In Love For Long
Edwin Muir 1887 (Orkney) – 1959 (Cambridge)
I've been in love for long
With what I cannot tell
And will contrive a song
For the intangible
That has no mould or shape,
From which there's no escape.
It is not even a name,
Yet is all constancy;
Tried or untried, the same,
It cannot part from me;
A breath, yet as still
As the established hill.
It is not any thing,
And yet all being is;
Being, being, being,
Its burden and its bliss.
How can I ever prove
What it is I love?
This happy happy love
Is sieged with crying sorrows,
Crushed beneath and above
Between todays and morrows;
A little paradise
Held in the world's vice.
And there it is content
And careless as a child,
And in imprisonment
Flourishes sweet and wild;
In wrong, beyond wrong,
All the world's day long.
This love a moment known
For what I do not know
And in a moment gone
Is like the happy doe
That keeps its perfect laws
Between the tiger's paws
And vindicates its cause.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 53 sec read
- 74 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AXAXBB CDCDEE FXFXXG GXGDHH XIXIAA XJXJKKX |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 867 |
Words | 174 |
Stanzas | 6 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 7 |
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"In Love For Long" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 19 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/10112/in-love-for-long>.
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