The Watch At Midnight Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEEEFE EEFEEFGGHIIJEEFKKFLL EMMEEENEEN EEEEEEMMOOEEPP FFMQRQFFEQFSS EBEBKOKGETETLKLKETET EEUUEE EVEVPEEEPEEEEEBBEWWX EEYZZA2LLEA2EB2B2E EB2C2C2D2D2EEEEEEE2E 2F2F2G2EH2EI2I2J2PII IK2K2EEBB L2L2C2C2J2J2M2M2WWGG N2N2UUO2O2EEEEP2P2Q2 Q2EEDead stars beneath the midnight's granite cope | A |
and round your dungeon gulf that blindly grope | A |
and fall not since no lower than any place | B |
needs when the wing is dash'd and foil'd the face | B |
is this your shadow on the watcher's thought | C |
imposed or rather hath his anguish taught | C |
the dumb and suffering dark to send you out | D |
reptile the doubles of his lurking doubt | D |
in coasts of night that well might be supposed | E |
the exiled hall of chaos late deposed | E |
to haunt across this hour's desuetude | E |
immense that whelms in monumental mood | E |
the broad waste of his spirit stonily | F |
strewn with the wreck of his eternity | E |
- | |
The plumes of night unfurl'd | E |
and eyed with fire are whirl'd | E |
slowly above this watch funereal | F |
the vast is wide and yet | E |
no way lies open set | E |
no bar but the flat deep rises a placid wall | F |
Some throne thou think'st to win | G |
or pride of thy far kin | G |
this incomplete and dusty hour to achieve | H |
know that the hour is one | I |
eternally begun | I |
eternally deferr'd thy grasp a Danaid sieve | J |
O weary realm O height | E |
the which exhausted flight | E |
familiar finds home of its prompting ill | F |
here there or there or there | K |
even the same despair | K |
rest in thy place O fool the heart eludes thee still | F |
Rest and a new abyss | L |
suddenly yawns of this | L |
the moment sole and yet the counterpart | E |
and thou must house it thou | M |
within thy fleshy Now | M |
thyself the abyss that shrinks the unbounded hermit heart | E |
the mightier heart untold | E |
whose paining depths enfold | E |
all loneliness all height all vision'd shores | N |
and the abyss uncrown'd | E |
blank failure thro' each bound | E |
from the consummate point thy broken hope implores | N |
- | |
The trees that thro' the tuneful morn had made | E |
bride dusk for beams that pierce the melting shade | E |
or thro' the opulent afternoon had stood | E |
lordly absorb'd in hieratic mood | E |
now stricken with misgiving of the night | E |
rise black and ominous as who invite | E |
some fearful coming whose foreblown wind shall bow | M |
convuls'd and shuddering each dishevell'd brow | M |
the garden that had sparkled thro' its sheen | O |
all day a self sufficing gem serene | O |
hiding in emerald depths the vision'd white | E |
of limbs that follow their own clear delight | E |
exhales towards the inaccessible skies | P |
commencing failing broken scents or sighs | P |
- | |
O mother only | F |
where that thou hidest thee | F |
crown for the lonely brow | M |
bosom for the spent wanderer | Q |
or balm for ache | R |
O mother | Q |
nightly | F |
undiscoverable | F |
O heart too vast to find | E |
whelming our little desire | Q |
we wander and fail | F |
But on the zenith mass'd a glittering throng | S |
the distant stars dropt a disdainful song | S |
- | |
They said because their parcel thought | E |
might nor her shadowy vast embrace | B |
nor be refurl'd within that nought | E |
which is the hid heart of all place | B |
they said She is not anywhere | K |
have we not sought her and not seen | O |
nor is there found in earth or air | K |
a sign to tell if she hath been | G |
O fools and blind not to have found | E |
is her desire not as your own | T |
stirs she not in the arms that round | E |
a hopeless clasp lone with the lone | T |
And the tense lips towards her bliss | L |
in secret cells of anguish'd prayer | K |
might know her in the broken kiss | L |
she prompts nor prompting fails to share | K |
We drift from age to age nor waste | E |
our strenuous song's exultant tone | T |
disdaining or to rest or haste | E |
because each place is still our throne | T |
- | |
The anguish'd doubt broods over Eden night | E |
hangs her rent banners thro' the viewless height | E |
trophies and glories whence a trouble streams | U |
of lamentable valour in old dreams | U |
out of its blank the watcher's soul is stirr'd | E |
to take unto itself some olden word | E |
- | |
O thou that achest pulse o' the unwed vast | E |
now in the distant centre of my brain | V |
dizzily narrow'd now beyond the last | E |
calm circle widening of the starry plain | V |
where on the scatter'd edge of my surmise | P |
the twilit dreams fail off and rule is spent | E |
vainly on vagrant bands the gulfs invite | E |
to break away to the dark they backward sent | E |
tho' dumb with dire infection in their eyes | P |
startle the central seat O pulse of night | E |
passing the hard throb of sun smitten blood | E |
when the noon world is fused in fire and blent | E |
with my then unattained hero mood | E |
what will with me the imperious instinct | E |
that hounds the gulfs together on that place | B |
vanishing utterly out of mortal trace | B |
the citadel where I would seem distinct | E |
if not thou ween'st a vanity my deep | W |
unlighted still the which thy refluent sweep | W |
intolerably dilates a tide that draws | X |
with lunatic desire distraught and fond | E |
to some dark moon of vastness hung beyond | E |
our little limits of familiar cause | Y |
as tho' the tense and tortured voids should dash | Z |
ruining amorously together a clash | Z |
portentous with some rose of thinnest flame | A2 |
secret exhaled in the annull'd abyss | L |
that with this soul passes in that fell kiss | L |
and to the soft sprung flush all sanctity | E |
surrenders centring in the blossom'd Name | A2 |
as the dark wings of silence lovingly | E |
hover above the adventurous song that fares | B2 |
forth to the void and finds no lip that shares | B2 |
its rapture just the great wings spreading wide | E |
- | |
O mother thou or sister or my bride | E |
inevitable whom this hour in me declares | B2 |
were thine of old such rhythmic pangs that bore | C2 |
my shivering soul wind waif upon the shore | C2 |
that is a wavering twilight thence astray | D2 |
beneath the empty plainness of the day | D2 |
me thy first want conceived to some dim end | E |
that my unwelcom'd love might henceward tend | E |
to the dumb home that draws it in thy breast | E |
and the veil'd couch of some divine incest | E |
where thou didst wait some hour of sharp delight | E |
to wither up in splendour the stark night | E |
and haggard shame that ceremented thy dearth | E2 |
with purest diamond blaze some overbirth | E2 |
of the dark fire thy foresight did enmesh | F2 |
within this hither and thither harried flesh | F2 |
Ay yet obscurely stirs a monstrous worm | G2 |
in the rear cavern of my dazzled thought | E |
a memory that wavers formless form | H2 |
of superhuman nuptials clasp'd and caught | E |
unto the breast that is our loathed tomb | I2 |
then issuing from the violated womb | I2 |
tremendous birth of dreadful prodigies | J2 |
begotten on the apocalyptic skies | P |
one moment's hope one thrill alone was given | I |
of pinions beating up the parting heaven | I |
but straight thereon the spectral mirk was riven | I |
by shapes of snaky horror grisly jaw | K2 |
cold fear and scaly fold and endless maw | K2 |
What terror clutch'd me even as ecstasy | E |
smote dire across transfigured mystery | E |
and whose the sin that doom'd thee to disgrace | B |
to haunt the shapeless dark a burning face | B |
- | |
eyes that would cling to mine and lips that seek | L2 |
some baffled kiss some word they may not speak | L2 |
condemn'd to yearn where the worn foam is hoar | C2 |
and vain against the unshaken nightly shore | C2 |
Nightly thy tempting comes when the dark breeze | J2 |
scatters my thought among the unquiet trees | J2 |
and sweeps it with dead leaves o'er widow'd lands | M2 |
and kingdoms conquer'd by no human hands | M2 |
nightly thou wouldst exalt me in the deep | W |
crown'd with the morn that shines beyond our sleep | W |
nightly renew those nuptials and re win | G |
virginity and shed the doubtful sin | G |
but I am born into dividual life | N2 |
and I have ta'en the woman for my wife | N2 |
a flowery pasture fenced and soft with streams | U |
fill'd with slow ease and fresh with eastern beams | U |
of coolest silver on the sliding wave | O2 |
such refuge the derisive morning gave | O2 |
shaped featly in thy similitude to attract | E |
earthward the gusty soul thy temptings rack'd | E |
I sicken with the long unsatisfied | E |
waiting the sombre gulfs of night divide | E |
no dawn is shown that keeps its grace nor soon | P2 |
degraded not to brutal fires of noon | P2 |
and heavy on my soul the tyrant lays | Q2 |
his hand and dazzles with his common blaze | Q2 |
eyes that are fain when evening brings the dew | E |
t | E |
Christopher John Brennan
(1)
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