Geometry Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDDEE FFGGHH IIJJ KKLLMM NOEEPP QQRRSSTUVV WWAAXXYYII AAZZA2A2 DDB2B2C2C2AA DDAAMy window looks upon a wood | A |
That stands as tangled as it stood | A |
When God was centuries too young | B |
To care how right he worked or wrong | C |
His patterns in obedient trees | D |
Unprofited by the centuries | D |
He still plants on as crazily | E |
As in his drivelling infancy | E |
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Poor little elms beneath the oak | F |
They thrash their arms around and poke | F |
At tyrant throats and try to stand | G |
Straight up like owners of the land | G |
For they expect the vainest things | H |
And even the boniest have their flings | H |
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Hickory shoots unnumbered rise | I |
Sallow and wasting themselves in sighs | I |
Children begot at a criminal rate | J |
In the sight of a God that is profligate | J |
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The oak trees tower over all | K |
They seem to rise above the brawl | K |
They seem but just observe the hoax | L |
They are obscured by other oaks | L |
They laugh the weaklings out of mind | M |
And fight forever with their kind | M |
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For oaks are spindling too and bent | N |
And only strong by accident | O |
And if there is a single tree | E |
Of half the size it ought to be | E |
It need not give him thanks for that | P |
He did not plan its habitat | P |
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When tree tops go to pushing so | Q |
There's every evil thing below | Q |
There's clammy fungus everywhere | R |
And poison waving on the air | R |
A plague of insects from the pool | S |
To sting some ever trusting fool | S |
Serpents issuing from the foot | T |
Of oak trees rotten at the root | U |
Owls and frogs and whippoorwills | V |
Cackling of all sorts of ills | V |
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Imagine what a pretty thing | W |
The slightest landscape gardening | W |
Had made of God's neglected wood | A |
I'm glad man has the hardihood | A |
To tamper with creation's plan | X |
And shape it worthier of man | X |
Imagine woods and sun swept spaces | Y |
Shadows and lights in proper places | Y |
Trees just touching friendly wise | I |
Bees and flowers and butterflies | I |
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An easy thing to improve on God | A |
Simply the knowing of even from odd | A |
Simply to count and then dispose | Z |
In patterns everybody knows | Z |
Simply to follow curve and line | A2 |
In geometrical design | A2 |
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Gardeners only cut their trees | D |
For nobler regularities | D |
But from my window I have seen | B2 |
The noblest patch of quivering green | B2 |
Lashed till it never quivered again | C2 |
God had a fit of temper then | C2 |
And spat shrill wind and lightning out | A |
At twinges of some godly gout | A |
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But as for me I keep indoors | D |
Whenever he starts his awful roars | D |
What can one hope of a crazy God | A |
But lashings from an aimless rod | A |
John Crowe Ransom
(1)
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