London Bridge Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCB DEFEGHFH IJKJ LMNM OPKPCQ RL RNS FSFTUTVWXWLY ZYA2B2C2B2 FL D2FE2NF2PF2G2H2 I2J2I2LK2N K2 FL2CL2 FM2N2O2 M2KP2Q2 R2E2QE2S2T2ST2ZU2AU2 XV2W2V2CX2 Y2X2FZ2AL Z2 NA3 FA3FB3K K C3CD3FE3XPGUL G NL2FN N L2H2C L F3SNSCJIJIG3IG3AH2HH 3UH| Do I hear them Yes I hear the children singing and what of it | A |
| Have you come with eyes afire to find me now and ask me that | B |
| If I were not their father and if you were not their mother | C |
| We might believe they made a noise What are you driving at | B |
| - | |
| Well be glad that you can hear them and be glad they are so near us | D |
| For I have heard the stars of heaven and they were nearer still | E |
| All within an hour it is that I have heard them calling | F |
| And though I pray for them to cease I know they never will | E |
| For their music on my heart though you may freeze it will fall always | G |
| Like summer snow that never melts upon a mountain top | H |
| Do you hear them Do you hear them overhead the children singing | F |
| Do you hear the children singing God will you make them stop | H |
| - | |
| And what now in his holy name have you to do with mountains | I |
| We're back to town again my dear and we've a dance tonight | J |
| Frozen hearts and falling music Snow and stars and what the devil | K |
| Say it over to me slowly and be sure you have it right | J |
| - | |
| God knows if I be right or wrong in saying what I tell you | L |
| Or if I know the meaning any more of what I say | M |
| All I know is it will kill me if I try to keep it hidden | N |
| Well I met him Yes I met him and I talked with him today | M |
| - | |
| You met him Did you meet the ghost of someone you had poisoned | O |
| Long ago before I knew you for the woman that you are | P |
| Take a chair and don't begin your stories always in the middle | K |
| Was he man or was he demon Anyhow you've gone too far | P |
| To go back and I'm your servant I'm the lord but you're the master | C |
| Now go on with what you know for I'm excited | Q |
| - | |
| Do you mean | R |
| Do you mean to make me try to think that you know less than I do | L |
| - | |
| I know that you foreshadow the beginning of a scene | R |
| Pray be careful and as accurate as if the doors of heaven | N |
| Were to swing or to stay bolted from now on for evermore | S |
| - | |
| Do you conceive with all your smooth contempt of every feeling | F |
| Of hiding what you know and what you must have known before | S |
| Is it worth a woman's torture to stand here and have you smiling | F |
| With only your poor fetish of possession on your side | T |
| No thing but one is wholly sure and that's not one to scare me | U |
| When I meet it I may say to God at last that I have tried | T |
| And yet for all I know or all I dare believe my trials | V |
| Henceforward will be more for you to bear than are your own | W |
| And you must give me keys of yours to rooms I have not entered | X |
| Do you see me on your threshold all my life and there alone | W |
| Will you tell me where you see me in your fancy when it leads you | L |
| Far enough beyond the moment for a glance at the abyss | Y |
| - | |
| Will you tell me what intrinsic and amazing sort of nonsense | Z |
| You are crowding on the patience of the man who gives you this | Y |
| Look around you and be sorry you're not living in an attic | A2 |
| With a civet and a fish net and with you to pay the rent | B2 |
| I say words that you can spell without the use of all your letters | C2 |
| And I grant if you insist that I've a guess at what you meant | B2 |
| - | |
| Have I told you then for nothing that I met him Are you trying | F |
| To be merry while you try to make me hate you | L |
| - | |
| Think again | D2 |
| My dear before you tell me in a language unbecoming | F |
| To a lady what you plan to tell me next If I complain | E2 |
| If I seem an atom peevish at the preference you mention | N |
| Or imply to be precise you may believe or you may not | F2 |
| That I'm a trifle more aware of what he wants than you are | P |
| But I shouldn't throw that at you Make believe that I forgot | F2 |
| Make believe that he's a genius if you like but in the meantime | G2 |
| Don't go back to rocking horses There there there now | H2 |
| - | |
| Make believe | I2 |
| When you see me standing helpless on a plank above a whirlpool | J2 |
| Do I drown or do I hear you when you say it Make believe | I2 |
| How much more am I to say or do for you before I tell you | L |
| That I met him What's to follow now may be for you to choose | K2 |
| Do you hear me Won't you listen It's an easy thing to listen | N |
| - | |
| And it's easy to be crazy when there's everything to lose | K2 |
| - | |
| If at last you have a notion that I mean what I am saying | F |
| Do I seem to tell you nothing when I tell you I shall try | L2 |
| If you save me and I lose him I don't know it won't much matter | C |
| I dare say that I've lied enough but now I do not lie | L2 |
| - | |
| Do you fancy me the one man who has waited and said nothing | F |
| While a wife has dragged an old infatuation from a tomb | M2 |
| Give the thing a little air and it will vanish into ashes | N2 |
| There you are piff presto | O2 |
| - | |
| When I came into this room | M2 |
| It seemed as if I saw the place and you there at your table | K |
| As you are now at this moment for the last time in my life | P2 |
| And I told myself before I came to find you 'I shall tell him | Q2 |
| If I can what I have learned of him since I became his wife ' | - |
| And if you say as I've no doubt you will before I finish | R2 |
| That you have tried unceasingly with all your might and main | E2 |
| To teach me knowing more than I of what it was I needed | Q |
| Don't think with all you may have thought that you have tried in vain | E2 |
| For you have taught me more than hides in all the shelves of knowledge | S2 |
| Of how little you found that's in me and was in me all along | T2 |
| I believed if I intruded nothing on you that I cared for | S |
| I'd be half as much as horses and it seems that I was wrong | T2 |
| I believed there was enough of earth in me with all my nonsense | Z |
| Over things that made you sleepy to keep something still awake | U2 |
| But you taught me soon to read my book and God knows I have read it | A |
| Ages longer than an angel would have read it for your sake | U2 |
| I have said that you must open other doors than I have entered | X |
| But I wondered while I said it if I might not be obscure | V2 |
| Is there anything in all your pedigrees and inventories | W2 |
| With a value more elusive than a dollar's Are you sure | V2 |
| That if I starve another year for you I shall be stronger | C |
| To endure another like it and another till I'm dead | X2 |
| - | |
| Has your tame cat sold a picture or more likely had a windfall | Y2 |
| Or for God's sake what's broke loose Have you a bee hive in your head | X2 |
| A little more of this from you will not be easy hearing | F |
| Do you know that Understand it if you do for if you won't | Z2 |
| What the devil are you saying Make believe you never said it | A |
| And I'll say I never heard it Oh you If you | L |
| - | |
| If I don't | Z2 |
| - | |
| There are men who say there's reason hidden somewhere in a woman | N |
| But I doubt if God himself remembers where the key was hung | A3 |
| - | |
| He may not for they say that even God himself is growing | F |
| I wonder if he makes believe that he is growing young | A3 |
| I wonder if he makes believe that women who are giving | F |
| All they have in holy loathing to a stranger all their lives | B3 |
| Are the wise ones who build houses in the Bible | K |
| - | |
| Stop you devil | K |
| - | |
| Or that souls are any whiter when their bodies are called wives | C3 |
| If a dollar's worth of gold will hoop the walls of hell together | C |
| Why need heaven be such a ruin of a place that never was | D3 |
| And if at last I lied my starving soul away to nothing | F |
| Are you sure you might not miss it Have you come to such a pass | E3 |
| That you would have me longer in your arms if you discovered | X |
| That I made you into someone else Oh Well there are | P |
| worse ways | G |
| But why aim it at my feet unless you fear you may be sorry | U |
| There are many days ahead of you | L |
| - | |
| I do not see those days | G |
| - | |
| I can see them Granted even I am wrong there are the children | N |
| And are they to praise their father for his insight if we die | L2 |
| Do you hear them Do you hear them overhead the children singing | F |
| Do you hear them Do you hear the children | N |
| - | |
| Damn the children | N |
| - | |
| Why | L2 |
| What have THEY done Well then do it Do it now | H2 |
| and have it over | C |
| - | |
| Oh you devil Oh you | L |
| - | |
| No I'm not a devil I'm a prophet | F3 |
| One who sees the end already of so much that one end more | S |
| Would have now the small importance of one other small illusion | N |
| Which in turn would have a welcome where the rest have gone before | S |
| But if I were you my fancy would look on a little farther | C |
| For the glimpse of a release that may be somewhere still in sight | J |
| Furthermore you must remember those two hundred invitations | I |
| For the dancing after dinner We shall have to shine tonight | J |
| We shall dance and be as happy as a pair of merry spectres | I |
| On the grave of all the lies that we shall never have to tell | G3 |
| We shall dance among the ruins of the tomb of our endurance | I |
| And I have not a doubt that we shall do it very well | G3 |
| There I'm glad you've put it back for I don't like it | A |
| Shut the drawer now | H2 |
| No no don't cancel anything I'll dance until I drop | H |
| I can't walk yet but I'm going to Go away somewhere | H3 |
| and leave me | U |
| Oh you children Oh you children God will they never stop | H |
Edwin Arlington Robinson
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
About London Bridge
London Bridge is a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
Write your comment about London Bridge poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Best Poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson
