Nature, For Nature's Sake Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: ABCBAC BDBEFF GHGHII AAAAJJ IGIGKF IIIIII IKIKBB ILILII JAJAAA IMIMN OMOMPP KQKQRR SISITT UFUFII IAIAVV IIIISW BJBXX AYAZII IFIKI OA2OA2II SB2WB2BB AAAAKK QJQJAA ABABIJ LJLJAA BABAKK IGIGI

White as white butterflies that each one donsA
Her face their wide white wings to shade withalB
Many moon daisies throng the water springC
While couched in rising barley titlarks callB
And bees alit upon their martagonsA
Do hang a murmuring a murmuringC
-
They chide it may be alien tribes that flewB
And rifled their best blossom counted onD
And dreamed on in the hive ere dangerous dewB
That clogs bee wings had dried but when outshoneE
Long shafts of gold made all for them of powerF
To charm it away those thieves had sucked the flowerF
-
Now must they go a murmuring they goG
And little thrushes twitter in the nestH
The world is made for them and even soG
The clouds are they have seen no stars the breastH
Of their soft mother hid them all the nightI
Till her mate came to her in red dawn lightI
-
Eggs scribbled over with strange writing signsA
Prophecies and their meaning for you seeA
The yolk within is life 'neath yonder binesA
Lie among sedges on a hawthorn treeA
The slender lord and master perched hard byJ
Scolds at all comers if they step too nighJ
-
And our small river makes encompassmentI
Of half the mead and holm yon lime trees growG
All heeling over to it diligentI
To cast green doubles of themselves belowG
But shafts of sunshine reach its shallow floorK
And warm the yellow sand it ripples o'erF
-
Ripples and ripples to a pool it madeI
Turning The cows are there one creamy whiteI
She should be painted with no touch of shadeI
If any list to limn her she the lightI
Above about her treads out circles wideI
And sparkling water flashes from her sideI
-
The clouds have all retired to so great heightI
As earth could have no dealing with them moreK
As they were lost for all her drawing and mightI
And must be left behind but down the shoreK
Lie lovelier clouds in ranks of lace work frailB
Wild parsley with a myriad florets paleB
-
Another milky way more intricateI
And multitudinous with every starL
Perfect Long changeful sunbeams undulateI
Amid the stems where sparklike creatures areL
That hover and hum for gladness then the lastI
Tree rears her graceful head the shade is passedI
-
And idle fish in warm wellbeing lieJ
Each with his shadow under while at easeA
As clouds that keep their shape the darting fryJ
Turn and are gone in company o'er theseA
Strangers to them strangers to us from holesA
Scooped in the bank peer out shy water volesA
-
Here take for life and fly with innocent feetI
The brown eyed fawns from moving shadows clearM
There down the lane with multitudinous bleatI
Plaining on shepherd lads a flock draws nearM
A mild lamenting fills the morning airN
'Why to yon upland fold must we needs fare '-
-
These might be fabulous creatures every oneO
And this their world might be some other sphereM
We had but heard of for all said or doneO
To know of them of what this many a yearM
They may have thought of man or of his swayP
Or even if they have a God and prayP
-
The sweetest river bank can never moreK
Home to its source tempt back the lapsed streamQ
Nor memory reach the ante natal shoreK
Nor one awake behold a sleeper's dreamQ
Not easier 't were that unbridged chasm to walkR
And share the strange lore of their wordless talkR
-
Like to a poet voice remote from kenS
That unregarded sings and undesiredI
Like to a star unnamed by lips of menS
That faints at dawn in saffron light retiredI
Like to an echo in some desert deepT
From age to age unwakened from its sleepT
-
So falls unmarked that other world's great songU
And lapsing wastes without interpreterF
Slave world not man's to raise yet man's to wrongU
He cannot to a loftier place preferF
But he can all its earlier rights forgotI
Reign reckless if its nations rue their lotI
-
If they can sin or feel life's wear and fretI
An men had loved them better it may beA
We had discovered But who e'er did yetI
After the sage saints in their clemencyA
Ponder in hope they had a heaven to winV
Or make a prayer with a dove's name thereinV
-
As grave Augustine pleading in his dayI
'Have pity Lord upon the unfledged birdI
Lest such as pass do trample it in the wayI
Not marking or not minding give the wordI
O bid an angel in the nest againS
To place it lest the mother's love be vainW
-
And let it live Lord God till it can fly '-
This man dwelt yearning fain to guess to spellB
The parable all work of God Most HighJ
Took to his man's heart Surely this was wellB
To love is more than to be loved by leaveX
Of Heaven to give is more than to receiveX
-
He made it so that said it As for usA
Strange is their case toward us for they giveY
And we receive Made martyrs ever thusA
In deed but not in will for us they liveZ
For us they die we quench their little dayI
Remaining blameless and they pass awayI
-
The world is better served than it is ruledI
And not alone of them for everF
Ruleth the man the woman serveth fooledI
Full oft of love not knowing his yoke is soreK
Life's greatest Son nought from life's measure swervedI
He was among us 'as a man that served '-
-
Have they another life and was it wonO
In the sore travail of another deathA2
Which loosed the manacles from our race undoneO
And plucked the pang from dying If this breathA2
Be not their all reproach no more debarredI
'O unkind lords you made our bondage hard'I
-
May be their plaint when we shall meet againS
And make our peace with them the sea of lifeB2
Find flowing full nor ought or lost or vainW
Shall the vague hint whereof all thought is rifeB2
The sweet pathetic guess indeed come trueB
And things restored reach that great residueB
-
Shall we behold fair flights of phantom dovesA
Shall furred creatures couch in moly flowersA
Swan souls the rivers oar with their world lovesA
In difference welcome as these souls of oursA
Yet soul of man from soul of man far moreK
May differ even as thought did heretoforeK
-
That ranged and varied on th' undying gleamQ
From a pure breath of God aspiring highJ
Serving and reigning to the tender dreamQ
The winged Psyche and her butterflyJ
From thrones and powers to fresh from death alarmsA
Child spirits entering in an angel's armsA
-
Why must we think begun in paradiseA
That their long line cut off with severance fellB
Shall end in nothingness the sacrificeA
Of their long service in a passing knellB
Could man be wholly blest if not to sayI
'Forgive' nor make amends for ever and ayeJ
-
Waste waste on earth and waste of God afarL
Celestial flotsam blazing spars on highJ
Drifts in the meteor month from some wrecked starL
Strew oft th' unwrinkled ocean of the skyJ
And pass no more accounted of than beA
Long dulses limp that stripe a mundane seaA
-
The sun his kingdom fills with light but allB
Save where it strikes some planet and her moonsA
Across cold chartless gulfs ordained to fallB
Void antres reckoneth no man's nights or noonsA
But feeling forth as for some outmost shoreK
Faints in the blank of doom and is no moreK
-
God scattereth His abundance as forgotI
And what then doth he gather If we knowG
'Tis that One told us it was life 'For notI
A sparrow ' quoth he uttering long agoG
The strangest words that e'er took earthly soundI
'Without your Father falleth to the ground '-

Jean Ingelow



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Nature, For Nature's Sake is a poem by Jean Ingelow. This page includes the poem text, poet information, related topics, comments, and similar poems.



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