My Room. To G.e.m Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBAAAACCDD EEAAAAFFGGHHEIAAJJAA AA AAAAKKAAAAAALLMM NOAAHHBBOOBBPPOOOOHH PPAAHHAAKKAAOOPP AAHHOOOOAACC HHHHHHAAQR AABBPPHHOOOOAASTBB UUAALLAAVV AALLOORRAAAAAAOO BBOOAAAARRPP AAPPBBBBAAAAOOLLAA OOOOHHBBPPOOAAOOPPAA OO OOWWOOBBHHWWOOOO BBOOOOOOOOOOPPGGPP OOWWLLAALLAAWWBBOOOO OOAAOO OOAAHHBBRRWWAA LLRROOOOXXAAHHOOOOLL AAYYOOOOAAJJAARR HHAAOORRBBOOUUHHAAAA LLLLKKBBHHOORRAAPP OOLLRRHHAAHHOORR OOOO'Tis a little room my friend | A |
A baby walk from end to end | A |
All the things look sadly real | B |
This hot noontide's Unideal | B |
Seek not refuge at the casement | A |
There's no pasture for amazement | A |
But a house most dim and rusty | A |
And a street most dry and dusty | A |
Seldom here more happy vision | C |
Than water cart's blest apparition | C |
We'll shut out the staring space | D |
Draw the curtains in its face | D |
- | |
Close the eyelids of the room | E |
Fill it with a scarlet gloom | E |
Lo the walls on every side | A |
Are transformed and glorified | A |
Ceiled as with a rosy cloud | A |
Furthest eastward of the crowd | A |
Blushing faintly at the bliss | F |
Of the Titan's good night kiss | F |
Which her westward sisters share | G |
Crimson they from breast to hair | G |
'Tis the faintest lends its dye | H |
To my room ah not the sky | H |
Worthy though to be a room | E |
Underneath the wonder dome | I |
Look around on either hand | A |
Are we not in fairy land | A |
In the ruddy atmosphere | J |
All familiar things appear | J |
Glowing with a mystery | A |
In the red light shadowy | A |
Lasting bliss to you and me | A |
Colour only though it be | A |
- | |
Now on the couch inwrapt in mist | A |
Of vapourized amethyst | A |
Lie as in a rose's heart | A |
Secret things I will impart | A |
Any time you would receive them | K |
Easier though you will believe them | K |
In dissolving dreamy red | A |
Self same radiance that is shed | A |
From the summer heart of Poet | A |
Flushing those that never know it | A |
Tell me not the light thou viewest | A |
Is a false one 'tis the truest | A |
'Tis the light revealing wonder | L |
Filling all above and under | L |
If in light you make a schism | M |
'Tis the deepest in the prism | M |
- | |
The room looks common but the fact is | N |
'Tis a cell of magic practice | O |
So disguised by common daylight | A |
By its disenchanting grey light | A |
Only spirit eyes mesmeric | H |
See its glories esoteric | H |
There that case against the wall | B |
Glowingly purpureal | B |
A piano to the prosy | O |
Not to us in twilight rosy | O |
'Tis a cave where Nereids lie | B |
Naiads Dryads Oreads sigh | B |
Dreaming of the time when they | P |
Danced in forest and in bay | P |
In that chest before your eyes | O |
Nature's self enchanted lies | O |
Awful hills and midnight woods | O |
Sunny rains in solitudes | O |
Deserts of unbounded longing | H |
Blessed visions gladness thronging | H |
- | |
All this globe of life unfoldeth | P |
In phantom forms that coffer holdeth | P |
True unseen for 'tis enchanted | A |
What is that but kept till wanted | A |
Do you hear that voice of singing | H |
'Tis the enchantress that is flinging | H |
Spells around her baby's riot | A |
Music's oil the waves to quiet | A |
She at once can disenchant them | K |
To a lover's wish to grant them | K |
She can make the treasure casket | A |
Yield its riches as that basket | A |
Yielded up the gathered flowers | O |
Yet its mines and fields and bowers | O |
Full remain as mother Earth | P |
Never tired of giving birth | P |
- | |
Do you doubt me Wait till night | A |
Brings black hours and white delight | A |
Then as now your limbs outstretching | H |
Yield yourself to her bewitching | H |
She will bring a book of spells | O |
Writ like crabbed oracles | O |
Wherewith necromantic fingers | O |
Raise the ghosts of parted singers | O |
Straight your senses will be bound | A |
In a net of torrent sound | A |
For it is a silent fountain | C |
Fed by springs from unseen mountain | C |
- | |
Till with gestures cabalistic | H |
Crossing lining figures mystic | H |
Diagram most mathematic | H |
Simple to these signs erratic | H |
O'er the seals her quick hands going | H |
Loose the rills and set them flowing | H |
Pent up music rushing out | A |
Bathes thy spirit all about | A |
Spell bound nature freed again | Q |
Joyous revels in thy brain | R |
- | |
On a mountain top you stand | A |
Looking o'er a sunny land | A |
Giant forces marching slow | B |
Rank on rank the great hills go | B |
On and on without a stay | P |
Melting in the blue away | P |
Wondrous light more wondrous shading | H |
High relief in faintness fading | H |
Branching streams like silver veins | O |
Meet and part in dells and plains | O |
There a woody hollow lies | O |
Dumb with love and bright with eyes | O |
Moorland tracks of broken ground | A |
Rising o'er it all around | A |
Traveller climbing from the grove | S |
Needs the tender heavens above | T |
Ah my pictured life you cry | B |
Fading into sea and sky | B |
- | |
Lost in thought that gently grieves you | U |
All the fairy landscape leaves you | U |
Sinks the sadness into rest | A |
Ripple like on water's breast | A |
Mother's bosom rests the daughter | L |
Grief the ripple Love the water | L |
All the past is strangely blended | A |
In a mist of colours splendid | A |
But chaotic as to form | V |
An unfeatured beauty storm | V |
- | |
Wakes within the ancient mind | A |
For a gloriousness defined | A |
As she sought and knew your pleasure | L |
Wiling with a dancing measure | L |
Underneath your closed eyes | O |
She calls the shapes of clouded skies | O |
White forms flushing hyacinthine | R |
Twine in curvings labyrinthine | R |
Seem with godlike graceful feet | A |
For such mazy motion meet | A |
To press from air each lambent note | A |
On whose throbbing fire they float | A |
With an airy wishful gait | A |
On each others' motion wait | A |
Naked arms and vesture free | O |
Fill up the dance of harmony | O |
- | |
Gone the measure polyhedral | B |
Springs aloft a high cathedral | B |
Every arch like praying arms | O |
Upward flung in love's alarms | O |
Knit by clasped hands o'erhead | A |
Heaves to heaven the weight of dread | A |
Underneath thee like a cloud | A |
Gathers music dim not loud | A |
Swells thy bosom with devotion | R |
Floats thee like a wave of ocean | R |
Vanishes the pile away | P |
In heaven thou kneelest down to pray | P |
- | |
Let the sounds but reach thy heart | A |
Straight thyself magician art | A |
Walkest open eyed through earth | P |
Seest wonders in their birth | P |
Whence they come and whither go | B |
Thou thyself exalted so | B |
Nature's consciousness whereby | B |
On herself she turns her eye | B |
Only heed thou worship God | A |
Else thou stalkest on thy sod | A |
Puppet god of picture world | A |
For thy foolish gaze unfurled | A |
Mirror thing of things below thee | O |
Thy own self can never know thee | O |
Not a high and holy actor | L |
A reflector and refractor | L |
Helpless in thy gift of light | A |
Self consuming into night | A |
- | |
Lasting yet the roseate glory | O |
I must hasten with my story | O |
Of the little room's true features | O |
Seldom seen by mortal creatures | O |
Lest my prophet vision fading | H |
Leave me in the darkness wading | H |
What are those upon the wall | B |
Ranged in rows symmetrical | B |
They are books an owl would say | P |
But the owl's night is the day | P |
Of these too if you have patience | O |
I can give you revelations | O |
Through the walls of Time and Sight | A |
Doors they are to the Infinite | A |
Through the limits that embrace us | O |
Openings to the eternal spaces | O |
Round us all the noisy day | P |
Full of silences alway | P |
Round us all the darksome night | A |
Ever full of awful light | A |
And though closed may still remind us | O |
There is mystery behind us | O |
- | |
That my friend Now it is curious | O |
You should hit upon the spurious | O |
'Tis a blind a painted door | W |
Knock at it for evermore | W |
Never vision it affords | O |
But its panelled gilded boards | O |
Behind it lieth nought at all | B |
But the limy webby wall | B |
Oh no not a painted block | H |
Not the less a printed mock | H |
A book 'tis true no whit the more | W |
A revealing out going door | W |
There are two or three such books | O |
For a while in others' nooks | O |
Where they should no longer be | O |
But for reasons known to me | O |
- | |
Do not open that one though | B |
It is real but if you go | B |
Careless to it as to dance | O |
You'll see nothing for your glance | O |
Blankness deafness blindness dumbness | O |
Soon will stare you to a numbness | O |
No my friend it is not wise | O |
To open doors into the skies | O |
As into a little study | O |
Where a feeble brain grows muddy | O |
Wait till night and you shall be | O |
Left alone with mystery | O |
Light this lamp's white softened ray | P |
Another wonder by the way | P |
Then with humble faith and prayer | G |
Ope the door with patient care | G |
Yours be calmness then and strength | P |
For the sight you see at length | P |
- | |
Sometimes after trying vainly | O |
With much effort forced ungainly | O |
To entice the rugged door | W |
To yield up its wondrous lore | W |
With a sudden burst of thunder | L |
All its frame is dashed asunder | L |
The gulfy silence lightning fleet | A |
Shooteth hellward at thy feet | A |
Take thou heed lest evil terror | L |
Snare thee in a downward error | L |
Drag thee through the narrow gate | A |
Give thee up to windy fate | A |
To be blown for evermore | W |
Up and down without a shore | W |
For to shun the good as ill | B |
Makes the evil bolder still | B |
But oftener far the portal opes | O |
With the sound of coming hopes | O |
On the joy astonished eyes | O |
Awful heights of glory rise | O |
Mountains stars and dreadful space | O |
The Eternal's azure face | O |
In storms of silence self is drowned | A |
Leaves the soul a gulf profound | A |
Where new heavens and earth arise | O |
Rolling seas and arching skies | O |
- | |
Gathers slow a vapour o'er thee | O |
From the ocean depths before thee | O |
Lo the vision all hath vanished | A |
Thou art left alone and banished | A |
Shut the door thou findest groping | H |
Without chance of further oping | H |
Thou must wait until thy soul | B |
Rises nearer to its goal | B |
Till more childhood strength has given | R |
Then approach this gate of Heaven | R |
It will open as before | W |
Yielding wonders yet in store | W |
For thee if thou wilt turn to good | A |
Things already understood | A |
- | |
Why I let such useless lumber | L |
Useful bookshelves so encumber | L |
I will tell thee for thy question | R |
Of wonders brings me to the best one | R |
There's a future wonder may be | O |
Sure a present magic baby | O |
Patience friend I know your looks | O |
What has that to do with books | O |
With her sounds of molten speech | X |
Quick a parent's heart to reach | X |
Though uncoined to words sedate | A |
Or even to sounds articulate | A |
Yet sweeter than the music's flowing | H |
Which doth set her music going | H |
Now our highest wonder duty | O |
Is with this same wonder beauty | O |
How with culture high and steady | O |
To unfold a magic lady | O |
How to keep her full of wonder | L |
At all things above and under | L |
Her from childhood never part | A |
Change the brain but keep the heart | A |
She is God's child all the time | Y |
On all the hours the child must climb | Y |
As on steps of shining stairs | O |
Leading up the path of prayers | O |
So one lesson from our looks | O |
Must be this to honour books | O |
As a strange and mystic band | A |
Which she cannot understand | A |
Scarce to touch them without fear | J |
Never but when I am near | J |
As a priest to temple rite | A |
Leading in the acolyte | A |
But when she has older grown | R |
And can see a difference shown | R |
- | |
She must learn 'tis not appearing | H |
Makes a book fit for revering | H |
To distinguish and divide | A |
'Twixt the form and soul inside | A |
That a book is more than boards | O |
Leaves and words in gathered hordes | O |
Which no greater good can do man | R |
Than the goblin hollow woman | R |
Or a pump without a well | B |
Or priest without an oracle | B |
Form is worthless save it be | O |
Type of an infinity | O |
Sign of something present true | U |
Though unopened to the view | U |
Heady in its bosom holding | H |
What it will be aye unfolding | H |
Never uttering but in part | A |
From an unexhausted heart | A |
Sight convincing to her mind | A |
I will separate kind from kind | A |
Take those books though honoured by her | L |
Lay them on the study fire | L |
For their form's sake somewhat tender | L |
Yet consume them to a cinder | L |
Years of reverence shall not save them | K |
From the greedy flames that crave them | K |
You shall see this slight Immortal | B |
Half way yet within life's portal | B |
Gathering gladness she looks back | H |
Streams it forward on her track | H |
Wanders ever in the dance | O |
Of her own sweet radiance | O |
Though the glory cease to burn | R |
Inward only it will turn | R |
Make her hidden being bright | A |
Make herself a lamp of light | A |
And a second gate of birth | P |
Will take her to another earth | P |
- | |
But my friend I've rattled plenty | O |
To suffice for mornings twenty | O |
And I must not toss you longer | L |
On this torrent waxing stronger | L |
Other things past contradiction | R |
Here would prove I spoke no fiction | R |
Did I lead them up choragic | H |
To reveal their nature magic | H |
There is that machine glass masked | A |
With continual questions tasked | A |
Ticking with untiring rock | H |
It is called an eight day clock | H |
But to me the thing appears | O |
Made for winding up the years | O |
Drawing on fast as it can | R |
The day when comes the Son of Man | R |
- | |
On the sea the sunshine broods | O |
And the shining tops of woods | O |
We will leave these oracles | O |
Finding others 'mid the hills | O |
George Macdonald
(1)
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