The Undying Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFFGGHIJJKK LLMM AANNOOPPJJ QQRRRSSSSSTTSSSSAASS SSSSUU SSSSVVSSSSWWXYZZUUA2 A2SS DDB2B2C2C2SSSRRYYSSV VD2D2FFSS

In thin clear light unshadowed shapes go byA
Small on green fields beneath the hueless skyA
They do not stay for question do not hearB
Any old human speech their tongue and earB
Seem only thought for when I spoke they stirred notC
And their bright minds conversing my ear heard notC
Until I slept or musing on a heapD
Of warm crisp fern lay between sense and sleepD
Drowsy still clinging to a strand of thoughtE
Spider like frail and all unconscious wroughtE
For thinking of that unforgettable thingF
The war that spreads a loud and shaggy wingF
On things most peaceful simple happy and brightG
Until the spirit is blind though the eye is lightG
Thinking of all that evil envy hateH
The cruelty most dark most desolateI
Thinking of the English dead How can you deadJ
I muttered with your life and young joy shedJ
How can you but in these new lands of lifeK
Relume the fiery passion of old strifeK
Just anger mortal hate the natural scornL
Of men true born for all things foully bornL
For I had thought that not death's touch could stillM
In man's clean spirit the hate of good for illM
-
But now to see their shapes go lightly byA
On those vast fields clear 'neath the hueless skyA
With not one furious gesture and when seenN
With but the broad dark hedgerow space betweenN
No eye's disdain no thin drawn face of griefO
But pondering calm or lightened look and briefO
Smile almost gay yet all seen in the airP
That driv'n mist makes unreal everywhereP
So strange I breathed How can you English deadJ
Forget them for whose life your life was shedJ
-
It was no voice that answered yet plain wordQ
Less plain is than the unspoken that I heardQ
As I lay there on the dry heap of fernR
And watched them pass mix disappear and returnR
And felt their mute speech into empty senses burnR
Earth's is the strife The Heavenly Powers that sentS
The gray globe spinning in the firmamentS
The Heavenly Powers that soon or late will stayS
The spinning as a child that tires of playS
And globe by spent globe put forgot awayS
In some vast airless hollow could they seeT
Or seeing endure immortal miseryT
Made out of mortal and undying hateS
Earth's perishing agonies perpetuateS
O spirits unhappy if from earth men broughtS
The mind's disease the sickness of mad thoughtS
Sooner the Heavenly Powers would let them lieA
Eternally unrising 'neath a skyA
Arctic and lonely where death's starven windS
Raged full delighted sooner would those kindS
Serenities man's generation castS
Back into nothingness than heaven should wasteS
With finite anguish infinitely prolongedS
Until the Eternal Spring were stained and wrongedS
O even the Heavenly Powers at such a breathU
From mortal shores would fade and fade to deathU
-
Was it a voice or but a thought I heardS
Mine or another's in my boughs that stirredS
Waking the leafy darkness of the mindS
Was it a voice or but a new roused windS
That answered O I know I know I knowV
The oldest rivers into the full sea flowV
And there are lost so everything is lostS
On midnight waves into oblivion tostS
Yet the high passion the pity the joy and prideS
The righteousness for which these men have diedS
The courage the uncounted sacrificeW
The love and beauty all that's beyond all priceW
That this the immortal heart of mortal manX
Should be O tell me what tell me again againY
Petals lost on the river of the yearsZ
When April sweetness pauses fades and disappearsZ
That this high Quarrel should be quenched in deathU
As some vexed petty plaint unworthy breathU
That the blood and the tears should never riseA2
Renewed accusing in grave judgment skiesA2
Tell me again O rather tell me notS
Lest that ill telling never be forgotS
-
And then I rose from that warm ferny heapD
And my thoughts climbed from the abyss of sleepD
No more in human guise did cloud shapes passB2
Nor sighed with sad intelligence the grassB2
I saw the hueless sky break into blueC2
And I remembered how that heaven I knewC2
When a small child I gazed at the great heightS
And thought of nothing but the blue and whiteS
Pools of sweet blue swimming in fields of lightS
And as tired men from mine and stithy turnR
While still the midnight fires unslackened burnR
Flushing their road and so reach home and thenY
Dream of old childhood's days and dream againY
So I forgot those inward fires and foundS
Old happiness like dew lying all aroundS
Under the hedge I stood and far belowV
Saw on the Worcester Plain the swift clouds flowV
Like ships on seas no greener than the PlainD2
That shone between October sun and rainD2
And thinking how time's plenteousness would bringF
Back and more bright the young delicious SpringF
Between wet brambles thrust my hand and tastedS
Ripe berries on neglected boughs that wastedS

John Freeman



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