The Scholar Gypsy Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Matthew Arnold

The Scholar Gypsy Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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Go for they call you shepherd from the hill	A
Go shepherd and untie the wattled cotes	B
No longer leave thy wistful flock unfed	C
Nor let thy bawling fellows rack their throats	B
Nor the cropped herbage shoot another head	C
But when the fields are still	A
And the tired men and dogs all gone to rest	C
And only the white sheep are sometimes seen	D
Cross and recross the strips of moon blanched green	D
Come shepherd and again begin the quest	C
	-
Here where the reaper was at work of late	C
In this high field's dark corner where he leaves	E
His coat his basket and his earthen cruse	F
And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves	E
Then here at noon comes back his stores to use	G
Here will I sit and wait	C
While to my ear from uplands far away	H
The bleating of the folded flocks is borne	I
With distant cries of reapers in the corn	I
All the live murmur of a summer's day	H
	-
Screened is this nook o'er the high half reaped field	C
And here till sundown shepherd will I be	J
Through the thick corn the scarlet poppies peep	K
And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see	J
Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep	K
And air swept lindens yield	C
Their scent and rustle down their perfumed showers	L
Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid	C
And bower me from the August sun with shade	C
And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers	L
	-
And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book	M
Come let me read the oft read tale again	N
The story of the Oxford scholar poor	O
Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain	P
Who tired of knocking at preferment's door	Q
One summer morn forsook	M
His friends and went to learn the gypsy lore	Q
And roamed the world with that wild brotherhood	C
And came as most men deemed to little good	C
But came to Oxford and his friends no more	Q
	-
But once years after in the country lanes	R
Two scholars whom at college erst he knew	S
Met him and of his way of life enquired	C
Whereat he answered that the gypsy crew	S
His mates had arts to rule as they desired	C
The workings of men's brains	R
And they can bind them to what thoughts they will	A
And I he said the secret of their art	C
When fully learned will to the world impart	C
	-
But it needs heaven sent moments for this skill	A
	-
This said he left them and returned no more	Q
But rumours hung about the countryside	C
That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray	H
Seen by rare glimpses pensive and tongue tied	C
In hat of antique shape and cloak of grey	H
The same the gypsies wore	Q
Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring	T
At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors	U
On the warm ingle bench the smock frocked boors	U
Had found him seated at their entering	T
	-
But 'mid their drink and clatter he would fly	V
And I myself seem half to know thy looks	W
And put the shepherds wanderer on thy trace	X
And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks	W
I ask if thou hast passed their quiet place	X
	-
Or in my boat I lie	V
Moored to the cool bank in the summer heats	Y
'Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills	Z
And watch the warm green muffled Cumner hills	Z
And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats	Y
	-
For most I know thou lov'st retired ground	C
Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe	A2
Returning home on summer nights have met	C
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bablock hithe	A2
Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet	C
As the punt's rope chops round	C
And leaning backward in a pensive dream	B2
And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers	L
Plucked in the shy fields and distant Wychwood bowers	L
And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream	B2
	-
And then they land and thou art seen no more	Q
Maidens who from the distant hamlets come	C2
To dance around the Fyfield elm in May	H
Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee roam	D2
Or cross a stile into the public way	H
Oft thou hast given them store	Q
Of flowers the frail leafed white anemony	S
Dark bluebells drenched with dews of summer eves	E
And purple orchises with spotted leaves	E
But none hath words she can report of thee	A2
	-
And above Godstow Bridge when hay time's here	E2
In June and many a scythe in sunshine flames	F2
Men who through those wide fields of breezy grass	G2
Where black winged swallows haunt the glittering Thames	H2
To bathe in the abandoned lasher pass	G2
Have often passed thee near	I2
Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown	S
Marked thine outlandish garb thy figure spare	J2
Thy dark vague eyes and soft abstracted air	J2
But when they came from bathing thou wast gone	S
	-
At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills	Z
Where at her open door the housewife darns	K2
Thou hast been seen or hanging on a gate	C
To watch the threshers in the mossy barns	K2
Children who early range these slopes and late	C
For cresses from the rills	K2
Have known thee eyeing all an April day	H
The springing pastures and the feeding kine	S
And marked thee when the stars come out and shine	S
Through the long dewy grass move slow away	H
	-
In autumn on the skirts of Bagley Wood	C
Where most the gypsies by the turf edged way	H
Pitch their smoked tents and every bush you see	K2
With scarlet patches tagged and shreds of grey	H
Above the forest ground called Thessaly	V
The blackbird picking food	C
Sees thee nor stops his meal nor fears at all	V
So often has he known thee past him stray	H
Rapt twirling in thy hand a withered spray	H
And waiting for the spark from heaven to fall	V
	-
And once in winter on the causeway chill	V
Where home through flooded fields foot travellers go	L2
Have I not passed thee on the wooden bridge	M2
Wrapped in thy cloak and battling with the snow	L2
Thy face tow'rd Hinksey and its wintry ridge	M2
And thou hast climbed the hill	V
And gained the white brow of the Cumner range	N2
Turned once to watch while thick the snowflakes fall	V
The line of festal light in Christ Church hall	V
Then sought thy straw in some sequestered grange	N2
	-
	-
But what I dream Two hundred years are flown	S
Since first thy story ran through Oxford halls	K2
And the grave Glanvil did the tale inscribe	O2
That thou wert wandered from the studious walls	K2
To learn strange arts and join a gypsy tribe	O2
And thou from earth art gone	S
Long since and in some quiet churchyard laid	C
Some country nook where o'er thy unknown grave	P2
Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave	P2
Under a dark red fruited yew tree's shade	C
	-
No no thou hast not felt the lapse of hours	K2
For what wears out the life of mortal men	S
'Tis that from change to change their being rolls	K2
'Tis that repeated shocks again again	S
Exhaust the energy of strongest souls	K2
And numb the elastic powers	K2
Till having used our nerves with bliss and teen	S
And tired upon a thousand schemes our wit	C
To the just pausing Genius we remit	C
Our worn out life and are what we have been	S
	-
Thou hast not lived why shouldst thou perish so	L2
Thou hadst one aim one business one desire	Q2
Else wert thou long since numbered with the dead	C
Else hadst thou spent like other men thy fire	Q2
The generations of thy peers are fled	C
And we ourselves shall go	L2
But thou possessest an immortal lot	C
And we imagine thee exempt from age	R2
And living as thou liv'st on Glanvil's page	R2
Because thou hadst what we alas have not	C
	-
For early didst thou leave the world with powers	K2
Fresh undiverted to the world without	C
Firm to their mark not spent on other things	K2
Free from the sick fatigue the languid doubt	C
Which much to have tried in much been baffled brings	K2
O life unlike to ours	K2
Who fluctuate idly without term or scope	S2
Of whom each strives nor knows for what he strives	K2
And each half lives a hundred different lives	K2
Who wait like thee but not like thee in hope	S2
	-
Thou waitest for the spark from heaven and we	K2
Light half believers of our casual creeds	K2
Who never deeply felt nor clearly willed	C
Whose insight never has borne fruit in deeds	K2
Whose vague resolves never have been fulfilled	C
For whom each year we see	K2
Breeds new beginnings disappointments new	S
Who hesitate and falter life away	H
And lose tomorrow the ground won today	H
Ah do not we wanderer await it too	S
	-
Yes we await it but it still delays	K2
And then we suffer and amongst us one	S
Who most has suffered takes dejectedly	V
His seat upon the intellectual throne	S
And all his store of sad experience he	K2
Lays bare of wretched days	K2
Tells us his misery's birth and growth and signs	K2
And how the dying spark of hope was fed	C
And how the breast was soothed and how the head	C
And all his hourly varied anodynes	K2
	-
This for our wisest and we others pine	S
And wish the long unhappy dream would end	C
And waive all claim to bliss and try to bear	J2
With close lipped patience for our only friend	C
Sad patience too near neighbour to despair	J2
But none has hope like thine	S
Thou through the fields and through the woods dost stray	H
Roaming the countryside a truant boy	T2
Nursing thy project in unclouded joy	T2
And every doubt long blown by time away	H
	-
O born in days when wits were fresh and clear	I2
And life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames	K2
Before this strange disease of modern life	U2
With its sick hurry its divided aims	K2
Its heads o'ertaxed its palsied hearts was rife	U2
Fly hence our contact fear	I2
Still fly plunge deeper in the bowering wood	C
Averse as Dido did with gesture stern	S
From her false friend's approach in Hades turn	S
Wave us away and keep thy solitude	C
	-
Still nursing the unconquerable hope	S2
Still clutching the inviolable shade	C
With a free onward impulse brushing through	S
By night the silvered branches of the glade	C
Far on the forest skirts where none pursue	S
On some mild pastoral slope	S2
Emerge and resting on the moonlit pales	K2
Freshen thy flowers as in former years	K2
With dew or listen with enchanted ears	K2
From the dark dingles to the nightingales	K2
	-
But fly our paths our feverish contact fly	V
For strong the infection of out mental strife	U2
Which though it gives no bliss yet spoils for rest	C
And we should win thee from thy own fair life	U2
Like us distracted and like us unblest	C
Soon soon thy cheer would die	C
Thy hopes grow timorous and unfixed thy powers	K2
Adn thy clear aims be cross and shifting made	C
And then thy glad perennial youth would fade	C
Fade and grow old at last and die like ours	K2
	-
Then fly our greetings fly our speech and smiles	K2
As some grave Tyrian trader from the sea	K2
Descried at sunrise and emerging prow	V2
Lifting the cool haired creepers stealthily	V
The fringes of a southward facing brow	V2
Among the Aegaean isles	K2
And saw the merry Grecian coaster come	C2
Freighted with amber grapes and Chian wine	S
Green bursting figs and tunnies steeped in brine	S
And knew the intruders on his ancient home	D2
	-
The young light hearted masters of the waves	K2
And snatched his rudder and shook out more sail	V
And day and night held on indignantly	V
O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale	V
Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily	V
To where the Atlantic raves	K2
Outside the western straits and unbent sails	K2
There where down cloudy cliffs through sheets of foam	D2
Shy traffickers the dark Iberians come	C2
And on the beach undid his corded bales	K2