Edgar Bowers

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For Louis Pasteur Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHAIJKFL ABMKNOPQARBSTDADUKVW XBYZA2B2EC2D2BE2 F2BJG2UH2I2J2RK2DDL2 AM2 N2O2P2SQ2R2B2DMR2S2T 2U2V2W2

How shall a generation know its storyA
If it will know no other When amongB
The scoffers at the Institute PasteurC
Heard one deny the cause of child birth feverD
Indignantly he drew upon the blackboardE
For all to see the Streptococcus chainF
His mind was like Odysseus and PlatoG
Exploring a new cosmos in the oldH
As if he wrote a poem his enemyA
Suffering disease and death the battlegroundI
His introspection Science and peace he saidJ
Will win out over ignorance and warK
But then the virus mutant in his veinF
Death to the Prussian and revenge revengeL
-
How shall my generation tell its storyA
Their fathers jobless boys for the CCCB
And NYA the future like a stairwellM
To floors without a window or a doorK
And then the army bayonet drill and foxholeN
Bombing to rubble cities with textbook namesO
Later to bulldoze streets for their green bodiesP
Drowned in the greener surfs of rumored FranceQ
My childhood friend George Humphreys whom I still seeA
Still ten years old his uncombed hair and grinR
Moment by moment in the H uuml rtgen darkB
Until the one step full in the sniper's sightS
His pastor father emptied by the griefT
Clark Harrison at nineteen a survivorD
Never to walk or have a child or beA
A senator or governor Herr WegnerD
Who led his little troop their standards highU
And sabers drawn against a panzer corpsK
Emerging from among the shades at DachauV
Stacked like firewood for someone else to burnW
And Gerd Radomski listening to broadcastsX
Of names a yearlong babel of the missingB
To find his wife and children Then they came homeY
Near middle age at twenty two to findZ
A new reunion of the church and stateA2
Cynical Constantines who need no nameB2
Domestic tranquility beaten to a swordE
Sons wasted by another lie in AsiaC2
Or Strangeloves they had feared that August dayD2
And they like runners stung behind a flagB
Running within a circle bereft of joyE2
-
Hearing of the disaster at SedanF2
And the retreat worse than the one from MoscowB
Their son among the missing or the deadJ
Pasteur and his wife Mary hired a carriageG2
And traveling to the east where he might tryU
His way to Paris stopping to ask each youthH2
And comfort every orphan of the state'sI2
Irascibility found him at lastJ2
And unsurprised embraced and took him inR
Two wars later the Prussian once againK2
The son of Mars in Paris Joseph MeisterD
The first boy cured of rabies now the keeperD
Of Pasteur's mausoleum when commandedL2
To open it for them though over seventyA
Lest he betray the master took his lifeM2
-
I like to think of Pasteur in ElysiumN2
Beneath the sunny pine of ripe ProvenceO2
Tenderly raising black sheep butterfliesP2
Silkworms and a new culture for delightS
Teaching his daughter to use a microscopeQ2
And musing through a wonder sacred passionR2
Practice and metaphysic all the sameB2
And each year honor three births Val eacute ryD
Humbling his pride by trying to write wellM
Mozart who lives still keeping my attentionR2
Repeatedly outside the reach of prideS2
And him whose mark I witness as a trustT2
Others he saves but could not save himselfU2
Socrates Galen Hippocrates the spiritV2
Fastened by love upon the human crossW2

Edgar Bowers



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