Things I Didn't Know I Loved Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDBEF GHGI JKKKKKLMKMK NOBPKQBKBRPOKSONTU KVWXPKYSYBZYOXYXYA2X YYB2YA2BKZC2BZKB KYXY KOYD2KYYYYE2KYK KYX BBKXKSF2 KE2K KKY BZG2YZBYKXY YZBKKBB XX X| it's March th | A |
| I'm sitting by the window on the Prague Berlin train | B |
| night is falling | C |
| I never knew I liked | D |
| night descending like a tired bird on a smoky wet plain | B |
| I don't like | E |
| comparing nightfall to a tired bird | F |
| - | |
| I didn't know I loved the earth | G |
| can someone who hasn't worked the earth love it | H |
| I've never worked the earth | G |
| it must be my only Platonic love | I |
| - | |
| and here I've loved rivers all this time | J |
| whether motionless like this they curl skirting the hills | K |
| European hills crowned with chateaus | K |
| or whether stretched out flat as far as the eye can see | K |
| I know you can't wash in the same river even once | K |
| I know the river will bring new lights you'll never see | K |
| I know we live slightly longer than a horse but not nearly as long as a crow | L |
| I know this has troubled people before | M |
| and will trouble those after me | K |
| I know all this has been said a thousand times before | M |
| and will be said after me | K |
| - | |
| I didn't know I loved the sky | N |
| cloudy or clear | O |
| the blue vault Andrei studied on his back at Borodino | B |
| in prison I translated both volumes of War and Peace into Turkish | P |
| I hear voices | K |
| not from the blue vault but from the yard | Q |
| the guards are beating someone again | B |
| I didn't know I loved trees | K |
| bare beeches near Moscow in Peredelkino | B |
| they come upon me in winter noble and modest | R |
| beeches are Russian the way poplars are Turkish | P |
| the poplars of Izmir | O |
| losing their leaves | K |
| they call me The Knife | S |
| lover like a young tree | O |
| I blow stately mansions sky high | N |
| in the Ilgaz woods in I tied an embroidered linen handkerchief | T |
| to a pine bough for luck | U |
| - | |
| I never knew I loved roads | K |
| even the asphalt kind | V |
| Vera's behind the wheel we're driving from Moscow to the Crimea | W |
| Koktebele | X |
| formerly Goktep eacute ili in Turkish | P |
| the two of us inside a closed box | K |
| the world flows past on both sides distant and mute | Y |
| I was never so close to anyone in my life | S |
| bandits stopped me on the red road between Bolu and Gered eacute | Y |
| when I was eighteen | B |
| apart from my life I didn't have anything in the wagon they could take | Z |
| and at eighteen our lives are what we value least | Y |
| I've written this somewhere before | O |
| wading through a dark muddy street I'm going to the shadow play | X |
| Ramazan night | Y |
| a paper lantern leading the way | X |
| maybe nothing like this ever happened | Y |
| maybe I read it somewhere an eight year old boy | A2 |
| going to the shadow play | X |
| Ramazan night in Istanbul holding his grandfather's hand | Y |
| his grandfather has on a fez and is wearing the fur coat | Y |
| with a sable collar over his robe | B2 |
| and there's a lantern in the servant's hand | Y |
| and I can't contain myself for joy | A2 |
| flowers come to mind for some reason | B |
| poppies cactuses jonquils | K |
| in the jonquil garden in Kadikoy Istanbul I kissed Marika | Z |
| fresh almonds on her breath | C2 |
| I was seventeen | B |
| my heart on a swing touched the sky | Z |
| I didn't know I loved flowers | K |
| friends sent me three red carnations in prison | B |
| - | |
| I just remembered the stars | K |
| I love them too | Y |
| whether I'm floored watching them from below | X |
| or whether I'm flying at their side | Y |
| - | |
| I have some questions for the cosmonauts | K |
| were the stars much bigger | O |
| did they look like huge jewels on black velvet | Y |
| or apricots on orange | D2 |
| did you feel proud to get closer to the stars | K |
| I saw color photos of the cosmos in Ogonek magazine now don't | Y |
| be upset comrades but nonfigurative shall we say or abstract | Y |
| well some of them looked just like such paintings which is to | Y |
| say they were terribly figurative and concrete | Y |
| my heart was in my mouth looking at them | E2 |
| they are our endless desire to grasp things | K |
| seeing them I could even think of death and not feel at all sad | Y |
| I never knew I loved the cosmos | K |
| - | |
| snow flashes in front of my eyes | K |
| both heavy wet steady snow and the dry whirling kind | Y |
| I didn't know I liked snow | X |
| - | |
| I never knew I loved the sun | B |
| even when setting cherry red as now | B |
| in Istanbul too it sometimes sets in postcard colors | K |
| but you aren't about to paint it that way | X |
| I didn't know I loved the sea | K |
| except the Sea of Azov | S |
| or how much | F2 |
| - | |
| I didn't know I loved clouds | K |
| whether I'm under or up above them | E2 |
| whether they look like giants or shaggy white beasts | K |
| - | |
| moonlight the falsest the most languid the most petit bourgeois | K |
| strikes me | K |
| I like it | Y |
| - | |
| I didn't know I liked rain | B |
| whether it falls like a fine net or splatters against the glass my | Z |
| heart leaves me tangled up in a net or trapped inside a drop | G2 |
| and takes off for uncharted countries I didn't know I loved | Y |
| rain but why did I suddenly discover all these passions sitting | Z |
| by the window on the Prague Berlin train | B |
| is it because I lit my sixth cigarette | Y |
| one alone could kill me | K |
| is it because I'm half dead from thinking about someone back in Moscow | X |
| her hair straw blond eyelashes blue | Y |
| - | |
| the train plunges on through the pitch black night | Y |
| I never knew I liked the night pitch black | Z |
| sparks fly from the engine | B |
| I didn't know I loved sparks | K |
| I didn't know I loved so many things and I had to wait until sixty | K |
| to find it out sitting by the window on the Prague Berlin train | B |
| watching the world disappear as if on a journey of no return | B |
| - | |
| April | X |
| Moscow | X |
| - | |
| - | |
| Trans by Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk | X |
Nazim Hikmet
(1)
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Things I Didn't Know I Loved is a poem by Nazim Hikmet. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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