William Marion Reedy Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBBBBBBCCB BDDBBBBBBBBEEBFBFBGB GBBBFBFBHBCFFFHBBFFF BBBBBBIJBBKBBLBBJIBB B| He sits before you silent as Buddha | A |
| And then you say | B |
| This man is Rabelais | B |
| And while you wonder what his stock is | B |
| English or Irish you behold his eyes | B |
| As big and brown as those desirable crockies | B |
| With which as boys we used to play | B |
| And then you see the spherical light that lies | B |
| Just under the iris coloring | C |
| Before which everything | C |
| Becomes as plain as day | B |
| - | |
| If you have noticed the rolling jowls | B |
| And the face that speaks its chief | D |
| Delight in beer and roast beef | D |
| Before you have seen his eyes you see | B |
| A man of fleshly jollity | B |
| Like the friars of old in gowns and cowls | B |
| To make a show of scowls | B |
| And when he speaks from an orotund depth that growls | B |
| In a humorous way like Fielding or Smollett | B |
| That turns in a trice to Robert La Follette | B |
| Or retraces to Thales of Crete | B |
| And touches upon Descartes coming back | E |
| Through the intellectual Zodiac | E |
| That's something of a feat | B |
| And you see that the eyes are really the man | F |
| For the thought of him proliferates | B |
| This way over to Hindostan | F |
| And that way descanting on Yeats | B |
| With a word on Plato's symposium | G |
| And a little glimpse of Theocritus | B |
| Or something of Bruno's martyrdom | G |
| Or what St Thomas Aquinas meant | B |
| By a certain line obscure to us | B |
| And then he'll take up Horace's odes | B |
| Or the Roman civilization | F |
| Or a few of the Iliad's episodes | B |
| Or the Greek deterioration | F |
| Or skip to a word on the plasmic jelly | B |
| Which Benjamin Moore and others think | H |
| Is the origin of life Then Shelley | B |
| Comes in a for a look of understanding | C |
| Or he'll tell you about the orientation | F |
| Of the ancient dream of Zion | F |
| Or what's the matter with Bryan | F |
| And while the porter is bringing a drink | H |
| Something into his fancy skips | B |
| And he talks about the Apocalypse | B |
| Or a painter or writer now unknown | F |
| In France or Germany who will soon | F |
| Have fame of him through the whole earth blown | F |
| - | |
| It's not so hard a thing to be wise | B |
| In the lore of books | B |
| It's a different thing to be all eyes | B |
| Like a lighthouse which revolves and looks | B |
| Over the land and out to sea | B |
| And a lighthouse is what he seems to me | B |
| Sitting like Buddha spiritually cool | I |
| Young as the light of the sun is young | J |
| And taking the even with the odd | B |
| As a matter of course and the path he's trod | B |
| As a path that was good enough | K |
| With a sort of transcendental sense | B |
| Whose hatred is less than indifference | B |
| And a gift of wisdom in love | L |
| And who can say as he classifies | B |
| Men and ages with his eyes | B |
| With cool detachment this is dung | J |
| And that poor fellow is just a fool | I |
| And say what you will death is a rod | B |
| But I see a light that shines and shines | B |
| And I rather think it's God | B |
Edgar Lee Masters
(1)
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About William Marion Reedy
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