The Skater
Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts 1860 (Douglas) – 1943 (Toronto)
My glad feet shod with the glittering steel
I was the god of the wingèd heel.
The hills in the far white sky were lost;
The world lay still in the wide white frost;
And the woods hung hushed in their long white dream
By the ghostly, glimmering, ice-blue stream.
Here was a pathway, smooth like glass,
Where I and the wandering wind might pass
To the far-off palaces, drifted deep,
Where Winter's retinue rests in sleep.
I followed the lure, I fled like a bird,
Till the startled hollows awoke and heard
A spinning whisper, a sibilant twang,
As the stroke of the steel on the tense ice rang;
And the wandering wind was left behind
As faster, faster I followed my mind;
Till the blood sang high in my eager brain,
And the joy of my flight was almost pain.
The I stayed the rush of my eager speed
And silently went as a drifting seed, --
Slowly, furtively, till my eyes
Grew big with the awe of a dim surmise,
And the hair of my neck began to creep
At hearing the wilderness talk in sleep.
Shapes in the fir-gloom drifted near.
In the deep of my heart I heard my fear.
And I turned and fled, like a soul pursued,
From the white, inviolate solitude.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:06 min read
- 57 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AABBCCDDEE FF XX GG HH II JJ EE KK LL |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 1,207 |
Words | 221 |
Stanzas | 10 |
Stanza Lengths | 10, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2 |
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"The Skater" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 4 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/35072/the-skater>.
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