Ode: In A Restaurant Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCBCADDEEFFGFHHIIJK LMNONOCPPQQBRSTNN QUQVUQVWXXYQQYYZVVZV QQA2A2QQVVVV B2B2C2C2C2VD2VD2VE2E 2ZZVVLCVVVV F2F2G2G2H2H2I2I2ZZVV ZVVZV J2ZJ2ZQQZZGGVVJ2J2ZZ CCVVQQVVK2K2L2M2VVVV A2A2VVZZQQ QQZZN2N2QZZQVVO2O2J2 O2QQP2P2Q2QQ2QQCCR2S 2QQT2T2U2U2QQV2V2V2Z Z VVVVVW2W2VVQQZZQQVVR 2R2GK2 X2X2X2J2J2ZZFFVVVVQQ VVVVVV A2QA2QZY2ZY2VZ2VZ2A2 K2A2K2 ZZQQA2A2A3A3A2A2K2K2 K2VO2O2| In this dense hall of green and gold | A |
| Mirrors and lights and steam there sit | B |
| Two hundred munching men | C |
| While several score of others flit | B |
| Like scurrying beetles over a fen | C |
| With plates in fanlike spread or fold | A |
| Napkins or jerk the corks from bottles | D |
| Ministers to greedy throttles | D |
| Some make noises while they eat | E |
| Pick their teeth or shuffle their feet | E |
| Wipe their noses 'neath eyes that range | F |
| Or frown whilst waiting for their change | F |
| Gobble gobble toil and trouble | G |
| Soul this life is very strange | F |
| And circumstances very foul | H |
| Attend the belly's stormy howl | H |
| How horrible this noise this air how thick | I |
| It is disgusting I feel sick | I |
| Loosely I prod the table with a fork | J |
| My mind gapes dizzies ceases to work | K |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| The weak unsatisfied strain | L |
| Of a band in another room | M |
| Through this dull complex din | N |
| Comes winding thin and sharp | O |
| The gnat like mourning of the violin | N |
| The faint stings of the harp | O |
| The sounds pierce in and die again | C |
| Like keen drawn threads of ink dropped into a glass | P |
| Of water which curl and relax and soften and pass | P |
| Briefly the music hovers in unstable poise | Q |
| Then melts away drowned in the heavy sea of noise | Q |
| And I I am now emasculate | B |
| All my forces dissipate | R |
| Conquered by matter utterly | S |
| Moving not willing not I lie | T |
| Like a man whom timbers pin | N |
| When the roof of a mine falls in | N |
| - | |
| Halt as a cloud condenses | Q |
| I press my mind recover | U |
| Dominion of my senses | Q |
| With newly flowing blood | V |
| I lift and now float over | U |
| The restaurant's expanses | Q |
| Like a draggled sea gull over dreary flats of mud | V |
| An effort ah I urge and push | W |
| And now with greater strength I flush | X |
| The hall is full of my pinions' rush | X |
| No drooping now the place is mine | Y |
| Beating the walls with shattering wings | Q |
| Over the herd my spirit swings | Q |
| In triumph shouts Aha you swine | Y |
| Grovel before your lord divine | Y |
| I only I am real here | Z |
| Through the uncertain firmament | V |
| Still bestial in their dull content | V |
| The despicable phantoms leer | Z |
| Hogs even now in my right hand | V |
| I hold at my will the thunderbolts | Q |
| Measured not in mortal volts | Q |
| Would crash you to annihilation | A2 |
| Lit with a new illumination | A2 |
| What need I of ears and eyes | Q |
| Of flesh Imperious I will rise | Q |
| Dominate you as a god | V |
| Who only does not trouble to wield the rod | V |
| Of death or kick your weak spheroid | V |
| Like a football through the void | V |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| Ha was it but a dream | B2 |
| And did it merely seem | B2 |
| Ha not yet free of your cage | C2 |
| Soul spite of all your rage | C2 |
| Come now this foe engage | C2 |
| With explosion of your might | V |
| Oh heave oh leap and flash up soul | D2 |
| Like a stabbing scream in the night | V |
| Hurl aside this useless bowl | D2 |
| Of a body | V |
| But there comes a shock | E2 |
| A soft tremendous shock | E2 |
| Of contact with the body I lose all power | Z |
| And fall back back like a solitary rower | Z |
| Whose prow that debonair the waves did ride | V |
| Is suddenly hurled back by an iron tide | V |
| O sadness sadness feel the returning pain | L |
| Of touch with unescapable mortal things again | C |
| The cloth is linen the floor is wood | V |
| My plate holds cheese my tumbler toddy | V |
| I cannot get free of the body | V |
| And no man ever could | V |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| Self do not lose your hold on life | F2 |
| Nor coward seek to shrink the strife | F2 |
| Of body and spirit even now | G2 |
| Not for the first time even now | G2 |
| Clear in your ears has rung the message | H2 |
| That tense abstraction is the passage | H2 |
| To nervelessness and living death | I2 |
| Never forget while you draw breath | I2 |
| That all the hammers of will can never | Z |
| Your chain d soul from matter sever | Z |
| And though it be confused and mixed | V |
| This is the world in which you're fixed | V |
| Never despise the things that are | Z |
| Set your teeth upon the grit | V |
| Though your heart like a motor beat | V |
| Hold fast this earthly star | Z |
| The whole of it the whole of it | V |
| - | |
| Look on this crowd now calm now look | J2 |
| Remember now that each one drew | Z |
| Woman's milk which you partook | J2 |
| And year by year in wonder grew | Z |
| Scorn not them nor scorn not their feasts | Q |
| Which you partake nor call them beasts | Q |
| These be children of one Power | Z |
| With you nor higher you nor lower | Z |
| They also hear the harp and fiddle | G |
| And sometimes quail before the riddle | G |
| They also have hot blood quick thought | V |
| And try to do the things they ought | V |
| They also have hearts that ache when stung | J2 |
| And sigh for days when they were young | J2 |
| And curse their wills because they falter | Z |
| And know that they will never alter | Z |
| See these men in a world of men | C |
| Material bodies yes what then | C |
| These coarse trunks that here you see | V |
| Judge them not lest judged you be | V |
| Bow not to the moment's curse | Q |
| Nor make four walls a universe | Q |
| Think of these bodies here assembled | V |
| Whence they have come where they have trembled | V |
| With the strange force that fills us all | K2 |
| Men and beasts both great and small | K2 |
| Here within this fleeting home | L2 |
| Two hundred men have this day come | M2 |
| Here collected for one day | V |
| Each shall go his separate way | V |
| Self you can imagine nought | V |
| Of all the battles they have fought | V |
| All the labours they have done | A2 |
| All the journeys they have run | A2 |
| O they have come from all the world | V |
| Borne by invisible currents swirled | V |
| Like leaves into this vortex here | Z |
| Flying or like the spirits drear | Z |
| Windborne and frail whom Dante saw | Q |
| Who yet obeyed some hidden law | Q |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| Is it not miraculous | Q |
| That they should here be gathered thus | Q |
| All to be spread before your view | Z |
| Who are strange to them as they to you | Z |
| Soul how can you sustain without a sob | N2 |
| The lightest thought of this titanic throb | N2 |
| Of earthly life that swells and breaks | Q |
| Into leaping scattering waves of fire | Z |
| Into tameless tempests of effort and storms of desire | Z |
| That eternally makes | Q |
| The confused glittering armies of humankind | V |
| To their own heroism blind | V |
| Swarm over the earth to build to dig and to till | O2 |
| To mould and compel land and sea to their will | O2 |
| Whence we are here eating | J2 |
| Standing here as on a high hill | O2 |
| Strain my imagination strain forth to embrace | Q |
| The energies that labour for this place | Q |
| This place this instant Beyond your island's verge | P2 |
| Listen and hear the roaring impulsive surge | P2 |
| The clamour of voices the blasting of powder the clanging of steel | Q2 |
| The thunder of hammers the rattle of oars | Q |
| For this one meal | Q2 |
| Ten thousand Indian hamlets stored their yields | Q |
| Manchurian peasants sweltered in their fields | Q |
| And Greeks drove carts to Patras and lone men | C |
| Saw burning summer come and go again | C |
| And huddled from the winds of winter on | R2 |
| The fertile deserts of Saskatchewan | S2 |
| To fabricate these things have been marchings and slaughters | Q |
| The sun has toiled and the moon has moved the waters | Q |
| Cities have laboured and crowded plains and deep in the earth | T2 |
| Men have plunged unafraid with ardour to wrench the worth | T2 |
| Of sweating dim lit caverns and paths have been hewn | U2 |
| Through forests where for uncounted years nor sun nor moon | U2 |
| Have penetrated men have driven straight shining rails | Q |
| Through the dense bowels of mountains and climbed their frozen tops and wrinkled sailors have shouted at shouting gales | Q |
| In the huge Pacific and battled around the Horn | V2 |
| And gasping coasted to Rio and turning towards the morn | V2 |
| Fought over the wastes to Spain and battered and worn | V2 |
| Sailed up the Channel and on into the Nore | Z |
| To the city of masts and the smoky familiar shore | Z |
| - | |
| So so of every substance you see around | V |
| Might a tale be unwound | V |
| Of perils passed of adventurous journeys made | V |
| In man's undying and stupendous crusade | V |
| This flower of man's energies Trade | V |
| Brought hither to hand and lip | W2 |
| By waggon train or ship | W2 |
| Each atom that we eat | V |
| Stare at the wine stare at the meat | V |
| The mutton which these platters fills | Q |
| Grazed upon a thousand hills | Q |
| This bread so square and white and dry | Z |
| Once was corn that sang to the sky | Z |
| And all these spruce obedient wines | Q |
| Flowed from the vatted fruit of vines | Q |
| That trailed a bright maternal host | V |
| The warm Mediterranean coast | V |
| Or spread their Bacchic mantle on | R2 |
| That Iberian Helicon | R2 |
| Where the slopes of Portugal | G |
| Crown the Atlantic's eastern wall | K2 |
| - | |
| O mighty energy never failing flame | X2 |
| O patient toils and journeys in the name | X2 |
| Of Trade No journey ever was the same | X2 |
| As another nor ever came again one task | J2 |
| And each man's face is an ever changing mask | J2 |
| From the minutest cell to the lordliest star | Z |
| All things are unique though all of their kindred are | Z |
| And though all things exist for ever all life is change | F |
| And the oldest passions come to each heart in a garment strange | F |
| Though life be as brief as a flower and the body but dust | V |
| Man walks the earth holding both body and spirit in trust | V |
| And the various glories of sense are spread for his delight | V |
| New pageants glow in the sunset new stars are born in the night | V |
| And clouds come every day and never a shape recurs | Q |
| And the grass grows every year yet never the same blade stirs | Q |
| Another spring and no delving man breaks again the self same clod | V |
| As he did last year though he stand once more where last year he trod | V |
| O wonderful procession fore ordained by God | V |
| Wonderful in unity wonderful in diversity | V |
| Contemplate it soul and see | V |
| How the material universe moves and strives with anguish and glee | V |
| - | |
| - | |
| - | |
| I was born for that reason | A2 |
| With muscles heart and eyes | Q |
| To watch each following season | A2 |
| To work and to be wise | Q |
| Not body and mind to tether | Z |
| To unseen things alone | Y2 |
| But to traverse together | Z |
| The known and the unknown | Y2 |
| My muscles were not welded | V |
| To waste away in sleep | Z2 |
| My bones were never builded | V |
| To throw upon a heap | Z2 |
| Man worships God in action | A2 |
| Senses and reason call | K2 |
| And thought is putrefaction | A2 |
| If thought is all in all | K2 |
| - | |
| Most of the guests are gone look over there | Z |
| Against a pillar leans with absent air | Z |
| A tall dark pallid waiter There he stands | Q |
| Limply with vacant eyes and listless hands | Q |
| He dreams of some small Tyrolean town | A2 |
| A church a bridge a stream that rushes down | A2 |
| A frustrate hankering man this one short time | A3 |
| Unconscious he into my gaze did climb | A3 |
| He sinks again again he is but one | A2 |
| Of many myriads underneath the sun | A2 |
| Now faint now vivid How puzzling is it all | K2 |
| For now again in spite of all | K2 |
| The lights the chairs the diners and the hall | K2 |
| Lose their opacity | V |
| Fool exert your will | O2 |
| Finish your whisky up and pay your bill | O2 |
John Collings Squire, Sir
(1)
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