Humanity's Stream Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGH IJJHHHKLMANJOPQRSHTJ UJAJVJNQWXLYDZJA2HB2 IC2JD2ZWZE2F2DZG2DH2 ZI2A2MWJ2K2WL2JM2JHJ N2ZWD2O2O2JJO2P2O2O2 A2J Q2R2O2S2T2JIU2JWV2JJ JJJO2O2JW2J JO2JX2JZJO2 IQZY2Z2A3SI stood upon a crowded thoroughfare | A |
Within a city's confines where were met | B |
All classes and conditions and surveyed | C |
From a secluded niche or aperture | D |
The various ever changing multitude | E |
Which passed along in restless turbulence | F |
And as a human river ebbed and flowed | G |
Within its banks of brick and masonry | H |
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Within this vast and heterogeneous throng | I |
One might discern all stages and degrees | J |
From wealth and power to helpless indigence | J |
Extravagance to trenchant penury | H |
And all extremes of want and misery | H |
Some blest by wealth some cursed by poverty | H |
Some in positions neutral to them both | K |
Some wore a gaunt and ill conditioned look | L |
Which told its tale of lack of nourishment | M |
While others showed that irritated air | A |
Which speaks of gout and pampered appetite | N |
Some following vocations quite reverse | J |
From those which nature had endowed them for | O |
Some passed with face self satisfied and calm | P |
As if the world bore nothing else but joy | Q |
And some there were who from the cradle's mouth | R |
As they pursued their journey to the grave | S |
Had felt no throb save that of misery | H |
The man of large affairs passed by in haste | T |
With mind preoccupied nor thought of else | J |
Save undertakings which concerned himself | U |
The shallow son of misplaced opulence | J |
Came strutting by with self important air | A |
With head erect in a contemptuous poise | J |
As if the stars were subject to his will | V |
And e'en the golden sun was something base | J |
Which had offended with its wholesome light | N |
In shining on so great a personage | Q |
A being more than ordinary clay | W |
And much superior to the vulgar herd | X |
Some faces passed which knew no kindly look | L |
And felt no friendly pressure of the hand | Y |
And if the face depict the character | D |
Some passed so steeped in crime and villainy | Z |
That Judas' vile ill favored countenance | J |
Would seem in contrast quite respectable | A2 |
Some features glowed with unfeigned honesty | H |
Some grimaced in dissimulating craft | B2 |
Some smiled benignantly and passed along | I |
Some faces meek some stern and resolute | C2 |
Some the embodiment of gentleness | J |
Some whose specific aspects plainly told | D2 |
Their fondest dreams were not of earth but heaven | Z |
A newly wedded couple passed that way | W |
In the sweet zenith of their honeymoon | Z |
But little dreaming what the future held | E2 |
The light and trivial fool the brainless fop | F2 |
The staid and sober priest and minister | D |
And she who worshiped at proud fashion's shrine | Z |
The mental giant serious and sad | G2 |
The thoughtful student and philosopher | D |
And some of intellect diminutive | H2 |
The man of letters with abstracted mien | Z |
And he whose every thought was on the toil | I2 |
Which made his bare existence possible | A2 |
The blushing maiden pure and innocent | M |
The stately grandam dignified and gray | W |
The matron with the babe upon her breast | J2 |
The silly superannuated flirt | K2 |
Who nursed her waning beauty day by day | W |
And still essayed to act the role of youth | L2 |
The gay coquette and belle of other days | J |
Who in life's morning with disdainful laugh | M2 |
Had quaffed the cup of pleasure to its dregs | J |
And now grown old must pay the penalty | H |
In wrinkles and uncourted loneliness | J |
The widow who but newly desolate | N2 |
Would grasp a hand then start to find it gone | Z |
The spendthrift and the sordid usurer | W |
Who knew no sentiment save lust for gold | D2 |
The bloated drunkard sinking 'neath the weight | O2 |
Of wassail inclination dissolute | O2 |
The youth who following his baleful steps | J |
Reeled for the first time from intemperance | J |
And she who had forgot her covenant | O2 |
In brazen infamy and unwept shame | P2 |
The good the bad the impious and unjust | O2 |
The energetic and the indolent | O2 |
The adolescent and the venerable | A2 |
Passed by pursuant of their various ways | J |
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The aged and decrepit plodded by | Q2 |
Whom one would think were ripe for any tomb | R2 |
Yet quailed at dissolution's very thought | O2 |
The crippled and deformed with cane and crutch | S2 |
Came limping by as eddies in the stream | T2 |
The mendicant whose eyes might never see | J |
The golden sunlight felt his way along | I |
And though the world was dark still shrank from death | U2 |
Some faces showed the trace of recent tears | J |
And some revealed the impress of despair | W |
Others endeavored with a careless smile | V2 |
To hide a breast surcharged with hopelessness | J |
As one afflicted with a foul disease | J |
Strives to avoid the scrutinizing gaze | J |
By the assumption of indifference | J |
Some whose misfortunes and adversities | J |
And oft repeated disappointments dried | O2 |
The fountain heads of kindness and had turned | O2 |
Life's sweetest joys to gall and bitterness | J |
Each face betrayed some sort or form of woe | W2 |
In more than one I read a tragedy | J |
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How complex is existence What a maze | J |
Of complication and entanglement | O2 |
Each thread combining with the other threads | J |
Fulfills its office in the labyrinth | X2 |
Each link concatenates the other links | J |
Which constitute the vast and endless chain | Z |
Of human life and human destiny | J |
The strange phantasmagoria of fate | O2 |
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So we in life's procession pass along | I |
To the accompaniment of secret dirge | Q |
Or laughter interspersed with tear and groan | Z |
Nor pause a moment nor retrace a step | Y2 |
But march in Fate's spectacular review | Z2 |
In pageant to our common goal | A3 |
The Grave | S |
Alfred Castner King
(1)
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