The Landscape Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDDEEFFGGHHIJDIKK LL FFMMNNLLL OOLLLLLPQQRS TTUUVVWWVVQQLLLLLLXX YYZZVVLL OOA2A2B2B2JJC2C2VVOO LLJJ D2D2HHMMNNVVQQE2E2LL VVVQQF2F2G2G2H2H2VVL VLLI2I2LLJ2J2K2K2 L2L2M2M2N2N2A2A2O2P2 VVL2L2Q2Q2VVR2R2S2S2 S2S2HT2 S2S2LLS2S2LLVVS2S2LL U2U2YV2 S2S2W2W2S2S2LLX2W2Y2 Y2LLD2Z2VVS2S2You and your landscape There it lies | A |
Stripped resuming its disguise | A |
Clothed in dreams made bare again | B |
Symbol infinite of pain | C |
Rapture magic mystery | D |
Of vanished days and days to be | D |
There's its sea of tidal grass | E |
Over which the south winds pass | E |
And the sun set's Tuscan gold | F |
Which the distant windows hold | F |
For an instant like a sphere | G |
Bursting ere it disappear | G |
There's the dark green woods which throve | H |
In the spell of Leese's Grove | H |
And the winding of the road | I |
And the hill o'er which the sky | J |
Stretched its pallied vacancy | D |
Ere the dawn or evening glowed | I |
And the wonder of the town | K |
Somewhere from the hill top down | K |
Nestling under hills and woods | L |
And the meadow's solitudes | L |
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And your paper knight of old | F |
Secrets of the landscape told | F |
And the hedge rows where the pond | M |
Took the blue of heavens beyond | M |
The hastening clouds of gusty March | N |
There you saw their wrinkled arch | N |
Where the East wind cracks his whips | L |
Round the little pond and clips | L |
Main sails from your toppled ships | L |
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Landscape that in youth you knew | O |
Past and present earth and you | O |
All the legends and the tales | L |
Of the uplands of the vales | L |
Sounds of cattle and the cries | L |
Of ploughmen and of travelers | L |
Were its soul's interpreters | L |
And here the lame were always lame | P |
Always gray the gray of head | Q |
And the dead were always dead | Q |
Ere the landscape had become | R |
Your cradle as it was their tomb | S |
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And when the thunder storms would waken | T |
Of the dream your soul was not forsaken | T |
In the room where the dormer windows look | U |
There were your knight and the tattered book | U |
With colors of the forest green | V |
Gabled roofs and the demesne | V |
Of faery kingdoms and faery time | W |
Storied in pre natal rhyme | W |
Past the orchards in the plain | V |
The cattle fed on in the rain | V |
And the storm beaten horseman sped | Q |
Rain blinded and with bended head | Q |
And John the ploughman comes and goes | L |
In labor wet with steaming clothes | L |
This is your landscape but you see | L |
Not terror and not destiny | L |
Behind its loved maternal face | L |
Its power to change or fade replace | L |
Its wonder with a deeper dream | X |
Unfolding to a vaster theme | X |
From time eternal was this earth | Y |
No less this landscape with your birth | Y |
Arose nor leaves you nor decay | Z |
Finds till the twilight of your day | Z |
It bore you moulds you to its plan | V |
It ends with you as it began | V |
But bears the seed of future years | L |
Of higher raptures dumber tears | L |
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For soon you lose the landscape through | O |
Absence sorrow eyes grown true | O |
To the naked limbs which show | A2 |
Buds that never more may blow | A2 |
Now you know the lame were straight | B2 |
Ere you knew them and the fate | B2 |
Of the old is yet to die | J |
Now you know the dead who lie | J |
In the graves you saw where first | C2 |
The landscape on your vision burst | C2 |
Were not always dead and now | V |
Shadows rest upon the brow | V |
Of the souls as young as you | O |
Some are gone though years are few | O |
Since you roamed with them the hills | L |
So the landscape changes wills | L |
All the changes did it try | J |
Its promises to justify | J |
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For you return and find it bare | D2 |
There is no heaven of golden air | D2 |
Your eyes around the horizon rove | H |
A clump of trees is Leese's Grove | H |
And what's the hedgerow what's the pond | M |
A wallow where the vagabond | M |
Beast will not drink and where the arch | N |
Of heaven in the days of March | N |
Refrains to look A blinding rain | V |
Beats the once gilded window pane | V |
John the poor wretch is gone but bread | Q |
Tempts other feet that path to tread | Q |
Between the barn and house and brave | E2 |
The March rain and the winds that rave | E2 |
O landscape I am one who stands | L |
Returned with pale and broken hands | L |
Glad for the day that I have known | V |
And finds the deserted doorway strown | V |
With shoulder blade and spinal bone | V |
And you who nourished me and bred | Q |
I find the spirit from you fled | Q |
You gave me dreams 'twas at your breast | F2 |
My soul's beginning rose and pressed | F2 |
My steps afar at last and shaped | G2 |
A world elusive which escaped | G2 |
Whatever love or thought could find | H2 |
Beyond the tireless wings of mind | H2 |
Yet grown by you and feeding on | V |
Your strength as mother you are gone | V |
When I return from living trace | L |
My steps to see how I began | V |
And deeply search your mother face | L |
To know your inner self the place | L |
For which you bore me sent me forth | I2 |
To wander south or east or north | I2 |
Now the familiar landscape lies | L |
With breathless breast and hollow eyes | L |
It knows me not as I know not | J2 |
Its secret spirit all forgot | J2 |
Its kindred look is as I stand | K2 |
A stranger in an unknown land | K2 |
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Are we not earth born formed of dust | L2 |
Which seeks again its love and trust | L2 |
In an old landscape after change | M2 |
In hearts grown weary wrecked and strange | M2 |
What though we struggled to emerge | N2 |
Dividual footed for the urge | N2 |
Of further self discoveries though | A2 |
In the mid years we cease to know | A2 |
Through disenchanted eyes the spell | O2 |
That clothed it like a miracle | P2 |
Yet at the last our steps return | V |
Its deeper mysteries to learn | V |
It has been always us it must | L2 |
Clasp to itself our kindred dust | L2 |
We cannot free ourselves from it | Q2 |
Near or afar we must submit | Q2 |
To what is in us what was grown | V |
Out of the landscape's soil the known | V |
And unknown powers of soil and soul | R2 |
As bodies yield to the control | R2 |
Of the earth's center and so bend | S2 |
In age so hearts toward the end | S2 |
Bend down with lips so long athirst | S2 |
To waters which were known at first | S2 |
The little spring at Leese's Grove | H |
Was your first love is your last love | T2 |
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When those we knew in youth have crept | S2 |
Under the landscape which has kept | S2 |
Nothing we saw with youthful eyes | L |
Ere God is formed in the empty skies | L |
I wonder not our steps are pressed | S2 |
Toward the mystery of their rest | S2 |
That is the hope at bud which kneels | L |
Where ancestors the tomb conceals | L |
Age no less than youth would lean | V |
Upon some love For what is seen | V |
No more of father mother friend | S2 |
For hands of flesh lost eyes grown blind | S2 |
In death a something which assures | L |
Comforts allays our fears endures | L |
Just as the landscape and our home | U2 |
In childhood made of heaven's dome | U2 |
And all the farthest ways of earth | Y |
A place as sheltered as the hearth | V2 |
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Is it not written at the last day | S2 |
Heaven and earth shall roll away | S2 |
Yes as my landscape passed through death | W2 |
Lay like a corpse and with new breath | W2 |
Became instinct with fire and light | S2 |
So shall it roll up in my sight | S2 |
Pass from the realm of finite sense | L |
Become a thing of spirit whence | L |
I shall pass too its child in faith | X2 |
Of dreams it gave me which nor death | W2 |
Nor change can wreck but still reveal | Y2 |
In change a Something vast more real | Y2 |
Than sunsets meadows green wood trees | L |
Or even faery presences | L |
A Something which the earth and air | D2 |
Transmutes but keeps them what they were | Z2 |
Clear films of beauty grown more thin | V |
As we approach and enter in | V |
Until we reach the scene that made | S2 |
Our landscape just a thing of shade | S2 |
Edgar Lee Masters
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