The Height Of Land Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCBCDEFGHHBBICJKLH H MCINOOPQRSSTUVWXXVAA QBPPAATTJYYZKA2A2YYY B2YIC2D2CIE2F2F2YYF2 F2CF2G2H2FI2G2J2F2K2 L2L2L2M2VCL2F2H L2N2L2N2F2CCO2O2L2O2 CCCL2L2O2CF2F2F2F2O2 O2F2O2O2 O2F2O2L2L2F2L2F2O2L2 P2F2L2P2CL2F2L2L2Q2L 2L2O2L2L2O2F2O2CF2R2 VS2VYMYYHere is the height of land | A |
The watershed on either hand | A |
Goes down to Hudson Bay | B |
Or Lake Superior | C |
The stars are up and far away | B |
The wind sounds in the wood wearier | C |
Than the long Ojibwa cadence | D |
In which Pot n the Wise | E |
Declares the ills of life | F |
And Chees que ne ne makes a mournful sound | G |
Of acquiescence The fires burn low | H |
With just sufficient glow | H |
To light the flakes of ash that play | B |
At being moths and flutter away | B |
To fall in the dark and die as ashes | I |
Here there is peace in the lofty air | C |
And Something comes by flashes | J |
Deeper than peace | K |
The spruces have retired a little space | L |
And left a field of sky in violet shadow | H |
With stars like marigolds in a water meadow | H |
- | |
Now the Indian guides are dead asleep | M |
There is no sound unless the soul can hear | C |
The gathering of the waters in their sources | I |
We have come up through the spreading lakes | N |
From level to level | O |
Pitching our tents sometimes over a revel | O |
Of roses that nodded all night | P |
Dreaming within our dreams | Q |
To wake at dawn and find that they were captured | R |
With no dew on their leaves | S |
Sometimes mid sheaves | S |
Of bracken and dwarf cornel and again | T |
On a wide blueberry plain | U |
Brushed with the shimmer of a bluebird's wing | V |
A rocky islet followed | W |
With one lone poplar and a single nest | X |
Of white throat sparrows that took no rest | X |
But sang in dreams or woke to sing | V |
To the last portage and the height of land | A |
Upon one hand | A |
The lonely north enlaced with lakes and streams | Q |
And the enormous targe of Hudson Bay | B |
Glimmering all night | P |
In the cold arctic light | P |
On the other hand | A |
The crowded southern land | A |
With all the welter of the lives of men | T |
But here is peace and again | T |
That Something comes by flashes | J |
Deeper than peace a spell | Y |
Golden and inappellable | Y |
That gives the inarticulate part | Z |
Of our strange being one moment of release | K |
That seems more native than the touch of time | A2 |
And we must answer in chime | A2 |
Though yet no man may tell | Y |
The secret of that spell | Y |
Golden and inappellable | Y |
- | |
Now are there sounds walking in the wood | B2 |
And all the spruces shiver and tremble | Y |
And the stars move a little in their courses | I |
The ancient disturber of solitude | C2 |
Breathes a pervasive sigh | D2 |
And the soul seems to hear | C |
The gathering of the waters at their sources | I |
Then quiet ensues and pure starlight and dark | E2 |
The region spirit murmurs in meditation | F2 |
The heart replies in exaltation | F2 |
And echoes faintly like an inland shell | Y |
Ghost tremors of the spell | Y |
Thought reawakens and is linked again | F2 |
With all the welter of the lives of men | F2 |
Here on the uplands where the air is clear | C |
We think of life as of a stormy scene | F2 |
Of tempest of revolt and desperate shock | G2 |
And here where we can think on the brights uplands | H2 |
Where the air is clear we deeply brood on life | F |
Until the tempest parts and it appears | I2 |
As simple as to the shepherd seems his flock | G2 |
A Something to be guided by ideals | J2 |
That in themselves are simple and serene | F2 |
Of noble deed to foster noble thought | K2 |
And noble thought to image noble deed | L2 |
Till deed and thought shall interpenetrate | L2 |
Making life lovelier till we come to doubt | L2 |
Whether the perfect beauty that escapes | M2 |
Is beauty of deed or thought or some high thing | V |
Mingled of both a greater boon than either | C |
Thus we have seen in the retreating tempest | L2 |
The victor sunlight merge with the ruined rain | F2 |
And from the rain and sunlight spring the rainbow | H |
- | |
The ancient disturber of solitude | L2 |
Stirs his ancestral potion in the gloom | N2 |
And the dark wood | L2 |
Is stifled with the pungent fume | N2 |
Of charred earth burnt to the bone | F2 |
That takes the place of air | C |
Then sudden I remember when and where | C |
The last weird lakelet foul with weedy growths | O2 |
And slimy viscid things the spirit loathes | O2 |
Skin of vile water over viler mud | L2 |
Where the paddle stirred unutterable stenches | O2 |
And the canoes seemed heavy with fear | C |
Not to be urged toward the fatal shore | C |
Where a bush fire smouldering with sudden roar | C |
Leaped on a cedar and smothered it with light | L2 |
And terror It had left the portage height | L2 |
A tangle of slanted spruces burned to the roots | O2 |
Covered still with patches of bright fire | C |
Smoking with incense of the fragment resin | F2 |
That even then began to thin and lessen | F2 |
Into the gloom and glimmer of ruin | F2 |
'Tis overpast How strange the stars have grown | F2 |
The presage of extinction glows on their crests | O2 |
And they are beautied with impermanence | O2 |
They shall be after the race of men | F2 |
And mourn for them who snared their fiery pinions | O2 |
Entangled in the meshes of bright words | O2 |
- | |
A lemming stirs the fern and in the mosses | O2 |
Eft minded things feel the air change and dawn | F2 |
Tolls out from the dark belfries of the spruces | O2 |
How often in the autumn of the world | L2 |
Shall the crystal shrine of dawning be rebuilt | L2 |
With deeper meaning Shall the poet then | F2 |
Wrapped in his mantle on the height of land | L2 |
Brood on the welter of the lives of men | F2 |
And dream of his ideal hope and promise | O2 |
In the blush sunrise Shall he base his flight | L2 |
Upon a more compelling law than Love | P2 |
As Life's atonement shall the vision | F2 |
Of noble deed and noble thought immingled | L2 |
Seem as uncouth to him as the pictograph | P2 |
Scratched on the cave side by the cave dweller | C |
To us of the Christ time Shall he stand | L2 |
With deeper joy with more complex emotion | F2 |
In closer commune with divinity | L2 |
With the deep fathomed with the firmament charted | L2 |
With life as simple as a sheep boy's song | Q2 |
What lies beyond a romaunt that was read | L2 |
Once on a morn of storm and laid aside | L2 |
Memorious with strange immortal memories | O2 |
Or shall he see the sunrise as I see it | L2 |
In shoals of misty fire the deluge light | L2 |
Dashes upon and whelms with purer radiance | O2 |
And feel the lulled earth older in pulse and motion | F2 |
Turn the rich lands and inundant oceans | O2 |
To the flushed color and hear as now I hear | C |
The thrill of life beat up the planet's margin | F2 |
And break in the clear susurrus of deep joy | R2 |
That echoes and re choes in my being | V |
O Life is intuition the measure of knowledge | S2 |
And do I stand with heart entranced and burning | V |
At the zenith of our wisdom when I feel | Y |
The long light flow the long wind pause the deep | M |
Influx of spirit of which no man may tell | Y |
The Secret golden and inappellable | Y |
Duncan Campbell Scott
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