The Ladder Of St. Augustine Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GHGH IJIJ KLKL MNMN OPOP MQMQ RSRS MQMT ULUL| Saint Augustine well hast thou said | A |
| That of our vices we can frame | B |
| A ladder if we will but tread | A |
| Beneath our feet each deed of shame | B |
| - | |
| All common things each day's events | C |
| That with the hour begin and end | D |
| Our pleasures and our discontents | C |
| Are rounds by which we may ascend | D |
| - | |
| The low desire the base design | E |
| That makes another's virtues less | F |
| The revel of the ruddy wine | E |
| And all occasions of excess | F |
| - | |
| The longing for ignoble things | G |
| The strife for triumph more than truth | H |
| The hardening of the heart that brings | G |
| Irreverence for the dreams of youth | H |
| - | |
| All thoughts of ill all evil deeds | I |
| That have their root in thoughts of ill | J |
| Whatever hinders or impedes | I |
| The action of the nobler will | J |
| - | |
| All these must first be trampled down | K |
| Beneath our feet if we would gain | L |
| In the bright fields of fair renown | K |
| The right of eminent domain | L |
| - | |
| We have not wings we cannot soar | M |
| But we have feet to scale and climb | N |
| By slow degrees by more and more | M |
| The cloudy summits of our time | N |
| - | |
| The mighty pyramids of stone | O |
| That wedge like cleave the desert airs | P |
| When nearer seen and better known | O |
| Are but gigantic flights of stairs | P |
| - | |
| The distant mountains that uprear | M |
| Their solid bastions to the skies | Q |
| Are crossed by pathways that appear | M |
| As we to higher levels rise | Q |
| - | |
| The heights by great men reached and kept | R |
| Were not attained by sudden flight | S |
| But they while their companions slept | R |
| Were toiling upward in the night | S |
| - | |
| Standing on what too long we bore | M |
| With shoulders bent and downcast eyes | Q |
| We may discern unseen before | M |
| A path to higher destinies | T |
| - | |
| Nor doom the irrevocable Past | U |
| As wholly wasted wholly vain | L |
| If rising on its wrecks at last | U |
| To something nobler we attain | L |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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