That Night When I Came To The Grange Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBABB CDDCDD EFFEFF AFFAFF GHHIHH JKKJJJ JJJJJJ IAAIAA ALLALL JJJJJJ JJJJJJ MIIMII ANNANN OIIOII GAAGAA PJJPJJ JA JAA JAAJAA NQQNQQ RSTRTS JUUJUU AAAAAA VGGVGG WJJWJJ JAAJAA XNNXNN JJJJJJ IJJIJJ JBBJBBThe trees took on fantastic shapes | A |
That night when I came to the grange | B |
The very bushes seemed to change | B |
This seemed a hag's head that an ape's | A |
The road itself seemed darkly strange | B |
That night when I came to the grange | B |
- | |
The storm had passed but still the night | C |
Cloaked with deep clouds its true intent | D |
And moody on its way now went | D |
With muttered thunder and the light | C |
Torch like of lightning that was spent | D |
Flickering the mask of its intent | D |
- | |
Like some hurt thing that bleeds to death | E |
Yet never moves nor heaves a sigh | F |
Some last drops shuddered from the sky | F |
The darkness seemed to hold its breath | E |
To see the sullen tempest die | F |
That never moved nor heaved a sigh | F |
- | |
Within my path among the weeds | A |
The glow worm like an evil eye | F |
Glared malice and the boughs on high | F |
Flung curses at me menaced deeds | A |
Of darkness if I passed them by | F |
They and the glow worm's glaring eye | F |
- | |
The night wind rose and raved at me | G |
Hung in the tree beside the gate | H |
The gate that snarled its iron hate | H |
Above the gravel grindingly | I |
And set its teeth to make me wait | H |
Beside the one tree near the gate | H |
- | |
The next thing that I knew a bat | J |
Out of the rainy midnight swept | K |
An evil blow and then there crept | K |
Malignant with its head held flat | J |
A hiss before me as I stept | J |
A fang that from the midnight swept | J |
- | |
I drew my dagger then the blade | J |
That never failed me in my need | J |
'Twere well to be prepared indeed | J |
Who knew what waited there what shade | J |
Or substance banded to impede | J |
My entrance of which there was need | J |
- | |
The blade at least was tangible | I |
Among the shadows I must face | A |
Its touch was real and in case | A |
Hate waylaid me would serve me well | I |
I needed something in that place | A |
Among the shadows I must face | A |
- | |
The dead thorn took me by surprise | A |
A hag like thing with twisted clutch | L |
From o'er the wall I felt it touch | L |
My brow with talons at my eyes | A |
It seemed to wave a knotted crutch | L |
A hag like thing with twisted clutch | L |
- | |
A hound kept howling in the night | J |
He and the wind were all I heard | J |
The wind that maundered some dark word | J |
Of wrong that nothing would make right | J |
To every rain dropp that it stirred | J |
The hound and wind were all I heard | J |
- | |
The grange was silent as the dead | J |
I looked at the dark face of it | J |
Nowhere was any candle lit | J |
It looked like some huge nightmare head | J |
With death's head eyes I paused a bit | J |
To study the dark face of it | J |
- | |
And then I rang and knocked I gave | M |
The great oak door loud blow on blow | I |
No servant answered wild below | I |
The echoes clanged as in a cave | M |
The evil mansion seemed to know | I |
Who struck the door with blow on blow | I |
- | |
Silence no chink of light to say | A |
That he and his were living there | N |
That sinful man with snow white hair | N |
That creature I had come to slay | A |
That wretched thing who did not dare | N |
Reveal that he was hiding there | N |
- | |
I broke my dagger on the door | O |
Yet woke but echoes in the hall | I |
Then set my hands unto the wall | I |
And clomb the ivy as before | O |
In boyhood to a window tall | I |
That was my room's once in that hall | I |
- | |
At last I stood again where he | G |
That vile man with the sneering face | A |
That fiend that foul spot on our race | A |
Had sworn none of our family | G |
Should ever stand again the place | A |
Was dark as his own devil's face | A |
- | |
I stood and felt as if some crime | P |
Closed in on me hedged me around | J |
It clutched at me from closets bound | J |
Its arms around me time on time | P |
I turned and grasped but nothing found | J |
Only the blackness all around | J |
- | |
The darkness took me by the throat | J |
I could not hear but felt it hiss | A |
'Take this you hound and this and this ' | - |
Then all at once afar remote | J |
I heard a door clang Murder is | A |
More cautious yet whose was that hiss | A |
- | |
Oh for a light The blackness jeered | J |
And mouthed at me its sullen face | A |
Was as a mask on all the place | A |
From which two sinister sockets leered | J |
A death's head that my eyes could trace | A |
That stared me sullen in the face | A |
- | |
Then silence packed the hall and stair | N |
And crammed the rooms from attic down | Q |
Since that far door had clanged its frown | Q |
Upon the darkness everywhere | N |
Had settled like a graveyard gown | Q |
It clothed the house from attic down | Q |
- | |
And then I heard a groan and one | R |
Long sigh then silence Who was near | S |
Was it the darkness at my ear | T |
That mocked me with a deed undone | R |
Or was it he who waited here | T |
To kill me when I had drawn near | S |
- | |
I drew my sword then stood and stared | J |
Into the night that was a mask | U |
To all the house that made my task | U |
A hopeless one Ah had it bared | J |
Its teeth at me what more to ask | U |
My sword had gone through teeth and mask | U |
- | |
It was not fair to me my cause | A |
The villain darkness bound my eyes | A |
Why even the moon refused to rise | A |
It might have helped me in that pause | A |
Before I groped the room whose size | A |
Seemed monstrous to my night bound eyes | A |
- | |
What was it that I stumbled on | V |
God for a light that I might see | G |
There something sat that stared at me | G |
Some loathsome twisted thing the spawn | V |
Of hell and midnight Was it he | G |
God for a light that I might see | G |
- | |
And then the moon thank Heaven the moon | W |
Broke through the clouds a face chalk white | J |
Now then at last I had a light | J |
And then I saw the thing seemed hewn | W |
From marble at the moment's sight | J |
Bathed in the full moon's wistful white | J |
- | |
He sat or rather crouched there dead | J |
Her dagger in his heart that girl's | A |
His open eyes as white as pearls | A |
Malignant staring overhead | J |
One hand clutched full of torn out curls | A |
Her dagger in his heart that girl's | A |
- | |
I knew the blade Why I had seen | X |
The thing stuck in her gipsy hair | N |
Worn as they wear them over there | N |
In Spain its gold hilt crusted green | X |
With jade like gems of cruel glare | N |
She wore it in her gipsy hair | N |
- | |
She called it her'green wasp ' and smiled | J |
As if of some such deed she dreamed | J |
And yet to me she always seemed | J |
A child a little timid child | J |
Who at a mouse has often screamed | J |
And yet of deeds like this she dreamed | J |
- | |
Where was she now Some pond or pool | I |
Would yield her body up some day | J |
Poor little waif that'd gone astray | J |
And I oh God how great a fool | I |
To know so long and yet delay | J |
Some pond would yield her up some day | J |
- | |
The world was phantomed with the mist | J |
That night when I came from the grange | B |
So she had stabbed him It was strange | B |
Who would have thought that she who kiss'd | J |
Would kill him too Well women change | B |
Their curse is on the lonely grange | B |
Madison Julius Cawein
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