Heard On The Mountain Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BBCDBBBBDBBB DDBBBBEEFGHHIIBB BB HHHHDD JJBBDD GGGGGKKDDDDD DDDDDDGGDDGG KKDD DDBBKKHHBBDD

From Hugo's 'Feuilles d'Automne'A
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Have you sometimes calm silent let your tread aspirant riseB
Up to the mountain's summit in the presence of the skiesB
Was't on the borders of the South or on the Bretagne coastC
And at the basis of the mount had you the Ocean tossedD
And there leaned o'er the wave and o'er the immeasurablenessB
Calm silent have you harkened what it says Lo what it saysB
One day at least whereon my thought enlicens ed to museB
Had drooped its wing above the beach ed margent of the oozeB
And plunging from the mountain height into the immensityD
Beheld upon one side the land on the other side the seaB
I harkened comprehended never as from those abyssesB
No never issued from a mouth nor moved an ear such voice as this isB
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A sound it was at outset vast immeasurable confusedD
Vaguer than is the wind among the tufted trees effusedD
Full of magnificent accords suave murmurs sweet as isB
The evensong and mighty as the shock of panopliesB
When the hoarse melee in its arms the closing squadrons gripsB
And pants in furious breathings from the clarions' brazen lipsB
Unutterable the harmony unsearchable its deepE
Whose fluid undulations round the world a girdle keepE
And through the vasty heavens which by its surges are washed youngF
Its infinite volutions roll enlarging as they throngG
Even to the profound arcane whose ultimate chasms sombreH
Its shattered flood englut with time with space and form and numberH
Like to another atmosphere with thin o'erflowing robeI
The hymn eternal covers all the inundated globeI
And the world swathed about with this investuring symphonyB
Even as it trepidates in the air so trepidates in the harmonyB
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And pensive I attended the ethereal lutanyB
Lost within this containing voice as if within the seaB
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Soon I distinguished yet as tone which veils confuse and smotherH
Amid this voice two voices one commingled with the otherH
Which did from off the land and seas even to the heavens aspireH
Chanting the universal chant in simultaneous quireH
And I distinguished them amid that deep and rumorous soundD
As who beholds two currents thwart amid the fluctuous profoundD
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The one was of the waters a be radiant hymnal speechJ
That was the voice o' the surges as they parleyed each with eachJ
The other which arose from our abode terraneanB
Was sorrowful and that alack the murmur was of manB
And in this mighty quire whose chantings day and night resoundD
Every wave had its utterance and every man his soundD
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Now the magnificent Ocean as I said unbanneringG
A voice of joy a voice of peace did never stint to singG
Most like in Sion's temples to a psaltery psalteringG
And to creation's beauty reared the great lauds of his songG
Upon the gale upon the squall his clamour borne alongG
Unpausingly arose to God in more triumphal swellK
And every one among his waves that God alone can quellK
When the other of its song made end into the singing pressedD
Like that majestic lion whereof Daniel was the guestD
At intervals the Ocean his tremendous murmur awedD
And I t'ward where the sunset fires fell shaggily and broadD
Under his golden mane methought that I saw pass the hand of GodD
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Meanwhile and side by side with that august fan faronnadeD
The other voice like the sudden scream of a destrier affrayedD
Like an infernal door that grates ajar its rusty throatD
Like to a bow of iron that gnarls upon an iron roteD
Grinded and tears and shriekings the anathema the lewd tauntD
Refusal of viaticum refusal of the fontD
And clamour and malediction and dread blasphemy amongG
That hurtling crowd of rumour from the diverse human tongueG
Went by as who beholdeth when the valleys thick t'ward nightD
The long drifts of the birds of dusk pass blackening flight on flightD
What was this sound whose thousand echoes vibrated unsleepingG
Alas the sound was earth's and man's for earth and man were weepingG
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Brothers of these two voices strange most unimaginablyK
Unceasingly regenerated dying unceasinglyK
Harken ed of the Eternal throughout His EternityD
The one voice uttereth NATURE and the other voice HUMANITYD
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Then I alit in reverie for my ministering spriteD
Alack had never yet deployed a pinion of an ampler flightD
Nor ever had my shadow endured so large a day to burnB
And long I rested dreaming contemplating turn by turnB
Now that abyss obscure which lurked beneath the water's rollK
And now that other untemptable abyss which opened in my soulK
And I made question of me to what issues are we hereH
Whither should tend the thwarting threads of all this ravelled gearH
What doth the soul to be or live if better worth it isB
And why the Lord Who only reads within that book of HisB
In fatal hymeneals hath eternally entwinedD
The vintage chant of nature with the dirging cry of humankindD

Francis Thompson



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