Rembrandt To Rembrandt Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BCDEFGEHDEIJKLEIMNEA OPQRSTMIQU MBEVEWDIXYZA2B2DUUIC 2TD2PEIE2IF2YIVDQG2B RH2MEMII2IU J2QYK2EE2IE2E2IH2L2M 2N2O2RC2MEIIPIQEP2IJ 2J2EQ2R2S2IIIQT2PU2V IIEEA2IIEQIH2IIVEV2D 2QM2LK2K2EW2IJIIQIWX 2IY2OIIIEQZ2D2A3WV2I V EQCEYEIB3NJ2C3IM2D3E QQIND2E3VF3FELVE G3QIIIH3WWEMXD3ZEEII 2M2BI3EI3WA3EJ3K3I3S EI3E3II3L3I3I3III3EV EIII3M3I3I3WI3WBI3IV IN3IEIEIJ2EM2I3I3N3I 3MJ2I3J2I3VI3I3I3E2I 3I3I3I3I3I3II3VIO3I3 EEI3III3I3I3J2II3QEI 3I3EEII3J2I3 IEI3IVI3I3VMI3IQQI3E IEI3VE3EI3IE2I3A2E

AMSTERDAM	A
	-
	-
And there you are again now as you are	B
Observe yourself as you discern yourself	C
In your discredited ascendency	D
Without your velvet or your feathers now	E
Commend your new condition to your fate	F
And your conviction to the sieves of time	G
Meanwhile appraise yourself Rembrandt van Ryn	E
Now as you are formerly more or less	H
Distinguished in the civil scenery	D
And once a painter There you are again	E
Where you may see that you have on your shoulders	I
No lovelier burden for an ornament	J
Than one man's head that's yours Praise be to God	K
That you have that for you are like enough	L
To need it now my friend and from now on	E
For there are shadows and obscurities	I
Immediate or impending on your view	M
That may be worse than you have ever painted	N
For the bewildered and unhappy scorn	E
Of injured Hollanders in Amsterdam	A
Who cannot find their fifty florins' worth	O
Of Holland face where you have hidden it	P
In your new golden shadow that excites them	Q
Or see that when the Lord made color and light	R
He made not one thing only or believe	S
That shadows are not nothing Saskia said	T
Before she died how they would swear at you	M
And in commiseration at themselves	I
She laughed a little too to think of them	Q
And then at me That was before she died	U
	-
And I could wonder as I look at you	M
There as I have you now there as you are	B
Or nearly so as any skill of mine	E
Has ever caught you in a bilious mirror	V
Yes I could wonder long and with a reason	E
If all but everything achievable	W
In me were not achieved and lost already	D
Like a fool's gold But you there in the glass	I
And you there on the canvas have a sort	X
Of solemn doubt about it and that's well	Y
For Rembrandt and for Titus All that's left	Z
Of all that was is here and all that's here	A2
Is one man who remembers and one child	B2
Beginning to forget One two and three	D
The others died and then then Saskia died	U
And then so men believe the painter died	U
So men believe So it all comes at once	I
And here's a fellow painting in the dark	C2
A loon who cannot see that he is dead	T
Before God lets him die He paints away	D2
At the impossible so Holland has it	P
For venom or for spite or for defection	E
Or else for God knows what Well if God knows	I
And Rembrandt knows it matters not so much	E2
What Holland knows or cares If Holland wants	I
Its heads all in a row and all alike	F2
There's Franz to do them and to do them well	Y
Rat catchers archers or apothecaries	I
And one as like a rabbit as another	V
Value received and every Dutchman happy	D
All's one to Franz and to the rest of them	Q
Their ways being theirs are theirs But you my friend	G2
If I have made you something as you are	B
Will need those jaws and eyes and all the fight	R
And fire that's in them and a little more	H2
To take you on and the world after you	M
For now you fare alone without the fashion	E
To sing you back and fling a flower or two	M
At your accusing feet Poor Saskia saw	I
This coming that has come and with a guile	I2
Of kindliness that covered half her doubts	I
Would give me gold and laugh before she died	U
	-
And if I see the road that you are going	J2
You that are not so jaunty as aforetime	Q
God knows if she were not appointed well	Y
To die She might have wearied of it all	K2
Before the worst was over or begun	E
A woman waiting on a man's avouch	E2
Of the invisible may not wait always	I
Without a word betweenwhiles or a dash	E2
Of poison on his faith Yes even she	E2
She might have come to see at last with others	I
And then to say with others who say more	H2
That you are groping on a phantom trail	L2
Determining a dusky way to nowhere	M2
That errors unconfessed and obstinate	N2
Have teemed and cankered in you for so long	O2
That even your eyes are sick and you see light	R
Only because you dare not see the dark	C2
That is around you and ahead of you	M
She might have come by ruinous estimation	E
Of old applause and outworn vanities	I
To clothe you over in a shroud of dreams	I
And so be nearer to the counterfeit	P
Of her invention than aware of yours	I
She might as well as any by this time	Q
Unwillingly and eagerly have bitten	E
Another devil's apple of unrest	P2
And so by some attendant artifice	I
Or other might anon have had you sharing	J2
A taste that would have tainted everything	J2
And so had been for two instead of one	E
The taste of death in life which is the food	Q2
Of art that has betrayed itself alive	R2
And is a food of hell She might have heard	S2
Unhappily the temporary noise	I
Of louder names than yours and on frail urns	I
That hardly will ensure a dwelling place	I
For even the dust that may be left of them	Q
She might and angrily as like as not	T2
Look soon to find your name not finding it	P
She might like many another born for joy	U2
And for sufficient fulness of the hour	V
Go famishing by now and in the eyes	I
Of pitying friends and dwindling satellites	I
Be told of no uncertain dereliction	E
Touching the cold offence of my decline	E
And even if this were so and she were here	A2
Again to make a fact of all my fancy	I
How should I ask of her to see with me	I
Through night where many a time I seem in vain	E
To seek for new assurance of a gleam	Q
That comes at last and then so it appears	I
Only for you and me and a few more	H2
Perchance albeit their faces are not many	I
Among the ruins that are now around us	I
That was a fall my friend we had together	V
Or rather it was my house mine alone	E
That fell leaving you safe Be glad for that	V2
There's life in you that shall outlive my clay	D2
That's for a time alive and will in time	Q
Be nothing but not yet You that are there	M2
Where I have painted you are safe enough	L
Though I see dragons Verily that was a fall	K2
A dislocating fall a blinding fall	K2
A fall indeed But there are no bones broken	E
And even the teeth and eyes that I make out	W2
Among the shadows intermittently	I
Show not so firm in their accoutrement	J
Of terror laden unreality	I
As you in your neglect of their performance	I
Though for their season we must humor them	Q
For what they are devils undoubtedly	I
But not so parlous and implacable	W
In their undoing of poor human triumph	X2
As easy fashion or brief novelty	I
That ails even while it grows and like sick fruit	Y2
Falls down anon to an indifferent earth	O
To break with inward rot I say all this	I
And I concede in honor of your silence	I
A waste of innocent facility	I
In tints of other colors than are mine	E
I cannot paint with words but there's a time	Q
For most of us when words are all we have	Z2
To serve our stricken souls And here you say	D2
Be careful or you may commit your soul	A3
Soon to the very devil of your denial	W
I might have wagered on you to say that	V2
Knowing that I believe in you too surely	I
To spoil you with a kick or paint you over	V
	-
No my good friend Mynheer Rembrandt van Ryn	E
Sometime a personage in Amsterdam	Q
But now not much I shall not give myself	C
To be the sport of any dragon spawn	E
Of Holland or elsewhere Holland was hell	Y
Not long ago and there were dragons then	E
More to be fought than any of these we see	I
That we may foster now They are not real	B3
But not for that the less to be regarded	N
For there are slimy tyrants born of nothing	J2
That harden slowly into seeming life	C3
And have the strength of madness I confess	I
Accordingly the wisdom of your care	M2
That I look out for them Whether I would	D3
Or not I must and here we are as one	E
With our necessity For though you loom	Q
A little harsh in your respect of time	Q
And circumstance and of ordained eclipse	I
We know together of a golden flood	N
That with its overflow shall drown away	D2
The dikes that held it and we know thereby	E3
That in its rising light there lives a fire	V
No devils that are lodging here in Holland	F3
Shall put out wholly or much agitate	F
Except in unofficial preparation	E
They put out first the sun It's well enough	L
To think of them wherefore I thank you sir	V
Alike for your remembrance and attention	E
	-
But there are demons that are longer lived	G3
Than doubts that have a brief and evil term	Q
To congregate among the futile shards	I
And architraves of eminent collapse	I
They are a many favored family	I
All told with not a misbegotten dwarf	H3
Among the rest that I can love so little	W
As one occult abortion in especial	W
Who perches on a picture when it's done	E
And says What of it Rembrandt if you do	M
This incubus would seem to be a sort	X
Of chorus indicating for our good	D3
The silence of the few friends that are left	Z
What of it Rembrandt even if you know	E
It says again and you don't know for certain	E
What if in fifty or a hundred years	I
They find you out You may have gone meanwhile	I2
So greatly to the dogs that you'll not care	M2
Much what they find If this be all you are	B
This unaccountable aspiring insect	I3
You'll sleep as easy in oblivion	E
As any sacred monk or parricide	I3
And if as you conceive you are eternal	W
Your soul may laugh remembering if a soul	A3
Remembers your befrenzied aspiration	E
To smear with certain ochres and some oil	J3
A few more perishable ells of cloth	K3
And once or twice to square your vanity	I3
Prove it was you alone that should achieve	S
A mortal eye that may no less tomorrow	E
Show an immortal reason why today	I3
Men see no more And what's a mortal eye	E3
More than a mortal herring who has eyes	I
As well as you Why not paint herrings Rembrandt	I3
Or if not herrings why not a split beef	L3
Perceive it only in its unalloyed	I3
Integrity and you may find in it	I3
A beautified accomplishment no less	I
Indigenous than one that appertains	I
To gentlemen and ladies eating it	I3
The same God planned and made you beef and human	E
And one but for His whim might be the other	V
	-
That's how he says it Rembrandt if you listen	E
He says it and he goes And then sometimes	I
There comes another spirit in his place	I
One with a more engaging argument	I3
And with a softer note for saying truth	M3
Not soft Whether it be the truth or not	I3
I name it so for there's a string in me	I3
Somewhere that answers which is natural	W
Since I am but a living instrument	I3
Played on by powers that are invisible	W
You might go faster if not quite so far	B
He says if in your vexed economy	I3
There lived a faculty for saying yes	I
And meaning no and then for doing neither	V
But since Apollo sees it otherwise	I
Your Dutchmen who are swearing at you still	N3
For your pernicious filching of their florins	I
May likely curse you down their generation	E
Not having understood there was no malice	I
Or grinning evil in a golden shadow	E
That shall outshine their slight identities	I
And hold their faces when their names are nothing	J2
But this as you discern or should by now	E
Surmise for you is neither here nor there	M2
You made your picture as your demon willed it	I3
That's about all of that Now make as many	I3
As may be to be made for so you will	N3
Whatever the toll may be and hold your light	I3
So that you see without so much to blind you	M
As even the cobweb flash of a misgiving	J2
Assured and certain that if you see right	I3
Others will have to see albeit their seeing	J2
Shall irk them out of their serenity	I3
For such a time as umbrage may require	V
But there are many reptiles in the night	I3
That now is coming on and they are hungry	I3
And there's a Rembrandt to be satisfied	I3
Who never will be howsoever much	E2
He be assured of an ascendency	I3
That has not yet a shadow's worth of sound	I3
Where Holland has its ears And what of that	I3
Have you the weary leisure or sick wit	I3
That breeds of its indifference a false envy	I3
That is the vermin on accomplishment	I3
Are you inaugurating your new service	I
With fasting for a food you would not eat	I3
You are the servant Rembrandt not the master	V
But you are not assigned with other slaves	I
That in their freedom are the most in fear	O3
One of the few that are so fortunate	I3
As to be told their task and to be given	E
A skill to do it with a tool too keen	E
For timid safety bow your elected head	I3
Under the stars tonight and whip your devils	I
Each to his nest in hell Forget your days	I
And so forgive the years that may not be	I3
So many as to be more than you may need	I3
For your particular consistency	I3
In your peculiar folly You are counting	J2
Some fewer years than forty at your heels	I
And they have not pursued your gait so fast	I3
As your oblivion which has beaten them	Q
And rides now on your neck like an old man	E
With iron shins and fingers Let him ride	I3
You haven't so much to say now about that	I3
And in a proper season let him run	E
You may be dead then even as you may now	E
Anticipate some other mortal strokes	I
Attending your felicity and for that	I3
Oblivion heretofore has done some running	J2
Away from graves and will do more of it	I3
	-
That's how it is your wiser spirit speaks	I
Rembrandt If you believe him why complain	E
If not why paint And why in any event	I3
Look back for the old joy and the old roses	I
Or the old fame They are all gone together	V
And Saskia with them and with her left out	I3
They would avail no more now than one strand	I3
Of Samson's hair wound round his little finger	V
Before the temple fell Nor more are you	M
In any sudden danger to forget	I3
That in Apollo's house there are no clocks	I
Or calendars to say for you in time	Q
How far you are away from Amsterdam	Q
Or that the one same law that bids you see	I3
Where now you see alone forbids in turn	E
Your light from Holland eyes till Holland ears	I
Are told of it for that way my good fellow	E
Is one way more to death If at the first	I3
Of your long turning which may still be longer	V
Than even your faith has measured it you sigh	E3
For distant welcome that may not be seen	E
Or wayside shouting that will not be heard	I3
You may as well accommodate your greatness	I
To the convenience of an easy ditch	E2
And anchored there with all your widowed gold	I3
Forget your darkness in the dark and hear	A2
No longer the cold wash of Holland scorn	E

Edwin Arlington Robinson

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