Mrs. Effingham's Swan Song Poem Rhyme Scheme

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I am growing old I have kept youth too long	A
But I dare not let them know it now	B
I have done the heart of youth a grievous wrong	A
Danced it to dust and drugged it with the rose	C
Forced its reluctant lips to one more vow	B
I have denied the lawful grey	D
So kind so wise to settle in my hair	E
I belong no more to April but September has not taught me her repose	C
I wish I had let myself grow old in the quiet way	D
That is so gracious I wish I did not care	E
My faded mouth will never flower again	F
Under the paint the wrinkles fret my eyes	G
My hair is dull beneath its henna stain	H
I have come to the last ramparts of disguise	G
And now the day draws on of my defeat	I
I shall not meet	I
The swift male glance across the crowded room	J
Where the chance contact of limbs in passing has	K
Its answer in some future fierce embrace	L
I shall sit here in the corners looking on	M
With the older women withered and overblown	N
Who have grown old more graciously than I	O
In a sort of safe and comfortable tomb	J
Knitting myself into Eternity	P
And men will talk to me because they are kind	Q
Or as cunning or a courtesy demands	R
There will be no hidden question in their eyes	G
And no subtle implication in their hands	R
And I shall be so grateful who have been	S
So gracious and so tyrannous moving between	T
Denial and surrender To morrow I shall find	Q
How women live who have no lovers and no answer for life's grey monotonies	R
Upon my table will be no more flowers	R
They will bring me no more flowers until I am dead	U
There will be no violent sweet exciting hours	R
No wild things done or said	U
	-
Yet sometimes I'm so tired of it all	V
This everlasting battle with the flesh	W
This pitiful slavery to the body's thrall	V
And then I do not want to lure or charm	X
I want to wear	E
Soft easy things be comfortable and warm	Y
I want to drowse at leisure in my chair	E
I do not want to wear a veil with heavy mesh	W
Or sit in shaded rooms afraid to face the light	Z
I do not want to go out every night	Z
And be bright and vivid and intense	R
Nor be on the alert and the defense	R
With other women fierce and afraid as I	O
Drawing a knife unseen as each goes by	O
	-
I am so tired of men and making love	A2
For every one's the same	B2
There's nothing new in love under the sun	C2
All love can say or do has long been said and done	C2
I have eaten the fruit of knowledge long enough	D2
Been over kissed over praised and over won	C2
Why should I try to play still the old foolish game	B2
Because I have played the rose's part too long	A
Who plays the rose must pay the rose's price	R
And be a rose or nothing till it dies	R
And even then sometimes the blood will answer fierce and strong	A
To the old hunger to the old dance old tune	E2
I shall feel cruel and passionate and mad	F2
Though I have lost the look of June	E2
The fever of the past will burn my hands	R
A men who live long in intemperate lands	R
Feel the old ague wring them far removed	G2
From the old dreadful glitter of seas and sands	R
The rose dies hard in women who have had	F2
Lovers all their lives and have been much loved	H2
	-
I am afraid to grow old now even if I would	I2
I have fought too well too long and what was once	R
A foolish trick to make the rose more strangely gay	D
Is now a close locked mortal conflict of brain and blood	J2
A feud too old to settle or renounce	R
I shall grow too tired to struggle and the fight will end	K2
And they will enter in at last	L2
Nature and Time long thwarted of their prey	D
Those old grey two more cruel for the lips that said them 'Nay '	-
For the bitterest foe is he who in the past	L2
Has been repulsed when he fain would be friend	K2
	-
I am sorry for women who are growing old	M2
I do not blame them for holding youth with shameful hold	M2
Or doing desperate things to lips and eyes	R
They have so pitifully short a flowering time	N2
So suddenly sweet a story so soon told	M2
They only strive to keep what men have taught them most to prize	R
Men who have longer fuller lives to live	O2
Who are not stopped and broken in their prime	N2
With their faces still to summer men do not know	P2
What Age says to a woman They would not wait	Q2
To feel slip from their hands without a throe	D
Without a struggle futile and desperate	R2
All that has given them wealth and love and power	D
Doomed without hope or rumour of reprieve	S2
They would not smile into the eyes of that advancing hour	D
Who had bent all summer to their bow and had flung	T2
The widest rose and kissed the keenest mouth	U2
And slept in the lordliest bed when they were young	T2
That bitter twilight which sun worshipping Youth	V2
Flies headlong keeps Age loitering on the hill	W2
Uneager to fold such greyness to his breast	X2
Knowing that none will thwart him of his will	W2
None be before him on that quest	X2
	-
I am growing old	M2
I was not always kind when I was young	T2
To women who were old for Youth is blind	Q
A small green bitter thing beneath its fragrant rind	Q
And fanged against the old with boisterous tongue	T2
Those whose poor morning heads are touched with rime	N2
Walking before their misery like kings	R
I did not feel that I should feel such stings	R
Nor flinch beneath such arrows But now I know	P2
One day I shall be stupid and rather slow	P2
And easily cowed and troubled in my mind	Q
And tremulous vaguely frightened feeble and cold	M2
I am growing old My God how old how old	M2
I dare not tell them but one day they will know	P2
I hope they will be kind	Q

Muriel Stuart

Mrs. Effingham's Swan Song Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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