Eurydice Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEF GHBIJ GFHK LHHMNF A OHPH BPHH BPHDH HHHHHH QDQRSHHQTP A DPDDP PBBBP UHHDHP HVVDDWD DD HPXHHH W HHDDDPPH PHH HHH HHHQH DDHHPHH HYD BQHHQP HNHZBHH PPHP HHBHP PHHI | A |
- | |
So you have swept me back | B |
I who could have walked with the live souls | C |
above the earth | D |
I who could have slept among the live flowers | E |
at last | F |
- | |
so for your arrogance | G |
and your ruthlessness | H |
I am swept back | B |
where dead lichens drip | I |
dead cinders upon moss of ash | J |
- | |
so for your arrogance | G |
I am broken at last | F |
I who had lived unconscious | H |
who was almost forgot | K |
- | |
if you had let me wait | L |
I had grown from listlessness | H |
into peace | H |
if you had let me rest with the dead | M |
I had forgot you | N |
and the past | F |
- | |
II | A |
- | |
Here only flame upon flame | O |
and black among the red sparks | H |
streaks of black and light | P |
grown colourless | H |
- | |
why did you turn back | B |
that hell should be reinhabited | P |
of myself thus | H |
swept into nothingness | H |
- | |
why did you glance back | B |
why did you hesitate for that moment | P |
why did you bend your face | H |
caught with the flame of the upper earth | D |
above my face | H |
- | |
what was it that crossed my face | H |
with the light from yours | H |
and your glance | H |
what was it you saw in my face | H |
the light of your own face | H |
the fire of your own presence | H |
- | |
What had my face to offer | Q |
but reflex of the earth | D |
hyacinth colour | Q |
caught from the raw fissure in the rock | R |
where the light struck | S |
and the colour of azure crocuses | H |
and the bright surface of gold crocuses | H |
and of the wind flower | Q |
swift in its veins as lightning | T |
and as white | P |
- | |
III | A |
- | |
Saffron from the fringe of the earth | D |
wild saffron that has bent | P |
over the sharp edge of earth | D |
all the flowers that cut through the earth | D |
all all the flowers are lost | P |
- | |
everything is lost | P |
everything is crossed with black | B |
black upon black | B |
and worse than black | B |
this colourless light | P |
- | |
IV | - |
- | |
Fringe upon fringe | U |
of blue crocuses | H |
crocuses walled against blue of themselves | H |
blue of that upper earth | D |
blue of the depth upon depth of flowers | H |
lost | P |
- | |
flowers | H |
if I could have taken once my breath of them | V |
enough of them | V |
more than earth | D |
even than of the upper earth | D |
had passed with me | W |
beneath the earth | D |
- | |
if I could have caught up from the earth | D |
the whole of the flowers of the earth | D |
if once I could have breathed into myself | - |
the very golden crocuses | H |
and the red | P |
and the very golden hearts of the first saffron | X |
the whole of the golden mass | H |
the whole of the great fragrance | H |
I could have dared the loss | H |
- | |
V | W |
- | |
So for your arrogance | H |
and your ruthlessness | H |
I have lost the earth | D |
and the flowers of the earth | D |
and the live souls above the earth | D |
and you who passed across the light | P |
and reached | P |
ruthless | H |
- | |
you who have your own light | P |
who are to yourself a presence | H |
who need no presence | H |
- | |
yet for all your arrogance | H |
and your glance | H |
I tell you this | H |
- | |
such loss is no loss | H |
such terror such coils and strands and pitfalls | H |
of blackness | H |
such terror | Q |
is no loss | H |
- | |
hell is no worse than your earth | D |
above the earth | D |
hell is no worse | H |
no nor your flowers | H |
nor your veins of light | P |
nor your presence | H |
a loss | H |
- | |
my hell is no worse than yours | H |
though you pass among the flowers and speak | Y |
with the spirits above earth | D |
- | |
VI | - |
- | |
Against the black | B |
I have more fervour | Q |
than you in all the splendour of that place | H |
against the blackness | H |
and the stark grey | Q |
I have more light | P |
- | |
and the flowers | H |
if I should tell you | N |
you would turn from your own fit paths | H |
toward hell | Z |
turn again and glance back | B |
and I would sink into a place | H |
even more terrible than this | H |
- | |
VII | - |
- | |
At least I have the flowers of myself | - |
and my thoughts no god | P |
can take that | P |
I have the fervour of myself for a presence | H |
and my own spirit for light | P |
- | |
and my spirit with its loss | H |
knows this | H |
though small against the black | B |
small against the formless rocks | H |
hell must break before I am lost | P |
- | |
before I am lost | P |
hell must open like a red rose | H |
for the dead to pass | H |
Hilda Doolittle
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Eurydice poem by Hilda Doolittle
Best Poems of Hilda Doolittle