"Fire and Sleet and Candlelight"
"Fire and Sleet and Candlelight"
Original Text
Elinor Wylie, Nets to Catch the Wind (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co., 1921): 30-31. Robarts Library PS 3545 Y45N4.
Cf. Collected Poems of Elinor Wylie, foreword by
William Rose Benét (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
1945): 27. PS 3545 Y45 A17 Robarts Library
1For this you've striven
2 Daring, to fail:
3Your sky is riven
4 Like a tearing veil.
5For this, you've wasted
6 Wings of your youth;
7Divined, and tasted
8 Bitter springs of truth.
9From sand unslakèd
10 Twisted strong cords,
11And wandered naked
12 Among trysted swords.
13There's a word unspoken,
14 A knot untied.
15Whatever is broken
16 The earth may hide.
17The road was jagged
18 Over sharp stones:
19Your body's too ragged
20 To cover your bones.
21The wind scatters
22 Tears upon dust;
23Your soul's in tatters
24 Where the spears thrust.
25Your race is ended --
26 See, it is run:
27Nothing is mended
28 Under the sun.
29Straight as an arrow
30 You fall to a sleep
31Not too narrow
32 And not too deep.
Publication Notes
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2004
Rhyme