Concerning Jesus Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCCBBCCBDEDEFG A HIIHHIIHJBJKKB A LMMNNMMNBOBOMM P AQQAAQQAQQQQQQ P RBBRRBBRJQQEJE A SQQSSQQTUVVUUV A JQQJJQQJAWXAAX A QQQQQQQQPYPYZA2 E QQQQQQQQQB2QB2QB2 E QQQQQQQQEB2B2EQQ E EC2D2EEC2C2EWQWQEE E E2EEYYAEYQQF2F2KK E QQQQQQQQZAAZAZ A WEEWXEEXAG2G2YAY A EJJEEJJEQH2H2QQH2 A I2QQI2I2QQTJ2B2B2J2K 2K2 A AK2K2AAK2K2EL2B2M2B2 M2L2 A YB2B2YYB2B2YL2B2B2N2 L2N2I | A |
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If thou hadst been a sculptor what a race | B |
Of forms divine had thenceforth filled the land | C |
Methinks I see thee glorious workman stand | C |
Striking a marble window through blind space | B |
Thy face's reflex on the coming face | B |
As dawns the stone to statue 'neath thy hand | C |
Body obedient to its soul's command | C |
Which is thy thought informing it with grace | B |
So had it been But God who quickeneth clay | D |
Nor turneth it to marble maketh eyes | E |
Not shadowy hollows where no sunbeams play | D |
Would mould his loftiest thought in human guise | E |
Thou didst appear walking unknown abroad | F |
God's living sculpture all informed of God | G |
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II | A |
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If one should say Lo there thy statue take | H |
Possession sculptor now inherit it | I |
Go forth upon the earth in likeness fit | I |
As with a trumpet cry at morning wake | H |
The sleeping nations with light's terror shake | H |
The slumber from their hearts that where they sit | I |
They leap straight up aghast as at a pit | I |
Gaping beneath I hear him answer make | H |
Alas for me I cannot nor would dare | J |
Inform what I revered as I did trace | B |
Who would be fool that he like fool might fare | J |
With feeble spirit mocking the enorm | K |
Strength on his forehead Thou God's thought thy form | K |
Didst live the large significance of thy face | B |
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III | A |
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Men have I seen and seen with wonderment | L |
Noble in form lift upward and divine | M |
In whom I yet must search as in a mine | M |
After that soul of theirs by which they went | N |
Alive upon the earth And I have bent | N |
Regard on many a woman who gave sign | M |
God willed her beautiful when he drew the line | M |
That shaped each float and fold of beauty's tent | N |
Her soul alas chambered in pigmy space | B |
Left the fair visage pitiful inane | O |
Poor signal only of a coming face | B |
When from the penetrale she filled the fane | O |
Possessed of thee was every form of thine | M |
Thy very hair replete with the divine | M |
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IV | P |
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If thou hadst built a temple how my eye | A |
Had hungering fed thereon from low browed crypt | Q |
Up to the soaring pinnacles that tipt | Q |
With stars gave signal when the sun drew nigh | A |
Dark caverns in and under vivid sky | A |
Its home and aim Say from the glory slipt | Q |
And down into the shadows dropt and dipt | Q |
Or reared from darkness up so holy high | A |
Thou build'st the temple of thy holy ghost | Q |
From hid foundation to high hidden fate | Q |
Foot in the grave head at the heavenly gate | Q |
From grave and sky filled with a fighting host | Q |
Man is thy temple man thy work elect | Q |
His glooms and glory thine great architect | Q |
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V | P |
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If thou hadst been a painter what fresh looks | R |
What outbursts of pent glories what new grace | B |
Had shone upon us from the great world's face | B |
How had we read as in eternal books | R |
The love of God in loneliest shiest nooks | R |
A lily in merest lines thy hand did trace | B |
Had plainly been God's child of lower race | B |
And oh how strong the hills songful the brooks | R |
To thee all nature's meanings lie light bare | J |
Because thy heart is nature's inner side | Q |
Clear as to us earth on the dawn's gold tide | Q |
Her notion vast up in thy soul did rise | E |
Thine is the world thine all its splendours rare | J |
Thou Man ideal with the unsleeping eyes | E |
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VI | A |
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But I have seen pictures the work of man | S |
In which at first appeared but chaos wild | Q |
So high the art transcended they beguiled | Q |
The eye as formless and without a plan | S |
Not soon the spirit brooding o'er began | S |
To see a purpose rise like mountain isled | Q |
When God said Let the Dry appear and piled | Q |
Above the waves it rose in twilight wan | T |
So might thy pictures then have been too strange | U |
For us to pierce beyond their outmost look | V |
A vapour and a darkness a sealed book | V |
An atmosphere too high for wings to range | U |
And so we could but gazing pale and change | U |
And tremble as at a void thought cannot brook | V |
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VII | A |
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But earth is now thy living picture where | J |
Thou shadowest truth the simple and profound | Q |
By the same form in vital union bound | Q |
Where one can see but the first step of thy stair | J |
Another sees it vanish far in air | J |
When thy king David viewed the starry round | Q |
From heart and fingers broke the psaltery sound | Q |
Lord what is man that thou shouldst mind his prayer | J |
But when the child beholds the heavens on high | A |
He babbles childish noises not less dear | W |
Than what the king sang praying to the ear | X |
Of him who made the child and king and sky | A |
Earth is thy picture painter great whose eye | A |
Sees with the child sees with the kingly seer | X |
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VIII | A |
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If thou hadst built some mighty instrument | Q |
And set thee down to utter ordered sound | Q |
Whose faithful billows from thy hands unbound | Q |
Breaking in light against our spirits went | Q |
And caught and bore above this earthly tent | Q |
The far strayed back to their prime natal ground | Q |
Where all roots fast in harmony are found | Q |
And God sits thinking out a pure consent | Q |
Nay that thou couldst not that was not for thee | P |
Our broken music thou must first restore | Y |
A harder task than think thine own out free | P |
And till thou hast done it no divinest score | Y |
Though rendered by thine own angelic choir | Z |
Can lift one human spirit from the mire | A2 |
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IX | E |
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If thou hadst been a poet On my heart | Q |
The thought flashed sudden burning through the weft | Q |
Of life and with too much I sank bereft | Q |
Up to my eyes the tears with sudden start | Q |
Thronged blinding then the veil would rend and part | Q |
The husk of vision would in twain be cleft | Q |
Thy hidden soul in naked beauty left | Q |
I should behold thee Nature as thou art | Q |
O poet Jesus at thy holy feet | Q |
I should have lien sainted with listening | B2 |
My pulses answering ever in rhythmic beat | Q |
The stroke of each triumphant melody's wing | B2 |
Creating as it moved my being sweet | Q |
My soul thy harp thy word the quivering string | B2 |
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X | E |
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Thee had we followed through the twilight land | Q |
Where thought grows form and matter is refined | Q |
Back into thought of the eternal mind | Q |
Till seeing them one Lo in the morn we stand | Q |
Then started fresh and followed hand in hand | Q |
With sense divinely growing till combined | Q |
We heard the music of the planets wind | Q |
In harmony with billows on the strand | Q |
Till one with earth and all God's utterance | E |
We hardly knew whether the sun outspake | B2 |
Or a glad sunshine from our spirits brake | B2 |
Whether we think or winds and blossoms dance | E |
Alas O poet leader for such good | Q |
Thou wast God's tragedy writ in tears and blood | Q |
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XI | E |
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Hadst thou been one of these in many eyes | E |
Too near to be a glory for thy sheen | C2 |
Thou hadst been scorned and to the best hadst been | D2 |
A setter forth of strange divinities | E |
But to the few construct of harmonies | E |
A sudden sun uplighting the serene | C2 |
High heaven of love and through the cloudy screen | C2 |
That 'twixt our souls and truth all wretched lies | E |
Dawning at length hadst been a love and fear | W |
Worshipped on high from Magian's mountain crest | Q |
And all night long symbolled by lamp flames clear | W |
Thy sign a star upon thy people's breast | Q |
Where that strange arbitrary token lies | E |
Which once did scare the sun in noontide skies | E |
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XII | E |
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But as thou camest forth to bring the poor | E2 |
Whose hearts are nearer faith and verity | E |
Spiritual childhood thy philosophy | E |
So taught'st the A B C of heavenly lore | Y |
Because thou sat'st not lonely evermore | Y |
With mighty truths informing language high | A |
But walking in thy poem continually | E |
Didst utter deeds of all true forms the core | Y |
Poet and poem one indivisible fact | Q |
Because thou didst thine own ideal act | Q |
And so for parchment on the human soul | F2 |
Didst write thine aspirations at thy goal | F2 |
Thou didst arrive with curses for acclaim | K |
And cry to God up through a cloud of shame | K |
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XIII | E |
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For three and thirty years a living seed | Q |
A lonely germ dropt on our waste world's side | Q |
Thy death and rising thou didst calmly bide | Q |
Sore companied by many a clinging weed | Q |
Sprung from the fallow soil of evil and need | Q |
Hither and thither tossed by friends denied | Q |
Pitied of goodness dull and scorned of pride | Q |
Until at length was done the awful deed | Q |
And thou didst lie outworn in stony bower | Z |
Three days asleep oh slumber godlike brief | A |
For man of sorrows and acquaint with grief | A |
Life seed thou diedst that Death might lose his power | Z |
And thou with rooted stem and shadowy leaf | A |
Rise of humanity the crimson flower | Z |
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XIV | A |
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Where dim the ethereal eye no art though clear | W |
As golden star in morning's amber springs | E |
Can pierce the fogs of low imaginings | E |
Painting and sculpture are a mockery mere | W |
Where dull to deafness is the hearing ear | X |
Vain is the poet Nought but earthly things | E |
Have credence When the soaring skylark sings | E |
How shall the stony statue strain to hear | X |
Open the deaf ear wake the sleeping eye | A |
And Lo musicians painters poets all | G2 |
Trooping instinctive come without a call | G2 |
As winds that where they list blow evermore | Y |
As waves from silent deserts roll to die | A |
In mighty voices on the peopled shore | Y |
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XV | A |
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Our ears thou openedst mad'st our eyes to see | E |
All they who work in stone or colour fair | J |
Or build up temples of the quarried air | J |
Which we call music scholars are of thee | E |
Henceforth in might of such the earth shall be | E |
Truth's temple theatre where she shall wear | J |
All forms of revelation all men bear | J |
Tapers in acolyte humility | E |
O master maker thy exultant art | Q |
Goes forth in making makers Pictures No | H2 |
But painters who in love and truth shall show | H2 |
Glad secrets from thy God's rejoicing heart | Q |
Sudden green grass and waving corn up start | Q |
When through dead sands thy living waters go | H2 |
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XVI | A |
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From the beginning good and fair are one | I2 |
But men the beauty from the truth will part | Q |
And though the truth is ever beauty's heart | Q |
After the beauty will short breathed run | I2 |
And the indwelling truth deny and shun | I2 |
Therefore in cottage synagogue and mart | Q |
Thy thoughts came forth in common speech not art | Q |
With voice and eye in Jewish Babylon | T |
Thou taughtest not with pen or carved stone | J2 |
Nor in thy hand the trembling wires didst take | B2 |
Thou of the truth not less than all wouldst make | B2 |
For Truth's sake even her forms thou didst disown | J2 |
Ere through the love of beauty truth shall fail | K2 |
The light behind shall burn the broidered veil | K2 |
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XVII | A |
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Holy of holies my bare feet draw nigh | A |
Jesus thy body is the shining veil | K2 |
By which I look on God nor grow death pale | K2 |
I know that in my verses poor may lie | A |
Things low for see the thinker is not high | A |
But were my song as loud as saints' all hail | K2 |
As pure as prophet's cry of warning wail | K2 |
As holy as thy mother's ecstasy | E |
He sings a better who for love or ruth | L2 |
Into his heart a little child doth take | B2 |
Nor thoughts nor feelings art nor wisdom seal | M2 |
The man who at thy table bread shall break | B2 |
Thy praise was not that thou didst know or feel | M2 |
Or show or love but that thou didst the truth | L2 |
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XVIII | A |
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Despised Rejected by the priest led roar | Y |
Of the multitude The imperial purple flung | B2 |
About the form the hissing scourge had stung | B2 |
Witnessing naked to the truth it bore | Y |
True son of father true I thee adore | Y |
Even the mocking purple truthful hung | B2 |
On thy true shoulders bleeding its folds among | B2 |
For thou wast king art king for evermore | Y |
I know the Father he knows me the truth | L2 |
Truth witness therefore the one essential king | B2 |
With thee I die with thee live worshipping | B2 |
O human God O brother eldest born | N2 |
Never but thee was there a man in sooth | L2 |
Never a true crown but thy crown of thorn | N2 |
George Macdonald
(1)
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