Mysteries Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABABCC DEDEFF GHGHIJ KLKMNN OPOPQQ RSRSAA TUTUCC| Bound to the earth in its headlong flight | A |
| Whence and whither we do not know | B |
| Cleaving the awful void of night | A |
| With frost above and fire below | B |
| What is the goal toward which we fly | C |
| What does it mean to live and die | C |
| - | |
| Under our feet a trembling shell | D |
| Pierced by a hundred lurid rents | E |
| Lower still a molten hell | D |
| Seen through its lava belching vents | E |
| And men within its blighting breath | F |
| Are charred like leaves to a shrivelled death | F |
| - | |
| Thin is the rind on which we tread | G |
| It shakes and a thousand lives are lost | H |
| The sea engulfs unnumbered dead | G |
| Each second scores of souls are tossed | H |
| Into the stream that sweeps them on | I |
| Whither Who knows where they are gone | J |
| - | |
| Over the earth crust millions crawl | K |
| Fight for a little gold and grain | L |
| Then in a few years leave it all | K |
| Nevermore to be seen again | M |
| When will the tragic tale be told | N |
| And what of Man when the earth grows cold | N |
| - | |
| Poised on the planet's rim we stand | O |
| Peering aghast into boundless space | P |
| Infinite depths on every hand | O |
| Never again in the self same place | P |
| Dragged by the sun itself away | Q |
| On toward a point in the Milky Way | Q |
| - | |
| Not without companions we | R |
| Here and there gleam other fires | S |
| Burning ships on a shoreless sea | R |
| Now and again a flame expires | S |
| One last quivering shaft of light | A |
| Shot through a billion leagues of night | A |
| - | |
| There in its last volcanic throes | T |
| A dying world perhaps dissolves | U |
| Further still where the sun mist glows | T |
| A mighty new born sun evolves | U |
| Ceaseless change in an endless sky | C |
| What does it mean to live and die | C |
John L. Stoddard
(1)
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