Epilogue: 1908 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCBB DDBBEEFFBBDDGGHHIJKK LLBBBBFFMMNNOOBBPPQQ BBQQ RSTTBBQQUUQQQQVVQQBB QQWMCCQQQQXXYYPZQQ QQA2A2PPB2B2QQQQQQQQ LLQQQQQQPPC2C2D2D2E2 E2BBQQ| The droning tram swings westward shrill | A |
| the wire sings overhead and chill | A |
| midwinter draughts rattle the glass | B |
| that shows the dusking way I pass | B |
| to yon four turreted square tower | C |
| that still exalts the golden hour | C |
| where youth initiate once endears | B |
| a treasure richer with the years | B |
| - | |
| Dim seen the upper stories fleet | D |
| along the twisting shabby street | D |
| beneath the shop fronts' cover'd ways | B |
| bask in their lampions' orange blaze | B |
| or stare phantasmal weirdly new | E |
| in the electrics' ghastly blue | E |
| and up and down I see them go | F |
| along the windows pleas'd and slow | F |
| but hurrying where the darkness falls | B |
| the city's drift of pavement thralls | B |
| whom the poor pleasures of the street | D |
| lure from their niggard homes to meet | D |
| and mix unknown and feel the bright | G |
| banality 'twixt them and night | G |
| so in my youth I saw them flit | H |
| where their delusive dream was lit | H |
| so now I see them and can read | I |
| the urge of their unwitting need | J |
| one with my own however dark | K |
| and questing towards one mother ark | K |
| But past the gin shop's ochrous flare | L |
| sudden a gap of quiet air | L |
| and gather'd dark where set a pace | B |
| beyond the pavement's coiling race | B |
| and mask'd by bulk of sober leaves | B |
| the plain obtruncate chancel heaves | B |
| whose lancet windows faintly show | F |
| suffusion of a ruddy glow | F |
| the lamp of adoration dim | M |
| and rich with unction kept for Him | M |
| whom Bethlehem's manger first made warm | N |
| the sweetest god in human form | N |
| love's prisoner in the Eucharist | O |
| man's pleading patient amorist | O |
| and there the sacring laver stands | B |
| where I was brought in pious hands | B |
| a chrisom child that I might be | P |
| accepted of that company | P |
| who thro' their journeying behold | Q |
| beyond the apparent heavens controu'd | Q |
| to likeness of a candid rose | B |
| ascending where the gold heart glows | B |
| cirque within cirque the blessed host | Q |
| their kin their comfort and their boast | Q |
| - | |
| With them I walk'd in love and awe | R |
| till I was ware of that grim maw | S |
| and lazar pit that reek'd beneath | T |
| what outcast howlings these what teeth | T |
| gnashing in vain and was that bliss | B |
| whose counter hemisphere was this | B |
| and could it be when times fulfill'd | Q |
| had made the tally of either guild | Q |
| that this mid world dredged clean in both | U |
| should no more bar their gruesome troth | U |
| So from beneath that choiring tent | Q |
| I stepp'd and tho' my spirit's bent | Q |
| was dark to me as yet I sought | Q |
| a sphere appeas'd and undistraught | Q |
| and found viaticum and goal | V |
| in that hard atom of the soul | V |
| that final grain of deathless mind | Q |
| which Satan's watch fiends shall not find | Q |
| nor the seven mills of darkness bruise | B |
| for all permission to abuse | B |
| stubborn yet if one seek aright | Q |
| translucent all within and bright | Q |
| with sheen that bath no paradigm | W |
| not where our proud Golcondas brim | M |
| tho' sky and sea and leaf and flower | C |
| in each rare mood of virtual power | C |
| sleep in their gems' excepted day | Q |
| and so nor long the guarded ray | Q |
| broke on my eagerness who brought | Q |
| the lucid diamond probe of thought | Q |
| and driving it behind the extreme | X |
| blind vehemence of travailing dream | X |
| against the inhibitory shell | Y |
| and found no grim eternal cell | Y |
| and presence of the shrouded Norn | P |
| but Eden clad in nuptial mom | Z |
| young fair and radiant with delight | Q |
| remorse nor sickness shall requite | Q |
| - | |
| Yes Eden was my own my bride | Q |
| whatever malices denied | Q |
| faithful and found again nor long | A2 |
| absent from aura of wooing song | A2 |
| but promis'd only while the sun | P |
| must travel yet thro' times undone | P |
| and life must guard the prize of youth | B2 |
| and thought must steward into truth | B2 |
| the mines of magian ore divined | Q |
| in rich Cipangos of the mind | Q |
| and I that made my high attempt | Q |
| no bliss whence any were exempt | Q |
| their fellow pilgrim I must greet | Q |
| these listless captives of the street | Q |
| these fragments of an orphan'd drift | Q |
| whose dower was our mother's thrift | Q |
| and tho' they know it not have care | L |
| of what would be their loving prayer | L |
| if skill bestow'd might help them heed | Q |
| their craving for the simple meed | Q |
| to be together in the light | Q |
| when loneliness and dark incite | Q |
| long is the way till we are met | Q |
| where Eden pays her hoarded debt | Q |
| and we are orb'd in her and she | P |
| hath still'd her hungering to be | P |
| with plentitude beyond impeach | C2 |
| single distinct and whole in each | C2 |
| and many an evening hour shall bring | D2 |
| the dark crowd's dreary loitering | D2 |
| to me who pass and see the tale | E2 |
| of all my striving bliss or bale | E2 |
| dated from either spire that strives | B |
| clear of the shoal of shiftless lives | B |
| and promise in all years' despite | Q |
| fidelity to old delight | Q |
Christopher John Brennan
(1)
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