Growing Old Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDE FGHIJ KLMNO PQRST UJSVW XYSZA2 B2SC2SD2What is it to grow old | A |
Is it to lose the glory of the form | B |
The lustre of the eye | C |
Is it for beauty to forego her wreath | D |
Yes but not for this alone | E |
- | |
Is it to feel our strength | F |
Not our bloom only but our strength decay | G |
Is it to feel each limb | H |
Grow stiffer every function less exact | I |
Each nerve more weakly strung | J |
- | |
Yes this and more but not | K |
Ah 'tis not what in youth we dreamed 'twould be | L |
'Tis not to have our life | M |
Mellowed and softened as with sunset glow | N |
A golden day's decline | O |
- | |
'Tis not to see the world | P |
As from a height with rapt prophetic eyes | Q |
And heart profoundly stirred | R |
And weep and feel the fulness of the past | S |
The years that are no more | T |
- | |
It is to spend long days | U |
And not once feel that we were ever young | J |
It is to add immured | S |
In the hot prison of the present month | V |
To month with weary pain | W |
- | |
It is to suffer this | X |
And feel but half and feebly what we feel | Y |
Deep in our hidden heart | S |
Festers the dull remembrance of a change | Z |
But no emotion none | A2 |
- | |
It is last stage of all | B2 |
When we are frozen up within and quite | S |
The phantom of ourselves | C2 |
To hear the world applaud the hollow ghost | S |
Which blamed the living man | D2 |
Matthew Arnold
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Poem topics: , Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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