The Coward Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAACCDEDDEEFGFFGGHI HHJIKLKMLLNCNNCBOMOO MMEPQQPPKRKKRRSTUSVVHe found the road so long and lone | A |
That he was fain to turn again | B |
The bird's faint note the bee's low drone | A |
Seemed to his heart to monotone | A |
The unavailing and the vain | C |
And dirge the dreams that life had slain | C |
And for a while he sat him there | D |
Beside the way and bared his head | E |
He felt the hot sun on his hair | D |
And weed warm odors everywhere | D |
Waked memories forgot or dead | E |
Of days when love this way had led | E |
To that old house beside the road | F |
With white board fence and picket gate | G |
And garden plot that gleamed and glowed | F |
With color and that overflowed | F |
With fragrance where both soon and late | G |
She 'mid the flowers used to wait | G |
Was it the same or had it changed | H |
As he and she with months and years | I |
How long now had they been estranged | H |
How far away their lives had ranged | H |
Since that last meeting filled with tears | J |
And boyish hopes and maiden fears | I |
He closed his eyes and seemed to see | K |
That parting now The moon above | L |
The old house and its locust tree | K |
The moths that glimmered drowsily | M |
From flower to flower the scent whereof | L |
Seemed portion of that oldtime love | L |
Her face was lifted pale and wet | N |
Her body tense as if with pain | C |
He stooped yes he could see it yet | N |
A moment and their young lips met | N |
And then There in the lonely lane | C |
He seemed to live it o'er again | B |
Why had he gone 'Twas for her sake | O |
But what had come of all his toil | M |
The City like some monster snake | O |
Had dragged him down down half awake | O |
Crushing him in its grimy coil | M |
Whence none escapes without a soil | M |
He was not clean yet She would read | E |
Failure vice written in his face | P |
But haply now she had no need | Q |
Of him whose life like some wild weed | Q |
Full grown with evil would replace | P |
The love in her heart's garden space | P |
He could not bear to look and see | K |
The question in those virgin eyes | R |
What answer for that look had he | K |
He thought it out It could not be | K |
He could not live a life of lies | R |
Better to break all oldtime ties | R |
And then he rose The house was near | S |
There where the road turned from the wood | T |
Whose voice was that he seemed to hear | U |
Then heart and soul were seized with fear | S |
And turning as if death pursued | V |
He fled into the solitude | V |
Madison Julius Cawein
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