Prelude - The Wayside Inn - Part Third Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBDADD EAAEDADDDD FGGFF HIIHJJKKDDDD LDDDLL MMNOONNPQRPPRQ DDSSDTTTUU DVDQQVQQWMQQWXXHHQHQ DHDH DDDD YZA2A2YB2The evening came the golden vane | A |
A moment in the sunset glanced | B |
Then darkened and then gleamed again | C |
As from the east the moon advanced | B |
And touched it with a softer light | D |
While underneath with flowing mane | A |
Upon the sign the Red Horse pranced | D |
And galloped forth into the night | D |
- | |
But brighter than the afternoon | E |
That followed the dark day of rain | A |
And brighter than the golden vane | A |
That glistened in the rising moon | E |
Within the ruddy fire light gleamed | D |
And every separate window pane | A |
Backed by the outer darkness showed | D |
A mirror where the flamelets gleamed | D |
And flickered to and fro and seemed | D |
A bonfire lighted in the road | D |
- | |
Amid the hospitable glow | F |
Like an old actor on the stage | G |
With the uncertain voice of age | G |
The singing chimney chanted low | F |
The homely songs of long ago | F |
- | |
The voice that Ossian heard of yore | H |
When midnight winds were in his hall | I |
A ghostly and appealing call | I |
A sound of days that are no more | H |
And dark as Ossian sat the Jew | J |
And listened to the sound and knew | J |
The passing of the airy hosts | K |
The gray and misty cloud of ghosts | K |
In their interminable flight | D |
And listening muttered in his beard | D |
With accent indistinct and weird | D |
Who are ye children of the Night | D |
- | |
Beholding his mysterious face | L |
Tell me the gay Sicilian said | D |
Why was it that in breaking bread | D |
At supper you bent down your head | D |
And musing paused a little space | L |
As one who says a silent grace | L |
- | |
The Jew replied with solemn air | M |
I said the Manichaean's prayer | M |
It was his faith perhaps is mine | N |
That life in all its forms is one | O |
And that its secret conduits run | O |
Unseen but in unbroken line | N |
From the great fountain head divine | N |
Through man and beast through grain and grass | P |
Howe'er we struggle strive and cry | Q |
From death there can be no escape | R |
And no escape from life alas | P |
Because we cannot die but pass | P |
From one into another shape | R |
It is but into life we die | Q |
- | |
Therefore the Manichaean said | D |
This simple prayer on breaking bread | D |
Lest he with hasty hand or knife | S |
Might wound the incarcerated life | S |
The soul in things that we call dead | D |
'I did not reap thee did not bind thee | T |
I did not thrash thee did not grind thee | T |
Nor did I in the oven bake thee | T |
It was not I it was another | U |
Did these things unto thee O brother | U |
I only have thee hold thee break thee ' | - |
- | |
That birds have souls I can concede | D |
The poet cried with glowing cheeks | V |
The flocks that from their beds of reed | D |
Uprising north or southward fly | Q |
And flying write upon the sky | Q |
The biforked letter of the Greeks | V |
As hath been said by Rucellai | Q |
All birds that sing or chirp or cry | Q |
Even those migratory bands | W |
The minor poets of the air | M |
The plover peep and sanderling | Q |
That hardly can be said to sing | Q |
But pipe along the barren sands | W |
All these have souls akin to ours | X |
So hath the lovely race of flowers | X |
Thus much I grant but nothing more | H |
The rusty hinges of a door | H |
Are not alive because they creak | Q |
This chimney with its dreary roar | H |
These rattling windows do not speak | Q |
To me they speak the Jew replied | D |
And in the sounds that sink and soar | H |
I hear the voices of a tide | D |
That breaks upon an unknown shore | H |
- | |
Here the Sicilian interfered | D |
That was your dream then as you dozed | D |
A moment since with eyes half closed | D |
And murmured something in your beard | D |
- | |
The Hebrew smiled and answered Nay | Y |
Not that but something very near | Z |
Like and yet not the same may seem | A2 |
The vision of my waking dream | A2 |
Before it wholly dies away | Y |
Listen to me and you shall hear | B2 |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about Prelude - The Wayside Inn - Part Third poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Best Poems of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow