The Equilibrists Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CDEE FFGG HIJJ KKEE LLMM NNEE EEOO PPQR SSTT UUEE UUUU UUVV W EEXX| Full of her long white arms and milky skin | A |
| He had a thousand times remembered sin | A |
| Alone in the press of people traveled he | B |
| Minding her jacinth and myrrh and ivory | B |
| - | |
| Mouth he remembered the quaint orifice | C |
| From which came heat that flamed upon the kiss | D |
| Till cold words came down spiral from the head | E |
| Grey doves from the officious tower illsped | E |
| - | |
| Body it was a white field ready for love | F |
| On her body's field with the gaunt tower above | F |
| The lilies grew beseeching him to take | G |
| If he would pluck and wear them bruise and break | G |
| - | |
| Eyes talking Never mind the cruel words | H |
| Embrace my flowers but not embrace the swords | I |
| But what they said the doves came straightway flying | J |
| And unsaid Honor Honor they came crying | J |
| - | |
| Importunate her doves Too pure too wise | K |
| Clambering on his shoulder saying Arise | K |
| Leave me now and never let us meet | E |
| Eternal distance now command thy feet | E |
| - | |
| Predicament indeed which thus discovers | L |
| Honor among thieves Honor between lovers | L |
| O such a little word is Honor they feel | M |
| But the grey word is between them cold as steel | M |
| - | |
| At length I saw these lovers fully were come | N |
| Into their torture of equilibrium | N |
| Dreadfully had forsworn each other and yet | E |
| They were bound each to each and they did not forget | E |
| - | |
| And rigid as two painful stars and twirled | E |
| About the clustered night their prison world | E |
| They burned with fierce love always to come near | O |
| But honor beat them back and kept them clear | O |
| - | |
| Ah the strict lovers they are ruined now | P |
| I cried in anger But with puddled brow | P |
| Devising for those gibbeted and brave | Q |
| Came I descanting Man what would you have | R |
| - | |
| For spin your period out and draw your breath | S |
| A kinder saeculum begins with Death | S |
| Would you ascend to Heaven and bodiless dwell | T |
| Or take your bodies honorless to Hell | T |
| - | |
| In Heaven you have heard no marriage is | U |
| No white flesh tinder to your lecheries | U |
| Your male and female tissue sweetly shaped | E |
| Sublimed away and furious blood escaped | E |
| - | |
| Great lovers lie in Hell the stubborn ones | U |
| Infatuate of the flesh upon the bones | U |
| Stuprate they rend each other when they kiss | U |
| The pieces kiss again no end to this | U |
| - | |
| But still I watched them spinning orbited nice | U |
| Their flames were not more radiant than their ice | U |
| I dug in the quiet earth and wrought the tomb | V |
| And made these lines to memorize their doom | V |
| - | |
| EPITAPH | W |
| - | |
| Equilibrists lie here stranger tread light | E |
| Close but untouching in each other's sight | E |
| Mouldered the lips arid ashy the tall skull | X |
| Let them lie perilous and beautiful | X |
John Crowe Ransom
(1)
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