Captain Craig I Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRBS ETUVWHLMXYZYA2JB2C2D 2E2CF2G2H2I2CB2J2K2T L2M2 N2O2P2Q2LIR2S2T2U2LV 2W2X2Y2J2L2IDTGS2DZ2 K2A3S2HS2B3C3B2ED3E3 R2F3G3H3B2JJI3L2J3D3 K3L3HM3N3O3P3Q3R3 A3FS2S3T3L2UU3H2DN3E 2O3V3S2S2RUW3DU2UX3C 3RDRB2W3RY3Z3FCRN3X2 RRJDS2A4E2S2EX3TN3F3 JS2B4X3 S2RB4 F3P2C4D4B2RQRRE4DPRF 4G4RN3H4I4EV3E2MRJ4K 4TTEL4S2RRM4N4I4I4RX 3O4I4RI4RV3I4P4I4Q4R RN3I4EB2 RI4RR4I4F2I4S2S4T4I4 I4S4I4I4FEU4MRRRRRF3 RB2RO4I4RI4I4I4I4I4V 4 I4I4I4Q2W4RRI4X3X3I4 I4I4EV3I4I4I4A3X3I4I 4I4RX3X3RI4R RQS2RRM4X4RI4I4ES2I4 RI4I4RI4F3KS2Y4I4M4C EI4S2I4RE MI4RI4S2I4IS2R4N4RJ4 X3I4I4N3RI4I4I4S2I4I 4I4RI4I4ARI4S4RI4S2S 2X4 I4Z4I4RS2EH4I4Q2N3I4 S2I4RAI4I4I4S2I4I4RE S2KI4D4R

I doubt if ten men in all Tilbury Town	A
Had ever shaken hands with Captain Craig	B
Or called him by his name or looked at him	C
So curiously or so concernedly	D
As they had looked at ashes but a few	E
Say five or six of us had found somehow	F
The spark in him and we had fanned it there	G
Choked under like a jest in Holy Writ	H
By Tilbury prudence He had lived his life	I
And in his way had shared with all mankind	J
Inveterate leave to fashion of himself	K
By some resplendent metamorphosis	L
Whatever he was not And after time	M
When it had come sufficiently to pass	N
That he was going patch clad through the streets	O
Weak dizzy chilled and half starved he had laid	P
Some nerveless fingers on a prudent sleeve	Q
And told the sleeve in furtive confidence	R
Just how it was My name is Captain Craig	B
He said and I must eat The sleeve moved on	S
And after it moved others one or two	E
For Captain Craig before the day was done	T
Got back to the scant refuge of his bed	U
And shivered into it without a curse	V
Without a murmur even He was cold	W
And old and hungry but the worst of it	H
Was a forlorn familiar consciousness	L
That he had failed again There was a time	M
When he had fancied if worst came to worst	X
And he could do no more that he might ask	Y
Of whom he would But once had been enough	Z
And soon there would be nothing more to ask	Y
He was himself and he had lost the speed	A2
He started with and he was left behind	J
There was no mystery no tragedy	B2
And if they found him lying on his back	C2
Stone dead there some sharp morning as they might	D2
Well once upon a time there was a man	E2
Es war einmal ein K ouml nig if it pleased him	C
And he was right there were no men to blame	F2
There was just a false note in the Tilbury tune	G2
A note that able bodied men might sound	H2
Hosannas on while Captain Craig lay quiet	I2
They might have made him sing by feeding him	C
Till he should march again but probably	B2
Such yielding would have jeopardized the rhythm	J2
They found it more melodious to shout	K2
Right on with unmolested adoration	T
To keep the tune as it had always been	L2
To trust in God and let the Captain starve	M2
	-
He must have understood that afterwards	N2
When we had laid some fuel to the spark	O2
Of him and oxidized it for he laughed	P2
Out loud and long at us to feel it burn	Q2
And then for gratitude made game of us	L
You are the resurrection and the life	I
He said and I the hymn the Brahmin sings	R2
O Fuscus and we'll go no more a roving	S2
We were not quite accoutred for a blast	T2
Of any lettered nonchalance like that	U2
And some of us the five or six of us	L
Who found him out were singularly struck	V2
But soon there came assurance of his lips	W2
Like phrases out of some sweet instrument	X2
Man's hand had never fitted that he felt	Y2
No penitential shame for what had come	J2
No virtuous regret for what had been	L2
But rather a joy to find it in his life	I
To be an outcast usher of the soul	D
For such as had good courage of the Sun	T
To pattern Love The Captain had one chair	G
And on the bottom of it like a king	S2
For longer time than I dare chronicle	D
Sat with an ancient ease and eulogized	Z2
His opportunity My friends got out	K2
Like brokers out of Arcady but I	A3
May be for fascination of the thing	S2
Or may be for the larger humor of it	H
Stayed listening unwearied and unstung	S2
When they were gone the Captain's tuneful ooze	B3
Of rhetoric took on a change he smiled	C3
At me and then continued earnestly	B2
Your friends have had enough of it but you	E
For a motive hardly vindicated yet	D3
By prudence or by conscience have remained	E3
And that is very good for I have things	R2
To tell you things that are not words alone	F3
Which are the ghosts of things but something firmer	G3
First would I have you know for every gift	H3
Or sacrifice there are or there may be	B2
Two kinds of gratitude the sudden kind	J
We feel for what we take the larger kind	J
We feel for what we give Once we have learned	I3
As much as this we know the truth has been	L2
Told over to the world a thousand times	J3
But we have had no ears to listen yet	D3
For more than fragments of it we have heard	K3
A murmur now and then and echo here	L3
And there and we have made great music of it	H
And we have made innumerable books	M3
To please the Unknown God Time throws away	N3
Dead thousands of them but the God that knows	O3
No death denies not one the books all count	P3
The songs all count and yet God's music has	Q3
No modes his language has no adjectives	R3
	-
You may be right you may be wrong said I	A3
But what has this that you are saying now	F
This nineteenth century Nirvana talk	S2
To do with you and me The Captain raised	S3
His hand and held it westward where a patched	T3
And unwashed attic window filtered in	L2
What barren light could reach us and then said	U
With a suave complacent resonance There shines	U3
The sun Behold it We go round and round	H2
And wisdom comes to us with every whirl	D
We count throughout the circuit We may say	N3
The child is born the boy becomes a man	E2
The man does this and that and the man goes	O3
But having said it we have not said much	V3
Not very much Do I fancy or you think	S2
That it will be the end of anything	S2
When I am gone There was a soldier once	R
Who fought one fight and in that fight fell dead	U
Sad friends went after and they brought him home	W3
And had a brass band at his funeral	D
As you should have at mine and after that	U2
A few remembered him But he was dead	U
They said and they should have their friend no more	X3
However there was once a starveling child	C3
A ragged vested little incubus	R
Born to be cuffed and frighted out of all	D
Capacity for childhood's happiness	R
Who started out one day quite suddenly	B2
To drown himself He ran away from home	W3
Across the clover fields and through the woods	R
And waited on a rock above a stream	Y3
Just like a kingfisher He might have dived	Z3
Or jumped or he might not but anyhow	F
There came along a man who looked at him	C
With such an unexpected friendliness	R
And talked with him in such a common way	N3
That life grew marvelously different	X2
What he had lately known for sullen trunks	R
And branches and a world of tedious leaves	R
Was all transmuted a faint forest wind	J
That once had made the loneliest of all	D
Sad sounds on earth made now the rarest music	S2
And water that had called him once to death	A4
Now seemed a flowing glory And that man	E2
Born to go down a soldier did this thing	S2
Not much to do Not very much I grant you	E
Good occupation for a sonneteer	X3
Or for a clown or for a clergyman	T
But small work for a soldier By the way	N3
When you are weary sometimes of your own	F3
Utility I wonder if you find	J
Occasional great comfort pondering	S2
What power a man has in him to put forth	B4
Of all the many marvelous things that are	X3
Nothing is there more marvelous than man '	-
Said Sophocles and he lived long ago	S2
And earth unending ancient of the gods	R
He furrows and the ploughs go back and forth	B4
Turning the broken mould year after year '	-
	-
I turned a little furrow of my own	F3
Once on a time and everybody laughed	P2
As I laughed afterwards and I doubt not	C4
The First Intelligence which we have drawn	D4
In our competitive humility	B2
As if it went forever on two legs	R
Had some diversion of it I believe	Q
God's humor is the music of the spheres	R
But even as we draft omnipotence	R
Itself to our own image we pervert	E4
The courage of an infinite ideal	D
To finite resignation You have made	P
The cement of your churches out of tears	R
And ashes and the fabric will not stand	F4
The shifted walls that you have coaxed and shored	G4
So long with unavailing compromise	R
Will crumble down to dust and blow away	N3
And younger dust will follow after them	H4
Though not the faintest or the farthest whirled	I4
First atom of the least that ever flew	E
Shall be by man defrauded of the touch	V3
God thrilled it with to make a dream for man	E2
When Science was unborn And after time	M
When we have earned our spiritual ears	R
And art's commiseration of the truth	J4
No longer glorifies the singing beast	K4
Or venerates the clinquant charlatan	T
Then shall at last come ringing through the sun	T
Through time through flesh a music that is true	E
For wisdom is that music and all joy	L4
That wisdom you may counterfeit you think	S2
The burden of it in a thousand ways	R
But as the bitterness that loads your tears	R
Makes Dead Sea swimming easy so the gloom	M4
The penance and the woeful pride you keep	N4
Make bitterness your buoyance of the world	I4
And at the fairest and the frenziedest	I4
Alike of your God fearing festivals	R
You so compound the truth to pamper fear	X3
That in the doubtful surfeit of your faith	O4
You clamor for the food that shadows eat	I4
You call it rapture or deliverance	R
Passion or exaltation or what most	I4
The moment needs but your faint heartedness	R
Lives in it yet you quiver and you clutch	V3
For something larger something unfulfilled	I4
Some wiser kind of joy that you shall have	P4
Never until you learn to laugh with God	I4
And with a calm Socratic patronage	Q4
At once half sombre and half humorous	R
The Captain reverently twirled his thumbs	R
And fixed his eyes on something far away	N3
Then with a gradual gaze conclusive shrewd	I4
And at the moment unendurable	E
For sheer beneficence he looked at me	B2
	-
But the brass band I said not quite at ease	R
With altruism yet He made a sort	I4
Of reminiscent little inward noise	R
Midway between a chuckle and a laugh	R4
And that was all his answer not a word	I4
Of explanation or suggestion came	F2
From those tight smiling lips And when I left	I4
I wondered as I trod the creaking snow	S2
And had the world wide air to breathe again	S4
Though I had seen the tremor of his mouth	T4
And honored the endurance of his hand	I4
Whether or not securely closeted	I4
Up there in the stived haven of his den	S4
The man sat laughing at me and I felt	I4
My teeth grind hard together with a quaint	I4
Revulsion as I recognize it now	F
Not only for my Captain but as well	E
For every smug faced failure on God's earth	U4
Albeit I could swear at the same time	M
That there were tears in the old fellow's eyes	R
I question if in tremors or in tears	R
There be more guidance to man's worthiness	R
Than well say in his prayers But oftentimes	R
It humors us to think that we possess	R
By some divine adjustment of our own	F3
Particular shrewd cells or something else	R
What others for untutored sympathy	B2
Go spirit fishing more than half their lives	R
To catch like cheerful sinners to catch faith	O4
And I have not a doubt but I assumed	I4
Some egotistic attribute like this	R
When cautiously next morning I reduced	I4
The fretful qualms of my novitiate	I4
For most part to an undigested pride	I4
Only I live convinced that I regret	I4
This enterprise no more than I regret	I4
My life and I am glad that I was born	V4
	-
That evening at The Chrysalis I found	I4
The faces of my comrades all suffused	I4
With what I chose then to denominate	I4
Superfluous good feeling In return	Q2
They loaded me with titles of odd form	W4
And unexemplified significance	R
Like Bellows mender to Prince olus	R
Pipe filler to the Hoboscholiast	I4
Bread fruit for the Non Doing with one more	X3
That I remember and a dozen more	X3
That I forget I may have been disturbed	I4
I do not say that I was not annoyed	I4
But something of the same serenity	I4
That fortified me later made me feel	E
For their skin pricking arrows not so much	V3
Of pain as of a vigorous defect	I4
In this world's archery I might have tried	I4
With a flat facetiousness to demonstrate	I4
What they had only snapped at and thereby	A3
Made out of my best evidence no more	X3
Than comfortable food for their conceit	I4
But patient wisdom frowned on argument	I4
With a side nod for silence and I smoked	I4
A series of incurable dry pipes	R
While Morgan fiddled with obnoxious care	X3
Things that I wished he wouldn't Killigrew	X3
Drowsed with a fond abstraction like an ass	R
Lay blinking at me while he grinned and made	I4
Remarks The learned Plunket made remarks	R
	-
It may have been for smoke that I cursed cats	R
That night but I have rather to believe	Q
As I lay turning twisting listening	S2
And wondering between great sleepless yawns	R
What possible satisfaction those dead leaves	R
Could find in sending shadows to my room	M4
And swinging them like black rags on a line	X4
That I with a forlorn clear headedness	R
Was ekeing out probation I had sinned	I4
In fearing to believe what I believed	I4
And I was paying for it Whimsical	E
You think factitious but there is no luck	S2
No fate no fortune for us but the old	I4
Unswerving and inviolable price	R
Gets paid God sells himself eternally	I4
But never gives a crust my friend had said	I4
And while I watched those leaves and heard those cats	R
And with half mad minuteness analyzed	I4
The Captain's attitude and then my own	F3
I felt at length as one who throws himself	K
Down restless on a couch when clouds are dark	S2
And shuts his eyes to find when he wakes up	Y4
And opens them again what seems at first	I4
An unfamiliar sunlight in his room	M4
And in his life as if the child in him	C
Had laughed and let him see and then I knew	E
Some prowling superfluity of child	I4
In me had found the child in Captain Craig	S2
And let the sunlight reach him While I slept	I4
My thought reshaped itself to friendly dreams	R
And in the morning it was with me still	E
	-
Through March and shifting April to the time	M
When winter first becomes a memory	I4
My friend the Captain to my other friend's	R
Incredulous regret that such as he	I4
Should ever get the talons of his talk	S2
So fixed in my unfledged credulity	I4
Kept up the peroration of his life	I
Not yielding at a threshold nor I think	S2
Too often on the stairs He made me laugh	R4
Sometimes and then again he made me weep	N4
Almost for I had insufficiency	R
Enough in me to make me know the truth	J4
Within the jest and I could feel it there	X3
As well as if it were the folded note	I4
I felt between my fingers I had said	I4
Before that I should have to go away	N3
And leave him for the season and his eyes	R
Had shone with well becoming interest	I4
At that intelligence There was no mist	I4
In them that I remember but I marked	I4
An unmistakable self questioning	S2
And a reticence of unassumed regret	I4
The two together made anxiety	I4
Not selfishness I ventured I should see	I4
No more of him for six or seven months	R
And I was there to tell him as I might	I4
What humorous provision we had made	I4
For keeping him locked up in Tilbury Town	A
That finished with a few more commonplace	R
Prosaics on the certified event	I4
Of my return to find him young again	S4
I left him neither vexed I thought with us	R
Nor over much at odds with destiny	I4
At any rate save always for a look	S2
That I had seen too often to mistake	S2
Or to forget he gave no other sign	X4
	-
That train began to move and as it moved	I4
I felt a comfortable sudden change	Z4
All over and inside Partly it seemed	I4
As if the strings of me had all at once	R
Gone down a tone or two and even though	S2
It made me scowl to think so trivial	E
A touch had owned the strength to tighten them	H4
It made me laugh to think that I was free	I4
But free from what when I began to turn	Q2
The question round was more than I could say	N3
I was no longer vexed with Killigrew	I4
Nor more was I possessed with Captain Craig	S2
But I was eased of some restraint I thought	I4
Not qualified by those amenities	R
And I should have to search the matter down	A
For I was young and I was very keen
So I began to smoke a bad cigar	I4
That Plunket in his love had given me	I4
The night before and as I smoked I watched	I4
The flying mirrors for a mile or so	S2
Till to the changing glimpse now sharp now faint	I4
They gave me of the woodland over west	I4
A gleam of long forgotten strenuous years	R
Came back when we were Red Men on the trail	E
With Morgan for the big chief Wocky Bocky	S2
And yawning out of that I set myself	K
To face again the loud monotonous ride	I4
That lay before me like a vista drawn	D4
Of bag racks to the fabled end of things	R

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme

Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation

<< Calverly's Poem Captain Craig Ii Poem>>

Write your comment about Captain Craig I poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson

ashley : what is this poem trying to say? im lost

Best Poems of Edwin Arlington Robinson

Recent Interactions*

This poem was read 1 times,

This poem was added to the favorite list by 0 members,

This poem was voted by 0 members.

(* Interactions only in the last 7 days)

New Poems

Wonderful Women
by Umaru Kanneh Boima
Freedom To Scratch In Peace
by Olute Aete
Happy New Year
by Felix Menda
Human Beings
by Dana Graslie
Lust
by Wisdom Greatness
An Isolated Tree's Song
by Sayeed Abubakar
A Strange Boy
by Sayeed Abubakar
O Soil
by Sayeed Abubakar
No War, No War-monger
by Sayeed Abubakar
Night's Town
by Sayeed Abubakar

Popular Poets

1. Emily Dickinson(2414 poems)
2. Madison Julius Cawein(1231 poems)
3. Ella Wheeler Wilcox(1136 poems)
4. William Wordsworth(1016 poems)
5. Robert Burns(986 poems)
6. Edgar Albert Guest(945 poems)
7. Thomas Moore(849 poems)
8. Robert Service(831 poems)