Persuasion Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A B CBDB E EFGHGII JKJKLMLMN N OO PQPQRSRT U UU VWVWXEYEZA2ZA2BB YA2YA2B2BB2BC2JD2JE2 E2 F2 F2 G2UG2UH2I2H2I2H2H2 H2H2H2H2H2I2H2I2Z Z H2H2 I2 I2 J2I2J2I2K2 K2 H2 M L2 RBRBK2K2 H2 K2 K2 I2 I2K2 K2 RR H2 B B M2YM2YH2H2H2H2N2 H2 O2XO2XXK2XK2H2K2H2K2 BBThen I asked 'Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so make it so ' | A |
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He replied 'All Poets believe that it does and in ages of imagination this firm persuasion removed mountains but many are not capable of a firm persuasion of anything ' | - |
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Blake's 'Marriage of Heaven and Hell' | B |
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I | - |
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At any moment love unheralded | C |
Comes and is king Then as with a fall | B |
Of frost the buds upon the hawthorn spread | D |
Are withered in untimely burial | B |
So love occasion gone his crown puts by | - |
And as a beggar walks unfriended ways | E |
With but remembered beauty to defy | - |
The frozen sorrows of unsceptred days | E |
Or in that later travelling he comes | F |
Upon a bleak oblivion and tells | G |
Himself again again forgotten tombs | H |
Are all now that love was and blindly spells | G |
His royal state of old a glory cursed | I |
Saying 'I have forgot' and that's the worst | I |
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II | - |
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If we should part upon that one embrace | J |
And set our courses ever each from each | K |
With all our treasure but a fading face | J |
And little ghostly syllables of speech | K |
Should beauty's moment never be renewed | L |
And moons on moons look out for us in vain | M |
And each but whisper from a solitude | L |
To hear but echoes of a lonely pain | M |
Still in a world that fortune cannot change | N |
Should walk those two that once were you and I | - |
Those two that once when moon and stars were strange | N |
Poets above us in an April sky | - |
Heard a voice falling on the midnight sea | O |
Mute and for ever but for you and me | O |
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III | - |
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This nature this great flood of life this cheat | P |
That uses us as baubles for her coat | Q |
Takes love that should be nothing but the beat | P |
Of blood for its own beauty by the throat | Q |
Saying you are my servant and shall do | R |
My purposes or utter bitterness | S |
Shall be your wage and nothing come to you | R |
But stammering tongues that never can confess | T |
Undaunted then in answer here I cry | - |
'You wanton that control the hand of him | U |
Who masquerades as wisdom in a sky | - |
Where holy holy sing the cherubim | U |
I will not pay one penny to your name | U |
Though all my body crumble into shame ' | - |
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IV | - |
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Woman I once had whimpered at your hand | V |
Saying that all the wisdom that I sought | W |
Lay in your brain that you were as the sand | V |
Should cleanse the muddy mirrors of my thought | W |
I should have read in you the character | X |
Of oracles that quick a thousand lays | E |
Looked in your eyes and seen accounted there | Y |
Solomons legioned for bewildered praise | E |
Now have I learnt love as love is I take | Z |
Your hand and with no inquisition learn | A2 |
All that your eyes can tell and that's to make | Z |
A little reckoning and brief then turn | A2 |
Away and in my heart I hear a call | B |
'I love I love I love' and that is all | B |
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V | - |
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When all the hungry pain of love I bear | Y |
And in poor lightless thought but burn and burn | A2 |
And wit goes hunting wisdom everywhere | Y |
Yet can no word of revelation learn | A2 |
When endlessly the scales of yea and nay | B2 |
In dreadful motion fall and rise and fall | B |
When all my heart in sorrow I could pay | B2 |
Until at last were left no tear at all | B |
Then if with tame or subtle argument | C2 |
Companions come and draw me to a place | J |
Where words are but the tappings of content | D2 |
And life spreads all her garments with a grace | J |
I curse that ease and hunger in my heart | E2 |
Back to my pain and lonely to depart | E2 |
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VI | - |
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Not anything you do can make you mine | F2 |
For enterprise with equal charity | - |
In duty as in love elect will shine | F2 |
The constant slave of mutability | - |
Nor can your words for all their honey breath | G2 |
Outsing the speech of many an older rhyme | U |
And though my ear deliver them from death | G2 |
One day or two it is so little time | U |
Nor does your beauty in its excellence | H2 |
Excel a thousand in the daily sun | I2 |
Yet must I put a period to pretence | H2 |
And with my logic's catalogue have done | I2 |
For act and word and beauty are but keys | H2 |
To unlock the heart and you dear love are these | H2 |
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VII | - |
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Never the heart of spring had trembled so | H2 |
As on that day when first in Paradise | H2 |
We went afoot as novices to know | H2 |
For the first time what blue was in the skies | H2 |
What fresher green than any in the grass | H2 |
And how the sap goes beating to the sun | I2 |
And tell how on the clocks of beauty pass | H2 |
Minute by minute till the last is done | I2 |
But not the new birds singing in the brake | Z |
And not the buds of our discovery | - |
The deeper blue the wilder green the ache | Z |
For beauty that we shadow as we see | - |
Made heaven but we as love's occasion brings | H2 |
Took these and made them Paradisal things | H2 |
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VIII | - |
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The lilacs offer beauty to the sun | I2 |
Throbbing with wonder as eternally | - |
For sad and happy lovers they have done | I2 |
With the first bloom of summer in the sky | - |
Yet they are newly spread in honour now | J2 |
Because for every beam of beauty given | I2 |
Out of that clustering heart back to the bough | J2 |
My love goes beating from a greater heaven | I2 |
So be my love for good or sorry luck | K2 |
Bound it has virtue on this April eve | - |
That shall be there for ever when they pluck | K2 |
Lilacs for love And though I come to grieve | - |
Long at a frosty tomb there still shall be | - |
My happy lyric in the lilac tree | - |
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IX | H2 |
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When they make silly question of my love | - |
And speak to me of danger and disdain | M |
And look by fond old argument to move | - |
My wisdom to docility again | L2 |
When to my prouder heart they set the pride | - |
Of custom and the gossip of the street | - |
And show me figures of myself beside | - |
A self diminished at their judgment seat | - |
Then do I sit as in a drowsy pew | R |
To hear a priest expounding th' heavenly will | B |
Defiling wonder that he never knew | R |
With stolen words of measured good and ill | B |
For to the love that knows their counselling | K2 |
Out of my love contempt alone I bring | K2 |
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X | H2 |
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Not love of you is most that I can bring | K2 |
Since what I am to love you is the test | - |
And should I love you more than any thing | K2 |
You would but be of idle love possessed | - |
A mere love wandering in appetite | - |
Counting your glories and yet bringing none | I2 |
Finding in you occasions of delight | - |
A thief of payment for no service done | I2 |
But when of labouring life I make a song | K2 |
And bring it you as that were my reward | - |
To let what most is me to you belong | K2 |
Then do I come of high possessions lord | - |
And loving life more than my love of you | R |
I give you love more excellently true | R |
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XI | H2 |
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What better tale could any lover tell | B |
When age or death his reckoning shall write | - |
Than thus 'Love taught me only to rebel | B |
Against these things the thieving of delight | - |
Without return the gospellers of fear | M2 |
Who loving yet deny the truth they bear | Y |
Sad suited lusts with lecherous hands to smear | M2 |
The cloth of gold they would but dare not wear | Y |
And love gave me great knowledge of the trees | H2 |
And singing birds and earth with all her flowers | H2 |
Wisdom I knew and righteousness in these | H2 |
I lived in their atonement all my hours | H2 |
Love taught me how to beauty's eye alone | N2 |
The secret of the lying heart is known ' | - |
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XII | H2 |
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This then at last we may be wiser far | O2 |
Than love and put his folly to our measure | X |
Yet shall we learn poor wizards that we are | O2 |
That love chimes not nor motions at our pleasure | X |
We bid him come and light an eager fire | X |
And he goes down the road without debating | K2 |
We cast him from the house of our desire | X |
And when at last we leave he will be waiting | K2 |
And in the end there is no folly but this | H2 |
To counsel love out of our little learning | K2 |
For still he knows where rotten timber is | H2 |
And where the boughs for the long winter burning | K2 |
And when life needs no more of us at all | B |
Love's word will be the last that we recall | B |
John Drinkwater
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