Happiness

Edith Wharton 1862 (New York City) – 1937 (Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt)



THIS perfect love can find no words to say.
What words are left, still sacred for our use,
That have not suffered the sad world's abuse,
And figure forth a gladness dimmed and gray?
Let us be silent still, since words convey
But shadowed images, wherein we lose
The fulness of love's light; our lips refuse
The fluent commonplace of yesterday.

Then shall we hear beneath the brooding wing
Of silence what abiding voices sleep,
The primal notes of nature, that outring
Man's little noises, warble he or weep,
The song the morning stars together sing,
The sound of deep that calleth unto deep.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

32 sec read
53

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBAACCA DEDEDE
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 586
Words 106
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 8, 6

Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton (born Edith Newbold Jones) was an American novelist, short story writer, and designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper class New York "aristocracy" to realistically portray the lives and morals of the Gilded Age. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1996. more…

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