In Absence Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCDEDEFGFGHH A IJIJKFKHHLHLMM A NONOJLJLFHFHPP Q RSR HJHJTQTQUU VI | A |
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The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain | B |
Hath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart | C |
O Love O Love across the gray waved main | B |
To thee ward strain my eyes my arms my heart | C |
I ask my God if e'en in His sweet place | D |
Where by one waving of a wistful wing | E |
My soul could straightway tremble face to face | D |
With thee with thee across the stellar ring | E |
Yea where thine absence I could ne'er bewail | F |
Longer than lasts that little blank of bliss | G |
When lips draw back with recent pressure pale | F |
To round and redden for another kiss | G |
Would not my lonesome heart still sigh for thee | H |
What time the drear kiss intervals must be | H |
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II | A |
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So do the mottled formulas of Sense | I |
Glide snakewise through our dreams of Aftertime | J |
So errors breed in reeds and grasses dense | I |
That bank our singing rivulets of rhyme | J |
By Sense rule Space and Time but in God's Land | K |
Their intervals are not save such as lie | F |
Betwixt successive tones in concords bland | K |
Whose loving distance makes the harmony | H |
Ah there shall never come 'twixt me and thee | H |
Gross dissonances of the mile the year | L |
But in the multichords of ecstasy | H |
Our souls shall mingle yet be featured clear | L |
And absence wrought to intervals divine | M |
Shall part yet link thy nature's tone and mine | M |
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III | A |
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Look down the shining peaks of all my days | N |
Base hidden in the valleys of deep night | O |
So shalt thou see the heights and depths of praise | N |
My love would render unto love's delight | O |
For I would make each day an Alp sublime | J |
Of passionate snow white hot yet icy clear | L |
One crystal of the true loves of all time | J |
Spiring the world's prismatic atmosphere | L |
And I would make each night an awful vale | F |
Deep as thy soul obscure as modesty | H |
With every star in heaven trembling pale | F |
O'er sweet profounds where only Love can see | H |
Oh runs not thus the lesson thou hast taught | P |
When life's all love 'tis life aught else 'tis naught | P |
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IV | Q |
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Let no man say 'He at his lady's feet | R |
Lays worship that to Heaven alone belongs | S |
Yea swings the incense that for God is meet | R |
In flippant censers of light lover's songs ' | - |
Who says it knows not God nor love nor thee | H |
For love is large as is yon heavenly dome | J |
In love's great blue each passion is full free | H |
To fly his favorite flight and build his home | J |
Did e'er a lark with skyward pointing beak | T |
Stab by mischance a level flying dove | Q |
Wife love flies level his dear mate to seek | T |
God love darts straight into the skies above | Q |
Crossing the windage of each other's wings | U |
But speeds them both upon their journeyings | U |
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Baltimore | V |
Sidney Lanier
(1)
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