Fire and Sleet and Candlelight
Elinor Wylie 1885 (Somerville) – 1928
For this you’ve striven
Daring, to fail:
Your sky is riven
Like a tearing veil.
For this, you’ve wasted
Wings of your youth;
Divined, and tasted
Bitter springs of truth.
From sand unslakèd
Twisted strong cords,
And wandered naked
Among trysted swords.
There’s a word unspoken,
A knot untied.
Whatever is broken
The earth may hide.
The road was jagged
Over sharp stones:
Your body’s too ragged
To cover your bones.
The wind scatters
Tears upon dust;
Your soul’s in tatters
Where the spears thrust.
Your race is ended—
See, it is run:
Nothing is mended
Under the sun.
Straight as an arrow
You fall to a sleep
Not too narrow
And not too deep.
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Submitted by halel on July 14, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 34 sec read
- 20 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABAB CDCD XECE AFAF XGCG EHXH CAXA IJIJ |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic dimeter |
Characters | 685 |
Words | 115 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"Fire and Sleet and Candlelight" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 7 May 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/54180/fire-and-sleet-and-candlelight>.
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