Analysis of A Pair Of Lovers In The Street
Arthur Henry Adams 1872 (Lawrence) – 1936 (Sydney, New South Wales)
A PAIR of lovers in the street!
I dare not mock: with reverence meet
My unforgetting heart I cheat.
Ah, God, spare me—so soon again
At the barred door to beat in vain,
And find their dalliance such fierce pain!
I, yearning up from Hell’s abyss,
See, dreaming through their worlds of bliss,
This Dante and his Beatrice!
For these the distant goal have won
For which God made the plasm and sun;
His patient labouring is done.
For these each Spring has been a bride,
And lonely worlds were spawned and died.
Chaos for them in birth-throes cried.
Far out in seas of Space forlorn
This crescent wave was slowly born
That thunders on the beach of morn.
Ah, they, so soon to be meshed in
The web of splendour, silken-thin,
The nebulae were set to spin!
Up the long path from joy to joy
Love led the way. Can aught destroy
The task that was the stars’ employ?
Their ecstasy to God is more
Than Lucifer at Heaven’s door
Entreating pardon for his war.
These two are gods, for, by love swayed,
They have God’s special task essayed,
And new worlds for their gladness made.
This little hour so lightly given
Makes earth too mean a place to live in,
And broken toys His Hell and Heaven.
All Time, expectant of their bliss,
Hangs fearful. Space through her abyss
Shudders if they this hour should miss.
For if their kiss they went without,
The stars would be a raining rout,
And time in anguish flicker out.
About God’s room from star to sun
A stealthy slippered Thing would run,
Quenching cold tapers one by one.
But they have kissed. Eternity,
Like a great clock, beats steadily
For these mazed fools—but not for me!
Of God’s wide universe the strands
They hold within their clinging hands;
The stars march on at their commands.
So from this moment blossom free
New universes tirelessly—
Aeons of unguessed ecstasy!
But I can only bow and beat
Vain hands about God’s mercy-seat,
And, still remembering, still entreat.
Surely my penance is complete!
The rack turns grimly when I meet
A pair of lovers on the street
Scheme | AAA XBB CCX DDD EEE FFF GGG HHH III JAJ DGD CCC KKK DDD LLL MMM LLL AAA AAA |
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Poetic Form | |
Metre | 01110001 111111001 11111 11111101 10111101 011100111 11011101 11011111 11001100 11010111 11110101 110111 11111101 01010101 10110111 11011101 11011101 11010111 11111110 0111101 010111 10111111 11011101 01110101 11001111 11001101 110111 11111111 1111011 0111111 1101011010 111101110 010111010 11010111 11011001 101111011 11111101 01110101 01010101 01111111 0101111 10110111 11110100 10111100 11111111 1111001 11011101 01111101 11110101 1100100 111100 11110101 11011101 01010011 10110101 01110111 01110101 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 2,265 |
Words | 365 |
Sentences | 25 |
Stanzas | 19 |
Stanza Lengths | 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 |
Lines Amount | 57 |
Letters per line (avg) | 28 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 83 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 19 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 03, 2023
- 1:49 min read
- 147 Views
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"A Pair Of Lovers In The Street" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 22 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/3807/a-pair-of-lovers-in-the-street>.
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