The Moon Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: A BCBDEEFBFF DGDGHHIDII JKJKAALJLL MNMNOOPMPP QRQRAAPHPP STSTSSUSUU SVSVWWDSDD XYXYZZA2XA2A2 B2SB2SDDC2B2C2C2 DD2DD2MMVDVV E2F2E2F2G2G2B2E2B2B2 G2H2G2H2AAHG2HH I2A2I2A2G2G2J2I2J2J2 K2SK2SJ2J2L2K2L2L2 J2J2J2J2HHJ2J2J2J2 SM2SMAAA2SA2A2 N2J2N2J2AAO2N2O2O2 P2J2P2J2Q2Q2SP2SS HSHSJ2J2A2R2A2A2 J2SJ2SHHSJ2SS J2J2J2J2SSA2J2A2A2 SSSSSSQSQH SFSFJ2J2SSSS S2SS2SJ2J2J2S2J2J2 J2SJ2SHHJ2J2J2J2 L2A2L2A2J2J2J2T2J2J2 A2E2A2E2J2J2J2A2J2J2 SA2SA2J2J2J2SJ2J2 J2U2J2U2V2V2J2J2J2J2 J2J2J2J2J2J2A2J2A2A2 J2W2J2W2A2A2J2J2J2J2

To Maurice Baring	A
	-
I waited for a miracle to night	B
Dim was the earth beneath a star swept sky	C
Her boughs were vague in that phantasmal light	B
Her current rippled past invisibly	D
No stir was in the dark and windless meadows	E
Only the water whispering in the shadows	E
That darkened nature lived did still proclaim	F
An hour I stood in that defeat of sight	B
Waiting and then a sudden silver flame	F
Burned in the eastern heaven and she came	F
	-
The Moon the Summer Moon surveys the vale	D
The boughs against the dawning sky grow black	G
The shades that hid those whispering waters fail	D
And now there falls a gleaming lengthening track	G
That lies across the wide and tranquil river	H
Burnished and flat not shaken by a quiver	H
She rises still the liquid light she spills	I
Makes everywhere quick sparkles patches pale	D
And as she goes I know her glory fills	I
The air of all our English lakes and hills	I
	-
High over all this England will she ride	J
She silvers all the roofs of folded towns	K
Her brilliance tips the edge of every tide	J
Her shadows make soft caverns in the downs	K
Even now beyond my tree serenely sailing	A
She clothes far forests with a gauzy veiling	A
And even as here where now I stare and dream	L
Standing my own transfigured banks beside	J
On many a quiet wandering English stream	L
There lies the unshifting image of her beam	L
	-
Yes calm she mounts and watching her I know	M
By many a river other eyes than mine	N
Turn up to her and as of old they show	M
Their inward hearts all naked to her shine	N
Maids solitaries sick and happy lovers	O
To whom her dear returning orb discovers	O
For each the gift he waits for soft release	P
The unsealing of imagination's flow	M
Her own sweet pain or other pain's surcease	P
The friendly benediction of her peace	P
	-
I too am held as kind she is as fair	Q
As when long since a younger heart drank deep	R
From that sweet solace while through summer air	Q
Her lucid fingers hushed the world to sleep	R
O as I stand this latest moon beholding	A
Her forms unresting memory is moulding	A
Beneath my enchanted eyelids there arise	P
Visions again of many moons that were	H
Fair fleeting moons gathered from faded skies	P
Greeted and lost by these corporeal eyes	P
	-
Unnumbered are those moons of memory	S
Stored in the backward chambers of my brain	T
The moons that make bright pathways on the sea	S
The golden harvest moon above the grain	T
The moon that all a sleeping village blanches	S
The woodland moon that roves beyond the branches	S
Filtering through the meshes of the green	U
To breast of bird and mossy trunk of tree	S
Moons dimly guessed at through a cloudy screen	U
The bronze diffusion shed by moons unseen	U
	-
Moons that a thin prismatic halo rings	S
Looking a hurrying fleecy heaven through	V
The fairy moons of luminous evenings	S
Phantoms of palest pink in palest blue	V
Large orange moons on earth's grey verge suspended	W
When trees still slumber from the heat that's ended	W
Erect and heavy and all waters lie	D
Oily and there is not a bird that sings	S
All these I know I have seen them born and die	D
And many another moon in many a sky	D
	-
There was a moon that shone above the ground	X
Where on a grassy forest height I stood	Y
Bright was that open place and all around	X
The dense discovered tree tops of the wood	Y
Line after line in misty radiance glistened	Z
Failing away I watched the scene and listened	Z
Then awed and hushed I turned and saw alone	A2
Protruding from the middle of the mound	X
Fringed with close grass a moonlit mottled stone	A2
Rough carven of antiquity unknown	A2
	-
A night there was a crowd a narrow street	B2
Torches that reddened faces drunk with dreams	S
An orator exultant in defeat	B2
Banners fierce songs rough cheering women's screams	S
My heart was one with those rebellious people	D
Until along a chapel's pointing steeple	D
My eyes unwitting wandered to a thin	C2
Crescent and clouds a swift and ragged sheet	B2
And in my spirit's life all human din	C2
Died and eternal Silence stood within	C2
	-
And once on a far evening warm and still	D
I leant upon a cool stone parapet	D2
The quays and houses underneath the hill	D
Twinkled with lights I heard the sea's faint fret	D2
And then above the eastern cape's long billow	M
Silent there welled a trembling line of yellow	M
A shred that quickened then a half that grew	V
To a full moon that moved with even will	D
The night was long before her well she knew	V
And as she slowly rose into the blue	V
	-
She slowly paled and glittering far away	E2
Flung on the silken waters like a spear	F2
Her crisp d silver shaft of moonlight lay	E2
The lighthouse lamp upon the little pier	F2
Burned wanly by that radiance clear and certain	G2
Waiting I knew not what uplifted curtain	G2
I watched the unmoving world beneath my feet	B2
Till without warning miles across the bay	E2
Into that silver out of shadows beat	B2
Dead black the whole mysterious fishing fleet	B2
	-
These moons I have seen but these and every one	G2
Came each so new it seemed to be the first	H2
New as the buds that open to the sun	G2
New as the songs that to the morning burst	H2
The roses die each day fresh flowers are springing	A
Last year it was another blackbird singing	A
Thou only marvellous blossom whose pale flower	H
Beyond mankind's conjecture hath begun	G2
Retain'st for ever an unwithering power	H
That stales the loveliest stranger of an hour	H
	-
But O had all my infant nights been dark	I2
Or almost dark lit by the stars alone	A2
Had never a teller of stories bid me hark	I2
The promised splendours of that moon unknown	A2
How perfect then had been the revelation	G2
When first her gradual gold illumination	G2
Broke on a night upon the conscious child	J2
My heart had stopped with beauty seeing her arc	I2
Climbing the heavens so far and undefiled	J2
So large with light so even and so mild	J2
	-
Most wondrous Light who bring'st this lovelier earth	K2
This world of shadows cool with silver fires	S
Drawing us higher than our human birth	K2
To whom our strange twin natured kind suspires	S
Its saddest thoughts and tenderest and most fragrant	J2
Tears and desires unnameable and vagrant	J2
Watcher who leanest quietly from above	L2
Saying all mortal wars are nothing worth	K2
Friend of the sorrowful tranquil as the dove	L2
Muse of all poets lamp of all who love	L2
	-
Alone and sad alone and kind and sweet	J2
But always peaceful and removed and proud	J2
Whether with loveliness revealed complete	J2
Or veiling from our vision in a cloud	J2
Our souls' eternal listener could we wonder	H
That men who made of sun and storm and thunder	H
The awful forms of strong divinity	J2
Heard in each storm the noise of travelling feet	J2
Should gazing at thy face with hearts made free	J2
Have felt a pure immortal Power in thee	J2
	-
Selene Cynthia and Artemis	S
The swift proud goddess with the silver bow	M2
Diana she whose downward bending kiss	S
One only knew though all men yearned to know	M
The shepherd on a hill his flock was keeping	A
The night's pale huntress came and found him sleeping	A
She stooped he woke and saw her hair that shone	A2
And lay drawn up to cool and timeless bliss	S
Lapt in her radiant arms Endymion	A2
All the still night until the night was gone	A2
	-
By many names they knew thee but thy shape	N2
Was woman's always transient and white	J2
A flashing huntress leaving hinds agape	N2
A sweet descent of beauty in the night	J2
Yet some more fierce and more distraught their dreaming	A
Brooded until they fashioned from thy seeming	A
A lithe and luring queen with fatal breath	O2
A witch the man who saw might not escape	N2
A snare that gleamed in shadowy groves of death	O2
The tall tiaraed Syrian Ashtoreth	O2
	-
And even to night in African forests some	P2
There are possessed by such a blasphemy	J2
Through branching beams thy fevered votaries come	P2
To appease their brains' distorted mask of thee	J2
There in the glades the drums pulsate and languish	Q2
Men leap and wail to dim the victim's anguish	Q2
In the sad frenzy of the sacrifice	S
They are slaves to thee made mad because thou art dumb	P2
And dumb thou lookest on them from the skies	S
Above their fires and dances blood and cries	S
	-
So these but otherwhere at such an hour	H
In all the continents by all the seas	S
Men naming not the goddess feel thy power	H
Adoring her with gentler rites than these	S
The thoughts of myriad hearts to thee uplifted	J2
Rise like a smoke above thine altars drifted	J2
Perpetual incense poured before thy throne	A2
By those whom thou hast given thy secret dower	R2
Those in whose kindred eyes thy light is known	A2
Whom thou hast signed and sealed for thine own	A2
	-
For thee they watch by Asian peaks remote	J2
Where thy snows gleam above the pointing pines	S
Entranced on templed lakes is many a boat	J2
For thee where clear thy dropt reflection shines	S
On the great seas where nothing else is tender	H
Rising and setting unto thee surrender	H
All lonely hearts in lonely wandering ships	S
And where their warm far scattered islands float	J2
Through forests many a flower crowned maiden slips	S
To gaze on thee with parted burning lips	S
	-
O thus they do and thus they did of old	J2
Our hearts were never secret in thy sight	J2
Ere our first records were thy shrine was cold	J2
That speechless eyes went seeking in the night	J2
Beyond the compass of our dim traditions	S
Thou knewest of men the pitiful ambitions	S
Their loves and their despair within thy ken	A2
All our poor history has been unrolled	J2
Thou hast seen all races born and die again	A2
The climbing and the crumbling towers of men	A2
	-
Black were the hollows of that Emperor's eyes	S
Who paced with backward arms beyond his tents	S
Lone in the night and felt above him rise	S
The ancient conqueror's sloping smooth immense	S
Moon pointing Pyramid's enduring courses	S
Heard not his sentries nor his stamping horses	S
But thought of Egypt dead upon that air	Q
Fighting with his moon coloured memories	S
Of vanished kings who builded and the bare	Q
Sands in the moon before those builders were	H
	-
Restless he knew that moon who watched him muse	S
Had seen a restless C sar brood on fame	F
Amid the Pharaohs' broken avenues	S
And circling round that fixed monition came	F
Woven by moonlight random transitory	J2
Fragments of all the dim receding story	J2
The moonlit water dripping from the oars	S
Of triremes in the bay of Syracuse	S
The opposing bivouacs upon the shores	S
That knew dead Hector's and Achilles' wars	S
	-
He saw fall'n Carthage Alexander's grave	S2
The tomb of Moses in the wilderness	S
The moonlight on the Atlantean wave	S2
That covered all a multitude's distress	S
Cities and hosts and emperors departed	J2
Under the steady moon And sullen hearted	J2
He turned away and in a little died	J2
Even as he who hunted from his cave	S2
And struck his foe and stripped the shaggy hide	J2
Under the moon and was not satisfied	J2
	-
For in the prime thy influence was felt	J2
When eyes first saw thy beauty was as this	S
Thy quiet look bade hope fear passion melt	J2
Before men dreamed of empire The abyss	S
Of thought yawned through their jungle then as ever	H
Dark past dark future menaced their endeavour	H
Yet on thy nights stood some by hill and sea	J2
Naked and blind impulsive spirits knelt	J2
Not questioning why they knelt feeling in thee	J2
Thought's strangest sweetest saddest mystery	J2
	-
Still Moon bright Moon compassionate Moon above	L2
Thou shinedst there ere any life began	A2
When of his pain or of his powerless love	L2
Thou heardest not from heart of any man	A2
Though long the earth had shaken off the vapour	J2
Left by the vanished gleams of fire the shaper	J2
Old old her stony wrinkled face did grow	J2
Whilst only her blind elements did move	T2
Dumb bare and prayerless thou saw'st her go	J2
And afterwards again shalt see her so	J2
	-
A time there was when Life had never been	A2
A time will be it will have passed away	E2
Still wilt thou shine still tender and serene	A2
When Life which in thy sister's yesterday	E2
Had never flowered will have drooped and faded	J2
Passed with the clouds that once her bosom shaded	J2
She will be barren then as not before	J2
Bared of her snows and all her garments green	A2
No darkling sea by any earthly shore	J2
Will take thy rays thy kin will be no more	J2
	-
Pale satellite old mistress of our fires	S
Who hast seen so much and been so much to men	A2
Symbol and goal of all our wild desires	S
Not any voice will cry upon thee then	A2
Dreamer and dream they will have all gone over	J2
The sick of heart the singer and the lover	J2
An end there will have been to all their lust	J2
Their sorrow and the sighing of their lyres	S
O all this Life that stained Earth's patient crust	J2
Time's dying breath will have blown away like dust	J2
	-
Gone from thine eye that brief confus d stir	J2
The rumours and the marching and the strife	U2
Earth will be still and all the face of her	J2
Swept of the last remains of moving life	U2
The last of all men's monuments that defied them	V2
Like those his valiant gestures that denied them	V2
Into the waiting elements will fade	J2
And thou wilt see thy fellow traveller	J2
A forlorn round of rocky contours made	J2
A glimmering disk of empty light and shade	J2
	-
Ah depth too deep for thought therein to cast	J2
The old the cold companions you will go	J2
Obeying still some long forgotten past	J2
And all our pitiful history none will know	J2
Still shining Moon still peaceful wilt thou wander	J2
But on that greater ball no heart will ponder	J2
The thought that rose and nightingale are gone	A2
And all sweet things but thou and only vast	J2
Ridges of rock remain and stars and sun	A2
O Moon thou wilt be lovely alone for none	A2
	-
And so pale wanderer so thou leavest me	J2
Passing beyond imagination's range	W2
Away into the void where waits for thee	J2
Thy inconceivable destiny of change	W2
And after all the memories I have striven	A2
To paint this picture that thyself hast given	A2
Lives and I watch to all those others blind	J2
Thy form gliding into eternity	J2
Fading an unconjectured fate to find	J2
The last most wonderful image of the mind	J2

John Collings Squire, Sir

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