Cadet Grey: Canto Ii Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Bret Harte

Cadet Grey: Canto Ii Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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I	A
	-
Where West Point crouches and with lifted shield	B
Turns the whole river eastward through the pass	C
Whose jutting crags half silver stand revealed	B
Like bossy bucklers of Leonidas	C
Where buttressed low against the storms that wield	B
Their summer lightnings where her eaglets swarm	D
By Freedom's cradle Nature's self has steeled	B
Her heart like Winkelried and to that storm	D
Of leveled lances bares her bosom warm	D
	-
II	A
	-
But not to night The air and woods are still	E
The faintest rustle in the trees below	F
The lowest tremor from the mountain rill	E
Come to the ear as but the trailing flow	F
Of spirit robes that walk unseen the hill	E
The moon low sailing o'er the upland farm	G
The moon low sailing where the waters fill	E
The lozenge lake beside the banks of balm	H
Gleams like a chevron on the river's arm	G
	-
III	A
	-
All space breathes languor from the hilltop high	A
Where Putnam's bastion crumbles in the past	B
To swooning depths where drowsy cannon lie	A
And wide mouthed mortars gape in slumbers vast	B
Stroke upon stroke the far oars glance and die	A
On the hushed bosom of the sleeping stream	I
Bright for one moment drifts a white sail by	A
Bright for one moment shows a bayonet gleam	I
Far on the level plain then passes as a dream	I
	-
IV	A
	-
Soft down the line of darkened battlements	C
Bright on each lattice of the barrack walls	C
Where the low arching sallyport indents	C
Seen through its gloom beyond the moonbeam falls	C
All is repose save where the camping tents	C
Mock the white gravestones farther on where sound	B
No morning guns for reveille nor whence	C
No drum beat calls retreat but still is ever found	B
Waiting and present on each sentry's round	B
	-
V	A
	-
Within the camp they lie the young the brave	A
Half knight half schoolboy acolytes of fame	J
Pledged to one altar and perchance one grave	A
Bred to fear nothing but reproach and blame	J
Ascetic dandies o'er whom vestals rave	A
Clean limbed young Spartans disciplined young elves	C
Taught to destroy that they may live to save	A
Students embattled soldiers at their shelves	C
Heroes whose conquests are at first themselves	C
	-
VI	A
	-
Within the camp they lie in dreams are freed	B
From the grim discipline they learn to love	A
In dreams no more the sentry's challenge heed	B
In dreams afar beyond their pickets rove	A
One treads once more the piny paths that lead	B
To his green mountain home and pausing hears	C
The cattle call one treads the tangled weed	B
Of slippery rocks beside Atlantic piers	C
One smiles in sleep one wakens wet with tears	C
	-
VII	A
	-
One scents the breath of jasmine flowers that twine	K
The pillared porches of his Southern home	L
One hears the coo of pigeons in the pine	K
Of Western woods where he was wont to roam	L
One sees the sunset fire the distant line	K
Where the long prairie sweeps its levels down	M
One treads the snow peaks one by lamps that shine	K
Down the broad highways of the sea girt town	M
And two are missing Cadets Grey and Brown	M
	-
VIII	A
	-
Much as I grieve to chronicle the fact	B
That selfsame truant known as Cadet Grey	N
Was the young hero of our moral tract	B
Shorn of his twofold names on entrance day	N
Winthrop and Adams dropped in that one act	B
Of martial curtness and the roll call thinned	B
Of his ancestors he with youthful tact	B
Indulgence claimed since Winthrop no more sinned	B
Nor sainted Adams winced when he plain Grey was skinned	B
	-
	-
IX	C
	-
He had known trials since we saw him last	B
By sheer good luck had just escaped rejection	O
Not for his learning but that it was cast	B
In a spare frame scarce fit for drill inspection	O
But when he ope'd his lips a stream so vast	B
Of information flooded each professor	P
They quite forgot his eyeglass something past	B
All precedent accepting the transgressor	P
Weak eyes and all of which he was possessor	P
	-
X	C
	-
E'en the first day he touched a blackboard's space	C
So the tradition of his glory lingers	C
Two wise professors fainted each with face	C
White as the chalk within his rapid fingers	C
All day he ciphered at such frantic pace	C
His form was hid in chalk precipitation	O
Of every problem till they said his case	C
Could meet from them no fair examination	O
Till Congress made a new appropriation	O
	-
XI	C
	-
Famous in molecules he demonstrated	B
From the mess hash to many a listening classful	A
Great as a botanist he separated	B
Three kinds of Mentha in one julep's glassful	A
High in astronomy it has been stated	B
He was the first at West Point to discover	P
Mars' missing satellites and calculated	B
Their true positions not the heavens over	P
But 'neath the window of Miss Kitty Rover	P
	-
XII	C
	-
Indeed I fear this novelty celestial	A
That very night was visible and clear	Q
At least two youths of aspect most terrestrial	A
And clad in uniform were loitering near	Q
A villa's casement where a gentle vestal	A
Took their impatience somewhat patiently	A
Knowing the youths were somewhat green and bestial	A
A certain slang of the Academy	A
I beg the reader won't refer to me	A
	-
XIII	C
	-
For when they ceased their ardent strain Miss Kitty	A
Glowed not with anger nor a kindred flame	J
But rather flushed with an odd sort of pity	A
Half matron's kindness and half coquette's shame	J
Proud yet quite blameful when she heard their ditty	A
She gave her soul poetical expression	O
And being clever too as she was pretty	A
From her high casement warbled this confession	O
Half provocation and one half repression	O
	-
	-
NOT YET	B
	-
Not yet O friend not yet the patient stars	C
Lean from their lattices content to wait	B
All is illusion till the morning bars	C
Slip from the levels of the Eastern gate	B
Night is too young O friend day is too near	Q
Wait for the day that maketh all things clear	Q
Not yet O friend not yet	B
	-
Not yet O love not yet all is not true	R
All is not ever as it seemeth now	S
Soon shall the river take another blue	R
Soon dies yon light upon the mountain brow	S
What lieth dark O love bright day will fill	A
Wait for thy morning be it good or ill	A
Not yet O love not yet	B
	-
	-
XIV	A
	-
The strain was finished softly as the night	B
Her voice died from the window yet e'en then	T
Fluttered and fell likewise a kerchief white	B
But that no doubt was accident for when	T
She sought her couch she deemed her conduct quite	B
Beyond the reach of scandalous commenter	P
Washing her hands of either gallant wight	B
Knowing the moralist might compliment her	P
Thus voicing Siren with the words of Mentor	U
	-
XV	A
	-
She little knew the youths below who straight	B
Dived for her kerchief and quite overlooked	B
The pregnant moral she would inculcate	B
Nor dreamed the less how little Winthrop brooked	B
Her right to doubt his soul's maturer state	B
Brown who was Western amiable and new	R
Might take the moral and accept his fate	B
The which he did but being stronger too	R
Took the white kerchief also as his due	R
	-
XVI	A
	-
They did not quarrel which no doubt seemed queer	Q
To those who knew not how their friendship blended	B
Each was opposed and each the other's peer	Q
Yet each the other in some things transcended	B
Where Brown lacked culture brains and oft I fear	Q
Cash in his pocket Grey of course supplied him	V
Where Grey lacked frankness force and faith sincere	Q
Brown of his manhood suffered none to chide him	V
But in his faults stood manfully beside him	V
	-
XVII	A
	-
In academic walks and studies grave	A
In the camp drill and martial occupation	O
They helped each other but just here I crave	A
Space for the reader's full imagination	O
The fact is patent Grey became a slave	A
A tool a fag a pleb To state it plainer	P
All that blue blood and ancestry e'er gave	A
Cleaned guns brought water was in fact retainer	P
To Jones whose uncle was a paper stainer	P
	-
XVIII	A
	-
How they bore this at home I cannot say	C
I only know so runs the gossip's tale	A
It chanced one day that the paternal Grey	C
Came to West Point that he himself might hail	A
The future hero in some proper way	C
Consistent with his lineage With him came	J
A judge a poet and a brave array	C
Of aunts and uncles bearing each a name	J
Eyeglass and respirator with the same	J
	-
XIX	C
	-
Observe quoth Grey the elder to his friends	C
Not in these giddy youths at baseball playing	W
You'll notice Winthrop Adams Greater ends	C
Than these absorb HIS leisure No doubt straying	W
With Caesar's Commentaries he attends	C
Some Roman council Let us ask however	P
Yon grimy urchin who my soul offends	C
By wheeling offal if he will endeavor	P
To find What heaven Winthrop Oh no never	P
	-
XX	C
	-
Alas too true The last of all the Greys	C
Was doing police detail it had come	X
To this in vain the rare historic bays	C
That crowned the pictured Puritans at home	L
And yet 'twas certain that in grosser ways	C
Of health and physique he was quite improving	W
Straighter he stood and had achieved some praise	C
In other exercise much more behooving	W
A soldier's taste than merely dirt removing	W
	-
XXI	C
	-
But to resume we left the youthful pair	P
Some stanzas back before a lady's bower	P
'Tis to be hoped they were no longer there	P
For stars were pointing to the morning hour	P
Their escapade discovered ill 'twould fare	P
With our two heroes derelict of orders	C
But like the ghost they scent the morning air	P
And back again they steal across the borders	C
Unseen unheeded by their martial warders	C
	-
XXII	C
	-
They got to bed with speed young Grey to dream	I
Of some vague future with a general's star	P
And Mistress Kitty basking in its gleam	I
While Brown content to worship her afar	P
Dreamed himself dying by some lonely stream	I
Having snatched Kitty from eighteen Nez Perces	C
Till a far bugle with the morning beam	I
In his dull ear its fateful song rehearses	C
Which Winthrop Adams after put to verses	C
	-
XXIII	C
	-
So passed three years of their novitiate	B
The first real boyhood Grey had ever known	Y
His youth ran clear not choked like his Cochituate	B
In civic pipes but free and pure alone	Y
Yet knew repression could himself habituate	B
To having mind and body well rubbed down	M
Could read himself in others and could situate	B
Themselves in him except I grieve to own	Y
He couldn't see what Kitty saw in Brown	M
	-
XXIV	A
	-
At last came graduation Brown received	B
In the One Hundredth Cavalry commission	O
Then frolic flirting parting when none grieved	B
Save Brown who loved our young Academician	O
And Grey who felt his friend was still deceived	B
By Mistress Kitty who with other beauties	C
Graced the occasion and it was believed	B
Had promised Brown that when he could recruit his	C
Promised command she'd share with him those duties	C
	-
XXV	A
	-
Howe'er this was I know not all I know	F
The night was June's the moon rode high and clear	P
'Twas such a night as this three years ago	F
Miss Kitty sang the song that two might hear	P
There is a walk where trees o'erarching grow	F
Too wide for one not wide enough for three	P
A fact precluding any plural beau	F
Which quite explained Miss Kitty's company	P
But not why Grey that favored one should be	P
	-
XXVI	A
	-
There is a spring whose limpid waters hide	B
Somewhere within the shadows of that path	Z
Called Kosciusko's There two figures bide	B
Grey and Miss Kitty Surely Nature hath	Z
No fairer mirror for a might be bride	B
Than this same pool that caught our gentle belle	A
To its dark heart one moment At her side	B
Grey bent A something trembled o'er the well	A
Bright spherical a tear Ah no a button fell	A
	-
XXVII	A
	-
Material minds might think that gravitation	O
Quoth Grey drew yon metallic spheroid down	M
The soul poetic views the situation	O
Fraught with more meaning When thy girlish crown	M
Was mirrored there there was disintegration	O
Of me and all my spirit moved to you	R
Taking the form of slow precipitation	O
But here came Taps a start a smile adieu	R
A blush a sigh and end of Canto II	A
	-
BUGLE SONG	W
	-
Fades the light	B
And afar	P
Goeth day cometh night	B
And a star	P
Leadeth all	A
Speedeth all	A
To their rest	B
	-
Love good night	B
Must thou go	F
When the day	B
And the light	B
Need thee so	F
Needeth all	A
Heedeth all	A
That is best	B