From Lucretius Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHEIIJKGKLMJNGN OLGOCPJQMGGGLLMMMGRJ JJJCSJTRRMMJMRMCTRGT RTMMCJRRMTRRTRGRRRBOOK 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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