The Mail Cutter Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCD EFGH IJII KILI IMIN OIII IIPI QIR LIIL IIIS TUVQ WQII IXIY IZII QII IIA2I IIII LB2WI A2| The ice had not even begun to break | A |
| no boat could possibly sail yet | B |
| but the letters lay in a pile at the post office | C |
| with all their requests and instructions | D |
| - | |
| Among them trying vainly to leave | E |
| in the scrawls of fishermen | F |
| were reproaches complaints cries | G |
| awkward confessions of love | H |
| - | |
| In vain the huskies gazed out to sea | I |
| searching the waves through the fog | J |
| lying like gray hillocks | I |
| on the bottoms of overturned boats | I |
| - | |
| But like a ghost dreamed up | K |
| from the desperate monotony | I |
| the ice covered mail boat | L |
| showed her gray masts | I |
| - | |
| She was beaten up and dirty | I |
| but to the fishing village | M |
| her chilly husky voice | I |
| sounded like the sweetest music | N |
| - | |
| And the gloomy sailors throwing us a line | O |
| to the shore like Vikings | I |
| silently skillfully | I |
| carried canvas sacks full of people's souls | I |
| - | |
| And again the ship went out tiredly | I |
| her hull breaking the ice with difficulty | I |
| and I sat in her dank hold | P |
| among the piled sacks | I |
| - | |
| Tormented I searched for an answer | Q |
| with all my restless conscience | I |
| 'Just what am I in fact | R |
| and where am I going ' | - |
| - | |
| Can it be I am like a frail boat | L |
| and that the passions like the waves roll | I |
| and toss me about ' But my inner voice | I |
| answered me 'You are a mail boat | L |
| - | |
| Make speed through the angry waves | I |
| heavy with ice to all those people | I |
| who have been seperated by the ice | I |
| who are waiting to get in touch again | S |
| - | |
| And like the first sign of the ship | T |
| for which people waited so long | U |
| carry onward the undying light | V |
| of the duty that links us together | Q |
| - | |
| And along the foaming arctic sea of life | W |
| through all the ice and against the nor'wester | Q |
| carry with you those mailbags | I |
| full of hopelessness and hopes | I |
| - | |
| But remember as you hang on the whistle | I |
| as soon as the storms die down | X |
| steamers real ships | I |
| will go through these waters not afraid anymore | Y |
| - | |
| And the fishermen standing up in the barges | I |
| will look admiringly at them | Z |
| and their sleek velvety whistles | I |
| and make them forget your husky voice | I |
| - | |
| But you with the stink of fish and blubber | Q |
| don't lower your rigging gloomily | I |
| You've done the job on schedule | I |
| Be happy then You are the mail cutter ' | - |
| - | |
| Thus the inner voice spoke to me | I |
| impressing upon me the burden of prophecy | I |
| And amid the white night of the Arctic Ocean | A2 |
| somehow it was all morning for me | I |
| - | |
| I didn't think enviously | I |
| of someone else covered with honours | I |
| I was simply happy that a few things | I |
| also depended on me | I |
| - | |
| And covered in someone's fur coat | L |
| I was dependent on so much | B2 |
| and like that letter from Vanka Zhukov | W |
| I dozed on heaps of other letters | I |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| Translated by Tina Tupikina Glaessner Geoffrey Dutton and Igor Mezhakoff Koriakin | A2 |
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
(1)
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About The Mail Cutter
The Mail Cutter is a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.