The Dilemma Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDD EEFFGGDD HHIIJJDD FFKKLLAA AAGGMMNN OOPPQQRR| Now by the blessed Paphian queen | A |
| Who heaves the breast of sweet sixteen | A |
| By every name I cut on bark | B |
| Before my morning star grew dark | B |
| By Hymen s torch by Cupid s dart | C |
| By all that thrills the beating heart | C |
| The bright black eye the melting blue | D |
| I cannot choose between the two | D |
| - | |
| I had a vision in my dreams | E |
| I saw a row of twenty beams | E |
| From every beam a rope was hung | F |
| In every rope a lover swung | F |
| I asked the hue of every eye | G |
| That bade each luckless lover die | G |
| Ten shadowy lips said heavenly blue | D |
| And ten accused the darker hue | D |
| - | |
| I asked a matron which she deemed | H |
| With fairest light of beauty beamed | H |
| She answered some thought both were fair | I |
| Give her blue eyes and golden hair | I |
| I might have liked her judgment well | J |
| But as she spoke she rung the bell | J |
| And all her girls nor small nor few | D |
| Came marching in their eyes were blue | D |
| - | |
| I asked a maiden back she flung | F |
| The locks that round her forehead hung | F |
| And turned her eye a glorious one | K |
| Bright as a diamond in the sun | K |
| On me until beneath its rays | L |
| I felt as if my hair would blaze | L |
| She liked all eyes but eyes of green | A |
| She looked at me what could she mean | A |
| - | |
| Ah many lids Love lurks between | A |
| Nor heeds the coloring of his screen | A |
| And when his random arrows fly | G |
| The victim falls but knows not why | G |
| Gaze not upon his shield of jet | M |
| The shaft upon the string is set | M |
| Look not beneath his azure veil | N |
| Though every limb were cased in mail | N |
| - | |
| Well both might make a martyr break | O |
| The chain that bound him to the stake | O |
| And both with but a single ray | P |
| Can melt our very hearts away | P |
| And both when balanced hardly seem | Q |
| To stir the scales or rock the beam | Q |
| But that is dearest all the while | R |
| That wears for us the sweetest smile | R |
Oliver Wendell Holmes
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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