The Oldest Inhabitant Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBACDDE FGGFHHIHIH JKKJLMLMNNLOO PPQRSQ TKUVWPXXYZXXQ HHHHFAFA2A2AHHB2C2B2 C2D2E2LE2LD2LF2LG2G2 F2F2L D2D2MD2MD2HH2H2H2HB2 B2B2KKVI2I2VI2J2VJ2 AAE2K2K2E2 JL2M2HHHHLLN2N2D2D2A O2FFAO2AAP2P2AQ2 AR2R2AS2 LLAAHHHHHHAAT2T2U2V2 V2U2HHHHHMMW2W2HAAAA HLAHLA HHHHR2HHR2 R2R2Q'AND when came I to this town ' did he say | A |
A question asked for the asking's sake | B |
Answered merely an answer to make | B |
As stranger to stranger may | A |
Answered enough with ''Twas yesterday ' | C |
And a talk of the journey travelled so fast | D |
Had I said 'Since I dwelt here first have passed | D |
Hundreds of years away' | E |
- | |
Aye and there be who if they knew | F |
Would envy me as a cripple must long | G |
Looking on limbs erect and strong | G |
To have his freedom given him too | F |
And rise and reach to whither he would | H |
'What ' they would think 'Is the gift not good | H |
Beyond all gifts for earth or for time | I |
Life and no shadow of death o'ercast | H |
Life and the joy of manhood's prime | I |
Life and the lore of a boundless past | H |
Life and still life to come and to last ' | - |
And I even even now | J |
I know not what that spirit might be | K |
Whether of love or of hate to me | K |
That stood in the dusk on the mountain's brow | J |
Alone with the stars I had climbed to see nigh | L |
And smiled and gave and was no more there | M |
There was no trace broke the sky | L |
There was no breath stirred the air | M |
Nought from the heaven or the earth to tell | N |
If it were well | N |
And how much surer to day know I | L |
Whether he meant me a boon or a curse | O |
Whether to wait or to die be worse | O |
- | |
Ah how I joyed for so many years | P |
Death under my heel with his hindering fears | P |
And I the lord of my life for ever | Q |
Leisure and labour limitless | R |
And always the joy of the earned success | S |
Crowned with the joy of the new endeavour | Q |
And I thought 'I will make all wisdoms mine ' | - |
And I thought 'The world shall be glad of me ' | - |
Ah how I joyed for could I divine | T |
What the fruit of immortal days must be | K |
But alas for the numbness of wont on all | U |
For the heart that has loved too often to prize | V |
For the eyes that have wept too often for tears | W |
For the listless feet and the careless ears | P |
For the brain that has learned that to learn is vain | X |
For forgotten joy and forgotten pain | X |
For the life too frequent for memories | Y |
And I taste no joy because it will pall | Z |
And I watch no grace because it will wane | X |
And I seek no good for it will not remain | X |
And I knit no tie because it will sever | Q |
- | |
If I were not alone if the gift were shared | H |
With but some one soul in the world beside | H |
Some one for whom I might have cared | H |
Who would not so soon have grown old and died | H |
But ever and ever to build all anew | F |
And ever and ever to see all decay | A |
To fashion my life as the others do | F |
And have my place among fellow men | A2 |
To sit content in my home and then | A2 |
To have lived and the rest has faded away | A |
There are the graves and I part of the past | H |
Forgotten with them whom I outlast | H |
Let it be 'tis a foolish game | B2 |
The game that children play on the beach | C2 |
With its ending always the same | B2 |
Building amain till the tide waves reach | C2 |
And the sands will be bare to build on to morrow | D2 |
Let it be for what is the worth | E2 |
Long since I wearied of saying good bye | L |
And what or whom should I cherish on earth | E2 |
Where I go as might one from some world on high | L |
Unmeet for the short lived pleasure or sorrow | D2 |
Only the men who look to die | L |
Can have or hope in a world where death reigns | F2 |
Do I pity that slight ephemerous fly | L |
Whirling and resting there in the sun | G2 |
Because his day will be so soon done | G2 |
All remains while his day remains | F2 |
He will not have known that a rosebud wanes | F2 |
How if he lived for ever as I | L |
- | |
Truly 'tis even so | D2 |
To die betimes is scarcely to know | D2 |
How death is around us everywhere | M |
But ever for me the birth and blow | D2 |
Are but a part of decay that is there | M |
And the living come but to go | D2 |
Till at length I am one who drawing aside | H |
Where the crowd sweeps by in one jostling race | H2 |
Stands unstirred in his lonely place | H2 |
And leaves off noting face after face | H2 |
I am one who wait stranded alone by the tide | H |
Of Life which has also Death for name | B2 |
Because for the world the two are the same | B2 |
The tide that goes winding back whence it came | B2 |
Bearing all thither save me | K |
And I dream and I scarcely seem to be | K |
And I know no count of time as it flies | V |
And the river passes passes passes | I2 |
Smooth and for ever and changelessly glasses | I2 |
Summers and winters and changing skies | V |
Passes and passes and passes | I2 |
And nothing abides and nothing is strange | J2 |
And oh for rest to my languid eyes | V |
Weary of change that is never change | J2 |
- | |
Ah men might marvel to hear me say | A |
The world of my youth is the world of to day | A |
Here in this very home of my birth | E2 |
How they would answer from some old book | K2 |
'Thus and thus was the past now look | K2 |
Are we as they of the older earth | E2 |
We and our ways and the fields we plough ' | - |
And the first met gossip who knows but Now | J |
Counts chances a score in half a year | L2 |
Tells me this was that and there was here | M2 |
A hall is burnt a new market is made | H |
A railway runs where the school boys played | H |
He is married and he is dead | H |
And he so rich goes begging his bread | H |
''Tis a world of change ' he will soberly sigh | L |
For point to his tales why and so say I | L |
Chances and changes enough I deem | N2 |
In a world that goes on like a shifting dream | N2 |
But oh the long sameness Ebb and flow | D2 |
Billows that come and billows that go | D2 |
Nothing is but will drift away | A |
Nothing was but will come | O2 |
Future finds Past old becomes new | F |
What men have done that they will do | F |
'Tis but the counting coins of to day | A |
To measure the former sum | O2 |
But the naming laterwise | A |
Things and thoughts of an ancient guise | A |
And what change for me who see life as some star | P2 |
The expanses of earth in one from afar | P2 |
Hill grows valley and valley grows hills | A |
'Tis a world of hills and valleys still | Q2 |
- | |
Did I dream I could have been wearied thus | A |
With truth and with wisdoms left to seek | R2 |
Alas my learners who heard me speak | R2 |
'Is not to learn enough for us | A |
Is not to strive a strength for the soul | S2 |
Though she never gained one foot to the goal ' | - |
If you could waken now where you lie | L |
You and your graves forgotten as I | L |
In our town that would tell our names for its praise | A |
If you could hear and your pitying gaze | A |
Could know the teacher who made you bold | H |
Nay sleep on unconscious there in the mould | H |
You died with a joy as of something gained | H |
Something given to the world you left | H |
I laboured on to be ever bereft | H |
Of the skill achieved of the science attained | H |
For lo the end of all learning is this | A |
Only to know one has learned amiss | A |
Only to know that the art or the lore | T2 |
With its rules and its axioms was nothing more | T2 |
Than a working guess that did for the while | U2 |
Only to know that sage after sage | V2 |
Has passed on a dream from age to age | V2 |
Till the world awakes and the children smile | U2 |
At the thoughts of the foolish grown men of old | H |
Aye sleep ye who counted your lives well spent | H |
Sleep ye who dreamed ye are content | H |
Thou who hadst gained the secret of gold | H |
Save that one last fusion left me to find | H |
Thou who hadst tracked the sun's path through the air | M |
Thou with thy skill of the stars thou there | M |
In the chapel vault with thy name still shown | W2 |
To sauntering strangers cut on the stone | W2 |
With thy chronicle of the world left behind | H |
Thou who hadst learned and hadst lighted on cures | A |
For every ill man's body endures | A |
And leftst me thy leechcrafts for legacy | A |
Thou and thou and thou oh poor fools | A |
Who dreamed ye had found the thing ye sought | H |
Sleep sleep and know not All goes by | L |
Lores and crafts and beliefs and schools | A |
Wrought is unravelled thought is new thought | H |
Till meseems that truth's very self must die | L |
And be born again unto younger rules | A |
- | |
Whereto is life for me And I would | H |
I had now departed and knew the end | H |
Death 'tis a way even I might wend | H |
But were it evil or good | H |
Oh had it been but a word to speak | R2 |
But a blow at once or a venomous draught | H |
Long since I had said or struck or quaffed | H |
But all a seven days' week | R2 |
- | |
Each dawn and each dusk of a seven days' week | R2 |
To will it unwavering all a week | R2 |
Vain vain o'er and o'er | Q |
A thousand times and a thousand y | - |
Augusta Davies Webster
(1)
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