The Contretemps Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAAB CDCCD EFEEF GHGGH EIEEJ KLKKL MNMMN EDLED OEOOE LPLLP EQEEEQA forward rush by the lamp in the gloom | A |
And we clasped and almost kissed | B |
But she was not the woman whom | A |
I had promised to meet in the thawing brume | A |
On that harbour bridge nor was I he of her tryst | B |
- | |
So loosening from me swift she said | C |
O why why feign to be | D |
The one I had meant to whom I have sped | C |
To fly with being so sorrily wed | C |
'Twas thus and thus that she upbraided me | D |
- | |
My assignation had struck upon | E |
Some others' like it I found | F |
And her lover rose on the night anon | E |
And then her husband entered on | E |
The lamplit snowflaked sloppiness around | F |
- | |
Take her and welcome man he cried | G |
I wash my hands of her | H |
I'll find me twice as good a bride | G |
All this to me whom he had eyed | G |
Plainly as his wife's planned deliverer | H |
- | |
And next the lover Little I knew | E |
Madam you had a third | I |
Kissing here in my very view | E |
Husband and lover then withdrew | E |
I let them and I told them not they erred | J |
- | |
Why not Well there faced she and I | K |
Two strangers who'd kissed or near | L |
Chancewise To see stand weeping by | K |
A woman once embraced will try | K |
The tension of a man the most austere | L |
- | |
So it began and I was young | M |
She pretty by the lamp | N |
As flakes came waltzing down among | M |
The waves of her clinging hair that hung | M |
Heavily on her temples dark and damp | N |
- | |
And there alone still stood we two | E |
She once cast off for me | D |
Or so it seemed while night ondrew | L |
Forcing a parley what should do | E |
We twain hearts caught in one catastrophe | D |
- | |
In stranded souls a common strait | O |
Wakes latencies unknown | E |
Whose impulse may precipitate | O |
A life long leap The hour was late | O |
And there was the Jersey boat with its funnel agroan | E |
- | |
Is wary walking worth much pother | L |
It grunted as still it stayed | P |
One pairing is as good as another | L |
Where is all venture Take each other | L |
And scrap the oaths that you have aforetime made | P |
- | |
Of the four involved there walks but one | E |
On earth at this late day | Q |
And what of the chapter so begun | E |
In that odd complex what was done | E |
Well happiness comes in full to none | E |
Let peace lie on lulled lips I will not say | Q |
Thomas Hardy
(1)
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