Seven Sonnets On The Thought Of Death 1 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A ABBACBBADEDECC A FGGFFGGFHIIHJJ A KBBKKBBKLMMM G NOONNONPQPLLQ G RSSRTSSRPPUVVW G OOOOOOOOGLGOOX G OOOOOOOOGGOXLO| I | A |
| - | |
| That children in their loveliness should die | A |
| Before the dawning beauty which we know | B |
| Cannot remain has yet begun to go | B |
| That when a certain period has passed by | A |
| People of genius and of faculty | C |
| Leaving behind them some result to show | B |
| Having performed some function should forego | B |
| The task which younger hands can better ply | A |
| Appears entirely natural But that one | D |
| Whose perfectness did not at all consist | E |
| In things towards forming which time can have done | D |
| Anything whose sole office was to exist | E |
| Should suddenly dissolve and cease to be | C |
| Is the extreme of all perplexity | C |
| - | |
| II | A |
| - | |
| That there are better things within the womb | F |
| Of Nature than to our unworthy view | G |
| She grants for a possession may be true | G |
| The cycle of the birthplace and the tomb | F |
| Fulfils at least the order and the doom | F |
| Of earth that has not ordinance to do | G |
| More than to withdraw and to renew | G |
| To show one moment and the next resume | F |
| The law that we return from whence we came | H |
| May for the flowers beasts and most men remain | I |
| If for ourselves we ask not nor complain | I |
| But for a being that demands the name | H |
| We highest deem a Person and a Soul | J |
| It troubles us that this should be the whole | J |
| - | |
| III | A |
| - | |
| To see the rich autumnal tint depart | K |
| And view the fading of the roseate glow | B |
| That veils some Alpine altitude of snow | B |
| To hear of some great masterpiece of art | K |
| Lost or destroyed may to the adult heart | K |
| Impatient of the transitory show | B |
| Of lovelinesses that but come and go | B |
| A positive strange thankfulness impart | K |
| When human pure perfections disappear | L |
| Not at the first but at some later day | M |
| The buoyancy of such reaction may | M |
| With strong assurance conquer blank dismay | M |
| - | |
| IV | G |
| - | |
| But whether in the uncoloured light of truth | N |
| This inward strong assurance be indeed | O |
| More than the self willed arbitrary creed | O |
| Manhood's inheritor to the dream of youth | N |
| Whether to shut out fact because forsooth | N |
| To live were insupportable unfreed | O |
| Be not or be the service of untruth | N |
| Whether this vital confidence be more | P |
| Than his who upon death's immediate brink | Q |
| Knowing perforce determines to ignore | P |
| Or than the bird's that when the hunter's near | L |
| Burying her eyesight can forget her fear | L |
| Who about this shall tell us what to think | Q |
| - | |
| V | G |
| - | |
| If it is thou whose casual hand withdraws | R |
| What it at first as casually did make | S |
| Say what amount of ages it will take | S |
| With tardy rare concurrences of laws | R |
| And subtle multiplicities of cause | T |
| The thing they once had made us to remake | S |
| May hopes dead slumbering dare to reawake | S |
| E'en after utmost interval of pause | R |
| What revolutions must have passed before | P |
| The great celestial cycles shall restore | P |
| The starry sign whose present hour is gone | U |
| What worse than dubious chances interpose | V |
| With cloud and sunny gleam to recompose | V |
| The skiey picture we had gazed upon | W |
| - | |
| VI | G |
| - | |
| But if as not by that the soul desired | O |
| Swayed in the judgment wisest men have thought | O |
| And furnishing the evidence it sought | O |
| Man's heart hath ever fervently required | O |
| And story for that reason deemed inspired | O |
| To every clime in every age hath taught | O |
| If in this human complex there be aught | O |
| Not lost in death as not in birth acquired | O |
| O then though cold the lips that did convey | G |
| Rich freights of meaning dead each living sphere | L |
| Where thought abode and fancy loved to play | G |
| Thou yet we think somewhere somehow still art | O |
| And satisfied with that the patient heart | O |
| The where and how doth not desire to hear | X |
| - | |
| VII | G |
| - | |
| Shall I decide it by a random shot | O |
| Our happy hopes so happy and so good | O |
| Are not mere idle motions of the blood | O |
| And when they seem most baseless most are not | O |
| A seed there must have been upon the spot | O |
| Where the flowers grow without it ne'er they could | O |
| The confidence of growth least understood | O |
| Of some deep intuition was begot | O |
| What if despair and hope alike be true | G |
| The heart 'tis manifest is free to do | G |
| Whichever Nature and itself suggest | O |
| And always 'tis a fact that we are here | X |
| And with being here doth palsy giving fear | L |
| Whoe'er can ask or hope accord the best | O |
Arthur Hugh Clough
(1)
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About Seven Sonnets On The Thought Of Death 1
Seven Sonnets On The Thought Of Death 1 is a poem by Arthur Hugh Clough. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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