A Fallen Yew Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AAA BCC DDD EEE BBB FFG EEE HHH EEE IJK BBL BBB BBB BBB BBB MMM BBB CC BBB BBB CCC BBB BBB NNN BBB BBBB

It seemed corrival of the world's great primeA
Made to un edge the scythe of TimeA
And last with stateliest rhymeA
-
No tender Dryad ever did indueB
That rigid chiton of rough yewC
To fret her white flesh throughC
-
But some god like to those grim Asgard lordsD
Who walk the fables of the hordesD
From Scandinavian fjordsD
-
Upheaved its stubborn girth and raised unrivenE
Against the whirl blast and the levinE
Defiant arms to HeavenE
-
When doom puffed out the stars we might have saidB
It would decline its heavy headB
And see the world to bedB
-
For this firm yew did from the vassal leasF
And rain and air its tributariesF
Its revenues increaseG
-
And levy impost on the golden sunE
Take the blind years as they might runE
And no fate seek or shunE
-
But now our yew is strook is fallen yeaH
Hacked like dull wood of every dayH
To this and that men sayH
-
Never To Hades' shadowy shipyards goneE
Dim barge of Dis down AcheronE
It drops or Lethe wanE
-
Stirred by its fall poor destined bark of DisI
Along my soul a bruit there isJ
Of echoing imagesK
-
Reverberations of mortalityB
Spelt backward from its death to meB
Its life reads saddenedlyL
-
Its breast was hollowed as the tooth of eldB
And boys their creeping unbeheldB
A laughing moment dwelledB
-
Yet they within its very heart so creptB
Reached not the heart that courage keptB
With winds and years besweptB
-
And in its boughs did close and kindly nestB
The birds as they within its breastB
By all its leaves caressedB
-
But bird nor child might touch by any artB
Each other's or the tree's hid heartB
A whole God's breadth apartB
-
The breadth of God he breadth of death and lifeM
Even so even so in undreamed strifeM
With pulseless Law the wifeM
-
The sweetest wife on sweetest marriage dayB
Their souls at grapple in mid wayB
Sweet to her sweet may sayB
-
'I take you to my inmost heart my true '-
Ah fool but there is one heart youC
Shall never take him toC
-
The hold that falls not when the town is gotB
The heart's heart whose immured plotB
Hath keys yourself keep notB
-
Its ports you cannot burst you are withstoodB
For him that to your listening bloodB
Sends precepts as he wouldB
-
Its gates are deaf to Love high summonerC
Yea Love's great warrant runs not thereC
You are your prisonerC
-
Yourself are with yourself the sole consortressB
In that unleaguerable fortressB
It knows you not for portressB
-
Its keys are at the cincture hung of GodB
Its gates are trepidant to His nodB
By Him its floors are trodB
-
And if His feet shall rock those floors in wrathN
Or blest aspersion sleek His pathN
Is only choice it hathN
-
Yea in that ultimate heart's occult abodeB
To lie as in an oubliette of GodB
Or as a bower untrodB
-
Built by a secret Lover for His SpouseB
Sole choice is this your life allowsB
Sad tree whose perishing boughsB
So few birds houseB

Francis Thompson



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