The Stone Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CBBDEDECDCFFD GHFIIGGGEHFE JJBJ BJKLKLMGMGNNDND OIKIPQRQDDDDDDJD JQKQKSKSQS TKTKTT UUUKVKKTV WXWXII JJquot And will you cut a stone for him | A |
To set above his head | B |
And will you cut a stone for him | A |
A stone for him quot she said | B |
- | |
Three days before a splintered rock | C |
Had struck her lover dead | B |
Had struck him in the quarry dead | B |
Where careless of a warning call | D |
He loitered while the shot was fired | E |
A lively stripling brave and tall | D |
And sure of all his heart desired | E |
A flash a shock | C |
A rumbling fall | D |
And broken 'neath the broken rock | C |
A lifeless heap with face of clay | F |
And still as any stone he lay | F |
With eyes that saw the end of all | D |
- | |
I went to break the news to her | G |
And I could hear my own heart beat | H |
With dread of what my lips might say | F |
But some poor fool had sped before | I |
And flinging wide her father's door | I |
Had blurted out the news to her | G |
Had struck her lover dead for her | G |
Had struck the girl's heart dead in her | G |
Had struck life lifeless at a word | E |
And dropped it at her feet | H |
Then hurried on his witless way | F |
Scarce knowing she had heard | E |
- | |
And when I came she stood alone | J |
A woman turned to stone | J |
And though no word at all she said | B |
I knew that all was known | J |
- | |
Because her heart was dead | B |
She did not sigh nor moan | J |
His mother wept | K |
She could not weep | L |
Her lover slept | K |
She could not sleep | L |
Three days three nights | M |
She did not stir | G |
Three days three nights | M |
Were one to her | G |
Who never closed her eyes | N |
From sunset to sunrise | N |
From dawn to evenfall | D |
Her tearless staring eyes | N |
That seeing naught saw all | D |
- | |
The fourth night when I came from work | O |
I found her at my door | I |
quot And will you cut a stone for him quot | K |
She said and spoke no more | I |
But followed me as I went in | P |
And sank upon a chair | Q |
And fixed her grey eyes on my face | R |
With still unseeing stare | Q |
And as she waited patiently | D |
I could not bear to feel | D |
Those still grey eyes that followed me | D |
Those eyes that plucked the heart from me | D |
Those eyes that sucked the breath from me | D |
And curdled the warm blood in me | D |
Those eyes that cut me to the bone | J |
And cut my marrow like cold steel | D |
- | |
And so I rose and sought a stone | J |
And cut it smooth and square | Q |
And as I worked she sat and watched | K |
Beside me in her chair | Q |
Night after night by candlelight | K |
I cut her lover's name | S |
Night after night so still and white | K |
And like a ghost she came | S |
And sat beside me in her chair | Q |
And watched with eyes aflame | S |
- | |
She eyed each stroke | T |
And hardly stirred | K |
she never spoke | T |
A single word | K |
And not a sound or murmur broke | T |
The quiet save the mallet stroke | T |
- | |
With still eyes ever on my hands | U |
With eyes that seemed to burn my hands | U |
My wincing overwearied hands | U |
She watched with bloodless lips apart | K |
And silent indrawn breath | V |
And every stroke my chisel cut | K |
Death cut still deeper in her heart | K |
The two of us were chiselling | T |
Together I and Death | V |
- | |
And when at length my job was done | W |
And I had laid the mallet by | X |
As if at last her peace were won | W |
She breathed his name and with a sigh | X |
Passed slowly through the open door | I |
And never crossed my threshold more | I |
- | |
Next night I laboured late alone | J |
To cut her name upon the stone | J |
Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
(1)
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