A Reading Of Life--the Test Of Manhood Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABACCADEDEED FEEF GHGHEEIIEE EEJJII KLLKMMNNOOPPEEEE EEEEQQ PPPPRPRPRPSS EEPPTTUU PEPEEEEE EEEEVWWV XEESEEEEEEPNPNYIYI DEEDXEEXZEZE PA2PA2PEPEPEPEPRRPB2 PB2PC2EC2EPPPPPPPP PPPPPPD2PD2PE2PPE2PE EP F2PPF2DG2DG2DU EEEEEB2Like a flood river whirled at rocky banks | A |
An army issues out of wilderness | B |
With battle plucking round its ragged flanks | A |
Obstruction in the van insane excess | C |
Oft at the heart yet hard the onward stress | C |
Unto more spacious where move ordered ranks | A |
And rise hushed temples built of shapely stone | D |
The work of hands not pledged to grind or slay | E |
They gave our earth a dress of flesh on bone | D |
A tongue to speak with answering heaven gave they | E |
Then was the gracious birth of man's new day | E |
Divided from the haunted night it shone | D |
- | |
That quiet dawn was Reverence whereof sprang | F |
Ethereal Beauty in full morningtide | E |
Another sun had risen to clasp his bride | E |
It was another earth unto him sang | F |
- | |
Came Reverence from the Huntress on her heights | G |
From the Persuader came it in those vales | H |
Whereunto she melodiously invites | G |
Her troops of eager servitors regales | H |
Not far those two great Powers of Nature speed | E |
Disciple steps on earth when sole they lead | E |
Nor either points for us the way of flame | I |
From him predestined mightier it came | I |
His task to hold them both in breast and yield | E |
Their dues to each and of their war be field | E |
- | |
The foes that in repulsion never ceased | E |
Must he who once has been the goodly beast | E |
Of one or other at whose beck he ran | J |
Constrain to make him serviceable man | J |
Offending neither nor the natural claim | I |
Each pressed denying for his true man's name | I |
- | |
Ah what a sweat of anguish in that strife | K |
To hold them fast conjoined within him still | L |
Submissive to his will | L |
Along the road of life | K |
And marvel not he wavered if at whiles | M |
The forward step met frowns the backward smiles | M |
For Pleasure witched him her sweet cup to drain | N |
Repentance offered ecstasy in pain | N |
Delicious licence called it Nature's cry | O |
Ascetic rigours crushed the fleshly sigh | O |
A tread on shingle timed his lame advance | P |
Flung as the die of Bacchanalian Chance | P |
He of the troubled marching army leaned | E |
On godhead visible on godhead screened | E |
The radiant roseate the curtained white | E |
Yet sharp his battle strained through day through night | E |
- | |
He drank of fictions till celestial aid | E |
Might seem accorded when he fawned and prayed | E |
Sagely the generous Giver circumspect | E |
To choose for grants the egregious his elect | E |
And ever that imagined succour slew | Q |
The soul of brotherhood whence Reverence drew | Q |
- | |
In fellowship religion has its founts | P |
The solitary his own God reveres | P |
Ascend no sacred Mounts | P |
Our hungers or our fears | P |
As only for the numbers Nature's care | R |
Is shown and she the personal nothing heeds | P |
So to Divinity the spring of prayer | R |
From brotherhood the one way upward leads | P |
Like the sustaining air | R |
Are both for flowers and weeds | P |
But he who claims in spirit to be flower | S |
Will find them both an air that doth devour | S |
- | |
Whereby he smelt his treason who implored | E |
External gifts bestowed but on the sword | E |
Beheld himself with less and less disguise | P |
Through those blood cataracts which dimmed his eyes | P |
His army's foe condemned to strive and fail | T |
See a black adversary's ghost prevail | T |
Never though triumphs hailed him hope to win | U |
While still the conflict tore his breast within | U |
- | |
Out of that agony misread for those | P |
Imprisoned Powers warring unappeased | E |
The ghost of his black adversary rose | P |
To smother light shut heaven show earth diseased | E |
And long with him was wrestling ere emerged | E |
A mind to read in him the reflex shade | E |
Of its fierce torment this way that way urged | E |
By craven compromises hourly swayed | E |
- | |
Crouched as a nestling still its wings untried | E |
The man's mind opened under weight of cloud | E |
To penetrate the dark was it endowed | E |
Stood day before a vision shooting wide | E |
Whereat the spectral enemy lost form | V |
The traversed wilderness exposed its track | W |
He felt the far advance in looking back | W |
Thence trust in his foot forward through the storm | V |
- | |
Under the low browed tempest's eye of ire | X |
That ere it lightened smote a coward heart | E |
Earth nerved her chastened son to hail athwart | E |
All ventures perilous his shrouded Sire | S |
A stranger still religiously divined | E |
Not yet with understanding read aright | E |
But when the mind the cherishable mind | E |
The multitude's grave shepherd took full flight | E |
Himself as mirror raised among his kind | E |
He saw and first of brotherhood had sight | E |
Knew that his force to fly his will to see | P |
His heart enlarged beyond its ribbed domain | N |
Had come of many a grip in mastery | P |
Which held conjoined the hostile rival twain | N |
And of his bosom made him lord to keep | Y |
The starry roof of his unruffled frame | I |
Awake to earth to heaven and plumb the deep | Y |
Below above aye with a wistful aim | I |
- | |
The mastering mind in him by tempests blown | D |
By traitor inmates baited upward burned | E |
Perforce of growth the Master mind discerned | E |
The Great Unseen nowise the Dark Unknown | D |
To whom unwittingly did he aspire | X |
In wilderness where bitter was his need | E |
To whom in blindness as an earthy seed | E |
For light and air he struck through crimson mire | X |
But not ere he upheld a forehead lamp | Z |
And viewed an army once the seeming doomed | E |
All choral in its fruitful garden camp | Z |
The spiritual the palpable illumed | E |
- | |
This gift of penetration and embrace | P |
His prize from tidal battles lost or won | A2 |
Reveals the scheme to animate his race | P |
How that it is a warfare but begun | A2 |
Unending with no Power to interpose | P |
No prayer save for strength to keep his ground | E |
Heard of the Highest never battle's close | P |
The victory complete and victor crowned | E |
Nor solace in defeat save from that sense | P |
Of strength well spent which is the strength renewed | E |
In manhood must he find his competence | P |
In his clear mind the spiritual food | E |
God being there while he his fight maintains | P |
Throughout his mind the Master Mind being there | R |
While he rejects the suicide despair | R |
Accepts the spur of explicable pains | P |
Obedient to Nature not her slave | B2 |
Her lord if to her rigid laws he bows | P |
Her dust if with his conscience he plays knave | B2 |
And bids the Passions on the Pleasures browse | P |
Whence Evil in a world unread before | C2 |
That mystery to simple springs resolved | E |
His God the Known diviner to adore | C2 |
Shows Nature's savage riddles kindly solved | E |
Inconscient insensitive she reigns | P |
In iron laws though rapturous fair her face | P |
Back to the primal brute shall he retrace | P |
His path doth he permit to force her chains | P |
A soft Persuader coursing through his veins | P |
An icy Huntress stringing to the chase | P |
What one the flash disdains | P |
What one so gives it grace | P |
- | |
But is he rightly manful in her eyes | P |
A splendid bloodless knight to gain the skies | P |
A blood hot son of Earth by all her signs | P |
Desireing and desireable he shines | P |
As peaches that have caught the sun's uprise | P |
And kissed warm gold till noonday even as vines | P |
Earth fills him with her juices without fear | D2 |
That she will cast him drunken down the steeps | P |
All woman is she to this man most dear | D2 |
He sows for bread and she in spirit reaps | P |
She conscient she sensitive in him | E2 |
With him enwound his brave ambition hers | P |
By him humaner made by his keen spurs | P |
Pricked to race past the pride in giant limb | E2 |
Her crazy adoration of big thews | P |
Proud in her primal sons when crags they hurled | E |
Were thunder spitting lightnings on the world | E |
In daily deeds and she their evening Muse | P |
- | |
This man this hero works not to destroy | F2 |
This godlike as the rock in ocean stands | P |
He of the myriad eyes the myriad hands | P |
Creative in his edifice has joy | F2 |
How strength may serve for purity is shown | D |
When he himself can scourge to make it clean | G2 |
Withal his pitch of pride would not disown | D |
A sober world that walks the balanced mean | G2 |
Between its tempters rarely overthrown | D |
And such at times his army's march has been | U |
- | |
Near is he to great Nature in the thought | E |
Each changing Season intimately saith | E |
That nought save apparition knows the death | E |
To the God lighted mind of man 'tis nought | E |
She counts not loss a word of any weight | E |
It may befa | B2 |
George Meredith
(1)
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