Star-gazing Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABAB CDED FGFG HIHI HJHJ HKHL IMI NONO PQPQ QQQQ IRIR PSPSLET be what is why should we strive and wrestle | A |
With awkward skill against a subtle doubt | B |
Or pin a mystery 'neath our puny pestle | A |
And vainly try to bray its secret out | B |
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What boots it me to gaze at other planets | C |
And speculate on sensate beings there | D |
It comforts not that since the moon began its | E |
Well ordered course it knew no breath of air | D |
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There may be men and women up in Venus | F |
Where science finds both summer green and snow | G |
But are we happier asking '' Have they seen us | F |
And like us earth men do they yearn to know | G |
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On greater globes than ours men may be greater | H |
For all things here in fair proportion run | I |
But will it make our poor cup any sweeter | H |
To think a nobler Shakespeare thrills the sun | I |
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Or that our sun is but itself a minor | H |
Like this dark earth a tenth rate satellite | J |
That swings submissive round an orb diviner | H |
Whose day is lightning with our day for night | J |
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Or past all suns to find the awful center | H |
Round which they meanly wind a servile road | K |
All will it raise us or degrade to enter | H |
Where that world's Shakespeare towers almost to God | L |
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No no far better 'lords of all creation'' | I |
To strut our ant hill and to take our ease | M |
To look aloft and say ' That constellation | I |
Was lighted there our regal sight to please ' | - |
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We owe no thanks to so called men of science | N |
Who demonstrate that earth not sun goes round | O |
'Twere better think the sun a mere appliance | N |
To light man's villages and heat his ground | O |
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There seems no good in asking or in humbling | P |
The mind incurious has the most of rest | Q |
If we can live and laugh and pray not grumbling | P |
'Tis all we can do here and 'tis the best | Q |
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The throbbing brain will burst its tender raiment | Q |
With futile force to see by finite light | Q |
How man's brief earning and eternal payment | Q |
Are weighed as equal in th' Infinite sight | Q |
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'Tis all in vain to struggle with abstraction | I |
The milky way that tempts our mental glass | R |
The study for mankind is earth born action | I |
The highest wisdom let the wondering pass | R |
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The Lord knows best He gave us thirst for learning | P |
And deepest knowledge of His work betrays | S |
No thirst left waterless Shall our soul yearning | P |
Apart from all things be a quenchless blaze | S |
John Boyle O'reilly
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