The Figure in the Scene

     It pleased her to step in front and sit
        Where the cragged slope was green,
While I stood back that I might pencil it
     With her amid the scene.
        Till it gloomed and rained;
But I kept on, despite the drifting wet
        That fell and stained
My draught, leaving for curious quizzings yet
        The blots engrained.

     And thus I drew her there alone,
        Seated amid the gauze
Of moisture, hooded, only her outline shown,
     With rain-lines marked across.
        --Soon passed our stay;
Yet her rainy form is the Genius still of the spot,
        Immutable, yea,
Though the place now knows her no more, and has known her not
        Ever since that day.

Critique

This poem has an ABABCDCDC rhyming pattern. The first and third lines of each stanza rhyme, as do the second and fourth, fifth, seventh and last, and sixth and eighth. This poetic picture, a sketch of words as the artist in the poem sketches with lines, portrays a misty, ethereal moment of realization. The woman he is sketching is slowly fading away from him. Even as he longingly draws her, her features are hidden, turned away from him, gazing in another direction. The conclusion of the poem suggests that this last moment, the poet cherishes; the moment is forever, but the relationship was not. The poet did not want it to end and is trying to hold the moment. It leads me to wonder if this is not only the last time they were together in this spot, but if it was the last time the poet ever saw this woman.
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