The Child Dying
Edwin Muir 1887 (Orkney) – 1959 (Cambridge)
Unfriendly friendly universe,
I pack your stars into my purse,
And bid you so farewell.
That I can leave you, quite go out,
Go out, go out beyond all doubt,
My father says, is the miracle.
You are so great, and I so small:
I am nothing, you are all:
Being nothing, I can take this way.
Oh I need neither rise nor fall,
For when I do not move at all
I shall be out of all your day.
It's said some memory will remain
In the other place, grass in the rain,
Light on the land, sun on the sea,
A flitting grace, a phantom face,
But the world is out. There is not place
Where it and its ghost can ever be.
Father, father, I dread this air
Blown from the far side of despair
The cold cold corner. What house, what hold,
What hand is there? I look and see
Nothing-filled eternity,
And the great round world grows weak and old.
Hold my hand, oh hold it fast-
I am changing! - until at last
My hand in yours no more will change,
Though yours change on. You here, I there,
So hand in hand, twin-leafed despair -
I did not know death was so strange.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:03 min read
- 149 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AAXBBX CCDCCD EEFGGF HHIFFI JJKHHK |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,017 |
Words | 212 |
Stanzas | 5 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6, 6 |
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"The Child Dying" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 6 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/10121/the-child-dying>.
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