Epistle To John Hamilton Reynolds Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDDEEAAFF FFFFAAGGFFHHA AIIAAFF JJFFAAAA FAKKEEEE FFAAFF KKFFLLAAMMAA IIKKAAFFNNAAAAOOEEP PAAQQKKOORREEAAFFFFF SSTTFFFDear Reynolds as last night I lay in bed | A |
There came before my eyes that wonted thread | A |
Of shapes and shadows and remembrances | B |
That every other minute vex and please | C |
Things all disjointed come from north and south | D |
Two witch's eyes above a cherub's mouth | D |
Voltaire with casque and shield and habergeon | E |
And Alexander with his nightcap on | E |
Old Socrates a tying his cravat | A |
And Hazlitt playing with Miss Edgeworth's cat | A |
And Junius Brutus pretty well so so | F |
Making the best of's way towards Soho | F |
- | |
Few are there who escape these visitings | F |
Perhaps one or two whose lives have patent wings | F |
And through whose curtains peeps no hellish nose | F |
No wild boar tushes and no mermaid's toes | F |
But flowers bursting out with lusty pride | A |
And young AEolian harps personified | A |
Some Titian colours touch'd into real life | G |
The sacrifice goes on the pontiff knife | G |
Gleams in the sun the milk white heifer lows | F |
The pipes go shrilly the libation flows | F |
A white sail shows above the green head cliff | H |
Moves round the point and throws her anchor stiff | H |
The mariners join hymn with those on land | A |
- | |
You know the Enchanted Castle it doth stand | A |
Upon a rock on the border of a lake | I |
Nested in trees which all do seem to shake | I |
From some old magic like Urganda's sword | A |
O Phoebus that I had thy sacred word | A |
To show this Castle in fair dreaming wise | F |
Unto my friend while sick and ill he lies | F |
- | |
You know it well enough where it doth seem | J |
A mossy place a Merlin's Hall a dream | J |
You know the clear lake and the little isles | F |
The mountains blue and cold near neighbour rills | F |
All which elsewhere are but half animate | A |
Here do they look alive to love and hate | A |
To smiles and frowns they seem a lifted mound | A |
Above some giant pulsing underground | A |
- | |
Part of the building was a chosen See | F |
Built by a banish'd Santon of Chaldee | A |
The other part two thousand years from him | K |
Was built by Cuthbert de Saint Aldebrim | K |
Then there's a little wing far from the sun | E |
Built by a Lapland witch turn'd maudlin nun | E |
And many other juts of aged stone | E |
Founded with many a mason devil's groan | E |
- | |
The doors all look as if they op'd themselves | F |
The windows as if latch'd by fays and elves | F |
And from them comes a silver flash of light | A |
As from the westward of a summer's night | A |
Or like a beauteous woman's large blue eyes | F |
Gone mad through olden songs and poesies | F |
- | |
See what is coming from the distance dim | K |
A golden galley all in silken trim | K |
Three rows of oars are lightening moment whiles | F |
Into the verdurous bosoms of those isles | F |
Towards the shade under the Castle wall | L |
It comes in silence now 'tis hidden all | L |
The clarion sounds and from a postern gate | A |
An echo of sweet music doth create | A |
A fear in the poor herdsman who doth bring | M |
His beasts to trouble the enchanted spring | M |
He tells of the sweet music and the spot | A |
To all his friends and they believe him not | A |
- | |
O that our dreamings all of sleep or wake | I |
Would all their colours from the sunset take | I |
From something of material sublime | K |
Rather than shadow our own soul's day time | K |
In the dark void of night For in the world | A |
We jostle but my flag is not unfurl'd | A |
On the Admiral staff and to philosophize | F |
I dare not yet Oh never will the prize | F |
High reason and the lore of good and ill | N |
Be my award Things cannot to the will | N |
Be settled but they tease us out of thought | A |
Or is it that Imagination brought | A |
Beyond its proper bound yet still confin'd | A |
Lost in a sort of Purgatory blind | A |
Cannot refer to any standard law | O |
Of either earth or heaven It is a flaw | O |
In happiness to see beyond our bourn | E |
It forces us in summer skies to mourn | E |
It spoils the singing of the Nightingale | P |
- | |
Dear Reynolds I have a mysterious tale | P |
And cannot speak it The first page I read | A |
Upon a lampit rock of green sea weed | A |
Among the breakers 'twas a quiet eve | Q |
The rocks were silent the wide sea did weave | Q |
An untumultuous fringe of silver foam | K |
Along the flat brown sand I was at home | K |
And should have been most happy but I saw | O |
Too far into the sea where every maw | O |
The greater on the less feeds evermore | R |
But I saw too distinct into the core | R |
Of an eternal fierce destruction | E |
And so from happiness I far was gone | E |
Still am I sick of it and though to day | A |
I've gather'd young spring leaves and flowers gay | A |
Of periwinkle and wild strawberry | F |
Still do I that most fierce destruction see | F |
The Shark at savage prey the Hawk at pounce | F |
The gentle Robin like a Pard or Ounce | F |
Ravening a worm Away ye horrid moods | F |
Moods of one's mind You know I hate them well | S |
You know I'd sooner be a clapping Bell | S |
To some Kamschatcan Missionary Church | T |
Than with these horrid moods be left i' the lurch | T |
Do you get health and Tom the same I'll dance | F |
And from detested moods in new Romance | F |
Take refuge Of bad lines a Centaine dose | F |
Is sure enough and so 'here follows prose ' | - |
John Keats
(1)
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