The Meeting Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABBCCDDEEFFGGHHIIJJ JJKKJJIGLLMMNNIIGO JJLLIIHPGGIIJJJJJJQQ LLRR SSGGJJIIIITTLL UVQQIIJJLL IIIIGGIIJJGGLLGGLLMM LLVVGGJJGGIIMMJJJJWW XYHHJJZZ A2A2MMB2B2IIJJC2C2JJ LLJJIIJJLLRRC2C2IIJJ D2D2JJG JJJJJ JJC2GJJLLE2PJJGG IIIIIIIIGGJJIIF2F2II JJ JJJJIIIIGGLLIIIIIJThe elder folks shook hands at last | A |
Down seat by seat the signal passed | A |
To simple ways like ours unused | B |
Half solemnized and half amused | B |
With long drawn breath and shrug my guest | C |
His sense of glad relief expressed | C |
Outside the hills lay warm in sun | D |
The cattle in the meadow run | D |
Stood half leg deep a single bird | E |
The green repose above us stirred | E |
'What part or lot have you ' he said | F |
'In these dull rites of drowsy head | F |
Is silence worship Seek it where | G |
It soothes with dreams the summer air | G |
Not in this close and rude benched hall | H |
But where soft lights and shadows fall | H |
And all the slow sleep walking hours | I |
Glide soundless over grass and flowers | I |
From time and place and form apart | J |
Its holy ground the human heart | J |
Nor ritual bound nor templeward | J |
Walks the free spirit of the Lord | J |
Our common Master did not pen | K |
His followers up from other men | K |
His service liberty indeed | J |
He built no church He framed no creed | J |
But while the saintly Pharisee | I |
Made broader his phylactery | G |
As from the synagogue was seen | L |
The dusty sandalled Nazarene | L |
Through ripening cornfields lead the way | M |
Upon the awful Sabbath day | M |
His sermons were the healthful talk | N |
That shorter made the mountain walk | N |
His wayside texts were flowers and birds | I |
Where mingled with His gracious words | I |
The rustle of the tamarisk tree | G |
And ripple wash of Galilee ' | O |
- | |
'Thy words are well O friend ' I said | J |
'Unmeasured and unlimited | J |
With noiseless slide of stone to stone | L |
The mystic Church of God has grown | L |
Invisible and silent stands | I |
The temple never made with hands | I |
Unheard the voices still and small | H |
Of its unseen confessional | P |
He needs no special place of prayer | G |
Whose hearing ear is everywhere | G |
He brings not back the childish days | I |
That ringed the earth with stones of praise | I |
Roofed Karnak's hall of gods and laid | J |
The plinths of Phil e's colonnade | J |
Still less He owns the selfish good | J |
And sickly growth of solitude | J |
The worthless grace that out of sight | J |
Flowers in the desert anchorite | J |
Dissevered from the suffering whole | Q |
Love hath no power to save a soul | Q |
Not out of Self the origin | L |
And native air and soil of sin | L |
The living waters spring and flow | R |
The trees with leaves of healing grow | R |
- | |
'Dream not O friend because I seek | S |
This quiet shelter twice a week | S |
I better deem its pine laid floor | G |
Than breezy hill or sea sung shore | G |
But nature is not solitude | J |
She crowds us with her thronging wood | J |
Her many hands reach out to us | I |
Her many tongues are garrulous | I |
Perpetual riddles of surprise | I |
She offers to our ears and eyes | I |
She will not leave our senses still | T |
But drags them captive at her will | T |
And making earth too great for heaven | L |
She hides the Giver in the given | L |
- | |
'And so I find it well to come | U |
For deeper rest to this still room | V |
For here the habit of the soul | Q |
Feels less the outer world's control | Q |
The strength of mutual purpose pleads | I |
More earnestly our common needs | I |
And from the silence multiplied | J |
By these still forms on either side | J |
The world that time and sense have known | L |
Falls off and leaves us God alone | L |
- | |
'Yet rarely through the charmed repose | I |
Unmixed the stream of motive flows | I |
A flavor of its many springs | I |
The tints of earth and sky it brings | I |
In the still waters needs must be | G |
Some shade of human sympathy | G |
And here in its accustomed place | I |
I look on memory's dearest face | I |
The blind by sitter guesseth not | J |
What shadow haunts that vacant spot | J |
No eyes save mine alone can see | G |
The love wherewith it welcomes me | G |
And still with those alone my kin | L |
In doubt and weakness want and sin | L |
I bow my head my heart I bare | G |
As when that face was living there | G |
And strive too oft alas in vain | L |
The peace of simple trust to gain | L |
Fold fancy's restless wings and lay | M |
The idols of my heart away | M |
- | |
'Welcome the silence all unbroken | L |
Nor less the words of fitness spoken | L |
Such golden words as hers for whom | V |
Our autumn flowers have just made room | V |
Whose hopeful utterance through and through | G |
The freshness of the morning blew | G |
Who loved not less the earth that light | J |
Fell on it from the heavens in sight | J |
But saw in all fair forms more fair | G |
The Eternal beauty mirrored there | G |
Whose eighty years but added grace | I |
And saintlier meaning to her face | I |
The look of one who bore away | M |
Glad tidings from the hills of day | M |
While all our hearts went forth to meet | J |
The coming of her beautiful feet | J |
Or haply hers whose pilgrim tread | J |
Is in the paths where Jesus led | J |
Who dreams her childhood's Sabbath dream | W |
By Jordan's willow shaded stream | W |
And of the hymns of hope and faith | X |
Sung by the monks of Nazareth | Y |
Hears pious echoes in the call | H |
To prayer from Moslem minarets fall | H |
Repeating where His works were wrought | J |
The lesson that her Master taught | J |
Of whom an elder Sibyl gave | Z |
The prophecies of Cuma 's cave | Z |
- | |
'I ask no organ's soulless breath | A2 |
To drone the themes of life and death | A2 |
No altar candle lit by day | M |
No ornate wordsman's rhetoric play | M |
No cool philosophy to teach | B2 |
Its bland audacities of speech | B2 |
To double tasked idolaters | I |
Themselves their gods and worshippers | I |
No pulpit hammered by the fist | J |
Of loud asserting dogmatist | J |
Who borrows for the Hand of love | C2 |
The smoking thunderbolts of Jove | C2 |
I know how well the fathers taught | J |
What work the later schoolmen wrought | J |
I reverence old time faith and men | L |
But God is near us now as then | L |
His force of love is still unspent | J |
His hate of sin as imminent | J |
And still the measure of our needs | I |
Outgrows the cramping bounds of creeds | I |
The manna gathered yesterday | J |
Already savors of decay | J |
Doubts to the world's child heart unknown | L |
Question us now from star and stone | L |
Too little or too much we know | R |
And sight is swift and faith is slow | R |
The power is lost to self deceive | C2 |
With shallow forms of make believe | C2 |
W e walk at high noon and the bells | I |
Call to a thousand oracles | I |
But the sound deafens and the light | J |
Is stronger than our dazzled sight | J |
The letters of the sacred Book | D2 |
Glimmer and swim beneath our look | D2 |
Still struggles in the Age's breast | J |
With deepening agony of quest | J |
The old entreaty 'Art thou He | G |
Or look we for the Christ to be ' | - |
- | |
'God should be most where man is least | J |
So where is neither church nor priest | J |
And never rag of form or creed | J |
To clothe the nakedness of need | J |
Where farmer folk in silence meet | J |
I turn my bell unsummoned feet ' | - |
I lay the critic's glass aside | J |
I tread upon my lettered pride | J |
And lowest seated testify | C2 |
To the oneness of humanity | G |
Confess the universal want | J |
And share whatever Heaven may grant | J |
He findeth not who seeks his own | L |
The soul is lost that's saved alone | L |
Not on one favored forehead fell | E2 |
Of old the fire tongued miracle | P |
But flamed o'er all the thronging host | J |
The baptism of the Holy Ghost | J |
Heart answers heart in one desire | G |
The blending lines of prayer aspire | G |
'Where in my name meet two or three ' | - |
Our Lord hath said 'I there will be ' | - |
- | |
'So sometimes comes to soul and sense | I |
The feeling which is evidence | I |
That very near about us lies | I |
The realm of spiritual mysteries | I |
The sphere of the supernal powers | I |
Impinges on this world of ours | I |
The low and dark horizon lifts | I |
To light the scenic terror shifts | I |
The breath of a diviner air | G |
Blows down the answer of a prayer | G |
That all our sorrow pain and doubt | J |
A great compassion clasps about | J |
And law and goodness love and force | I |
Are wedded fast beyond divorce | I |
Then duty leaves to love its task | F2 |
The beggar Self forgets to ask | F2 |
With smile of trust and folded hands | I |
The passive soul in waiting stands | I |
To feel as flowers the sun and dew | J |
The One true Life its own renew | J |
- | |
'So to the calmly gathered thought | J |
The innermost of truth is taught | J |
The mystery dimly understood | J |
That love of God is love of good | J |
And chiefly its divinest trace | I |
In Him of Nazareth's holy face | I |
That to be saved is only this | I |
Salvation from our selfishness | I |
From more than elemental fire | G |
The soul's unsanetified desire | G |
From sin itself and not the pain | L |
That warns us of its chafing chain | L |
That worship's deeper meaning lies | I |
In mercy and not sacrifice | I |
Not proud humilities of sense | I |
And posturing of penitence | I |
But love's unforced obedience | I |
That Book and Church and Day | J |
John Greenleaf Whittier
(1)
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