Epistle To John Hamilton Reynolds Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDDEEAAFF FFFFAAGGFFHHA AIIAAFF JJFFAAAA FAKKEEEE FFAAFF KKFFLLAAMMAA IIKKAAFFNNAAAAOOEEP PAAQQKKOORREEAAFFFFF SSTTFFF| Dear 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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