John Bede Polding Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCE FGFG HIHI JKJK LMLM NJNJ OPOP QRQR SRTR RCRC RURV WVWV VXVX RPRP KYKZ VA2VA2 B2BC2B RD2RD2 E2VRV RF2RG2 H2IH2I I2RI2R RJ2RJ2With reverent eyes and bowed uncovered head | A |
A son of sorrow kneels by fanes you knew | B |
But cannot say the words that should be said | A |
To crowned and winged divinities like you | B |
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The perfect speech of superhuman spheres | C |
Man has not heard since He of Nazareth | D |
Slain for the sins of twice two thousand years | C |
Saw Godship gleaming through the gates of Death | E |
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And therefore he who in these latter days | F |
Has lost a Father falling by the shrine | G |
Can only use the world s ephemeral phrase | F |
Not Lord the faultless language that is Thine | G |
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But he Thy son upon whose shoulders shone | H |
So long Elisha s gleaming garments may | I |
Be pleased to hear a pleading human tone | H |
To sift the spirit of the words I say | I |
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O Master since the gentle Stenhouse died | J |
And left the void that none can ever fill | K |
One harp at least has sorrow thrown aside | J |
Its strings all broken and its notes all still | K |
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Some lofty lord of music yet may find | L |
Its pulse of passion I can never touch | M |
The chords again my life has been too blind | L |
I ve sinned too long and suffered far too much | M |
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But you will listen to the voice although | N |
The harp is silent you who glorified | J |
Your great sad gift of life because you know | N |
How souls are tempted and how hearts are tried | J |
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O marvellous follower in the steps of Christ | O |
How pure your spirit must have been to see | P |
That light beyond our best expression priced | O |
The effluence of benignant Deity | P |
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You saw it Father Let me think you did | Q |
Because I groping in the mists of Doubt | R |
Am sometimes fearful that God s face is hid | Q |
From all that none can read His riddle out | R |
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A hope from lives like yours must everywhere | S |
Become like faith that blessing undefiled | R |
The refuge of the grey philosopher | T |
The consolation of the simple child | R |
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Here in a land of many sects where God | R |
As shaped by man in countless forms appears | C |
Few comprehend how carefully you trod | R |
Without a slip for two and forty years | C |
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How wonderful the self repression must | R |
Have been that made you to the lovely close | U |
The Christian crowned with universal trust | R |
The foe less Father in a land of foes | V |
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How patiently with how divine a strength | W |
Of tolerance you must have watched the frays | V |
Of fighting churches warring through the length | W |
Of your bright beautiful unruffled days | V |
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Because men strove you did not love them less | V |
You felt for each for everyone and all | X |
With that same apostolic tenderness | V |
Which Samuel felt when yearning over Saul | X |
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A crowned hierophant a high Chief Priest | R |
On flame with robes of light you used to be | P |
But yet you were as humble as the least | R |
Of those who followed Him of Galilee | P |
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Mid splendid forms of faith which flower and fill | K |
God s oldest Church with gleams ineffable | Y |
You stand Our Lord s serene disciple still | K |
In all the blaze which on your pallium fell | Z |
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The pomp of altars chasubles and fires | V |
Of incense moved you not nor yet the dome | A2 |
Of haughty beauty follower of the Sires | V |
Who made a holiness of elder Rome | A2 |
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A lord of scholarship whose knowledge ran | B2 |
Through every groove of human history you | B |
Were this and more a Christian gentleman | C2 |
A fount of learning with a heart like dew | B |
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O Father I who at your feet have knelt | R |
On wings of singing fall and fail to sing | D2 |
Remembering the immense compassion felt | R |
By you for every form of suffering | D2 |
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As dies a gentle April in a sky | E2 |
Of faultless beauty after many days | V |
Of loveliness and grand tranquillity | R |
So passed your presence from our human gaze | V |
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But though your stately face is as the dust | R |
That windy hills to wintering hollows give | F2 |
Your memory like a deity august | R |
Is with us still to teach us how to live | G2 |
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Ah may it teach us may the lives that are | H2 |
Take colour from the life that was and may | I |
Those souls be helped that in the dark so far | H2 |
Have strayed and have forgotten how to pray | I |
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Let one of these at least retain the hope | I2 |
That fine examples like a blessed dew | R |
Of summer falling in a fruitful scope | I2 |
Give birth to issues beautiful and true | R |
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Such hope O Master is a light indeed | R |
To him that knows how hard it is to save | J2 |
The spirit resting on no certain creed | R |
Who kneels to plant this blossom on your grave | J2 |
Henry Kendall
(1)
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