Captain Craig Poem Rhyme Scheme

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I	A
	-
I doubt if ten men in all Tilbury Town	B
Had ever shaken hands with Captain Craig	C
Or called him by his name or looked at him	D
So curiously or so concernedly	E
As they had looked at ashes but a few	F
Say five or six of us had found somehow	G
The spark in him and we had fanned it there	H
Choked under like a jest in Holy Writ	I
By Tilbury prudence He had lived his life	J
And in his way had shared with all mankind	K
Inveterate leave to fashion of himself	L
By some resplendent metamorphosis	M
Whatever he was not And after time	N
When it had come sufficiently to pass	O
That he was going patch clad through the streets	P
Weak dizzy chilled and half starved he had laid	Q
Some nerveless fingers on a prudent sleeve	R
And told the sleeve in furtive confidence	S
Just how it was My name is Captain Craig	C
He said and I must eat The sleeve moved on	T
And after it moved others one or two	F
For Captain Craig before the day was done	U
Got back to the scant refuge of his bed	V
And shivered into it without a curse	W
Without a murmur even He was cold	X
And old and hungry but the worst of it	I
Was a forlorn familiar consciousness	M
That he had failed again There was a time	N
When he had fancied if worst came to worst	Y
And he could do no more that he might ask	Z
Of whom he would But once had been enough	A2
And soon there would be nothing more to ask	Z
He was himself and he had lost the speed	B2
He started with and he was left behind	K
There was no mystery no tragedy	C2
And if they found him lying on his back	D2
Stone dead there some sharp morning as they might	E2
Well once upon a time there was a man	F2
Es war einmal ein K nig if it pleased him	D
And he was right there were no men to blame	G2
There was just a false note in the Tilbury tune	H2
A note that able bodied men might sound	I2
Hosannas on while Captain Craig lay quiet	J2
They might have made him sing by feeding him	D
Till he should march again but probably	C2
Such yielding would have jeopardized the rhythm	K2
They found it more melodious to shout	L2
Right on with unmolested adoration	U
To keep the tune as it had always been	M2
To trust in God and let the Captain starve	N2
	-
He must have understood that afterwards	O2
When we had laid some fuel to the spark	P2
Of him and oxidized it for he laughed	Q2
Out loud and long at us to feel it burn	R2
And then for gratitude made game of us	M
You are the resurrection and the life	J
He said and I the hymn the Brahmin sings	S2
O Fuscus and we ll go no more a roving	T2
We were not quite accoutred for a blast	U2
Of any lettered nonchalance like that	V2
And some of us the five or six of us	M
Who found him out were singularly struck	W2
But soon there came assurance of his lips	X2
Like phrases out of some sweet instrument	Y2
Man s hand had never fitted that he felt	Z2
No penitential shame for what had come	K2
No virtuous regret for what had been	M2
But rather a joy to find it in his life	J
To be an outcast usher of the soul	E
For such as had good courage of the Sun	U
To pattern Love The Captain had one chair	H
And on the bottom of it like a king	T2
For longer time than I dare chronicle	E
Sat with an ancient ease and eulogized	A3
His opportunity My friends got out	L2
Like brokers out of Arcady but I	A
May be for fascination of the thing	T2
Or may be for the larger humor of it	I
Stayed listening unwearied and unstung	T2
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	C2
Your friends have had enough of it but you	F
For a motive hardly vindicated yet	D3
By prudence or by conscience have remained	E3
And that is very good for I have things	S2
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	C2
Two kinds of gratitude the sudden kind	K
We feel for what we take the larger kind	K
We feel for what we give Once we have learned	I3
As much as this we know the truth has been	M2
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	I
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	A
But what has this that you are saying now	G
This nineteenth century Nirvana talk	T2
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	M2
What barren light could reach us and then said	V
With a suave complacent resonance There shines	U3
The sun Behold it We go round and round	I2
And wisdom comes to us with every whirl	E
We count throughout the circuit We may say	N3
The child is born the boy becomes a man	F2
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	T2
That it will be the end of anything	T2
When I am gone There was a soldier once	S
Who fought one fight and in that fight fell dead	V
Sad friends went after and they brought him home	W3
And had a brass band at his funeral	E
As you should have at mine and after that	V2
A few remembered him But he was dead	V
They said and they should have their friend no more	X3
However there was once a starveling child	C3
A ragged vested little incubus	S
Born to be cuffed and frighted out of all	E
Capacity for childhood s happiness	S
Who started out one day quite suddenly	C2
To drown himself He ran away from home	W3
Across the clover fields and through the woods	S
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	G
There came along a man who looked at him	D
With such an unexpected friendliness	S
And talked with him in such a common way	N3
That life grew marvelously different	Y2
What he had lately known for sullen trunks	S
And branches and a world of tedious leaves	S
Was all transmuted a faint forest wind	K
That once had made the loneliest of all	E
Sad sounds on earth made now the rarest music	T2
And water that had called him once to death	A4
Now seemed a flowing glory And that man	F2
Born to go down a soldier did this thing	T2
Not much to do Not very much I grant you	F
Good occupation for a sonneteer	X3
Or for a clown or for a clergyman	U
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	K
Occasional great comfort pondering	T2
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	F2
Said Sophocles and he lived long ago	T2
And earth unending ancient of the gods	S
He furrows and the ploughs go back and forth	B4
Turning the broken mould year after year	X3
	-
I turned a little furrow of my own	F3
Once on a time and everybody laughed	Q2
As I laughed afterwards and I doubt not	C4
The First Intelligence which we have drawn	D4
In our competitive humility	C2
As if it went forever on two legs	S
Had some diversion of it I believe	R
God s humor is the music of the spheres	S
But even as we draft omnipotence	S
Itself to our own image we pervert	E4
The courage of an infinite ideal	E
To finite resignation You have made	Q
The cement of your churches out of tears	S
And ashes and the fabric will not stand	F4
The shifted walls that you have coaxed and shored	G4
So long with unavailing compromise	S
Will crumble down to dust and blow away	N3
And younger dust will follow after them	H4

Edwin Arlington Robinson

Captain Craig Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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