To The Moon [earlier Version] Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDCDEE FGFGHIHIJJ KLKLMNMNOP QRQRHSHSFT UVWXYGXGZZ GA2GB2C2CC2CHH D2JD2JE2F2E2G2H2H2 NUNUI2CI2CJ2J2 UDUDGK2GK2KK GL2GM2DZDZLL N2UN2UO2P2O2P2JJ| WITH silent step behold her steal | A |
| Over those envious clouds that hid | B |
| Till now her face then stand a seal | A |
| Of silver on heaven s mighty lid | B |
| So round me would I have her light | C |
| In one broad burst of beauty play | D |
| And who whilst thus she rules the night | C |
| Would wish the day | D |
| Nor feel his yearning spirit fraught | E |
| With sweetly solemn strains of visionary thought | E |
| - | |
| Love of my childhood for but when | F |
| A child I loved thee of all things | G |
| Yea with what ecstacies I then | F |
| Did hail thee what dear visionings | G |
| And when between us up the sky | H |
| Obscuring glooms have wildly thronged | I |
| With shortened breath and searching eye | H |
| How have I longed | I |
| For wings that I away might flee | J |
| To kiss thy hidden face and dwell awhile with thee | J |
| - | |
| I sadden Ah why bringest thou | K |
| Yet later memories to my mind | L |
| I would but gaze upon thee now | K |
| As erst for wonder not to find | L |
| Dim phantoms of each faded dream | M |
| That fanned my heart with pinions dyed | N |
| In passion by old HAWKESBURY S stream | M |
| Before me glide | N |
| With shades of days all figured o er | O |
| By feelings lost and hopes that know their place no more | P |
| - | |
| Nor was it thus thy beauty shone | Q |
| Upon me fewer summers past | R |
| Thus hopeless world distrusting lone | Q |
| And withering in Misfortune s blast | R |
| Many that loved me then were nigh | H |
| Of whom now these I may not trust | S |
| And those forget are far or lie | H |
| Cold in the dust | S |
| And never may we meet again | F |
| Loving and loved as then neath thy nocturnal reign | T |
| - | |
| O Cynthia it would seem as though | U |
| A something from our spirits fell | V |
| Like scents from flowers Life s eras through | W |
| And by which web invisible | X |
| A gathered after scene of all | Y |
| Affection builded to our loss | G |
| Is drawn thus in dim funeral | X |
| The heart across | G |
| And which where stained the most with gloom | Z |
| Uncertain Thought is prone to map with spells of doom | Z |
| - | |
| But sober Reason sagelier sings | G |
| These visioned mysteries are but | A2 |
| The semblances which former things | G |
| Imbued our being with as put | B2 |
| In act by memory when is seen | C2 |
| Again some marked associate sight | C |
| And thence it happens Orb serene | C2 |
| Why thou to night | C |
| Look st on me from thy native sky | H |
| Like an old friend too fond to talk of things gone by | H |
| - | |
| Let me this night the Past forget | D2 |
| For though its dying voices be | J |
| At times like tones from Eden yet | D2 |
| It bosoms too much change for me | J |
| That when but now my thoughts were given | E2 |
| To all I had suffered loved and lost | F2 |
| Turning mine eyes again to heaven | E2 |
| Tear quenched almost | G2 |
| I started with a strange despair | H2 |
| To find thee even thee smiling unaltered there | H2 |
| - | |
| Hence vain regrets of secret pride | N |
| My human heart what irks thee so | U |
| What in the scale of Nature tried | N |
| Should weigh thy happiness or wo | U |
| Pale millions so by Fortune cursed | I2 |
| Have loved for sorrow in the light | C |
| Of this yet youthful Moon since first | I2 |
| She claimed the night | C |
| And thus mature even from her birth | J2 |
| Chased with pale beam the glooms that swathed the infant Earth | J2 |
| - | |
| And be it humbling too to know | U |
| That when this pile of haughty clay | D |
| For ages shall have ceased to glow | U |
| Shall be a heap of ashes grey | D |
| Which as the invading ploughshare drills | G |
| The unremembered burial ground | K2 |
| The winds may o er a hundred hills | G |
| Scatter around | K2 |
| That in the midnight heavens thou | K |
| Shalt hang thy unfaded lamp and smile serene as now | K |
| - | |
| Nay more than this could even those | G |
| The Edenites who sorrow d here | L2 |
| Ere Noah s tilted ark arose | G |
| Or Nimrod chased the bounding deer | M2 |
| Wherever sepulchered could they | D |
| Shake the cold bonds of death and doom | Z |
| But for a moment now away | D |
| Into each tomb | Z |
| Solemnly gazing thee they d find | L |
| Even as they dying left thee watchful Moon behind | L |
| - | |
| But shall my thoughts thus widely range | N2 |
| And I no profit therein know | U |
| Seeing that wither waste and change | N2 |
| Must all that lives thine Orb below | U |
| Shall I not turn with this sole aim | O2 |
| In act to shun in heart control | P2 |
| Whatever dims the heavenward flame | O2 |
| The essential soul | P2 |
| I feel within and which must be | J |
| A living thing when thou art quenched eternally | J |
Charles Harpur
(1)
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