Captain Craig Ii Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGGEHGIJGGGKLJM NEOPQ RSTUVGGWGXYZQGGGGCA2 GSB2 SPC2GGEWGD2GE2F2G2H2 I2GJ2GE2K2GGGGL2M2N2 HGGO2GO2WP2Q2R2S2T2G UU2G ZV2RW2GGGCGO2V2GGP2G X2GTY2TP2GZ2GGA3B3DG C3D3GE3GF3G3GTGO2P2 OF3GH3 C2GGDI3P2P2GJ3P2P2C2 K3L3V2P2DGF3P2EP2GGE 3M3GN3GGNGP2O3M3GP3R GGQ3GQR3S3T3NN3AU3GG V3W3WGGGN3X3Y3EGM3GX 3GGGGP2GQG3Z3GTA4B4C 4DDWB3GCJP2TP2D4E4M3 NTPDR2R2GPR2A3P2GR2P GGGF4EGR2H3R2PGGP2GG 4C2R2GTR2GGP2GR2G P2GALR2P2C2GR2GP2GB4 GH4GGGP2GR2G4GGM3S3 C2GC2QR2CR2GR2R2H3R2 GR2R2GI4P2R2R2R2NGTG GP2 R2R2P2R2R2R2RGA3PJ4R 2R2R2R2R2Y GO3R2P2K4L4W2GM3R2R2 GM4N4GG O4B4R2P2C2P4P2M3A3LR 2M3R2R2I4R2R2R2RQP2R 2R2Q4GGR2P2ER2GR4R2S 4GR2R2C2T4 R2R2R2LR2R2 N2Y3R2D4R2R2R2R2 TP2R2 GHHGGHHG R2GNR2G R2R2NP2U4R2P2NR2PC2T P3GGGNR2R2GR2G V4R2R2QS2R2ER2ETB4B4 GB4R2B3R2 TB4B4B4V4P2V4N P2R2NGB4R2NR2GGP2R2G R2TQR2 R2TR2T R2R2T R2TGR2T TB4W4GP2RR2O3P2 P3R2R2P3P2P2G B4P3R2 TGG NX4TGB4GGGY4R2TP2P3G GNGGGP2P3GGGR2R2G R2B4P3R2P3P3GGR2YGW2 R2P3R2R2Y2D2P2R2GGR2 R2R2P3TP2B4R2P3B4R2R 2 R2NR2R2P3R2R2P3TB4Z4 R2 B4R2R2U4P3P3R2GTGNR2 P2R2Y2P2R2GP2GB4P3R2 B4R2P3R2B4R2R2 GR2GGP3R2 GR2R2R2P2R2R2R2P3GP3 GNP2GR2G P3 P3 P3P3P3 P2R2P3R2P3 P3R2P3 P3P3P3R2 R2R2R2R2R2R2R2 GP3G R2 R2R2 R2R2 R2R2R2P3P2R2G P2R2R2R2R2GP3

Yet that ride had an end as all rides have	A
And the days coming after took the road	B
That all days take though never one of them	C
Went by but I got some good thought of it	D
For Captain Craig Not that I pitied him	E
Or nursed a mordant hunger for his presence	F
But what I thought what Killigrew still thinks	G
An irremediable cheerfulness	G
Was in him and about the name of him	E
And I fancy that it may be most of all	H
For cheer in them that I have saved his letters	G
I like to think of him and how he looked	I
Or should have looked in his renewed estate	J
Composing them They may be dreariness	G
Unspeakable to you that never saw	G
The Captain but to five or six of us	G
Who knew him they are not so bad as that	K
It may be we have smiled not always where	L
The text itself would seem to indicate	J
Responsive titillation on our part	M
Yet having smiled at all we have done well	N
Knowing that we have touched the ghost of him	E
He tells me that he thinks of nothing now	O
That he would rather do than be himself	P
Wisely alive So let us heed this man	Q
	-
The world that has been old is young again	R
The touch that faltered clings and this is May	S
So think of your decrepit pensioner	T
As one who cherishes the living light	U
Forgetful of dead shadows He may gloat	V
And he may not have power in his arms	G
To make the young world move but he has eyes	G
And ears and he can read the sun Therefore	W
Think first of him as one who vegetates	G
In tune with all the children who laugh best	X
And longest through the sunshine though far off	Y
Their laughter and unheard for 't is the child	Z
O friend that with his laugh redeems the man	Q
Time steals the infant but the child he leaves	G
And we we fighters over of old wars	G
We men we shearers of the Golden Fleece	G
Were brutes without him brutes to tear the scars	G
Of one another's wounds and weep in them	C
And then cry out on God that he should flaunt	A2
For life such anguish and flesh wretchedness	G
But let the brute go roaring his own way	S
We do not need him and he loves us not	B2
	-
I cannot think of anything to day	S
That I would rather do than be myself	P
Primevally alive and have the sun	C2
Shine into me for on a day like this	G
When chaff parts of a man's adversities	G
Are blown by quick spring breezes out of him	E
When even a flicker of wind that wakes no more	W
Than a tuft of grass or a few young yellow leaves	G
Comes like the falling of a prophet's breath	D2
On altar flames rekindled of crushed embers	G
Then do I feel now do I feel within me	E2
No dreariness no grief no discontent	F2
No twinge of human envy But I beg	G2
That you forego credentials of the past	H2
For these illuminations of the present	I2
Or better still to give the shadow justice	G
You let me tell you something I have yearned	J2
In many another season for these days	G
And having them with God's own pageantry	E2
To make me glad for them yes I have cursed	K2
The sunlight and the breezes and the leaves	G
To think of men on stretchers or on beds	G
Or on foul floors things without shapes or names	G
Made human with paralysis and rags	G
Or some poor devil on a battle field	L2
Left undiscovered and without the strength	M2
To drag a maggot from his clotted mouth	N2
Or women working where a man would fall	H
Flat breasted miracles of cheerfulness	G
Made neuter by the work that no man counts	G
Until it waits undone children thrown out	O2
To feed their veins and souls on offal Yes	G
I have had half a mind to blow my brains out	O2
Sometimes and I have gone from door to door	W
Ragged myself trying to do something	P2
Crazy I hope But what has this to do	Q2
With Spring Because one half of humankind	R2
Lives here in hell shall not the other half	S2
Do any more than just for conscience' sake	T2
Be miserable Is this the way for us	G
To lead these creatures up to find the light	U
Or to be drawn down surely to the dark	U2
Again Which is it What does the child say	G
	-
But let us not make riot for the child	Z
Untaught nor let us hold that we may read	V2
The sun but through the shadows nor again	R
Be we forgetful ever that we keep	W2
The shadows on their side For evidence	G
I might go back a little to the days	G
When I had hounds and credit and grave friends	G
To borrow my books and set wet glasses on them	C
And other friends of all sorts grave and gay	G
Of whom one woman and one man stand out	O2
From all the rest this morning The man said	V2
One day as we were riding 'Now you see	G
There goes a woman cursed with happiness	G
Beauty and wealth health horses everything	P2
That she could ask or we could ask is hers	G
Except an inward eye for the dim fact	X2
Of what this dark world is The cleverness	G
God gave her or the devil cautions her	T
That she must keep the china cup of life	Y2
Filled somehow and she fills it runs it over	T
Claps her white hands while some one does the sopping	P2
With fingers made she thinks for just that purpose	G
Giggles and eats and reads and goes to church	Z2
Makes pretty little penitential prayers	G
And has an eighteen carat crucifix	G
Wrapped up in chamois skin She gives enough	A3
You say but what is giving like hers worth	B3
What is a gift without the soul to guide it	D
Poor dears and they have cancers Oh she says	G
And away she works at that new altar cloth	C3
For the Reverend Hieronymus Mackintosh	D3
Third person Jerry Jerry she says can say	G
Such lovely things and make life seem so sweet	E3
Jerry can drink also And there she goes	G
Like a whirlwind through an orchard in the springtime	F3
Throwing herself away as if she thought	G3
The world and the whole planetary circus	G
Were a flourish of apple blossoms Look at her	T
And here is this infernal world of ours	G
And hers if only she might find it out	O2
Starving and shrieking sickening suppurating	P2
Whirling to God knows where But look at her '	-
	-
And after that it came about somehow	O
Almost as if the Fates were killing time	F3
That she the spendthrift of a thousand joys	G
Rode in her turn with me and in her turn	H3
Made observations 'Now there goes a man '	-
She said 'who feeds his very soul on poison	C2
No matter what he does or where he looks	G
He finds unhappiness or if he fails	G
To find it he creates it and then hugs it	D
Pygmalion again for all the world	I3
Pygmalion gone wrong You know I think	P2
If when that precious animal was young	P2
His mother or some watchful aunt of his	G
Had spanked him with Pendennis and Don Juan	J3
And given him the Lady of the Lake	P2
Or Cord and Creese or almost anything	P2
There might have been a tonic for him Listen	C2
When he was possibly nineteen years old	K3
He came to me and said I understand	L3
You are in love yes that is what he said	V2
But never mind it won't last very long	P2
It never does we all get over it	D
We have this clinging nature for you see	G
The Great Bear shook himself once on a time	F3
And the world is one of many that let go	P2
And yet the creature lives and there you see him	E
And he would have this life no fairer thing	P2
Than a certain time for numerous marionettes	G
To do the Dance of Death Give him a rose	G
And he will tell you it is very sweet	E3
But only for a day Most wonderful	M3
Show him a child or anything that laughs	G
And he begins at once to crunch his wormwood	N3
And then runs on with his realities	G
What does he know about realities	G
Who sees the truth of things almost as well	N
As Nero saw the Northern Lights Good gracious	G
Can't you do something with him Call him something	P2
Call him a type and that will make him cry	O3
One of those not at all unusual	M3
Prophetic would be Delphic manger snappers	G
That always get replaced when they are gone	P3
Or one of those impenetrable men	R
Who seem to carry branded on their foreheads	G
We are abstruse but not quite so abstruse	G
As possibly the good Lord may have wished	Q3
One of those men who never quite confess	G
That Washington was great the kind of man	Q
That everybody knows and always will	R3
Shrewd critical facetious insincere	S3
And for the most part harmless I'm afraid	T3
But even then you might be doing well	N
To tell him something ' And I said I would	N3
So in one afternoon you see we have	A
The child in absence or to say the least	U3
In ominous defect and in excess	G
Commensurate likewise Now the question is	G
Not which was right and which was wrong for each	V3
By virtue of one sidedness was both	W3
But rather to my mind as heretofore	W
Is it better to be blinded by the lights	G
Or by the shadows By the lights you say	G
The shadows are all devils and the lights	G
Gleam guiding and eternal Very good	N3
But while you say so do not quite forget	X3
That sunshine has a devil of its own	Y3
And one that we for the great craft of him	E
But vaguely recognize The marvel is	G
That this persuasive and especial devil	M3
By grace of his extreme transparency	G
Precludes all common vision of him yet	X3
There is one way to glimpse him and a way	G
As I believe to test him granted once	G
That we have ousted prejudice which means	G
That we have made magnanimous advance	G
Through self acquaintance Not an easy thing	P2
For some of us impossible may be	G
For most of us the woman and the man	Q
I cited for example would have wrought	G3
The most intractable conglomerate	Z3
Of everything if they had set themselves	G
To analyze themselves and not each other	T
If only for the sake of self respect	A4
They would have come to no place but the same	B4
Wherefrom they started one would have lived awhile	C4
In paradise without defending it	D
And one in hell without enjoying it	D
And each had been dissuaded neither more	W
Nor less thereafter There are such on earth	B3
As might have been composed primarily	G
For mortal warning he was one of them	C
And she the devil makes us hesitate	J
'T is easy to read words writ well with ink	P2
That makes a good black mark on smooth white paper	T
But words are done sometimes with other ink	P2
Whereof the smooth white paper gives no sign	D4
Till science brings it out and here we come	E4
To knowledge and the way to test a devil	M3
	-
To most of us you say and you say well	N
This demon of the sunlight is a stranger	T
But if you break the sunlight of yourself	P
Project it and observe the quaint shades of it	D
I have a shrewd suspicion you may find	R2
That even as a name lives unrevealed	R2
In ink that waits an agent so it is	G
The devil or this devil hides himself	P
To all the diagnoses we have made	R2
Save one The quest of him is hard enough	A3
As hard as truth but once we seem to know	P2
That his compound obsequiousness prevails	G
Unferreted within us we may find	R2
That sympathy which aureoles itself	P
To superfluity from you and me	G
May stand against the soul for five or six	G
Persistent and indubitable streaks	G
Of irritating brilliance out of which	F4
A man may read if he have knowledge in him	E
Proportionate attest of ignorance	G
Hypocrisy good heartedness conceit	R2
Indifference by which a man may learn	H3
That even courage may not make him glad	R2
For laughter when that laughter is itself	P
The tribute of recriminating groans	G
Nor are the shapes of obsolescent creeds	G
Much longer to flit near enough to make	P2
Men glad for living in a world like this	G
For wisdom courage knowledge and the faith	G4
Which has the soul and is the soul of reason	C2
These are the world's achievers And the child	R2
The child that is the saviour of all ages	G
The prophet and the poet the crown bearer	T
Must yet with Love's unhonored fortitude	R2
Survive to cherish and attain for us	G
The candor and the generosity	G
By leave of which we smile if we bring back	P2
The first revealing flash that wakened us	G
When wisdom like a shaft of dungeon light	R2
Came searching down to find us	G
	-
Halfway back	P2
I made a mild allusion to the Fates	G
Not knowing then that ever I should have	A
Dream visions of them painted on the air	L
Clotho Lachesis Atropos Faint hued	R2
They seem but with a faintness never fading	P2
Unblurred by gloom unshattered by the sun	C2
Still with eternal color colorless	G
They move and they remain The while I write	R2
These very words I see them Atropos	G
Lachesis Clotho and the last is laughing	P2
When Clotho laughs Atropos rattles her shears	G
But Clotho keeps on laughing just the same	B4
Some time when I have dreamed that Atropos	G
Has laughed I'll tell you how the colors change	H4
The colors that are changeless colorless	G
I fear I may have answered Captain Craig's	G
Epistle Number One with what he chose	G
Good humoredly but anxiously to take	P2
For something that was not all reverence	G
From Number Two it would have seemed almost	R2
As if the flanges of the old man's faith	G4
Had slipped the treacherous rails of my allegiance	G
Leaving him by the roadside humorously	G
Upset with nothing more convivial	M3
To do than be facetious and austere	S3
	-
If you decry Don C eacute sar de Bazan	C2
There is an imperfection in your vitals	G
Flamboyant and old fashioned Overdone	C2
Romantico robustious Dear young man	Q
There are fifteen thousand ways to be one sided	R2
And I have indicated two of them	C
Already Now you bait me with a third	R2
As if it were a spider with nine legs	G
But what it is that you would have me do	R2
What fatherly wrath you most anticipate	R2
I lack the needed impulse to discern	H3
Though I who shape no songs of any sort	R2
I who have made no music thrilled no canvas	G
I who have added nothing to the world	R2
The world would reckon save long squandered wit	R2
Might with half pardonable reverence	G
Beguile my faith maybe to the forlorn	I4
Extent of some sequestered murmuring	P2
Anent the vanities No doubt I should	R2
If mine were the one life that I have lived	R2
But with a few good glimpses I have had	R2
Of heaven through the little holes in hell	N
I can half understand what price it is	G
The poet pays at one time and another	T
For those indemnifying interludes	G
That are to be the kernel in what lives	G
To shrine him when the new born men come singing	P2
	-
So do I comprehend what I have read	R2
From even the squeezed items of account	R2
Which I have to my credit in that book	P2
Whereof the leaves are ages and the text	R2
Eternity What do I care to day	R2
For pages that have nothing I have lived	R2
And I have died and I have lived again	R
And I am very comfortable Yes	G
Though I look back through barren years enough	A3
To make me seem as I transmute myself	P
In downward retrospect from what I am	J4
As unproductive and as unconvinced	R2
Of living bread and the soul's eternal draught	R2
As a frog on a Passover cake in a streamless desert	R2
Still do I trust the light that I have earned	R2
And having earned received You shake your head	R2
But do not say that you will shake it off	Y
	-
Meanwhile I have the flowers and the grass	G
My brothers here the trees and all July	O3
To make me joyous Why do you shake your head	R2
Why do you laugh because you are so young	P2
Do you think if you laugh hard enough the truth	K4
Will go to sleep Do you think of any couch	L4
Made soft enough to put the truth to sleep	W2
Do you think there are no proper comedies	G
But yours that have the fashion For example	M3
Do you think that I forget or shall forget	R2
One friendless fat fantastic nondescript	R2
Who knew the ways of laughter on low roads	G
A vagabond a drunkard and a sponge	M4
But always a free creature with a soul	N4
I bring him back though not without misgivings	G
And caution you to damn him sparingly	G
	-
Count Pretzel von W uuml rzburger the Obscene	O4
The beggar may have had another name	B4
But no man to my knowledge ever knew it	R2
Was a poet and a skeptic and a critic	P2
And in his own mad manner a musician	C2
He found an old piano in a bar room	P4
And it was his career three nights a week	P2
From ten o'clock till twelve to make it rattle	M3
And then when I was just far down enough	A3
To sit and watch him with his long straight hair	L
And pity him and think he looked like Liszt	R2
I might have glorified a musical	M3
Steam engine or a xylophone The Count	R2
Played half of everything and 'improvised'	R2
The rest he told me once that he was born	I4
With a genius in him that 'prohibited	R2
Complete fidelity ' and that his art	R2
'Confessed vagaries ' therefore But I made	R2
Kind reckoning of his vagaries then	R
I had the whole great pathos of the man	Q
To purify me and all sorts of music	P2
To give me spiritual nourishment	R2
And cerebral athletics for the Count	R2
Played indiscriminately with an f	Q4
And with incurable presto cradle songs	G
And carnivals spring songs and funeral marches	G
The Marseillaise and Schubert's Serenade	R2
And always in a way to make me think	P2
Procrustes had the germ of music in him	E
And when this interesting reprobate	R2
Began to talk then there were more vagaries	G
He made a reeking fetich of all filth	R4
Apparently but there was yet revealed	R2
About him through his words and on his flesh	S4
That ostracizing nimbus of a soul's	G
Abject apologetic purity	R2
That phosphorescence of sincerity	R2
Which indicates the curse and the salvation	C2
Of a life wherein starved art may never perish	T4
	-
One evening I remember clearliest	R2
Of all that I passed with him Having wrought	R2
With his nerve ploughing ingenuity	R2
The Tr auml umerei into a Titan's nightmare	L
The man sat down across the table from me	R2
And all at once was ominously decent	R2
' The more we measure what is ours to use '	-
He said then wiping his froth plastered mouth	N2
With the inside of his hand ' the less we groan	Y3
For what the gods refuse I've had that sleeved	R2
A decade for you Now but one more stein	D4
And I shall be prevailed upon to read	R2
The only sonnet I have ever made	R2
And after that if you propitiate	R2
Gambrinus I shall play you that Andante	R2
As the world has never heard it played before '	-
So saying he produced a piece of paper	T
Unfolded it and read 'SONNET UNIQUE	P2
DE PRETZEL VON WURZBURGER DIT L'OBSC Eacute NE	R2
	-
'Carmichael had a kind of joke disease	G
And he had queer things fastened on his wall	H
There are three green china frogs that I recall	H
More potently than anything for these	G
Three frogs have demonstrated by degrees	G
What curse was on the man to make him fall	H
They are not ordinary frogs at all	H
They are the Frogs of Aristophanes	G
	-
'God how he laughed whenever he said that	R2
And how we caught from one another's eyes	G
The flash of what a tongue could never tell	N
We always laughed at him no matter what	R2
The joke was worth But when a man's brain dies	G
We are not always glad Poor Carmichael '	-
	-
'I am a sowbug and a necrophile '	-
Said Pretzel 'and the gods are growing old	R2
The stars are singing Golden hair to gray	R2
Green leaf to yellow leaf or chlorophyl	N
To xanthophyl to be more scientific	P2
So speed me one more stein You may believe	U4
That I'm a mendicant but I am not	R2
For though it look to you that I go begging	P2
The truth is I go giving giving all	N
My strength and all my personality	R2
My wisdom and experience all myself	P
To make it final for your preservation	C2
Though I be not the one thing or the other	T
Though I strike between the sunset and the dawn	P3
Though I be cliff rubbed wreckage on the shoals	G
Of Circumstance doubt not that I comprise	G
Far more than my appearance Here he comes	G
Now drink to good old Pretzel Drink down Pretzel	N
Quousque tandem Pretzel and O Lord	R2
How long But let regret go hang the good	R2
Die first and of the poor did many cease	G
To be Beethoven after Wordsworth Prosit	R2
There were geniuses among the trilobites	G
And I suspect that I was one of them '	-
How much of him was earnest and how much	V4
Fantastic I know not nor do I need	R2
Profounder knowledge to exonerate	R2
The squalor or the folly of a man	Q
Than consciousness though even the crude laugh	S2
Of indigent Priapus follow it	R2
That I get good of him And if you like him	E
Then some time in the future past a doubt	R2
You'll have him in a book make metres of him	E
To the great delight of Mr Killigrew	T
And the grief of all your kinsmen Christian shame	B4
And self confuted Orientalism	B4
For the more sagacious of them vulture tracks	G
Of my Promethean bile for the rest of them	B4
And that will be a joke There's nothing quite	R2
So funny as a joke that's lost on earth	B3
And laughed at by the gods Your devil knows it	R2
	-
I come to like your Mr Killigrew	T
And I rejoice that you speak well of him	B4
The sprouts of human blossoming are in him	B4
And useful eyes if he will open them	B4
But one thing ails the man He smiles too much	V4
He comes to see me once or twice a week	P2
And I must tell him that he smiles too much	V4
If I were Socrates it would be simple	N
	-
Epistle Number Three was longer coming	P2
I waited for it even worried for it	R2
Though Killigrew and of his own free will	N
Had written reassuring little scraps	G
From time to time and I had valued them	B4
The more for being his The Sage he said	R2
From all that I can see is doing well	N
I should say very well Three meals a day	R2
Siestas and innumerable pipes	G
Not to the tune of water on the stones	G
But rather to the tune of his own Ego	P2
Which seems to be about the same as God	R2
But I was always weak in metaphysics	G
And pray therefore that you be lenient	R2
I'm going to be married in December	T
And I have made a poem that will scan	Q
So Plunket says You said the other wouldn't	R2
	-
Augustus Plunket Ph D	R2
And oh the Bishop's daughter	T
A very learned man was he	R2
And in twelve weeks he got her	T
	-
And oh she was as fair to see	R2
As pippins on the pippin tree	R2
Tu tui tibi te chubs in the mill water	T
	-
Connotative succinct and erudite	R2
Three dots to boot Now goodman Killigrew	T
May wind an epic one of these glad years	G
And after that who knoweth but the Lord	R2
The Lord of Hosts who is the King of Glory	T
	-
Still when the Captain's own words were before me	T
I seemed to read from them or into them	B4
The protest of a mortuary joy	W4
Not all substantiating Killigrew's	G
Off hand assurance The man's face came back	P2
The while I read them and that look again	R
Which I had seen so often came back with it	R2
I do not know that I can say just why	O3
But I felt the feathery touch of something wrong	P2
	-
Since last I wrote and I fear weeks have gone	P3
Too far for me to leave my gratitude	R2
Unuttered for its own acknowledgment	R2
I have won without the magic of Amphion	P3
Without the songs of Orpheus or Apollo	P2
The frank regard and with it if you like	P2
The fledged respect of three quick footed friends	G
'Nothing is there more marvelous than man '	-
Said Sophocles and I say after him	B4
'He traps and captures all inventive one	P3
The light birds and the creatures of the wold	R2
And in his nets the fishes of the sea '	-
Once they were pictures painted on the air	T
Faint with eternal color colorless	G
But now they are not pictures they are fowls	G
	-
At first they stood aloof and cocked their small	N
Smooth prudent heads at me and made as if	X4
With a cryptic idiotic melancholy	T
To look authoritative and sagacious	G
But when I tossed a piece of apple to them	B4
They scattered back with a discord of short squawks	G
And then came forward with a craftiness	G
That made me think of Eden Atropos	G
Came first and having grabbed the morsel up	Y4
Ran flapping far away and out of sight	R2
With Clotho and Lachesis hard after her	T
But finally the three fared all alike	P2
And next day I persuaded them with corn	P3
In a week they came and had it from my fingers	G
And looked up at me while I pinched their bills	G
And made them sneeze Count Pretzel's Carmichael	N
Had said they were not ordinary birds	G
At all and they are not they are the Fates	G
Foredoomed of their own insufficiency	G
To be assimilated Do not think	P2
Because in my contented isolation	P3
It suits me at this time to be jocose	G
That I am nailing reason to the cross	G
Or that I set the bauble and the bells	G
Above the crucible for I do nought	R2
Say nought but with an ancient levity	R2
That is the forbear of all earnestness	G
	-
The cross I said I had a dream last night	R2
A dream not like to any other dream	B4
That I remember I was all alone	P3
Sitting as I do now beneath a tree	R2
But looking not as I am looking now	P3
Against the sunlight There was neither sun	P3
Nor moon nor do I think of any stars	G
Yet there was light and there were cedar trees	G
And there were sycamores I lay at rest	R2
Or should have seemed at rest within a trough	Y
Between two giant roots A weariness	G
Was on me and I would have gone to sleep	W2
But I had not the courage If I slept	R2
I feared that I should never wake again	P3
And if I did not sleep I should go mad	R2
And with my own dull tools which I had used	R2
With wretched skill so long hack out my life	Y2
And while I lay there tortured out of death	D2
Faint waves of cold as if the dead were breathing	P2
Came over me and through me and I felt	R2
Quick fearful tears of anguish on my face	G
And in my throat But soon and in the distance	G
Concealed importunate there was a sound	R2
Of coming steps and I was not afraid	R2
No I was not afraid then I was glad	R2
For I could feel with every thought the Man	P3
The Mystery the Child a footfall nearer	T
Then when he stood before me there was no	P2
Surprise there was no questioning I knew him	B4
As I had known him always and he smiled	R2
'Why are you here ' he asked and reaching down	P3
He took up my dull blades and rubbed his thumb	B4
Across the edges of them and then smiled	R2
Once more 'I was a carpenter ' I said	R2
'But there was nothing in the world to do '	-
'Nothing ' said he 'No nothing ' I replied	R2
'But are you sure ' he asked 'that you have skill	N
And are you sure that you have learned your trade	R2
No you are not ' He looked at me and laughed	R2
As he said that but I did not laugh then	P3
Although I might have laughed 'They are dull ' said he	R2
'They were not very sharp if they were ground	R2
But they are what you have and they will earn	P3
What you have not So take them as they are	T
Grind them and clean them put new handles to them	B4
And then go learn your trade in Nazareth	Z4
Only be sure that you find Nazareth '	-
'But if I starve what then ' said I He smiled	R2
	-
Now I call that as curious a dream	B4
As ever Meleager's mother had	R2
neas Alcibiades or Jacob
I'll not except the scientist who dreamed	R2
That he was Adam and that he was Eve	U4
At the same time or yet that other man	P3
Who dreamed that he was schylus reborn	P3
To clutch combine compensate and adjust	R2
The plunging and unfathomable chorus	G
Wherein we catch like a bacchanale through thunder	T
The chanting of the new Eumenides	G
Implacable renascent farcical	N
Triumphant and American He did it	R2
But did it in a dream When he awoke	P2
One phrase of it remained one verse of it	R2
Went singing through the remnant of his life	Y2
Like a bag pipe through a mad house He died young	P2
And if I ponder the small history	R2
That I have gleaned of him by scattered roads	G
The more do I rejoice that he died young	P2
That measure would have chased him all his days	G
Defeated him deposed him wasted him	B4
And shrewdly ruined him though in that ruin	P3
There would have lived as always it has lived	R2
In ruin as in failure the supreme	B4
Fulfilment unexpressed the rhythm of God	R2
That beats unheard through songs of shattered men	P3
Who dream but cannot sound it He declined	R2
From all that I have ever learned of him	B4
With absolute good humor No complaint	R2
No groaning at the burden which is light	R2
No brain waste of impatience 'Never mind '	-
He whispered 'for I might have written Odes '	-
	-
Speaking of odes now makes me think of ballads	G
Your admirable Mr Killigrew	R2
Has latterly committed what he calls	G
A Ballad of London London 'Town ' of course	G
And he has wished that I pass judgment on	P3
He says there is a 'generosity'	R2
About it and a 'sympathetic insight '	-
And there are strong lines in it so he says	G
But who am I that he should make of me	R2
A judge You are his friend and you know best	R2
The measure of his jingle I am old	R2
And you are young Be sure I may go back	P2
To squeak for you the tunes of yesterday	R2
On my old fiddle or what's left of it	R2
And give you as I'm able a young sound	R2
But all the while I do it I remain	P3
One of Apollo's pensioners and yours	G
An usher in the Palace of the Sun	P3
A candidate for mattocks and trombones	G
The brass band will be indispensable	N
A patron of high science but no critic	P2
So I shall have to tell him I suppose	G
That I read nothing now but Wordsworth Pope
Lucretius Robert Burns and William Shakespeare	R2
Now this is Mr Killigrew's performance	G
	-
'Say do you go to London Town	P3
You with the golden feather '	-
'And if I go to London Town	P3
With my golden feather '	-
'These autumn roads are bright and brown	P3
The season wears a russet crown	P3
And if you go to London Town	P3
We'll go down together '	-
	-
I cannot say for certain but I think	P2
The brown bright nightingale was half assuaged	R2
Before your Mr Killigrew was born	P3
If I have erred in my chronology	R2
No matter for the feathered man sings now	P3
	-
'Yes I go to London Town'	P3
Merrily waved the feather	R2
'And if you go to London Town	P3
Yes we'll go together '	-
	-
So in the autumn bright and brown	P3
Just as the year began to frown	P3
All the way to London Town	P3
Rode the two together	R2
	-
'I go to marry a fair maid'	R2
Lightly swung the feather	R2
'Pardie a true and loyal maid'	R2
Oh the swinging feather	R2
'For us the wedding gold is weighed	R2
For us the feast will soon be laid	R2
We'll make a gallant show ' he said	R2
'She and I together '	-
	-
The feathered man may do a thousand things	G
And all go smiling but the feathered man	P3
May do too much Now mark how he continues	G
	-
'And you you go to London Town '	-
Breezes waved the feather	R2
'Yes I go to London Town '	-
Ah the stinging feather	R2
'Why do you go my merry blade	R2
Like me to marry a fair maid '	-
'Why do I go God knows ' he said	R2
And on they rode together	R2
	-
Now you have read it through and you know best	R2
What worth it has We fellows with gray hair	R2
Who march with sticks to music that is gray	R2
Judge not your vanguard fifing You are one	P3
To judge and you will tell me what you think	P2
Barring the Town the Fair Maid and the Feather	R2
The dialogue and those parentheses	G
You cherish it undoubtedly 'Pardie '	-
You call it with a few conservative
Allowances an excellent small thing	P2
For patient inexperience to do	R2
Derivative you say still rather pretty	R2
But what is wrong with Mr Killigrew	R2
Is he in love or has he read Rossetti	R2
Forgive me I am old and garrulous	G
When are you coming back to Tilbury Town	P3

Edwin Arlington Robinson

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