A Letter From Li Po Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Fanfare of northwest wind a bluejay wind	A
announces autumn and the equinox	B
rolls back blue bays to a far afternoon	C
Somewhere beyond the Gorge Li Po is gone	D
looking for friendship or an old love's sleeve	E
or writing letters to his children lost	F
and to his children's children and to us	G
What was his light of lamp or moon or sun	H
Say that it changed for better or for worse	I
sifted by leaves sifted by snow on mulberry silk	J
a slant of witch light on the pure text	K
a slant of genius emptying mind and heart	L
for winecups and more winecups and more words	M
What was his time Say that it was a change	N
but constant as a changing thing may be	O
from chicory's moon dark blue down the taut scale	P
to chicory's tenderest pink in a pink field	Q
such as imagination dreams of thought	R
But of the heart beneath the winecup moon	C
the tears that fell beneath the winecup moon	C
for children lost lost lovers and lost friends	S
what can we say but that it never ends	S
Even for us it never ends only begins	T
Yet to spell down the poem on her page	U
margining her phrases parsing forth	V
the sevenfold prism of meaning up the scale	P
from chicory pink to blue is to assume	W
Li Po himself as he before assumed	X
the poets and the sages who were his	Y
Like him we too have eaten of the word	Z
with him are somewhere lost beyond the Gorge	A2
and write in rain a letter to lost children	H
a letter long as time and brief as love	B2
	-
II	-
	-
And yet not love not only love Not caritas	Y
or only that Nor the pink chicory love	B2
deep as it may be even to moon dark blue	C2
in which the dragon of his meaning flew	C2
for friends or children lost or even	D2
for the beloved horse for Li Po's horse	Y
not these in the self's circle so embraced	E2
too near too dear for pure assessment no	F2
a letter crammed and creviced crannied full	G2
storied and stored as the ripe honeycomb	H2
with other faith than this As of sole pride	I2
and holy loneliness the intrinsic face	Y
worn by the always changing shape between	J2
end and beginning birth and death	K2
How moves that line of daring on the map	L2
Where was it yesterday or where this morning	M2
when thunder struck at seven and in the bay	N2
the meteor made its dive and shed its wings	Y
and with them one more Icarus Where struck	O2
that lightning stroke which in your sleep you saw	Y
wrinkling across the eyelid Somewhere else	Y
But somewhere else is always here and now	P2
Each moment crawls that lightning on your eyelid	Q2
each moment you must die It was a tree	O
that this time died for you it was a rock	R2
and with it all its local web of love	B2
a chimney spilling down historic bricks	Y
perhaps a skyful of Ben Franklin's kites	Y
And with them us For we must hear and bear	S2
the news from everywhere the hourly news	Y
infinitesimal or vast from everywhere	S2
	-
III	-
	-
Sole pride and loneliness it is the state	T2
the kingdom rather of all things we hear	U2
news of the heart in weather of the Bear	S2
slide down the rungs of Cassiopeia's Chair	S2
still on the nursery floor the Milky Way	N2
and if we question one must question all	V2
What is this man' How far from him is me'	H2
Who in this conch shell locked the sound of sea	O
We are the tree yet sit beneath the tree	O
among the leaves we are the hidden bird	Z
we are the singer and are what is heard	Z
What is this world' Not Li Po's Gorge alone	W2
and yet this too might be The wind was high	X2
north of the White King City by the fields	Y
of whistling barley under cuckoo sky '	-
where as the silkworm drew her silk Li Po	F2
spun out his thoughts of us Endless as silk'	R2
he said these poems for lost loves and us '	-
and for the peachtree blooming in the ditch '	-
Here is the divine loneliness in which	Y2
we greet only to doubt a voice a word	Z
the smoke of a sweetfern after frost a face	Y
touched and loved but still unknown and then	Z2
a body still mysterious in embrace	Y
Taste lost as touch is lost only to leave	E
dust on the doorsill or an ink stained sleeve	E
and yet for the inadmissible to grieve	E
Of leaf and love at last only to doubt	A3
from world within or world without kept out	A3
	-
IV	E
	-
Caucus of robins on an alien shore	B3
as of the Ho Ho birds at Jewel Gate	T2
southward bound and who knows where and never late	T2
or lost in a roar at sea Rovers of chaos	Y
each one the Rover of Chao ' whose slight bones	Y
shall put to shame the swords We fly with these	Y
have always flown and they	N2
stay with us here stand still and stay	N2
while exiled in the Land of Pa Li Po	F2
still at the Wine Spring stoops to drink the moon	C
And northward now for fall gives way to spring	R2
from Sandy Hook and Kitty Hawk they wing	R2
and he remembers with the pipes and flutes	Y
drunk with joy bewildered by the chance	Y
that brought a friend and friendship how in vain	C3
he strove to speak and in long sentences ' his pain	C3
Exiled are we Were exiles born The far away '	-
language of desert language of ocean language of sky	R2
as of the unfathomable worlds that lie	R2
between the apple and the eye	R2
these are the only words we learn to say	N2
Each morning we devour the unknown Each day	N2
we find and take and spill or spend or lose	Y
a sunflower splendor of which none knows the source	Y
This cornucopia of air This very heaven	H
of simple day We do not know can never know	F2
the alphabet to find us entrance there	S2
So in the street we stand and stare	S2
to greet a friend and shake his hand	D3
yet know him beyond knowledge like ourselves	Y
ocean unknowable by unknowable sand	D3
	-
V	E
	-
The locust tree spills sequins of pale gold	E3
in spiral nebulae borne on the Invisible	F3
earthward and deathward but in change to find	A
the cycles to new birth new life Li Po	F2
allowed his autumn thoughts like these to flow	F2
and from the Gorge sends word of Chouang's dream	H2
Did Chouang dream he was a butterfly	R2
Or did the butterfly dream Chouang If so	F2
why then all things can change and change again	Z2
the sea to brook the brook to sea and we	E
from man to butterfly and back to man	G3
This 'I ' this moving I ' this focal I '	-
which changes when it dreams the butterfly	R2
into the thing it dreams of liquid eye	R2
in which the thing takes shape but from within	D2
as well as from without this liquid I'	-
how many guises and disguises this	Y
nimblest of actors takes how many names	Y
puts on and off the costumes worn but once	Y
the player queen the lover or the dunce	Y
hero or poet father or friend	H3
suiting the eloquence to the moment's end	H3
childlike or bestial the language of the kiss	Y
sensual or simple and the gestures too	C2
as slight as that with which an empire falls	Y
or a great love's abjured these feignings sleights	Y
savants or saints or fly by nights	Y
the novice in her cell or wearing tights	Y
on the high wire above a hell of lights	Y
what's true in these or false which is the I'	-
of 'I's' Is it the master of the cadence who	C2
transforms all things to a hoop of flame where through	C2
tigers of meaning leap And are these true	C2
the language never old and never new	C2
such as the world wears on its wedding day	N2
the something borrowed with something chicory blue	C2
In every part we play we play ourselves	Y
even the secret doubt to which we come	H2
beneath the changing shapes of self and thing	R2
yes even this at last if we should call	V2
and dare to name it we would find	A
the only voice that answers is our own	W2
We are once more defrauded by the mind	A
	-
Defrauded No It is the alchemy by which we grow	F2
It is the self becoming word the word	Z
becoming world And with each part we play	N2
we add to cosmic Sum and cosmic sum	H2
Who knows but one day we shall find	A
hidden in the prism at the rainbow's foot	I3
the square root of the eccentric absolute	J3
and the concentric absolute to come	H2
	-
VI	R2
	-
The thousand eyes the Argus I's' of love	E
of these it was in verse that Li Po wove	E
the magic cloak for his last going forth	V
into the Gorge for his adventure north	V
What is not seen or said The cloak of words	Y
loves all says all sends back the word	Z
whether from Green Spring and the yellow bird	Z
'that sings unceasing on the banks of Kiang '	-
or 'from	H2

Conrad Potter Aiken

A Letter From Li Po Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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