The Everlasting Return Poem Rhyme Scheme

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It is dark so dark I remember the sun on Chios	A
It is still so still I hear the beat of our paddles on the Aegean	B
	-
Ten times we had watched the moon	C
Rise like a thin white virgin out of the waters	A
And round into a full maternity	D
For thrice ten moons we had touched no flesh	E
Save the man flesh on either hand	F
That was black and bitter and salt and scaled by the sea	D
	-
The Athenian boy sat on my left	G
His hair was yellow as corn steeped in wine	H
And on my right was Phildar the Carthaginian	B
Grinning Phildar	I
With his mouth pulled taut as by reins from his black gapped teeth	J
Many a whip had coiled about him	K
And his shoulders were rutted deep as wet ground under chariot wheels	A
And his skin was red and tough as a bull's hide cured in the sun	B
He did not sing like the other slaves	A
But when a big wind came up he screamed with it	L
And always he looked out to sea	D
Save when he tore at his fish ends	A
Or spat across me at the Greek boy whose mouth was red and apart	M
like an opened fruit	N
	-
We had rowed from dawn and the green galley hard at our stern	O
She was green and squat and skulked close to the sea	D
All day the tish of their paddles had tickled our ears	A
And when night came on	P
And little naked stars dabbled in the water	I
And half the crouching moon	C
Slid over the silver belly of the sea thick scaled with light	Q
We heard them singing at their oars	A
We who had no breath for song	R
	-
There was no sound in our boat	S
Save the clingle of wrist chains	A
And the sobbing of the young Greek	T
I cursed him that his hair blew in my mouth tasting salt of the sea	D
I cursed him that his oar kept ill time	U
When he looked at me I cursed him again	V
That his eyes were soft as a woman's	A
	-
How long since their last shell gouged our batteries	A
How long since we rose at aim with a sleuth moon astern	V
It was the damned green moon that nosed us out	W
The moon that flushed our periscope till it shone like a silver flame	X
	-
They loosed each man's right hand	F
As the galley spent on our decks	A
And amazed and bloodied we reared half up	Y
And fought askew with the left hand shackled	Z
But a zigzag fire leapt in our sockets	A
And knotted our thews like string	A2
Our thews grown stiff as a crooked spine that would not straighten	V
	-
How long since our gauges fell	B2
And the sea shoved us under	I
It is dark so dark	C2
Darkness presses hairy hot	D2
Where three make crowded company	V
And the rank steel smells	A
It is still so still	E2
I seem to hear the wind	F2
On the dimpled face of the water fathoms above	G2
	-
It was still so still we three that were left alive	H2
Stared in each other's faces	A
But three make bitter company at one man's bread	I2
And our hate grew sharp and bright as the moon's edge in the water	I
	-
One grinned with his mouth awry from the long gapped teeth	J
And one shivered and whined like a gull as the waves pawed us over	I
But one struck with his hate in his hand	F
	-
After that I remember	I
Only the dead men's oars that flapped in the sea	V
The dead men's oars that rattled and clicked like idiots' tongues	A
	-
It is still so still with the jargon of engines quiet	J2
We three awaiting the crunch of the sea	V
Reach our hands in the dark and touch each other's faces	A
We three sheathing hate in our hearts	A
But when hate shall have made its circuit	J2
Our bones will be loving company	V
Here in the sea's den	V
And one whimpers and cries on his God	K2
And one sits sullenly	E2
But both draw away from me	V
For I am the pyre their memories burn on	V
Like black flames leaping	A2
Our fiery gestures light the walled in darkness of the sea	V
The sea that kneels above us	A
And makes no sign	V

Lola Ridge

The Everlasting Return Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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