Before The Mirror Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB AACA DEFE GDHI AJKJ LAMA AANA OACA JBPB| Now like the Lady of Shalott | A |
| I dwell within an empty room | B |
| And through the day and through the night | A |
| I sit before an ancient loom | B |
| - | |
| And like the Lady of Shalott | A |
| I look into a mirror wide | A |
| Where shadows come and shadows go | C |
| And ply my shuttle as they glide | A |
| - | |
| Not as she wove the yellow wool | D |
| Ulysses' wife Penelope | E |
| By day a queen among her maids | F |
| But in the night a woman she | E |
| - | |
| Who creeping from her lonely couch | G |
| Unraveled all the slender wool | D |
| Or with a torch she climbed the towers | H |
| To fire the fagots on the roof | I |
| - | |
| But weaving with a steady hand | A |
| The shadows whether false or true | J |
| I put aside a doubt which asks | K |
| Among these phantoms what are you | J |
| - | |
| For not with altar tomb or urn | L |
| Or long haired Greek with hollow shield | A |
| Or dark prowed ship with banks of oars | M |
| Or banquet in the tented field | A |
| - | |
| Or Norman knight in armor clad | A |
| Waiting a foe where four roads meet | A |
| Or hawk and hound in bosky dell | N |
| Where dame and page in secret greet | A |
| - | |
| Or rose and lily bud and flower | O |
| My web is broidered Nothing bright | A |
| Is woven here the shadows grow | C |
| Still darker in the mirror's light | A |
| - | |
| And as my web grows darker too | J |
| Accursed seems this empty room | B |
| For still I must forever weave | P |
| These phantoms by this ancient loom | B |
Elizabeth Stoddard
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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