Tortoise Shell Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDEFGH IJ KGL DDDD MENL OPQ RRRO MSTRUBS RVTW KRXR YRZWA2B2B2OO| The Cross the Cross | A |
| Goes deeper in than we know | B |
| Deeper into life | C |
| Right into the marrow | B |
| And through the bone | D |
| Along the back of the baby tortoise | E |
| The scales are locked in an arch like a bridge | F |
| Scale lapping like a lobster's sections | G |
| Or a bee's | H |
| - | |
| Then crossways down his sides | I |
| Tiger stripes and wasp bands | J |
| - | |
| Five and five again and five again | K |
| And round the edges twenty five little ones | G |
| The sections of the baby tortoise shell | L |
| - | |
| Four and a keystone | D |
| Four and a keystone | D |
| Four and a keystone | D |
| Then twenty four and a tiny little keystone | D |
| - | |
| It needed Pythagoras to see life playing with counters on the living back | M |
| Of the baby tortoise | E |
| Life establishing the first eternal mathematical tablet | N |
| Not in stone like the Judean Lord or bronze but in life clouded life rosy tortoise shell | L |
| - | |
| The first little mathematical gentleman | O |
| Stepping wee mite in his loose trousers | P |
| Under all the eternal dome of mathematical law | Q |
| - | |
| Fives and tens | R |
| Threes and fours and twelves | R |
| All the volte face of decimals | R |
| The whirligig of dozens and the pinnacle of seven | O |
| - | |
| Turn him on his back | M |
| The kicking little beetle | S |
| And there again on his shell tender earth touching belly | T |
| The long cleavage of division upright of the eternal cross | R |
| And on either side count five | U |
| On each side two above on each side two below | B |
| The dark bar horizontal | S |
| - | |
| The Cross | R |
| It goes right through him the sprottling insect | V |
| Through his cross wise cloven psyche | T |
| Through his five fold complex nature | W |
| - | |
| So turn him over on his toes again | K |
| Four pin point toes and a problematical thumb piece | R |
| Four rowing limbs and one wedge balancing head | X |
| Four and one makes five which is the clue to all mathematics | R |
| - | |
| The Lord wrote it all down on the little slate | Y |
| Of the baby tortoise | R |
| Outward and visible indication of the plan within | Z |
| The complex manifold involvednes s of an individual creature | W |
| Plotted out | A2 |
| On this small bird this rudiment | B2 |
| This little dome this pediment | B2 |
| Of all creation | O |
| This slow one | O |
D. H. Lawrence
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Tortoise Shell poem by D. H. Lawrence
Best Poems of D. H. Lawrence