The Suicide Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBAABBA CDDCCD EDC FGGFFGGF HIIHHIIH HJJHHKKH ALFAALL MFFMMFFM NLLONLLN| Last was the wealth I carried in life's pack | A |
| Youth health ambition hope and trust but Time | B |
| And Fate those robbers fit for any crime | B |
| Stole all and left me but the empty sack | A |
| Before me lay a long and lonely track | A |
| Of darkling hills and barren steeps to climb | B |
| Behind me lay in shadows the sublime | B |
| Lost lands of Love's delight Alack Alack | A |
| - | |
| - | |
| Unwearied and with springing steps elate | C |
| I had conveyed my wealth along the road | D |
| The empty sack proved now a heavier load | D |
| I was borne down beneath its worthless weight | C |
| I stumbled on and knocked at Death's dark gate | C |
| There was no answer Stung by sorrow's goad | D |
| I | - |
| forced | E |
| my way into that grim abode | D |
| And laughed and flung Life's empty sack to Fate | C |
| - | |
| - | |
| Unknown and uninvited I passed in | F |
| To that strange land that hangs between two goals | G |
| Round which a dark and solemn river rolls | G |
| More dread its silence than the loud earth's din | F |
| And now where was the peace I hoped to win | F |
| Black masted ships slid past me in great shoals | G |
| Their bloody decks thronged with mistaken souls | G |
| God punishes mistakes sometimes like sin | F |
| - | |
| - | |
| Not rest and not oblivion I found | H |
| My suffering self dwelt with me just the same | I |
| But here no sleep was and no sweet dreams came | I |
| To give me respite Tyrant Death uncrowned | H |
| By my own hand still King of Terrors frowned | H |
| Upon my shuddering soul that shrank in shame | I |
| Before those eyes where sorrow blent with blame | I |
| And those accusing lips that made no sound | H |
| - | |
| - | |
| What gruesome shapes dawned on my startled sight | H |
| What awful sighs broke on my listening ear | J |
| The anguish of the earth augmented here | J |
| A thousand fold made one continuous night | H |
| The sack I flung away in impious spite | H |
| Hung yet upon me filled I saw in fear | K |
| With tears that rained from earth's adjacent sphere | K |
| And turned to stones in falling from that height | H |
| - | |
| - | |
| And close about me pressed a grieving throng | A |
| Each with his heavy sack which bowed him so | L |
| His face was hidden One of these mourned 'Know | F |
| Who enters here but finds the way more long | A |
| To those fair realms where sounds the angels' song | A |
| There is no man made exit out of woe | L |
| Ye cannot dash the locked door down and go | L |
| To claim thy rightful joy through paths of wrong ' | - |
| - | |
| - | |
| He passed into the shadows dim and gray | M |
| And left me to pursue my path alone | F |
| With terror greater than I yet had known | F |
| Hard on my soul the awful knowledge lay | M |
| Death had not ended life nor found God's way | M |
| But with my same sad sorrows still my own | F |
| Where by roads led to by roads thistle sown | F |
| I had but wandered off and gone astray | M |
| - | |
| - | |
| With earth still near enough to hear its sighs | N |
| With heaven afar and hell but just below | L |
| Still on and on my lonely soul must go | L |
| Until I earn the right to Paradise | O |
| We cannot force our way into God's skies | N |
| Nor rush into the rest we long to know | L |
| But patiently with bleeding steps and slow | L |
| Toil on to where selfhood in Godhood dies | N |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
(1)
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