The Philosopher Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCCBDEDEFGHIHIJJDD KKLLMMMNNOPOPQRRQPRR PRRSSRRTTUU| Who shall be our prophet then | A |
| Chosen from all the sons of men | A |
| To lead his fellows on the way | B |
| Of hidden knowledge delving deep | C |
| To nameless mysteries that keep | C |
| Their secret from the solar day | B |
| Or who shall pierce with surer eye | D |
| This shifting veil of bittersweet | E |
| And find the real things that lie | D |
| Beyond this turmoil which we greet | E |
| With such a wasted wealth of tears | F |
| Who shall cross over for us the bridge of fears | G |
| And pass in to the country where the ancient Mothers dwell | H |
| Is it an elder bent and hoar | I |
| Who where the waste Atlantic swell | H |
| On lonely beaches makes its roar | I |
| In his solitary tower | J |
| Through the long night hour by hour | J |
| Pores on old books with watery eye | D |
| When all his youth has passed him by | D |
| And folly is schooled and love is dead | K |
| And frozen fancy laid abed | K |
| While in his veins the gradual blood | L |
| Slackens to a marish flood | L |
| For he rejoiceth not in the ocean's might | M |
| Neither the sun giveth delight | M |
| Nor the moon by night | M |
| Shall call his feet to wander in the haunted forest lawn | N |
| He shall no more rise suddenly in the dawn | N |
| When mists are white and the dew lies pearly | O |
| Cold and cold on every meadow | P |
| To take his joy of the season early | O |
| The opening flower and the westward shadow | P |
| And scarcely can he dream of laughter and love | Q |
| They lie so many leaden years behind | R |
| Such eyes are dim and blind | R |
| And the sad aching head that nods above | Q |
| His monstrous books can never know | P |
| The secret we would find | R |
| But let our seer be young and kind | R |
| And fresh and beautiful of show | P |
| And taken ere the lustyhead | R |
| And rapture of his youth be dead | R |
| Ere the gnawing peasant reason | S |
| School him over deep in treason | S |
| To the ancient high estate | R |
| Of his fancy's principate | R |
| That he may live a perfect whole | T |
| A mask of the eternal soul | T |
| And cross at last the shadowy bar | U |
| To where the ever living are | U |
C. S. Lewis
(1)
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