From Lucretius Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHEIIJKGKLMJNGN OLGOCPJQMGGGLLMMMGRJ JJJCSJTRRMMJMRMCTRGT RTMMCJRRMTRRTRGRRR| BOOK II | A |
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| Sweet when the great sea's water is stirred to his depths by the storm winds | B |
| Standing ashore to descry one afar off mightily struggling | C |
| Not that a neighbour's sorrow to you yields blissful enjoyment | D |
| But that the sight hath a sweetness of ills ourselves are exempt from | E |
| Sweet 'tis too to behold on a broad plain mustering war hosts | F |
| Arm them for some great battle one's self unscathed by the danger | G |
| Yet still happier this To possess impregnably guarded | H |
| Those calm heights of the sages which have for an origin Wisdom | E |
| Thence to survey our fellows observe them this way and that way | I |
| Wander amidst Life's paths poor stragglers seeking a highway | I |
| Watch mind battle with mind and escutcheon rival escutcheon | J |
| Gaze on that untold strife which is waged 'neath the sun and the starlight | K |
| Up as they toil to the surface whereon rest Riches and Empire | G |
| O race born unto trouble O minds all lacking of eyesight | K |
| 'Neath what a vital darkness amidst how terrible dangers | L |
| Move ye thro' this thing Life this fragment Fools that ye hear not | M |
| Nature clamour aloud for the one thing only that all pain | J |
| Parted and past from the Body the Mind too bask in a blissful | N |
| Dream all fear of the future and all anxiety over | G |
| So as regards Man's Body a few things only are needful | N |
| Few tho' we sum up all to remove all misery from him | O |
| Aye and to strew in his path such a lib'ral carpet of pleasures | L |
| That scarce Nature herself would at times ask happiness ampler | G |
| Statues of youth and of beauty may not gleam golden around him | O |
| Each in his right hand bearing a great lamp lustrously burning | C |
| Whence to the midnight revel a light may be furnished always | P |
| Silver may not shine softly nor gold blaze bright in his mansion | J |
| Nor to the noise of the tabret his halls gold corniced echo | Q |
| Yet still he with his fellow reposed on the velvety greensward | M |
| Near to a rippling stream by a tall tree canopied over | G |
| Shall though they lack great riches enjoy all bodily pleasure | G |
| Chiefliest then when above them a fair sky smiles and the young year | G |
| Flings with a bounteous hand over each green meadow the wild flowers | L |
| Not more quickly depart from his bosom fiery fevers | L |
| Who beneath crimson hangings and pictures cunningly broidered | M |
| Tosses about than from him who must lie in beggarly raiment | M |
| Therefore since to the Body avail not Riches avails not | M |
| Heraldry's utmost boast nor the pomp and the pride of an Empire | G |
| Next shall you own that the Mind needs likewise nothing of these things | R |
| Unless when peradventure your armies over the champaign | J |
| Spread with a stir and a ferment and bid War's image awaken | J |
| Or when with stir and with ferment a fleet sails forth upon Ocean | J |
| Cowed before these brave sights pale Superstition abandon | J |
| Straightway your mind as you gaze Death seem no longer alarming | C |
| Trouble vacate your bosom and Peace hold holiday in you | S |
| But if again all this be a vain impossible fiction | J |
| If of a truth men's fears and the cares which hourly beset them | T |
| Heed not the jav'lin's fury regard not clashing of broadswords | R |
| But all boldly amongst crowned heads and the rulers of empires | R |
| Stalk not shrinking abashed from the dazzling glare of the red gold | M |
| Not from the pomp of the monarch who walks forth purple apparelled | M |
| These things shew that at times we are bankrupt surely of Reason | J |
| When too all Man's life through a great Dark laboureth onward | M |
| For as a young boy trembles and in that mystery Darkness | R |
| Sees all terrible things so do we too ev'n in the daylight | M |
| Ofttimes shudder at that which is not more really alarming | C |
| Than boys' fears when they waken and say some danger is o'er them | T |
| So this panic of mind these clouds which gather around us | R |
| Fly not the bright sunbeam nor the ivory shafts of the Day star | G |
| Nature rightly revealed and the Reason only dispel them | T |
| Now how moving about do the prime material atoms | R |
| Shape forth this thing and that thing and once shaped how they resolve them | T |
| What power says unto each This must be how an inherent | M |
| Elasticity drives them about Space vagrantly onward | M |
| I shall unfold thou simply give all thyself to my teaching | C |
| Matter mingled and massed into indissoluble union | J |
| Does not exist For we see how wastes each separate substance | R |
| So flow piecemeal away with the length'ning centuries all things | R |
| Till from our eye by degrees that old self passes and is not | M |
| Still Universal Nature abides unchanged as aforetime | T |
| Whereof this is the cause When the atoms part from a substance | R |
| That suffers loss but another is elsewhere gaining an increase | R |
| So that as one thing wanes still a second bursts into blossom | T |
| Soon in its turn to be left Thus draws this Universe always | R |
| Gain out of loss thus live we mortals one on another | G |
| Bourgeons one generation and one fades Let but a few years | R |
| Pass and a race has arisen which was not as in a racecourse | R |
| One hands on to another the burning torch of Existence | R |
Charles Stuart Calverley
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