The Buried Life Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: AABCDCCEDEB FFGGHHAAAAAA II JJAA KJALJMMKALMJJJJ NLOLPPQNEERSSOORTAAA AAAAOOTEEAMMUVUVWXAA EEEEYY ZZAZAA2A2A2Light flows our war of mocking words and yet | A |
Behold with tears mine eyes are wet | A |
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll | B |
Yes yes we know that we can jest | C |
We know we know that we can smile | D |
But there's a something in this breast | C |
To which thy light words bring no rest | C |
And thy gay smiles no anodyne | E |
Give me thy hand and hush awhile | D |
And turn those limpid eyes on mine | E |
And let me read there love thy inmost soul | B |
- | |
Alas is even love too weak | F |
To unlock the heart and let it speak | F |
Are even lovers powerless to reveal | G |
To one another what indeed they feel | G |
I knew the mass of men conceal'd | H |
Their thoughts for fear that if reveal'd | H |
They would by other men be met | A |
With blank indifference or with blame reproved | A |
I knew they lived and moved | A |
Trick'd in disguises alien to the rest | A |
Of men and alien to themselves and yet | A |
The same heart beats in every human breast | A |
- | |
But we my love doth a like spell benumb | I |
Our hearts our voices must we too be dumb | I |
- | |
Ah well for us if even we | J |
Even for a moment can get free | J |
Our heart and have our lips unchain'd | A |
For that which seals them hath been deep ordain'd | A |
- | |
Fate which foresaw | K |
How frivolous a baby man would be | J |
By what distractions he would be possess'd | A |
How he would pour himself in every strife | L |
And well nigh change his own identity | J |
That it might keep from his capricious play | M |
His genuine self and force him to obey | M |
Even in his own despite his being's law | K |
Bade through the deep recesses of our breast | A |
The unregarded river of our life | L |
Pursue with indiscernible flow its way | M |
And that we should not see | J |
The buried stream and seem to be | J |
Eddying at large in blind uncertainty | J |
Though driving on with it eternally | J |
- | |
But often in the world's most crowded streets | N |
But often in the din of strife | L |
There rises an unspeakable desire | O |
After the knowledge of our buried life | L |
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force | P |
In tracking out our true original course | P |
A longing to inquire | Q |
Into the mystery of this heart which beats | N |
So wild so deep in us to know | E |
Whence our lives come and where they go | E |
And many a man in his own breast then delves | R |
But deep enough alas none ever mines | S |
And we have been on many thousand lines | S |
And we have shown on each spirit and power | O |
But hardly have we for one little hour | O |
Been on our own line have we been ourselves | R |
Hardly had skill to utter one of all | T |
The nameless feelings that course through our breast | A |
But they course on for ever unexpress'd | A |
And long we try in vain to speak and act | A |
Our hidden self and what we say and do | A |
Is eloquent is well but 't is not true | A |
And then we will no more be rack'd | A |
With inward striving and demand | A |
Of all the thousand nothings of the hour | O |
Their stupefying power | O |
Ah yes and they benumb us at our call | T |
Yet still from time to time vague and forlorn | E |
From the soul's subterranean depth upborne | E |
As from an infinitely distant land | A |
Come airs and floating echoes and convey | M |
A melancholy into all our day | M |
Only but this is rare | U |
When a belov 'e d hand is laid in ours | V |
When jaded with the rush and glare | U |
Of the interminable hours | V |
Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear | W |
When our world deafen'd ear | X |
Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd | A |
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast | A |
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again | E |
The eye sinks inward and the heart lies plain | E |
And what we mean we say and what we would we know | E |
A man becomes aware of his life's flow | E |
And hears its winding murmur and he sees | Y |
The meadows where it glides the sun the breeze | Y |
- | |
And there arrives a lull in the hot race | Z |
Wherein he doth for ever chase | Z |
That flying and elusive shadow rest | A |
An air of coolness plays upon his face | Z |
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast | A |
And then he thinks he knows | A2 |
The hills where his life rose | A2 |
And the sea where it goes | A2 |
Matthew Arnold
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