Flammonde Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDE FGHIJJKK LLMMNNOO PPQRSSTS UUUUUUUU VVWWUUXX UUUUYYUU UUXXZZA2A2 B2B2C2C2ZZXX UUXXUUUU UUD2D2UUE2F2 G2G2H2I2J2J2UU| The man Flammonde from God knows where | A |
| With firm address and foreign air | A |
| With news of nations in his talk | B |
| And something royal in his walk | B |
| With glint of iron in his eyes | C |
| But never doubt nor yet surprise | C |
| Appeared and stayed and held his head | D |
| As one by kings accredited | E |
| - | |
| Erect with his alert repose | F |
| About him and about his clothes | G |
| He pictured all tradition hears | H |
| Of what we owe to fifty years | I |
| His cleansing heritage of taste | J |
| Paraded neither want nor waste | J |
| And what he needed for his fee | K |
| To live he borrowed graciously | K |
| - | |
| He never told us what he was | L |
| Or what mischance or other cause | L |
| Had banished him from better days | M |
| To play the Prince of Castaways | M |
| Meanwhile he played surpassing well | N |
| A part for most unplayable | N |
| In fine one pauses half afraid | O |
| To say for certain that he played | O |
| - | |
| For that one may as well forego | P |
| Conviction as to yes or no | P |
| Nor can I say just how intense | Q |
| Would then have been the difference | R |
| To several who having striven | S |
| In vain to get what he was given | S |
| Would see the stranger taken on | T |
| By friends not easy to be won | S |
| - | |
| Moreover many a malcontent | U |
| He soothed and found munificent | U |
| His courtesy beguiled and foiled | U |
| Suspicion that his years were soiled | U |
| His mien distinguished any crowd | U |
| His credit strengthened when he bowed | U |
| And women young and old were fond | U |
| Of looking at the man Flammonde | U |
| - | |
| There was a woman in our town | V |
| On whom the fashion was to frown | V |
| But while our talk renewed the tinge | W |
| Of a long faded scarlet fringe | W |
| The man Flammonde saw none of that | U |
| And what he saw we wondered at | U |
| That none of us in her distress | X |
| Could hide or find our littleness | X |
| - | |
| There was a boy that all agreed | U |
| Had shut within him the rare seed | U |
| Of learning We could understand | U |
| But none of us could lift a hand | U |
| The man Flammonde appraised the youth | Y |
| And told a few of us the truth | Y |
| And thereby for a little gold | U |
| A flowered future was unrolled | U |
| - | |
| There were two citizens who fought | U |
| For years and years and over nought | U |
| They made life awkward for their friends | X |
| And shortened their own dividends | X |
| The man Flammonde said what was wrong | Z |
| Should be made right nor was it long | Z |
| Before they were again in line | A2 |
| And had each other in to dine | A2 |
| - | |
| And these I mention are but four | B2 |
| Of many out of many more | B2 |
| So much for them But what of him | C2 |
| So firm in every look and limb | C2 |
| What small satanic sort of kink | Z |
| Was in his brain What broken link | Z |
| Withheld him from the destinies | X |
| That came so near to being his | X |
| - | |
| What was he when we came to sift | U |
| His meaning and to note the drift | U |
| Of incommunicable ways | X |
| That make us ponder while we praise | X |
| Why was it that his charm revealed | U |
| Somehow the surface of a shield | U |
| What was it that we never caught | U |
| What was he and what was he not | U |
| - | |
| How much it was of him we met | U |
| We cannot ever know nor yet | U |
| Shall all he gave us quite atone | D2 |
| For what was his and his alone | D2 |
| Nor need we now since he knew best | U |
| Nourish an ethical unrest | U |
| Rarely at once will nature give | E2 |
| The power to be Flammonde and live | F2 |
| - | |
| We cannot know how much we learn | G2 |
| From those who never will return | G2 |
| Until a flash of unforeseen | H2 |
| Remembrance falls on what has been | I2 |
| We've each a darkening hill to climb | J2 |
| And this is why from time to time | J2 |
| In Tilbury Town we look beyond | U |
| Horizons for the man Flammonde | U |
Edwin Arlington Robinson
(2)
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About Flammonde
Flammonde is a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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