Orlie Wilde Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABB CDCDD CCEE CFCGCCGGFFCCHH EEBBIICCJJ GGKKLLKMNNMCCCCCOPQC ORRCCSSCCBB PPCCTTUVW L XFFXXCCLLYYZZA2 CCCCB2LB2LL BC2C2BUD2CLLCCCCCC LLLL E2BKKCCE2E2B2B2KKTTW WF2F2CCCG2G2E2E2CCH2 KCCKKHHCC KKI2I2KKKKKK KKJ2J2BB CCCCE2CKKKKK2K2 KKK2KKKKB2B2KKC2CCC2A goddess with a siren's grace | A |
A sun haired girl on a craggy place | A |
Above a bay where fish boats lay | B |
Drifting about like birds of prey | B |
- | |
Wrought was she of a painter's dream | C |
Wise only as are artists wise | D |
My artist friend Rolf Herschkelhiem | C |
With deep sad eyes of oversize | D |
And face of melancholy guise | D |
- | |
I pressed him that he tell to me | C |
This masterpiece's history | C |
He turned REturned and thus beguiled | E |
Me with the tale of Orlie Wilde | E |
- | |
We artists live ideally | C |
We breed our firmest facts of air | F |
We make our own reality | C |
We dream a thing and it is so | G |
The fairest scenes we ever see | C |
Are mirages of memory | C |
The sweetest thoughts we ever know | G |
We plagiarize from Long Ago | G |
And as the girl on canvas there | F |
Is marvelously rare and fair | F |
'Tis only inasmuch as she | C |
Is dumb and may not speak to me | C |
He tapped me with his mahlstick then | H |
The picture and went on again | H |
- | |
Orlie Wilde the fisher's child | E |
I see her yet as fair and mild | E |
As ever nursling summer day | B |
Dreamed on the bosom of the bay | B |
For I was twenty then and went | I |
Alone and long haired all content | I |
With promises of sounding name | C |
And fantasies of future fame | C |
And thoughts that now my mind discards | J |
As editor a fledgling bard's | J |
- | |
At evening once I chanced to go | G |
With pencil and portfolio | G |
Adown the street of silver sand | K |
That winds beneath this craggy land | K |
To make a sketch of some old scurf | L |
Of driftage nosing through the surf | L |
A splintered mast with knarl and strand | K |
Of rigging rope and tattered threads | M |
Of flag and streamer and of sail | N |
That fluttered idly in the gale | N |
Or whipped themselves to sadder shreds | M |
The while I wrought half listlessly | C |
On my dismantled subject came | C |
A sea bird settling on the same | C |
With plaintive moan as though that he | C |
Had lost his mate upon the sea | C |
And with my melancholy trend | O |
It brought dim dreams half understood | P |
It wrought upon my morbid mood | Q |
I thought of my own voyagings | C |
That had no end that have no end | O |
And like the sea bird I made moan | R |
That I was loveless and alone | R |
And when at last with weary wings | C |
It went upon its wanderings | C |
With upturned face I watched its flight | S |
Until this picture met my sight | S |
A goddess with a siren's grace | C |
A sun haired girl on a craggy place | C |
Above a bay where fish boats lay | B |
Drifting about like birds of prey | B |
- | |
In airy poise she gazing stood | P |
A machless form of womanhood | P |
That brought a thought that if for me | C |
Such eyes had sought across the sea | C |
I could have swum the widest tide | T |
That ever mariner defied | T |
And at the shore could on have gone | U |
To that high crag she stood upon | V |
To there entreat and say 'My Sweet | W |
Behold thy servant at thy feet ' | - |
And to my soul I said 'Above | L |
There stands the idol of thy love ' | - |
- | |
In this rapt awed ecstatic state | X |
I gazed till lo I was aware | F |
A fisherman had joined her there | F |
A weary man with halting gait | X |
Who toiled beneath a basket's weight | X |
Her father as I guessed for she | C |
Had run to meet him gleefully | C |
And ta'en his burden to herself | L |
That perched upon her shoulder's shelf | L |
So lightly that she tripping neared | Y |
A jutting crag and disappeared | Y |
But she left the echo of a song | Z |
That thrills me yet and will as long | Z |
As I have being | A2 |
- | |
- | |
Evenings came | C |
And went but each the same the same | C |
She watched above and even so | C |
I stood there watching from below | C |
Till grown so bold at last I sung | B2 |
What matter now the theme thereof | L |
It brought an answer from her tongue | B2 |
Faint as the murmur of a dove | L |
Yet all the more the song of love | L |
- | |
I turned and looked upon the bay | B |
With palm to forehead eyes a blur | C2 |
In the sea's smile meant but for her | C2 |
I saw the fish boats far away | B |
In misty distance lightly drawn | U |
In chalk dots on the horizon | D2 |
Looked back at her long wistfully | C |
And pushing off an empty skiff | L |
I beckoned her to quit the cliff | L |
And yield me her rare company | C |
Upon a little pleasure cruise | C |
She stood as loathful to refuse | C |
To muse for full a moment's time | C |
Then answered back in pantomime | C |
'She feared some danger from the sea | C |
Were she discovered thus with me ' | - |
I motioned then to ask her if | L |
I might not join her on the cliff | L |
And back again with graceful wave | L |
Of lifted arm she anwer gave | L |
'She feared some danger from the sea ' | - |
- | |
Impatient piqued impetuous I | E2 |
Sprang in the boat and flung 'Good by' | B |
From pouted mouth with angry hand | K |
And madly pulled away from land | K |
With lusty stroke despite that she | C |
Held out her hands entreatingly | C |
And when far out with covert eye | E2 |
I shoreward glanced I saw her fly | E2 |
In reckless haste adown the crag | B2 |
Her hair a flutter like a flag | B2 |
Of gold that danced across the strand | K |
In little mists of silver sand | K |
All curious I pausing tried | T |
To fancy what it all implied | T |
When suddenly I found my feet | W |
Were wet and underneath the seat | W |
On which I sat I heard the sound | F2 |
Of gurgling waters and I found | F2 |
The boat aleak alarmingly | C |
I turned and looked upon the sea | C |
Whose every wave seemed mocking me | C |
I saw the fishers' sails once more | G2 |
In dimmer distance than before | G2 |
I saw the sea bird wheeling by | E2 |
With foolish wish that I could fly | E2 |
I thought of firm earth home and friends | C |
I thought of everything that tends | C |
To drive a man to frenzy and | H2 |
To wholly lose his own command | K |
I thought of all my waywardness | C |
Thought of a mother's deep distress | C |
Of youthful follies yet unpurged | K |
Sins as the seas about me surged | K |
Thought of the printer's ready pen | H |
To morrow drowning me again | H |
A million things without a name | C |
I thought of everything but Fame | C |
- | |
A memory yet is in my mind | K |
So keenly clear and sharp defined | K |
I picture every phase and line | I2 |
Of life and death and neither mine | I2 |
While some fair seraph golden haired | K |
Bends over me with white arms bared | K |
That strongly plait themselves about | K |
My drowning weight and lift me out | K |
With joy too great for words to state | K |
Or tongue to dare articulate | K |
- | |
And this seraphic ocean child | K |
And heroine was Orlie Wilde | K |
And thus it was I came to hear | J2 |
Her voice's music in my ear | J2 |
Ay thus it was Fate paved the way | B |
That I walk desolate to day | B |
- | |
The artist paused and bowed his face | C |
Within his palms a little space | C |
While reverently on his form | C |
I bent my gaze and marked a storm | C |
That shook his frame as wrathfully | E2 |
As some typhoon of agony | C |
And fraught with sobs the more profound | K |
For that peculiar laughing sound | K |
We hear when strong men weep I leant | K |
With warmest sympathy I bent | K |
To stroke with soothing hand his brow | K2 |
He murmuring Tis over now | K2 |
- | |
And shall I tie the silken thread | K |
Of my frail romance Yes I said | K |
He faintly smiled and then with brow | K2 |
In kneading palm as one in dread | K |
His tasseled cap pushed from his head | K |
'Her voice's music ' I repeat | K |
He said 'twas sweet O passing sweet | K |
Though she herself in uttering | B2 |
Its melody proved not the thing | B2 |
Of loveliness my dreams made meet | K |
For me there yearning at her feet | K |
Prone at her feet a worshiper | C2 |
For lo she spake a tongue moaned he | C |
Unknown to me unknown to me | C |
As mine to her as mine to her | C2 |
James Whitcomb Riley
(1)
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