Mediëvalism Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH GIGC JKLK MNMN OKOK

If men should rise and return to the noise and time of the tourneyA
The name and fame of the tabard the tangle of gules and goldB
Would these things stand and suffice for the bourne of a backward journeyA
A light on our days returning as it was in the days of oldB
-
Nay there is none rides back to pick up a glove or a featherC
Though the gauntlet rang with honour or the plume was more than a crownD
And hushed is the holy trumpet that called the nations togetherC
And under the Horns of Hattin the hope of the world went downD
-
Ah not in remembrance stored but out of oblivion startingE
Because you have sought new homes and all that you sought is soF
Because you had trodden the fire and barred the door in departingE
Returns in your chosen exile the glory of long agoF
-
Not then when you barred the door not then when you trod the embersG
But now at your new road's end you have seen the face of a fateH
That not as a child looks back and not as a fool remembersG
All that men took too lightly and all that they love too lateH
-
It is you that have made no rubric for saints no raiment for loversG
Your caps that cry for a feather your roofs that sigh for a spireI
Is it a dream from the dead if your own decay discoversG
Alive in your rotting graveyard the worm of the world's desireC
-
Therefore the old trees tower that the green trees grow and are stuntedJ
Therefore these dead men mock you that you the living are deadK
Since ever you battered the saints and the tools of your crafts were bluntedL
Or shattered the glass in its glory and loaded yourselves with the leadK
-
When the usurer hunts the squire as the squire has hunted the peasantM
As sheep that are eaten of worms where men were eaten of sheepN
Now is the judgment of earth and the weighing of past and presentM
Who scorn to weep over ruins behold your ruin and weepN
-
Have ye not known ye fools that have made the present a prisonO
That thirst can remember water and hunger remember breadK
We went not gathering ghosts but the shriek of your shame is arisenO
Out of your own black Babel too loud and it woke the deadK

Gilbert Keith Chesterton



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