Caput Mortuum
Edwin Arlington Robinson 1869 – 1935
Not even if with a wizard force I might
Have summoned whomsoever I would name,
Should anyone else have come than he who came,
Uncalled, to share with me my fire that night;
For though I should have said that all was right,
Or right enough, nothing had been the same
As when I found him there before the flame,
Always a welcome and a useful sight.
Unfailing and exuberant all the time,
Having no gold he paid with golden rhyme,
Of older coinage than his old defeat,
A debt that like himself was obsolete
In Art’s long hazard, where no man may choose
Whether he play to win or toil to lose.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 34 sec read
- 92 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | ABBAABBA CCDDEE |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic pentameter |
Characters | 596 |
Words | 115 |
Stanzas | 2 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 6 |
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"Caput Mortuum" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 29 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/9956/caput-mortuum>.
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