Lay Back The Darkness Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AB CD EF GH IB JK AE LM NO| My father in the night shuffling from room to room | A |
| on an obscure mission through the hallway | B |
| - | |
| Help me spirits to penetrate his dream | C |
| and ease his restless passage | D |
| - | |
| Lay back the darkness for a salesman | E |
| who could charm everything but the shadows | F |
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| an immigrant who stands on the threshold | G |
| of a vast night | H |
| - | |
| without his walker or his cane | I |
| and cannot remember what he meant to say | B |
| - | |
| though his right arm is raised as if in prophecy | J |
| while his left shakes uselessly in warning | K |
| - | |
| My father in the night shuffling from room to room | A |
| is no longer a father or a husband or a son | E |
| - | |
| but a boy standing on the edge of a forest | L |
| listening to the distant cry of wolves | M |
| - | |
| to wild dogs | N |
| to primitive wingbeats shuddering in the treetops | O |
Edward Hirsch
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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