Merlin Ii Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRFS IOTRUVWXRP OFOYROZRRA2B2C2A2D2F A2A2PA2PMRE2OA2RA2A2 ZPA2 OPRPROIIPRRRF2POPA2A 2MYIC2ORA2PPZA2G2H2B 2PMMIR OMA2RFFRA2MRA2RMIA2M MPPA2OIRRA2RA2FRMMA2 A2 FI2A2PJ2RORA2MIMF2PR JMIRMA2OFOA2POA2K2A2 A2MA2IA2PMA2RZMRZR FA2OPA2OL2 IMRIM2OMA2ZA2PR N2MOPRRA2N2RRROA2A2F A2 A2ORMA2H2O2OOMA2 FFO OA2A2MA2A2M PA2MOA2RPA2MSir Lamorak the man of oak and iron | A |
Had with him now as a care laden guest | B |
Sir Bedivere a man whom Arthur loved | C |
As he had loved no man save Lancelot | D |
Like one whose late flown shaft of argument | E |
Had glanced and fallen afield innocuously | F |
He turned upon his host a sudden eye | G |
That met from Lamorak's an even shaft | H |
Of native and unused authority | I |
And each man held the other till at length | J |
Each turned away shutting his heavy jaws | K |
Again together prisoning thus two tongues | L |
That might forget and might not be forgiven | M |
Then Bedivere to find a plain way out | N |
Said Lamorak let us drink to some one here | O |
And end this dryness Who shall it be the King | P |
The Queen or Lancelot Merlin Lamorak growled | Q |
And then there were more wrinkles round his eyes | R |
Than Bedivere had said were possible | F |
There's no refusal in me now for that | S |
The guest replied so Merlin' let it be | I |
We've not yet seen him but if he be here | O |
And even if he should not be here say Merlin ' | T |
They drank to the unseen from two new tankards | R |
And fell straightway to sighing for the past | U |
And what was yet before them Silence laid | V |
A cogent finger on the lips of each | W |
Impatient veteran whose hard hands lay clenched | X |
And restless on his midriff until words | R |
Were stronger than strong Lamorak | P |
- | |
Bedivere | O |
Began the solid host you may as well | F |
Say now as at another time hereafter | O |
That all your certainties have bruises on 'em | Y |
And all your pestilent asseverations | R |
Will never make a man a salamander | O |
Who's born as we are told so fire won't bite him | Z |
Or a slippery queen a nun who counts and burns | R |
Herself to nothing with her beads and candles | R |
There's nature and what's in us to be sifted | A2 |
Before we know ourselves or any man | B2 |
Or woman that God suffers to be born | C2 |
That's how I speak and while you strain your mazard | A2 |
Like Father Jove big with a new Minerva | D2 |
We'll say to pass the time that I speak well | F |
God's fish The King had eyes and Lancelot | A2 |
Won't ride home to his mother for she's dead | A2 |
The story is that Merlin warned the King | P |
Of what's come now to pass and I believe it | A2 |
And Arthur he being Arthur and a king | P |
Has made a more pernicious mess than one | M |
We're told for being so great and amorous | R |
It's that unwholesome and inclement cub | E2 |
Young Modred I'd see first in hell before | O |
I'd hang too high the Queen or Lancelot | A2 |
The King if one may say it set the pace | R |
And we've two strapping bastards here to prove it | A2 |
Young Borre he's well enough but as for Modred | A2 |
I squirm as often as I look at him | Z |
And there again did Merlin warn the King | P |
The story goes abroad and I believe it | A2 |
- | |
Sir Bedivere as one who caught no more | O |
Than what he would of Lamorak's outpouring | P |
Inclined his grizzled head and closed his eyes | R |
Before he sighed and rubbed his beard and spoke | P |
For all I know to make it otherwise | R |
The Queen may be a nun some day or other | O |
I'd pray to God for such a thing to be | I |
If prayer for that were not a mockery | I |
We're late now for much praying Lamorak | P |
When you and I can feel upon our faces | R |
A wind that has been blowing over ruins | R |
That we had said were castles and high towers | R |
Till Merlin or the spirit of him came | F2 |
As the dead come in dreams I saw the King | P |
This morning and I saw his face Therefore | O |
I tell you if a state shall have a king | P |
The king must have the state and be the state | A2 |
Or then shall we have neither king nor state | A2 |
But bones and ashes and high towers all fallen | M |
And we shall have where late there was a kingdom | Y |
A dusty wreck of what was once a glory | I |
A wilderness whereon to crouch and mourn | C2 |
And moralize or else to build once more | O |
For something better or for something worse | R |
Therefore again I say that Lancelot | A2 |
Has wrought a potent wrong upon the King | P |
And all who serve and recognize the King | P |
And all who follow him and all who love him | Z |
Whatever the stormy faults he may have had | A2 |
To look on him today is to forget them | G2 |
And if it be too late for sorrow now | H2 |
To save him for it was a broken man | B2 |
I saw this morning and a broken king | P |
The God who sets a day for desolation | M |
Will not forsake him in Avilion | M |
Or whatsoever shadowy land there be | I |
Where peace awaits him on its healing shores | R |
- | |
Sir Lamorak shifting in his oaken chair | O |
Growled like a dog and shook himself like one | M |
For the stone chested helmet cracking knight | A2 |
That you are known to be from Lyonnesse | R |
To northward Bedivere you fol de rol | F |
When days are rancid and you fiddle faddle | F |
More like a woman than a man with hands | R |
Fit for the smiting of a crazy giant | A2 |
With armor an inch thick as we all know | M |
You are when you're not sermonizing at us | R |
As for the King I say the King no doubt | A2 |
Is angry sorry and all sorts of things | R |
For Lancelot and for his easy Queen | M |
Whom he took knowing she'd thrown sparks already | I |
On that same piece of tinder Lancelot | A2 |
Who fetched her with him from Leodogran | M |
Because the King God save poor human reason | M |
Would prove to Merlin who knew everything | P |
Worth knowing in those days that he was wrong | P |
I'll drink now and be quiet but by God | A2 |
I'll have to tell you Brother Bedivere | O |
Once more to make you listen properly | I |
That crowns and orders and high palaces | R |
And all the manifold ingredients | R |
Of this good solid kingdom where we sit | A2 |
And spit now at each other with our eyes | R |
Will not go rolling down to hell just yet | A2 |
Because a pretty woman is a fool | F |
And here's Kay coming with his fiddle face | R |
As long now as two fiddles Sit ye down | M |
Sir Man and tell us everything you know | M |
Of Merlin or his ghost without a beard | A2 |
What mostly is it | A2 |
- | |
Sir Kay the seneschal | F |
Sat wearily while he gazed upon the two | I2 |
To you it mostly is if I err not | A2 |
That what you hear of Merlin's coming back | P |
Is nothing more or less than heavy truth | J2 |
But ask me nothing of the Queen I say | R |
For I know nothing All I know of her | O |
Is what her eyes have told the silences | R |
That now attend her and that her estate | A2 |
Is one for less complacent execration | M |
Than quips and innuendoes of the city | I |
Would augur for her sin if there be sin | M |
Or for her name if now she have a name | F2 |
And where I say is this to lead the King | P |
And after him the kingdom and ourselves | R |
Here be we three men of a certain strength | J |
And some confessed intelligence who know | M |
That Merlin has come out of Brittany | I |
Out of his grave as he would say it for us | R |
Because the King has now a desperation | M |
More strong upon him than a woman's net | A2 |
Was over Merlin for now Merlin's here | O |
And two of us who knew him know how well | F |
His wisdom if he have it any longer | O |
Will by this hour have sounded and appraised | A2 |
The grief and wrath and anguish of the King | P |
Requiring mercy and inspiring fear | O |
Lest he forego the vigil now most urgent | A2 |
And leave unwatched a cranny where some worm | K2 |
Or serpent may come in to speculate | A2 |
- | |
I know your worm and his worm's name is Modred | A2 |
Albeit the streets are not yet saying so | M |
Said Lamorak as he lowered his wrath and laughed | A2 |
A sort of poisonous apology | I |
To Kay And in the meantime I'll be gyved | A2 |
Here's Bedivere a wailing for the King | P |
And you Kay with a moist eye for the Queen | M |
I think I'll blow a horn for Lancelot | A2 |
For by my soul a man's in sorry case | R |
When Guineveres are out with eyes to scorch him | Z |
I'm not so ancient or so frozen certain | M |
That I'd ride horses down to skeletons | R |
If she were after me Has Merlin seen him | Z |
This Lancelot this Queen fed friend of ours | R |
- | |
Kay answered sighing with a lonely scowl | F |
The picture that I conjure leaves him out | A2 |
The King and Merlin are this hour together | O |
And I can say no more for I know nothing | P |
But how the King persuaded or beguiled | A2 |
The stricken wizard from across the water | O |
Outriddles my poor wits It's all too strange | L2 |
- | |
It's all too strange and half the world's half crazy | I |
Roared Lamorak forgetting once again | M |
The devastating carriage of his voice | R |
Is the King sick he said more quietly | I |
Is he to let one damned scratch be enough | M2 |
To paralyze the force that heretofore | O |
Would operate a way through hell and iron | M |
And iron already slimy with his blood | A2 |
Is the King blind with Modred watching him | Z |
Does he forget the crown for Lancelot | A2 |
Does he forget that every woman mewing | P |
Shall some day be a handful of small ashes | R |
- | |
You speak as one for whom the god of Love | N2 |
Has yet a mighty trap in preparation | M |
We know you Lamorak said Bedivere | O |
We know you for a short man Lamorak | P |
In deeds if not in inches or in words | R |
But there are fens and heights and distances | R |
That your capricious ranging has not yet | A2 |
Essayed in this weird region of man's love | N2 |
Forgive me Lamorak but your words are words | R |
Your deeds are what they are and ages hence | R |
Will men remember your illustriousness | R |
If there be gratitude in history | O |
For me I see the shadow of the end | A2 |
Wherein to serve King Arthur to the end | A2 |
And if God have it so to see the Grail | F |
Before I die | A2 |
- | |
But Lamorak shook his head | A2 |
See what you will or what you may For me | O |
I see no other than a stinking mess | R |
With Modred stirring it and Agravaine | M |
Spattering Camelot with as much of it | A2 |
As he can throw The Devil got somehow | H2 |
Into God's workshop once upon a time | O2 |
And out of the red clay that he found there | O |
He made a shape like Modred and another | O |
As like as eyes are to this Agravaine | M |
I never made 'em ' said the good Lord God | A2 |
But let 'em go and see what comes of 'em ' | - |
And that's what we're to do As for the Grail | F |
I've never worried it and so the Grail | F |
Has never worried me | O |
- | |
Kay sighed I see | O |
With Bedivere the coming of the end | A2 |
He murmured for the King I saw today | A2 |
Was not nor shall he ever be again | M |
The King we knew I say the King is dead | A2 |
The man is living but the King is dead | A2 |
The wheel is broken | M |
- | |
Faugh said Lamorak | P |
There are no dead kings yet in Camelot | A2 |
But there is Modred who is hatching ruin | M |
And when it hatches I may not be here | O |
There's Gawaine too and he does not forget | A2 |
My father who killed his King Arthur's house | R |
Has more divisions in it than I like | P |
In houses and if Modred's aim be good | A2 |
For backs like mine I'm not long for the scene | M |
Edwin Arlington Robinson
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