Widows Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCADD EFEFGGHHIIJJJKKLMLLN NOPQQRRSTQUQUVWXYYZN NA2A2 B2C2D2E2E2D2F2G2F2G2 H2 H2 I2I2FLF L AADDJ2J2The world was widowed by the death of Christ | A |
Vainly its suffering soul for peace has sought | B |
And found it not | C |
For nothing nothing nothing has sufficed | A |
To bring back comfort to the stricken house | D |
From whence has gone the Master and the Spouse | D |
- | |
In its long widowhood the world has striven | E |
To find diversion It has turned away | F |
From the vast awefull silences of Heaven | E |
Which answer but with silence when we pray | F |
And sought for something to assuage its grief | G |
Some surcease and relief | G |
From sorrow in pursuit of mortal joys | H |
It drowned God's stillness in a sea of noise | H |
It lost God's presence in a blur of forms | I |
Till bruised and bleeding with life's brutal storms | I |
Unto immutable and speechless space | J |
The World lifts up its face | J |
Its haggard tear drenched face | J |
And cries aloud for faith's supreme reward | K |
The promised Second Coming of its Lord | K |
So many widows widows everywhere | L |
The whole earth teems with widows | M |
Guns that blare | L |
Winged monsters of the air | L |
And deep sea monsters leaping through the water | N |
Hell bent on slaughter | N |
All these plough paths for widows Maids at dawn | O |
And brides at noon ere eventide pass on | P |
Into the ranks of widows but to weep | Q |
Just for a little space then will grief sleep | Q |
In their young bosoms where sweet hope belongs | R |
New love will sing once more its age old songs | R |
And life bloom as a rose tree blooms again | S |
After a night of rain | T |
There are complacent widows clothed in cr pe | Q |
Who simulate a grief that is not real | U |
Through paths of seeming sorrow they escape | Q |
From disappointed hopes to some ideal | U |
Or from the penury of unloved wives | V |
Walk forth to opulent lives | W |
And there are widows who shed all their tears | X |
Just at the first | Y |
In one wild burst | Y |
And then go lilting lightly down the years | Z |
Black butterflies they flit from flower to flower | N |
And live in the thin pleasures of the hour | N |
Merging their tender memories of the dead | A2 |
In tenderer dreams of being once more wed | A2 |
- | |
- | |
But there are others women who have proved | B2 |
That loving greatly means so being loved | C2 |
Women who through full beauteous years have grown | D2 |
Into the very body souls and heart | E2 |
Of their dear comrades When death tears apart | E2 |
Such close knit bonds as these and one alone | D2 |
Out to the larger freer life is called | F2 |
And one is left | G2 |
Then God in heaven must sometimes be appalled | F2 |
At the wild anguish of the soul bereft | G2 |
And unto His Son must say 'I did not know | H2 |
Mortals could suffer so ' | - |
But Christ remembering Gethsemane | H2 |
Will answer softly 'It was known to Me ' | - |
God's alchemist old Time will merge to calm | I2 |
That bitter anguish but there is no balm | I2 |
Save the sweet certitude that each long day | F |
Is one step in a stair | L |
That circles up to where freed spirits stay | F |
- | |
- | |
Widows so many widows everywhere | L |
- | |
The world was widowed by the death of Christ | A |
And nothing nothing nothing has sufficed | A |
To bring back comfort to the stricken house | D |
From whence has gone the Master and the Spouse | D |
Hasten dear Lord with Thy Millennium | J2 |
Hasten and come | J2 |
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Widows poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Best Poems of Ella Wheeler Wilcox