Spectres Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GCGC HIHI JKJK LMLM| How terrible these nights are when alone | A |
| With our scarred hearts we sit in solitude | B |
| And some old sorrow to the world unknown | A |
| Does suddenly with silent steps intrude | B |
| - | |
| After the guests departed and the light | C |
| Burned dimly in my room there came to me | D |
| As noiselessly as shadows of the night | C |
| The spectre of a woe that used to be | D |
| - | |
| Out of the gruesome darkness and the gloom | E |
| I saw it peering and in still despair | F |
| I watched it gliding swift across the room | E |
| Until it came and stood beside my chair | F |
| - | |
| Why need I tell thee what its shape or name | G |
| Thou hast thy secret hidden from the light | C |
| And be it sin or sorrow woe or shame | G |
| Thou dost not like to meet it in the night | C |
| - | |
| And yet it comes As certainly as death | H |
| And far more cruel since death ends all pain | I |
| On lonesome nights we feel its icy breath | H |
| And turn and face the thing we fancied slain | I |
| - | |
| With shrinking hearts we view the ghastly shape | J |
| We look into its eyes with fear and dread | K |
| And know that we can never more escape | J |
| Until the grave doth fold us with the dead | K |
| - | |
| On the swift maelstrom of the eddying world | L |
| We hurl our woes and think they are no more | M |
| But round and round by dizzy billows whirled | L |
| They reach out sinewy arms and swim to shore | M |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
(1)
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