Merlin V Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AAAAABACDAAEACAFGHIA JAKAALAMNOMPAQAMCKAM RQAAMMSTUAMVLWMMKK XPAYZAAMCAMAPQAA2B2C 2AAPMAAD2ARAMA2E2MK F2F2MYCCCAYWMWCNMASP PG2D2MPH2APMI2MJ2PF2 PMPAK2PML2CMJ2M2APAB 2M PWAN2YMAB2PMMM2MAAAW AAAMMMAMCAY AO2AMYMP2AMB2Q2YMWP2 AMML2R2AM MAAMAMS2AT2F2AMWMMMW MSL2SMA2AMMAU2V2W2W2 AMCMA AX2NYYMCAAPMWMMY2MAA MAAAMMPF2CAAMMVMU2MZ 2YANAAP MA3AAWMAAAB3MAWAAMYP SMNAAMAAAMKCMACSC3AA AM AT2X2AMPAX2ASX2KCMMY MAAM WPCD3ACYWMB2PAMAB2WM NAMU2ACMYE3AMMAME3NS AF3AWG3AMAF2A KAMYAAME2MH3MQI3S2WM AWMANY2O2MM2MAF2AJ3Q M AMYYDAMMAAMMMMAAP2O2 W2K3QVMWY2AMPL3ML2MA MAAMMCMG2MMCAQAMYM3N 3PQ AMMAAKYG2ANO3AMAMQ P3MMAQ3YAMPMG2P ARMWYAMMWAKA MACPMACG2AA

The sun went down and the dark after it	A
Starred Merlin's new abode with many a sconced	A
And many a moving candle in whose light	A
The prisoned wizard mirrored in amazement	A
Saw fronting him a stranger falcon eyed	A
Firm featured of a negligible age	B
And fair enough to look upon he fancied	A
Though not a warrior born nor more a courtier	C
A native humor resting in his long	D
And solemn jaws now stirred and Merlin smiled	A
To see himself in purple touched with gold	A
And fledged with snowy lace The careful Blaise	E
Having drawn some time before from Merlin's wallet	A
The sable raiment of a royal scholar	C
Had eyed it with a long mistrust and said	A
The lady Vivian would be vexed I fear	F
To meet you vested in these learned weeds	G
Of gravity and death for she abhors	H
Mortality in all its hues and emblems	I
Black wear long argument and all the cold	A
And solemn things that appertain to graves	J
And Merlin listening to himself had said	A
This fellow has a freedom yet I like him	K
And then aloud I trust you Deck me out	A
However with a temperate regard	A
For what your candid eye may find in me	L
Of inward coloring Let them reap my beard	A
Moreover with a sort of reverence	M
For I shall never look on it again	N
And though your lady frown her face away	O
To think of me in black for God's indulgence	M
Array me not in scarlet or in yellow	P
And so it came to pass that Merlin sat	A
At ease in purple even though his chin	Q
Reproached him as he pinched it and seemed yet	A
A little fearful of its nakedness	M
He might have sat and scanned himself for ever	C
Had not the careful Blaise regarding him	K
Remarked again that in his proper judgment	A
And on the valid word of his attendants	M
No more was to be done Then do no more	R
Said Merlin with a last look at his chin	Q
Never do more when there's no more to do	A
And you may shun thereby the bitter taste	A
Of many disillusions and regrets	M
God's pity on us that our words have wings	M
And leave our deeds to crawl so far below them	S
For we have all two heights we men who dream	T
Whether we lead or follow rule or serve	U
God's pity on us anyhow Blaise answered	A
Or most of us Meanwhile I have to say	M
As long as you are here and I'm alive	V
Your summons will assure the loyalty	L
Of all my diligence and expedition	W
The gong that you hear singing in the distance	M
Was rung for your attention and your presence	M
I wonder at this fellow yet I like him	K
Said Merlin and he rose to follow him	K
	-
The lady Vivian in a fragile sheath	X
Of crimson dimmed and veiled ineffably	P
By the flame shaken gloom wherein she sat	A
And twinkled if she moved heard Merlin coming	Y
And smiled as if to make herself believe	Z
Her joy was all a triumph yet her blood	A
Confessed a tingling of more wonderment	A
Than all her five and twenty worldly years	M
Of waiting for this triumph could remember	C
And when she knew and felt the slower tread	A
Of his unseen advance among the shadows	M
To the small haven of uncertain light	A
That held her in it as a torch lit shoal	P
Might hold a smooth red fish her listening skin	Q
Responded with a creeping underneath it	A
And a crinkling that was incident alike	A2
To darkness love and mice When he was there	B2
She looked up at him in a whirl of mirth	C2
And wonder as in childhood she had gazed	A
Wide eyed on royal mountebanks who made	A
So brief a shift of the impossible	P
That kings and queens would laugh and shake themselves	M
Then rising slowly on her little feet	A
Like a slim creature lifted she thrust out	A
Her two small hands as if to push him back	D2
Whereon he seized them Go away she said	A
I never saw you in my life before	R
You say the truth he answered when I met	A
Myself an hour ago my words were yours	M
God made the man you see for you to like	A2
If possible If otherwise turn down	E2
These two prodigious and remorseless thumbs	M
And leave your lions to annihilate him	K
	-
I have no other lion than yourself	F2
She said and since you cannot eat yourself	F2
Pray do a lonely woman who is you say	M
More like a tree than any other thing	Y
In your discrimination the large honor	C
Of sharing with her a small kind of supper	C
Yes you are like a tree or like a flower	C
More like a flower to night He bowed his head	A
And kissed the ten small fingers he was holding	Y
As calmly as if each had been a son	W
Although his heart was leaping and his eyes	M
Had sight for nothing save a swimming crimson	W
Between two glimmering arms More like a flower	C
To night he said as now he scanned again	N
The immemorial meaning of her face	M
And drew it nearer to his eyes It seemed	A
A flower of wonder with a crimson stem	S
Came leaning slowly and regretfully	P
To meet his will a flower of change and peril	P
That had a clinging blossom of warm olive	G2
Half stifled with a tyranny of black	D2
And held the wayward fragrance of a rose	M
Made woman by delirious alchemy	P
She raised her face and yoked his willing neck	H2
With half her weight and with hot lips that left	A
The world with only one philosophy	P
For Merlin or for Anaxagoras	M
Called his to meet them and in one long hush	I2
Of capture to surrender and make hers	M
The last of anything that might remain	J2
Of what was now their beardless wizardry	P
Then slowly she began to push herself	F2
Away and slowly Merlin let her go	P
As far from him as his outreaching hands	M
Could hold her fingers while his eyes had all	P
The beauty of the woodland and the world	A
Before him in the firelight like a nymph	K2
Of cities or a queen a little weary	P
Of inland stillness and immortal trees	M
Are you to let me go again sometime	L2
She said before I starve to death I wonder	C
If not I'll have to bite the lion's paws	M
And make him roar He cannot shake his mane	J2
For now the lion has no mane to shake	M2
The lion hardly knows himself without it	A
And thinks he has no face but there's a lady	P
Who says he had no face until he lost it	A
So there we are And there's a flute somewhere	B2
Playing a strange old tune You know the words	M
The Lion and the Lady are both hungry '	-
	-
Fatigue and hunger tempered leisurely	P
With food that some devout magician's oven	W
Might after many failures have delivered	A
And wine that had for decades in the dark	N2
Of Merlin's grave been slowly quickening	Y
And with half heard dream weaving interludes	M
Of distant flutes and viols made more distant	A
By far nostalgic hautboys blown from nowhere	B2
Were tempered not so leisurely may be	P
With Vivian's inextinguishable eyes	M
Between two shining silver candlesticks	M
That lifted each a trembling flame to make	M2
The rest of her a dusky loveliness	M
Against a bank of shadow Merlin made	A
As well as he was able while he ate	A
A fair division of the fealty due	A
To food and beauty albeit more times than one	W
Was he at odds with his urbanity	A
In honoring too long the grosser viand	A
The best invention in Broceliande	A
Has not been over taxed in vain I see	M
She told him with her chin propped on her fingers	M
And her eyes flashing blindness into his	M
I put myself out cruelly to please you	A
And you for that forget almost at once	M
The name and image of me altogether	C
You needn't for when all is analyzed	A
It's only a bird pie that you are eating	Y
	-
I know not what you call it Merlin said	A
Nor more do I forget your name and image	O2
Though I do eat and if I did not eat	A
Your sending out of ships and caravans	M
To get whatever 'tis that's in this thing	Y
Would be a sorrow for you all your days	M
And my great love which you have seen by now	P2
Might look to you a lie and like as not	A
You'd actuate some sinewed mercenary	M
To carry me away to God knows where	B2
And seal me in a fearsome hole to starve	Q2
Because I made of this insidious picking	Y
An idle circumstance My dear fair lady	M
And there is not another under heaven	W
So fair as you are as I see you now	P2
I cannot look at you too much and eat	A
And I must eat or be untimely ashes	M
Whereon the light of your celestial gaze	M
Would fall I fear me for no longer time	L2
Than on the solemn dust of Jeremiah	R2
Whose beard you likened once in heathen jest	A
To mine that now is no man's	M
	-
Are you sorry	M
Said Vivian filling Merlin's empty goblet	A
If you are sorry for the loss of it	A
Drink more of this and you may tell me lies	M
Enough to make me sure that you are glad	A
But if your love is what you say it is	M
Be never sorry that my love took off	S2
That horrid hair to make your face at last	A
A human fact Since I have had your name	T2
To dream of and say over to myself	F2
The visitations of that awful beard	A
Have been a terror for my nights and days	M
For twenty years I've seen it like an ocean	W
Blown seven ways at once and wrecking ships	M
With men and women screaming for their lives	M
I've seen it woven into shining ladders	M
That ran up out of sight and so to heaven	W
All covered with white ghosts with hanging robes	M
Like folded wings and there were millions of them	S
Climbing climbing climbing all the time	L2
And all the time that I was watching them	S
I thought how far above me Merlin was	M
And wondered always what his face was like	A2
But even then as a child I knew the day	A
Would come some time when I should see his face	M
And hear his voice and have him in my house	M
Till he should care no more to stay in it	A
And go away to found another kingdom	U2
Not that he said and sighing drank more wine	V2
One kingdom for one Merlin is enough	W2
One Merlin for one Vivian is enough	W2
She said If you care much remember that	A
But the Lord knows how many Vivians	M
One Merlin's entertaining eye might favor	C
Indifferently well and all at once	M
If they were all at hand Praise heaven they're not	A
	-
If they were in the world praise heaven they're not	A
And if one Merlin's entertaining eye	X2
Saw two of them there might be left him then	N
The sight of no eye to see anything	Y
Not even the Vivian who is everything	Y
She being Beauty Beauty being She	M
She being Vivian and so on for ever	C
I'm glad you don't see two of me she said	A
For there's a whole world yet for you to eat	A
And drink and say to me before I know	P
The sort of creature that you see in me	M
I'm withering for a little more attention	W
But being woman I can wait These cups	M
That you see coming are for the last there is	M
Of what my father gave to kings alone	Y2
And far from always You are more than kings	M
To me therefore I give it all to you	A
Imploring you to spare no more of it	A
Than a small cockle shell would hold for me	M
To pledge your love and mine in Take the rest	A
That I may see tonight the end of it	A
I'll have no living remnant of the dead	A
Annoying me until it fades and sours	M
Of too long cherishing for Time enjoys	M
The look that's on our faces when we scowl	P
On unexpected ruins and thrift itself	F2
May be a sort of slow unwholesome fire	C
That eats away to dust the life that feeds it	A
You smile I see but I said what I said	A
One hardly has to live a thousand years	M
To contemplate a lost economy	M
So let us drink it while it's yet alive	V
And you and I are not untimely ashes	M
My last words are your own and I don't like 'em	U2
A sudden laughter scattered from her eyes	M
A threatening wisdom He smiled and let her laugh	Z2
Then looked into the dark where there was nothing	Y
There's more in this than I have seen he thought	A
Though I shall see it Drink she said again	N
There's only this much in the world of it	A
And I am near to giving all to you	A
Because you are so great and I so little	P
	-
With a long kindling gaze that caught from hers	M
A laughing flame and with a hand that shook	A3
Like Arthur's kingdom Merlin slowly raised	A
A golden cup that for a golden moment	A
Was twinned in air with hers and Vivian	W
Who smiled at him across their gleaming rims	M
From eyes that made a fuel of the night	A
Surrounding her shot glory over gold	A
At Merlin while their cups touched and his trembled	A
He drank not knowing what nor caring much	B3
For kings who might have cared less for themselves	M
He thought had all the darkness and wild light	A
That fell together to make Vivian	W
Been there before them then to flower anew	A
Through sheathing crimson into candle light	A
With each new leer of their loose liquorish eyes	M
Again he drank and he cursed every king	Y
Who might have touched her even in her cradle	P
For what were kings to such as he who made them	S
And saw them totter for the world to see	M
And heed if the world would He drank again	N
And yet again to make himself assured	A
No manner of king should have the last of it	A
The cup that Vivian filled unfailingly	M
Until she poured for nothing At the end	A
Of this incomparable flowing gold	A
She prattled on to Merlin who observed	A
Her solemnly I fear there may be specks	M
He sighed aloud whereat she laughed at him	K
And pushed the golden cup a little nearer	C
He scanned it with a sad anxiety	M
And then her face likewise and shook his head	A
As if at her concern for such a matter	C
Specks What are specks Are you afraid of them	S
He murmured slowly with a drowsy tongue	C3
There are specks everywhere I fear them not	A
If I were king in Camelot I might	A
Fear more than specks But now I fear them not	A
You are too strange a lady to fear specks	M
	-
He stared a long time at the cup of gold	A
Before him but he drank no more There came	T2
Between him and the world a crumbling sky	X2
Of black and crimson with a crimson cloud	A
That held a far off town of many towers	M
All swayed and shaken till at last they fell	P
And there was nothing but a crimson cloud	A
That crumbled into nothing like the sky	X2
That vanished with it carrying away	A
The world the woman and all memory of them	S
Until a slow light of another sky	X2
Made gray an open casement showing him	K
Faint shapes of an exotic furniture	C
That glimmered with a dim magnificence	M
And letting in the sound of many birds	M
That were as he lay there remembering	Y
The only occupation of his ears	M
Until it seemed they shared a fainter sound	A
As if a sleeping child with a black head	A
Beside him drew the breath of innocence	M
	-
One shining afternoon around the fountain	W
As on the shining day of his arrival	P
The sunlight was alive with flying silver	C
That had for Merlin a more dazzling flash	D3
Than jewels rained in dreams and a richer sound	A
Than harps and all the morning stars together	C
When jewels and harps and stars and everything	Y
That flashed and sang and was not Vivian	W
Seemed less than echoes of her least of words	M
For she was coming Suddenly somewhere	B2
Behind him she was coming that was all	P
He knew until she came and took his hand	A
And held it while she talked about the fishes	M
When she looked up he thought a softer light	A
Was in her eyes than once he had found there	B2
And had there been left yet for dusky women	W
A beauty that was heretofore not hers	M
He told himself he must have seen it then	N
Before him in the face at which he smiled	A
And trembled Many men have called me wise	M
He said but you are wiser than all wisdom	U2
If you know what you are I don't she said	A
I know that you and I are here together	C
I know that I have known for twenty years	M
That life would be almost a constant yawning	Y
Until you came and now that you are here	E3
I know that you are not to go away	A
Until you tell me that I'm hideous	M
I know that I like fishes ferns and snakes	M
Maybe because I liked them when the world	A
Was young and you and I were salamanders	M
I know too a cool place not far from here	E3
Where there are ferns that are like marching men	N
Who never march away Come now and see them	S
And do as they do never march away	A
When they are gone some others crisp and green	F3
Will have their place but never march away	A
He smoothed her silky fingers one by one	W
Some other Merlin also do you think	G3
Will have his place and never march away	A
Then Vivian laid a finger on his lips	M
And shook her head at him before she laughed	A
There is no other Merlin than yourself	F2
And you are never going to be old	A
	-
Oblivious of a world that made of him	K
A jest a legend and a long regret	A
And with a more commanding wizardry	M
Than his to rule a kingdom where the king	Y
Was Love and the queen Vivian Merlin found	A
His queen without the blemish of a word	A
That was more rough than honey from her lips	M
Or the first adumbration of a frown	E2
To cloud the night wild fire that in her eyes	M
Had yet a smoky friendliness of home	H3
And a foreknowing care for mighty trifles	M
There are miles and miles for you to wander in	Q
She told him once Your prison yard is large	I3
And I would rather take my two ears off	S2
And feed them to the fishes in the fountain	W
Than buzz like an incorrigible bee	M
For always around yours and have you hate	A
The sound of me for some day then for certain	W
Your philosophic rage would see in me	M
A bee in earnest and your hand would smite	A
My life away And what would you do then	N
I know for years and years you'd sit alone	Y2
Upon my grave and be the grieving image	O2
Of lean remorse and suffer miserably	M
And often all day long you'd only shake	M2
Your celebrated head and all it holds	M
Or beat it with your fist the while you groaned	A
Aloud and went on saying to yourself	F2
Never should I have killed her or believed	A
She was a bee that buzzed herself to death	J3
First having made me crazy had there been	Q
Judicious distance and wise absences	M
To keep the two of us inquisitive '	-
I fear you bow your unoffending head	A
Before a load that should be mine said he	M
If so you led me on by listening	Y
You should have shrieked and jumped and then fled yelling	Y
That's the best way when a man talks too long	D
God's pity on me if I love your feet	A
More now than I could ever love the face	M
Of any one of all those Vivians	M
You summoned out of nothing on the night	A
When I saw towers I'll wander and amend	A
At that she flung the noose of her soft arms	M
Around his neck and kissed him instantly	M
You are the wisest man that ever was	M
And I've a prayer to make May all you say	M
To Vivian be a part of what you knew	A
Before the curse of her unquiet head	A
Was on your shoulder as you have it now	P2
To punish you for knowing beyond knowledge	O2
You are the only one who sees enough	W2
To make me see how far away I am	K3
From all that I have seen and have not been	Q
You are the only thing there is alive	V
Between me as I am and as I was	M
When Merlin was a dream You are to listen	W
When I say now to you that I'm alone	Y2
Like you I saw too much and unlike you	A
I made no kingdom out of what I saw	M
Or none save this one here that you must rule	P
Believing you are ruled I see too far	L3
To rule myself Time's way with you and me	M
Is our way in that we are out of Time	L2
And out of tune with Time We have this place	M
And you must hold us in it or we die	A
Look at me now and say if what I say	M
Be folly or not for my unquiet head	A
Is no conceit of mine I had it first	A
When I was born and I shall have it with me	M
Till my unquiet soul is on its way	M
To be I hope where souls are quieter	C
So let the first and last activity	M
Of what you say so often is your love	G2
Be always to remember that our lyres	M
Are not strung for Today On you it falls	M
To keep them in accord here with each other	C
For you have wisdom I have only sight	A
For distant things and you And you are Merlin	Q
Poor wizard Vivian is your punishment	A
For making kings of men who are not kings	M
And you are mine by the same reasoning	Y
For living out of Time and out of tune	M3
With anything but you No other man	N3
Could make me say so much of what I know	P
As I say now to you And you are Merlin	Q
	-
She looked up at him till his way was lost	A
Again in the familiar wilderness	M
Of night that love made for him in her eyes	M
And there he wandered as he said he would	A
He wandered also in his prison yard	A
And when he found her coming after him	K
Beguiled her with her own admonishing	Y
And frowned upon her with a fierce reproof	G2
That many a time in the old world outside	A
Had set the mark of silence on strong men	N
Whereat she laughed not always wholly sure	O3
Nor always wholly glad that he who played	A
So lightly was the wizard of her dreams	M
No matter if only Merlin keep the world	A
Away she thought Our lyres have many strings	M
But he must know them all for he is Merlin	Q
	-
And so far years till ten of them were gone	P3
Ten years ten seasons or ten flying ages	M
Fate made Broceliande a paradise	M
By none invaded until Dagonet	A
Like a discordant awkward bird of doom	Q3
Flew in with Arthur's message For the King	Y
In sorrow cleaving to simplicity	A
And having in his love a quick remembrance	M
Of Merlin's old affection for the fellow	P
Had for this vain reluctant enterprise	M
Appointed him the knight who made men laugh	G2
And was a fool because he played the fool	P
	-
The King believes today as in his boyhood	A
That I am Fate and I can do no more	R
Than show again what in his heart he knows	M
Said Merlin to himself and Vivian	W
This time I go because I made him King	Y
Thereby to be a mirror for the world	A
This time I go but never after this	M
For I can be no more than what I was	M
And I can do no more than I have done	W
He took her slowly in his arms and felt	A
Her body throbbing like a bird against him	K
This time I go I go because I must	A
	-
And in the morning when he rode away	M
With Dagonet and Blaise through the same gate	A
That once had clanged as if to shut for ever	C
She had not even asked him not to go	P
For it was then that in his lonely gaze	M
Of helpless love and sad authority	A
She found the gleam of his imprisoned power	C
That Fate withheld and pitying herself	G2
She pitied the fond Merlin she had changed	A
And saw the Merlin who had changed the world	A

Edwin Arlington Robinson

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