A Broken Prayer Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFG HIJG KELEMILNO PQRSLLLTUL LLVWXLYLZA2LLB2C2KLU D2LE2RF2D2G2LVLH2I2 UJ2K2UVD2L2M2LA2EKVL LLLLN2O2 P2D2G2LN2D2F2Q2QR2S2 T2C2U2O S2V2ZW2X2Y2L Z2LLLA3J2LUB3ROQ2A3L C3R2D3A3LLE3R2 ALUR2F3G3D2LBH3 I3J3K3V2 D2LD2Z2LR2LLVD2LL3M3 F2LL D2N3LL QG3O3D2UP3R2L LHLP2D2FLDULK3LLVLLL K3 G2TFLQ3LT LUD2TLLLBTTT VTLLXLLTTLTFR3S3LO Lord my God how long | A |
Shall my poor heart pant for a boundless joy | B |
How long O mighty Spirit shall I hear | C |
The murmur of Truth's crystal waters slide | D |
From the deep caverns of their endless being | E |
But my lips taste not and the grosser air | F |
Choke each pure inspiration of thy will | G |
- | |
I am a denseness 'twixt me and the light | H |
cannot round myself my purest thought | I |
Ere it is thought hath caught the taint of earth | J |
And mocked me with hard thoughts beyond my will | G |
- | |
I would be a wind | K |
Whose smallest atom is a viewless wing | E |
All busy with the pulsing life that throbs | L |
To do thy bidding yea or the meanest thing | E |
That has relation to a changeless truth | M |
Could I but be instinct with thee each thought | I |
The lightning of a pure intelligence | L |
And every act as the loud thunder clap | N |
Of currents warring for a vacuum | O |
- | |
Lord clothe me with thy truth as with a robe | P |
Purge me with sorrow I will bend my head | Q |
And let the nations of thy waves pass over | R |
Bathing me in thy consecrated strength | S |
And let thy many voiced and silver winds | L |
Pass through my frame with their clear influence | L |
O save me I am blind lo thwarting shapes | L |
Wall up the void before and thrusting out | T |
Lean arms of unshaped expectation beckon | U |
Down to the night of all unholy thoughts | L |
- | |
Oh when at midnight one of thy strong angels | L |
Stems back the waves of earthly influence | L |
That shape unsteady continents around me | V |
And they draw off with the devouring gush | W |
Of exile billows that have found a home | X |
Leaving me islanded on unseen points | L |
Hanging 'twixt thee and chaos I have seen | Y |
Unholy shapes lop off my shining thoughts | L |
And they have lent me leathern wings of fear | Z |
Of baffled pride and harrowing distrust | A2 |
And Godhead with its crown of many stars | L |
Its pinnacles of flaming holiness | L |
And voice of leaves in the green summer time | B2 |
Has seemed the shadowed image of a self | C2 |
Then my soul blackened and I rose to find | K |
And grasp my doom and cleave the arching deeps | L |
Of desolation | U |
- | |
O Lord my soul is a forgotten well | D2 |
Clad round with its own rank luxuriance | L |
A fountain a kind sunbeam searches for | E2 |
Sinking the lustre of its arrowy finger | R |
Through the long grass its own strange virtue | F2 |
Hath blinded up its crystal eye withal | D2 |
Make me a broad strong river coming down | G2 |
With shouts from its high hills whose rocky hearts | L |
Throb forth the joy of their stability | V |
In watery pulses from their inmost deeps | L |
And I shall be a vein upon thy world | H2 |
Circling perpetual from the parent deep | I2 |
- | |
Most mighty One | U |
Confirm and multiply my thoughts of good | J2 |
Help me to wall each sacred treasure round | K2 |
With the firm battlements of special action | U |
Alas my holy happy thoughts of thee | V |
Make not perpetual nest within my soul | D2 |
But like strange birds of dazzling colours stoop | L2 |
The trailing glories of their sunward speed | M2 |
For one glad moment filling my blasted boughs | L |
With the sunshine of their wings Make me a forest | A2 |
Of gladdest life wherein perpetual spring | E |
Lifts up her leafy tresses in the wind | K |
Lo now I see | V |
Thy trembling starlight sit among my pines | L |
And thy young moon slide down my arching boughs | L |
With a soft sound of restless eloquence | L |
And I can feel a joy as when thy hosts | L |
Of trampling winds gathering in maddened bands | L |
Roar upward through the blue and flashing day | N2 |
Round my still depths of uncleft solitude | O2 |
- | |
Hear me O Lord | P2 |
When the black night draws down upon my soul | D2 |
And voices of temptation darken down | G2 |
The misty wind slamming thy starry doors | L |
With bitter jests Thou fool they seem to say | N2 |
Thou hast no seed of goodness in thee all | D2 |
Thy nature hath been stung right through and through | F2 |
Thy sin hath blasted thee and made thee old | Q2 |
Thou hadst a will but thou hast killed it dead | Q |
And with the fulsome garniture of life | R2 |
Built out the loathsome corpse thou art a child | S2 |
Of night and death even lower than a worm | T2 |
Gather the skirts up of thy shadowy self | C2 |
And with what resolution thou hast left | U2 |
Fall on the damned spikes of doom | O |
- | |
Oh take me like a child | S2 |
If thou hast made me for thyself my God | V2 |
And lead me up thy hills I shall not fear | Z |
So thou wilt make me pure and beat back sin | W2 |
With the terrors of thine eye it fears me not | X2 |
As once it might have feared thine own good image | Y2 |
But lays bold siege at my heart's doors | L |
- | |
Oh I have seen a thing of beauty stand | Z2 |
In the young moonlight of its upward thoughts | L |
And the old earth came round it with its gifts | L |
Of gladness whispering leaves and odorous plants | L |
Until its large and spiritual eye | A3 |
Burned with intensest love my God I could | J2 |
Have watched it evermore with Argus eyes | L |
Lest when the noontide of the summer's sun | U |
Let down the tented sunlight on the plain | B3 |
His flaming beams should scorch my darling flower | R |
And through the fruitless nights of leaden gloom | O |
Of plashing rains and knotted winds of cold | Q2 |
Yea when thy lightnings ran across the sky | A3 |
And the loud stumbling blasts fell from the hills | L |
Upon the mounds of death I could have watched | C3 |
Guarding such beauty like another life | R2 |
But O my God it changed | D3 |
Yet methinks I know not if it was not I | A3 |
Its beauty turned to ghastly loathsomeness | L |
Then a hand spurned me backwards from the clouds | L |
And with the gather of a mighty whirlwind | E3 |
Drew in the glittering gifts of life | R2 |
- | |
How long O Lord how long | A |
I am a man lost in a rocky place | L |
Lo all thy echoes smite me with confusion | U |
Of varied speech the cry of vanished Life | R2 |
Rolled upon nations' sighs of hearts uplifted | F3 |
Against despair the stifled sounds of Woe | G3 |
Sitting perpetual by its grey cold well | D2 |
Or wasted Toil climbing its endless hills | L |
With quickening gasps or the thin winds of Joy | B |
That beat about the voices of the crowd | H3 |
- | |
Lord hast thou sent | I3 |
Thy moons to mock us with perpetual hope | J3 |
Lighted within our breasts the love of love | K3 |
To make us ripen for despair my God | V2 |
- | |
Oh dost thou hold each individual soul | D2 |
Strung clear upon thy flaming rods of purpose | L |
Or does thine inextinguishable will | D2 |
Stand on the steeps of night with lifted hand | Z2 |
Filling the yawning wells of monstrous space | L |
With mixing thought drinking up single life | R2 |
As in a cup and from the rending folds | L |
Of glimmering purpose do all thy navied stars | L |
Slide through the gloom with mystic melody | V |
Like wishes on a brow Oh is my soul | D2 |
Hung like a dewdrop in thy grassy ways | L |
Drawn up again into the rack of change | L3 |
Even through the lustre which created it | M3 |
O mighty one thou wilt not smite me through | F2 |
With scorching wrath because my spirit stands | L |
Bewildered in thy circling mysteries | L |
- | |
Oh lift the burdened gloom that chokes my soul | D2 |
With dews of darkness smite the lean winds of death | N3 |
That run with howls around the ruined temples | L |
Blowing the souls of men about like leaves | L |
- | |
Lo the broad life lands widen overhead | Q |
Star galaxies arise like drifting snow | G3 |
And happy life goes whitening down the stream | O3 |
Of boundless action whilst my fettered soul | D2 |
Sits as a captive in a noisome dungeon | U |
Watches the pulses of his withered heart | P3 |
Lave out the sparkling minutes of his life | R2 |
On the idle flags | L |
- | |
Come in the glory of thine excellence | L |
Rive the dense gloom with wedges of clear light | H |
And let the shimmer of thy chariot wheels | L |
Burn through the cracks of night So slowly Lord | P2 |
To lift myself to thee with hands of toil | D2 |
Climbing the slippery cliffs of unheard prayer | F |
Lift up a hand among my idle days | L |
One beckoning finger I will cast aside | D |
The clogs of earthly circumstance and run | U |
Up the broad highways where the countless worlds | L |
Sit ripening in the summer of thy love | K3 |
Send a clear meaning sparkling through the years | L |
Burst all the prison doors and make men's hearts | L |
Gush up like fountains with thy melody | V |
Brighten the hollow eyes fill with life's fruits | L |
The hands that grope and scramble down the wastes | L |
And let the ghastly troops of withered ones | L |
Come shining o'er the mountains of thy love | K3 |
- | |
Lord thy strange mysteries come thickening down | G2 |
Upon my head like snowflakes shutting out | T |
The happy upper fields with chilly vapour | F |
Shall I content my soul with a weak sense | L |
Of safety or feed my ravenous hunger with | Q3 |
Sore purged hopes that are not hopes but fears | L |
Clad in white raiment | T |
- | |
The creeds lie in the hollow of men's hearts | L |
Like festering pools glassing their own corruption | U |
The slimy eyes stare up with dull approval | D2 |
And answer not when thy bright starry feet | T |
Move on the watery floors oh shake men's souls | L |
Together like the gathering of all oceans | L |
Rent from their hidden chambers till the waves | L |
Lift up their million voices of high joy | B |
Along the echoing cliffs come thus O Lord | T |
With nightly gifts of stars and lay a hand | T |
Of mighty peace upon the quivering flood | T |
- | |
O wilt thou hear me when I cry to thee | V |
I am a child lost in a mighty forest | T |
The air is thick with voices and strange hands | L |
Reach through the dusk and pluck me by the skirts | L |
There is a voice which sounds like words from home | X |
But as I stumble on to reach it seems | L |
To leap from rock to rock oh if it is | L |
Willing obliquity of sense descend | T |
Heal all my wanderings take me by the hand | T |
And lead me homeward through the shadows | L |
Let me not by my wilful acts of pride | T |
Block up the windows of thy truth and grow | F |
A wasted withered thing that stumbles on | R3 |
Down to the grave with folded hands of sloth | S3 |
And leaden confidence | L |
George Macdonald
(1)
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