The Triumph Of Love Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A B C CDEFGHICJKLIIICMCF N MOCMPCQC N CIARCCCCFICSCC N KTOUVLWCC C XFYZ I OLA2IOA I LNHLB2 I QC2W I PL I D2E2IMCCC I D2CF2G2CC N DH2CNLMI2CIJ2K2IICCC NCL2 N IQM2FLIAMN2O2P2 C CFQ2FR2 C E2IS2ICWCCMCT2MIMU2M V2MCQW2X2Y2Z2A3B3 N CCC3ICDCCIC3FCC3D3N N NMCCC3C3E3C3C3C3E3D3 E3ACC3CC3C3C C C3MD3IC3CC3C3C3 C IC3CE3C3C3C3CI | A |
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Sun blazed over Romsley a livid rain scarp | B |
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XIII | C |
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Whose lives are hidden in God Whose | C |
Who can now tell what was taken or where | D |
or how or whether it was received | E |
how ditched divested clamped sifted over | F |
laid raked over grassed over spread around | G |
rotted down with leafmould accepted | H |
as civic concrete reinforceable | I |
base cinderblocks | C |
tipped into Danube Rhine Vistula dredged up | J |
with the Baltic and the Pontic sludge | K |
committed in absentia to solemn elevation | L |
Trauermusik musique fun bre funeral | I |
music for male and female | I |
voices ringingly a cappella | I |
made for double string choirs congregated brass | C |
choice performers on baroque trumpets hefting | M |
like glassblowers inventions | C |
of supreme order | F |
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XIV | N |
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As to bad faith Malebranche might argue | M |
it rests with inattention Stupidity | O |
is not admissible However the status | C |
of apprehension remains at issue | M |
Some qualities are best | P |
left unrecognized Needless to say | C |
unrecognized is not | Q |
unacknowledged Unnamed is not nameless | C |
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XVII | N |
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If the gospel is heard all else follows | C |
the scattering the diaspora | I |
the shtetlach ash pits pits of indigo dye | A |
Penitence can be spoken of it is said | R |
but is itself beyond words | C |
even broken speech presumes Those Christian Jews | C |
of the first Church huddled sabbath survivors | C |
keepers of the word silent inside twenty years | C |
doubly outcast even so I would remember | F |
the scattering the diaspora | I |
We do not know the saints | C |
His mercy is greater even than his wisdom | S |
If the gospel is heard all else follows | C |
We shall rise again clutching our wounds | C |
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XXXV | N |
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Even now I tell myself there is a language | K |
to which I might speak and which | T |
would rightly hear me | O |
responding with eloquence in its turn | U |
negotiating sense without insult | V |
given or injury taken | L |
Familiar to those who already know it | W |
elsewhere as justice | C |
it is met also in the form of silence | C |
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XXIX | C |
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Rancorous narcissistic old sod what | X |
makes him go on We thought hoped rather | F |
he might be dead Too bad So how | Y |
much more does he have of injury time | Z |
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XL | I |
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For wordly read worldly for in equity inequity | O |
for religious read religiose for distinction | L |
detestation Take accessible to mean | A2 |
acceptable accommodating openly servile | I |
Is that right Missis or is that right I don t | O |
care what I say do I | A |
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XLI | I |
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For iconic priesthood read worldly pique and ambition | L |
Change insightfully caring to pruriently intrusive | N |
Delete chastened and humbled Insert humiliated | H |
Interpret slain in the spirit as browbeaten to exhaustion | L |
For hardness of heart read costly dislike of cant | B2 |
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XLII | I |
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Excuse me excuse me I did not | Q |
say the pain is lifting I said the pain is in | C2 |
the lifting No please forget it | W |
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XLIII | I |
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This is quite dreadful he s become obsessed | P |
There you go there you go narrow it down to obsession | L |
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LI | I |
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Whatever may be meant by moral landscape | D2 |
it is for me increasingly a terrain | E2 |
seen in cross section igneous sedimentary | I |
conglomerate metamorphic rock | M |
strata in which particular grace | C |
individual love decency endurance | C |
are traceable across the faults | C |
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LII | I |
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Admittedly at times this moral landscape | D2 |
to my exasperated ear emits | C |
archaic burrings like a small high fenced | F2 |
electricity sub station of uncertain age | G2 |
in a field corner where the flies | C |
gather and old horses shake their sides | C |
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LXVI | N |
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Christ has risen yet again to their | D |
ritual supplication It seems weird | H2 |
that the comedy never self destructs | C |
Actually it is strengthened if | N |
attenuation is strength Donne | L |
said as much of gold Come back | M |
Donne I forgive you and lovely Herbert | I2 |
But what strange guild is this | C |
that practises daily | I |
synchronized genuflection and takes pride | J2 |
in hazing my Jewish wife If Christ | K2 |
be not risen Christians are petty | I |
temple schismatics justly | I |
cast out of the law Worse things | C |
have befallen Israel But since he is | C |
risen he is risen even for these | C |
high handed underlings of self | N |
worship who as by obedience | C |
proclaim him risen indeed | L2 |
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LXVII | N |
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Instruct me further in your travail | I |
blind interpreter Suppose I cannot | Q |
unearth what it was they buried research | M2 |
is not anamnesis Nor is this a primer | F |
of innocence exactly Did the centurion | L |
see nothing irregular before the abnormal | I |
light seared his eyeballs Why do I | A |
take as my gift a wounded and wounding | M |
introspection The rule is clear enough last | N2 |
alleluias forte followed by indifferent | O2 |
coffee and fellowship | P2 |
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LXIX | C |
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What choice do you have These are false questions | C |
Fear is your absolute yet in each feature | F |
infinitely variable Manichean beyond dispute | Q2 |
for you alone the skeletal maple a loose wire | F |
tapping the wind | R2 |
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LXX | C |
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Active virtue that which shall contain | E2 |
its own passion in the public weal | I |
do you follow or can you at least | S2 |
take the drift of the thing The struggle | I |
for a noble vernacular this | C |
did not end with Petrarch But where is it | W |
Where has it got us Does it stop in our case | C |
with Dryden or perhaps | C |
Milton s political sonnets the cherished stock | M |
hacked into ransom and ruin the voices | C |
of distinction far back indistinct | T2 |
Still I m convinced that shaping | M |
voicing are types of civic action Or slightly | I |
to refashion this that Wordsworth s two | M |
Prefaces stand with his great tract | U2 |
on the Convention of Cintra witnessing | M |
to the praesidium in the sacred name | V2 |
of things betrayed Intrinsic value | M |
I am somewhat less sure of It seems | C |
implicate with active virtue but I cannot | Q |
say how precisely Partaking of both | W2 |
fact and recognition it must be therefore | X2 |
in effect at once agent and predicate | Y2 |
imponderables brought home | Z2 |
to the brute mass and detail of the world | A3 |
there by some to be pondered | B3 |
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XCVI | N |
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Ignorant assured there comes to us a voice | C |
Unchallengeable of the foundations | C |
distinct authority devoted | C3 |
to indistinction With what proximity | I |
to justice stands the record of mischance | C |
heroic hit or miss the air | D |
so full of flak and tracer legend says | C |
you pray to live unnoticed Mr Ives | C |
took Emersonian self reliance the whole | I |
way on that Melville half immolated | C3 |
rebuilt the pyre Hoist some time later | F |
stumbled on dharma What can I say | C |
At worst and best a blind ennoblement | C3 |
flood water hunched shouldering at the weir | D3 |
the hatred that is in the nature of love | N |
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CXVIII | N |
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By default as it so happens here we have | N |
good and bad angels caught burning | M |
themselves characteristic antiphons | C |
and here the true and the false | C |
shepherds discovered | C3 |
already deep into their hollow debate | C3 |
Is that all No add spinners of fine | E3 |
calumny confectioners of sugared | C3 |
malice add those who find sincerity | C3 |
in heartless weeping Add the pained | C3 |
painful clowns brinksmen of perdition | E3 |
Sidney best realizer and arguer | D3 |
of music that divine | E3 |
striker upon the senses steady my | A |
music to your Augustinian grace notes | C |
with your high craft of fret I am glad | C3 |
to have learned how it goes | C |
with you and with Italianate | C3 |
Hebraic Milton your voices pitched exactly | C3 |
somewhere between Laus Deo and defiance | C |
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CXIX | C |
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And yes bugger you MacSikker et al I do | C3 |
mourn and resent your desolation of learning | M |
Scientia that enabled if it did not secure | D3 |
forms of understanding far from despicable | I |
and furthest now as they are most despised | C3 |
By understanding I understand diligence | C |
and attention appropriately understood | C3 |
as actuated self knowledge a daily acknowledgement | C3 |
of what is owed the dead | C3 |
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CXX | C |
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As with the Gospels which it is allowed to resemble | I |
in Measure for Measure moral uplift | C3 |
is not the issue Scrupulosity diffidence | C |
shrill spirituality conviction free expression | E3 |
come off as poorly as deceit or lust | C3 |
The ethical motiv is so we may hazard | C3 |
opportunism redemptive and redeemed | C3 |
case hardened on case | C |
Geoffrey Hill
(1)
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