The Loom Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDEDFGGG HIHJKLKLMKMKNENE OPPQPQPPGPGGKGKG PKEKPEPPPPPRST UQVVGGVVPPPPGEGEWX YPYPKPKPPVPVMy brother the god and I grow sick | A |
Of heaven's heights | B |
We plunge to the valley to hear the tick | A |
Of days and nights | B |
We walk and loiter around the Loom | C |
To see if we may | D |
The Hand that smashes the beam in the gloon | E |
To the shuttle's play | D |
Who grows the wool who cards and spins | F |
Who clips and ties | G |
For the storied weave of the Gobelins | G |
Who draughts and dyes | G |
- | |
But whether you stand or walk around | H |
You shall but hear | I |
A murmuring life as it were the sound | H |
Of bees or a sphere | J |
No Hand is seen but still you may feel | K |
A pulse in the thread | L |
And thought in every lever and wheel | K |
Where the shuttle sped | L |
Dripping the colors as crushed and urged | M |
Is it cochineal | K |
Shot from the shuttle woven and merged | M |
A tale to reveal | K |
Woven and wound in a bolt and dried | N |
As it were a plan | E |
Closer I looked at the thread and cried | N |
The thread is man | E |
- | |
Then my brother curious strong and bold | O |
Tugged hard at the bolt | P |
Of the woven life for a length unrolled | P |
The cryptic cloth | Q |
He gasped for labor blind for the moult | P |
Of the up winged moth | Q |
While I saw a growth and a mad crusade | P |
That the Loom had made | P |
Land and water and living things | G |
Till I grew afraid | P |
For mouths and claws and devil wings | G |
And fangs and stings | G |
And tiger faces with eyes of hell | K |
In caves and holes | G |
And eyes in terror and terrible | K |
For awakened souls | G |
- | |
I stood above my brother the god | P |
Unwinding the roll | K |
And a tale came forth of the woven slain | E |
Sequent and whole | K |
Of flint and bronze trowel and hod | P |
The wheel and the plane | E |
The carven stone and the graven clod | P |
Painted and baked | P |
And cromlechs proving the human heart | P |
Has always ached | P |
Till it puffed with blood and gave to art | P |
The dream of the dome | R |
Till it broke and the blood shot up like fire | S |
In tower and spire | T |
- | |
And here was the Persian Jew and Goth | U |
In the weave of the cloth | Q |
Greek and Roman Ghibelline Guelph | V |
Angel and elf | V |
They were dyed in blood tangled in dreams | G |
Like a comet's streams | G |
And here were surfaces red and rough | V |
In the finished stuff | V |
Where the knotted thread was proud and rebelled | P |
As the shuttle proved | P |
The fated warp and woof that held | P |
When the shuttle moved | P |
And pressed the dye which ran to loss | G |
In a deep maroon | E |
Around an altar oracle cross | G |
Or a crescent moon | E |
Around a face a thought a star | W |
In a riot of war | X |
- | |
Then I said to my brother the god let be | Y |
Though the thread be crushed | P |
And the living things in the tapestry | Y |
Be woven and hushed | P |
The Loom has a tale you can see to tell | K |
And a tale has told | P |
I love this Gobelin epical | K |
Of scarlet and gold | P |
If the heart of a god may look in pride | P |
At the wondrous weave | V |
It is something better to Hands which guide | P |
I see and believe | V |
Edgar Lee Masters
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Loom poem by Edgar Lee Masters
Best Poems of Edgar Lee Masters