A Summer Night Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AABBCDECED FFGHIJGHKLKLJLI KMMJKJMKKCC NOJPJQJMQMRMRM SMSMJJCCCTTGGUULCLVV WWV XY ZA2A2CCJJZZZZ CCCCJJ

In the deserted moon blanched streetA
How lonely rings the echo of my feetA
Those windows which I gaze at frownB
Silent and white unopening downB
Repellent as the world but seeC
A break between the housetops showsD
The moon and lost behind her fading dimE
Into the dewy dark obscurityC
Down at the far horizon's rimE
Doth a whole tract of heaven discloseD
-
And to my mind the thoughtF
Is on a sudden broughtF
Of a past night and a far different sceneG
Headlands stood out into the moonlit deepH
As clearly as at noonI
The spring tide's brimming flowJ
Heaved dazzlingly betweenG
Houses with long wide sweepH
Girdled the glistening bayK
Behind through the soft airL
The blue haze cradled mountains spread awayK
That night was far more fairL
But the same restless pacings to and froJ
And the same vainly throbbing heart was thereL
And the same bright calm moonI
-
And the calm moonlight seems to sayK
Hast thou then still the old unquiet breastM
Which neither deadens into restM
Nor ever feels the fiery glowJ
That whirls the spirit from itself awayK
But fluctuates to and froJ
Never by passion quite possessedM
And never quite benumbed by the world's swayK
And I I know not if to prayK
Still to be what I am or yield and beC
Like all the other men I seeC
-
For most men in a brazen prison liveN
Where in the sun's hot eyeO
With heads bent o'er their toil they languidlyJ
Their lives to some unmeaning taskwork giveP
Dreaming of naught beyond their prison wallJ
And as year after yearQ
Fresh products of their barren labor fallJ
From their tired hands and restM
Never yet comes more nearQ
Gloom settles slowly down over their breastM
And while they try to stemR
The waves of mournful thought by which they are prestM
Death in their prison reaches themR
Unfreed having seen nothing still unblestM
-
And the rest a fewS
Escape their prison and departM
On the wide ocean of life anewS
There the freed prisoner where'er his heartM
Listeth will sailJ
Nor doth he know how there prevailJ
Despotic on that seaC
Trade winds which cross it from eternityC
Awhile he holds some false way undebarredC
By thwarting signs and bravesT
The freshening wind and blackening wavesT
And then the tempest strikes him and betweenG
The lightning bursts is seenG
Only a driving wreckU
And the pale master on his spar strewn deckU
With anguished face and flying hairL
Grasping the rudder hardC
Still bent to make some port he knows not whereL
Still standing for some false impossible shoreV
And sterner comes the roarV
Of sea and wind and through the deepening gloomW
Fainter and fainter wreck and helmsman loomW
And he too disappears and comes no moreV
-
Is there no life but these aloneX
Madman or slave must man be oneY
-
Plainness and clearness without shadow of stainZ
Clearness divineA2
Ye heavens whose pure dark regions have no signA2
Of languor though so calm and though so greatC
Are yet untroubled and unpassionateC
Who though so noble share in the world's toilJ
And though so tasked keep free from dust and soilJ
I will not say that your mild deeps retainZ
A tinge it may be of their silent painZ
Who have longed deeply once and longed in vainZ
But I will rather say that you remainZ
-
A world above man's head to let him seeC
How boundless might his soul's horizons beC
How vast yet of what clear transparencyC
How it were good to live there and breathe freeC
How fair a lot to fillJ
Is left to each man stillJ

Matthew Arnold



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