Ordained Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBCDDEFFF GHGHFFIJJI KLKLMMNOON PQPQRRSTTS UVUWXXYZZY A2B2A2B2FFC2YYC2 D2YD2YYYE2FFE2 QIIIYYYF2F2Y G2FG2FYYH2KKH2 I2NI2NIIOYYYO| A | |
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| THROUGH jewelled windows in the walls | B |
| The tempered daylight smiles | C |
| And solemn music swells and falls | B |
| Adown these stately aisles | C |
| Beneath that carven chancel rood | D |
| Low murmurs hushed to silence brood | D |
| One voice in prayer appeals | E |
| For Holy Spirit's quickening grace | F |
| To light his now anointed face | F |
| Who at the altar kneels | F |
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| - | |
| - | |
| One hour ago like us he trod | G |
| Along these cloisters dim | H |
| Now we are bid to reverence God | G |
| Made manifest in him | H |
| To mock at our enlightened sense | F |
| And dearly won experience | F |
| So far beyond his own | I |
| To take him for our heaven sent guide | J |
| Upon these seas so wild and wide | J |
| To him as yet unknown | I |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| Unconscious of the coming strife | K |
| Unformed in mind and thought | L |
| Without one ripe idea of life | K |
| Save what his school books taught | L |
| An ignorant boy he vows a vow | M |
| To think and feel as he does now | M |
| Till his gold locks are grey | N |
| Pledges his word to learn no more | O |
| To add no wisdom to the store | O |
| His young mind holds to day | N |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| How shall he keep this senseless oath | P |
| When once a full grown man | Q |
| How shall he check his upward growth | P |
| To fit this meagre plan | Q |
| Only by ruthless pinching out | R |
| Of all the fairest shoots that sprout | R |
| As on a healthy tree | S |
| From his expanding brain and heart | T |
| Defrauding his diviner part | T |
| Of its virility | S |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| And thus shall youthful passion pale | U |
| In native force and fire | V |
| And thus shall soaring pinions fail | U |
| Bedraggled in the mire | W |
| This tender conscience now so bright | X |
| Lose its fine sense of wrong and right | X |
| Dulled with a moral rust | Y |
| This ardent intellect be damped | Z |
| This eager spirit starved and cramped | Z |
| Choked in mediaeval dust | Y |
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| - | |
| Thus shall the fettered arm grow numb | A2 |
| And blind the bandaged eye | B2 |
| Thus shall the silenced voice grow dumb | A2 |
| As year by year goes by | B2 |
| Until at last from long abuse | F |
| And lack of free and wholesome use | F |
| All manhood's powers decline | C2 |
| And like a lamp unfed untrimmed | Y |
| Intelligence once bright is dimmed | Y |
| No more to burn and shine | C2 |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| Then may we see this sanguine youth | D2 |
| Born for a nobler lot | Y |
| Turn traitor to the highest truth | D2 |
| Because he knows it not | Y |
| Serving for Mammon veiled as God | Y |
| Cringing for high born patron's nod | Y |
| For social place and gain | E2 |
| While he mechanically yields | F |
| The produce of his fallow fields | F |
| Husks of long garnered grain | E2 |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| No more a brave and honest man | Q |
| Whose conscience is his own | I |
| But worse than thief and courtesan | I |
| To degradation grown | I |
| A cheat and hypocrite content | Y |
| In shelter of base precedent | Y |
| The downward path to tread | Y |
| Lest he should lose his Esau's bowl | F2 |
| That bought the birthright of his soul | F2 |
| And have to earn his bread | Y |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| Or if remorsefully aware | G2 |
| Of his ignoble case | F |
| Owning himself too weak to dare | G2 |
| A brother's hostile face | F |
| Too weak to stand alone and fight | Y |
| Against the strong world's might with right | Y |
| A leader's part to take | H2 |
| Dying a daily death in life | K |
| At outward peace and inward strife | K |
| For poor convention's sake | H2 |
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| - | |
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| Let organ music swell and peal | I2 |
| And priests and people pray | N |
| Let those who can at altar kneel | I2 |
| I have no heart to stay | N |
| I cannot bear to see it done | I |
| This fresh young life scarce yet begun | I |
| Closed by that iron door | O |
| A free born spirit gagged and bound | Y |
| Tethered to one small plot of ground | Y |
| While all the great world spreads around | Y |
| And doomed to fly no more | O |
Ada Cambridge
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