The Star-treader Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABBACDECDFFGGHIJH KLLKMNMMNFHHFOPQIIQE E DHHQQQERRE QHQHQQQSQRSRRTRTPUPR VR H QQQQQEHQQHEQQQQRREEQ QRQQQ QEEQQQW W X X YZZYY Q RQ RQQQRQRBB

A voice cried to me in a dawn of dreamsA
Saying 'Make haste the webs of death and birthB
Are brushed away and all the threads of earthB
Wear to the breaking spaceward gleamsA
Thine ancient pathway of the sunsC
Whose flame is part of theeD
And the deep gulfs abide coevallyE
Whose darkness runsC
Through all thy spirit's mysteryD
Go forth and tread unharmed the blazeF
Of stars wherethrough thou camest in old daysF
Pierce without fear each vastG
Whose hugeness crushed thee not within the pastG
A hand strikes off the chains of TimeH
A hand swings back the door of yearsI
Now fall earth's bonds of gladness and of tearsJ
And opens the strait dream to space sublime'H
-
II-
-
Who rides a dream what hand shall stayK
What eye shall note or measure meteL
His passage on a purpose fleetL
The thread and weaving of his wayK
It caught me from the clasping worldM
And swept beyond the brink of SenseN
My soul was flung and poised and whirledM
Like to a planet chained and hurledM
With solar lightning strong and tenseN
Swift as communicated raysF
That leap from severed suns a gloomH
Within whose waste no suns illumeH
The winged dream fulfilled its waysF
Through years reversed and lit againO
I followed that unending chainP
Wherein the suns are links of lightQ
Retraced through lineal ordered spheresI
The twisting of the threads of yearsI
In weavings wrought of noon and nightQ
Through stars and deeps I watched the dream unrollE
Those folds that form the raiment of the soulE
-
III-
-
Enkindling dawns of memoryD
Each sun had radiance to relumeH
A sealed disused and darkened roomH
Within the soul's immensityQ
Their alien ciphers shown and litQ
I understood what each had writQ
Upon my spirit's scrollE
Again I wore mine ancient livesR
And knew the freedom and the gyvesR
That formed and marked my soulE
-
IV-
-
I delved in each forgotten mindQ
The units that had builded meH
Whose deepnesses before were blindQ
And formless as infinityH
Knowing again each former worldQ
From planet unto planet whirledQ
Through gulfs that mightily divideQ
Like to an intervital sleepS
One world I found where souls abideQ
Like winds that rest upon a roseR
Thereto they creepS
To loose all burden of old woesR
And one there was a garden closeR
Whose blooms are grown of ancient sinT
And death the sap that wells and flowsR
The spirits weep that dwelt thereinT
And one I knew where chords of painP
With stridors fill the Senses' lyreU
And one where Beauty's olden chainP
Is forged anew with stranger lovelinessR
In flame soft links of never quenched desireV
And ineluctable duressR
-
VH
-
Where no terrestrial dreams had trodQ
My vision entered undismayedQ
And Life her hidden realms displayedQ
To me as to a curious godQ
Where colored suns of systems triplicateQ
Bestow on planets weird ineffableE
Green light that orbs them like an outer seaH
And large auroral noons that alternateQ
With skies like sunset held without abateQ
Life's touch renewed incomprehensiblyH
The strains of mirth and grief's harmonious spellE
Dead passions like to stars relitQ
Shone in the gloom of ways forgotQ
Where crownless gods in darkness sitQ
The day was full on altars hotQ
I heard enisled in those melodic seasR
The central music of the PleiadesR
And to Alcyone my soulE
Swayed with the stars that own her song's controlE
Unchallenged glad I trod a revenantQ
In worlds Edenic longly lostQ
Or dwelt in spheres that sing to thoseR
Through space no light has crossedQ
Diverse as Hell's mad antiphone uptossedQ
To Heaven's angelic chantQ
-
VI-
-
What vasts the dream went out to findQ
I seemed beyond the world's recallE
In gulfs where darkness is a wallE
To render strong Antares blindQ
In unimagined spheres I foundQ
The sequence of my being's roundQ
Some life where firstling meed of SongW
The strange imperishable leaf-
Was placed on brows that starry Grief-
Had crowned and Pain anointed longW
Some avatar where Love-
Sang like the last great star at mornX
Ere the pale orb of Death filled all its sky-
Some life in fresher years unwornX
Upon a world whereof-
Peace was a robe like to the calms that lie-
On pools aglow with latter springY
There Time's pellucid surface tookZ
Clear image of all things nor shookZ
Till the black cleaving of Oblivion's wingY
Some earlier awakeningY
In pristine years when giant strife-
Of forces darkly whirledQ
First forged the thing called Life-
Hot from the furnace of the sunsR
Upon the anvil of a worldQ
-
VII-
-
Thus knew I those anterior onesR
Whose lives in mine were blentQ
Till lo my dream that held a nightQ
Where Rigel sends no message of his mightQ
Was emptied of the trodden starsR
And dwindled to the sun's extentQ
The brain's familiar prison barsR
And raiment of the sorrow and the mirthB
Wrought by the shuttles intricate of earthB

Clark Ashton Smith



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