Youth In Memory Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AAAABCBC DDEFGGEHFDIHIGGD JJKLLKMNONOPMQJMJPJR STSRJMRJJUUJ JJVVJJJJ JWWJXXYGYGGGGZZA2A2B 2B2GGJGC2GC2JJJJYBD2 D2E2F2GG2G2F2GH2JH2J GGGJJGG I2I2J2J2H2K2H2K2L2GG L2JM2JYM2YGGJJ YGJH2YH2JJJN2JN2C2O2 C2O2H2GH2GH2O2GP2GO2 P2JP2Q2Q2JP2H2H2YYJE 2JE2JJJJJGJGGGJA2A2R 2R2S2T2S2T2H2

Days when the ball of our visionA
Had eagles that flew unabashed to sunA
When the grasp on the bow was decisionA
And arrow and hand and eye were oneA
When the Pleasures like waves to a swimmerB
Came heaving for rapture aheadC
Invoke them they dwindle they glimmerB
As lights over mounds of the deadC
-
Behold the winged Olympus off the meadD
With thunder of wide pinions lightning speedD
Wafting the shepherd boy through ether clearE
To bear the golden nectar cupF
So flies desire at view of its delightG
When the young heart is tiptoe perched on sightG
We meanwhile who in hues of the sick yearE
The Spring time paint to prick us for our lostH
Mount but the fatal half way upF
Whereon shut eyes This is decreedD
For Age that would to youthful heavens ascendI
By passion for the arms' possession tossedH
It falls the way of sighs and hath their endI
A spark gone out to more sepulchral nightG
Good if the arrowy eagle of the heightG
Be then the little bird that hops to feedD
-
Lame falls the cry to kindle daysJ
Of radiant orb and daring gazeJ
It does but clank our mortal chainK
For Earth reads through her felon oldL
The many numbered of her foldL
Who forward tottering backward strainK
And would be thieves of treasure spentM
With their grey season souredN
She could write out their history in their thirstO
To have again the much devouredN
And be the bud at burstO
In honey fancy join the flowP
Where Youth swims on as once they wentM
All choiric for spontaneous gleeQ
Of active eager lungs and thewsJ
They now bared roots beside the river bentM
Whose privilege themselves to seeJ
Their place in yonder tideway knowP
The current glass peruseJ
The depths intently soundR
And sapped by each returning floodS
Accept for monitory nourishmentT
Those worn roped features under crust of mudS
Reflected in the silvery smooth aroundR
Not less the branching and high singing treeJ
A home of nests a landmark and a tentM
Until their hour for losing hold on groundR
Even such good harvest of the things that fleeJ
Earth offers her subjected and they chooseJ
Rather of Bacchic Youth one beam to drinkU
And warm slow marrow with the sensual winkU
So block they at her source the Mother of the MuseJ
-
Who cheerfully the little bird becomesJ
Without a fall and pipes for peck at crumbsJ
May have her dolings to the lightest touchV
As where some cripple muses by his crutchV
Unwitting that the spirit in him singsJ
'When I had legs then had I wingsJ
As good as any born of eggsJ
To feed on all aerial thingsJ
When I had legs '-
And if not to embrace he sighsJ
She gives him breath of Youth awhileW
Perspective of a breezy mileW
Companionable hedgeways lifting skiesJ
Scenes where his nested dreams upon their hoardX
Brooded or up to empyrean soaredX
Enough to link him with a dotted lineY
But cravings for an eagle's flightG
To top white peaks and serve wild wineY
Among the rosy undecayedG
Bring only flash of shadeG
From her full throbbing breast of day in nightG
By what they crave are they betrayedG
And cavernous is that young dragon's jawZ
Crimson for all the fiery reptile sawZ
In time now coveted for teeth to flayA2
Once more consume were Life recurrent MayA2
They to their moment of drawn breathB2
Which is the life that makes the deathB2
The death that makes ethereal life would bindG
The death that breeds the spectre do they findG
Darkness is wedded and the waste regretsJ
Beating as dead leaves on a fitful gustG
By souls no longer dowered to climbC2
Beneath their pack of dustG
Whom envy of a lustrous primeC2
Eclipsed while yet invoked besetsJ
And dooms to sink and water sable flowersJ
That never gladdened eye or loaded beeJ
Strain we the arms for Memory's hoursJ
We are the seized PersephoneY
Responsive never to the soft desireB
For one prized tune is this our chord of lifeD2
'Tis clipped to deadness with a wanton knifeD2
In wishes that for ecstasies aspireE2
Yet have we glad companionship of YouthF2
Elysian meadows for the mindG
Dare we to face deeds done and in our tombG2
Filled with the parti coloured bloomG2
Of loved and hated grasp all human truthF2
Sowed by us down the mazy paths behindG
To feel that heaven must we that hell sound throughH2
Whence comes a line of continuityJ
That brings our middle station into viewH2
Between those poles a novel Earth we seeJ
In likeness of us made of banned and blestG
The sower's bed but not the reaper's restG
An Earth alive with meanings wherein meetG
Buried and breathing and to beJ
Then of the junction of the threeJ
Even as a heart in brain full sweetG
May sense of soul the sum of music beatG
-
Only the soul can walk the dusty trackI2
Where hangs our flowering under vapours blackI2
And bear to see how these pervade obscureJ2
Quench recollection of a spacious pureJ2
They take phantasmal forms divide convolveH2
Hard at each other point and gapeK2
Horrible ghosts in agony dissolveH2
To reappear with one they drapeK2
For criminal and Father shrieking nameL2
Who such distorted issue did begetG
Accept them them and him though hiss thy sweatG
Off brow on breast whose furnace flameL2
Has eaten and old Self consumesJ
Out of the purification will they leapM2
Thee renovating while new light illumesJ
The dusky web of evil known as painY
That heavily up healthward mounts the steepM2
Our fleshly road to beacon fire of brainY
Midway the tameless oceanic bruteG
Below whose heave is topped with foam for fruitG
And the fair heaven reflecting inner peaceJ
On righteous warfare that asks not to ceaseJ
-
Forth of such passage through black fire we winY
Clear hearing of the simple luteG
Whereon and not on other Memory playsJ
For them who can in quietness receiveH2
Her restorative airs a ditty thinY
As note of hedgerow bird in ear of eveH2
Or wave at ebb the shallow catching raysJ
On a transparent sheet where curves a glassJ
To truer heavens than when the breaker neighsJ
Loud at the plunge for bubbly wreck in roarN2
Solidity and bulk and martial brassJ
Once tyrants of the senses faintly scoreN2
A mark on pebbled sand or fluid slimeC2
While present in the spirit vital thereO2
Are things that seemed the phantoms of their timeC2
Eternal as the recurrent cloud as airO2
Imperative refreshful as dawn dewH2
Some evanescent hand on vapour scrawledG
Historic of the soul and heats anewH2
Its coloured lines where deeds of flesh stand baldG
True of the man and of mankind 'tis trueH2
Did we stout battle with the Shade DespairO2
Our cowardice it blooms or haply warredG
Against the primal beast in us and flungP2
Or cleaving mists of Sorrow left it starredG
Above self pity slain or it was PrayerO2
First taken for Life's cleanser or the tongueP2
Spake for the world against this heart or ringsJ
Old laughter from the founts of wisdom sprungP2
Or clap of wing of joy that was a throbQ2
From breast of Earth and did no creature robQ2
These quickening live But deepest at her springsJ
Most filial is an eye to love her youngP2
And had we it to see with it aliveH2
Is our lost garden flower bird and hiveH2
Blood of her blood aim of her aim are thenY
The green robed and grey crested sons of menY
She tributary to her aged restoresJ
The living in the dead she will inspireE2
Faith homelier than on the Yonder shoresJ
Abhorring these as mireE2
Uncertain steps in dimness gropesJ
With mortal tremours pricking hopesJ
And by the final Bacchic of the lustsJ
Propelled the Bacchic of the spirit trustsJ
A fervour drunk from mystic hierophantsJ
Not utterly misled though blindly ledG
Led round fermenting eddies Faith she plantsJ
In her own firmness as our midway roadG
Which rightly Youth has read though blindly readG
Her essence reading in her toothsome goadG
Spur of bright dreams experience disenchantsJ
But love we well the young her road midwayA2
The darknesses runs consecrated clayA2
Despite our feeble hold on this green homeR2
And the vast outer strangeness void of domeR2
Shall we be with them of them taught to feelS2
Up to the moment of our prostrate fallT2
The life they deem voluptuously realS2
Is more than empty echo of a callT2
Or shadow of a shade or swing ofH2

George Meredith



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