The Creek Of The Four Graves Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFCGHIJK LCMCNOCFPQCCRCSTU VWXYCZA2B2GC2CW CD2VXGCCCCYC CE2CCD2CECCCCCC F2AD2D2D2VGF2D2VCCG2 XCD2C LD2CZEYTH2D2CD2 I2D2DD2CDD2CD2J2C K2CCDD2D2DD2L2D2DM2I 2N2D2CND2D2D2TD2TD2D KCCDTSCGD2 A O2I2P2CO2CTXD2CGQ2NR 2D2 D2SS2T2U2CCSD2CZ CCV2CD2D2D2CCCTTGD2 ZI | A |
I verse a Settler's tale of olden times | B |
One told me by our sage friend Egremont | C |
Who then went forth meetly equipt with four | D |
Of his most trusty and adventrous men | E |
Into the wilderness went forth to seek | F |
New streams and wider pastures for his fast | C |
Augmenting flocks and herds On foot were all | G |
For horses then were beast of too great price | H |
To be much ventured on mountain routes | I |
And over wild wolds clouded up with brush | J |
And cut with marshes perilously deep | K |
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So went they forth at dawn and now the sun | L |
That rose behind them as they journeyed out | C |
Was firing with his nether rim a range | M |
Of unknown mountains that like ramparts towered | C |
Full in their front and his last glances fell | N |
Into the gloomy forest's eastern glades | O |
In golden massses transiently or flashed | C |
Down to the windings of a nameless Creek | F |
That noiseless ran betwixt the pioneers | P |
And those new Apennines ran shaded up | Q |
With boughs of the wild willow hanging mixed | C |
From either bank or duskily befringed | C |
With upward tapering feathery swamp oaks | R |
The sylvan eyelash always of remote | C |
Australian waters whether gleaming still | S |
In lake or pool or bickering along | T |
Between the marges of some eager stream | U |
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Before then thus extended wilder grew | V |
The scene each moment and more beautiful | W |
For when the sun was all but sunk below | X |
Those barrier mountains in the breeze that o'er | Y |
Their rough enormous backs deep fleeced with wood | C |
Came whispering down the wide up slanting sea | Z |
Of fanning leaves in the descending rays | A2 |
Danced interdazzingly as if the trees | B2 |
That bore them were all thrilling tingling all | G |
Even to the roots for very happiness | C2 |
So prompted from within so sentient seemed | C |
The bright quick motion wildly beautiful | W |
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But when the sun had wholly disappeared | C |
Behind those mountains O what words what hues | D2 |
Might paint the wild magnificence of view | V |
That opened westward Out extending lo | X |
The heights rose crowding with their summits all | G |
Dissolving as it seemed and partly lost | C |
In the exceeding radiancy aloft | C |
And thus transfigured for awhile they stood | C |
Like a great company of Archaeons crowned | C |
With burning diadems and tented o'er | Y |
With canopies of purple and of gold | C |
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Here halting wearied now the sun was set | C |
Our travellers kindled for their first night's camp | E2 |
The brisk and crackling fire which also looked | C |
A wilder creature than 'twas elsewhere wont | C |
Because of the surrounding savageness | D2 |
And soon in cannikins the tea was made | C |
Fragrant and stong long fresh sliced rashers then | E |
Impaled on whittled skewers were deftly broiled | C |
On the live embers and when done transferred | C |
To quadrants from an ample damper cut | C |
Their only trenchers soon to be dispatched | C |
With all the savoury morsels they sustained | C |
By the keen tooth of healthful appitite | C |
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And as they supped birds of new shape and plume | F2 |
And wild strange voice came by nestward repairing by | A |
Oft too their wonder or betwixt the gaps | D2 |
In the ascending forest growths they saw | D2 |
Perched on the bare abutments of the hills | D2 |
Where haply yet some lingering gleam fell through | V |
The wallaroo look forth till aastward all | G |
The view had wasted into formless gloom | F2 |
Night's front and westward the high massing woods | D2 |
Steeped in a swart but mellowed Indian hue | V |
A deep dusk loveliness lay ridged and heaped | C |
Only the more distinctly for their shade | C |
Against the twilight heaven a cloudless depth | G2 |
Yet luminous with the sunset's fading glow | X |
And thus awhile in the lit dusk they seemed | C |
To hang like mighty pictures of themselves | D2 |
In the still chambers of some vaster world | C |
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The silent business of their supper done | L |
The Echoes of the solitary place | D2 |
Came as in sylvan wonder wide about | C |
To hear and imitate tentatively | Z |
Stange voice moulding a strange speech as then | E |
Within the pleasant purlieus of the fire | Y |
Lifted in glee but to be hushed erelong | T |
As with the night in kindred darkness came | H2 |
O'er the adventurers each and all some sense | D2 |
Some vague felt intimation from without | C |
Of danger lurking in its forest lairs | D2 |
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But nerved by habit and all settled soon | I2 |
About the well built fire whose nimble tongues | D2 |
Sent up continually a strenuous roar | D |
Of fierce delight and from their fuming pipes | D2 |
Fu charged and fragrant with the Indian weed | C |
Drawing rude comfort typed without as 'twere | D |
By tiny clouds over their several heads | D2 |
Quietly curling upward thus disposed | C |
Within the pleasant firelight grave discourse | D2 |
of their peculiar business brought to each | J2 |
A steadier mood that reached into the night | C |
- | |
The simple subject to their minds at length | K2 |
Fully discussed their couches they prepared | C |
Of rushes and the long green tresses pulled | C |
Down from the boughs of the wild willows near | D |
The four as prearranged stretched out their limbs | D2 |
Under the dark arms of the forest trees | D2 |
That mixed aloft high in the starry air | D |
In arcs and leafy domes whose crossing curves | D2 |
And roof like features blurring as they ran | L2 |
Into some denser intergrowth of sprays | D2 |
Were seen in mass traced out against the clear | D |
Wide gaze of heaven and trustful of the watch | M2 |
Kept near them by their thoughtful Master soon | I2 |
Drowsing away forgetful of their toil | N2 |
And of the perilous vast wilderness | D2 |
That lay around them like a spectral world | C |
Slept breathing deep whilst all things there as well | N |
Showed slumbrous yea the circling forest trees | D2 |
Their foremost holes carved from a crowded mass | D2 |
Less visible by the watchfire's bladed gleams | D2 |
As quick and spicular from the broad red ring | T |
Of its more constant light they ran in spurts | D2 |
Far out and under the umbrageous dark | T |
And even the shaded and enormous mounts | D2 |
Their bluff brows grooming through the stirless air | D |
Looked in their quiet solemnly asleep | K |
Yea thence surveyed the Universe might have seemed | C |
Coiled in vast rest only that one dim cloud | C |
Diffused and shapen like a huge spider | D |
Crept as with scrawling legs along the sky | T |
And that the stars in their bright orders still | S |
Cluster by cluster glowingly revealed | C |
As this slow cloud moved on high over all | G |
Looked wakeful yea looked thoughtful in their peace | D2 |
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II | A |
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Meanwhile the cloudless eastem heaven had grown | O2 |
More and more luminous and now the Moon | I2 |
Up from behind a giant hill was seen | P2 |
Conglobing till a mighty mass she brought | C |
Her under border level with its cone | O2 |
As thereon it were resting when behold | C |
A wonder Instantly that cone's whole bulk | T |
Erewhile so dark seemed inwardly a glow | X |
With her instilled irradiance while the trees | D2 |
That fringed its outline their huge statures dwarfed | C |
By distance into brambles and yet all | G |
Clearly defined against her ample orb | Q2 |
Out of its very disc appeared to swell | N |
In shadowy relief as they had been | R2 |
All sculptured from its substance as she rose | D2 |
- | |
Thus o'er that dark height her great orb arose | D2 |
Till her full light in silvery sequence still | S |
Cascading forth from ridgy slope to slope | S2 |
Like the dropt foldings of a lucent veil | T2 |
Chased mass by mass the broken darkness down | U2 |
Into the dense brushtd valleys where it crouched | C |
And shrank and struggled like a dragon doubt | C |
Glooming some lonely spirit that doth still | S |
Resist the Truth with obstinate shifts and shows | D2 |
Though shining out of heaven and from defect | C |
Winning a triumph that might else not be | Z |
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There standing in his lone watch Egremont | C |
On all this solemn beauty of the world | C |
Looked out yet wakeful for sweet thoughts of home | V2 |
And all the sacred charities it held | C |
Ingathered to his heart as by some nice | D2 |
And subtle interfusion that connects | D2 |
The loved and cherished then the most perhaps | D2 |
When absent or when passed or even when lost | C |
With all serene and beautiful and bright | C |
And lasting things of Nature So then thought | C |
The musing Egremont when sudden hark | T |
A bough crackt loudly in a neighboring brake | T |
And drew at once as with alarum all | G |
His spirits thitherward in wild surmise | D2 |
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But summoning caution and b | Z |
Charles Harpur
(1)
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