From Lucretius Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHEIIJKGKLMJNGN OLGOCPJQMGGGLLMMMGRJ JJJCSJTRRMMJMRMCTRGT RTMMCJRRMTRRTRGRRR

BOOK IIA
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Sweet when the great sea's water is stirred to his depths by the storm windsB
Standing ashore to descry one afar off mightily strugglingC
Not that a neighbour's sorrow to you yields blissful enjoymentD
But that the sight hath a sweetness of ills ourselves are exempt fromE
Sweet 'tis too to behold on a broad plain mustering war hostsF
Arm them for some great battle one's self unscathed by the dangerG
Yet still happier this To possess impregnably guardedH
Those calm heights of the sages which have for an origin WisdomE
Thence to survey our fellows observe them this way and that wayI
Wander amidst Life's paths poor stragglers seeking a highwayI
Watch mind battle with mind and escutcheon rival escutcheonJ
Gaze on that untold strife which is waged 'neath the sun and the starlightK
Up as they toil to the surface whereon rest Riches and EmpireG
O race born unto trouble O minds all lacking of eyesightK
'Neath what a vital darkness amidst how terrible dangersL
Move ye thro' this thing Life this fragment Fools that ye hear notM
Nature clamour aloud for the one thing only that all painJ
Parted and past from the Body the Mind too bask in a blissfulN
Dream all fear of the future and all anxiety overG
So as regards Man's Body a few things only are needfulN
Few tho' we sum up all to remove all misery from himO
Aye and to strew in his path such a lib'ral carpet of pleasuresL
That scarce Nature herself would at times ask happiness amplerG
Statues of youth and of beauty may not gleam golden around himO
Each in his right hand bearing a great lamp lustrously burningC
Whence to the midnight revel a light may be furnished alwaysP
Silver may not shine softly nor gold blaze bright in his mansionJ
Nor to the noise of the tabret his halls gold corniced echoQ
Yet still he with his fellow reposed on the velvety greenswardM
Near to a rippling stream by a tall tree canopied overG
Shall though they lack great riches enjoy all bodily pleasureG
Chiefliest then when above them a fair sky smiles and the young yearG
Flings with a bounteous hand over each green meadow the wild flowersL
Not more quickly depart from his bosom fiery feversL
Who beneath crimson hangings and pictures cunningly broideredM
Tosses about than from him who must lie in beggarly raimentM
Therefore since to the Body avail not Riches avails notM
Heraldry's utmost boast nor the pomp and the pride of an EmpireG
Next shall you own that the Mind needs likewise nothing of these thingsR
Unless when peradventure your armies over the champaignJ
Spread with a stir and a ferment and bid War's image awakenJ
Or when with stir and with ferment a fleet sails forth upon OceanJ
Cowed before these brave sights pale Superstition abandonJ
Straightway your mind as you gaze Death seem no longer alarmingC
Trouble vacate your bosom and Peace hold holiday in youS
But if again all this be a vain impossible fictionJ
If of a truth men's fears and the cares which hourly beset themT
Heed not the jav'lin's fury regard not clashing of broadswordsR
But all boldly amongst crowned heads and the rulers of empiresR
Stalk not shrinking abashed from the dazzling glare of the red goldM
Not from the pomp of the monarch who walks forth purple apparelledM
These things shew that at times we are bankrupt surely of ReasonJ
When too all Man's life through a great Dark laboureth onwardM
For as a young boy trembles and in that mystery DarknessR
Sees all terrible things so do we too ev'n in the daylightM
Ofttimes shudder at that which is not more really alarmingC
Than boys' fears when they waken and say some danger is o'er themT
So this panic of mind these clouds which gather around usR
Fly not the bright sunbeam nor the ivory shafts of the Day starG
Nature rightly revealed and the Reason only dispel themT
Now how moving about do the prime material atomsR
Shape forth this thing and that thing and once shaped how they resolve themT
What power says unto each This must be how an inherentM
Elasticity drives them about Space vagrantly onwardM
I shall unfold thou simply give all thyself to my teachingC
Matter mingled and massed into indissoluble unionJ
Does not exist For we see how wastes each separate substanceR
So flow piecemeal away with the length'ning centuries all thingsR
Till from our eye by degrees that old self passes and is notM
Still Universal Nature abides unchanged as aforetimeT
Whereof this is the cause When the atoms part from a substanceR
That suffers loss but another is elsewhere gaining an increaseR
So that as one thing wanes still a second bursts into blossomT
Soon in its turn to be left Thus draws this Universe alwaysR
Gain out of loss thus live we mortals one on anotherG
Bourgeons one generation and one fades Let but a few yearsR
Pass and a race has arisen which was not as in a racecourseR
One hands on to another the burning torch of ExistenceR

Charles Stuart Calverley



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