Copernicus Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Alfred Noyes

Copernicus Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

About Copernicus

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The neighbours gossiped idly at the door	A
Copernicus lay dying overhead	B
His little throng of friends with startled eyes	C
Whispered together in that dark house of dreams	D
From which by one dim crevice in the wall	E
He used to watch the stars	F
His book has come	G
From Nuremberg at last but who would dare	H
To let him see it now	I
They have altered it	J
Though Rome approved in full this preface look	K
Declares that his discoveries are a dream	L
He has asked a thousand times if it has come	G
Could we tear out those pages	M
He'd suspect	N
What shall be done then	O
Hold it back awhile	P
That was the priest's voice in the room above	Q
He may forget it Those last sacraments	R
May set his mind at rest and bring him peace	S
Then stealing quietly to that upper door	A
They opened it a little and saw within	T
The lean white deathbed of Copernicus	U
Who made our world a world without an end	V
There in that narrow room they saw his face	W
Grey seamed with thought lit by a single lamp	X
They saw those glorious eyes	C
Closing that once had looked beyond the spheres	Y
And seen our ancient firmaments dissolve	Z
Into a boundless night	A2
Beside him knelt	B2
Two women like bowed shadows At his feet	C2
An old physician watched him At his head	B
The cowled Franciscan murmured while the light	A2
Shone faintly on the chalice	D2
All grew still	E2
The fragrance of the wine was like faint flowers	F2
The first breath of those far celestial fields	G2
	-
Then like a dying soldier that must leave	H2
His last command to others while the fight	A2
Is yet uncertain and the victory far	I2
Copernicus whispered in a fevered dream	L
Yes it is Death But you must hold him back	J2
There in the doorway for a little while	P
Until I know the work is rightly done	K2
Use all your weapons doctor I must live	L2
To see and touch one copy of my book	K
Have they not brought it yet	M2
They promised me	N2
It should be here by nightfall	E
One of you go	O2
And hasten it I can hold back	J2
Death till dawn	P2
	-
Have they not brought it yet from Nuremberg	Q2
Do not deceive me I must know it safe	R2
Printed and safe for other men to use	S2
I could die then My use would be fulfilled	T2
What has delayed them Will not some one go	O2
And tell them that my strength is running out	U2
Tell them that book would be an angel's hand	V2
In mine an easier pillow for my head	B
A little lantern in the engulfing dark	W2
You see I hid its struggling light so long	X2
Under too small a bushel and I fear	Y2
It may go out forever In the noon	Z2
Of life's brief day I could not see the need	A3
As now I see it when the night shuts down	B3
I was afraid perhaps it might confuse	C3
The lights that guide us for the souls of men	O
	-
But now I see three stages in our life	D3
At first we bask contented in our sun	K2
And take what daylight shows us for the truth	E3
Then we discover in some midnight grief	F3
How all day long the sunlight blinded us	U
To depths beyond where all our knowledge dies	C
That's where men shrink and lose their way in doubt	U2
Then last as death draws nearer comes a night	A2
In whose majestic shadow men see God	G3
Absolute Knowledge reconciling all	E
So all my life I pondered on that scheme	L
Which makes this earth the centre of all worlds	H3
Lighted and wheeled around by sun and moon	Z2
And that great crystal sphere wherein men thought	I3
Myriads of lesser stars were fixed like lamps	J3
Each in its place one mighty glittering wheel	K3
Revolving round this dark abode of man	L3
Night after night with even pace they moved	M3
Year after year not altering by one point	N3
Their order or their stations those fixed stars	F
In that revolving firmament The Plough	I
Still pointed to the Pole Fixed in their sphere	Y2
How else explain that vast unchanging wheel	K3
How but by thinking all those lesser lights	O3
Were huger suns divided from our earth	P3
By so immense a gulf that if they moved	M3
Ten thousand leagues an hour among themselves	Q3
It would not seem one hair's breadth to our eyes	C
Utterly inconceivable I know	O2
And yet we daily kneel to boundless Power	R3
And build our hope on that Infinitude	M3
	-
This did not daunt me then Indeed I saw	S3
Light upon chaos Many discordant dreams	D
Began to move in lucid music now	I
For what could be more baffling than the thought	M3
That those enormous heavens must circle earth	P3
Diurnally a journey that would need	M3
Swiftness to which the lightning flash would seem	L
A white slug creeping on the walls of night	M3
While if earth softly on her axle spun	K2
One quiet revolution answered all	E
It was our moving selves that made the sky	T3
Seem to revolve Have not all ages seen	U3
A like illusion baffling half mankind	M3
In life thought art Men think at every turn	V3
Of their own souls the very heavens have moved	M3
	-
Light upon chaos light and yet more light	M3
For as I watched the planets Venus Mars	F
Appeared to wax and wane from month to month	W3
As though they moved now near now far from earth	P3
Earth could not be their centre Was the sun	K2
Their sovran lord then as Pythagoras held	M3
Was this great earth so 'stablished so secure	X3
A planet also Did it also move	Y3
Around the sun If this were true my friends	Z3
No revolution in this world's affairs	A4
Not that blind maelstrom where imperial Rome	B4
Went down into the dark could so engulf	C4
All that we thought we knew We who believed	M3
In our own majesty we who walked with gods	D4
As younger sons on this proud central stage	E4
Round which the whole bright firmament revolved	M3
For our especial glory must we creep	F4
Like ants upon our midget ball of dust	M3
Lost in immensity	M3
I could not take	G4
That darkness lightly I withheld my book	K
For many a year until I clearly saw	S3
And Rome approved me have they not brought it yet	M3
That this tremendous music could not drown	B3
The still supernal music of the soul	H4
Or quench the light that shone when Christ was born	I4
For who if one lost star could lead the kings	J4
To God's own Son would shrink from following these	K4
To His eternal throne	L4
This at the least	M3
We know the soul of man can soar through heaven	K2
It is our own wild wings that dwarf the world	M3
To nothingness beneath us Let the soul	H4
Take courage then If its own thought be true	M4
Not all the immensities of little minds	N4
Can ever quench its own celestial fire	R3
No This new night was needed that the soul	H4
Might conquer its own kingdom and arise	C
To its full stature So in face of death	O4
I saw that I must speak the truth I knew	M4
	-
Have they not brought it What delays my book	K
I am afraid Tell me the truth my friends	Z3
At this last hour the Church may yet withhold	M3
Her sanction Not the Church but those who think	P4
A little darkness helps her	R3
Were this true	M4
They would do well If the poor light we win	T
Confuse or blind us to the Light of lights	O3
Let all our wisdom perish I affirm	Q4
A greater Darkness where the one true Church	R4
Shall after all her agonies of loss	S4
And many an age of doubt perhaps to come	G
See this processional host of splendours burn	V3
Like tapers round her altar	R3
So I speak	T4
Not for myself but for the age unborn	I4
I caught the fire from those who went before	A
The bearers of the torch who could not see	N2
The goal to which they strained I caught their fire	R3
And carried it only a little way beyond	M3
But there are those that wait for it I know	O2
Those who will carry it on to victory	N2
I dare not fail them Looking back I see	N2
Those others fallen with their arms outstretched	M3
Dead pointing to the future	R3
Far far back	J2
Before the Egyptians built their pyramids	U4
With those dark funnels pointing to the north	V4
Through which the Pharaohs from their desert tombs	W4
Gaze all night long upon the Polar Star	I2
Some wandering Arab crept from death to life	D3
Led by the Plough across those wastes of pearl	X4
	-
Long long ago have they not brought it yet	M3
My book I finished it one summer's night	M3
And felt my blood all beating into song	X2
I meant to print those verses in my book	K
A prelude hinting at that deeper night	M3
Which darkens all our knowledge Then I thought	M3
The measure moved too lightly	N2
Do you recall	E
Those verses Elsa They would pass the time	Y4
How happy I was the night I wrote that song	X2
Then one of those bowed shadows raised her head	M3
And like a mother crooning to her child	M3
Murmured the words he wrote so long ago	O2
	-
In old Cathay in far Cathay	Z4
Before the western world began	L3
They saw the moving fount of day	Z4
Eclipsed as by a shadowy fan	L3
They stood upon their Chinese wall	E
They saw his fire to ashes fade	M3
And felt the deeper slumber fall	E
On domes of pearl and towers of jade	M3
	-
With slim brown hands in Araby
They traced upon the desert sand	M3
Their Rams and Scorpions of the sky	T3
And strove and failed to understand	M3
Before their footprints were effaced	M3
The shifting sand forgot their rune	Z2
Their hieroglyphs were all erased	M3
Their desert naked to the moon	Z2
	-
In Bagdad of the purple nights	O3
Haroun Al Raschid built a tower	R3
Where sages watched a thousand lights	O3
And read their legends for an hour	R3
The tower is down the Caliph dead	M3
Their astrolabes are wrecked with rust	M3
Orion glitters overhead	M3
Aladdin's lamp is in the dust	M3
	-
In Babylon in Babylon
They baked their tablets of the clay	Z4
And year by year inscribed thereon	P2
The dark eclipses of their day	Z4
They saw the moving finger write	M3
Its Mene Mene on their sun	K2
A mightier shadow cloaks their light	M3
And clay is clay in Babylon
	-
A shadow moved towards him from the door	A
Copernicus with a cry upraised his head	M3
The book I cannot see it let me feel	K3
The lettering on the cover	R3
It is here
Put out the lamp now Draw those curtains back	J2
And let me die with starlight on my face	W
An angel's hand in mine yes I can say	Z4
My nunc dimittis now light and more light	M3
In that pure realm whose darkness is our peace	S