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

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

Edwin Muir

Edwin Muir was an Orcadian poet, novelist and translator, born on a farm in Deerness on the Orkney Islands. He is remembered for his deeply felt and vivid poetry in plain language with few stylistic preoccupations. more…

All Edwin Muir poems | Edwin Muir Books

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