The Cloud's Swan-song Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCE FGFG HI I JKJK LMNM COCO PDPD CCQC CRCG KBKB FKF FKFK SCSC TFTF UKUK VKVK WFWF XCXC KKKK YCYC KKKK KFKF BZBA2 DFDF KKBKBThere is a parable in the pathless cloud | A |
There's prophecy in heaven they did not lie | B |
The Chaldee shepherds seal ed from the proud | A |
To cheer the weighted heart that mates the seeing eye | B |
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A lonely man oppressed with lonely ills | C |
And all the glory fallen from my song | D |
Here do I walk among the windy hills | C |
The wind and I keep both one monotoning tongue | E |
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Like grey clouds one by one my songs upsoar | F |
Over my soul's cold peaks and one by one | G |
They loose their little rain and are no more | F |
And whether well or ill to tell me there is none | G |
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For 'tis an alien tongue of alien things | H |
From all men's care how miserably apart | I |
Even my friends say 'Of what is this he sings ' | - |
And barren is my song and barren is my heart | I |
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For who can work unwitting his work's worth | J |
Better meseems to know the work for naught | K |
Turn my sick course back to the kindly earth | J |
And leave to ampler plumes the jetting tops of thought | K |
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And visitations that do often use | L |
Remote unhappy inauspicious sense | M |
Of doom and poets widowed of their muse | N |
And what dark 'gan dark ended in me did commence | M |
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I thought of spirit wronged by mortal ills | C |
And my flesh rotting on my fate's dull stake | O |
And how self scorn ed they the bounty fills | C |
Of others and the bread even of their dearest take | O |
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I thought of Keats that died in perfect time | P |
In predecease of his just sickening song | D |
Of him that set wrapt in his radiant rhyme | P |
Sunlike in sea Life longer had been life too long | D |
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But I exanimate of quick Poesy | C |
O then no more but even a soulless corse | C |
Nay my Delight dies not 'tis I should be | Q |
Her dead a stringless harp on which she had no force | C |
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Of my wild lot I thought from place to place | C |
Apollo's song bowed Scythian I go on | R |
Making in all my home with pliant ways | C |
But provident of change putting forth root in none | G |
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Now with starved brain sick body patience galled | K |
With fardels even to wincing from fair sky | B |
Fell sudden little rain scarce to be called | K |
A shower which of the instant was gone wholly by | B |
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What cloud thus died I saw not heaven was fair | F |
Methinks my angel plucked my locks I bowed | K |
My spirit shamed and looking in the air | F |
'Even so ' I said 'even so my brother the good Cloud ' | - |
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It was a pilgrim of the fields of air | F |
Its home was allwheres the wind left it rest | K |
And in a little forth again did fare | F |
And in all places was a stranger and a guest | K |
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It harked all breaths of heaven and did obey | S |
With sweet peace their uncomprehended wills | C |
It knew the eyes of stars which made no stay | S |
And with the thunder walked upon the lonely hills | C |
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And from the subject earth it seemed to scorn | T |
It drew the sustenance whereby it grew | F |
Perfect in bosom for the married Morn | T |
And of his life and light full as a maid kissed new | F |
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Its also darkness of the face withdrawn | U |
And the long waiting for the little light | K |
So long in life so little Like a fawn | U |
It fled with tempest breathing hard at heel of flight | K |
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And having known full East did not disdain | V |
To sit in shadow and oblivious cold | K |
Save what all loss doth of its loss retain | V |
And who hath held hath somewhat that he still must hold | K |
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Right poet who thy rightness to approve | W |
Having all liberty didst keep all measure | F |
And with a firmament for ranging move | W |
But at the heavens' uncomprehended pleasure | F |
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With amplitude unchecked how sweetly thou | X |
Didst wear the ancient custom of the skies | C |
And yoke of used prescription and thence how | X |
Find gay variety no license could devise | C |
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As we the quested beauties better wit | K |
Of the one grove our own than forests great | K |
Restraint by the delighted search of it | K |
Turns to right scope For lovely moving intricate | K |
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Is put to fair devising in the curb | Y |
Of ordered limit and all changeful Hermes | C |
Is Terminus as well Yet we perturb | Y |
Our souls for latitude whose strength in bound and term is | C |
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How far am I from heavenly liberty | K |
That play at policy with change and fate | K |
Who should my soul from foreign broils keep free | K |
In the fast guarded frontiers of its single state | K |
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Could I face firm the Is and with To be | K |
Trust Heaven to Heaven commit the deed and do | F |
In power contained calm in infirmity | K |
And fit myself to change with virtue ever new | F |
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Thou hadst not shamed me cousin of the sky | B |
Thou wandering kinsman that didst sweetly live | Z |
Unnoted and unnoted sweetly die | B |
Weeping more gracious song than any I can weave | A2 |
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Which these gross tissued words do sorely wrong | D |
Thou hast taught me on powerlessness a power | F |
To make song wait on life not life on song | D |
To hold sweet not too sweet and bread for bread though sour | F |
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By law to wander to be strictly free | K |
With tears ascended from the heart's sad sea | K |
Ah such a silver song to Death could I | B |
Sing Pain would list forgetting Pain to be | K |
And Death would tarry marvelling and forget to die | B |
Francis Thompson
(1)
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