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 MACPMACG2AAThe 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
(1)
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