I am all alone in the house to-night;
They would not have gone away
Had they known of the terrible, bloodless fight
I have held with my heart to-day.
With the old sweet love and the old fierce pain
I have battled hour by hour;
But the fates have willed that the strife is vain.
Alone in the hour my thoughts have reign,
And I yield myself to their power.
Use the stanza to answer the question.
How does the structure of this stanza affect its meaning?
The inconsistent rhyme scheme emphasizes the fight between the
speaker’s feelings of love and pain.
a. The rhythmic, singsong quality of the lines contradicts the emotional battle
the speaker describes.
b. The iambic pentamer in all the lines gives equal weight to the speaker’s
memories of love and pain.
c. The iambic pentamer in all the lines gives equal weight to the speaker’s memories of love and pain.
d. The use of the traditional sonnet form provides a sense of order to the speaker’s emotional battle.