Palingenesis Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABBACC DEEDFF BGGGHH IJJJKK JGGJGG JLLJMM NHHNOO JNNJGG JPPJNN JNNJJJ NOONQH| I lay upon the headland height and listened | A |
| To the incessant sobbing of the sea | B |
| In caverns under me | B |
| And watched the waves that tossed and fled and glistened | A |
| Until the rolling meadows of amethyst | C |
| Melted away in mist | C |
| - | |
| Then suddenly as one from sleep I started | D |
| For round about me all the sunny capes | E |
| Seemed peopled with the shapes | E |
| Of those whom I had known in days departed | D |
| Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams | F |
| On faces seen in dreams | F |
| - | |
| A moment only and the light and glory | B |
| Faded away and the disconsolate shore | G |
| Stood lonely as before | G |
| And the wild roses of the promontory | G |
| Around me shuddered in the wind and shed | H |
| Their petals of pale red | H |
| - | |
| There was an old belief that in the embers | I |
| Of all things their primordial form exists | J |
| And cunning alchemists | J |
| Could re create the rose with all its members | J |
| From its own ashes but without the bloom | K |
| Without the lost perfume | K |
| - | |
| Ah me what wonder working occult science | J |
| Can from the ashes in our hearts once more | G |
| The rose of youth restore | G |
| What craft of alchemy can bid defiance | J |
| To time and change and for a single hour | G |
| Renew this phantom flower | G |
| - | |
| O give me back I cried the vanished splendors | J |
| The breath of morn and the exultant strife | L |
| When the swift stream of life | L |
| Bounds o'er its rocky channel and surrenders | J |
| The pond with all its lilies for the leap | M |
| Into the unknown deep | M |
| - | |
| And the sea answered with a lamentation | N |
| Like some old prophet wailing and it said | H |
| Alas thy youth is dead | H |
| It breathes no more its heart has no pulsation | N |
| In the dark places with the dead of old | O |
| It lies forever cold | O |
| - | |
| Then said I From its consecrated cerements | J |
| I will not drag this sacred dust again | N |
| Only to give me pain | N |
| But still remembering all the lost endearments | J |
| Go on my way like one who looks before | G |
| And turns to weep no more | G |
| - | |
| Into what land of harvests what plantations | J |
| Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow | P |
| Of sunsets burning low | P |
| Beneath what midnight skies whose constellations | J |
| Light up the spacious avenues between | N |
| This world and the unseen | N |
| - | |
| Amid what friendly greetings and caresses | J |
| What households though not alien yet not mine | N |
| What bowers of rest divine | N |
| To what temptations in lone wildernesses | J |
| What famine of the heart what pain and loss | J |
| The bearing of what cross | J |
| - | |
| I do not know nor will I vainly question | N |
| Those pages of the mystic book which hold | O |
| The story still untold | O |
| But without rash conjecture or suggestion | N |
| Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed | Q |
| Until The End I read | H |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1)
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Palingenesis is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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