The Empty Purse--a Sermon To Our Later Prodigal Son Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDADCDBDD EFDEFGHFEIJGHIBJIBJG HBHJBFGFBKDFDKBFJKJF BIBIDBDDJDBBJBBJBFBF BLBBBBLMBEMBFBEMLFLB FEBFFEF JBJDBBBBBDBEBENEBEBN BEBDBDNDNBBBBJGJBGB JBJBBOBPOEBPBBEBBHFB BHFBQHR HJJJBJBBBFBFBBBSTBTB S FTFBBBB BBDBDJUBJBUFBF VBWBUX| Thou run to the dry on this wayside bank | A |
| Too plainly of all the propellers bereft | B |
| Quenched youth and is that thy purse | C |
| Even such limp slough as the snake has left | B |
| Slack to the gale upon spikes of whin | D |
| For cast off coat of a life gone blank | A |
| In its frame of a grin at the seeker is thine | D |
| And thine to crave and to curse | C |
| The sweet thing once within | D |
| Accuse him some devil committed the theft | B |
| Which leaves of the portly a skin | D |
| No more of the weighty a whine | D |
| - | |
| Pursue him and first to be sure of his track | E |
| Over devious ways that have led to this | F |
| In the stream's consecutive line | D |
| Let memory lead thee back | E |
| To where waves Morning her fleur de lys | F |
| Unflushed at the front of the roseate door | G |
| Unopened yet never shadow there | H |
| Of a Tartarus lighted by Dis | F |
| For souls whose cry is alack | E |
| An ivory cradle rocks apeep | I |
| Through his eyelashes' laugh a breathing pearl | J |
| There the young chief of the animals wore | G |
| A likeness to heavenly hosts unaware | H |
| Of his love of himself with the hours at leap | I |
| In a dingle away from a rutted highroad | B |
| Around him the earliest throstle and merle | J |
| Our human smile between milk and sleep | I |
| Effervescent of Nature he crowed | B |
| Fair was that season furl over furl | J |
| The banners of blossom a dancing floor | G |
| This earth very angels the clouds and fair | H |
| Thou on the tablets of forehead and breast | B |
| Careless a centre of vigilant care | H |
| Thy mother kisses an infant curl | J |
| The room of the toys was a boundless nest | B |
| A kingdom the field of the games | F |
| Till entered the craving for more | G |
| And the worshipped small body had aims | F |
| A good little idol as records attest | B |
| When they tell of him lightly appeased in a scream | K |
| By sweets and caresses he gave but sign | D |
| That the heir of a purse plumped dominant race | F |
| Accustomed to plenty not dumb would pine | D |
| Almost magician his earliest dream | K |
| Was lord of the unpossessed | B |
| For a look himself and his chase | F |
| As on puffs of a wind at whirl | J |
| Made one in the wink of a gleam | K |
| She kisses a locket curl | J |
| She conjures to vision a cherub face | F |
| When her butterfly counted his day | B |
| All meadow and flowers mishap | I |
| Derided and taken for play | B |
| The fling of an urchin's cap | I |
| When her butterfly showed him an eaglet born | D |
| For preying too heedlessly bred | B |
| What a heart clapped in thee then | D |
| With what fuller colours of morn | D |
| And high to the uttermost heavens it flew | J |
| Swift as on poet's pen | D |
| It flew to be wedded to wed | B |
| The mystery scented around | B |
| Issue of flower and dew | J |
| Issue of light and sound | B |
| Thinner than either a thread | B |
| Spun of the dream they threw | J |
| To kindle allure evade | B |
| It ran the sea wave the garden's dance | F |
| To the forest's dark heart down a dappled glade | B |
| Led on by a perishing glance | F |
| By a twinkle's eternal waylaid | B |
| Woman the name was when she took form | L |
| Sheaf of the wonders of life She fled | B |
| Close imaged she neared far seen How she made | B |
| Palpitate earth of the living and dead | B |
| Did she not show thee the world designed | B |
| Solely for loveliness Nested warm | L |
| The day was the morrow in flight And for thee | M |
| She muted the discords tuned refined | B |
| Drowned sharp edges beneath her cloak | E |
| Eye of the waters and throb of the tree | M |
| Sliding on radiance winging from shade | B |
| With her witch whisper o'er ruins in reeds | F |
| She sang low the song of her promise delayed | B |
| Beckoned and died as a finger of smoke | E |
| Astream over woodland And was not she | M |
| History's heroines white on storm | L |
| Remember her summons to valorous deeds | F |
| Shone she a lure of the honey bag swarm | L |
| Most was her beam on the knightly she led | B |
| For the honours of manhood more than the prize | F |
| Waved her magnetical yoke | E |
| Whither the warrior bled | B |
| Ere to the bower of sighs | F |
| And shy of her secrets she was under deeps | F |
| Plunged at the breath of a thirst that woke | E |
| The dream in the cave where the Dreaded sleeps | F |
| - | |
| Away over heaven the young heart flew | J |
| And caught many lustres till some one said | B |
| Or was it the thought into hearing grew | J |
| NOT THOU AS COMMONER MEN | D |
| Thy stature puffed and it swayed | B |
| It stiffened to royal erect | B |
| A brassy trumpet brayed | B |
| A whirling seized thy head | B |
| The vision of beauty was flecked | B |
| Note well the how and the when | D |
| The thing that prompted and sped | B |
| Thereanon the keen passions clapped wing | E |
| Fixed eye and the world was prey | B |
| No simple world of thy greenblade Spring | E |
| Nor world of thy flowerful prime | N |
| On the topmost Orient peak | E |
| Above a yet vaporous day | B |
| Flesh was it breast to beak | E |
| A four walled windowless world without ray | B |
| Only darkening jets on a river of slime | N |
| Where harsh over music as woodland jay | B |
| A voice chants Woe to the weak | E |
| And along an insatiate feast | B |
| Women and men are one | D |
| In the cup transforming to beast | B |
| Magian worship they paid to their sun | D |
| Lord of the Purse Behold him climb | N |
| Stalked ever such figure of fun | D |
| For monarch in great grin pantomime | N |
| See now the heart dwindle the frame distend | B |
| The soul to its anchorite cavern retreat | B |
| From a life that reeks of the rotted end | B |
| While he is he pictureable replete | B |
| Gourd like swells of the rank of the soil | J |
| Hollow more hollow at core | G |
| And for him did the hundreds toil | J |
| Despised in the cold and heat | B |
| This image ridiculous bore | G |
| On their shoulders for morsels of meat | B |
| - | |
| Gross with the fumes of incense full | J |
| With parasites tickled with slaves begirt | B |
| He strutted a cock he bellowed a bull | J |
| He rolled him a dog in dirt | B |
| And dog bull cook was he fanged horned plumed | B |
| Original man as philosophers vouch | O |
| Carnivorous cannibal length long exhumed | B |
| Frightfully living and armed to devour | P |
| The primitive weapons of prey in his pouch | O |
| The bait the line and the hook | E |
| To feed on his fellows intent | B |
| God of the Danae shower | P |
| He had but to follow his bent | B |
| He battened on fowl not safely hutched | B |
| On sheep astray from the crook | E |
| A lure for the foolish in fold | B |
| To carrion turning what flesh he touched | B |
| And O the grace of his air | H |
| As he at the goblet sips | F |
| A centre of girdles loosed | B |
| With their grisly label Sold | B |
| Credulous hears the fidelity swear | H |
| Which has roving eyes over yielded lips | F |
| To morrow will fancy himself the seduced | B |
| The stuck in a treacherous slough | Q |
| Because of his faith in a purchased pair | H |
| False to a vinous vow | R |
| - | |
| In his glory of banquet strip him bare | H |
| And what is the creature we view | J |
| Our pursy Apollo Apollyon's tool | J |
| A small one still of the crew | J |
| By serpent Apollyon blest | B |
| His plea in apology blindfold Fool | J |
| A fool surcharged propelled unwarned | B |
| Not viler you hear him protest | B |
| Of a popular countenance not incorrect | B |
| But deeds are the picture in essence deeds | F |
| Paint him the hooved and homed | B |
| Despite the poor pother he pleads | F |
| And his look of a nation's elect | B |
| We have him our quarry confessed | B |
| And scan him the features inspect | B |
| Of that bestial multiform cry | S |
| Corroborate I O Samian Sage | T |
| The book of thy wisdom proved | B |
| On me its last hieroglyph page | T |
| Alive in the horned and hooved | B |
| Thou will he make reply | S |
| - | |
| Thus has the plenary purse | F |
| Done often to do will engage | T |
| Anew upon all of thy like or worse | F |
| And now is thy deepest regret | B |
| To be man clean rescued from beast | B |
| From the grip of the Sorcerer Gold | B |
| Celestially released | B |
| - | |
| But now from his cavernous hold | B |
| Free may thy soul be set | B |
| As a child of the Death and the Life to learn | D |
| Refreshed by some bodily sweat | B |
| The meaning of either in turn | D |
| What issue may come of the two | J |
| A morn beyond mornings beyond all reach | U |
| Of emotional arms at the stretch to enfold | B |
| A firmament passing our visible blue | J |
| To those having nought to reflect it 'tis nought | B |
| To those who are misty 'tis mist on the beach | U |
| From the billow withdrawing to those who see | F |
| Earth our mother in thought | B |
| Her spirit it is our key | F |
| - | |
| Ay the Life and the Death are her words to us here | V |
| Of one significance pricking the blind | B |
| This is thy gain now the surface is clear | W |
| To read with a soul in the mirror of mind | B |
| Is man's chief lesson Thou smilest I preach | U |
| Acid smiling m | X |
George Meredith
(1)
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About The Empty Purse--a Sermon To Our Later Prodigal Son
The Empty Purse--a Sermon To Our Later Prodigal Son is a poem by George Meredith. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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