The Wandering Jew Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDEFE GHIJKLMI NOAOPQRQ STUTPVWX YZA2ZB2ZC2Z D2GZGZE2ZE2 F2G2H2G2ZI2J2I2 K2ZEZL2M2DN2 ZO2EP2EEQ2E OZEZEEZE ZD2Q2D2ZER2E EIJ2IZELE| I saw by looking in his eyes | A |
| That they remembered everything | B |
| And this was how I came to know | C |
| That he was here still wandering | B |
| For though the figure and the scene | D |
| Were never to be reconciled | E |
| I knew the man as I had known | F |
| His image when I was a child | E |
| - | |
| With evidence at every turn | G |
| I should have held it safe to guess | H |
| That all the newness of New York | I |
| Had nothing new in loneliness | J |
| Yet here was one who might be Noah | K |
| Or Nathan or Abimelech | L |
| Or Lamech out of ages lost | M |
| Or more than all Melchizedek | I |
| - | |
| Assured that he was none of these | N |
| I gave them back their names again | O |
| To scan once more those endless eyes | A |
| Where all my questions ended then | O |
| I found in them what they revealed | P |
| That I shall not live to forget | Q |
| And wondered if they found in mine | R |
| Compassion that I might regret | Q |
| - | |
| Pity I learned was not the least | S |
| Of time's offending benefits | T |
| That had now for so long impugned | U |
| The conservation of his wits | T |
| Rather it was that I should yield | P |
| Alone the fealty that presents | V |
| The tribute of a tempered ear | W |
| To an untempered eloquence | X |
| - | |
| Before I pondered long enough | Y |
| On whence he came and who he was | Z |
| I trembled at his ringing wealth | A2 |
| Of manifold anathemas | Z |
| I wondered while he seared the world | B2 |
| What new defection ailed the race | Z |
| And if it mattered how remote | C2 |
| Our fathers were from such a place | Z |
| - | |
| Before there was an hour for me | D2 |
| To contemplate with less concern | G |
| The crumbling realm awaiting us | Z |
| Than his that was beyond return | G |
| A dawning on the dust of years | Z |
| Had shaped with an elusive light | E2 |
| Mirages of remembered scenes | Z |
| That were no longer for the sight | E2 |
| - | |
| For now the gloom that hid the man | F2 |
| Became a daylight on his wrath | G2 |
| And one wherein my fancy viewed | H2 |
| New lions ramping in his path | G2 |
| The old were dead and had no fangs | Z |
| Wherefore he loved them seeing not | I2 |
| They were the same that in their time | J2 |
| Had eaten everything they caught | I2 |
| - | |
| The world around him was a gift | K2 |
| Of anguish to his eyes and ears | Z |
| And one that he had long reviled | E |
| As fit for devils not for seers | Z |
| Where then was there a place for him | L2 |
| That on this other side of death | M2 |
| Saw nothing good as he had seen | D |
| No good come out of Nazareth | N2 |
| - | |
| Yet here there was a reticence | Z |
| And I believe his only one | O2 |
| That hushed him as if he beheld | E |
| A Presence that would not be gone | P2 |
| In such a silence he confessed | E |
| How much there was to be denied | E |
| And he would look at me and live | Q2 |
| As others might have looked and died | E |
| - | |
| As if at last he knew again | O |
| That he had always known his eyes | Z |
| Were like to those of one who gazed | E |
| On those of One who never dies | Z |
| For such a moment he revealed | E |
| What life has in it to be lost | E |
| And I could ask if what I saw | Z |
| Before me there was man or ghost | E |
| - | |
| He may have died so many times | Z |
| That all there was of him to see | D2 |
| Was pride that kept itself alive | Q2 |
| As too rebellious to be free | D2 |
| He may have told when more than once | Z |
| Humility seemed imminent | E |
| How many a lonely time in vain | R2 |
| The Second Coming came and went | E |
| - | |
| Whether he still defies or not | E |
| The failure of an angry task | I |
| That relegates him out of time | J2 |
| To chaos I can only ask | I |
| But as I knew him so he was | Z |
| And somewhere among men to day | E |
| Those old unyielding eyes may flash | L |
| And flinch and look the other way | E |
Edwin Arlington Robinson
(1)
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About The Wandering Jew
The Wandering Jew is a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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