Improvisations: Light And Snow: 09

Conrad Potter Aiken 1889 (Savannah, Georgia) – 1973 (Savannah, Georgia)



This girl gave her heart to me,
And this, and this.
This one looked at me as if she loved me,
And silently walked away.
This one I saw once and loved, and never saw her again.
Shall I count them for you upon my fingers?
Or like a priest solemnly sliding beads?
Or pretend they are roses, pale pink, yellow, and white,
And arrange them for you in a wide bowl
To be set in sunlight?
See how nicely it sounds as I count them for you —
‘This girl gave her heart to me
And this, and this, . . . !
And nevertheless, my heart breaks when I think of them,
When I think their names,
And how, like leaves, they have changed and blown
And will lie, at last, forgotten,
Under the snow.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

40 sec read
111

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABacdefghgiABjklmn
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 668
Words 135
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 18

Conrad Potter Aiken

Conrad Potter Aiken was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author born in Savannah Georgia whose work includes poetry short stories novels and an autobiography more…

All Conrad Potter Aiken poems | Conrad Potter Aiken Books

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