The Boston Athenaeum Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLFMNOPQFL MRSBTBUVWXVBYMBZA2B2 VC2D2VVE2F2G2H2VBI2J 2K2L2BM2VN2BM2O2VGRD 2VVVP2VH2Q2HBH2XFB2R 2S2RVM2VT2U2N2BBV2VO VW2D2XX2Y2H2Z2VA3S2W BVM2VMVB3VC3D3KE3VF3 G3N2VT2M2H3WF3VI3Q2V J3OT2AK3K3TK3VDK3VK3 K3VK3BL3M3Thou dear and well loved haunt of happy hours | A |
How often in some distant gallery | B |
Gained by a little painful spiral stair | C |
Far from the halls and corridors where throng | D |
The crowd of casual readers have I passed | E |
Long peaceful hours seated on the floor | F |
Of some retired nook all lined with books | G |
Where reverie and quiet reign supreme | H |
Above below on every side high shelved | I |
From careless grasp of transient interest | J |
Stand books we can but dimly see their charm | K |
Much greater that their titles are unread | L |
While on a level with the dusty floor | F |
Others are ranged in orderly confusion | M |
And we must stoop in painful posture while | N |
We read their names and learn their histories | O |
The little gallery winds round about | P |
The middle of a most secluded room | Q |
Midway between the ceiling and the floor | F |
A type of those high thoughts which while we read | L |
Hover between the earth and furthest heaven | M |
As fancy wills leaving the printed page | R |
For books but give the theme our hearts the rest | S |
Enriching simple words with unguessed harmony | B |
And overtones of thought we only know | T |
And as we sit long hours quietly | B |
Reading at times and at times simply dreaming | U |
The very room itself becomes a friend | V |
The confidant of intimate hopes and fears | W |
A place where are engendered pleasant thoughts | X |
And possibilities before unguessed | V |
Come to fruition born of sympathy | B |
And as in some gay garden stretched upon | Y |
A genial southern slope warmed by the sun | M |
The flowers give their fragrance joyously | B |
To the caressing touch of the hot noon | Z |
So books give up the all of what they mean | A2 |
Only in a congenial atmosphere | B2 |
Only when touched by reverent hands and read | V |
By those who love and feel as well as think | C2 |
For books are more than books they are the life | D2 |
The very heart and core of ages past | V |
The reason why men lived and worked and died | V |
The essence and quintessence of their lives | E2 |
And we may know them better and divine | F2 |
The inner motives whence their actions sprang | G2 |
Far better than the men who only knew | H2 |
Their bodily presence the soul forever hid | V |
From those with no ability to see | B |
They wait here quietly for us to come | I2 |
And find them out and know them for our friends | J2 |
These men who toiled and wrote only for this | K2 |
To leave behind such modicum of truth | L2 |
As each perceived and each alone could tell | B |
Silently waiting that from time to time | M2 |
It may be given them to illuminate | V |
Dull daily facts with pristine radiance | N2 |
For some long waited for affinity | B |
Who lingers yet in the deep womb of time | M2 |
The shifting sun pierces the young green leaves | O2 |
Of elm trees newly coming into bud | V |
And splashes on the floor and on the books | G |
Through old high rounded windows dim with age | R |
The noisy city sounds of modern life | D2 |
Float softened to us across the old graveyard | V |
The room is filled with a warm mellow light | V |
No garish colours jar on our content | V |
The books upon the shelves are old and worn | P2 |
'T was no belated effort nor attempt | V |
To keep abreast with old as well as new | H2 |
That placed them here tricked in a modern guise | Q2 |
Easily got and held in light esteem | H |
Our fathers' fathers slowly and carefully | B |
Gathered them one by one when they were new | H2 |
And a delighted world received their thoughts | X |
Hungrily while we but love the more | F |
Because they are so old and grown so dear | B2 |
The backs of tarnished gold the faded boards | R2 |
The slightly yellowing page the strange old type | S2 |
All speak the fashion of another age | R |
The thoughts peculiar to the man who wrote | V |
Arrayed in garb peculiar to the time | M2 |
As though the idiom of a man were caught | V |
Imprisoned in the idiom of a race | T2 |
A nothing truly yet a link that binds | U2 |
All ages to their own inheritance | N2 |
And stretching backward dim and dimmer still | B |
Is lost in a remote antiquity | B |
Grapes do not come of thorns nor figs of thistles | V2 |
And even a great poet's divinest thought | V |
Is coloured by the world he knows and sees | O |
The little intimate things of every day | V |
The trivial nothings that we think not of | W2 |
These go to make a part of each man's life | D2 |
As much a part as do the larger thoughts | X |
He takes account of Nay the little things | X2 |
Of daily life it is which mold and shape | Y2 |
And make him apt for noble deeds and true | H2 |
And as we read some much loved masterpiece | Z2 |
Read it as long ago the author read | V |
With eyes that brimmed with tears as he saw | A3 |
The message he believed in stamped in type | S2 |
Inviolable for the slow coming years | W |
We know a certain subtle sympathy | B |
We seem to clasp his hand across the past | V |
His words become related to the time | M2 |
He is at one with his own glorious creed | V |
And all that in his world was dared and done | M |
The long still fruitful hours slip away | V |
Shedding their influences as they pass | B3 |
We know ourselves the richer to have sat | V |
Upon this dusty floor and dreamed our dreams | C3 |
No other place to us were quite the same | D3 |
No other dreams so potent in their charm | K |
For this is ours Every twist and turn | E3 |
Of every narrow stair is known and loved | V |
Each nook and cranny is our very own | F3 |
The dear old sleepy place is full of spells | G3 |
For us by right of long inheritance | N2 |
The building simply bodies forth a thought | V |
Peculiarly inherent to the race | T2 |
And we descendants of that elder time | M2 |
Have learnt to love the very form in which | H3 |
The thought has been embodied to our years | W |
And here we feel that we are not alone | F3 |
We too are one with our own richest past | V |
And here that veiled but ever smouldering fire | I3 |
Of race which rarely seen yet never dies | Q2 |
Springs up afresh and warms us with its heat | V |
And must they take away this treasure house | J3 |
To us so full of thoughts and memories | O |
To all the world beside a dismal place | T2 |
Lacking in all this modern age requires | A |
To tempt along the unfamiliar paths | K3 |
And leafy lanes of old time literatures | K3 |
It takes some time for moss and vines to grow | T |
And warmly cover gaunt and chill stone walls | K3 |
Of stately buildings from the cold North Wind | V |
The lichen of affection takes as long | D |
Or longer ere it lovingly enfolds | K3 |
A place which since without it were bereft | V |
All stript and bare shorn of its chiefest grace | K3 |
For what to us were halls and corridors | K3 |
However large and fitting if we part | V |
With this which is our birthright if we lose | K3 |
A sentiment profound unsoundable | B |
Which Time's slow ripening alone can make | L3 |
And man's blind foolishness so quickly mar | M3 |
Amy Lowell
(1)
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