The Two Voices Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AAA BCC DDD EEE FFF GGG FFF FFF HHH III FFF JJJ JAA KLK MMM AAA NNN OLO PPP MMM FFF QQQ FFF RRR FFF SSS FFF TTT UUU FFF FFF VVV FFF WWW JJJ JJJ FFF XXX FFF FFF RRR YYY ZZZ A2A2A2 B2B2C2 FFF RD2R FFF RRR E2E2E2 RRR F2F2F2 FFF SSS JJJ TTT G2G2G2 FFF FFF H2H2H2 I2I2I2 J2J2J2 RRR K2K2K2 VL2L2 M2N2S JJJ JJJ RRR O2O2O2 QQQ| A still small voice spake unto me | A |
| Thou art so full of misery | A |
| Were it not better not to be | A |
| - | |
| Then to the still small voice I said | B |
| Let me not cast in endless shade | C |
| What is so wonderfully made | C |
| - | |
| To which the voice did urge reply | D |
| To day I saw the dragon fly | D |
| Come from the wells where he did lie | D |
| - | |
| An inner impulse rent the veil | E |
| Of his old husk from head to tail | E |
| Came out clear plates of sapphire mail | E |
| - | |
| He dried his wings like gauze they grew | F |
| Thro' crofts and pastures wet with dew | F |
| A living flash of light he flew | F |
| - | |
| I said When first the world began | G |
| Young Nature thro' five cycles ran | G |
| And in the sixth she moulded man | G |
| - | |
| She gave him mind the lordliest | F |
| Proportion and above the rest | F |
| Dominion in the head and breast | F |
| - | |
| Thereto the silent voice replied | F |
| Self blinded are you by your pride | F |
| Look up thro' night the world is wide | F |
| - | |
| This truth within thy mind rehearse | H |
| That in a boundless universe | H |
| Is boundless better boundless worse | H |
| - | |
| Think you this mould of hopes and fears | I |
| Could find no statelier than his peers | I |
| In yonder hundred million spheres | I |
| - | |
| It spake moreover in my mind | F |
| Tho' thou wert scatter'd to the wind | F |
| Yet is there plenty of the kind | F |
| - | |
| Then did my response clearer fall | J |
| No compound of this earthly ball | J |
| Is like another all in all | J |
| - | |
| To which he answer'd scoffingly | J |
| Good soul suppose I grant it thee | A |
| Who'll weep for thy deficiency | A |
| - | |
| Or will one beam be less intense | K |
| When thy peculiar difference | L |
| Is cancell'd in the world of sense | K |
| - | |
| I would have said Thou canst not know | M |
| But my full heart that work'd below | M |
| Rain'd thro' my sight its overflow | M |
| - | |
| Again the voice spake unto me | A |
| Thou art so steep'd in misery | A |
| Surely 'twere better not to be | A |
| - | |
| Thine anguish will not let thee sleep | N |
| Nor any train of reason keep | N |
| Thou canst not think but thou wilt weep | N |
| - | |
| I said The years with change advance | O |
| If I make dark my countenance | L |
| I shut my life from happier chance | O |
| - | |
| Some turn this sickness yet might take | P |
| Ev'n yet But he What drug can make | P |
| A wither'd palsy cease to shake | P |
| - | |
| I wept Tho' I should die I know | M |
| That all about the thorn will blow | M |
| In tufts of rosy tinted snow | M |
| - | |
| And men thro' novel spheres of thought | F |
| Still moving after truth long sought | F |
| Will learn new things when I am not | F |
| - | |
| Yet said the secret voice some time | Q |
| Sooner or later will gray prime | Q |
| Make thy grass hoar with early rime | Q |
| - | |
| Not less swift souls that yearn for light | F |
| Rapt after heaven's starry flight | F |
| Would sweep the tracts of day and night | F |
| - | |
| Not less the bee would range her cells | R |
| The furzy prickle fire the dells | R |
| The foxglove cluster dappled bells | R |
| - | |
| I said that all the years invent | F |
| Each month is various to present | F |
| The world with some development | F |
| - | |
| Were this not well to bide mine hour | S |
| Tho' watching from a ruin'd tower | S |
| How grows the day of human power | S |
| - | |
| The highest mounted mind he said | F |
| Still sees the sacred morning spread | F |
| The silent summit overhead | F |
| - | |
| Will thirty seasons render plain | T |
| Those lonely lights that still remain | T |
| Just breaking over land and main | T |
| - | |
| Or make that morn from his cold crown | U |
| And crystal silence creeping down | U |
| Flood with full daylight glebe and town | U |
| - | |
| Forerun thy peers thy time and let | F |
| Thy feet millenniums hence be set | F |
| In midst of knowledge dream'd not yet | F |
| - | |
| Thou hast not gain'd a real height | F |
| Nor art thou nearer to the light | F |
| Because the scale is infinite | F |
| - | |
| 'Twere better not to breathe or speak | V |
| Than cry for strength remaining weak | V |
| And seem to find but still to seek | V |
| - | |
| Moreover but to seem to find | F |
| Asks what thou lackest thought resign'd | F |
| A healthy frame a quiet mind | F |
| - | |
| I said When I am gone away | W |
| He dared not tarry ' men will say | W |
| Doing dishonour to my clay | W |
| - | |
| This is more vile he made reply | J |
| To breathe and loathe to live and sigh | J |
| Than once from dread of pain to die | J |
| - | |
| Sick art thou a divided will | J |
| Still heaping on the fear of ill | J |
| The fear of men a coward still | J |
| - | |
| Do men love thee Art thou so bound | F |
| To men that how thy name may sound | F |
| Will vex thee lying underground | F |
| - | |
| The memory of the wither'd leaf | X |
| In endless time is scarce more brief | X |
| Than of the garner'd Autumn sheaf | X |
| - | |
| Go vexed Spirit sleep in trust | F |
| The right ear that is fill'd with dust | F |
| Hears little of the false or just | F |
| - | |
| Hard task to pluck resolve I cried | F |
| From emptiness and the waste wide | F |
| Of that abyss or scornful pride | F |
| - | |
| Nay rather yet that I could raise | R |
| One hope that warm'd me in the days | R |
| While still I yearn'd for human praise | R |
| - | |
| When wide in soul and bold of tongue | Y |
| Among the tents I paused and sung | Y |
| The distant battle flash'd and rung | Y |
| - | |
| I sung the joyful P an clear | Z |
| And sitting burnish'd without fear | Z |
| The brand the buckler and the spear | Z |
| - | |
| Waiting to strive a happy strife | A2 |
| To war with falsehood to the knife | A2 |
| And not to lose the good of life | A2 |
| - | |
| Some hidden principle to move | B2 |
| To put together part and prove | B2 |
| And mete the bounds of hate and love | C2 |
| - | |
| As far as might be to carve out | F |
| Free space for every human doubt | F |
| That the whole mind might orb about | F |
| - | |
| To search thro' all I felt or saw | R |
| The springs of life the depths of awe | D2 |
| And reach the law within the law | R |
| - | |
| At least not rotting like a weed | F |
| But having sown some generous seed | F |
| Fruitful of further thought and deed | F |
| - | |
| To pass when Life her light withdraws | R |
| Not void of righteous self applause | R |
| Nor in a merely selfish cause | R |
| - | |
| In some good cause not in mine own | E2 |
| To perish wept for honour'd known | E2 |
| And like a warrior overthrown | E2 |
| - | |
| Whose eyes are dim with glorious tears | R |
| When soil'd with noble dust he hears | R |
| His country's war song thrill his ears | R |
| - | |
| Then dying of a mortal stroke | F2 |
| What time the foeman's line is broke | F2 |
| And all the war is roll'd in smoke | F2 |
| - | |
| Yea said the voice thy dream was good | F |
| While thou abodest in the bud | F |
| It was the stirring of the blood | F |
| - | |
| If Nature put not forth her power | S |
| About the opening of the flower | S |
| Who is it that could live an hour | S |
| - | |
| Then comes the check the change the fall | J |
| Pain rises up old pleasures pall | J |
| There is one remedy for all | J |
| - | |
| Yet hadst thou thro' enduring pain | T |
| Link'd month to month with such a chain | T |
| Of knitted purport all were vain | T |
| - | |
| Thou hadst not between death and birth | G2 |
| Dissolved the riddle of the earth | G2 |
| So were thy labour little worth | G2 |
| - | |
| That men with knowledge merely play'd | F |
| I told thee hardly nigher made | F |
| Tho' scaling slow from grade to grade | F |
| - | |
| Much less this dreamer deaf and blind | F |
| Named man may hope some truth to find | F |
| That bears relation to the mind | F |
| - | |
| For every worm beneath the moon | H2 |
| Draws different threads and late and soon | H2 |
| Spins toiling out his own cocoon | H2 |
| - | |
| Cry faint not either Truth is born | I2 |
| Beyond the polar gleam forlorn | I2 |
| Or in the gateways of the morn | I2 |
| - | |
| Cry faint not climb the summits slope | J2 |
| Beyond the furthest flights of hope | J2 |
| Wrapt in dense cloud from base to cope | J2 |
| - | |
| Sometimes a little corner shines | R |
| As over rainy mist inclines | R |
| A gleaming crag with belts of pines | R |
| - | |
| I will go forward sayest thou | K2 |
| I shall not fail to find her now | K2 |
| Look up the fold is on her brow | K2 |
| - | |
| If straight thy track or if oblique | V |
| Thou know'st not Shadows thou dost strike | L2 |
| Embracing cloud Ixion like | L2 |
| - | |
| And owning but a little more | M2 |
| Than beasts abidest lame and poor | N2 |
| Calling thyself a little lower | S |
| - | |
| Than angels Cease to wail and brawl | J |
| Why inch by inch to darkness crawl | J |
| There is one remedy for all | J |
| - | |
| O dull one sided voice said I | J |
| Wilt thou make everything a lie | J |
| To flatter me that I may die | J |
| - | |
| I know that age to age succeeds | R |
| Blowing a noise of tongues and deeds | R |
| A dust of systems and of creeds | R |
| - | |
| I cannot hide that some have striven | O2 |
| Achieving calm to whom was given | O2 |
| The joy that mixes man with Heaven | O2 |
| - | |
| Who rowing hard against the stream | Q |
| Saw distant gates of Eden gleam | Q |
| And did not dream it was a dream | Q |
| - | |
| - |
Alfred Lord Tennyson
(1)
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