Lord Walter's Wife Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BB A C A D EE FF GG HH F I F C F F F JK F LL MM NN OO F PP F FF FQQ FRR F SS TT UU V| I | A |
| - | |
| 'But where do you go ' said the lady while both sat under the yew | B |
| And her eyes were alive in their depth as the kraken beneath the sea blue | B |
| - | |
| II | A |
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| 'Because I fear you ' he answered 'because you are far too fair | C |
| And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your golfd coloured hair ' | - |
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| III | A |
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| 'Oh that ' she said 'is no reason Such knots are quickly undone | D |
| And too much beauty I reckon is nothing but too much sun ' | - |
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| IV | - |
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| 'Yet farewell so ' he answered 'the sunstroke's fatal at times | E |
| I value your husband Lord Walter whose gallop rings still from the limes | E |
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| V | - |
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| 'Oh that ' she said 'is no reason You smell a rose through a fence | F |
| If two should smell it what matter who grumbles and where's the pretense | F |
| - | |
| VI | - |
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| 'But I ' he replied 'have promised another when love was free | - |
| To love her alone alone who alone from afar loves me ' | - |
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| VII | - |
| - | |
| 'Why that ' she said 'is no reason Love's always free I am told | G |
| Will you vow to be safe from the headache on Tuesday and think it will hold | G |
| - | |
| VIII | - |
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| 'But you ' he replied 'have a daughter a young child who was laid | H |
| In your lap to be pure so I leave you the angels would make me afraid | H |
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| IX | F |
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| 'Oh that ' she said 'is no reason The angels keep out of the way | I |
| And Dora the child observes nothing although you should please me and stay ' | - |
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| X | F |
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| At which he rose up in his anger 'Why now you no longer are fair | C |
| Why now you no longer are fatal but ugly and hateful I swear ' | - |
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| XI | F |
| - | |
| At which she laughed out in her scorn 'These men Oh these men overnice | F |
| Who are shocked if a colour not virtuous is frankly put on by a vice ' | - |
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| XII | F |
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| Her eyes blazed upon him 'And you You bring us your vices so near | J |
| That we smell them You think in our presence a thought 'twould defame us to hear | K |
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| XIII | F |
| - | |
| 'What reason had you and what right I appel to your soul from my life | - |
| To find me so fair as a woman Why sir I am pure and a wife | - |
| - | |
| XIV | - |
| - | |
| 'Is the day star too fair up above you It burns you not Dare you imply | - |
| I brushed you more close than the star does when Walter had set me as high | - |
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| XV | - |
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| 'If a man finds a woman too fair he means simply adapted too much | L |
| To use unlawful and fatal The praise shall I thank you for such | L |
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| XVI | - |
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| 'Too fair not unless you misuse us and surely if once in a while | M |
| You attain to it straightaway you call us no longer too fair but too vile | M |
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| XVII | - |
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| 'A moment I pray your attention I have a poor word in my head | N |
| I must utter though womanly custom would set it down better unsaid | N |
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| XVIII | - |
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| 'You grew sir pale to impertinence once when I showed you a ring | O |
| You kissed my fan when I dropped it No matter I've broken the thing | O |
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| XIX | F |
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| 'You did me the honour perhaps to be moved at my side now and then | P |
| In the senses a vice I have heard which is common to beasts and some men | P |
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| XX | F |
| - | |
| 'Love's a virtue for heroes as white as the snow on high hills | F |
| And immortal as every great soul is that struggles endures and fulfils | F |
| - | |
| XXI | F |
| 'I love my Walter profoundly you Maude though you faltered a week | Q |
| For the sake of what is it an eyebrow or less still a mole on the cheek | Q |
| - | |
| XXII | F |
| 'And since when all's said you're too noble to stoop to the frivolous cant | R |
| About crimes irresistable virtues that swindle betray and supplant | R |
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| XXIII | F |
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| 'I determined to prove to yourself that whate'er you might dream or avow | - |
| By illusion you wanted precisely no more of me than you have now | - |
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| XXIV | - |
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| 'There Look me full in the face in the face Understand if you can | S |
| That the eyes of such women as I am are clean as the palm of a man | S |
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| XXV | - |
| 'Drop his hand you insult him Avoid us for fear we should cost you a scar | T |
| You take us for harlots I tell you and not for the women we are | T |
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| XXVI | - |
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| 'You wronged me but then I considered there's Walter And so at the end | U |
| I vowed that he should not be mulcted by me in the hand of a friend | U |
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| XXVII | - |
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| 'Have I hurt you indeed We are quits then Nay friend of my Walter be mine | V |
| Come Dora my darling my angel and help me to ask him to dine ' | - |
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
(1)
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