An Ode To The Hills Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCEDE FGHGIJIKJK LELECDCDDD KAKALDLMDM HDHDKDKNDN DDDDOPOKPK KDKDKKKQKQ ADADEKEGKG DDDDDQDKQK KKKKKRKSRS LDLDTKTOKO| AEons ago ye were | A |
| Before the struggling changeful race of man | B |
| Wrought into being ere the tragic stir | A |
| Of human toil and deep desire began | B |
| So shall ye still remain | C |
| Lords of an elder and immutable race | D |
| When many a broad metropolis of the plain | C |
| Or thronging port by some renowned shore | E |
| Is sunk in nameless ruin and its place | D |
| Recalled no more | E |
| - | |
| Empires have come and gone | F |
| And glorious cities fallen in their prime | G |
| Divine far echoing names once writ in stone | H |
| Have vanished in the dust and void of time | G |
| But ye firm set secure | I |
| Like Treasure in the hardness of God's palm | J |
| Are yet the same for ever ye endure | I |
| By virtue of an old slow ripening word | K |
| In your grey majesty and sovereign calm | J |
| Untouched unstirred | K |
| - | |
| Tempest and thunderstroke | L |
| With whirlwinds dipped in midnight at the core | E |
| Have torn strange furrows through your forest cloak | L |
| And made your hollow gorges clash and roar | E |
| And scarred your brows in vain | C |
| Around your barren heads and granite steeps | D |
| Tempestuous grey battalions of the rain | C |
| Charge and recharge across the plateaued floors | D |
| Drenching the serried pines and the hail sweeps | D |
| Your pitiless scaurs | D |
| - | |
| The long midsummer heat | K |
| Chars the thin leafage of your rocks in fire | A |
| Autumn with windy robe and ruinous feet | K |
| On your wide forests wreaks his fell desire | A |
| Heaping in barbarous wreck | L |
| The treasure of your sweet and prosperous days | D |
| And lastly the grim tyrant at whose beck | L |
| Channels are turned to stone and tempests wheel | M |
| On brow and breast and shining shoulder lays | D |
| His hand of steel | M |
| - | |
| And yet not harsh alone | H |
| Nor wild nor bitter are your destinies | D |
| O fair and sweet for all your heart of stone | H |
| Who gather beauty round your Titan knees | D |
| As the lens gathers light | K |
| The dawn gleams rosy on your splendid brows | D |
| The sun at noonday folds you in his might | K |
| And swathes your forehead at his going down | N |
| Last leaving where he first in pride bestows | D |
| His golden crown | N |
| - | |
| In unregarded glooms | D |
| Where hardly shall a human footstep pass | D |
| Myriads of ferns and soft maianthemums | D |
| Or lily breathing slender pyrolas | D |
| Distil their hearts for you | O |
| Far in your pine clad fastnesses ye keep | P |
| Coverts the lonely thrush shall wander through | O |
| With echoes that seem ever to recede | K |
| Touching from pine to pine from steep to steep | P |
| His ghostly reed | K |
| - | |
| The fierce things of the wild | K |
| Find food and shelter in your tenantless rocks | D |
| The eagle on whose wings the dawn hath smiled | K |
| The loon the wild cat and the bright eyed fox | D |
| For far away indeed | K |
| Are all the ominous noises of mankind | K |
| The slaughterer's malice and the trader's greed | K |
| Your rugged haunts endure no slavery | Q |
| No treacherous hand is there to crush or bind | K |
| But all are free | Q |
| - | |
| Therefore out of the stir | A |
| Of cities and the ever thickening press | D |
| The poet and the worn philosopher | A |
| To your bare peaks and radiant loneliness | D |
| Escape and breathe once more | E |
| The wind of the Eternal that clear mood | K |
| Which Nature and the elder ages bore | E |
| Lends them new courage and a second prime | G |
| At rest upon the cool infinitude | K |
| Of Space and Time | G |
| - | |
| The mists of troublous days | D |
| The horror of fierce hands and fraudful lips | D |
| The blindness gathered in Life's aimless ways | D |
| Fade from them and the kind Earth spirit strips | D |
| The bandage from their eyes | D |
| Touches their hearts and bids them feel and see | Q |
| Beauty and Knowledge with that rare apprise | D |
| Pour over them from some divine abode | K |
| Falling as in a flood of memory | Q |
| The bliss of God | K |
| - | |
| I too perchance some day | K |
| When Love and Life have fallen far apart | K |
| Shall slip the yoke and seek your upward way | K |
| And make my dwelling in your changeless heart | K |
| And there in some quiet glade | K |
| Some virgin plot of turf some innermost dell | R |
| Pure with cool water and inviolate shade | K |
| I'll build a blameless altar to the dear | S |
| And kindly gods who guard your haunts so well | R |
| From hurt or fear | S |
| - | |
| There I will dream day long | L |
| And honour them in many sacred ways | D |
| With hushed melody and uttered song | L |
| And golden meditation and with praise | D |
| I'll touch them with a prayer | T |
| To clothe my spirit as your might is clad | K |
| With all things bountiful divine and fair | T |
| Yet inwardly to make me hard and true | O |
| Wide seeing passionless immutably glad | K |
| And strong like you | O |
Archibald Lampman
(1)
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About An Ode To The Hills
An Ode To The Hills is a poem by Archibald Lampman. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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