An Ode : On Exodus Iii. 14 Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BBCDDCCCCC CCCCCCEF CCCCGGG HHIIIFFJFCCJ KKLLMCLCNOPPOO EDQRQERSSSSSSSTT SSCCBSSUVWXXYBZVN CA2B2CHCHCC2KGD2SSG WWE2SSCCCCCCCCOn Exodus iii 'I am that I am ' | A |
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Man foolish man | B |
Scarce know'st thou how thyself began | B |
Scarce hadst thou thought enough to prove thou art | C |
Yet steel'd with studied boldness thou darest try | D |
To send thy doubting Reason's dazzled eye | D |
Through the mysterious gulf of vast immensity | C |
Much thou canst there discern much thence impart | C |
Vain wretch suppress thy knowing pride | C |
Mortify thy learned lust | C |
Vain are thy thoughts while thou thyself art dust | C |
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Let wit her sails her oars let wisdom lend | C |
The helm let politic experience guide | C |
Yet cease to hope thy short lived bark shall ride | C |
Down spreading Fate's unnavigable tide | C |
What though still it farther tend | C |
Still 'tis farther from its end | C |
And in the bosom of that boundless sea | E |
Still finds its error lengthen with its way | F |
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With daring pride and insolent delight | C |
Your doubts resolved you boast your labours crown'd | C |
And EYPHKA your God forsooth is found | C |
Incomprehensible and infinite | C |
But is he therefore found vain searcher no | G |
Let your imperfect definition show | G |
That nothing you the weak definer know | G |
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Say why should the collected main | H |
Itself within itself contain | H |
Why to its caverns should it sometimes creep | I |
And with delighted silence sleep | I |
On the loved bosom of its parent deep | I |
Why should its numerous waters stay | F |
In comely discipline and fair array | F |
Till winds and tides exert their high commands | J |
Then prompt and ready to obey | F |
Why do the rising surges spread | C |
Their opening ranks o'er earth's submissive head | C |
Marching through different paths to different lands | J |
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Why does the constant sun | K |
With measured steps his radiant journeys run | K |
Why does he order the diurnal hours | L |
To leave earth's other part and rise in ours | L |
Why does he wake the correspondent moon | M |
And fill her willing lamp with liquid light | C |
Commanding her with delegated powers | L |
To beautify the world and bless the night | C |
Why does each animated star | N |
Love the just limits of its proper sphere | O |
Why does each consenting sign | P |
With prudent harmony combine | P |
In turns to move and subsequent appear | O |
To gird the globe and regulate the year | O |
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Man does with dangerous curiosity | E |
These unfathom'd wonders try | D |
With fancied rules and arbitrary laws | Q |
Matter and motion he restrains | R |
And studied lines and fictious circles draws | Q |
Then with imagined sovereignty | E |
Lord of his new hypothesis he reigns | R |
He reigns how long till some usurper rise | S |
And he too mighty thoughtful mighty wise | S |
Studies new lines and other circles feigns | S |
From this last toil again what knowledge flows | S |
Just as much perhaps as shows | S |
That all his predecessor's rules | S |
Were empty cant all jargon of the schools | S |
That he on t'other's ruin rears his throne | T |
And shows his friend's mistake and thence confirms his own | T |
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On earth in air amidst the seas and skies | S |
Mountainous heaps of wonders rise | S |
Whose towering strength will ne'er submit | C |
To Reason's batteries or the mines of Wit | C |
Yet still inquiring still mistaking man | B |
Each hour repulsed each hour dares onward press | S |
And levelling at God his wandering guess | S |
That feeble engine of his reasoning war | U |
Which guides his doubts and combats his despair | V |
Laws to his Maker the learn'd wretch can give | W |
Can bound that nature and prescribe that will | X |
Whose pregnant Word did either ocean fill | X |
Can tell us whence all beings are and how they move and live | Y |
Through either ocean foolish man | B |
That pregnant Word sent forth again | Z |
Might to a world extend each atom there | V |
For every drop call forth a sea a heaven for every star | N |
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Let cunning earth her fruitful wonders hide | C |
And only lift thy staggering reason up | A2 |
To trembling Calvary's astonish'd top | B2 |
Then mock thy knowledge and confound thy pride | C |
Explaining how Perfection suffer'd pain | H |
Almighty languish'd and Eternal died | C |
How by her patient victor Death was slain | H |
And earth profaned yet bless'd with Deicide | C |
Then down with all thy boasted volumes down | C2 |
Only reserve the sacred one | K |
Low reverently low | G |
Make thy stubborn knowledge bow | D2 |
Weep out thy reason's and thy body's eyes | S |
Deject thyself that thou may'st rise | S |
To look to heaven to blind to all below | G |
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Then Faith for Reason's glimmering light shall give | W |
Her immortal perspective | W |
And Grace's presence Nature's loss retrieve | E2 |
Then thy enliven'd soul shall see | S |
That all the volumes of philosophy | S |
With all their comments never could invent | C |
So politic an instrument | C |
To reach the heaven of heavens the high abode | C |
Where Moses places his mysterious God | C |
As was the ladder which old Jacob rear'd | C |
When light divine had human darkness clear'd | C |
And his enlarged ideas found the road | C |
Which faith had dictated and angels trod | C |
Matthew Prior
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