The Observatory Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Alfred Noyes

The Observatory Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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At noon upon the mountain's purple height	A
Above the pine woods and the clouds it shone	B
No larger than the small white dome of shell	C
Left by the fledgling wren when wings are born	D
By night it joined the company of heaven	E
And with its constant light became a star	F
A needle point of light minute remote	G
It sent a subtler message through the abyss	H
Held more significance for the seeing eye	I
Than all the darkness that would blot it out	J
Yet could not dwarf it	K
High in heaven it shone	B
Alive with all the thoughts and hopes and dreams	L
Of man's adventurous mind	M
Up there I knew	N
The explorers of the sky the pioneers	O
Of science now made ready to attack	P
That darkness once again and win new worlds	Q
To morrow night they hoped to crown the toil	R
Of twenty years and turn upon the sky	I
The noblest weapon ever made by man	S
War had delayed them They had been drawn away	T
Designing darker weapons But no gun	E
Could outrange this	H
	-
To morrow night so wrote their chief we try	I
Our great new telescope the hundred inch	U
Your Milton's 'optic tube' has grown in power	V
Since Galileo famous blind and old	W
Talked with him in that prison of the sky	I
We creep to power by inches Europe trusts	X
Her 'giant forty' still Even to night	A
Our own old sixty has its work to do	N
And now our hundred inch I hardly dare	Y
To think what this new muzzle of ours may find	M
Come up and spend that night among the stars	Z
Here on our mountain top If all goes well	C
Then at the least my friend you'll see a moon	A2
Stranger but nearer many a thousand mile	B2
Than earth has ever seen her even in dreams	L
As for the stars if seeing them were all	C2
Three thousand million new found points of light	A
Is our rough guess But never speak of this	H
You know our press They'd miss the one result	D2
To flash 'three thousand millions' round the world	E2
To morrow night For more than twenty years	O
They had thought and planned and worked Ten years had gone	F2
One fourth or more of man's brief working life	G2
Before they made those solid tons of glass	H2
Their hundred inch reflector the clear pool	I2
The polished flawless pool that it must be	J2
To hold the perfect image of a star	F
And even now some secret flaw none knew	N
Until to morrow's test might waste it all	C2
Where was the gambler that would stake so much	K2
Time patience treasure on a single throw	L2
The cost of it they'd not find that again	M2
Either in gold or life stuff All their youth	N2
Was fuel to the flame of this one work	O2
Once in a lifetime to the man of science	P2
Despite what fools believe his ice cooled blood	Q2
There comes this drama	R2
If he fails he fails	S2
Utterly He at least will have no time	T2
For fresh beginnings Other men no doubt	J
Years hence will use the footholes that he cut	U2
In those precipitous cliffs and reach the height	A
But he will never see it	K
So for me	J2
The light words of that letter seemed to hide	V2
The passion of a lifetime and I shared	W2
The crowning moment of its hope and fear	X2
Next day through whispering aisles of palm we rode	Y2
Up to the foot hills dreaming desert hills	Z2
That to assuage their own delicious drought	J
Had set each tawny sun kissed slope ablaze	A3
With peach and orange orchards	B3
Up and up	C3
Along the thin white trail that wound and climbed	D3
And zig zagged through the grey green mountain sage	E3
The car went crawling till the shining plain	F3
Below it like an airman's map unrolled	D3
Houses and orchards dwindled to white specks	G3
In midget cubes and squares of tufted green	H3
Once as we rounded one steep curve that made	D3
The head swim at the canyoned gulf below	L2
We saw through thirty miles of lucid air	Y
Elvishly small sharp as a crumpled petal	I3
Blown from the stem a yard away a sail	J3
Lazily drifting on the warm blue sea	J2
Up for nine miles along that spiral trail	J3
Slowly we wound to reach the lucid height	D3
Above the clouds where that white dome of shell	C
No wren's now but an eagle's took the flush	K3
Of dying day The sage brush all died out	D3
And all the southern growths and round us now	L3
Firs of the north and strong storm rooted pines	M3
Exhaled a keener fragrance till at last	D3
Reversing all the laws of lesser hills	Z2
They towered like giants round us Darkness fell	C
Before we reached the mountain's naked height	D3
	-
Over us like some great cathedral dome	N3
The observatory loomed against the sky	I
And the dark mountain with its headlong gulfs	O3
Had lost all memory of the world below	L2
For all those cloudless throngs of glittering stars	Z
And all those glimmerings where the abyss of space	P3
Is powdered with a milky dust each grain	F3
A burning sun and every sun the lord	D3
Of its own darkling planets all those lights	Q3
Met in a darker deep the lights of earth	R3
Lights on the sea lights of invisible towns	S3
Trembling and indistinguishable from stars	Z
In those black gulfs around the mountain's feet	D3
Then into the glimmering dome with bated breath	T3
We entered and above us in the gloom	U3
Saw that majestic weapon of the light	D3
Uptowering like the shaft of some huge gun	E
Through one arched rift of sky	I
Dark at its base	P3
With naked arms the crew that all day long	V3
Had sweated to make ready for this night	D3
Waited their captain's word	D3
The switchboard shone	B
With elfin lamps of white and red and keys	W3
Whence at a finger's touch that monstrous tube	X3
Moved like a creature dowered with life and will	Y3
To peer from deep to deep	Z3
Below it pulsed	D3
The clock machine that slowly throb by throb	A4
Timed to the pace of the revolving earth	R3
Drove the titanic muzzle on and on	B4
Fixed to the chosen star that else would glide	D3
Out of its field of vision	E
So set free	J2
Balanced against the wheel of time it swung	C4
Or rested while to find new realms of sky	I
The dome that housed it like a moon revolved	D3
So smoothly that the watchers hardly knew	N
They moved within till through the glimmering doors	D4
They saw the dark procession of the pines	M3
Like Indian warriors quietly stealing by	I
	-
Then at a word the mighty weapon dipped	D3
Its muzzle and aimed at one small point of light	D3
One seeming insignificant star	F
The chief	E4
Mounting the ladder while we held our breath	T3
Looked through the eye piece	F4
Then we heard him laugh	G4
His thanks to God and hide it in a jest	D3
A prominence on Jupiter	V
They laughed	D3
What do you mean It's moving cried the chief	E4
They laughed again and watched his glimmering face	P3
High overhead against that moving tower	V
Come up and see then	M2
One by one they went	D3
And though each laughed as he returned to earth	R3
Their souls were in their eyes	H4
Then I too looked	D3
And saw that insignificant spark of light	D3
Touched with new meaning beautifully reborn	D
A swimming world a perfect rounded pearl	I4
Poised in the violet sky and as I gazed	D3
I saw a miracle right on its upmost edge	J4
A tiny mound of white that slowly rose	K4
Then like an exquisite seed pearl swung quite clear	X2
And swam in heaven above its parent world	D3
To greet its three bright sister moons	L4
A moon	A2
Of Jupiter no more but clearer far	F
Than mortal eyes had seen before from earth	R3
O beautiful and clear beyond all dreams	L
Was that one silver phrase of the starry tune	A2
Which Galileo's old discoverer first	D3
Dimly revealed dissolving into clouds	M4
The imagined fabric of our universe	N4
Jupiter stands in heaven and will stand	D3
Though all the sycophants bark at him he cried	D3
Hailing the truth before he too went down	O4
Whelmed in the cloudy wreckage of that dream	P4
	-
So one by one we looked the men who served	D3
Urania and the men from Vulcan's forge	Q4
A beautiful eagerness in the darkness lit	D3
The swarthy faces that too long had missed	D3
A meaning in the dull mechanic maze	A3
Of labour on this blind earth but found it now	L3
Though only a moment's wandering melody	J2
Hopelessly far above it gave their toil	R
Its only consecration and its joy	R4
There with dark smouldering eyes and naked throats	S4
Blue dungareed red shirted grimed and smeared	D3
With engine grease and sweat they gathered round	D3
The foot of that dim ladder each muttering low	L2
As he came down his wonder at what he saw	T4
To those who waited a picture for the brush	K3
Of Rembrandt lighted only by the rift	D3
Above them where the giant muzzle thrust	D3
Out through the dim arched roof and slowly throbbed	D3
Against the slowly moving wheel of the earth	R3
Holding their chosen star	F
There like an elf	U4
Perched on the side of that dark slanting tower	V
The Italian mechanician watched the moons	L4
That Italy discovered	D3
One by one	E
American English French and Dutch they climbed	D3
To see the wonder that their own blind hands	V4
Had helped to achieve	W4
At midnight while they paused	D3
To adjust the clock machine I wandered out	D3
Alone into the silence of the night	D3
The silence On that lonely height I heard	D3
Eternal voices	X4
For as I looked into the gulf beneath	Y4
Whence almost all the lights had vanished now	L3
The whole dark mountain seemed to have lost its earth	R3
And to be sailing like a ship through heaven	E
All round it surged the mighty sea like sound	D3
Of soughing pine woods one vast ebb and flow	L2
Of absolute peace aloof from all earth's pain	F3
So calm so quiet it seemed the cradle song	V3
The deep soft breathing of the universe	N4
Over its youngest child the soul of man	S
And as I listened that Aeolian voice	Z4
Became an invocation and a prayer	Y
O you that on your loftier mountain dwell	C
And move like light in light among the thoughts
Of heaven translating our mortality	D3
Into immortal song is there not one	E
Among you that can turn to music now	L3
This long dark fight for truth Not one to touch	K2
With beauty this long battle for the light	D3
This little victory of the spirit of man	S
Doomed to defeat for what was all we saw	T4
To that which neither eyes nor soul could see	D3
Doomed to defeat and yet unconquerable	C
Climbing its nine miles nearer to the stars	Z
Wars we have sung The blind blood boltered kings
Move with an epic music to their thrones
Have you no song then of that nobler war
Of those who strove for light but could not dream	P4
Even of this victory that they helped to win
Silent discoverers lonely pioneers
Prisoners and exiles martyrs of the truth	N2
Who handed on the fire from age to age	E3
Of those who step by step drove back the night	D3
And struggled year on year for one more glimpse
Among the stars of sovran law their guide	D3
Of those who searching inward saw the rocks
Dissolving into a new abyss and saw
Those planetary systems far within
Atoms electrons whirling on their way	T
To build and to unbuild our solid world	D3
Of those who conquered inch by difficult inch	U
The freedom of this realm of law for man	S
Dreamers of dreams the builders of our hope
The healers and the binders up of wounds
Who while the dynasts drenched the world with blood	D3
Would in the still small circle of a lamp
Wrestle with death like Heracles of old	D3
To save one stricken child	D3
Is there no song	V3
To touch this moving universe of law
With ultimate light the glimmer of that great dawn	F2
Which over our ruined altars yet shall break
In purer splendour and restore mankind	D3
From darker dreams than even Lucretius knew	N
To vision of that one Power which guides the world	D3
How should men find it Only through those doors
Which opening inward in each separate soul	C
Give each man access to that Soul of all	C
Living within each life not to be found	D3
Or known till looking inward each alone	B
Meets the unknowable and eternal God	D3
	-
And there was one that moved like light in light	D3
Before me there Love human and divine
That can exalt all weakness into power	V
Whispering Take this deathless torch of song	V3
Whispering but with such faith that even I	I
Was humbled into thinking this might be	D3
Through love though all the wisdom of the world	D3
Account it folly	D3
Let my breast be bared	D3
To every shaft then so that Love be still	C
My one celestial guide the while I sing
Of those who caught the pure Promethean fire	V
One from another each crying as he went down	O4
To one that waited crowned with youth and joy	R4
Take thou the splendour carry it out of sight	D3
Into the great new age I must not know	L2
Into the great new realm I must not tread	D3