A Soul In Prison Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHIJKLMNOPLQRST UVWXYZOA2IB2C2D2BE2F 2WG2H2I2J2K2L2M2N2L2 O2P2Q2R2S2T2U2V2W2Q D2X2Y2Z2A3FB3C3 QHD3 E3F3B2GG3H3H3I3HL2J3 W2K3L3M3N3O3C3P3 Q3C3A3R3IS3RJ3T3U3V3 W3X3LLY3Z3JA4FB4M2C4 LD4E4U3LLC3 C3 VC3LF4G4H4 H4F3I4Q3LJ4LK4H4L4VE 3L2LC3LL CLLM4J2LN4 LLY3O4Q3J2C3P4L2Q4J4 J4WJ2 FFLR4LLLH4 M2C3S4LL3D2LJT4L U4LC3LI4LThe Doubter lays aside his book | A |
- | |
Answered a score of times Oh looked for teacher | B |
is this all you will teach me I in the dark | C |
reaching my hand for you to help me forth | D |
to the happy sunshine where you stand Oh shame | E |
to be in the dark there prisoned answer you | F |
there are ledges somewhere there by which strong feet | G |
might scale to daylight I would lift you out | H |
with just a touch but that your need's so slight | I |
for there are ledges And I grope and strain | J |
think I've found footing and slip baffled back | K |
slip maybe deeper downwards Oh my guide | L |
I find no ledges help me say at least | M |
where they are placed that I may know to seek | N |
But you in anger Nay wild wilful soul | O |
thou will rot in the dark God's sunshine here | P |
at thy prison's very lip blame not the guide | L |
have I not told thee there is footing for thee | Q |
and so you leave me and with even tread | R |
guide men along the highway where I think | S |
they need you less | T |
- | |
Say 'twas my wanton haste | U |
or my drowsed languor my too earthward eyes | V |
watching for hedge flowers or my too rapt gaze | W |
it the mock sunshine of a sky born cloud | X |
that led me blindling here say the black walls | Y |
grew round me while I slept or that I built | Z |
with ignorant hands a temple for my soul | O |
to pray in to herself and that for want | A2 |
of a window heavenwards a loathsome night | I |
of mildew and decay festered upon it | B2 |
till the rotted pillars fell and tombed me in | C2 |
let it so be my fault whichever way | D2 |
must I be left to die A murderer | B |
is helped by holy hands to the byway road | E2 |
that comes at God through shame a thief is helped | F2 |
A harlot a sleek cozener that prays | W |
swindles his customers and gives God thanks | G2 |
and so to bed with prayers Let them repent | H2 |
lay let them not repent you'll say These souls | I2 |
may yet be saved and make a joy in heaven | J2 |
you are thankful you have found them you whose charge | K2 |
is healing sin But I hundreds as I | L2 |
whose sorrow 'tis only to long to know | M2 |
and know too plainly that we know not yet | N2 |
we are beyond your mercies You pass by | L2 |
and note the moral of our fate 'twill point | O2 |
a Sunday's sermon for we have our use | P2 |
boggarts to placid Christians in their pews | Q2 |
Question not prove not lest you grow like these | R2 |
and then you tell them how we daze ourselves | S2 |
on problems now so many times resolved | T2 |
that you'll not re resolve them how we crave | U2 |
new proofs as once an evil race desired | V2 |
new signs and could not see for stubbornness | W2 |
signs given already | Q |
- | |
Proofs enough you say | D2 |
quote precedent Hear Moses and the prophets | X2 |
I know the answer given across the gulf | Y2 |
but I know too what Christ did there were proofs | Z2 |
enough for John and Peter yet He taught | A3 |
new proofs and meanings to those doubting two | F |
who sorrowing walked forth to Emmaus | B3 |
and came back joyful | C3 |
- | |
They you'd answer me | Q |
if you owned my instance sorrowed in their doubt | H |
and did not wholly doubt and loved | D3 |
- | |
Oh men | E3 |
who read the age's heart in library books | F3 |
writ by our fathers this is how you know it | B2 |
Do we say The old faith is obsolete | G |
the world wags all the better let us laugh | G3 |
we of to day Why will you not divine | H3 |
the fathomless sorrow of doubt why not divine | H3 |
the yearning to be lost from it in love | I3 |
And who doubts wholly That were not to doubt | H |
Doubt's to be ignorant not to deny | L2 |
doubt's to be wistful after perfect faith | J3 |
You will not think that you come not to us | W2 |
to ask of us who know doubt what doubt is | K3 |
but one by one you pass the echoes on | L3 |
each of his own pulpit each of all the pulpits | M3 |
and in the swelling sound can never catch | N3 |
the tremulous voice of doubt that wails in the cold | O3 |
you make sham thunder for it to outpeal | C3 |
with your own better thunders | P3 |
- | |
You wise man | Q3 |
and worthy utter honest in your will | C3 |
I love you and I trust you so I thought | A3 |
Here's one whose love keeps measure to belief | R3 |
with onward vigorous feet one quick of sight | I |
to catch the clue in scholars' puzzle knots | S3 |
deft to unweave the coil to one straight thread | R |
one strong to grapple vague Protean faith | J3 |
and keep her to his heart in one fixed shape | T3 |
and living he comes forward in his strength | U3 |
as to a battlefield to answer challenge | V3 |
as in a storm to buffet with the waves | W3 |
for shipwrecked men clutching the frothy crests | X3 |
and sinking he is stalwart on my side | L |
mine who untrained and weaponless have warred | L |
at the powers of unbelief and am borne down | Y3 |
mine who am struggling in the sea for breath | Z3 |
I looked to you as the sick man in his pain | J |
looks to the doctor whose sharp medicines | A4 |
have the taste of health behind them looked to you | F |
for well for a boon different from this | B4 |
My doctor tells me Why quite long ago | M2 |
they knew your fever or one very like | C4 |
and they knew remedies you'll find them named | L |
in many ancient writers let those serve | D4 |
and Thick on the commons by the daily roads | E4 |
the herbs are growing that give instant strength | U3 |
to palsied limbs like yours clear such filmed sight | L |
you need but eyes to spy them hands to uproot | L |
that's all | C3 |
- | |
All truly | C3 |
- | |
Strong accustomed eyes | V |
strong tutored hands see for me reach for me | C3 |
But there's a cry like mine rings through the world | L |
and no help comes And with slow severing rasp | F4 |
at our very heart roots the toothed question grates | G4 |
Do these who know most not know anything | H4 |
- | |
Oh teachers will you teach us Growing growing | H4 |
like the great river made of little brooks | F3 |
our once unrest swells to a smooth despair | I4 |
stop us those little brooks you say you can | Q3 |
Oh teachers teach us you who have been taught | L |
learn for us you who have learned how to learn | J4 |
we jostling jostled through the market world | L |
where our work lies lack breathing space lack calm | K4 |
lack skill lack tools lack heart lack everything | H4 |
for your work of the studies Such roughed minds | L4 |
we bring to it as when the ploughman tries | V |
his hard unpliant fingers at the pen | E3 |
so toil and smudge then put the blurred scrawl by | L2 |
unfinished till next holiday comes round | L |
Thus maybe I shall die and the blurred scrawl | C3 |
be still unfinished where I try to write | L |
some clear belief enough to get by heart | L |
- | |
Die still in the dark Die having lived in the dark | C |
there's a sort of creeping horror thinking that | L |
'Tis hard too for I yearned for light grew dazed | L |
not by my sight's unuse and choice of gloom | M4 |
but by too bold a gaze at the sun | J2 |
thinking to apprehend his perfect light | L |
not darkly through a glass | N4 |
- | |
Too bold too bold | L |
Would I had been appeased with the earth's wont | L |
of helpful daily sunbeams bringing down | Y3 |
only so much heaven's light as may be borne | O4 |
heaven's light enough for many a better man | Q3 |
to see his God by Well but it is done | J2 |
never in any day shall I now be | C3 |
as if I had not gazed and seen strange lights | P4 |
swim amid darknesses against the sky | L2 |
Never and when I dream as if I saw | Q4 |
'tis dreaming of the sun and when I yearn | J4 |
in agony to see still do I yearn | J4 |
not for the sight I had in happier days | W |
but for the eagle's strong gaze at the sun | J2 |
- | |
Ah well that's after death if all be true | F |
Nay but for me never if all be true | F |
I love not God because I know Him not | L |
I do but long to love Him long and long | R4 |
with an ineffable great pain of void | L |
I cannot say I love Him that not said | L |
they of the creeds all tell me I am barred | L |
from the very hope of knowing | H4 |
- | |
Maybe so | M2 |
for daily I know less 'Tis the old tale | C3 |
of men lost in the mouldy vaults of mines | S4 |
or dank crypt cemeteries lamp puffed out | L |
guides comrades out of hearing on and on | L3 |
groping and pushing he makes farther way | D2 |
from his goal of open daylight Best to wait | L |
till some one come to seek him But the strain | J |
of such a patience and If no one comes | T4 |
He cannot wait | L |
- | |
If one could hear a voice | U4 |
Not yet not yet myself have still to find | L |
what way to guide you forth but I seek well | C3 |
I have the lamp you lack I have a chart | L |
not yet but hope So might one strongly bear | I4 |
through the long night att | L |
Augusta Davies Webster
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about A Soul In Prison poem by Augusta Davies Webster
Best Poems of Augusta Davies Webster