Death Alone Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCCDEF GHBIJKL MNOPPQPRR ISPTIU UPVWWXS YQYQQ PPPPSC| There are lone cemeteries | A |
| tombs full of soundless bones | B |
| the heart threading a tunnel | C |
| a dark dark tunnel | C |
| like a wreck we die to the very core | D |
| as if drowning at the heart | E |
| or collapsing inwards from skin to soul | F |
| - | |
| There are corpses | G |
| clammy slabs for feet | H |
| there is death in the bones | B |
| like a pure sound | I |
| a bark without its dog | J |
| out of certain bells certain tombs | K |
| swelling in this humidity like lament or rain | L |
| - | |
| I see when alone at times | M |
| coffins under sail | N |
| setting out with the pale dead women in their dead braids | O |
| bakers as white as angels | P |
| thoughtful girls married to notaries | P |
| coffins ascending the vertical river of the dead | Q |
| the wine dark river to its source | P |
| with their sails swollen with the sound of death | R |
| filled with the silent noise of death | R |
| - | |
| Death is drawn to sound | I |
| like a slipper without a foot a suit without its wearer | S |
| comes to knock with a ring stoneless and fingerless | P |
| comes to shout without a mouth a tongue without a throat | T |
| Nevertheless its footsteps sound | I |
| and its clothes echo hushed like a tree | U |
| - | |
| I do not know I am ignorant I hardly see | U |
| but it seems to me that its song has the colour of wet violets | P |
| violets well used to the earth | V |
| since the face of death is green | W |
| and the gaze of death green | W |
| with the etched moisture of a violet's leaf | X |
| and its grave colour of exasperated winter | S |
| - | |
| But death goes about the earth also riding a broom | Y |
| lapping the ground in search of the dead | Q |
| death is in the broom | Y |
| it is the tongue of death looking for the dead | Q |
| the needle of death looking for the thread | Q |
| - | |
| Death lies in our beds | P |
| in the lazy mattresses the black blankets | P |
| lives a full stretch and then suddenly blows | P |
| blows sound unknown filling out the sheets | P |
| and there are beds sailing into a harbour | S |
| where death is waiting dressed as an admiral | C |
Pablo Neruda
(1)
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About Death Alone
Death Alone is a poem by Pablo Neruda. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.