The Beautiful City Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABACAD EFEFEGEG HIHIEHEH HJHJHKKK ELELAMAM NONOPEPE| The Beautiful City Forever | A |
| Its rapturous praises resound | B |
| We fain would behold it but never | A |
| A glimpse of its dory is found | B |
| We slacken our lips at the tender | A |
| White breasts of our mothers to hear | C |
| Of its marvellous beauty and splendor | A |
| We see but the gleam of a tear | D |
| - | |
| Yet never the story may tire us | E |
| First graven in symbols of stone | F |
| Rewritten on scrolls of papyrus | E |
| And parchment and scattered and blown | F |
| By the winds of the tongues of all nations | E |
| Like a litter of leaves wildly whirled | G |
| Down the rack of a hundred translations | E |
| From the earliest lisp of the world | G |
| - | |
| We compass the earth and the ocean | H |
| From the Orient's uttermost light | I |
| To where the last ripple in motion | H |
| Lips hem of the skirt of the night | I |
| But the Beautiful City evades us | E |
| No spire of it glints in the sun | H |
| No glad bannered battlement shades us | E |
| When all our Journey is done | H |
| - | |
| Where lies it We question and listen | H |
| We lean from the mountain or mast | J |
| And see but dull earth or the glisten | H |
| Of seas inconceivably vast | J |
| The dust of the one blurs our vision | H |
| The glare of the other our brain | K |
| Nor city nor island Elysian | K |
| In all of the land or the main | K |
| - | |
| We kneel in dim fanes where the thunders | E |
| Of organs tumultuous roll | L |
| And the longing heart listens and wonders | E |
| And the eyes look aloft from the soul | L |
| But the chanson grows fainter and fainter | A |
| Swoons wholly away and is dead | M |
| AND our eyes only reach where the painter | A |
| Has dabbled a saint overhead | M |
| - | |
| The Beautiful City O mortal | N |
| Fare hopefully on in thy quest | O |
| Pass down through the green grassy portal | N |
| That leads to the Valley of Rest | O |
| There first passed the One who in pity | P |
| Of all thy great yearning awaits | E |
| To point out The Beautiful City | P |
| And loosen the trump at the gates | E |
James Whitcomb Riley
(1)
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About The Beautiful City
The Beautiful City is a poem by James Whitcomb Riley. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.
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