Father And Son Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCB DECEFF AGHIJKLMM DNK AOKKPQ DPRSSTTDDUU AVWXXYYZDNA2KNAAB2UC 2D2RAE2F2E2F2G2SH2MM DS AI2J2RRK2RL2L2M2N2O2 O2P2Q2 DQ2 AO2R2R2HS2T2 DU2 AO2KO2V2KV2W2W2NNGGX 2X2 DDD ADQDQAQKKY2P DZ2 AA3| Father | A |
| On these occasions the feelings surprise | B |
| Spontaneous as rain and they compel | C |
| Explicitness embarrassed eyes | B |
| - | |
| Son | D |
| Father you re not Polonius you re reticent | E |
| But sure I can already tell | C |
| The unction and falsetto of the sentiment | E |
| Which gratifies the facile mouth but springs | F |
| From no felt had and wholly known things | F |
| - | |
| Father | A |
| You must let me tell you what you fear | G |
| When you wake up from sleep still drunk with sleep | H |
| You are afraid of time and its slow drip | I |
| Like melting ice like smoke upon the air | J |
| In February s glittering sunny day | K |
| Your guilt is nameless because its name is time | L |
| Because its name is death But you can stop | M |
| Time as it dribbles from you drop by drop | M |
| - | |
| Son | D |
| But I thought time was full of promises | N |
| Even as now the emotion of going away | K |
| - | |
| Father | A |
| That is the first of all its menaces | O |
| The lure of a future different from today | K |
| All of us always are turning away | K |
| To the cinema and Asia All of us go | P |
| To one indeterminate nothing | Q |
| - | |
| Son | D |
| Must it be so | P |
| I question the sentiment you give to me | R |
| As premature not to be given learned alone | S |
| When experience shrinks upon the chilling bone | S |
| I would be sudden now and rash in joy | T |
| As if I lived forever the future my toy | T |
| Time is a dancing fire at twenty one | D |
| Singing and shouting and drinking to the sun | D |
| Powerful at the wheel of a motor car | U |
| Not thinking of death which is foreign and far | U |
| - | |
| Father | A |
| If time flowed from your will and were a feast | V |
| I would be wrong to question your zest | W |
| But each age betrays the same weak shape | X |
| Each moment is dying You will try to escape | X |
| From melting time and your dissipating soul | Y |
| By hiding your head in a warm and dark hole | Y |
| See the evasions which so many don | Z |
| To flee the guilt of time they become one | D |
| That is the one number among masses | N |
| The one anonymous in the audience | A2 |
| The one expressionless in the subway | K |
| In the subway evening among so many faces | N |
| The one who reads the daily newspaper | A |
| Separate from actor and act a member | A |
| Of public opinion never involved | B2 |
| Integrated in the revery of a fine cigar | U |
| Fleeing to childhood at the symphony concert | C2 |
| Buying sleep at the drugstore grandeur | D2 |
| At the band concert Hawaii | R |
| On the screen and everywhere a specious splendor | A |
| One when he is sad has something to eat | E2 |
| An ice cream soda a toasted sandwich | F2 |
| Or has his teeth fixed but can always retreat | E2 |
| From the actual pain and dream of the rich | F2 |
| This is what one does what one becomes | G2 |
| Because one is afraid to be alone | S |
| Each with his own death in the lonely room | H2 |
| But there is a stay You can stop | M |
| Time as it dribbles from you drop by drop | M |
| - | |
| Son | D |
| Now I am afraid What is there to be known | S |
| - | |
| Father | A |
| Guilt guilt of time nameless guilt | I2 |
| Grasp firmly your fear thus grasping your self | J2 |
| Your actual will Stand in mastery | R |
| Keeping time in you its terrifying mystery | R |
| Face yourself constantly go back | K2 |
| To what you were your own history | R |
| You are always in debt Do not forget | L2 |
| The dream postponed which would not quickly get | L2 |
| Pleasure immediate as drink but takes | M2 |
| The travail of building patience with means | N2 |
| See the wart on your face and on your friend s face | O2 |
| On your friend s face and indeed on your own face | O2 |
| The loveliest woman sweats the animal stains | P2 |
| The ideal which is with us like the sky | Q2 |
| - | |
| Son | D |
| Because of that some laugh and others cry | Q2 |
| - | |
| Father | A |
| Do not look past and turn away your face | O2 |
| You cannot depart and take another name | R2 |
| Nor go to sleep with lies Always the same | R2 |
| Always the same self from the ashes of sleep | H |
| Returns with its memories always always | S2 |
| The phoenix with eight hundred thousand memories | T2 |
| - | |
| Son | D |
| What must I do that is most difficult | U2 |
| - | |
| Father | A |
| You must meet your death face to face | O2 |
| You must like one in an old play | K |
| Decide once for all your heart s place | O2 |
| Love power and fame stand on an absolute | V2 |
| Under the formless night and the brilliant day | K |
| The searching violin the piercing flute | V2 |
| Absolute Venus and Caesar fade at that edge | W2 |
| Hanging from the fiftieth story ledge | W2 |
| Or diminished in bed when the nurse presses | N |
| Her sickening unguents and her cold compresses | N |
| When the news is certain surpassing fear | G |
| You touch the wound the priceless the most dear | G |
| There in death s shadow you comprehend | X2 |
| The irreducible wish world without end | X2 |
| - | |
| Son | D |
| I begin to understand the reason for evasion | D |
| I cannot partake of your difficult vision | D |
| - | |
| Father | A |
| Begin to understand the first decision | D |
| Hamlet is the example only dying | Q |
| Did he take up his manhood the dead s burden | D |
| Done with evasion done with sighing | Q |
| Done with revery | A |
| Decide that you are dying | Q |
| Because time is in you ineluctable | K |
| As shadow named by no syllable | K |
| Act in that shadow as if death were now | Y2 |
| Your own self acts then then you know | P |
| - | |
| Son | D |
| My father has taught me to be serious | Z2 |
| - | |
| Father | A |
| Be guilty of yourself in the full looking glass | A3 |
Delmore Schwartz
(1)
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About Father And Son
Father And Son is a poem by Delmore Schwartz. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
