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 RJ2RJ2

With reverent eyes and bowed uncovered headA
A son of sorrow kneels by fanes you knewB
But cannot say the words that should be saidA
To crowned and winged divinities like youB
-
The perfect speech of superhuman spheresC
Man has not heard since He of NazarethD
Slain for the sins of twice two thousand yearsC
Saw Godship gleaming through the gates of DeathE
-
And therefore he who in these latter daysF
Has lost a Father falling by the shrineG
Can only use the world s ephemeral phraseF
Not Lord the faultless language that is ThineG
-
But he Thy son upon whose shoulders shoneH
So long Elisha s gleaming garments mayI
Be pleased to hear a pleading human toneH
To sift the spirit of the words I sayI
-
O Master since the gentle Stenhouse diedJ
And left the void that none can ever fillK
One harp at least has sorrow thrown asideJ
Its strings all broken and its notes all stillK
-
Some lofty lord of music yet may findL
Its pulse of passion I can never touchM
The chords again my life has been too blindL
I ve sinned too long and suffered far too muchM
-
But you will listen to the voice althoughN
The harp is silent you who glorifiedJ
Your great sad gift of life because you knowN
How souls are tempted and how hearts are triedJ
-
O marvellous follower in the steps of ChristO
How pure your spirit must have been to seeP
That light beyond our best expression pricedO
The effluence of benignant DeityP
-
You saw it Father Let me think you didQ
Because I groping in the mists of DoubtR
Am sometimes fearful that God s face is hidQ
From all that none can read His riddle outR
-
A hope from lives like yours must everywhereS
Become like faith that blessing undefiledR
The refuge of the grey philosopherT
The consolation of the simple childR
-
Here in a land of many sects where GodR
As shaped by man in countless forms appearsC
Few comprehend how carefully you trodR
Without a slip for two and forty yearsC
-
How wonderful the self repression mustR
Have been that made you to the lovely closeU
The Christian crowned with universal trustR
The foe less Father in a land of foesV
-
How patiently with how divine a strengthW
Of tolerance you must have watched the fraysV
Of fighting churches warring through the lengthW
Of your bright beautiful unruffled daysV
-
Because men strove you did not love them lessV
You felt for each for everyone and allX
With that same apostolic tendernessV
Which Samuel felt when yearning over SaulX
-
A crowned hierophant a high Chief PriestR
On flame with robes of light you used to beP
But yet you were as humble as the leastR
Of those who followed Him of GalileeP
-
Mid splendid forms of faith which flower and fillK
God s oldest Church with gleams ineffableY
You stand Our Lord s serene disciple stillK
In all the blaze which on your pallium fellZ
-
The pomp of altars chasubles and firesV
Of incense moved you not nor yet the domeA2
Of haughty beauty follower of the SiresV
Who made a holiness of elder RomeA2
-
A lord of scholarship whose knowledge ranB2
Through every groove of human history youB
Were this and more a Christian gentlemanC2
A fount of learning with a heart like dewB
-
O Father I who at your feet have kneltR
On wings of singing fall and fail to singD2
Remembering the immense compassion feltR
By you for every form of sufferingD2
-
As dies a gentle April in a skyE2
Of faultless beauty after many daysV
Of loveliness and grand tranquillityR
So passed your presence from our human gazeV
-
But though your stately face is as the dustR
That windy hills to wintering hollows giveF2
Your memory like a deity augustR
Is with us still to teach us how to liveG2
-
Ah may it teach us may the lives that areH2
Take colour from the life that was and mayI
Those souls be helped that in the dark so farH2
Have strayed and have forgotten how to prayI
-
Let one of these at least retain the hopeI2
That fine examples like a blessed dewR
Of summer falling in a fruitful scopeI2
Give birth to issues beautiful and trueR
-
Such hope O Master is a light indeedR
To him that knows how hard it is to saveJ2
The spirit resting on no certain creedR
Who kneels to plant this blossom on your graveJ2

Henry Kendall



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