The School Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDCEFGC HCCIBCJKL CCMCGCNO CPQRSTPUCCVW| I WAS not drowsy though the scholars droned | A |
| Hearing the music that they made of Greek | B |
| Whenever Helen's unforgotten face | C |
| Sent other young men whisking off to war | D |
| Hearing much mention of the hecatombs | C |
| And Pericles and fishes that were purple | E |
| Temples in white and trees that they named olive | F |
| And thinking always of proud Athens shining | G |
| Upon her hill that slanted to her sea | C |
| - | |
| - | |
| Equipped with Grecian thoughts how could I live | H |
| Among my father's folk My father's house | C |
| Was narrow and his fields were nauseous | C |
| I kicked his clods for being common dirt | I |
| Worthy a world which never could be Greek | B |
| Cursed the paternity that planted me | C |
| One green leaf in a wilderness of autumn | J |
| And wept as fitting such a fruitful spirit | K |
| Sealed in a yellow tomb | L |
| - | |
| - | |
| The Lord preserves his saints for Christian uses | C |
| He sent a pair of providential eyes | C |
| They would have sat in any witless head | M |
| Although I deemed them deep as classic seas | C |
| As strange as any woman written smiling | G |
| And much more near the merest modern eyes | C |
| The first my Athens faced and yet her lamp | N |
| It flickered rather low | O |
| - | |
| - | |
| Then he commanded me to scrutiny | C |
| As to a fingered thing of no great matter | P |
| A circumstantial sorry little coin | Q |
| A friendly thing I owned to lie so warm | R |
| Against the side of any friendless man | S |
| And in the hand O if the happy hand | T |
| Accommodate the cunning rounded scepter | P |
| Then is dominion seated in that palm | U |
| And coveting is seated in men's eyes | C |
| Make haste my hands about your own inclosures | C |
| And what were dead Greek empires to me then | V |
| Dishonored by Apollo and forgot | W |
John Crowe Ransom
(1)
Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
<< Roses Poem
Overtures Poem>>
Write your comment about The School poem by John Crowe Ransom
Best Poems of John Crowe Ransom