The Antiquarian Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCCB DEFGGF HHIJKI FFLMML NNFOPF QQRFFR FFSFFS FFTFFT UUVHHV WWFAAF XXKMMK YYZA2A2B2 YYHC2C2H BBHD2D2H E2E2HFFH FFFWWF F2F2CCCC HHWG2G2WMillions have been and passed from view | A |
Benignity who never knew | A |
No aspiration theirs nor aim | B |
Existence soulless as the clay | C |
From whence they sprang what right have they | C |
To eulogy or fame | B |
- | |
So multitudes have been forgot | D |
But drones or dunces good for naught | E |
Like clinging parasites or burrs | F |
Taking from others all they dared | G |
Yet little they for others cared | G |
Except as pilferers | F |
- | |
Not so with that majestic man | H |
The all round antiquarian | H |
No model his nor parallel | I |
From selfishness inviolate | J |
Are his achievements good and great | K |
And thus shall ages tell | I |
- | |
A love for the antiquities | F |
His honest hold his birthright is | F |
And things unheard of or unread | L |
Defaced by moth or rust or mold | M |
To him are treasures more than gold | M |
Ay than his daily bread | L |
- | |
At neither ghost nor ghoul aghast | N |
He echoes voices of the past | N |
And tones like melancholy knells | F |
Of years departed to his ear | O |
Are sweeter than of kindred dear | P |
Sweeter than Florimel's | F |
- | |
He delves through centuries of dust | Q |
To resurrect some unknown bust | Q |
A torso or a goddess whole | R |
Maybe like Venus minus arms | F |
Haply to find those missing charms | F |
But not the lost lost soul | R |
- | |
He dotes on aborigines | F |
Who lived in caves and hollow trees | F |
And barters for their trinkets rare | S |
Exchanging with those dusky breeds | F |
For arrow heads and shells and beads | F |
A scalplock of his hair | S |
- | |
Had he been born thus he laments | F |
Along with other great events | F |
Coeval say with Noah's flood | T |
A proud relationship to trace | F |
With Hittites or with any race | F |
Of blue archaic blood | T |
- | |
Much he adores that Pilgrim flock | U |
The same that split old Plymouth rock | U |
Their Bay Psalm when they tried to sing | V |
Devoid of metre sense and tune | H |
Who but a Puritanic loon | H |
Could have devised the thing | V |
- | |
He revels in a pedigree | W |
The sprouting of a noble tree | W |
'Way back in prehistoric times | F |
And for the Family Record true | A |
Of scions all that ever grew | A |
Would give a billion dimes | F |
- | |
There is a language fossils speak | X |
'Tis not like Latin much less Greek | X |
But quite as dead and antiquate | K |
Its silent syllables and cold | M |
But ah what meanings they unfold | M |
What histories relate | K |
- | |
The earthquake is his best ally | Y |
It shows up things he cannot buy | Y |
And gives him raw material | Z |
For making mastodons and such | A2 |
Enough to beat that ancient Dutch | A2 |
Republic's Rise and Fall | B2 |
- | |
A piece of bone can never lie | Y |
A rib a femur or a thigh | Y |
Is but a dislocated sign | H |
Of something hybrid half and half | C2 |
Betwixt a crocodile and calf | C2 |
Maybe a porcupine | H |
- | |
The stately Antiquarium | B |
Is his emporium his home | B |
He wonders if when he is gone | H |
Will people look with mournful pride | D2 |
On him done up and classified | D2 |
And the right label on | H |
- | |
He dreams of an emblazoned page | E2 |
The calendar of every age | E2 |
Down from Creation's primal dawn | H |
With archetypes of spears and bones | F |
And tons of undeciphered stones | F |
Its illustrations drawn | H |
- | |
Labor a blessing not a curse | F |
His hunting ground the Universe | F |
So much the more his nature craves | F |
To sound the fathoms of the sea | W |
What mighty wonders there must be | W |
Down in those hidden caves | F |
- | |
So toils this dauntless man alert | F2 |
Amid the ruins and the dirt | F2 |
That other men to endless day | C |
Themselves uplifted from the clod | C |
May see and learn and know that God | C |
Is greater far than they | C |
- | |
And thus of mighty ken and plan | H |
The all round antiquarian | H |
Pursues his happy ministry | W |
And on the world's progressive track | G2 |
Advances always going back | G2 |
Back to antiquity | W |
Hattie Howard
(1)
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