to day | W2 |
The shining strip is rent the exquisite | D4 |
Fine pattern is destroyed part of your heart | H3 |
Aches in my breast part of my heart lies chilled | Y3 |
In the damp earth with you I have been torn | E4 |
In two and suffer for the rest of me | F |
What is my life to me And what am I | F4 |
To life a ship whose star has guttered out | B4 |
A Fear that in the deep night starts awake | R3 |
Perpetually to find its senses strained | G4 |
Against the taut strings of the quivering air | K2 |
Awaiting the return of some dread chord | H4 |
- | |
Dark Dark is all I find for metaphor | O |
All else were contrast save that contrast's wall | S |
Is down and all opposed things flow together | C3 |
Into a vast monotony where night | A2 |
And day and frost and thaw and death and life | B3 |
Are synonyms What now what now to me | F |
Are all the jabbering birds and foolish flowers | G |
That clutter up the world You were my song | I4 |
Now let discord scream You were my flower | C3 |
Now let the world grow weeds For I shall not | J4 |
Plant things above your grave the common balm | K4 |
Of the conventional woe for its own wound | L4 |
Amid sensations rendered negative | M4 |
By your elimination stands to day | W2 |
Certain unmixed the element of grief | N4 |
I sorrow and I shall not mock my truth | T3 |
With travesties of suffering nor seek | R |
To effigy its incorporeal bulk | O4 |
In little wry faced images of woe | N |
- | |
I cannot call you back and I desire | C3 |
No utterance of my immaterial voice | P4 |
I cannot even turn my face this way | W2 |
Or that and say My face is turned to you | V |
I know not where you are I do not know | N |
If Heaven hold you or if earth transmute | W2 |
Body and soul you into earth again | Q |
But this I know not for one second's space | Q4 |
Shall I insult my sight with visionings | Q4 |
Such as the credulous crowd so eager eyed | W2 |
Beholds self conjured in the empty air | K2 |
Let the world wail Let drip its easy tears | Q4 |
My sorrow shall be dumb | Z3 |
- | |
What do I say | Q4 |
God God God pity me Am I gone mad | W2 |
That I should spit upon a rosary | F |
Am I become so shrunken Would to God | W2 |
I too might feel that frenzied faith whose touch | W |
Makes temporal the most enduring grief | N4 |
Though it must walk a while as is its wont | W2 |
With wild lamenting Would I too might weep | R4 |
Where weeps the world and hangs its piteous wreaths | Q4 |
For its new dead Not Truth but Faith it is | Q4 |
That keeps the world alive If all at once | Q4 |
Faith were to slacken that unconscious faith | S4 |
Which must I know yet be the corner stone | R2 |
Of all believing birds now flying fearless | Q4 |
Across would drop in terror to the earth | T4 |
Fishes would drown and the all governing reins | Q4 |
Would tangle in the frantic hands of God | W2 |
And the worlds gallop headlong to destruction | K3 |
- | |
O God I see it now and my sick brain | U4 |
Staggers and swoons How often over me | F |
Flashes this breathlessness of sudden sight | W2 |
In which I see the universe unrolled | W2 |
Before me like a scroll and read thereon | P |
Chaos and Doom where helpless planets whirl | V4 |
Dizzily round and round and round and round | W2 |
Like tops across a table gathering speed | W2 |
With every spin to waver on the edge | W4 |
One instant looking over and the next | W2 |
To shudder and lurch forward out of sight | W2 |
- | |
- | |
- | |
Ah I am worn out I am wearied out | W2 |
It is too much I am but flesh and blood | W2 |
And I must sleep Though you were dead again | Q |
I am but flesh and blood and I must sleep | R4 |
Edna St. Vincent Millay
(1)
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