On The Way Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFFAGHIAJK I ILMNOPQRSTGUPVF P WXYZA2B2C2FB2P I D2B2PB2P P E2B2 I F2G2WB2H2I2J2NB2K2UP L2M2PXB2 P N2PXO2P2PQ2PR2B2O2 I S2B2T2G P GU2IK2B2V2KPB2PW2X2C Y2Z2 I G2B2JA3UB2B3PB2B2IA3 W2H2 P O2C3O2B2O2B2 I B2B2UD3 P B2B2PE3F3I2 I MB2PB2O2K2J2G3A3NH3P P H3IB2 I B2I3J3B2F P B2PK3NB2IB2L3PM3B2N3 B2B2B2O3PPIP3IB2Q3B2 B2B2IIFW I B2U P R3S3T3U3B2B2PV3W3O2X 3F3Y3B2W3S3W2 I S3B2IZ3J2A4B2U3B2B2B 4 P B2B2P3C4JB2B2 I PO2JB2D4E4B2O2R3B2B2 B2F4B2A4B2 P G4 I P3B2B2 P B2PO2B2JH4A4 I JIM3O2B2PI4J4K4L4M4N 4B2O2 P PK I PPXO4B2PPB2 P O3F4B2P4B2H3B2Q4 I B2O2Y3R4S4B2B2R3PB2H 3M3PC4 P B2N2 I B2T4N2 P N2

Philadelphia	A
	-
Note The following imaginary dialogue between	B
Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr which is not based upon	C
any specific incident in American history may be supposed	D
to have occurred a few months previous to Hamilton's	E
retirement from Washington's Cabinet in and a few	F
years before the political ingenuities of Burr who	F
has been characterized without much exaggeration as the	A
inventor of American politics began to be	G
conspicuously formidable to the Federalists These	H
activities on the part of Burr resulted as the reader	I
will remember in the Burr Jefferson tie for the	A
Presidency in and finally in the Burr Hamilton duel	J
at Weehawken in	K
	-
BURR	I
	-
Hamilton if he rides you down remember	I
That I was here to speak and so to save	L
Your fabric from catastrophe That's good	M
For I perceive that you observe him also	N
A President a riding of his horse	O
May dust a General and be forgiven	P
But why be dusted when we're all alike	Q
All equal and all happy Here he comes	R
And there he goes And we by your new patent	S
Would seem to be two kings here by the wayside	T
With our two hats off to his Excellency	G
Why not his Majesty and done with it	U
Forgive me if I shook your meditation	P
But you that weld our credit should have eyes	V
To see what's coming Bury me first if I do	F
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
There's always in some pocket of your brain	W
A care for me wherefore my gratitude	X
For your attention is commensurate	Y
With your concern Yes Burr we are two kings	Z
We are as royal as two ditch diggers	A2
But owe me not your sceptre These are the days	B2
When first a few seem all but if we live	C2
We may again be seen to be the few	F
That we have always been These are the days	B2
When men forget the stars and are forgotten	P
	-
BURR	I
	-
But why forget them They're the same that winked	D2
Upon the world when Alcibiades	B2
Cut off his dog's tail to induce distinction	P
There are dogs yet and Alcibiades	B2
Is not forgotten	P
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
Yes there are dogs enough	E2
God knows and I can hear them in my dreams	B2
	-
BURR	I
	-
Never a doubt But what you hear the most	F2
Is your new music something out of tune	G2
With your intention How in the name of Cain	W
I seem to hear you ask are men to dance	B2
When all men are musicians Tell me that	H2
I hear you saying and I'll tell you the name	I2
Of Samson's mother But why shroud yourself	J2
Before the coffin comes For all you know	N
The tree that is to fall for your last house	B2
Is now a sapling You may have to wait	K2
So long as to be sorry though I doubt it	U
For you are not at home in your new Eden	P
Where chilly whispers of a likely frost	L2
Accumulate already in the air	M2
I think a touch of ermine Hamilton	P
Would be for you in your autumnal mood	X
A pleasant sort of warmth along the shoulders	B2
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
If so it is you think you may as well	N2
Give over thinking We are done with ermine	P
What I fear most is not the multitude	X
But those who are to loop it with a string	O2
That has one end in France and one end here	P2
I'm not so fortified with observation	P
That I could swear that more than half a score	Q2
Among us who see lightning see that ruin	P
Is not the work of thunder Since the world	R2
Was ordered there was never a long pause	B2
For caution between doing and undoing	O2
	-
BURR	I
	-
Go on sir my attention is a trap	S2
Set for the catching of all compliments	B2
To Monticello and all else abroad	T2
That has a name or an identity	G
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
I leave to you the names there are too many	G
Yet one there is to sift and hold apart	U2
As now I see There comes at last a glimmer	I
That is not always clouded or too late	K2
But I was near and young and had the reins	B2
To play with while he manned a team so raw	V2
That only God knows where the end had been	K
Of all that riding without Washington	P
There was a nation in the man who passed us	B2
If there was not a world I may have driven	P
Since then some restive horses and alone	W2
And through a splashing of abundant mud	X2
But he who made the dust that sets you on	C
To coughing made the road Now it seems dry	Y2
And in a measure safe	Z2
	-
BURR	I
	-
Here's a new tune	G2
From Hamilton Has your caution all at once	B2
And over night grown till it wrecks the cradle	J
I have forgotten what my father said	A3
When I was born but there's a rustling of it	U
Among my memories and it makes a noise	B2
About as loud as all that I have held	B3
And fondled heretofore of your same caution	P
But that's affairs not feelings If our friends	B2
Guessed half we say of them our enemies	B2
Would itch in our friends' jackets Howsoever	I
The world is of a sudden on its head	A3
And all are spilled unless you cling alone	W2
With Washington Ask Adams about that	H2
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
We'll not ask Adams about anything	O2
We fish for lizards when we choose to ask	C3
For what we know already is not coming	O2
And we must eat the answer Where's the use	B2
Of asking when this man says everything	O2
With all his tongues of silence	B2
	-
BURR	I
	-
I dare say	B2
I dare say but I won't One of those tongues	B2
I'll borrow for the nonce He'll never miss it	U
We mean his Western Majesty King George	D3
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
I mean the man who rode by on his horse	B2
I'll beg of you the meed of your indulgence	B2
If I should say this planet may have done	P
A deal of weary whirling when at last	E3
If ever Time shall aggregate again	F3
A majesty like his that has no name	I2
	-
BURR	I
	-
Then you concede his Majesty That's good	M
And what of yours Here are two majesties	B2
Favor the Left a little Hamilton	P
Or you'll be floundering in the ditch that waits	B2
For riders who forget where they are riding	O2
If we and France as you anticipate	K2
Must eat each other what Caesar if not yourself	J2
Do you see for the master of the feast	G3
There may be a place waiting on your head	A3
For laurel thick as Nero's You don't know	N
I have not crossed your glory though I might	H3
If I saw thrones at auction	P
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
Yes you might	H3
If war is on the way I shall be here	I
And I've no vision of your distant heels	B2
	-
BURR	I
	-
I see that I shall take an inference	B2
To bed with me to night to keep me warm	I3
I thank you Hamilton and I approve	J3
Your fealty to the aggregated greatness	B2
Of him you lean on while he leans on you	F
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
This easy phrasing is a game of yours	B2
That you may win to lose I beg your pardon	P
But you that have the sight will not employ	K3
The will to see with it If you did so	N
There might be fewer ditches dug for others	B2
In your perspective and there might be fewer	I
Contemporary motes of prejudice	B2
Between you and the man who made the dust	L3
Call him a genius or a gentleman	P
A prophet or a builder or what not	M3
But hold your disposition off the balance	B2
And weigh him in the light Once I believe	N3
I tell you nothing new to your surmise	B2
Or to the tongues of towns and villages	B2
I nourished with an adolescent fancy	B2
Surely forgivable to you my friend	O3
An innocent and amiable conviction	P
That I was by the grace of honest fortune	P
A savior at his elbow through the war	I
Where I might have observed more than I did	P3
Patience and wholesome passion I was there	I
And for such honor I gave nothing worse	B2
Than some advice at which he may have smiled	Q3
I must have given a modicum besides	B2
Or the rough interval between those days	B2
And these would never have made for me my friends	B2
Or enemies I should be something somewhere	I
I say not what but I should not be here	I
If he had not been there Possibly too	F
You might not or that Quaker with his cane	W
	-
BURR	I
	-
Possibly too I should When the Almighty	B2
Rides a white horse I fancy we shall know it	U
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
It was a man Burr that was in my mind	R3
No god or ghost or demon only a man	S3
A man whose occupation is the need	T3
Of those who would not feel it if it bit them	U3
And one who shapes an age while he endures	B2
The pin pricks of inferiorities	B2
A cautious man because he is but one	P
A lonely man because he is a thousand	V3
No marvel you are slow to find in him	W3
The genius that is one spark or is nothing	O2
His genius is a flame that he must hold	X3
So far above the common heads of men	F3
That they may view him only through the mist	Y3
Of their defect and wonder what he is	B2
It seems to me the mystery that is in him	W3
That makes him only more to me a man	S3
Than any other I have ever known	W2
	-
BURR	I
	-
I grant you that his worship is a man	S3
I'm not so much at home with mysteries	B2
May be as you so leave him with his fire	I
God knows that I shall never put it out	Z3
He has not made a cripple of himself	J2
In his pursuit of me though I have heard	A4
His condescension honors me with parts	B2
Parts make a whole if we've enough of them	U3
And once I figured a sufficiency	B2
To be at least an atom in the annals	B2
Of your republic But I must have erred	B4
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
You smile as if your spirit lived at ease	B2
With error I should not have named it so	B2
Failing assent from you nor if I did	P3
Should I be so complacent in my skill	C4
To comb the tangled language of the people	J
As to be sure of anything in these days	B2
Put that much in account with modesty	B2
	-
BURR	I
	-
What in the name of Ahab Hamilton	P
Have you in the last region of your dreaming	O2
To do with people You may be the devil	J
In your dead reckoning of what reefs and shoals	B2
Are waiting on the progress of our ship	D4
Unless you steer it but you'll find it irksome	E4
Alone there in the stern and some warm day	B2
There'll be an inland music in the rigging	O2
And afterwards on deck I'm not affined	R3
Or favored overmuch at Monticello	B2
But there's a mighty swarming of new bees	B2
About the premises and all have wings	B2
If you hear something buzzing before long	F4
Be thoughtful how you strike remembering also	B2
There was a fellow Naboth had a vineyard	A4
And Ahab cut his hair off and went softly	B2
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
I don't remember that he cut his hair off	G4
	-
BURR	I
	-
Somehow I rather fancy that he did	P3
If so it's in the Book and if not so	B2
He did the rest and did it handsomely	B2
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
Commend yourself to Ahab and his ways	B2
If they inveigle you to emulation	P
But where if I may ask it are you tending	O2
With your invidious wielding of the Scriptures	B2
You call to mind an eminent archangel	J
Who fell to make him famous Would you fall	H4
So far as he to be so far remembered	A4
	-
BURR	I
	-
Before I fall or rise or am an angel	J
I shall acquaint myself a little further	I
With our new land's new language which is not	M3
Peace to your dreams an idiom to your liking	O2
I'm wondering if a man may always know	B2
How old a man may be at thirty seven	P
I wonder likewise if a prettier time	I4
Could be decreed for a good man to vanish	J4
Than about now for you before you fade	K4
And even your friends are seeing that you have had	L4
Your cup too full for longer mortal triumph	M4
Well you have had enough and had it young	N4
And the old wine is nearer to the lees	B2
Than you are to the work that you are doing	O2
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
When does this philological excursion	P
Into new lands and languages begin	K
	-
BURR	I
	-
Anon that is already Only Fortune	P
Gave me this afternoon the benefaction	P
Of your blue back which I for love pursued	X
And in pursuing may have saved your life	O4
Also the world a pounding piece of news	B2
Hamilton bites the dust of Washington	P
Or rather of his horse For you alone	P
Or for your fame I'd wish it might have been so	B2
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
Not every man among us has a friend	O3
So jealous for the other's fame How long	F4
Are you to diagnose the doubtful case	B2
Of Demos and what for Have you a sword	P4
For some new Damocles If it's for me	B2
I have lost all official appetite	H3
And shall have faded after January	B2
Into the law I'm going to New York	Q4
	-
BURR	I
	-
No matter where you are one of these days	B2
I shall come back to you and tell you something	O2
This Demos I have heard has in his wrist	Y3
A pulse that no two doctors have as yet	R4
Counted and found the same and in his mouth	S4
A tongue that has the like alacrity	B2
For saying or not for saying what most it is	B2
That pullulates in his ignoble mind	R3
One of these days I shall appear again	P
To tell you more of him and his opinions	B2
I shall not be so long out of your sight	H3
Or take myself so far that I may not	M3
Like Alcibiades come back again	P
He went away to Phrygia and fared ill	C4
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
There's an example in Themistocles	B2
He went away to Persia and fared well	N2
	-
BURR	I
	-
So Must I go so far And if so why so	B2
I had not planned it so Is this the road	T4
I take If so farewell	N2
	-
HAMILTON	P
	-
Quite so Farewell	N2

Edwin Arlington Robinson

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