To The Comic Spirit Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDBCABEFGFEGHEIJHI JKIJKLHLHKMNHMOPHONM PQNPQRMHRSHS MSTRHTHUVUWVWVHUHHHH UVXHXHVHYHXZYHA2B2A2 ZHB2HZA2Z HZHHB2HHHB2SHC2HHB2H HHHD2HD2HE2HIHIE2F2H E2E2F2ZHE2ZG2E2ZG2HH HZH2ZI2HF2J2ZJ2E2ZF2 E2E2H2K2H2E2E2L2M2K2 N2E2M2E2ZO2ZO2E2E2E2 N2M2N2E2E2E2HE2HE2ZE 2E2N2HZHP2N2HHP2N2ZH HSword of Common Sense | A |
Our surest gift the sacred chain | B |
Of man to man firm earth for trust | C |
In structures vowed to permanence | D |
Thou guardian issue of the harvest brain | B |
Implacable perforce of just | C |
With that good treasure in defence | A |
Which is our gold crushed out of joy and pain | B |
Since first men planted foot and hand was king | E |
Bright nimble of the marrow nerve | F |
To wield thy double edge retort | G |
Or hold the deadlier reserve | F |
And through thy victim's weapon sting | E |
Thine is the service thine the sport | G |
This shifty heart of ours to hunt | H |
Across its webs and round the many a ring | E |
Where fox it is or snake or mingled seeds | I |
Occasion heats to shape or the poor smoke | J |
Struck from a puff ball or the troughster's grunt | H |
Once lion of our desert's trodden weeds | I |
And but for thy straight finger at the yoke | J |
Again to be the lordly paw | K |
Naming his appetites his needs | I |
Behind a decorative cloak | J |
Thou of the highest the unwritten Law | K |
We read upon that building's architrave | L |
In the mind's firmament by men upraised | H |
With sweat of blood when they had quitted cave | L |
For fellowship and rearward looked amazed | H |
Where the prime motive gapes a lurid jaw | K |
Thou soul of wakened heads art armed to warn | M |
Restrain lest we backslide on whence we sprang | N |
Scarce better than our dwarf beginning shoot | H |
Of every gathered pearl and blossom shorn | M |
Through thee in novel wiles to win disguise | O |
Seen are the pits of the disruptor seen | P |
His rebel agitation at our root | H |
Thou hast him out of hawking eyes | O |
Nor ever morning of the clang | N |
Young Echo sped on hill from horn | M |
In forest blown when scent was keen | P |
Off earthy dews besprinkling blades | Q |
Of covert grass more merrily rang | N |
The yelp of chase down alleys green | P |
Forth of the headlong pouring glades | Q |
Over the dappled fallows wild away | R |
Than thy fine unaccented scorn | M |
At sight of man's old secret brute | H |
Devout for pasture on his prey | R |
Advancing yawning to devour | S |
With step of deer with voice of flute | H |
Haply with visage of the lily flower | S |
- | |
Let the cock crow and ruddy morn | M |
His handmaiden appear Youth claims his hour | S |
The generously ludicrous | T |
Espouses it But see we sons of day | R |
Off whom Life leans for guidance in our fight | H |
Accept the throb for lord of us | T |
For lord for the main central light | H |
That gives direction not the eclipse | U |
Or dost thou look where niggard Age | V |
Demanding reverence for wrinkles whips | U |
A tumbled top to grind a wolf's worn tooth | W |
Hoar despot on our final stage | V |
In dotage of a stunted Youth | W |
Or it may be some venerable sage | V |
Not having thee awake in him compact | H |
Of wisdom else the breast's old tempter trips | U |
Or see we ceremonial state | H |
Robing the gilded beast exact | H |
Abjection while the crackskull name of Fate | H |
Is used to stamp and hallow printed fact | H |
A cruel corner lengthens up thy lips | U |
These are thy game wherever men engage | V |
These and majestic in a borrowed shape | X |
The major and the minor potentate | H |
Creative of their various ape | X |
The tiptoe mortals triumphing to write | H |
Upon a perishable page | V |
An inch above their fellows' height | H |
The criers of foregone wisdom who impose | Y |
Its slough on live conditions much for the greed | H |
Of our first hungry figure wide agape | X |
Call up thy hounds of laughter to their run | Z |
These that would have men still of men be foes | Y |
Eternal fox to prowl and pike to feed | H |
Would keep our life the whirly pool | A2 |
Of turbid stuff dishonouring History | B2 |
The herd the drover's herd the fool the fool | A2 |
Ourself our slavish self's infernal sun | Z |
These are the children of the heart untaught | H |
By thy quick founts to beat abroad by thee | B2 |
Untamed to tone its passions under thought | H |
The rich humaneness reading in thy fun | Z |
Of them a world of coltish heels for school | A2 |
We have a world with driving wrecks bestrewn | Z |
- | |
'Tis written of the Gods of human mould | H |
Those Nectar Gods of glorious stature hewn | Z |
To quicken hymns that they did hear incensed | H |
Satiric comments overbold | H |
From one whose part was by decree | B2 |
The jester's but they boiled to feel him bite | H |
Better for them had they with Reason fenced | H |
Or smiled corrected They in the great Gods' might | H |
Their prober crushed as fingers flea | B2 |
Crumbled Olympus when the sovereign sire | S |
His fatal kick to Momus gave albeit | H |
Men could behold the sacred Mount aspire | C2 |
The Satirist pass by on limping feet | H |
Those Gods who saw the ejected laugh alight | H |
Below had then their last of airy glee | B2 |
They in the cup sought Laughter's drowned sprite | H |
Fed to dire fatness off uncurbed conceit | H |
Eyes under saw them waddle on their Mount | H |
And drew them down to flattest earth they rolled | H |
This know we veritable O Sage of Mirth | D2 |
Can it be true the story men recount | H |
Of the fall'n plight of the great Gods on earth | D2 |
How they being deathless though of human mould | H |
With human cravings undecaying frames | E2 |
Must labour for subsistence are a band | H |
Whom a loose cheeked wide lipped gay cripple leads | I |
At haunts of holiday on summer sand | H |
And lightly he will hint to one that heeds | I |
Names in pained designation of them names | E2 |
Ensphered on blue skies and on black which twirl | F2 |
Our hearing madly from our seeing dazed | H |
Add Bacchus unto both and he entreats | E2 |
His baby dimples in maternal chaps | E2 |
Running wild labyrinths of line and curl | F2 |
Compassion for his masterful Trombone | Z |
Whose thunder is the brass of how he blazed | H |
Of old for him of the mountain muscle feats | E2 |
Who guts a drum to fetch a snappish groan | Z |
For his fierce bugler horning onset whom | G2 |
A truncheon battered helmet caps | E2 |
The creature is of earnest mien | Z |
To plead a sorrow darker than the tomb | G2 |
His Harp and Triangle in tone subdued | H |
He names they are a rayless red and white | H |
The dawn hued libertine the gibbous prude | H |
And if we recognize his Tambourine | Z |
He asks exhausted names her she has become | H2 |
A globe in cupolas the blowziest queen | Z |
Of overflowing dome on dome | I2 |
Redundancy contending with the tight | H |
Leaping the dam He fondly calls his girl | F2 |
The buxom tripper with the goblet smile | J2 |
Refreshful O but now his brows are dun | Z |
Bunched are his lips as when distilling guile | J2 |
To drop his venomous the Dame of dames | E2 |
Flower of the world that honey one | Z |
She of the earthly rose in the sea pearl | F2 |
To whom the world ran ocean for her kiss | E2 |
He names her as a worshipper he names | E2 |
And indicates with a contemptuous thumb | H2 |
The lady meanwhile lures the mob alike | K2 |
Ogles the bursters of the horn and drum | H2 |
Curtain her close her open arms | E2 |
Have suckers for beholders she to this | E2 |
For that she could not save in fury hear | L2 |
A sharp corrective utterance flick | M2 |
Her idle manners for the laugh to strike | K2 |
Beauty so breeding beauty without peer | N2 |
Above the snows among the flowers She reaps | E2 |
This mouldy garner of the fatal kick | M2 |
Gross with the sacrifice of Circe swarms | E2 |
Astarte of vile sweets that slay malign | Z |
From Greek resplendent to Phoenician foul | O2 |
The trader in attractions sinks all brine | Z |
To thoughts of taste is 't love bark dog hoot owl | O2 |
And she is blushless ancient worship weeps | E2 |
Suicide Graces dangle down the charms | E2 |
Sprawling like gourds on outer garden heaps | E2 |
She stands in her unholy oily leer | N2 |
A statue losing feature weather sick | M2 |
Mid draggled creepers of twined ivy sere | N2 |
The curtain cried for magnifies to see | E2 |
We cannot quench our one corrupting glance | E2 |
The vision of the rumour will not flee | E2 |
Doth the Boy own such Mother shoot his dart | H |
To bring her countless as the crested deeps | E2 |
Her subjects of the uncorrected heart | H |
False is that vision shrieks the devotee | E2 |
Incredible we echo and anew | Z |
Like a far growling lightning cloud it leaps | E2 |
Low humourist this leader seems perchance | E2 |
Pitched from his University career | N2 |
Adept at classic fooling Yet of mould | H |
Human those Gods were deathless too | Z |
On high they not as meditatives paced | H |
Prodigiously they did the deeds of flesh | P2 |
Descending they would touch the lowest here | N2 |
And she that lighted form of blue and gold | H |
Whom the seas gave all earth all earth embraced | H |
Exulting in the great hauls of her mesh | P2 |
Desired and hated desperately dear | N2 |
Most human of them was No more pursue | Z |
Enough that the black story can be told | H |
It | H |
George Meredith
(1)
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