The Buried Life Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

Rhyme Scheme: AABCDCCEDEB FFGGHHAAAAAA II JJAA KJALJMMKALMJJJJ NLOLPPQNEERSSOORTAAA AAAAOOTEEAMMUVUVWXAA EEEEYY ZZAZAA2A2A2

Light flows our war of mocking words and yetA
Behold with tears mine eyes are wetA
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me rollB
Yes yes we know that we can jestC
We know we know that we can smileD
But there's a something in this breastC
To which thy light words bring no restC
And thy gay smiles no anodyneE
Give me thy hand and hush awhileD
And turn those limpid eyes on mineE
And let me read there love thy inmost soulB
-
Alas is even love too weakF
To unlock the heart and let it speakF
Are even lovers powerless to revealG
To one another what indeed they feelG
I knew the mass of men conceal'dH
Their thoughts for fear that if reveal'dH
They would by other men be metA
With blank indifference or with blame reprovedA
I knew they lived and movedA
Trick'd in disguises alien to the restA
Of men and alien to themselves and yetA
The same heart beats in every human breastA
-
But we my love doth a like spell benumbI
Our hearts our voices must we too be dumbI
-
Ah well for us if even weJ
Even for a moment can get freeJ
Our heart and have our lips unchain'dA
For that which seals them hath been deep ordain'dA
-
Fate which foresawK
How frivolous a baby man would beJ
By what distractions he would be possess'dA
How he would pour himself in every strifeL
And well nigh change his own identityJ
That it might keep from his capricious playM
His genuine self and force him to obeyM
Even in his own despite his being's lawK
Bade through the deep recesses of our breastA
The unregarded river of our lifeL
Pursue with indiscernible flow its wayM
And that we should not seeJ
The buried stream and seem to beJ
Eddying at large in blind uncertaintyJ
Though driving on with it eternallyJ
-
But often in the world's most crowded streetsN
But often in the din of strifeL
There rises an unspeakable desireO
After the knowledge of our buried lifeL
A thirst to spend our fire and restless forceP
In tracking out our true original courseP
A longing to inquireQ
Into the mystery of this heart which beatsN
So wild so deep in us to knowE
Whence our lives come and where they goE
And many a man in his own breast then delvesR
But deep enough alas none ever minesS
And we have been on many thousand linesS
And we have shown on each spirit and powerO
But hardly have we for one little hourO
Been on our own line have we been ourselvesR
Hardly had skill to utter one of allT
The nameless feelings that course through our breastA
But they course on for ever unexpress'dA
And long we try in vain to speak and actA
Our hidden self and what we say and doA
Is eloquent is well but 't is not trueA
And then we will no more be rack'dA
With inward striving and demandA
Of all the thousand nothings of the hourO
Their stupefying powerO
Ah yes and they benumb us at our callT
Yet still from time to time vague and forlornE
From the soul's subterranean depth upborneE
As from an infinitely distant landA
Come airs and floating echoes and conveyM
A melancholy into all our dayM
Only but this is rareU
When a belov 'e d hand is laid in oursV
When jaded with the rush and glareU
Of the interminable hoursV
Our eyes can in another's eyes read clearW
When our world deafen'd earX
Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'dA
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breastA
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs againE
The eye sinks inward and the heart lies plainE
And what we mean we say and what we would we knowE
A man becomes aware of his life's flowE
And hears its winding murmur and he seesY
The meadows where it glides the sun the breezeY
-
And there arrives a lull in the hot raceZ
Wherein he doth for ever chaseZ
That flying and elusive shadow restA
An air of coolness plays upon his faceZ
And an unwonted calm pervades his breastA
And then he thinks he knowsA2
The hills where his life roseA2
And the sea where it goesA2

Matthew Arnold



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