Octaves Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGHF A IJBFKLMN A EBOBPJJQ J RSTUBBVB J BFBWXJAQ A YZA2B2CAC2J J FBBD2BBRF J BJE2FF2BBG2 B BH2BBI2BJB B J2BFK2BBJ2B B L2M2BM2BN2E2M2 B BM2O2BBBP2Q2 B M2R2OS2M2BT2B J JBM2U2V2M2BM2 J EM2M2BBKBL2 J M2PW2BBRM2B J X2BIBBM2BM2 J E2Y2DM2JBV2F B BZ2Z2BJFJB B BBBBA3BBB3 B C3FVBM2BFD3 B JM2FZE3BE3F B Q2M2BM2M2M2M2M2 J BF3BM2BBM2D J OBHM2FBEC3I | A |
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To get at the eternal strength of things | B |
And fearlessly to make strong songs of it | C |
Is to my mind the mission of that man | D |
The world would call a poet He may sing | E |
But roughly and withal ungraciously | F |
But if he touch to life the one right chord | G |
Wherein God's music slumbers and awake | H |
To truth one drowsed ambition he sings well | F |
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II | A |
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We thrill too strangely at the master's touch | I |
We shrink too sadly from the larger self | J |
Which for its own completeness agitates | B |
And undetermines us we do not feel | F |
We dare not feel it yet the splendid shame | K |
Of uncreated failure we forget | L |
The while we groan that God's accomplishment | M |
Is always and unfailingly at hand | N |
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III | A |
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To mortal ears the plainest word may ring | E |
Fantastic and unheard of and as false | B |
And out of tune as ever to our own | O |
Did ring the prayers of man made maniacs | B |
But if that word be the plain word of Truth | P |
It leaves an echo that begets itself | J |
Persistent in itself and of itself | J |
Regenerate reiterate replete | Q |
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IV | J |
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Tumultuously void of a clean scheme | R |
Whereon to build whereof to formulate | S |
The legion life that riots in mankind | T |
Goes ever plunging upward up and down | U |
Most like some crazy regiment at arms | B |
Undisciplined of aught but Ignorance | B |
And ever led resourcelessly along | V |
To brainless carnage by drunk trumpeters | B |
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V | J |
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To me the groaning of world worshippers | B |
Rings like a lonely music played in hell | F |
By one with art enough to cleave the walls | B |
Of heaven with his cadence but without | W |
The wisdom or the will to comprehend | X |
The strangeness of his own perversity | J |
And all without the courage to deny | A |
The profit and the pride of his defeat | Q |
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VI | A |
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While we are drilled in error we are lost | Y |
Alike to truth and usefulness We think | Z |
We are great warriors now and we can brag | A2 |
Like Titans but the world is growing young | B2 |
And we the fools of time are growing with it | C |
We do not fight to day we only die | A |
We are too proud of death and too ashamed | C2 |
Of God to know enough to be alive | J |
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VII | J |
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There is one battle field whereon we fall | F |
Triumphant and unconquered but alas | B |
We are too fleshly fearful of ourselves | B |
To fight there till our days are whirled and blurred | D2 |
By sorrow and the ministering wheels | B |
Of anguish take us eastward where the clouds | B |
Of human gloom are lost against the gleam | R |
That shines on Thought's impenetrable mail | F |
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VIII | J |
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When we shall hear no more the cradle songs | B |
Of ages when the timeless hymns of Love | J |
Defeat them and outsound them we shall know | E2 |
The rapture of that large release which all | F |
Right science comprehends and we shall read | F2 |
With unoppressed and unoffended eyes | B |
That record of All Soul whereon God writes | B |
In everlasting runes the truth of Him | G2 |
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IX | B |
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The guerdon of new childhood is repose | B |
Once he has read the primer of right thought | H2 |
A man may claim between two smithy strokes | B |
Beatitude enough to realize | B |
God's parallel completeness in the vague | I2 |
And incommensurable excellence | B |
That equitably uncreates itself | J |
And makes a whirlwind of the Universe | B |
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X | B |
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There is no loneliness no matter where | J2 |
We go nor whence we come nor what good friends | B |
Forsake us in the seeming we are all | F |
At one with a complete companionship | K2 |
And though forlornly joyless be the ways | B |
We travel the compensate spirit gleams | B |
Of Wisdom shaft the darkness here and there | J2 |
Like scattered lamps in unfrequented streets | B |
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XI | B |
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When one that you and I had all but sworn | L2 |
To be the purest thing God ever made | M2 |
Bewilders us until at last it seems | B |
An angel has come back restigmatized | M2 |
Faith wavers and we wonder what there is | B |
On earth to make us faithful any more | N2 |
But never are quite wise enough to know | E2 |
The wisdom that is in that wonderment | M2 |
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XII | B |
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Where does a dead man go The dead man dies | B |
But the free life that would no longer feed | M2 |
On fagots of outburned and shattered flesh | O2 |
Wakes to a thrilled invisible advance | B |
Unchained or fettered else of memory | B |
And when the dead man goes it seems to me | B |
'T were better for us all to do away | P2 |
With weeping and be glad that he is gone | Q2 |
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XIII | B |
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Still through the dusk of dead blank legended | M2 |
And unremunerative years we search | R2 |
To get where life begins and still we groan | O |
Because we do not find the living spark | S2 |
Where no spark ever was and thus we die | M2 |
Still searching like poor old astronomers | B |
Who totter off to bed and go to sleep | T2 |
To dream of untriangulated stars | B |
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XIV | J |
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With conscious eyes not yet sincere enough | J |
To pierce the glimmered cloud that fluctuates | B |
Between me and the glorifying light | M2 |
That screens itself with knowledge I discern | U2 |
The searching rays of wisdom that reach through | V2 |
The mist of shame's infirm credulity | M2 |
And infinitely wonder if hard words | B |
Like mine have any message for the dead | M2 |
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XV | J |
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I grant you friendship is a royal thing | E |
But none shall ever know that royalty | M2 |
For what it is till he has realized | M2 |
His best friend in himself 'T is then perforce | B |
That man's unfettered faith indemnifies | B |
Of its own conscious freedom the old shame | K |
And love's revealed infinitude supplants | B |
Of its own wealth and wisdom the old scorn | L2 |
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XVI | J |
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Though the sick beast infect us we are fraught | M2 |
Forever with indissoluble Truth | P |
Wherein redress reveals itself divine | W2 |
Transitional transcendent Grief and loss | B |
Disease and desolation are the dreams | B |
Of wasted excellence and every dream | R |
Has in it something of an ageless fact | M2 |
That flouts deformity and laughs at years | B |
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XVII | J |
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We lack the courage to be where we are | X2 |
We love too much to travel on old roads | B |
To triumph on old fields we love too much | I |
To consecrate the magic of dead things | B |
And yieldingly to linger by long walls | B |
Of ruin where the ruinous moonlight | M2 |
That sheds a lying glory on old stones | B |
Befriends us with a wizard's enmity | M2 |
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XVIII | J |
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Something as one with eyes that look below | E2 |
The battle smoke to glimpse the foeman's charge | Y2 |
We through the dust of downward years may scan | D |
The onslaught that awaits this idiot world | M2 |
Where blood pays blood for nothing and where life | J |
Pays life to madness till at last the ports | B |
Of gilded helplessness be battered through | V2 |
By the still crash of salvatory steel | F |
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XIX | B |
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To you that sit with Sorrow like chained slaves | B |
And wonder if the night will ever come | Z2 |
I would say this The night will never come | Z2 |
And sorrow is not always But my words | B |
Are not enough your eyes are not enough | J |
The soul itself must insulate the Real | F |
Or ever you do cherish in this life | J |
In this life or in any life repose | B |
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XX | B |
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Like a white wall whereon forever breaks | B |
Unsatisfied the tumult of green seas | B |
Man's unconjectured godliness rebukes | B |
With its imperial silence the lost waves | B |
Of insufficient grief This mortal surge | A3 |
That beats against us now is nothing else | B |
Than plangent ignorance Truth neither shakes | B |
Nor wavers but the world shakes and we shriek | B3 |
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XXI | B |
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Nor jewelled phrase nor mere mellifluous rhyme | C3 |
Reverberates aright or ever shall | F |
One cadence of that infinite plain song | V |
Which is itself all music Stronger notes | B |
Than any that have ever touched the world | M2 |
Must ring to tell it ring like hammer blows | B |
Right echoed of a chime primordial | F |
On anvils in the gleaming of God's forge | D3 |
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XXII | B |
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The prophet of dead words defeats himself | J |
Whoever would acknowledge and include | M2 |
The foregleam and the glory of the real | F |
Must work with something else than pen and ink | Z |
And painful preparation he must work | E3 |
With unseen implements that have no names | B |
And he must win withal to do that work | E3 |
Good fortitude clean wisdom and strong skill | F |
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XXIII | B |
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To curse the chilled insistence of the dawn | Q2 |
Because the free gleam lingers to defraud | M2 |
The constant opportunity that lives | B |
Unchallenged in all sorrow to forget | M2 |
For this large prodigality of gold | M2 |
That larger generosity of thought | M2 |
These are the fleshly clogs of human greed | M2 |
The fundamental blunders of mankind | M2 |
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XXIV | J |
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Forebodings are the fiends of Recreance | B |
The master of the moment the clean seer | F3 |
Of ages too securely scans what is | B |
Ever to be appalled at what is not | M2 |
He sees beyond the groaning borough lines | B |
Of Hell God's highways gleaming and he knows | B |
That Love's complete communion is the end | M2 |
Of anguish to the liberated man | D |
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XXV | J |
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Here by the windy docks I stand alone | O |
But yet companioned There the vessel goes | B |
And there my friend goes with it but the wake | H |
That melts and ebbs between that friend and me | M2 |
Love's earnest is of Life's all purposeful | F |
And all triumphant sailing when the ships | B |
Of Wisdom loose their fretful chains and swing | E |
Forever from the crumbled wharves of Time | C3 |
Edwin Arlington Robinson
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