Quare Fatigasti Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACAAAC ADADAAAD EFGHEEGI JKJKJJJK GLGLEEEL MNMOPMMO PQMQMMMR GSASAAAS| Two years ago I was thinking | A |
| On the changes that years bring forth | B |
| Now I stand where I then stood drinking | A |
| The gust and the salt sea froth | C |
| And the shuddering wave strikes linking | A |
| With the waves subsiding and sinking | A |
| And clots the coast herbage shrinking | A |
| With the hue of the white cere cloth | C |
| - | |
| Is there aught worth losing or keeping | A |
| The bitters or sweets men quaff | D |
| The sowing or the doubtful reaping | A |
| The harvest of grain or chaff | D |
| Or squandering days or heaping | A |
| Or waking seasons or sleeping | A |
| The laughter that dries the weeping | A |
| Or the weeping that drowns the laugh | D |
| - | |
| For joys wax dim and woes deaden | E |
| We forget the sorrowful biers | F |
| And the garlands glad that have fled in | G |
| The merciful march of years | H |
| And the sunny skies and the leaden | E |
| And the faces that pale or redden | E |
| And the smiles that lovers are wed in | G |
| Who are born and buried in tears | I |
| - | |
| And the myrtle bloom turns hoary | J |
| And the blush of the rose decays | K |
| And sodden with sweat and gory | J |
| Are the hard won laurels and bays | K |
| We are neither joyous nor sorry | J |
| When time has ended our story | J |
| And blotted out grief and glory | J |
| And pain and pleasure and praise | K |
| - | |
| Weigh justly throw good and bad in | G |
| The scales will the balance veer | L |
| With the joys or the sorrows had in | G |
| The sum of a life's career | L |
| In the end spite of dreams that sadden | E |
| The sad or the sanguine madden | E |
| There is nothing to grieve or gladden | E |
| There is nothing to hope or fear | L |
| - | |
| Thou hast gone astray quoth the preacher | M |
| In the gall of thy bitterness | N |
| Thou hast taught me in vain oh teacher | M |
| I neither blame thee nor bless | O |
| If bitter is sure and sweet sure | P |
| These vanish with form and feature | M |
| Can the creature fathom the creature | M |
| Whose Creator is fathomless | O |
| - | |
| Is this dry land sure Is the sea sure | P |
| Is there aught that shall long remain | Q |
| Pain or peril or pleasure | M |
| Pleasure or peril or pain | Q |
| Shall we labour or take our leisure | M |
| And who shall inherit treasure | M |
| If the measure with which we measure | M |
| Is meted to us again | R |
| - | |
| I am slow in learning and swift in | G |
| Forgetting and I have grown | S |
| So weary with long sand sifting | A |
| T'wards the mist where the breakers moan | S |
| The rudderless bark is drifting | A |
| Through the shoals and the quicksands shifting | A |
| In the end shall the night rack lifting | A |
| Discover the shores unknown | S |
Adam Lindsay Gordon
(1)
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