The Colloquy Of Monos And Una Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A B C BDAA E FGFHAIJ KLKABMKIAAC I NO O PFQA I OAO O A I A O QIARIQH I OIOMBIIIAAQDSTAHAMOM QOAAAIQTAABBIAIAUMQO QIOBVABBMIHRROWAIHQQ XAHIIUIOTYZAIAA2QIB2 BRHIMIHAC2C2D2E2MF2A IAO BMIOG2QAQAQVO O QMMMAIOIQV I MAH2TC2OBIFM HQAAIRI AIIIMIFHHRAOII2J2QK2 IMQL2ABIABABMF2AFQMO HIAATM2ON2AIQI L2AIMUOMA O2QOAIAAP2IOAQ2AOO2M OAAIMQAAIAOR2 IMQOIAHIMIOQFQIE2BHI QIQIHAHS2AQM IAFAOAHP2FIMMMI IIT2IBFIE2J2M2AAU2 TAAAA OAMIOIETAOQPRIRMAMQV 2AQAW2IJ2AAIGreek Mellonta sauta' | A |
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These things are in the future | B |
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Sophocles 'Antig ' | - |
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'Una ' | - |
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Born again | C |
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'Monos ' | - |
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Yes fairest and best beloved Una born again These were | B |
the words upon whose mystical meaning I had so long | D |
pondered rejecting the explanations of the priesthood | A |
until Death itself resolved for me the secret | A |
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'Una ' | - |
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Death | E |
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'Monos ' | - |
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How strangely sweet Una you echo my words I | F |
observe too a vacillation in your step a joyous | G |
inquietude in your eyes You are confused and oppressed by | F |
the majestic novelty of the Life Eternal Yes it was of | H |
Death I spoke And here how singularly sounds that word | A |
which of old was wont to bring terror to all hearts | I |
throwing a mildew upon all pleasures | J |
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'Una ' | - |
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Ah Death the spectre which sate at all feasts How often | K |
Monos did we lose ourselves in speculations upon its | L |
nature How mysteriously did it act as a check to human | K |
bliss saying unto it thus far and no farther That | A |
earnest mutual love my own Monos which burned within our | B |
bosoms how vainly did we flatter ourselves feeling happy | M |
in its first upspringing that our happiness would strengthen | K |
with its strength Alas as it grew so grew in our hearts | I |
the dread of that evil hour which was hurrying to separate | A |
us forever Thus in time it became painful to love Hate | A |
would have been mercy then | C |
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'Monos' | I |
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Speak not here of these griefs dear Una mine mine | N |
forever now | O |
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'Una' | O |
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But the memory of past sorrow is it not present joy I have | P |
much to say yet of the things which have been Above all I | F |
burn to know the incidents of your own passage through the | Q |
dark Valley and Shadow | A |
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'Monos' | I |
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And when did the radiant Una ask anything of her Monos in | O |
vain I will be minute in relating all but at what point | A |
shall the weird narrative begin | O |
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'Una' | O |
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At what point | A |
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'Monos' | I |
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You have said | A |
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'Una' | O |
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Monos I comprehend you In Death we have both learned the | Q |
propensity of man to define the indefinable I will not say | I |
then commence with the moment of life's cessation but | A |
commence with that sad sad instant when the fever having | R |
abandoned you you sank into a breathless and motionless | I |
torpor and I pressed down your pallid eyelids with the | Q |
passionate fingers of love | H |
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'Monos' | I |
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One word first my Una in regard to man's general condition | O |
at this epoch You will remember that one or two of the wise | I |
among our forefathers wise in fact although not in | O |
the world's esteem had ventured to doubt the propriety | M |
of the term improvement as applied to the progress of our | B |
civilization There were periods in each of the five or six | I |
centuries immediately preceding our dissolution when arose | I |
some vigorous intellect boldly contending for those | I |
principles whose truth appears now to our disenfranchised | A |
reason so utterly obvious principles which should | A |
have taught our race to submit to the guidance of the | Q |
natural laws rather than attempt their control At long | D |
intervals some master minds appeared looking upon each | S |
advance in practical science as a retrogradation in the true | T |
utility Occasionally the poetic intellect that | A |
intellect which we now feel to have been the most exalted of | H |
all since those truths which to us were of the most | A |
enduring importance could only be reached by that analogy | M |
which speaks in proof tones to the imagination alone | O |
and to the unaided reason bears no weight occasionally | M |
did this poetic intellect proceed a step farther in the | Q |
evolving of the vague idea of the philosophic and find in | O |
the mystic parable that tells of the tree of knowledge and | A |
of its forbidden fruit death producing a distinct | A |
intimation that knowledge was not meet for man in the infant | A |
condition of his soul And these men the poets | I |
living and perishing amid the scorn of the | Q |
utilitarians of rough pedants who arrogated to | T |
themselves a title which could have been properly applied | A |
only to the scorned these men the poets pondered | A |
piningly yet not unwisely upon the ancient days when our | B |
wants were not more simple than our enjoyments were | B |
keen days when mirth was a word unknown so | I |
solemnly deep toned was happiness holy august and | A |
blissful days blue rivers ran undammed between hills | I |
unhewn into far forest solitudes primeval odorous and | A |
unexplored Yet these noble exceptions from the general | U |
misrule served but to strengthen it by opposition Alas we | M |
had fallen upon the most evil of all our evil days The | Q |
great movement that was the cant term went on | O |
a diseased commotion moral and physical Art the | Q |
Arts arose supreme and once enthroned cast chains | I |
upon the intellect which had elevated them to power Man | O |
because he could not but acknowledge the majesty of Nature | B |
fell into childish exultation at his acquired and still | V |
increasing dominion over her elements Even while he stalked | A |
a God in his own fancy an infantine imbecility came over | B |
him As might be supposed from the origin of his disorder | B |
he grew infected with system and with abstraction He | M |
enwrapped himself in generalities Among other odd ideas | I |
that of universal equality gained ground and in the face of | H |
analogy and of God in despite of the loud warning | R |
voice of the laws of gradation so visibly pervading | R |
all things in Earth and Heaven wild attempts at an | O |
omniprevalent Democracy were made Yet this evil sprang | W |
necessarily from the leading evil Knowledge Man could not | A |
both know and succumb Meantime huge smoking cities arose | I |
innumerable Green leaves shrank before the hot breath of | H |
furnaces The fair face of Nature was deformed as with the | Q |
ravages of some loathsome disease And methinks sweet Una | Q |
even our slumbering sense of the forced and of the far | X |
fetched might have arrested us here But now it appears that | A |
we had worked out our own destruction in the perversion of | H |
our taste or rather in the blind neglect of its | I |
culture in the schools For in truth it was at this crisis | I |
that taste alone that faculty which holding a middle | U |
position between the pure intellect and the moral sense | I |
could never safely have been disregarded it was now | O |
that taste alone could have led us gently back to Beauty to | T |
Nature and to Life But alas for the pure contemplative | Y |
spirit and majestic intuition of Plato Alas for the Greek | Z |
mousichae which he justly regarded as an all sufficient | A |
education for the soul Alas for him and for it since | I |
both were most desperately needed when both were most | A |
entirely forgotten or despised Pascal a philosopher whom | A2 |
we both love has said how truly Que tout notre | Q |
raisonnement se reduit a ceder au sentiment and it is | I |
not impossible that the sentiment of the natural had time | B2 |
permitted it would have regained its old ascendency over | B |
the harsh mathematical reason of the schools But this thing | R |
was not to be Prematurely induced by intemperance of | H |
knowledge the old age of the world drew near This the mass | I |
of mankind saw not or living lustily although unhappily | M |
affected not to see But for myself the Earth's records | I |
had taught me to look for widest ruin as the price of | H |
highest civilization I had imbibed a prescience of our Fate | A |
from comparison of China the simple and enduring with | C2 |
Assyria the architect with Egypt the astrologer with | C2 |
Nubia more crafty than either the turbulent mother of all | D2 |
Arts In the history of these regions I met with a ray from | E2 |
the Future The individual artificialities of the three | M |
latter were local diseases of the Earth and in their | F2 |
individual overthrows we had seen local remedies applied | A |
but for the infected world at large I could anticipate no | I |
regeneration save in death That man as a race should not | A |
become extinct I saw that he must be born again | O |
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And now it was fairest and dearest that we wrapped our | B |
spirits daily in dreams Now it was that in twilight we | M |
discoursed of the days to come when the Art scarred surface | I |
of the Earth having undergone that purification which alone | O |
could efface its rectangular obscenities should clothe | G2 |
itself anew in the verdure and the mountain slopes and the | Q |
smiling waters of Paradise and be rendered at length a fit | A |
dwelling place for man for man the | Q |
Death purged for man to whose now exalted intellect | A |
there should be poison in knowledge no more for the | Q |
redeemed regenerated blissful and now immortal but still | V |
for the material man | O |
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'Una' | O |
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Well do I remember these conversations dear Monos but the | Q |
epoch of the fiery overthrow was not so near at hand as we | M |
believed and as the corruption you indicate did surely | M |
warrant us in believing Men lived and died individually | M |
You yourself sickened and passed into the grave and | A |
thither your constant Una speedily followed you And though | I |
the century which has since elapsed and whose conclusion | O |
brings up together once more tortured our slumbering senses | I |
with no impatience of duration yet my Monos it was a | Q |
century still | V |
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'Monos' | I |
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Say rather a point in the vague infinity Unquestionably | M |
it was in the Earth's dotage that I died Wearied at heart | A |
with anxieties which had their origin in the general turmoil | H2 |
and decay I succumbed to the fierce fever After some few | T |
days of pain and many of dreamy delirium replete with | C2 |
ecstasy the manifestations of which you mistook for pain | O |
while I longed but was impotent to undeceive you after | B |
some days there came upon me as you have said a breathless | I |
and motionless torpor and this was termed Death by | F |
those who stood around me | M |
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Words are vague things My condition did not deprive me of | H |
sentience It appeared to me not greatly dissimilar to the | Q |
extreme quiescence of him who having slumbered long and | A |
profoundly lying motionless and fully prostrate in a mid | A |
summer noon begins to steal slowly back into consciousness | I |
through the mere sufficiency of his sleep and without being | R |
awakened by external disturbances | I |
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I breathed no longer The pulses were still The heart had | A |
ceased to beat Volition had not departed but was | I |
powerless The senses were unusually active although | I |
eccentrically so assuming often each other's functions | I |
at random The taste and the smell were inextricably | M |
confounded and became one sentiment abnormal and intense | I |
The rose water with which your tenderness had moistened my | F |
lips to the last affected me with sweet fancies of | H |
flowers fantastic flowers far more lovely than any of | H |
the old Earth but whose prototypes we have here blooming | R |
around us The eye lids transparent and bloodless offered | A |
no complete impediment to vision As volition was in | O |
abeyance the balls could not roll in their sockets | I |
but all objects within the range of the visual hemisphere | I2 |
were seen with more or less distinctness the rays which | J2 |
fell upon the external retina or into the corner of the | Q |
eye producing a more vivid effect than those which struck | K2 |
the front or interior surface Yet in the former instance | I |
this effect was so far anomalous that I appreciated it only | M |
as sound sound sweet or discordant as the | Q |
matters presenting themselves at my side were light or dark | L2 |
in shade curved or angular in outline The hearing at | A |
the same time although excited in degree was not irregular | B |
in action estimating real sounds with an extravagance | I |
of precision not less than of sensibility Touch had | A |
undergone a modification more peculiar Its impressions were | B |
tardily received but pertinaciously retained and resulted | A |
always in the highest physical pleasure Thus the pressure | B |
of your sweet fingers upon my eyelids at first only | M |
recognized through vision at length long after their | F2 |
removal filled my whole being with a sensual delight | A |
immeasurable I say with a sensual delight All my | F |
perceptions were purely sensual The materials furnished the | Q |
passive brain by the senses were not in the least degree | M |
wrought into shape by the deceased understanding Of pain | O |
there was some little of pleasure there was much but of | H |
moral pain or pleasure none at all Thus your wild sobs | I |
floated into my ear with all their mournful cadences and | A |
were appreciated in their every variation of sad tone but | A |
they were soft musical sounds and no more they conveyed to | T |
the extinct reason no intimation of the sorrows which gave | M2 |
them birth while large and constant tears which fell upon | O |
my face telling the bystanders of a heart which broke | N2 |
thrilled every fibre of my frame with ecstasy alone And | A |
this was in truth the Death of which these bystanders | I |
spoke reverently in low whispers you sweet Una | Q |
gaspingly with loud cries | I |
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They attired me for the coffin three or four dark | L2 |
figures which flitted busily to and fro As these crossed | A |
the direct line of my vision they affected me as forms | I |
but upon passing to my side their images impressed me | M |
with the idea of shrieks groans and other dismal | U |
expressions of terror of horror or of woe You alone | O |
habited in a white robe passed in all directions musically | M |
about | A |
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The day waned and as its light faded away I became | O2 |
possessed by a vague uneasiness an anxiety such as the | Q |
sleeper feels when sad real sounds fall continuously within | O |
his ear low distant bell tones solemn at long but | A |
equal intervals and commingling with melancholy dreams | I |
Night arrived and with its shadows a heavy discomfort It | A |
oppressed my limbs with the oppression of some dull weight | A |
and was palpable There was also a moaning sound not unlike | P2 |
the distant reverberation of surf but more continuous | I |
which beginning with the first twilight had grown in | O |
strength with the darkness Suddenly lights were brought | A |
into the rooms and this reverberation became forthwith | Q2 |
interrupted into frequent unequal bursts of the same sound | A |
but less dreary and less distinct The ponderous oppression | O |
was in a great measure relieved and issuing from the flame | O2 |
of each lamp for there were many there flowed unbrokenly | M |
into my ears a strain of melodious monotone And when now | O |
dear Una approaching the bed upon which I lay outstretched | A |
you sat gently by my side breathing odor from your sweet | A |
lips and pressing them upon my brow there arose | I |
tremulously within my bosom and mingling with the merely | M |
physical sensations which circumstances had called forth a | Q |
something akin to sentiment itself a feeling that | A |
half appreciating half responded to your earnest love and | A |
sorrow but this feeling took no root in the pulseless | I |
heart and seemed indeed rather a shadow than a reality and | A |
faded quickly away first into extreme quiescence and then | O |
into a purely sensual pleasure as before | R2 |
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And now from the wreck and the chaos of the usual senses | I |
there appeared to have arisen within me a sixth all | M |
perfect In its exercise I found a wild delight yet a | Q |
delight still physical inasmuch as the understanding had in | O |
it no part Motion in the animal frame had fully ceased No | I |
muscle quivered no nerve thrilled no artery throbbed But | A |
there seemed to have sprung up in the brain that of | H |
which no words could convey to the merely human intelligence | I |
even an indistinct conception Let me term it a mental | M |
pendulous pulsation It was the moral embodiment of man's | I |
abstract idea of Time By the absolute equalization | O |
of this movement or of such as this had the | Q |
cycles of the firmamental orbs themselves been adjusted By | F |
its aid I measured the irregularities of the clock upon the | Q |
mantel and of the watches of the attendants Their tickings | I |
came sonorously to my ears The slightest deviations from | E2 |
the true proportion and these deviations were | B |
omniprevalent affected me just as violations of | H |
abstract truth were wont on earth to affect the moral sense | I |
Although no two of the timepieces in the chamber struck the | Q |
individual seconds accurately together yet I had no | I |
difficulty in holding steadily in mind the tones and the | Q |
respective momentary errors of each And this this | I |
keen perfect self existing sentiment of | H |
duration this sentiment existing as man could | A |
not possibly have conceived it to exist independently of | H |
any succession of events this idea this sixth | S2 |
sense upspringing from the ashes of the rest was the first | A |
obvious and certain step of the intemporal soul upon the | Q |
threshold of the temporal eternity | M |
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It was midnight and you still sat by my side All others | I |
had departed from the chamber of Death They had deposited | A |
me in the coffin The lamps burned flickeringly for this I | F |
knew by the tremulousness of the monotonous strains But | A |
suddenly these strains diminished in distinctness and in | O |
volume Finally they ceased The perfume in my nostrils died | A |
away Forms affected my vision no longer The oppression of | H |
the Darkness uplifted itself from my bosom A dull shot like | P2 |
that of electricity pervaded my frame and was followed by | F |
total loss of the idea of contact All of what man has | I |
termed sense was merged in the sole consciousness of entity | M |
and in the one abiding sentiment of duration The mortal | M |
body had been at length stricken with the hand of the deadly | M |
Decay | I |
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Yet had not all of sentience departed for the consciousness | I |
and the sentiment remaining supplied some of its functions | I |
by a lethargic intuition I appreciated the direful change | T2 |
now in operation upon the flesh and as the dreamer is | I |
sometimes aware of the bodily presence of one who leans over | B |
him so sweet Una I still dully felt that you sat by my | F |
side So too when the noon of the second day came I was | I |
not unconscious of those movements which displaced you from | E2 |
my side which confined me within the coffin which | J2 |
deposited me within the hearse which bore me to the grave | M2 |
which lowered me within it which heaped heavily the mould | A |
upon me and which thus left me in blackness and | A |
corruption to my sad and solemn slumbers with the worm | U2 |
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And here in the prison house which has few secrets to | T |
disclose there rolled away days and weeks and months and | A |
the soul watched narrowly each second as it flew and | A |
without effort took record of its flight without | A |
effort and without object | A |
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A year passed The consciousness of being had grown | O |
hourly more indistinct and that of mere locality had | A |
in great measure usurped its position The idea of entity | M |
was becoming merged in that of place The narrow | I |
space immediately surrounding what had been the body was now | O |
growing to be the body itself At length as often happens | I |
to the sleeper by sleep and its world alone is Death | E |
imaged at length as sometimes happened on Earth to | T |
the deep slumberer when some flitting light half startled | A |
him into awaking yet left him half enveloped in | O |
dreams so to me in the strict embrace of the | Q |
Shadow came that light which alone might have | P |
had power to startle the light of enduring | R |
Love Men toiled at the grave in which I lay | I |
darkling They upthrew the damp earth Upon my mouldering | R |
bones there descended the coffin of Una And now again all | M |
was void That nebulous light had been extinguished That | A |
feeble thrill had vibrated itself into quiescence Many | M |
lustra had supervened Dust had returned to dust The | Q |
worm had food no more The sense of being had at length | V2 |
utterly departed and there reigned in its stead | A |
instead of all things dominant and perpetual the | Q |
autocrats Place and Time For that | A |
which was not for that which had no form | W2 |
for that which had no thought for that which had no | I |
sentience for that which was soundless yet of which | J2 |
matter formed no portion for all this nothingness yet | A |
for all this immortality the grave was still a home and | A |
the corrosive hours co mates | I |
Edgar Allan Poe
(1)
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