An Island Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCDEBFGHBHBBI JKBKLLBMNNMNJBOB BPPBBPPQPPPPPPRRBP BSBTTBBSBS BBBQQQUUQQBBUBBVVV BWFFQQBHHXHXXBBBTXXX X QQQYYBZQZZBBBBB BVWA2A2BBB TB2B2TBBBBTQQBBBQBNF FBN QNNQNC2QC2QD2QD2QQD2 BE2BBBBBBBBBYYBF2F2B G2H2BF2BBUVVBUVBBBWW B BWWWBBQI2I2F2F2QXXXTake it away and swallow it yourself | A |
Ha Look you there's a rat | B |
Last night there were a dozen on that shelf | A |
And two of them were living in my hat | B |
Look Now he goes but he'll come back | C |
Ha But he will I say | D |
Il reviendra z agrave P acirc ques | E |
Ou agrave la Trinit eacute | B |
Be very sure that he'll return again | F |
For said the Lord Imprimis we have rats | G |
And having rats we have rain | H |
So on the seventh day | B |
He rested and made Pain | H |
Man if you love the Lord and if the Lord | B |
Love liars I will have you at your word | B |
And swallow it Voil agrave Bah | I |
- | |
Where do I say it is | J |
That I have lain so long | K |
Where do I count myself among the dead | B |
As once above the living and the strong | K |
And what is this that comes and goes | L |
Fades and swells and overflows | L |
Like music underneath and overhead | B |
What is it in me now that rings and roars | M |
Like fever laden wine | N |
What ruinous tavern shine | N |
Is this that lights me far from worlds and wars | M |
And women that were mine | N |
Where do I say it is | J |
That Time has made my bed | B |
What lowering outland hostelry is this | O |
For one the stars have disinherited | B |
- | |
An island I have said | B |
A peak where fiery dreams and far desires | P |
Are rained on like old fires | P |
A vermin region by the stars abhorred | B |
Where falls the flaming word | B |
By which I consecrate with unsuccess | P |
An acreage of God's forgetfulness | P |
Left here above the foam and long ago | Q |
Made right for my duress | P |
Where soon the sea | P |
My foaming and long clamoring enemy | P |
Will have within the cryptic old embrace | P |
Of her triumphant arms a memory | P |
Why then the place | P |
What forage of the sky or of the shore | R |
Will make it any more | R |
To me than my award of what was left | B |
Of number time and space | P |
- | |
And what is on me now that I should heed | B |
The durance or the silence or the scorn | S |
I was the gardener who had the seed | B |
Which holds within its heart the food and fire | T |
That gives to man a glimpse of his desire | T |
And I have tilled indeed | B |
Much land where men may say that I have planted | B |
Unsparingly my corn | S |
For a world harvest haunted | B |
And for a world unborn | S |
- | |
Meanwhile am I to view as at a play | B |
Through smoke the funeral flames of yesterday | B |
And think them far away | B |
Am I to doubt and yet be given to know | Q |
That where my demon guides me there I go | Q |
An island Be it so | Q |
For islands after all is said and done | U |
Tell but a wilder game that was begun | U |
When Fate the mistress of iniquities | Q |
The mad Queen spinner of all discrepancies | Q |
Beguiled the dyers of the dawn that day | B |
And even in such a curst and sodden way | B |
Made my three colors one | U |
So be it and the way be as of old | B |
So be the weary truth again retold | B |
Of great kings overthrown | V |
Because they would be kings and lastly kings alone | V |
Fling to each dog his bone | V |
- | |
Flags that are vanished flags that are soiled and furled | B |
Say what will be the word when I am gone | W |
What learned little acrid archive men | F |
Will burrow to find me out and burrow again | F |
But all for naught unless | Q |
To find there was another Island Yes | Q |
There are too many islands in this world | B |
There are too many rats and there is too much rain | H |
So three things are made plain | H |
Between the sea and sky | X |
Three separate parts of one thing which is Pain | H |
Bah what a way to die | X |
To leave my Queen still spinning there on high | X |
Still wondering I dare say | B |
To see me in this way | B |
Madame agrave sa tour monte | B |
Si haut qu'elle peut monter | T |
Like one of our Commissioners ai ai | X |
Prometheus and the women have to cry | X |
But no not I | X |
Faugh what a way to die | X |
- | |
But who are these that come and go | Q |
Before me shaking laurel as they pass | Q |
Laurel to make me know | Q |
For certain what they mean | Y |
That now my Fate my Queen | Y |
Having found that she by way of right reward | B |
Will after madness go remembering | Z |
And laurel be as grass | Q |
Remembers the one thing | Z |
That she has left to bring | Z |
The floor about me now is like a sward | B |
Grown royally Now it is like a sea | B |
That heaves with laurel heavily | B |
Surrendering an outworn enmity | B |
For what has come to be | B |
- | |
But not for you returning with your curled | B |
And haggish lips And why are you alone | V |
Why do you stay when all the rest are gone | W |
Why do you bring those treacherous eyes that reek | A2 |
With venom and hate the while you seek | A2 |
To make me understand | B |
Laurel from every land | B |
Laurel but not the world | B |
- | |
Fury or perjured Fate or whatsoever | T |
Tell me the bloodshot word that is your name | B2 |
And I will pledge remembrance of the same | B2 |
That shall be crossed out never | T |
Whereby posterity | B |
May know being told that you have come to me | B |
You and your tongueless train without a sound | B |
With covetous hands and eyes and laurel all around | B |
Foreshowing your endeavor | T |
To mirror me the demon of my days | Q |
To make me doubt him loathe him face to face | Q |
Bowed with unwilling glory from the quest | B |
That was ordained and manifest | B |
You shake it off and wish me joy of it | B |
Laurel from every place | Q |
Laurel but not the rest | B |
Such are the words in you that I divine | N |
Such are the words of men | F |
So be it and what then | F |
Poor tottering counterfeit | B |
Are you a thing to tell me what is mine | N |
- | |
Grant we the demon sees | Q |
An inch beyond the line | N |
What comes of mine and thine | N |
A thousand here and there may shriek and freeze | Q |
Or they may starve in fine | N |
The Old Physician has a crimson cure | C2 |
For such as these | Q |
And ages after ages will endure | C2 |
The minims of it that are victories | Q |
The wreath may go from brow to brow | D2 |
The state may flourish flame and cease | Q |
But through the fury and the flood somehow | D2 |
The demons are acquainted and at ease | Q |
And somewhat hard to please | Q |
Mine I believe is laughing at me now | D2 |
In his primordial way | B |
Quite as he laughed of old at Hannibal | E2 |
Or rather at Alexander let us say | B |
Therefore be what you may | B |
Time has no further need | B |
Of you or of your breed | B |
My demon irretrievably astray | B |
Has ruined the last chorus of a play | B |
That will so he avers be played again some day | B |
And you poor glowering ghost | B |
Have staggered under laurel here to boast | B |
Above me dying while you lean | Y |
In triumph awkward and unclean | Y |
About some words of his that you have read | B |
Thing do I not know them all | F2 |
He tells me how the storied leaves that fall | F2 |
Are tramped on being dead | B |
They are sometimes with a storm foul enough | G2 |
They are seized alive and they are blown far off | H2 |
To mould on islands What else have you read | B |
He tells me that great kings look very small | F2 |
When they are put to bed | B |
And this being said | B |
He tells me that the battles I have won | U |
Are not my own | V |
But his howbeit fame will yet atone | V |
For all defect and sheave the mystery | B |
The follies and the slaughters I have done | U |
Are mine alone | V |
And so far History | B |
So be the tale again retold | B |
And leaf by clinging leaf unrolled | B |
Where I have written in the dawn | W |
With ink that fades anon | W |
Like C sar's and the way be as of old | B |
- | |
Ho is it you I thought you were a ghost | B |
Is it time for you to poison me again | W |
Well here's our friend the rain | W |
Mironton mironton mirontaine | W |
Man I could murder you almost | B |
You with your pills and toast | B |
Take it away and eat it and shoot rats | Q |
Ha there he comes Your rat will never fail | I2 |
My punctual assassin to prevail | I2 |
While he has power to crawl | F2 |
Or teeth to gnaw withal | F2 |
Where kings are caged Why has a king no cats | Q |
You say that I'll achieve it if I try | X |
Swallow it No not I | X |
God what a way to die | X |
Edwin Arlington Robinson
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about An Island poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Best Poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson