The Vain Question Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAAAC DEDDDF AGAAAG AHAAAH IAIJIA GAGGGA KLKKKL AAAAAA GAGGGA DGDMDG NGOPOG AQAAAQ MGDDDG| Why should we court the storms that rave and rend | A |
| Safe at our household hearth | B |
| Why starved and naked without home or friend | A |
| Unknowing whence we came or where we wend | A |
| Follow from no beginning to no end | A |
| An uncrowned martyr's path | C |
| - | |
| Is it worth while to waste our all in vain | D |
| To seek and not to know | E |
| To strive for something we can never gain | D |
| To labour blindly for a wage of pain | D |
| And crack our heartstrings with the stress and strain | D |
| And reap no field we sow | F |
| - | |
| What does it matter whether love or hate | A |
| Or praise or blame be theirs | G |
| Who pass like shadows with no time to wait | A |
| For understanding of the ways of fate | A |
| Which makes the hopeless desert blossom late | A |
| And kills good wheat with tares | G |
| - | |
| Why do we choose to suffer when we might | A |
| Lie down to sleep and dream | H |
| Is praise for men who try to do the right | A |
| Is blame for him who shirks the deadly fight | A |
| And whose the friendship that is heart's delight | A |
| And whose the love supreme | H |
| - | |
| Wide do we set our sanctuary door | I |
| That fairest guest to greet | A |
| And find too late when we have shown our store | I |
| The sacred places rudely trampled o'er | J |
| Bereaved profaned and soiled for evermore | I |
| With tread of vulgar feet | A |
| - | |
| And nothing left to solace us but this | G |
| At such a frightful cost | A |
| A taste a glimpse the memory of a kiss | G |
| Only a sense of what diviner bliss | G |
| That might have been we have contrived to miss | G |
| Only what love has lost | A |
| - | |
| And brother bond the loyal comradeship | K |
| That comes to every call | L |
| What worth the smiling eye the warm hand grip | K |
| The benediction of the kindly lip | K |
| Sickness old age or poverty can strip | K |
| The value from them all | L |
| - | |
| And faith embalmed in immemorial creed | A |
| Once our supreme support | A |
| Our staff and beacon to uphold and lead | A |
| A light extinguished and a broken reed | A |
| And where O where in bitter time of need | A |
| Shall substitute be sought | A |
| - | |
| Wherefore this anguish of desire to see | G |
| That which concerns us not | A |
| The evolution of the life to be | G |
| The distant course the final destiny | G |
| Of worlds and men the ages wherein we | G |
| Shall have no part or lot | A |
| - | |
| Why not shut eyes of spirit and of brain | D |
| That can torment us thus | G |
| Why not take something to assuage the pain | D |
| And shut the doors and go to sleep again | M |
| The Search may be successful or in vain | D |
| What matters it to us | G |
| - | |
| Is it worth while when house and home are here | N |
| And we can dwell at ease | G |
| To go forth lonely and in mortal fear | O |
| To travel roads that lead not anywhere | P |
| As bare of lamp or signpost far or near | O |
| And full of thorns as these | G |
| - | |
| To leave the Good whereof we are possest | A |
| To seek in senseless grief | Q |
| For some divine but ever unknown Best | A |
| And see no goal and find no place of rest | A |
| Is it worth while on such a fruitless quest | A |
| To waste a life so brief | Q |
| - | |
| We must not ask we must not ask again | M |
| We have to wait and see | G |
| Press on poor soul along the path of pain | D |
| That is the one thing absolutely plain | D |
| The last assessment of the loss and gain | D |
| Is not a task for thee | G |
Ada Cambridge
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