Ogrin The Hermit Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABC DEFGHIJKL MNOPQRS MTUUVWXYZDA2 B2C2D2E2F2BG2RH2I2K J2K2L2M2N2O2P2Q2R2S2 T2MU2V2M2W2X2Y2X2Z2A 3B3C3Q2D3E3F3MG3 SH3I3V2X J3K3L3J3M3O2N3LO3P3P 3P3P3P3Q3L3D2P3R3Z2S 3AT3B3LU3V3V2W3X3Y3D Z3A4 B4XQ3T2P3C4D4M D3P3LE4F4D2P3P3G4H4H A4S2P3X2I4D2A3J4P3X2 D2D2P3 K4U3L4Z2P3X2P3 MP3P3X2P3J4L4L4L4QP3 D4L4L4P3 DP3LL4M4Ogrin the Hermit in old age set forth | A |
This tale to them that sought him in the extreme | B |
Ancient grey wood where he and silence housed | C |
- | |
Long years ago when yet my sight was keen | D |
My hearing knew the word of wind in bough | E |
And all the low fore runners of the storm | F |
There reached me where I sat beneath my thatch | G |
A crash as of tracked quarry in the brake | H |
And storm flecked fugitive with straining breasts | I |
And backward eyes and hands inseparable | J |
Tristan and Iseult swooning at my feet | K |
Sought hiding from their hunters Here they lay | L |
- | |
For pity of their great extremity | M |
Their sin abhorring yet not them with it | N |
I nourished hid and suffered them to build | O |
Their branched hut in sight of this grey cross | P |
That haply falling on their guilty sleep | Q |
Its shadow should part them like the blade of God | R |
And they should shudder at each other's eyes | S |
- | |
So dwelt they in this solitude with me | M |
And daily Tristan forth upon the chase | T |
The tender Iseult sought my door and heard | U |
The words of holiness Abashed she heard | U |
Like one in wisdom nurtured from a child | V |
Yet in whose ears an alien language dwells | W |
Of some far country whence the traveller brings | X |
Magical treasure and still images | Y |
Of gods forgotten and the scent of groves | Z |
That sleep by painted rivers As I have seen | D |
Oft times returning pilgrims with the spell | A2 |
- | |
Of these lost lands upon their lids she moved | B2 |
Among familiar truths accustomed sights | C2 |
As she to them were strange not they to her | D2 |
And often reasoning with her have I felt | E2 |
Some ancient lore was in her dimly drawn | F2 |
From springs of life beyond the four fold stream | B |
That makes a silver pale to Paradise | G2 |
For she was calm as some forsaken god | R |
Who knows not that his power is passed from him | H2 |
But sees with tranced eyes rich pilgrim trains | I2 |
In sands the desert blows about his feet | K |
- | |
Abhorring first I heard her yet her speech | J2 |
Warred not with pity or the contrite heart | K2 |
Or hatred of things evil rather seemed | L2 |
The utterance of some world where these are not | M2 |
And the heart lives in heathen innocence | N2 |
With earth's innocuous creatures For she said | O2 |
'Love is not as the shallow adage goes | P2 |
A witch's filter brewed to trick the blood | Q2 |
The cup we drank of on the flying deck | R2 |
Was the blue vault of air the round world's lip | S2 |
Brimmed with life's hydromel and pressed to ours | T2 |
By myriad hands of wind and sun and sea | M |
For these are all the cup bearers of youth | U2 |
That bend above it at the board of life | V2 |
Solicitous accomplices there's not | M2 |
A leaf on bough a foam flash on the wave | W2 |
So brief and glancing but it serves them too | X2 |
No scent the pale rose spends upon the night | Y2 |
Nor sky lark's rapture trusted to the blue | X2 |
But these from the remotest tides of air | Z2 |
Brought in mysterious salvage breathe and sing | A3 |
In lovers' lips and eyes and two that drink | B3 |
Thus onely of the strange commingled cup | C3 |
Of mortal fortune shall into their blood | Q2 |
Take magic gifts Upon each others' hearts | D3 |
They shall surprise the heart beat of the world | E3 |
And feel a sense of life in things inert | F3 |
For as love's touch upon the yielded body | M |
Is a diviner's wand and where it falls | G3 |
- | |
A hidden treasure trembles so their eyes | S |
Falling upon the world of clod and brute | H3 |
And cold hearts plotting evil shall discern | I3 |
The inextinguishable flame of life | V2 |
That girdles the remotest frame of things | X |
With influences older than the stars ' | - |
- | |
So spake Iseult and thus her passion found | J3 |
Far flying words like birds against the sunset | K3 |
That look on lands we see not Yet I know | L3 |
It was not any argument she found | J3 |
But that she was the colour that life took | M3 |
About her that thus reasoned in her stead | O2 |
Making her like a lifted lantern borne | N3 |
Through midnight thickets where the flitting ray | L |
Momently from inscrutable darkness draws | O3 |
A myriad veined branch and its shy nest | P3 |
Quivering with startled life so moved Iseult | P3 |
And all about her this deep solitude | P3 |
Stirred with responsive motions Oft I knelt | P3 |
In night long vigil while the lovers slept | P3 |
Under their outlawed thatch and with long prayers | Q3 |
Sought to disarm the indignant heavens but lo | L3 |
Thus kneeling in the intertidal hour | D2 |
'Twixt dark and dawning have mine eyes beheld | P3 |
How the old gods that hide in these hoar woods | R3 |
And were to me but shapings of the air | Z2 |
And flit and murmur of the breathing trees | S3 |
Or slant of moon on pools how these stole forth | A |
Grown living presences yet not of bale | T3 |
But innocent eyed as fawns that come to drink | B3 |
Thronging the threshold where the lovers lay | L |
In service of the great god housed within | U3 |
Who hides in his breast beneath his mighty plumes | V3 |
The purposes and penalties of life | V2 |
Or in yet deeper hours when all was still | W3 |
And the hushed air bowed over them alone | X3 |
Such music of the heart as lovers hear | Y3 |
When close as lips lean lean the thoughts between | D |
When the cold world no more a lonely orb | Z3 |
Circling the unimagined track of Time | A4 |
- | |
Is like a beating heart within their hands | B4 |
A numb bird that they warm and feel its wings | X |
Such music have I heard and through the prayers | Q3 |
Wherewith I sought to shackle their desires | T2 |
And bring them humbled to the feet of God | P3 |
Caught the loud quiring of the fruitful year | C4 |
The leap of springs the throb of loosened earth | D4 |
And the sound of all the streams that seek the sea | M |
- | |
So fell it that when pity moved their hearts | D3 |
And those high lovers one unto the end | P3 |
Bowed to the sundering will and each his way | L |
Went through a world that could not make them twain | E4 |
Knowing that a great vision passing by | F4 |
Had swept mine eye lids with its fringe of fire | D2 |
I with the wonder of it on my head | P3 |
And with the silence of it in my heart | P3 |
Forth to Tintagel went by secret ways | G4 |
A long lone journey and from them that loose | H4 |
Their spiced bales upon the wharves and shake | H |
Strange silks to the sun or covertly unbosom | A4 |
Rich hoard of pearls and amber or let drip | S2 |
Through swarthy fingers links of sinuous gold | P3 |
Chose their most delicate treasures Though I knew | X2 |
No touch more silken than this knotted gown | I4 |
My hands grown tender with the sense of her | D2 |
Discerned the airiest tissues light to cling | A3 |
As shower loosed petals veils like meadow smoke | J4 |
Fur soft as snow amber like sun congealed | P3 |
Pearls pink as may buds in an orb of dew | X2 |
And laden with these wonders that to her | D2 |
Were natural as the vesture of a flower | D2 |
Fared home to lay my booty at her feet | P3 |
- | |
And she consenting nor with useless words | K4 |
Proving my purpose robed herself therein | U3 |
To meet her lawful lord but while she thus | L4 |
Prisoned the wandering glory of her hair | Z2 |
Dimmed her bright breast with jewels and subdued | P3 |
Her light to those dull splendours well she knew | X2 |
The lord that I adorned her thus to meet | P3 |
- | |
Was not Tintagel's shadowy King but he | M |
That other lord beneath whose plumy feet | P3 |
The currents of the seas of life run gold | P3 |
As from eternal sunrise well she knew | X2 |
That when I laid my hands upon her head | P3 |
Saying 'Fare forth forgiven ' the words I spoke | J4 |
Were the breathings of his pity who beholds | L4 |
How swept on his inexorable wings | L4 |
Too far beyond the planetary fires | L4 |
On the last coasts of darkness plunged too deep | Q |
In light ineffable the heart amazed | P3 |
Swoons of its glory and dropping back to earth | D4 |
Craves the dim shelter of familiar sounds | L4 |
The rain on the roof the noise of flocks that pass | L4 |
And the slow world waking to its daily round | P3 |
- | |
And thus as one who speeds a banished queen | D |
I set her on my mule and hung about | P3 |
With royal ornament she went her way | L |
For meet it was that this great Queen should pass | L4 |
Crowned and forgiven from the face of Love | M4 |
Edith Wharton
(1)
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