Insomnia Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AA BCBCDDEFFE GHGHIIJKKJ LALAJJMBBM JNJNCCOBBP QJQJRRSLLS TUTUJJJVVJ WAWAJJLLLXL YLZLJJLA2A2L B2C2B2C2 JNJJN A2QA2QLLA2A2A2 FVFVKKC2JJC2 A2JA2JD2D2JQQJ LLLLA2A2A2A2A2A2 C2E2C2E2JJLVVL CJCJVVJLLJ QLQLJJLA2A2L F2A2F2A2A2A2C2C2

Sleepless himself to give to others sleepA
He giveth His beloved sleepA
-
I HEARD the sounding of the midnight hourB
The others one by one had left the roomC
In calm assurance that the gracious powerB
Of Sleep's fine alchemy would bless the gloomC
Transmuting all its leaden weight to goldD
To treasures of rich virtues manifoldD
New strength new health new lifeE
Just weary enough to nestle softly sweetlyF
Into divine unconsciousness completelyF
Delivered from the world of toil and care and strifeE
-
Just weary enough to feel assured of restG
Of Sleep's divine oblivion and reposeH
Renewing heart and brain for richer zestG
Of waking life when golden morning glowsH
As young and pure and glad as if the firstI
That ever on the void of darkness burstI
With ravishing warmth and lightJ
On dewy grass and flowers and blithe birds singingK
And shining waters all enraptured springingK
Fragrance and shine and song out of the womb of nightJ
-
But I with infinite weariness outwornL
Haggard with endless nights unblessed by sleepA
Ravaged by thoughts unutterably forlornL
Plunged in despairs unfathomably deepA
Went cold and pale and trembling with affrightJ
Into the desert vastitude of NightJ
Arid and wild and blackM
Foreboding no oasis of sweet slumberB
Counting beforehand all the countless numberB
Of sands that are its minutes on my desolate trackM
-
And so I went the last to my drear bedJ
Aghast as one who should go down to lieN
Among the blissfully unconscious deadJ
Assured that as the endless years flowed byN
Over the dreadful silence and deep gloomC
And dense oppression of the stifling tombC
He only of them allO
Nerveless and impotent to madness neverB
Could hope oblivion's perfect trance for everB
An agony of life eternal in death's pallP
-
But that would be for ever without cureQ
And yet the agony be not more greatJ
Supreme fatigue and pain while they endureQ
Into Eternity their time translateJ
Be it of hours and days or countless yearsR
And boundless aeons it alike appearsR
To the crushed victim's soulS
Utter despair foresees no terminationL
But feels itself of infinite durationL
The smallest fragment instant comprehends the wholeS
-
The absolute of torture as of blissT
Is timeless each transcending time and spaceU
The one an infinite obscure abyssT
The other an eternal Heaven of graceU
Keeping a little lamp of glimmering lightJ
Companion through the horror of the nightJ
I laid me down aghastJ
As he of all who pass death's quiet portalV
Malignantly reserved alone immortalV
In consciousness of bale that must for ever lastJ
-
I laid me down and closed my heavy eyesW
As if sleep's mockery might win true sleepA
And grew aware with awe but not surpriseW
Blindly aware through all the silence deepA
Of some dark Presence watching by my bedJ
The awful image of a nameless dreadJ
But I lay still fordoneL
And felt its Shadow on me dark and solemnL
And steadfast as a monumental columnL
And thought drear thoughts of Doom and heard the bells chimeX
OneL
-
And then I raised my weary eyes and sawY
By some slant moonlight on the ceiling thrownL
And faint lamp gleam that Image of my aweZ
Still as a pillar of basaltic stoneL
But all enveloped in a sombre shroudJ
Except the wan face drooping heavy browedJ
With sad eyes fixed on mineL
Sad weary yearning eyes but fixed remorselessA2
Upon my eyes yet wearier that were forcelessA2
To bear the cruel pressure cruel unmalignL
-
Wherefore I asked for what I knew too wellB2
ominous midnight Presence What art ThouC2
Whereto in tones that sounded like a knellB2
'I am the Second Hour appointed nowC2
To watch beside thy slumberless unrest '-
Then I Thus both unlike alike unblestJ
For I should sleep you flyN
Are not those wings beneath thy mantle mouldedJ
Hour unfold those wings so straitly foldedJ
And urge thy natural flight beneath the moonlit skyN
-
'My wings shall open when your eyes shall closeA2
In real slumber from this waking drearQ
Your wild unrest is my enforced reposeA2
Ere I move hence you must not know me hereQ
Could not your wings fan slumber through my brainL
Soothing away its weariness and painL
'Your Sleep must stir my wingsA2
Sleep and I bear you gently on my pinionsA2
Athwart my span of hollow night's dominionsA2
Whence hour on hour shall bear to morning's golden springs '-
-
That which I ask of you you ask of meF
weary Hour thus standing sentinelV
Against your nature as I feel and seeF
Against my own your form immovableV
Could I bring Sleep to set you on the wingK
What other thing so gladly would I bringK
Truly the Poet saithC2
If that is best whose absence we deplore mostJ
Whose presence in our longings is the foremostJ
What blessings equal Sleep save only love and deathC2
-
I let my lids fall sick of thought and senseA2
But felt that Shadow heavy on my heartJ
And saw the night before me an immenseA2
Black waste of ridge walls hour by hour apartJ
Dividing deep ravines from ridge to ridgeD2
Sleep's flying hour was an aerial bridgeD2
But I whose hours stood fastJ
Must climb down painfully each steep side hitherQ
And climb more painfully each steep side thitherQ
And so make one hour's span for years of travail lastJ
-
Thus I went down into that first ravineL
Wearily slowly blindly and aloneL
Staggering stumbling sinking depths unseenL
Shaken and bruised and gashed by stub and stoneL
And at the bottom paven with slipperinessA2
A torrent brook rushed headlong with such stressA2
Against my feeble limbsA2
Such fury of wave and foam and icy bleaknessA2
Buffeting insupportably my weaknessA2
That when I would recall dazed memory swirls and swimsA2
-
How I got through I know not faint as deathC2
And then I had to climb the awful scarpE2
Creeping with many a pause for panting breathC2
Clinging to tangled root and rock jut sharpE2
Perspiring with faint chills instead of heatJ
Trembling and bleeding hands and knees and feetJ
Falling to rise anewL
Until with lamentable toil and travelV
Upon the ridge of and sand and gravelV
I lay supine half dead and heard the bells chime TwoL
-
And knew a change of Watchers in the roomC
Without a stir or sound beside my bedJ
Only the tingling silence of the gloomC
The muffled pulsing of the night's deep dreadJ
And felt an Image mightier to appalV
And looked the moonlight on the bed foot wallV
And corniced ceiling whiteJ
Was slanting now and in the midst stood solemnL
And hopeless as a black sepulchral columnL
A steadfast shrouded Form the Third Hour of the nightJ
-
The fixed regard implacably austereQ
Yet none the less ineffably forlornL
Something transcending all my former fearQ
Came jarring through my shattered frame outwornL
I knew that crushing rock could not be stirredJ
I had no heart to say a single wordJ
But closed my eyes againL
And set me shuddering to the task stupendousA2
Of climbing down and up that gulf tremendousA2
Unto the next hour ridge beyond hope's farthest kenL
-
Men sigh and plain and wail how life is briefF2
Ah yes our bright eternities of blissA2
Are transient rare minute beyond beliefF2
Mere star dust meteors in Time's Night abyssA2
Ah no our black eternities intenseA2
Of bale are lasting dominant immenseA2
As Time which is their breathC2
TheC2

James Thomson



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